I had become so notorious for hunting monsters that every freak from Los Angeles to Romania thought they could take me out. They were wrong, of course, but it didn’t keep them from constantly picking me as a target. Screw them. Screw all of them. Let them come. It’s easier than tracking them down.

I drove to the corner of Moorpark and Ponca. It was located in a posh little pocket of homes near Warner Bros. Studios. Brueger wanted to come but I told her to stay and keep an eye on the skinny man. Instead I dropped a line to my partner and creepy-ass ghoul, Mo’Lock. If things got weird, I wanted him around for backup.

There were four houses to choose from at that corner. Two had families I could see washing cars, playing in the yard, and shit like that. The third was for sale and had an open house going. The fourth, a little Tudor-style number, had no activity, no car in the driveway, and made my hair stand on end when I looked at it.

Mo’Lock arrived as I was heading across the Tudor’s lawn. A cab dropped him off. The driver was also a ghoul. L.A. was worse than D.C. Ghouls were fucking everywhere.

“What have we got?” he asked as I checked the front door for anything odd.

“Dunno,” I said and kicked the door in. “Hey, look. It’s open.”

From the outside, the house looked pretty normal. The inside was the same except for some ugly-ass carpet. But there was a vibe hanging in the air like poison gas. There was something definitely wrong inside the skinny man’s house. But did it have anything to do with bodies, like he said, or was it just a ruse to lure me in? Those were a couple of the thoughts racing through my mind.

In my pocket, my cell rang, and I jumped. Worse, the ghoul saw me and smiled. I glared at him and pointed. “Tell anyone and I’ll bury you in ten feet of cement.”

I answered. It was Brueger, checking on me.

“I’m in the house now,” I said. “So far I don’t see anything.”

“I just wanted you to know,” she said, “the suspect just stopped talking.”

“What’s he doing?”

“Just sitting and staring.”

“Tell me if anything changes.” I shoved the cell back in my pocket.

The ghoul had moved ahead of me, now in the living room, and he was so close to the wall it looked like he was sniffing the wallpaper. He ran his big, dead hands over the surface, slowly feeling for something, any kind of abnormality.

“You got something, Mo’?”

“Possibly,” he groaned. “There is a strange smell coming from behind this wall.”