Josiah Charles (JC) Chance looked fondly on his bickering team-mates, then turned his attention back to the shadows and the dark. JC was tall, lean. Full of energy, and far too handsome for his own good. Well into his late twenties, he had pale, striking features, a great mane of dark, wavy hair, intense eyes, a proud nose, and a mouth whose constant smile would have been more reassuring if it had touched his piercing gaze a little more often. He wore a rich cream suit of quite striking style and elegance, and wore it well. A born adventurer, risk-taker, and experienced ghost finder, JC Chance was the rising star of the Carnacki Institute; and he knew it. He knew more about ghosts, hauntings, and paranormal phenomena than any man should who hoped to sleep soundly at night. Fortunately, he also knew a lot of things to do about them. Really quite unpleasant things, sometimes, but that came with the job.

Melody Chambers was the main brain and science geek of the team, and therefore strictly responsible for all the marvellous new technology supplied by the Carnacki Institute. In fact, Melody had been known to slap people’s hands away if they even tried to touch her tech. She was very protective of her toys, even if she did tend to break them on a regular basis, usually by trying to get far more out of them than the design specs allowed. Pushing the very edge of her late twenties, Melody was pretty enough in a conventional way, short and gamine thin, and burned constantly with more nervous energy than was good for her. She had a disturbing tendency to rush headlong into any situation that looked like it might promise her something, anything, that she hadn’t encountered before, armed with a complete willingness to kick the hell out of anything that proved even a bit stubborn. Melody Chambers wasn’t nearly scared enough of the dark, considering what she did on nights like this.

She wore her auburn hair scraped back into a severe bun, serious glasses with black plastic frames, and clothes so anonymous they actually sidestepped fashion or style. In her spare time, she enjoyed a sex life that would have scared Casanova out of his jockstrap. It’s always the quiet ones . . .