Page 106 of Echoes of the Banshee

He pushes off the wall and attempts to intimidate me by towering over me.

“Goblins are stupid,” he repeats. “And smell. Now you smell like one.”

He wrinkles his nose.

I pull up Benson’s jacket and snuggle into it. He smells amazing.

“It’s called soap, Lennox.”

Kai and Vero snicker but I keep a straight face. Waiting for him to walk into my trap.

“Soap?” he scoffs.

“Yes. The thing you’re supposed to use to wash your hands with after you have them buried in the rotten animal carcasses you eat to get your power.” His jaw drops and his cheeks heat. People finding out he was a bog witch was a huge scandal last time, I only broke it a few weeks early.

“Seriously?” Kai asks as him and Vero exchange glances.

“No,” the lie is obvious.

Vero moves fast to grab Lennox as Kai reaches out and touches his face, his eyes glaze over as he memory walks.

“Gross!” he screams jumping back. Vero lets go and the three of us stand around Lennox who’s starting to call his magic.

“What’s going on here?” Tennant snaps as she steps out of the door.

“Nothing.” It comes from four voices.

She studies us each then shakes her head.

“Last week the body of Billy Sedgewick, a goblin, was found in the maintenance building here on campus. There were no obvious signs of trauma and no one has been able to figure out what happened to him.”

We all exchange glances.

“Why haven’t we heard about this?” Lennox asks.

“Do you talk to many goblins?” Tennant challenges. “The dean has convinced the goblin community to allow you four to examine the body to see if we can get anything new. Kai, I know sometimes you can get memories from objects, Vero you can examine his blood, and Lennox, you’ll be able to — er — do your thing.”

“What about me?” I ask.

“Since we don’t know what your power is, we can’t rule out necromancy.”

I swallow hard. Great.

“This is a privilege, if any of you do anything unacceptable, you’ll be removed from the class.”

She leads us into the building where the hallway is lined with goblins. All standing and glaring at the procession of us. I pull Benson’s jacket tighter around me, breathing in his comforting scent.

“Why are they examining him if they killed him?” someone in the crowd yells.

“Even dead he wouldn’t want a witch to touch him.”

We turn down a flight of stairs that are also goblin lined. It gets colder as we travel down.

Is that why Benson gave me his jacket? He knew why we were here, and knew I’d be cold.

An older goblin with blue streaks in his gray hair stands at the foot of a table covered in a cloth.

“Class, this is Professor Levy,” Tennant announces.