Paranormal Hunter Chapter 3

“Sooooo…” I trailed off as I watched the road before us in Janine’s headlights. “You still haven’t really told me how we’re getting into the library. I know you’ve got connections and all that, but there’s nobody to even let us in at this hour of the night.”

“There doesn’t need to be,” Janine explained as we pulled into the parking lot of the Archives and Rare Books Library. “A sweet girl named Renee showed me a literal back-door entrance I could use any time of the day. She got tired of me asking if I could set appointments up in the middle of the night or early in the morning or on a whim.”

“Good lord.” I whistled. “How much time do you spend at this place?”

“Way more than I probably should,” Janine admitted before she blew a bit of her red hair out of her face. “If I’m not studying for one of Doctor Russel’s upper-level anthro classes, then I’m here reading up on ghosts, legends, cults, and demons.”

“And they have all that shit here?” I raised an eyebrow. “I know this is a pretty big campus, but I never would have thought the University of Cincinnati would have a large selection of stuff about the occult and the paranormal.”

“Doctor Hanson made sure they did,” the student explained as she killed the engine of her vehicle. “He told me his mentor donated his entire collection of rare paranormal and occult books to the school when he retired.”

“Hanson… Hanson…” I wracked my brain as I tried to think of who she was talking about. “Is he that weird guy who’s always hanging up signs in the hallway about quelling negative energies and giving campus-wide talks on how to identify a vampire?”

“That’d be the one!” Janine giggled. “He’s a bit… eccentric, for sure. But he’s also the foremost expert in the world of the paranormal and the occult, this side of the Ohio River. He can be hard to handle in large doses, which is why I usually only see him every few days in one-hour, scheduled meetings in his office. Even clases with him are completely scatterbrained and hard to follow.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever actually met him,” I admitted. “But he sounds like a crazy dude.”

“He’s brilliant, though,” the redhead said as she popped open the door of her sedan and stepped out into the night. “At least, on the topics he knows really well. Now, if you get him talking about politics or conspiracy theories or any of that stuff? That’s when it starts to get real weird.”

“Let me guess,” I snickered as I got out of the car. “He thinks we’re all controlled by the Illuminati?”

“Worse,” Janine explained with a sly grin. “He thinks everything is controlled by a society of secret lizard people living inside of the Earth. Undercrawlers, he calls them.”

“And they let this man shape the minds of young men and women.” I shook my head and chuckled. “His research must be reaaaaalllly good if they’re keeping him around.”

“You’ll find out for yourself,” the archaeology student said with a tilt of her head. “I’m sure we’ll be talking to him about this at some point. If he even gets a small hint that I’ve finally chosen the topic for my thesis, he’s going to pounce quicker than you pounced on those men in the woods.”

She was very blase about the fact I murdered a bunch of guys, and I didn’t know whether to find that more concerning or hot.

“So, play it coy,” I sighed as I looked toward the Archives and Rare Books Library. “Got it.”

The parking lot was a short walk away from the building itself, which was housed at the end of the long sidewalk and surrounded by greenery all around. Campus was next to dead at this time of night, save for the occasional patrolling campus police car or the drunken student stumbling back to their dorm and trying to avoid the very same car.

Janine and I finally arrived at the Blegen Library, a stereotypical piece of modernist architecture covered with lots of brick, light stone, and windows galore. The building was lit up by the glow of the two small lamp posts that stood before it, and it was framed by two four beautiful trees in full bloom. The lights inside of the lobby were still on, though we both knew damn well nobody was there.

“Don’t you just love it?” Janine sighed longingly. “This is by far my favorite building on campus.”

“I’ve only been here a few times.” I shrugged. “Mainly for the research papers, when I want one or two sources I think will impress the teacher.”

“Luckily for you, that’s about to change,” Janine noted. “We’re gonna crack open these energy drinks and pull an all-nighter in here. Or until we’ve literally exhausted each and every resource they have about the OLG and werepanthers, and everything in between.”

“Is that really necessary?” I asked with a sigh. “You said you’ve done a bunch of research on --”

“You deserve to know the truth, Carter,” Janine cut me off with a wave of her hand. “I’m used to dealing with skeptics. Nothing I say will make you believe what’s happening right now.”

“Of course I believe it!” I argued. “I just turned into a freaking giant-ass panther and killed a bunch of dudes who were trying to sacrifice me. Janine, you don’t need to sell me on the conspiracy theories here. I totally believe you.”

“It goes deeper than conspiracy theories,” the redhead whispered with a shake of her head. “You’re never going to believe all the shit that’s going down if you don’t see it with your own eyes. It’s totally awesome. Wait till you see it. Oh, my god. I’m so excited to show you.”

“Alright then, Janine…” I sighed as I looked around at the empty building. “I know we can get into the lobby by scanning our IDs, but they keep the interior doors locked all the time, right? How do we get in?”

“Simple,” the redhead giggled as she bounced on her feet. “Just follow me to the back.”

Janine practically skipped around the building, and I had to break out into a light jog to even try and catch her. Then, as we circled around the Blegen library, I saw the headlights of one of the campus police cruisers approaching.

“Please tell me this doesn’t involve climbing through a window or something,” I gulped. “The last thing I want is to get caught breaking into a campus building after hours.”

“It’ll be fine,” Janine reassured me with a wave of her hand. “If he comes this way, we can always just pretend we’re coming back from a party or something.”

Soon, the redhead brought me over to a small brown fire door nestled into the brick of the building. Then Janine looked around to make sure the coast was clear.

“There’s no handle on this side of the door,” I said as I looked over the entrance. “It’s an exit only.”

“Not if you know the trick I do,” the beautiful redhead promised as she walked over to a small patch of mulch beside the door and got down on her hands and knees.

My eyes couldn’t help but wander to her tight ass now that it was straight up in the air. It was only covered by a thin layer of black legging fabric, so it may as well have been completely exposed. I could see every curve of her bottom as it wiggled around while she dug at the dirt, and when I felt the blood rushing to my loins, I was really happy her eyes were turned the other way.

“Isn’t-- isn’t this considered breaking and entering?” I asked as I tried to quell my primal desire. “You’re going to open up a locked door.”

“The librarian gave me permission to come in whenever,” she said. “Who do you think showed me this trick? She always says she doesn’t care if I’m in there at any point of the day, as long as I don’t destroy any of the books.”

“Aren’t there like, cameras or something in there?” I asked.

“The librarians are the only ones who have access to it,” Janine mused. “And none of them care.”

That was when I heard a distant beep, followed by a hiss of radio chatter. Next, there was the sound of plodding footsteps from around the other side of the building. Janine didn’t even react to the noise, but I could hear it clear as day.

One of the campus officers was coming this way.

I needed to think quickly, because he now walked with a quickened pace. I could sense his intensified heartbeat in my brain, along with the noise of his panting breath.

“Fuck,” I whispered under my breath.

Janine said the librarians didn’t care if she broke in, but I wasn’t sure the security officer would feel the same way. We could try to run, but by the time I’d be able to alert Janine and get her up onto her feet, he’d be on us.

Sure, I knew this was only one guy, and probably not a very well trained one. But I couldn’t let him take us. I still didn’t know what had happened to trigger my transformation before, but I was sure the stress of getting interrogated and then potentially arrested wouldn’t help.

And, if I hulked out again, I had no idea what would happen.

I might kill this poor guy, whose main job was just to hand out parking violations on campus and break up rowdy parties. He was harmless, but I certainly wasn’t.

Plus, I didn’t want to live with that on my conscience.

Then there was the fact he might want to take us in for questioning or lead us back to the dorms. Those cult members had been watching me for god knows how long, and surely they knew which dorm room I was in.

If I went back there, I’d be facing certain death again.

What I needed was a distraction. Something to get this guy to just go away long enough for us to slip inside the library undetected.

So, I did what any twenty-something would do.

I ran forward, fell down onto my knees right behind Janine, and undid my belt.

“Carter?” she gasped as I leaned my body over her. “What the fuck are you doing?”

“Just play along,” I hissed into her ear as I laid on top of her from behind. “Act drunk.”

Suddenly, a bright beam of light rounded the corner and shone right onto us.

Janine purposely fell forward on top of the hole she’d been digging, and
I pressed my body up against hers and “frantically” reached for my unbuckled pants.

“What do you kids think you’re-- Seriously?” a man’s voice groaned.

Janine and I both whipped our heads around to look at the officer, and then I quickly pretended to fumble with my pants as I stood back up.

“I-I’m sorry, man…” I fake-slurred before I buckled my belt and took a few awkward steps. “We were trying to find a quiet place.”

“Can you please turn off that light?” Janine grumbled woozily as she held her hand up to cover her face. “It’s giving me a headache.”

The officer switched off his flashlight and placed his hands on his hips.

“You kids are lucky I caught you when I did,” he grumbled. “A few seconds later, and you’d be looking at an indecent exposure charge.”

I was pretty sure that wasn’t how it worked, but I wasn’t about to argue with the guy.

“My bad,” I said as I closed my eyes, placed my hand over my heart, and raised my right hand. “I s-swear it’ll never happen again.”

The officer raised an eyebrow before he looked back and forth between Janine and me. Then the man simply rolled his eyes and sighed.

“Get her back to her dorm, son,” he ordered. “And try not to get too frisky in the meantime.”

Well, shit. The second Janine stood up, the officer would know something was amiss when he saw the hole. He wasn’t going to just leave us, either.

This guy was probably gonna stand right here until we vacated the premises.

Suddenly, Janine pressed her face into the mulch and let out a long, subdued moan. The archaeology student nustled her cheek against the ground as she closed her eyes and took a few long, deep breaths. Then she opened up her mouth and went limp.

“Hey!” the officer grumbled as he stepped toward her and prodded her side with his foot. “Wake up.”

“I can’t take her back to her dorm like this, officer,” I lied through a hiccup. “I can barely walk myself, and if she’s passed out? Can’t we just like, crash here for the night? People at Ohio State do it all the time.”

“I can help you--” the brown-haired officer began, but I quickly interrupted.

“She’s gonna puke if we try to move her,” I continued. “And then if I see puke, I’ll puke. And if I-- herk! See? Even just thinking about it is making me start to hurl.”

“Okay, okay.” The officer held up his hands and stepped away from Janine. “Do you have any friends at the dorm I can call to come pick you up?”

“Friends… Friends…” I trailed off as I feigned drunkenness. “I’ve got a couple of those! But they don’t go to this school.”

“I guess I’ll call in the other patrolling officer to help,” the man grumbled as he pulled his walkie talkie from his side.

“Oh, I dunno, man,” I slurred. “We’re gonna hurl all over your pretty uniforms.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I swore I saw a small flash of warm yellow light, but when I whipped my head around to look there was nothing there. Oh, well. We might have been able to play it coy, but it looked like we were gonna have to head back to the car and regroup for now.

Maybe we could just play it off like we were getting too rowdy, and Janine was gripping the dirt for support?

My mind raced for excuses as the officer raised the walkie talkie to his mouth and pressed the button.

“Hey, Charlie?” he asked. “I’ve got a couple of drunk kids back behind Blegen. Can you help me transport them back to their dorms? Over.”

The man waited for a few seconds, but all we heard was static. The officer tried two more times, but nothing came through from the other side.

“Oh, no…” I giggled drunkenly. “Your buddy’s not around?”

“Sonofabitch,” the officer said with a frown. “This side of campus always has shitty service. You stay right here with her, okay? I’ll be right back as soon as I contact my partner.”

“You got it, mister officer.” I saluted the man.

He just shook his head, turned around, and then continued to press the button on his walkie-talkie as he tried out different spots. The second he rounded the corner, I dropped the facade and looked over at Janine.

“That was fucking close,” I hissed. “Did you really not hear him coming?”

“You’re a werepanther, Carter,” Janine answered as she returned to digging. “You’ve got way better senses than I do. Is he gone?”

“No.” I shook my head as I nervously looked over to the spot he’d just gone. “But he’s at least out of sight. How much longer?”

“A few seconds,” Janine admitted through gritted teeth. “I’m just-- aha!”

The redhead held up a small rectangular piece of metal about half an inch thick and six inches long, and she quickly shoved the dark mulch back into place before she jumped up and ran over to the fire door.

Meanwhile, I could still hear the officer on the other side of the building as he tried to get his device to work.

“He’s still over there,” I narrated. “And he’s getting really pissed off.”

“That won’t matter in a second here,” the archaeology student explained.

I watched as Janine felt around the slit on the side of the door until finally, she apparently found what she was looking for. Janine’s tongue squished out from behind her pursed lips as she raised the piece of metal up to a particular spot in the door and then slid it inside.

“Right,” I heard the officer say on the other side of the building. “It’s just a transport.”

“Fuck,” I hissed. “I think he finally got a hold of the other guy.”

There was a metallic clicking noise as Janine wedged the metal piece into the door and then used it as a makeshift crowbar. The officer’s footsteps began back toward us, and my heart started to flutter.

“It’s jammed!” Janine gulped. “Usually it pops right open.”

“Let me try,” I whispered, and then I reached over and grabbed onto the metal piece.

I wiggled it back and forth as I tried to pry the door open, all while the sound of the officer’s footsteps grew louder in my head. Finally, I felt a bit of stronger resistance against the wedge, so I took a deep breath before I tried to pry it once more.

This time, there was a loud metal creak, and then the door popped open a few inches.

“Get in!” Janine whispered before she grabbed onto the door and flung it open.

We both disappeared into the darkness inside, and I made sure to pull the door shut behind us. Thankfully, it had one of those long, horizontal metal push handles on the inside, so I just grabbed onto that and slammed it shut as quietly as I could.

“Shhhh!” I hissed to the archaeology student as I pressed my hand up against her mouth. “We’re not out of the woods yet.”

On the other side of the wall, I heard the officer’s heartbeat become more rapid as his pace quickened, until I felt he was right on the other side of the door.

“What the fuck…” the officer grumbled. “I leave those drunken idiots alone for two seconds…”

As we sat there holding our breath, both with our eyes as wide as saucers, I noticed something that made my heart jump up into my throat.

There, on the spot where I’d pried open the door, was a small dent in the metal. It was only about a quarter of an inch, but if he saw it, he’d know exactly where we’d gone.

I nodded to the dent as I removed my palm from Janine’s mouth and grabbed onto the handle with both my hands. That was when my fears came true.

I saw the officer’s finger slide through the dent and grab the door.

I gritted my teeth as I held onto the handle with all of my strength and planted my feet firmly into the carpeted floor.

The officer tried to pull the door open from the other side, but it didn’t budge at all. He gave it two more attempts before finally I heard him let out a long, frustrated sigh.

“Get down,” I whispered as softly as possible, and I just hoped Janine could understand what I was saying.

I let go of the door and crouched down the second I saw the light appear through the dent in the door. Janine and I both pushed ourselves close together to avoid the spotlight, and my nostrils caught a whiff of the sweet, rosy shampoo in her hair.

Then we watched as the beam of the officer’s flashlight cut through the darkness like a knife. It moved all around the room as he inspected the area, but we were close enough to the fire door that the light didn’t reach us once. It shut off with a click a moment later, so I instantly sprang back up to my feet.

I grabbed onto the door once more as the officer tried to open it, and once again, I held it in place.

“I don’t have time for this shit,” the officer finally grumbled. “Charles? I don’t need a pick-up anymore. No… I have no fucking clue where they went. Also, we need to get facilities over here ASAP. There’s a dent in the back door of the library.”

Janine and I both remained silent as I listened to the officer’s footsteps fade. Then there was nothing but the sound of the building’s humming air conditioner.

“Holy fuck, that was close,” I said with a sigh of relief. “You do this shit all the time?”

“Never quite that intensely,” Janine admitted as she stood to her feet. “Usually, I just slide the metal into the spot with the latch, and it pops right open. Of course it picks the absolute worst time to give me trouble… Though I don’t think it’s going to be a problem any more. Look at what you did to it! You are so fucking strong!”

“Yeahhh… I’m still getting used to this whole ‘enhanced strength’ thing. They’ll come out and fix it, but in the meantime we should get to work.”

“Let me go get the lights first,” the slender redhead offered. “I can’t exactly see in the dark like you.”

Janine pulled her phone out of her pocket and flipped on the flashlight app. She then proceeded to wander over to the wall and pressed a white button switch, which instantly turned on every single light on the ceiling.

“Won’t the lights make people suspicious?” I gasped.

“It’s the archives room,” Janine explained. “This part doesn’t have any windows, since the sunlight causes document damage. But this isn’t what we’re looking for… Follow me to the actual rare book room.”

“Shouldn’t we handle this situation first?” I asked as I nodded to the door. “I was here to stop that campus police officer this time, but anyone could just come wandering in at any point.”

“Listen to yourself, Carter,” Janine giggled. “Who would want to come into the archives room at two in the morning?”

“I don’t know,” I joked with a wink. “A couple of nutcases?”

“A total psychopath.” She smirked. “I guess we should probably make sure it stays closed, though. Just in case that guy decides to come back.”

I searched the room to see what I could even use as an anchor, and eventually, I saw there were a few large, room-height columns that seemed pretty sturdy.

“Those should work,” I said as I pointed to one of the columns. “Now we just need something to tie it off.”

“Already on it,” Janine declared as she bounded over to a nearby desk.

The redhead popped open the drawer and then fumbled around inside. Eventually, she produced a bit of nylon rope and a pair of scissors, which she brought over to my position.

“You sure that’s gonna hold?” I asked.

“Unless they’ve got super strength like you, those columns aren’t going anywhere,” the archaeology student reassured me.

I took the tools from Janine’s hand and then got to work. There was a small slit at the very edge of the door handle, so I tied off one end of the rope inside of it and then walked over to the column. I proceeded to wrap the rope around the column ten times to make for a very large, very secure anchor. Finally, once that was all done, I tied off the rope to the column and snipped it with the scissors. Then I walked over and gave the door a cautiously gentle nudge, and it refused to move.

“That should do it,” I said when the task was all done. “Why the hell do they have nylon rope in the archives, anyway?”

“They need secure bindings for a lot of these documents,” Janine answered. “You don’t get much sturdier than that.”

Fair enough.

Janine and I exited through the door of the archives room and were then greeted by a wide, sprawling area that looked more like your traditional library. Shelves of books lined the entirety of the back wall and then spilled out into several rows at its center. The ceiling of this room was very colonial in style, and it stood nearly twenty feet tall with a curved white roof and several patterned etchings in its material. Large vertical windows made up the majority of the far wall, and all around the room were pedestals with dark black statues rested upon them. At the very back of the room hung a large, beautiful painting of a river, and at the very center of the ceiling was a copper and crystal chandelier.

Off at the other side of the room sat a series of fairly standard library tables, which were just large brown squares surrounded by blue-cushioned, wooden chairs.

Even in the darkness, this place was beautiful.

“Do we need to get the lights again?” I asked.

“No.” Janine shook her head. “In here it would definitely be a dead giveaway. Unfortunately, we’ll just have to use our flashlights on our phones.”

“Where the hell do we even start?” I asked as I marveled at row after row of rare books.

“Smithfield’s Devilish Beings!” Janine explained as she headed toward the shelves. “I’ve read through it once before, and I know it has some information about werecats… Of course, at the time I wasn’t really interested in that stuff, and I haven’t picked it up again since. I’ll start there, and you can check out Children of Light.”

“What on earth is Children of Light?” I asked with a confused scoff.

“It’s a book from the early twentieth century,” the redhead noted as she trailed her finger along the spine of several books. “It’s one of the most comprehensive works that talks about the occult and all the different sects.”

Janine finally stopped in her tracks, and then she pulled out a book with a dark blue cover. When she brought it over to me, I noticed it had definitely seen better days. The book cover was gnawed off in places, and the text on the front was so worn it was almost illegible.

“That works for me,” I sighed as I carefully took the book out of her hands. “Are you sure there will be something in here about the OLG?”

“Page four hundred and thirty-nine,” Janine answered without looking away from the shelves. “That’s where the main text on the matter starts, but there’s bits and pieces of information about our cultist friends scattered all throughout the book.”

We took the books back to one of the tables, turned on our flashlight apps, and then began to thumb through them.

“Let’s see,” I trailed off as I opened up Children of Light to its table of contents and read down the list. “Golden Dawn… Templars… Tiandihui… All the big ones are in here, but I’m not seeing the Order of the Lunar God.”

“It’s under a code name,” Janine said. “It didn’t go by its English name until the mid-nineteen hundreds.”

I flipped open the book to page four hundred and thirty-nine and then began to read aloud what I saw.

“Huh,” I announced. “The Ordo Lunae Deus was founded back during the times of Ancient Egypt, and they have continued on worshipping the god Khonsu? It is believed that by cutting out the heart of those deemed ‘impure’ by their god and eating them, members of the cult have the powers of the moon bestowed upon them and are granted eternal life. Particularly, they despise those who are blessed by the goddesses Baast and Osiris. Those are definitely our guys.”

“That’s just the tip of the iceberg!” Janine explained with an absolutely adorable amount of giddiness or her voice. “Just wait until you read about some of their other batshit-crazy rituals. They make Charles Manson look like a saint!”

“Those men in the forest were talking about cutting out my heart,” I explained. “And they kept calling me the ‘Bastard of Baast.’ It just makes me wonder… How many others have they killed? All of those men looked pretty youthful to me.”

“Probably thousands across time,” the redhead agreed. “According to what I’m finding here in this text, werepanthers are fairly rare amongst the shapeshifter crowd. There are millions of accounts of werewolves and some werebears and even some werepigs. There’s also a lot of mythology about humans turning into demon cats and things of that nature, but actual sightings of werepanthers is next to none.”

“Which means…?” I tilted my head as I prompted her further.

“Which means most of the werepanthers have been killed off,” Janine continued with a grim expression. “Probably all throughout history. By the Ordo Lunae Deus. That’s what I’ve suspected for awhile now, but until I saw them take you out into the woods, I had no concrete proof. The research is too scattered.”

“Fucking hell,” I gulped. “So, why did I get so lucky? How was I able to survive, but so many others haven’t?”

“That’s what I want to figure out, Carter.” Janine nodded. “But that’s going to take a bit more research. I’ve done a lot of it already, but there are tons of books I haven’t looked through. I’m so excited to have a research buddy!”

So, that’s exactly what we did. Janine and I slammed our energy drinks and then searched through book after book in the library for any answers we could possibly find. A lot of the shit we discovered was duplicate information that only reinforced what she already knew about the OLG and my condition, and eventually, at about six in the morning, my energy completely disappeared.

I slammed the book I was reading shut, rubbed my eyes, and then leaned back in the chair as I dozed off. The next thing I knew, I was waking up with Janice’s head resting against my shoulder and her book open wide in front of her.

My eyes instantly widened, and my pulse quickened as my head shot back and forth in a flurry. I knew the door had been secured pretty tightly, but I wasn’t sure if the cultists knew where we’d gone.

Once my vision cleared a little, I saw Janine and I were the only two people in the library, and a wave of relief washed over me. Then a bit of pride swelled up from my stomach.

Janine Beckett had fallen asleep next to me, practically in my arms.

If only Freshman Carter could see me now.

A quick glance at the clock on the wall told me it was now seven-thirty, and I knew the library would be opening to the public here any second now.

“Hey,” I whispered as I nudged Janine. “I think they’re opening now.”

“W-Wha?” the beautiful redhead sputtered as she slowly blinked her soft brown eyes and looked around the room.

“Well, there you are!” an older woman’s voice echoed through the room.

Fucking hell. Could this be another cultist?

I clenched my fists as I tried with all of my being to keep from transforming. I could feel the beast inside of me threatening to pop out again, so I slammed my feet into the ground, grabbed onto the table, and gritted my teeth.

Then my nostrils picked up the faint hint of roses and mint.

It was perfume. More specifically, the type of flowery perfume that an older woman would wear.

“My favorite archeology student,” the woman’s voice continued, and I realized the words were warm and maternal. “Did you spend the night here again?”

My heartbeat instantly slowed, and I relaxed when I realized who it was.

It was just the librarian. No threat at all.

“Sorry, Agatha,” Janine sighed before she took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes. “I know I promised I’d stop doing that.”

I looked up to see a middle-aged woman with short blonde hair approaching us. She was a slight bit overweight, though the fabric of her loose-fitting, flowery dress covered that up. A pair of oversized spectacles were perched on her narrow button nose, and her mouth was twisted into a toothy grin.

“It’s alright, dear,” the woman said. “I can’t wait to hear what sort of interesting project you’re working on this time. Now, who is this strapping young gentleman?”

“This is Carter,” Janine explained. “He’s my research partner on this project.”

“And he was here all night, too?” Agatha raised a bushy eyebrow and clicked her tongue. “I don’t need to go back and watch that footage now, do I?”

“He’s just my research partner,” the redhead reaffirmed, but her cheeks pinked up a little bit. “Carter here is helping me do some studies on shapeshifters.”

“Didn’t you already research shapeshifters?” the librarian questioned.

“Those were Skinwalkers,” Janine clarified. “Completely different from the shapeshifters we’re studying now.”

“Right. Well, I’ll leave you to it, dears.” Agatha noted as she patted both of us on the shoulder. “If you need anything, you know where I’ll be.”

“Thank you,” Janine said with a warm smile.

“Awwwww,” I teased once the librarian was out of earshot. “She’s like a sweet old grandma.”

“She’s only fifty,” the redhead giggled. “But yes, that’s why I love coming here so much. I know Agatha’s got my back at all times.”

Now that we were awake, we got right back to researching. Janine and I spent another three hours going through various books she thought might have been useful, but none of them really told me what I wanted to know.

People trickled in and out of the library as the day went on, though none of them stayed for quite as long as we had. There were two guys in their thirties who’d been here for about an hour, and I overheard them talking about how they were trying to research the Crusades or something like that. Otherwise, it was just Janine and I as we sat there leafing through the texts.

“Good lord,” I sighed and rubbed my eyes. “How many more books do we have to go through?”

“This isn’t even half,” Janine admitted. “And that’s not even getting into the letters or microfilm.”

“Fucking hell…” I mumbled. “Who knew being a werepanther would be so difficult?”

“Nobody, apparently,” the redhead shot back without missing a beat. “Because there’s barely anything written about them!”

Janine huffed as she grabbed the next book off the shelf, but as the archaeology student sifted through the pages of A Comprehensive Guide to Ancient Horrors, her eyes began to shine with glee.

“Wait…” she breathed. “Oh my god!”

“What is it?” I asked as I leaned over and tried to peer over her shoulder. “Something helpful, I hope.”

“I think so,” Janine said with a laugh. “Holy shit, after hours and hours of research, I think we’ve finally got something useful. Check this out, Carter. This passage here talks about an incident all the way back in Ancient Rome in which a bunch of men in crimson robes were found slaughtered in the woods.”

“And you haven’t studied this before?” I teased. “I thought you’ve been through every book on the occult in this library?”

“Not this one,” the redhead noted. “At least, not that in-depth. I always saw this as more of an encyclopedia for superficial information, rather than something to study deeply.”

“I mean, that’s great,” I sighed. “But what does that tell us?”

“Apparently, a man named Livius Tullus was put on trial for the murder,” the redhead continued. “During the trial, it was said Livius was accused of performing superhuman feats such as lifting heavy rocks, breaking through chains, and even climbing trees faster than even the most decorated Olympian. He was found guilty, but when they went to execute him, it was said he transformed into a large black cat and escaped. Carter… I may have overlooked this before, but this is huge! This is one of the first actual confirmed cases of a werepanther I’ve found!”

“That’s awesome.” I smiled at the archaeology student, mostly because her excitement was contagious. “What exactly do we do with this information, though?”

“Are you kidding me?” she scoffed. “This was a full-grown man who could control his powers at will, which means it’s a possibility for you, too.”

That would be fucking awesome, but I still didn’t even know what triggered my transformation in the first place. Was it because I was about to die, or did something subconsciously activate it in my brain? Hell, or was it something like the cycles of the moon?

“Does it say any details about this Livius guy himself?” I asked. “Did he ever show up again? Did it say how he transformed?”

“Not in this book.” Janine shook her head. “But this opens a new path for us to go down. We know there was a surviving werepanther named Livius Tullus in Ancient Rome, circa three-fifty B.C.”

“This gives us a timeframe to start with.” I nodded. “I can get to work on that right now, and you can stick to general wereanimal stuff.”

I stood from my chair and walked over to return my book, but then a strange sensation suddenly ran down my spine. Every goosebump on my body suddenly stood on end, and I slowly turned my head around to observe the library.

There were only six other people in the room aside from Janine and me. The librarian sat behind her desk as she fiddled around on her phone, while two other female students sat at a far table and chatted over the book in front of them. Then there was a younger male student who furiously scribbled notes down onto a piece of paper with a scowl.

When I looked at the two older students, however, the sensation returned. Both of them had their heads buried in the books they were “studying,” but I noticed something alarming.

Neither of them were taking any notes or discussing their discoveries at all.

More concerning was the fact their heartbeats were now beating like crazy, so I watched them out of the corner of my eye as I moved over to the Roman History area and started to look for an appropriate book.

One of the men closed his book and stood up, and as he moved, my blood ran cold.

Then I heard the distinct sound of metal clink against his thigh, and I saw a half-second glint of light.

He was armed.

As the man sauntered over toward me, I heard his heartbeat grow even faster, and his breaths started to quicken.

There was no doubt in my mind this guy was with the Order of the Lunar God.

They’d sent somebody to finish off the job.