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“The death rate is higher than it should be for a town of its size.” She crunched through what I guessed was a mouthful of Cheetos. If it wasn’t processed and full of food dyes crunchy moms lost their shit over, Donny wouldn’t eat it.

I relaxed somewhat. Okay, so she hadn’t found out anything about me.

“What, you mean more people get murdered here?” I scoffed in disbelief. This place was positively Mayberry. It was gross. We hadn’t had a single murder when I was growing up. Only accidents.

“Not murder rate, death rate,” she clarified. “As in people dying in car crashes, household accidents, natural causes.”

“Maybe people are just clumsier, stupider, and unhealthier here.” I continued chewing. Though the lack of chain restaurants due to some town covenants to protect the “charm” made it really hard to get an artery-clogging hamburger that would survive a nuclear apocalypse. The one I was eating now was made with grass-fed beef and a brioche bun—fuck if I hated how much better it was.

“Maybe,” she hummed.

“Or maybe…?” I picked up my soda which was spiked with Jack.

“Maybe there is some supernatural element here that the powers that be are covering up for,” she answered after a long pause.

I choked on the soda. “What?”

“I know, it’s unlikely that civilians would be covering up for supernatural creatures and even more unlikely that supernatural creatures have instilled themselves in a town like that.” She coughed so loud I had to pull the phone away from my ear. “Not that they don’t do that. But it’s more strategic, in more powerful positions.”

I rolled my eyes. “Please, let’s not have the argument that the President of the United States is a revenant again.”

Donny was something of a conspiracy theorist. But she had the added benefit of knowing about all the shit that the population at large didn’t know about. And to be fair, a lot of the crazy shit she believed in turned out to be true.

But even my belief system had limits.

“I’m not gonna bother trying to convince you,” she reassured me. “I’m just pointing out that this is on our side of weird and goes back over a decade. I’ll do some more digging⁠—”

“No,” I cut her off, trying not to sound panicked. Any more digging and she’d find my skeletons. “I’ll keep an eye out, talk to the local uniforms, see if I smell anything fishy.” It was a small miracle that she hadn’t found out about me already.

“You just keep your eye out for other shit,” I continued. “I’m sure you’ve got ten hunters crawling up your ass.”

Donny was well-known in our little industry. Her hacking skills were top-notch, as was her knowledge of supernatural creatures. She was born into a hunting family and had been throwing knives, killing demons and vampires since she was a kid. She was also the only surviving member of her family. That happened before she had to kill her turned husband and daughter.

It had been pretty gnarly, the night when demons took out everyone but her. She didn’t talk about it, but the whole community knew about it. Her family had been respected. We didn’t exactly have a hierarchy, but they were kind of the unwritten leaders.

Now it was just Donny.

First, people had expected her to carry on the family name—whatever the fuck that meant. But unlike her mother, she was not set to lead or to be any kind of diplomat in the hunting community.

Hence her retreating to her place in the mountains, communing with very few. I was lucky to have her as a friend. Especially since I really didn’t want her as an enemy.

“Well, speaking of that,” she said. “Dante has been blowing up my shit, asking questions about you.”

I screwed up my nose. “Dante? What does that fuck want with me?”

Dante was another hunter I’d happened upon when I was still young, blonde, and stupid. He’d tried to get me into bed. He’d almost succeeded. I’d been lonely. Luckily, I came to my senses. He was a giant asshole and a cocky prick who had been a thorn in my side ever since. He conveniently showed up in the same town as me, catching kills before me, and even worse, saved my ass a couple of times.

“How should I know?” Donny chuckled. “I told him to go get a blow job from a vampire.”

I let out a laugh. “We can only wish.”

“Okay, well, I’ll send you anything new. Try not to get eaten by a werewolf. Or worse, bitten. I’d hate to have to hunt you down and kill you.”

My skin prickled.

It was not an empty threat. Werewolf bites, if they weren’t fatal, were a straight shot to getting all hairy and beastly. There was no cure.

“I’ll do my best,” I told her, taking a long gulp of my drink.