Dane's a Decrypter down on his luck -- after accidentally dispatching the wrong creature, he's sent to a small town where the cryptids he hunts are sparse. Crypt Coffee becomes his business front, but instead of a thrilling new mission on the side, he's stuck sending ghosts back to where they came from. Dane can annoy customers, at least, and tries to scare off Professor Sean Sanderson when he starts poking around too much.<br><br>But Sean isn’t about to stay away. Not when he hears about the murder of a former student, and definitely not if young, exciting Dane has information about it. But the more he allows himself to get dragged into this supernatural world of monsters and ghosts, the more the danger escalates. And if Sean and Dane aren’t careful, tracking down a murderer who can use magic might just get them killed.

Bad Seed

“Weird,” said Dane, reluctantly putting his gun back. “Have a look at your arm.”


He watched Sean do a double-take as he saw the hairs standing on end. Dane felt his doing likewise, something that tended to happen around highly concentrated magic. It made him nervous.


“Shit. Was she a witch or something? Are there witches?”


“Yeah, witches exist, but she doesn’t look like one.” Dane glanced around, feeling the weight of allthe drying plants pressing down on him. “Maybe just starting out. Witches got a whole bunch of other shit around usually, stones, crystals, fucking odd-ass pieces of wood, shit like that.”


“So she was just using magical herbs in her soaps? Is that weird?”


“Yeah,” said Dane, eyes searching for the ceiling. “Yeah, it is.”


Chapter 13