They’d gone maybe a mile down a two-lane road when Brooke put her blinker on and slowed to turn left over the double yellow line into a parking lot that served the tiny City Hall. Spencer followed, frowning as Isaac stuck his arm out the window and gestured for him to park.
“I thought we were going to a house. Does she work here?” Spencer asked. Fatima put her front paws on the dash, staring out the windshield as Spencer pulled up alongside Brooke’s truck. He rolled down his window, looking up to meet Isaac’s eyes. “What’s going on?”
“Brooke saw Angie’s car parked over there on the small overlook at the beginning of Cemetery Road,” Isaac said.
“So she doesn’t work here?”
“She’s a remote medical coder. She has no reason to be out here.”
“Maybe she’s taking a walk.”
Something disturbed the ghosts, Fatima said firmly.
“Aw, no, I hate when you say things like that.”
Isaac gave him an odd look. “I didn’t say anything.”
Fatima very determinedly crawled over the console and onto Spencer’s lap so she could stick her head through the narrow space between the window and doorframe. Spencer hastily hit the window button to lower it more. Isaac stared at them with a weird expression on his face as Brooke leaned around him inside the truck’s cab to squint at them.
“Did you bring a kid with you?” she asked sharply, assuming—wrongly—that Spencer was out and about with a werecreature child.
“No.” Spencer rolled up the window, then killed the engine and shoved open his door so Fatima could hop out. “But she’s mine.”
“What did the spirit sister have to say?” Makai asked as he got out.
“She saw a ghost wandering where it shouldn’t.”
“We’re near a cemetery known for hauntings,” Isaac said as he got out of the truck.
“That really doesn’t mean anything when it comes to the dead.”
Brooke came around the rear of her truck, eyeing him thoughtfully. “Is that your specialty? Dealing with the dead?”
“Yes. If your pack member is truly possessed, I can exorcise her.” Spencer hip-checked his car door shut and locked it. “Give me a minute. I want to check the area.”
Spencer shoved his hands into his pockets and slipped his sight sideways, the werecreatures’ bright auras haloing their bodies. What drew his immediate attention, however, was a group of ghosts that lined the front of the driveway they’d just driven through. All of them wore old miners’ clothing, their forms flickering and transparent, but they were distinct enough for him to know they were attached to the mortal plane. The ghosts stared back at him, remaining where they were, unmoving and silent to his curious gaze.
Fatima brushed against his leg, drawing his attention.They fear what walks over their graves.
Spencer blinked his sight back to normal and frowned down at her. “Demon?”
She looked at where the ghosts stood beyond mundane human sight, seemingly staring at nothing, before nodding.Yes.
“Wait, is she seeing a demon or talking about Angie?” Makai asked.
“We’re going to find out.” Spencer conjured up a tiny mageglobe, cupping it in the palm of his hand. “I’m going to cast a look-away ward.”
He didn’t want to risk a silence ward, not in the dark like this. Yeah, it would muffle sound, but it wouldn’t allow them to know if a threat was sneaking up on them. The lazy sparks of the look-away ward that wound around them would keep eyes off their location even if they made noise.
Fatima bounded off in a streak of tawny gold and black across the parking lot before disappearing altogether. Spencer gestured for the others to lead the way, and Brooke took point. A lone streetlamp was positioned right outside the City Hall parking lot, but the rest of the rural road was dark for quite a ways in either direction. When they turned sharply onto Cemetery Road, Makai rocked to a stop and started shedding his clothes, gaze focused on the dark ahead of them.
“I smell vampires,” Makai said in a low voice.
“Sure it’s not my coat?” Spencer muttered, earning a contemplative look from the other two.
Makai stuffed his clothes into the mailboxes attached to a communal post on the side of the road. “It’s not your coat.”
Spencer couldn’t see the shift all that well in the dark, but he definitely heard it. The sound of breaking bone and the wet tearing of flesh was never easy to listen to. Not being able to clearly see the shift would have contributed to the horror-movie vibes if Spencer hadn’t seen it happen before. But he’d been around enough werecreatures during his life that all he really noticed was Makai shifted faster than most, but not as fast as Jono and Sage could.
