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

“Will you stop moving around?” asked Dane. “I can’t hear myself think.”


“If you had more than one chair—”


“What, your ass can’t handle the floor?”


“My ass can handle just about anything,” said Sean, lowering himself to the cold concrete. Dane was concerned enough about his damned report to completely ignore the comment and Sean held back a sigh. This was a wonderful way to spend a Saturday afternoon—on the floor of Dane’s weapon pit, and not in a fun way. He was less and less sure of what he was even doing here as the minutes ticked by.


Weapons, coated in silver, glinted harshly around him. Dane had overhead lights on, but Sean could see enough candles lying around for the entire place to be lit with fire. In front of him a basin sat on the floor, filled with what looked like the last bits of Eliza’s bones.


“When are you going to get around to burning these?” he asked, and Dane swore.


Chapter 20