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“But if anyone stopped to read the note and then tried to help us, they’d double back and notice that we weren’t walking towards the gas station. ”

“Oh, seriously,” I said. “What are the odds that someone would go to all that trouble? Southern hospitality has its limits, you know. Let’s leave the thing with the hazards on, and walk it. ”

I pulled off to the side of the road, well into the grass—but not so far that we’d have trouble pulling out again. I turned on the hazard lights, and we climbed out.

“We should split up,” Dana suggested.

Benny looked at her like she’d just suggested we go skinny dipping. “Are you serious? Have you ever seen a horror movie in your life?”

“Benny—” I tried to head him off.

“I mean, we’re about to go hunting down one of the most famous and fearsome paranormal entities south of the Mason-Dixon, and you think we should split up? That’s crazy talk!”

“No, sweetheart,” she corrected him. “That’s fantasy, and this is three people who have a lot of territory to cover before it gets dark. We’re on the lookout for an entity that has never displayed any violence towards anyone so far as we know, and the clock is ticking. ”

“Don’t care. I’m staying with…with one of you, at least. ”

“Then you’re staying with Eden. ”

“That’s fine, because I’m staying with her. ” I indicated Dana with my head.

She threw her hands up and rolled her eyes. “Oh, for God’s sake. What’s wrong with you two? We’ve only got an hour, or two hours tops before it gets dark. What good exactly do you think it would do to stay with me, anyway?”

“You’re the professional here,” Benny said, reaching into my trunk and lifting out a satchel filled with equipment. “And you’re going to need a caddie for all this shit, aren’t you?”

“We aren’t bringing all of it. Just some of it. Here—hand me that one there. The black one with the Velcro and the zippers. ”

“This one?”

“The one that looks like the Bat-belt on a strap?”

She stepped past me and lifted the latch. “Very funny. Very fucking funny. Open the doors again. I’ll need that one. ”

“What is it?” I wondered.

“A high-resolution digital video recorder. It’s got a night-shot mode for low light, which we might want here before long. And the other bag, the one beside it there, yeah—that one. ”

“What’s this one?” Benny asked as he handed it to her.

“Um…let’s call it a multimeter, and I won’t bother to explain all the bells and whistles. It was custom-ordered from a Japanese company. ”

Benny again looked astounded. “Not the one that makes cheesy ‘ghost detectors,’ is it? Oh, please tell me those don’t really work. ”

“No, they don’t work. They’re useless. This isn’t one of those. This is a custom engineering device. The base unit is designed to detect electrical leaks and assorted magnetic fields in commercial and residential properties. It is very, very sensitive. So sensitive that I have to calibrate it to account for my body’s own fields before I can use it. Sometimes it’s easier to set it down and walk away than carry it around. It’s also expensive. Be careful with it, would you?”

“Yes ma’am. ”

“Good boy. Give it here. ”

He handed it over and reached for the last large bag in the trunk. “Do we need anything else?”

She thought about it, and weighed what she was already holding. “No, probably not. Leave it for now—unless there’s anything in there that either one of you wants to take. ”

The sentence hadn’t left her mouth before Benny had opened up the bag and started rummaging. In the end, he found a great number of toys that he didn’t know what to do with, but opted to go with his standby of a flashlight and a tape recorder.

I’d already nabbed my mini metal flashlight from my glove box, and I couldn’t see needing anything else. I wasn’t looking to record Old Green Eyes, just track him down and chase him back to the battlefield. And I didn’t think weapons would do me any good, aside from a small knife that I kept in my boot in case of an accidental and incapacitating tangle in tree roots, rope, or anything comparable. In case of monsters, I might be in trouble, but I tried not to look at it that way. Old Green Eyes hadn’t made any threatening moves towards me during our first meeting, and unless he had some aggressive reaction to being talked to, I ought to be quite safe.

Dana obviously operated that way too: I didn’t see anything remotely violence-capable in her luggage, except possibly a set of small screwdrivers, if the wielder really used her imagination. Satisfied that my companions also meant only to find and not to catch him, I pushed my little flashlight into my back jeans pocket and asked if they were ready to begin.