Starlight Web (Moonshadow Bay #1) - Yasmine Galenorn Page 0,50

the park.” Caitlin gave me a smile from where she was polishing a couple of the camera lenses.

“She’s right,” Hank said. “Anyway, so the ‘devil’ we were looking for was the shifter who lived for five days in the woods before he died. They only caught the witch because the shifter’s wife finally turned herself in. The guilt on her conscience was more than she could bear.

“We’ve had other cases like that, where it turned out to be something totally normal. I’d say the ratio is about 70 percent actual hauntings or whatever, and 30 percent false alarms. But even the false alarms can be daunting, like with the wolf shifter,” Hank said. “We’re good to go. Let’s get the van loaded.”

“I stopped and bought sandwiches, chips, candy bars, and water. We’ll stop on the way for coffee,” Caitlin said. “I think we’re ready to go.”

“I need to put these on,” I said, holding up the long underwear. I hurried to the bathroom, did my business, and slid on the long-sleeved undershirt and the leggings. While I wasn’t looking forward to returning to the asylum, I decided to look at it as an adventure. Might as well go full immersion on the job, and at least I wouldn’t be alone. As I returned to the main room, Hank and Caitlin were carrying bags of equipment out the door.

“We’re ready. Let’s head out to the van,” Tad said.

“Whose van?” I asked.

“Conjure Ink owns a van—we can transport all our equipment as well as up to seven people.” He locked the office door behind us as we trudged out into the overcast morning. It wasn’t snowing at the moment, but the temperatures were still hovering around the upper twenties, and everything had a frozen sheen to it. It was beautiful, in an Elsa sort of way.

I crunched over the snow, following the others. We were headed toward a large van, and when we got there, Tad opened the door to reveal what looked like a bank of high-tech surveillance equipment mounted on a fold-down table on the opposite wall of the van. There were two seats up front, three near the computer equipment, and two more in the back, where I saw the stack of sleeping bags.

Caitlin, Hank, and I sorted the equipment as Tad slid into the driver’s seat. Then, Caitlin and Hank took their places near the table. I stood there, unsure of where to sit.

“January, ride shotgun,” Tad said.

“I wasn’t sure where you wanted me,” I said as I belted myself into the front passenger seat. “What’s all that back there?”

“Computers. We can download our results and know what we’re dealing with, without having to return to the office during sessions.” He glanced back to make sure that Caitlin and Hank were fully situated and buckled in, then eased the van out of the parking space and we were on the road.

“How long have you been interested in work like this?” I asked.

Tad shrugged. “All my life, I guess. I started studying about UFOs when I was eight. Of course, as a kid I devoured the tabloids. I didn’t care about who was dating who, I wanted to read the stories about the dogman or whatnot. I knew most of it was garbage, but I thought if I could just find one thing that was real…”

“Did you know about the Otherkin community at the time?” It seemed unbelievable to me, but there were a handful of humans who still denied the existence of magic, of shifters, of the various preternatural entities who walked the face of the planet. How they still insisted that their beliefs had any veracity confounded me—evidence was everywhere, including in a lot of their next-door neighbors’ houses.

“Oh, I always knew. Our neighbor was a shifter. He was an eccentric old coot who, every full moon, would go out and shift into his alt-form and run around the neighborhood, looking for treats.” He grinned. “That old dude was tough as nails. He was an ex-marine who had some form of PTSD. You know, one of those Get-off-my-lawn-you-kids types. But when he shifted into his collie form, he was the sweetest dog ever. Everybody loved him when he was in his alt-form, and everybody watched out for him. Poor guy was hit one night by a car. The driver couldn’t see him because it was hailing like crazy. He was in his alt-form, trying to get home, when he darted across the street at the wrong time.