November 11, 2024. Sheriff’s Office, then Moonlight Curiosities. Never judge a book by its cover. It just might get offended…

“So you know.”

Sheriff Roy Branham’s dark eyes studied us, the sharp silence turning as brittle as cracked paint. Just before I was about to babble, he exhaled sharply, pushing back from his desk. He scrubbed a hand over his hair and stalked to the window, putting his back to us.

“I knew y’all would figure it out.” He paused, shoulders tense. “Just didn’t think it’d be so soon. Still, I should’ve known. Elias didn’t deed Moonlight Curiosities to y’all on a whim.”

The blinds in his window sliced stripes of sunlight across Cassidy’s face as she frowned at me from where she sat. I mirrored her expression from the other visitor’s chair. As usual, the world kept changing the rules without sending us a memo.

Memories from the professor’s office were a wet blanket; cold and suffocating.

Flashbacks needled me when I closed my eyes. Professor Barnes’s scream as the figure in black tried to kill him. The shattering of glass when that Mason jar lamp hit the floor. Barnes on a gurney, with too many students nearby holding too many phones.

I was pretty sure the deputies were tired of seeing us so often. We gave our statements then drove right for the sheriff. Professor Barnes had questions we couldn’t answer because we needed answers of our own.

The silence stretched thin. I broke it first.

“Sheriff, I wouldn’t say we’ve figured it all out,” I said dryly. “A lot’s still a blank page.”

Cassidy turned in her chair, lightly rubbing the worn wooden arms.

“Which is why we need to talk…” She shot a quick look at me then focused on Sheriff Branham, flint beneath her words. “…about everything. Maybe trust us with the missing pieces, because it feels like things are getting worse.”

The big man glanced over his shoulder, eyes measuring and hard. He crossed his office, shutting the tan wooden door with a soft click. After that, he returned to his desk. His wheeled metal chair squeaked with ancient complaints as he sat down.

“A few of us here know, like Marla Keene. It’s only the ones who need to.”

He leaned back, lightly drumming his fingers on his desk.

“People aren’t fond of the idea that they may not be top of the food chain. It tends to end in bloodshed and pitchforks. Nasty either way.”

Branham paused. The rattle-whir of the station’s central heating and air filled the space before he continued.

“So, I’m betting you know about Elias. What else do y’all want to know?”

I rapped my knuckles lightly on the edge of my chair, leg starting to bounce. “There’s a lot. Valeria Moffet. The hidden office. Journals. Special codes. Secret Safes.”

Cassidy rested a hand on my knee, slowing my nerves. Then she raised her eyebrows at the sheriff.

“Why don’t we start with the pens and whoever it is that jumps us when we get near one. Isaac Adelyne said Uncle Elias had some theory about the pens.” She gave my knee a reassuring squeeze. “I think the rest can wait until later.”

Branham’s look turned brittle.

“Ah, those damn pens.” His eyes traced the speckled white drop ceiling tiles as if chasing down a memory. “Elias and Meredith studied the hell out of them. The rest of us were busy keeping Nighthunters from burning down the town for their damn ideals.”

I sat forward. “Wait. Meredith? Meredith Rawls? Naomi Adelyne? They were a part of this.” I tapped the arm of my chair. “Right. My uncle quoted Meredith in his journals.”

Sheriff Branham smiled, but it was thin. “Not surprised. She found the pens in the first place. Estate sale for the Altamont or Price families. One of the two.”

Cassidy glanced at me then back. “Really? Here in town?”

The sheriff shook his head. “Over in Craigbrook. We thought the pens were all cursed. Elias and Meredith didn’t agree. They thought they were part of a single curse; each one acting like an anchor.”

I snapped my fingers. “Professor Barnes said the pens looked like they had a theme. Like something out of an old myth.”

Branham nodded, pulling a tablet out of his desk. “Elias said the same thing. He never pinned it down before Meredith passed away, and he vanished.” He thumbed the tablet on, pulling up what looked like video files. “Speaking of vanished… given the attacks, y’all need to see this.”

The video was mid-quality footage from a security system. Walls and doors were painfully sterile; bland paint and institutional efficiency like a polished knife on a table. That is until the camera shifted to the wall of metal drawers. Cassidy flinched. I scowled.

“Morgue?”

Sheriff Branham nodded at my question. “County morgue. This happened last night.”

Then he hit play.

The video showed an eerie, blue-gray room, all charcoal shadows and hard angles. Pale moonlight floated through barred windows, gleaming off the chrome of bare metal tables. It was a rectangular mailroom of the dead. The footage was silent, but I swore I could hear the camera creak as it panned.

Then the digital clock flipped to midnight, and reality turned sideways.

A flicker rippled the video as a shadow peeled itself apart. Slowly, a familiar figure in a long black coat stalked across the room, slick as mist. They approached the metal mortuary drawers, pulling a sickly yellow light from inside their coat.

I saw them hesitate.

Reading the labels.

Searching for a name.

“Sheriff?” Cassidy’s voice cracked like dried plastic.

Branham waved a hand, indicating the recording. The video flickered twice. After that, the mortuary cabinet stood open and empty—and so was the window heading outside. The sheriff stopped the video and zoomed in on the window ledge.

I saw a dead, pale hand with fingers too long to be normal, clutching a glowing Mason jar. It felt as if the world suddenly narrowed to that one moment on screen. I forced myself to breathe, staring at the Mason jar.

“Where do I know that jar?” I whispered to myself.

“That looks like the person who was outside our shop,” Cassidy said, hushed. “Same one who attacked Daniel, and then Professor Barnes. Who is that?”

The sheriff shook his head. “Damn if I know. We got fingerprints… if you can call them that. To make matters worse, that drawer held Fred Spivey’s body.”

I blinked, catching up to the conversation. “Had?”

Sheriff Branham’s flat look said everything. Easing forward, he reached for one of his desk drawers.

“Before his body was stolen, we did some digging into Mr. Spivey’s background. Most of it’s quiet. No nearby family. But Deputy Keene found these in a backpack with Spivey’s name on it stashed in the bushes behind the Rawls house.”

“Spivey knew…” I whispered under my breath.

Branham set down a ragged, blue canvas notebook on the desk between us. It was thick with loose, yellowed pages.

“That notebook gave me a bad feeling, so I set it aside. It looked too much like some papers your Uncle Elias and Meredith obsessed over.” He tapped the notebook. “Those pages in the back? They looked like the ones Meredith kept with her before she died. They’re in her handwriting.”

Cassidy stared hot holes in the notebook. I glanced at her, then focused on the sheriff.

“How did Meredith Rawls die?” I took a slow breath to steady my nerves. It didn’t work. “Was she withered?”

Branham took a long breath, studying his calloused hands. He pressed them flat on the desk.

“No. It was a bloodleech. Valeria Moffet.”

The name landed like a punch to the mouth. Cassidy jerked where she sat, as if swallowing an angry shriek.

Branham sighed heavily, shoulders sagging. “I just wish we’d cornered her sooner. A lot sooner.” He indicated the book. “Your uncle had some of these pages, too. I’ll be honest, I need a different perspective. It’s all connected in a way I can’t pin down.”

He pushed the book across the desk toward us.

“Take a look… just be careful. That bloodleech who tried to kill you two and was cozying up to Elias? She was on someone’s payroll. We just don’t know who.”

Cassidy’s anger flared like a hot stove, nearly making her lose her human appearance.

“What?” she sputtered before she could plug words together. “Who?”

“No idea.” Branham sat forward; sunlight sliced by the blinds washed pale stripes over his dusky skin and concerned expression. “We’re still looking into it. Murder aside, there’s a problem here that human law can’t handle. We need to get in front of it. If you two figure anything out, call myself or Marla. Quick.”

We nodded. The etched date of 1918 on the battered notebook loomed large in my mind.

“No problem, Sheriff.” I tapped the notebook. “We’ll look.”

“Good.” A tired smile reached his eyes. “Also… don’t forget to lock your doors.”

The hum of tires on wet pavement filled the car as we headed home. I drove as Cassidy studied the antique book with an appraising eye. She slowly leafed through the pages as a hint of thunder rumbled gray clouds overhead.

“It’s not a journal or a diary,” she said, flipping another handwritten page. Her scowl deepened. “Daniel, it reads like a story. Maybe fantasy? Romance? I think there’re flying ships.”

I squinted as we pulled up to a stoplight. “Like an old novel?”

Cassidy squinted, staring at the margins. “‘Please let me stop’…” she whispered, words wavering.

The air crisped like ice.

I had a sudden urge to throw the notebook out the window. “Cassie… what?”

She shuddered slightly, quickly flipping through more pages. “It’s in the margins, repeated almost every other page. Someone wrote, ‘please let me stop.’”

The light turned green, and I drove, the first drops of rain spattering the windshield.

“Meredith had a pen and these pages. So did Uncle Elias. She was murdered. He’s missing.” I trailed out a long sigh. “There could be more pages in the downstairs office.” My throat strangled my words, but Cassidy picked up the thought without missing a beat.

“Fred Spivey had the notebook and might have died next to a pen.” Her hands trembled as she closed the book; eyes shifting from human to solid bat-black from nerves. “I wonder if Professor Barnes has any more of these?”

“Does Dorian?” I added with a brittle voice. “Does Dorian’s accountant? He’s got the last pen.”

The heavy drum of autumn rain was all too eager to reply when we didn’t.

At the shop, we ran in through the back, chased by rain and terrible ideas. Cassidy took the stairs up two at a time, but I froze at the bottom, caught by a stray thought. I studied the shop’s shelves with the antiques for sale. A nasty thought skittered to mind.

“Cassie, wait!” I ran for the office, grabbed my inventory tablet, then chased after her.

We searched the shelves in the hidden basement. The Waterman pen glimmered innocently in its locked case, but a quick look didn’t turn up any new pages. That left the desk. Three drawers into our search, we stopped.

“So my uncle did have some of these pages.” I swallowed hard. The spidery scrawl I saw felt like a gut punch. “Some of these…” I fingered the edge of a page, mind sputtering. “Beloved? This is his handwriting.”

Cassidy froze, staring at me.

“The… story?”

Her nerves melted more of her human appearance away; fur appeared and claws tipped her fingers. Warily, Cassidy studied the pages. Lips in a tight line, she placed the notebook from the sheriff next to them on the table. Finally, she stepped back, wiping the palms of her hands against her jeans.

“That same message is in the margin on those new pages.” She pursed her lips with a worried look. “Love, this suggests Dorian and his accountant have pages like this.” Her voice dropped. “Everyone who gets a pen winds up with these pages. It… it has to be part of the curse.”

I clasped and unclasped my hands. “Yeah.”

We both yelped when my phone rang. I snatched it from my pocket as if it had bitten me.

“Text from Dorian,” I breathed, trying to swallow my heart. “Says he’ll be by tomorrow. He’s bringing lunch from Magnolia Cafe, and Valeria’s journals. Says he hears the meat pies will be to die for.”

I texted back that we’d see him tomorrow. Then picked up the tablet with a deep breath. Cassidy’s brow furrowed in curiosity, but I waved a hand, then opened the shop inventory.

“Mason jars, they looked…” My words withered, swiping three screens in. Ice skittered up my spine. I jerked the tablet around toward Cassidy. “That jar. The one in the morgue, and the broken one in Barnes’s office? Cassie, we sell them. That’s our stock.” My voice broke as I swallowed a scream. “I remember stocking them.”

“Oh. God,” she breathed.

Before either of us could say more, a sound scraped the air—a dry scuff of metal on old paper.

One scratch.

Another.

Then several more before it stopped. The room went as silent as a tomb.

I turned as Cassidy fully shifted into her half-bat form. We stared at each other; taking refuge in the other’s eyes. Then I saw my uncle’s bestiary on the roll top desk. It was opened to a bookmarked page, cast in the algae-green light from the nearby inkwell.

“We closed that book,” I whispered. Cassidy nodded back, wide-eyed.

Together we eased over, holding hands. I reached for the bestiary, paused, then carefully pulled my hand away. A fresh page held a detailed account of what had happened to us—sketches of Mason jars and pens with lines drawn between them.

My voice was as dry as brittle paper. “It’s dated today.”

At the bottom was a list of names. Valeria Moffet. Meredith Rawls. Fred Spivey. Each one slashed with a thin black line, like cutting a throat. A shorter list was below that—Dorian Callix, Halcomb Barnes, Kyle Wilson, Vera James. I didn’t know Kyle Wilson. Vera was the student who’d returned a pen to Professor Barnes.

Then I read the bottom of the list.

Daniel Franklin Hawthorne. Cassidy Gibson Hawthorne.

Our names.

I don’t think we ever climbed stairs that fast in our lives.