“Yo, Hayden! What was your deal today? I can’t believe you almost let the blood snapper best you. It was a one-shot deal, and you froze in your boots like piss on a tree.”
Hayden ignored his partner, Rob, rolling his shoulders while popping his bones back into place. It felt good to stretch after a long evening out in the wintery city of Wicked Grove. The weather stiffened his bones like ice. He stuffed his tactical gear into his locker, ready to hightail it to the nearest bar and set his veins afire with all the alcohol he could ingest before blacking out. The entire room was alive with slamming metal and bursts of laughter; the high after a mission. No one had been killed, injured, or worse—contaminated.
But there had been a near miss. Hayden had barely scraped himself off the pavement. Afterward, he’d spent some time hosing off the vampire ash covering him. The creature had burst into flame, disintegrating right in front of him, his hand still attached to the damn stake, before being sent flying back into a parked car.
It had been close. Too close. Another slipup like that could cost him everything. If the thing had gotten one bloody fang on his skin….
He shook his head as an ice-cold shudder quivered along his spine.
“Hayden, you okay, man?” Rob watched him as he checked his gear and slammed his locker shut. “You know we got another mission, right?”
Hayden frowned and peered around the room. The team was donning their gear again. In their black fatigues, they looked like an army of black ops soldiers. It was already time to suit up for yet another mission? Too bad no one would ever know of this group’s accomplishments. They were ghosts—the ones who did the dirty work of keeping the supernatural under wraps and cleaning up after the rogues. It was their job to keep events like today’s blood-pumped vampire out of the headlines.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“Annika is already rounding us up. Werewolf infestation, I think.”
Hayden’s boozy binge would have to wait. Figures.
“Yeah, all right. No problem, man. Just burning the midnight oil is wearing on me. I’ve got this. Just another regular infestation, right? We’ve dealt with werewolves before, so this should be a piece of cake.”
Rob nodded, but the concern was etched across his features. Hayden was sure his partner did not agree with him that he was fine. There was no way to tell him the truth. He couldn’t tell him about the apprehension boiling up in his chest and the doubt that what they were doing as exterminators of the supernatural was wrong on so many levels. If that came out, Hayden would be kicked out of the Agency so fast he wouldn’t know what hit him.
This life was all he knew. Plus, his brother, Hanley, worked here too and loved it. He’d never abandon him, even if it meant his morals were being compromised.
“All right, bro, I’ll be waiting outside.”
Rob slapped his shoulder and walked away. He knew there was something wrong but didn’t let on. There were just some things best left unsaid. Good friends accepted flaws without questioning, without pushing. Those who weren’t close would poke and prod until things got uncomfortable. They always did. Thank goodness Rob wasn’t that kind of a person. He was quiet, observant, and loyal. He’d been Hayden’s friend for five years, and there was no doubt that it would take an act of God to cause a rift between them.
For now, the secrets between them were pushed from the forefront as they grabbed their white winter gear to pull on over their regular ops wear. The night was a frosty one, and the fresh powder in the forest was already knee deep. Freezing to death was not on the agenda, and Hayden would be relieved when his shift ended and he could return to the cozy apartment he shared with Hanley.
The team gathered outside to ride the Agency’s vehicles up to the surrounding forest and follow the trail of rogue wolves spotted near the northeast edge of Wicked Grove. Exterminating a wolf pack was no easy feat, and his muscles were already aching from the last hunt.
Annika, their operations leader, sat up front with the driver, a new guy Hayden didn’t recognize. Annika was a strict, no-nonsense leader he’d worked with before. Her long blonde hair was pulled taut into a ponytail, making her face look tighter that it normally was. Hayden thought she did that for the lift it gave her. She wasn’t young like most of her team, but she was just as tough. At least he was familiar with the team, which would cause fewer problems in case anything went south. Otherwise, this was all pretty routine.
Except it felt anything but routine, and the churning feeling in his stomach grew as they arrived at their destination. Hunting wolves was always a nocturnal job, but the fuller the moon, the more dangerous it became. Near the full moon was the worst time to be hunting wolves, but it was also when they were the most active. Especially in the dead of winter.
As they jumped from their trucks into the frigid, forest air, he hoped it was all in his head. The moon was as unforgiving as the weather, and in Wicked Grove, anything could happen.