“Hold still, damn it!” Violet hissed as she tried to apply the warm compress to Holden’s swollen cheek.

“You’re making it worse,” Holden said, trying to wriggle out of her reach. But she was too quick for him. She grabbed his arm and pulled him firmly down into the chair. He could have easily overpowered her with his dragon strength and pulled away. But he decided he was better off submitting to her attempts to doctor his face. She was already pissed enough at him as it was. No sense in making things worse. And, despite his protests, he had to admit that the warm compress did actually feel good, after the initial shock of unexpected heat had passed.

“You’re lucky I’m helping you, let alone speaking to you, after that stunt you pulled in the diner. What happened to keeping a low profile?”

“No one noticed me. They were too busy hurling punches at each other. And what do you suggest I should have done instead? Let that boy’s mom get beat up trying to rescue him? Or leave the boy alone in that brawl to get his teeth knocked out?”

Violet sighed, and sat down on the couch next to Holden.

“No, I guess not,” she said, deflated. “But we’re not off to a very good start. No wizard or shifter spies in this town, and no one here seems to know anything about Sandview. Either all the townspeople in Blackstone are really good at playing dumb, or we’re wasting our time by being here.”

“I don’t think we’re wasting our time,” Holden said. Violet didn’t answer, other than to slouch lower into the couch cushions and groan. She rarely agreed with his assessment of things, and, ordinarily, Holden would have egged her on, asserting his opinion until she was blue in the face from the frustration of trying to defend her own position on the subject. But Holden was too worn out for games like that at the moment. This day had stretched on forever, and he wanted to sink into bed and sleep right now. But eight p.m. seemed a bit too early for a respectable adult to go to bed. He should try to make it until at least nine.

He hadn’t told Violet yet about what he’d seen in Nick’s eyes. It wasn’t like Holden to keep secrets from her, but he wasn’t sure what, exactly, to tell. Nick had shifter eyes, but the boy had not had the scent of a shifter. There was something strange about that, unnerving. Holden wanted to tell himself that he’d been seeing things when he saw the glowing eyes, but he knew deep down that he hadn’t. They had been there, bright and real as the lamp that sat in front of Holden right now.

“So what’s the plan for tomorrow?” Violet asked, breaking into Holden’s thoughts. “More pointless scouting?”

Holden sighed. “Your attitude stinks, V. You know that, right?”

He felt her shrug her shoulders. “I didn’t spend a decade of my life in Advocacy school just to sit around in a sleepy small town looking for enemies that aren’t there. We have to go to Sandview if we want to make any real progress on this mission.”

“Peter and Knox both think it’s too dangerous, and I can’t say I disagree with them,” Holden said.

“What, are you chicken?” Violet teased.

“No. I’m just not stupid,” Holden said. “You know that if Saul is, in fact, still in Sandview, that place is being guarded like a fortress. We’d never get into that town alive, no matter how many invisibility shields you cast.”

Violet’s humph told him that she had no credible counterargument. Holden leaned his head back and looked up at the ceiling, staring at the swirling patterns of white without really seeing them. A few weeks ago, one of his own clanmates had discovered that their enemy, Saul, was taking over the nearby town of Sandview. “Nearby” was, of course, a relative term. Sandview was about fifty miles away, but Blackstone was one of the closest cities to the isolated town of Sandview. Saul was building an army of bat shifters and dark wizards there, and Violet and Holden had been sent to learn just how much progress Saul had made on his army, and where his weak spots might be. Going directly to Sandview was too dangerous. Saul knew his secret location had been compromised, and he undoubtedly had his guards on high alert. The dark wizards knew how to see through invisibility spells, which meant there was no chance of sneaking in undetected. So Peter, the head wizard in Violet’s hometown of Falcon Cross, and Knox, the dragon shifter who led Holden’s dragon clan, had instead chosen Blackstone as the best place to start their mission.

Holden had expected to find a few of Saul’s men in Blackstone. After all, if he were Saul, he would have worried that the nearby towns would provide gateways to his main base in Sandview. But Saul seemed not to share those worries. Either Saul didn’t have any guards posted in Blackstone, or his guards here were doing a damn good job of hiding.

“Magicae levitate,” Violet said, pointing her magic ring at the coffee table in the middle of the room and causing it to rise several inches off the dingy beige carpet.

Holden rolled his eyes. “Stop showing off,” he said.

But Violet just laughed. “You’re just jealous that you can’t make things levitate.”

“Of all the magic spells I could be jealous of, that one’s pretty far down the list,” Holden said.

Violet shrugged. “It’s one of the better ones, I think. Look, the more you concentrate the higher you can make the object go.”

Holden watched with mild interest as Violet scrunched her face up, focusing her eyes on the coffee table as it continued to rise into the air. Her magic ring glittered a deep purple in the lamplight. Holden wondered what type of stone it was. Amethyst, perhaps? In any case, the purple color matched Violet’s name. The coffee table’s ascent slowed even more the higher it rose, and Holden found his gaze wandering around the room instead. He and Violet were renting a small, furnished two-bedroom apartment for their time in Blackstone. The place looked like it hadn’t been renovated in about twenty years. When they’d first arrived yesterday, it had also looked as though it hadn’t been cleaned in twenty years, either. Violet had taken care of that, using a cleaning spell to quickly get rid of the dirt and dust caked onto every available surface. Still, even though the dirt was gone, numerous stains remained. Holden wrinkled his nose in disgust as he looked at a faint brown splotch on the kitchen wallpaper. Was it a food stain? He didn’t even want to know how long it had been there.

A sudden, loud knock at the door startled Violet, and the coffee table came crashing back down to the floor.

“Damn it,” she said. “I was just starting to really get some height.”

Holden, however, was more worried about who might be at the door than about a broken spell. Although he knew he’d done the right thing by saving the boy this morning, Violet was right. Getting involved in that mess wasn’t exactly the best way to keep a low profile, which had been one of the strictest orders they’d received when setting off on this mission. Holden put a finger to his lips to tell Violet to be quiet, and then tip-toed to the door to see who it was. He hoped he hadn’t gotten himself embroiled in some sort of local feud. To his relief, there was no one there but a young boy, bouncing nervously from one foot to another and holding a cardboard box full of candy bars. Holden relaxed a bit. A kid this size couldn’t hurt him, and it looked like the kid was just making the rounds in the apartment complex to sell junk food for a school fundraiser.

He was right. When he opened the door, the boy stammered something about Blackstone community pride and supporting the town’s future by helping the local schools. Holden didn’t really want a candy bar, but he took pity on the boy and pulled out his wallet.

“How much? I’ll take two.”

The boy’s face brightened, and he gladly took the four dollars Holden gave him for the two chocolate bars. He stammered out such a long-winded thank you that Holden almost offered him another two dollars just to continue on his way. But Holden had a soft spot for kids—something about their innocence always warmed his heart—so he smiled kindly at the boy until the stammered thank you was complete. Then he closed the door behind him and went back to the living room.

“Think fast,” he said, tossing the bar at Violet. She looked up with what would have been barely enough time for a normal person to register that some sort of object was about to hit them in the face. But Violet wasn’t a normal person. She was a wizard, with damn good reflexes. Her hand shot up and caught the bar a split-second before impact. Frowning, she looked down at it.

“Chocolate caramel peanut delight,” she read off the label.

“Some kid was selling them for a fundraiser,” Holden said, tearing open his bar and taking a huge bite.

“This is the last thing my waistline needs,” Violet protested.

Holden rolled his eyes. “Your tiny waistline can easily handle a candy bar,” he said around a mouthful of chocolaty caramel goodness. “Try it. It’s actually not bad.”

Reluctantly, Violet opened her candy bar and took a bite. She made a face and set the bar down on the coffee table. “I hope you didn’t pay good money for that,” she said.

“Two dollars,” Holden said with a grin. “And the money goes to a good cause. If you don’t eat that, I will.”

“Help yourself,” Violet said, leaning back against the couch. “I’m not wasting calories on something that tastes like cardboard.”

“Honestly, V,” Holden said. “I don’t know why you obsess about your weight so much. You’re perfect.”

She sighed. “Thanks. It’s just part of being a woman, I guess. I’ve always felt like everyone is judging me on my appearance.”

Holden wanted to say that he thought that was all in her head, but he figured he didn’t know much about what it was like to be a woman. So instead, he just said. “Well, I mean it. You’re perfect.”

Violet threw a throw pillow at him. “Stop trying to sweet talk yourself out of the fact that you caused a big scene this morning.”

“I’m not sweet-talking, and I didn’t cause a big scene,” Holden protested.

“Really? Have you checked in with Knox and Peter today? Did you tell them about the incident?”

Holden glared at Violet. “I didn’t tell them. There’s nothing to tell. I don’t think anyone even noticed me.”

Violet shrugged in a way that indicated she clearly didn’t think the brawl had been a non-incident, but she said nothing further. Instead, she picked up the remote and turned on the television, absentmindedly flipping through channels. Holden munched on his candy bar in silence, brooding as he stared at the noisy, busy screen.

The truth was that Violet might be more right than she knew. The fight might not have been a non-incident, after all. If Nick was a shifter, then there might be other shifters in town. But if that was the case, why couldn’t Holden smell them? He frowned as he picked up Violet’s abandoned candy bar and started digging into that, too. He knew that shifter masking scents had become quite popular lately. In the shifter world at large, masking scents were being sold that would cover the smell of shifter with some other mundane smell. Popular choices were the scent of cake, the scent of coffee, or the scent of grass.

But Holden didn’t think that Nick had been wearing any sort of masking scent. Masking scents were always a bit overpowering, and there hadn’t been any particularly strong scent on Nick. Holden had worked hard to be able to detect the warning signs of a potential masking scent—its overpowering nature, its overly artificial odor—but nothing about Nick had rung any warning bells. Holden rubbed his forehead. Perhaps there had been new developments in masking scents that he wasn’t aware of? He sat up straight, then. If that was the case, his clanmate and best friend, Weston, would know.

“I need to make a phone call,” Holden said, standing and starting to head for the bedroom that was his. Violet gave him a mischievous look.

“Finally gonna call Knox and confess to your bad behavior this morning?”

“You’re insufferable,” Holden said, and then crossed his eyes at her. Her laughter followed him to the bedroom until he shut the door firmly behind him. Normally, he took all of Violet’s teasing in stride, and she his. They worked well together because of that. But today, her teasing was hitting a little too close to the truth, and that was bothering him. He pulled out his cell phone and hit speed dial.

“Hey, buddy,” Weston answered on the second ring.

“Hey,” Holden replied, his nerves calming somewhat at just the sound of his friend’s voice. “How’re you holding up in Falcon Cross?”

“Oh, alright,” Weston replied. “They’re keeping us all busy doing research to locate the dragon ruby.”

“I figured,” Holden said. The dragon ruby was one of four powerful ancient dragon stones. Each of the four stones held tremendous power, and three of the stones—the dragon amethyst, the dragon sapphire, and the dragon emerald—had already been recovered by the good shifters and wizards. But the dragon ruby was rumored to be more powerful than the other three stones combined, so finding it was a top priority. If it fell into Saul’s hands, he would surely use it for evil. Holden didn’t even want to think about the kind of destruction he would cause.

“What about you? How are you holding up? And how’s Violet?” Weston asked. Holden could tell that Weston was trying to keep his voice casual when he asked about Violet, but Holden wasn’t fooled. He’d known Weston almost his whole life, and he could tell when the man felt nervous about something. As much as Weston tried to hide it, Holden suspected the man had a thing for Violet. Holden was glad that his own interest in Violet was merely platonic. It would have been tough on his friendship with Weston if they’d both been in love with the girl. Although, really, Holden didn’t have much interest in a romantic relationship with anyone. The idea of loving someone terrified him. He’d lost his parents as a young boy, and, ever since then, he’d thought that perhaps it was better to be close to as few people as possible. That way, you had less to lose. Less chance of heartache. Weston didn’t seem to have any such qualms, though. He was always chasing after some pretty girl or another. Violet was more than likely just a passing obsession. On any other night, Holden might have tried to tease Weston and squeeze a confession of love out of him, just to drive his friend crazy. But tonight there were too many other urgent matters to consider.

“I’m good. Violet’s good. We had an uneventful day for the most part,” Holden said.

“For the most part?” Weston asked.

Holden smiled. His friend knew him well. “Yeah, for the most part. But there was one thing that happened early in the day that’s been bothering me. I can’t seem to get the incident out of my head, but it doesn’t make any sense to me. I was hoping you might be able to help me figure it out.”

Damn it, thought Holden. I just called it “the incident,” too. Good thing Violet can’t hear me right now.

“Shoot,” Weston said. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“We were at a diner here in town. Seems to be a popular place with the locals because it felt like half the town was there. Violet and I had just about finished eating breakfast when this guy storms in, furious and dragging a boy by the collar. The boy looked like he was about twelve or thirteen. The kid’s mom is apparently a waitress at the bar, and the man had come looking for her, to tell her to get her boy under control.”

“What had the boy done?” Weston asked.

“You know, I’m not actually sure,” Holden said. “The man never said. Before he could get into too much detail, a huge fight broke out in the diner. A bunch of the customers must be pretty loyal to the boy’s mom, because they started throwing punches at the man who’d dragged the boy in. Soon, half the restaurant was involved in a giant brawl, and the boy was caught up in the middle of it. He wasn’t fighting. He was just in the middle of this mess of fighting men and couldn’t get out.”

“Let me guess,” Weston said. “You rushed in to pull him out of there and save him.”

Holden sighed. “I guess you know me well.”

“So much for keeping a low profile in town.”

“Now you sound like Violet.”

“Well, she has a point.”

“I don’t think anyone saw me,” Holden said. “They were all too busy getting off on beating each other up. But, anyway, the point of this story is that when the boy was scurrying away from the restaurant, he looked back at me and his eyes were glowing. Like an animal’s. But he didn’t smell like a shifter, and he didn’t smell like a masking scent. In fact, he didn’t really smell like anything. I don’t know what to make of it. I know what I saw in his eyes, but if he’s a shifter then I should be able to smell something. It’s been bothering me all day. I was wondering if maybe there was some sort of new and improved masking scent out, something that completely covers up any smells. I thought if there was you might have heard of it?”

There was such a long pause on the other end of the line that for a moment Holden thought he might have lost Weston. But the other man finally spoke.

“I see,” Weston said. “And what does Violet make of all this?”

“I…didn’t tell her yet,” Holden admitted. “I’m not sure what to tell, and I want to figure out what I’m dealing with. If there are other shifters in town and I’m just not smelling them, that could be a big problem. We searched all over the place for any shifters or wizards in this town, but, so far, we haven’t found anything. It’s hard for me to believe that Saul has no spies here, though, which makes me think there’s something I’m missing. If there’s a new masking scent that keeps you from smelling shifters, then we’re screwed. Saul’s soldiers would know I’m here and could attack me before I even knew what was coming.”

Another long pause.

“I wouldn’t necessarily be surprised if Saul didn’t have spies in Blackstone after all,” Weston said when he finally spoke. “He makes strange decisions sometimes that don’t make a lot of sense. Not only that, but he’s fighting on a lot of different fronts. He’s trying to build up his bat shifter army, trying to protect the Redwoods base camp he stole, trying to keep an eye on Falcon Cross and the shifter protectors in Texas, and trying to find the dragon ruby. He’s spread pretty thin, so he might not bother putting spies in nearby towns. He might be content with just having guards surrounding Sandview itself.”

“Okay, well, even assuming Saul doesn’t have spies here, can you explain why a boy would have shifter eyes but not smell like anything? Is there a new type of masking scent that does that?”

“Not that I know of,” Weston said. “But, let me ask you this: you said the boy didn’t smell like anything. Do you really mean that? Like nothing at all? Not even like human flesh, or the clothing he was wearing?”

Holden furrowed his brow. “That’s right,” he said, trying to remember. “Nothing at all. Not even clothes. It was the weirdest thing. He was standing right in front of me, and I could see him but I couldn’t smell him. And I don’t have to tell you that dragon shifters have some of the sharpest noses around.”

“Damn,” Weston said, his voice sounding slightly awed. “Sounds to me like the kid’s a ghoster.”

“A ghoster?” Holden had no idea what that was, but he didn’t particularly like the sound of it.

“Yeah, a ghoster. I thought they were all extinct, but it’s the only explanation,” Weston said.

“Okay,” Holden said slowly. “And are you going to give me an explanation on what the hell a ghoster is?”

“They’re also known as the invisible shifters,” Weston said. “A while back I was assigned to a mission in a town that had been a famous ghoster town back in the day, and that’s where I learned about the phenomenon. Basically, there used to be a large group of dragon shifters that had the ability to produce pheromones that masked all scent. They could give off these pheromones at will, and thus be ‘invisible’ as far as smelling them was concerned. This ability was referred to as ghosting, and it made them quite dangerous in the days when dragon shifters still ruled the earth. They could sneak up on other dragon shifters and cause all kinds of havoc. But as far as I know there haven’t been any cases of ghosting in a long time, and the general agreement in the shifter world is that the ghosters are extinct. But I can’t see many other explanations for what you just told me.”

Holden took a few moments to process everything that Weston had just told him. “You’re sure that’s what it is?” he finally asked.

Weston laughed. “I don’t know for sure. Nothing is ever certain these days, it seems. But from what you told me, it sounds like a classic case of a ghoster.”

“Great,” Holden said with a groan. “So it sounds like Saul has discovered that ghosters exist, and is using them as spies. That’s gotta be why it appears as though there aren’t any shifters in this town.

“Eh, I wouldn’t be so sure that Saul is behind this, or that there are others in town. It sounds like the boy isn’t in control of his shifter side, which makes me think that he’s not a soldier or spy. He’s just a kid who has special abilities that he doesn’t know what to do with. Think about it. A spy wouldn’t have let you see his churning animal eyes. Animal eyes while in human form is a sign of an underdeveloped or undercontrolled shifter side. You know that.”

Holden paced back and forth in his bedroom, considering. Weston was right. Holden had been so caught up in the strangeness of the boy having no scent that he’d glossed right over the fact that the boy’s animal eyes likely indicated a very restless, very uncontrolled shifter side.

“Still,” Holden finally said. “If he is a shifter I have to look into him a little more closely. I can’t be too careful, and I don’t want any of Saul’s cronies sneaking up on me because I wrote them off as nothing more than troubled little boys.”

“Sure,” Weston said. “Go check on him. I bet you anything you’re going to find out that there’s no dad in the picture. The kid probably had a shifter father who isn’t around, and his mom probably doesn’t even know he’s a shifter—or, at the very least, has no clue how to deal with it. I’ve seen this before so many times. Shifter kids who don’t know they’re shifters. They just know they’re different, and the older they get the more restless and angry their inner shifters become. It’s always a sad situation, to be sure. But it’s not likely that the kid is any real danger to you or your mission.”

“Does the fact that he’s a ghoster make him more dangerous than a normal shifter?” Holden asked.

“Well, ghosters aren’t super strong or aggressive, if that’s what you’re asking. The only thing that makes them more dangerous than a normal shifter is their ability to sneak around without their scent giving them away. Damn. I’m so jealous that you’re there. I wish I could come see this kid for myself. I spent so much time hearing about ghosters of the past when I was on that mission in an old ghoster town. What I wouldn’t give to see a real live ghoster now.”

“Well, come on out here and join our mission,” Holden said. But it was only a joke, and they both knew it. As much as Holden would have loved to have Weston here, too, everyone had their specific assignments these days, and Weston’s was back in Falcon Cross.

“I wish I could, man,” Weston said. “But Peter’s got me spending my days with my eyes crossed in front of a computer, trying to research where that damn dragon ruby is.”

“No luck yet?”

“No, we haven’t made any progress. I’d much rather be out on a field mission like you.”

“Well, it hasn’t been very exciting so far,” Holden said. “But maybe learning more about this ghoster kid will liven things up.”

“I hope so. Keep me posted on what you find out, alright?”

“Will do.”

Holden bid Weston good night and hung up the call, but he didn’t go back out to the living room. Instead, he lay on his bed and stared up at the ceiling, mulling over everything Weston had told him. The idea of a shifter who could not be smelled was both fascinating and terrifying. All shifters had incredible senses of smell, and relied on that sense of smell to keep them safe. A shifter who could not be detected by smell would be at a serious advantage.

Holden suddenly sat up, wondering if there was any more to learn about ghosters than what Weston had told him. He walked over to a small duffel bag of reference books that he’d brought with him just in case he needed to research anything while on this mission. Violet had teased him relentlessly about being a bookworm, and asking if he knew that most people just looked things up online these days. But Holden had ignored her and brought the books, anyway. Now, he was glad that he had. Despite Violet’s teasing, ancient shifter history wasn’t exactly something you could learn about just by running a few Google searches. Holden did have a book, though, that he thought might hold some answers, and he rummaged through his duffel bag looking for it.

“Ah ha,” Holden said when he found what he was looking for a few minutes later. He pulled out the thick volume, which had the title An Exhaustive Encyclopedia of Shifters through the Ages embossed on its cover in gold lettering. Holden sat cross legged on the floor and started flipping to the section for the letter “G.” He flipped through the pages, ignoring the illustrations of fantastical beasts mixed with mundane, ordinary animals. Finally, he found it.

“Ghosters!” he said aloud when he turned to the page with that word written across the top. But the entry was brief, and did not give any more information than what Weston had already told him. Holden read through the text several times, as though each new reading might magically reveal some new tidbit of information. But no matter how many times he read it, the text remained the same.

Ghosters were a rare variation of dragon shifters, prominent during the age of the dragon kings. They were called ghosters because of their ability to completely mask their scent, thereby sneaking up “unseen” by the noses of other shifters. Ghosters were in high demand by the dragon kings, who often assigned them to positions as spies or assassins. There have been no confirmed instances of ghosters since A.D. 1035, and ghosters are believed to be extinct in modern times.

Underneath the text was a drawing of a dragon, but the picture did not look like anything special to Holden. It was just your everyday, garden-variety dragon as far as he could tell. With a sigh, Holden shut the book. The mental image of the young boy’s eyes from that morning, glowing and troubled, haunted him. He wanted to know more about who the kid was, and who his dad was. Weston was convinced that the boy didn’t work for Saul, but that was easy for Weston to say—he was safely back in Falcon Cross, in no danger of being spied on.

Holden drummed his fingers on the cover of the book, wondering where he should start with his investigation of the boy. He glanced up at the clock on the wall. It was 8:45 now, almost late enough for a self-respecting adult to go to bed. But he wasn’t tired anymore. His conversation with Weston had given him a second wind, and he wanted to do something now to learn more about the young ghoster in this town. But what could he do at this hour?

Almost as soon as he asked himself the question, Holden had an answer. He could go to the diner, of course. He doubted the boy’s mother would be there now, since she’d worked the morning shift. But perhaps someone there would be willing to tell him more about the woman or her son. It was as good a place as any to start.

Holden quickly pulled on a light hoodie, then went out to the living room to pull his shoes on. Violet raised an eyebrow at him.

“Where are you going?” she asked. She had finally turned off the television and was flipping through the pages of the novel she’d bought at the airport bookstore before their flight to Nevada.

“A walk,” Holden said. “I need some fresh air.”

“Want me to come with you? We could discuss our plans for tomorrow. We still haven’t decided what we’re going to do.”

Holden shook his head no. “We can talk more when I get back. Right now I just want to clear my head a bit.”

Violet looked for a moment like she might protest, but then she shrugged and sat back against the couch. “Suit yourself,” she said.

Holden stuffed his keys and wallet into his pocket, gave Violet a small wave, and then left the dingy apartment. He felt a bit guilty for not including Violet in his little excursion. After all, he had a plausible explanation now for what he had seen earlier today. It would have been a good time to loop her in on the situation. But something still held him back, and he wasn’t quite sure what.

A few blocks down the road, he finally realized what it was, and that realization startled him a bit: he hadn’t told Violet where he was going because he was secretly hoping that the boy’s mother, Elise, would be working at the diner tonight after all. And he was slightly excited at the thought of getting to talk to her alone.