Chapter 15: The Banshee (8)

Hearing Shelly’s guess, Wester snapped his fingers. “Exactly. Just as you said, Achilles lost confidence in the future of Pukati Town and developed the idea of leaving to find opportunities elsewhere. Having grown accustomed to a life of respect and admiration in Pukati, he naturally wanted to take the banshee with him, to continue playing the role of his ‘prophet’—but he clearly couldn’t control her well. I suspect this is why the banshee lost control and began hunting so widely in town.”

“Left with no other choice, Achilles had to reveal the banshee’s existence to the townspeople, hoping that their attacks would weaken her. Then, while she was vulnerable, he could forcibly capture her and take her away… Look at this list. It details all the weapons the town government procured before the banshee’s extermination. They were all ordinary iron tools—enough to injure the banshee, but not to kill her. Even knowing the banshee’s true form, Achilles still pushed for this procurement. His intentions were completely transparent.”

Shelly frowned. “But the museum says the banshee was killed, dismembered, and completely suppressed…”

“Things didn’t go as planned,” Wester said. “Achilles thought victory was certain, but during the expedition against the banshee, an exorcist suddenly appeared in the town. That exorcist gave the townspeople many suggestions. As the public hero of the town, Achilles could not openly oppose him. Through a series of coincidences, the townspeople succeeded in subduing the banshee… You can probably guess what happened next, right?”

Shelly nodded. At this point, if he couldn’t guess what happened next, he might as well check his brain at the hospital.

—Achilles was undone by his own scheming and lost his only remaining son. After the banshee was sealed, he sank into grief, lost all will, and relaxed his control over the town. McCoff seized the opportunity to manipulate the townspeople into holding a ritual, hoping to create a new prophet. They didn’t know that the “deity” they were praying to in the ritual was none other than the banshee they had suppressed. Ironically, when Achilles—the only one who knew the truth—had a conscience and tried to stop it all, the townspeople killed him.

Driven by greed, the people held ritual after ritual, until finally the seal was broken, and the banshee returned. The shadow of a lost child once again hung over the entire town…

“But what good is knowing all these stories? I just want to find my child as soon as possible,” Shelly said, frowning and mustering courage to ask.

Wester let out a nasal snort. “Of course it’s useful. If I’m not mistaken, the banshee’s true form is Lamia, the serpent-bodied banshee of Greek mythology. This is a mythological creature that is historically documented. In theory, as long as human memory of her does not vanish, she can never die.”

“For a being that approaches ‘concept-level’ existence, ordinary exorcism methods are ineffective. You must find her weakness to drive her out of our world—just as to kill the snake-woman Medusa, one must use the legendary sword Hephar, gifted by the gods. Likewise, only certain specific items can subdue Lamia.”

As he spoke, the exorcist tossed a book on Greek mythology to Shelly, apparently out of nowhere.

“…Look at page 83. ‘To take revenge on Lamia, Hera deprived her of sleep. Whenever Lamia opened her eyes, the scene of her child’s brutal death would replay endlessly before her, driving her mad with grief and trapping her in ceaseless sorrow and hatred.

Zeus, feeling guilty toward Lamia, granted her a pair of eyes that could see the future, as well as the ability to remove those eyes at will. When her eyes are removed, Lamia falls into a deep sleep, forgetting all pain and anguish.’

Based on this passage, I infer that what we need is Lamia’s fingernail. Using it to remove the banshee’s eyes, and then destroying those eyes, would completely suppress her—provided that no one summons her again. I believe that the exorcist from the past did exactly this.”

Shelly’s face fell at once. “But we don’t even know where the banshee’s lair is. How are we supposed to get her fingernail?”

“Who says we don’t?” Wester had already stood up from the sofa. Seeing Shelly still standing there in a daze, he lifted a hand to settle his top hat, flicked his coat into place, then beckoned without turning around. “Come on. I’ve already unraveled the mystery of this case. Next, we need to make a trip to the cemetery.”

“…Ah—o-okay!” Shelly hurried after him.

Full of questions, Shelly drove Wester to the town cemetery. The second mayor of the town, Achilles—who had died in a bloody conflict—was buried here. Out of guilt over his death, the townspeople had buried him along with his personal belongings. Wester believed that since Achilles had once intended to leave town with the banshee, he must have kept one of her fingernails in his possession.

From somewhere, Wester produced a shovel and dropped it at Shelly’s feet with a clatter. Walking over to Achilles’s grave, he spoke curtly: “Dig.”

Shelly raised a hand and pointed at himself. “…You want me to dig up a grave? Seriously?”

Wester crossed his arms and let out a mocking laugh. “What—should I do it instead?”

“…” Intimidated by Wester’s presence, Shelly dared not argue. Heart pounding, he picked up the shovel and began digging with trembling hands.

An hour later, the grave was opened. From the coffin’s burial items, the two of them found a dagger about the length of a palm. Over a century later, it was still in pristine condition. When they drew it from its sheath, there was no blade—instead, inside was a curved, black, crescent-shaped claw.

“Found it.” Wester lifted his hand to gently stroke the sharp claw, holding the dagger up to the moonlight for a moment. A satisfied expression appeared on his face. “Excellent. It’s genuine. Everything’s ready. Next, we go find your daughter.”

With that, the exorcist flicked the hem of his coat and strode toward the car.

Shelly hurried to catch up, running while asking, “Do you know where she is? Is it far? Can we get there quickly?”

“This is a simple deduction—remember the four prohibitions in town?”

The engine started, and between the sounds, Shelly muttered them to himself: “Do not take children to the seaside. Do not take children out in the fog. Do not hang children’s clothes to dry in the fog. Do not let children be exposed to the lighthouse’s light.”

Wester nodded. “Lamia is the daughter of Poseidon, the sea god. The ocean is her natural domain, and the fog drifting from it is her eyes extending onto land. That makes the first three prohibitions easy to understand—the core idea is to keep children out of the banshee’s gaze. Now, have you considered why the last prohibition involves the ‘lighthouse’?”

“Could it be…”

Wester smiled. “Naturally—it’s because the banshee’s lair is beneath the lighthouse.”

With that, he said no more. He pressed the accelerator, driving the vehicle toward the distant dock.

The waters surrounding Pukati Town were full of reefs and lacked a good harbor. To reach the far-off lighthouse, they either had to row a shallow wooden boat or take a detour to a small pier five kilometers away and catch a speedboat from there.

The sea lighthouse had been abandoned for too long, and the wooden boats on the shore had long since fallen into disrepair. The two of them decided to rent a speedboat from the pier.

Shelly paid a hefty rental fee for the boat, leaving his already-thin wallet even emptier.

Of course, if they could rescue Everly, it would all be worth it. His only fear was that, after so much time, Lamia might have already devoured her…

His thoughts stopped abruptly. After a night of tense research and grave-digging, dawn was just breaking. Using the pale light of the morning sky, Shelly keenly noticed a glinting glass bottle floating on the water nearby, containing several small objects inside.

“That’s…”

Squinting, he lifted the net from the speedboat at just the right moment and scooped up the bottle.

…

Everly had a dream.

With her current mental capacity, she rarely experienced dreams with such dramatic twists and turns.

In the dream, she saw Wester—the exorcist who had successfully resolved the Mayflower Apartment incident—holding a golden oil lamp. He disabled the old mechanism at the base of the lighthouse and, following a hidden passage behind him, entered the underground stone chamber alone.

The oil lamp seemed like an ordinary prop at first, its light a warm yellow, just for illumination. But when its dim glow fell on the banshee, it carried an almost burning heat, scorching everything it touched. The banshee’s pale, bluish skin blistered and curled into blackened patches wherever the light fell.

“Ahhhh!”

The banshee let out a piercing, mournful scream that tore through the air. To protect her lair and her daughter, she fought fiercely against the intruder.

She was massive, with strength far beyond a normal human—one strike could easily snap a thick stone pillar. Yet Wester, despite being only flesh and blood, showed no fear of the banshee’s attack. He shed his prized long coat, revealing a black, tight-fitting short garment underneath. Every movement revealed the defined muscles of his shoulders and arms.

Through the holes in Wester’s clothing, Everly could see that from his neck down—including his arms—his skin was covered with dense inscriptions written in unknown characters. When the banshee’s serpentine tail whipped through the air toward him, the inscriptions glowed with a silver-white light, rising from his body to form an invisible barrier that absorbed the impact of her attack.

With the help of these strange inscriptions, Wester moved as if the banshee’s strikes were nothing. Holding the oil lamp, he maneuvered around the tail’s sweeping arcs with effortless precision, closing steadily on the banshee.

He raised his hand and poured the golden liquid from the lamp over the banshee.

“Ahhhhhhh!”

The liquid reacted with her flesh like concentrated acid on mortal skin, dissolving bone and tissue wherever it touched and sending up a cloud of white smoke. The acrid stench of burning flesh filled the chamber. The banshee tilted her head back, letting out a tortured roar, while her long tail lashed the ground wildly, stirring up a swirl of dust.

Seizing the opportunity, Wester slid deftly aside, evading the flailing tail, and reached the banshee’s side and rear. His target was clear: he grabbed Everly, who had been hidden behind the rocks by the banshee.

His right hand, gloved but with fingers exposed, pressed heavily against the fragile infant’s neck, without mercy or pity. The exorcist had a firm grip on her throat.

As the banshee’s wounds slowly healed and she regained her senses, she turned to see Everly’s face, flushed red from the lack of air.

“@%#…”

Holding the tiny infant, Wester spoke a string of syllables similar to the banshee’s own language. She understood him immediately. Her eyes, burning red with pain, longing, and unwillingness, stared anxiously at the child whose throat was being gripped. Yet time was critical. Seeing Everly’s face grow red and her breaths falter, driven by overwhelming maternal instinct, the banshee ended her brief struggle.

She hung her head like a lamb led to the altar, adopting the posture of one submitting to her fate.

“Hoo~”

Seeing this, Wester whistled softly. Maintaining his grip on Everly’s neck with one hand, he raised his left hand, flicked his wrist, and—seemingly out of nowhere—produced a crescent-shaped dagger, black as night. He stepped close to the banshee, roughly lifted her chin with the dagger, aimed the tip at her eyes, and plunged it downward with a sharp motion—

In the spray of blood, a pair of bright red eyeballs flew from the banshee’s sockets and landed on the ground not far away.

The banshee’s breathing halted instantly.

The moment her eyes were removed, Everly saw a gray-white hue spread rapidly from the banshee’s face, crawling across her entire body. In the blink of an eye, the banshee, still standing upright, had transformed into a stone statue.

Then Wester released Everly, tucking her under his arm instead, and stepped over to the fallen eyeballs. Expressionless, he pressed down on them with his foot.

“Plop.”

A soft sound, like fine snow falling on pine needles.

The next second, the upright stone statue collapsed with a tremendous crash, disintegrating into a floor covered in shredded flesh.