Shadow Born: A Joseph Hunter Novel: Book 1 (Joseph Hunter Series)

forwarded all the messages to your phone.”
“Really?” I asked, staring back and forth from Xander to the kid. “Your entire thing here is stolen straight from a Walter Mosley novel, and you go with a male secretary?” I shook my head. “Way to stay consistent.”
“Times are changing,” Xander said, patting my shoulder. “We have to keep up with the times to stay invisible.”
Chris made a sour face, as if confused by our conversation.
“Forget it, kid,” I said, digging my fingers into the candy jar and then tossing him one. “Just enjoy the treats, yeah?”
Xander shook his head, leading me behind the front desk and through a back door. The bland, faded colors of the waiting room extended into a hallway. Bright brown doors with blinds lined either side of the walls.
“This is your monster-hunting base?” I asked. “It’s a far cry from Stark Tower.”
Xander glared over his shoulder, as if attempting to burn me to ash on the spot. “I’m a private investigator, Joey. As are my colleagues.”
I scoffed, but didn’t argue.
Xander worked as a supernatural detective under the guise of a private investigator, to the best of my understanding. When local law enforcement came across a mysterious, unexplainable case, they bounced it to Mather’s Investigative Services. I had a loose understanding of the business from my previous life. They advertised as a supernatural agency—though most of the common world didn’t believe in supernatural happenings. A majority of the citizens saw M.I.S. as a scam, but some thought them credible. Either way, the company always had business. Did the Sacramento Police Department laugh about that possessed doll sitting on your shelf? Well, call M.I.S. Did a Chupacabra eat your cattle, and Sacramento Sheriff’s Department refused to hear your claim? You known what to do. Call M.I.S. Was your husband cheating on you with a slew of hookers? M.I.S. handled your non-paranormal needs, too.
We traversed halfway down the hall, then Xander faced a door and removed a key. A placard in the shaded window read ALEXANDER SHELLS. After unlocking the door, we entered his office. It resembled a run-down classroom. A metallic desk sat straight across from the open door. On it rested a bin filled with papers and folders, a lamp, and a framed photograph turned away from me. Xander didn’t have a family—that I knew of—so I wondered what image resided between the frame. Beside the desk stood a metallic bookshelf containing more empty paper coffee cups than it did actual books. Across from the bookshelf was a shaded window. Under the window lay a shoddy couch. A metallic filing cabinet was pushed to the wall behind the desk.
“This your office?” I asked, wandering around the room. “It’s nice. Quaint.”
“Don’t start with me,” Xander said from the doorway. “Not with your house the way it is.”
“Oh, really? Mr. High-and-fucking-Mighty over here. What, just because I live in a trailer means you’re some big shot, now?” I mostly spoke to irk him, knowing I could make him feel terrible about himself and apologize to me.
“Not what I meant,” he said. “Live in a trailer for all I care, but you could clean it up a bit.”
“What about all those coffee cups? You ever hear of a garbage can?”
Xander marched to the sparse bookshelf and gripped a globe sitting on the middle shelf. It didn’t budge from its spot. I approached for a closer inspection and noticed the base was anchored to the metal with screws.
He spun the Earth three times to the right, pressing his finger somewhere in Africa, then twice around to the left, pointing at South America, then once more to the right, holding the position somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean. Like something from a movie, the bookshelf actually creaked open to a stairwell that descended into dim light.
I chuckled, my go-to response when I don’t know how to respond. “You’re serious, aren’t you? This isn’t a reenactment of a bad horror movie? A bookshelf just opened after you spun a globe?”
Xander narrowed his eyes at me. He had always had a harder time finding humor than the average person. “You asked what I had done with the vampire. Well, we can’t keep these things detained with other criminals. Can you imagine a werewolf in Folsom Prison?”
“What are you saying?” I asked, staring at him with wide eyes. “That you imprison them down here? What happened to the tried and true method of killing them?”
When Xander and I both stood on the steps behind the secret door, he reached behind him and pulled the bookshelf shut. “Monsters are only cursed humans,” he said.
“For a reason. They seek out a curse. They sell their soul.”
“Not all of them,” he rebutted. “Besides, did you not sell your soul when you made that pact? Have you never made one mistake that’s haunted you forever?”
I didn’t respond to that.
“We all mess up,” Xander said, leading me down the stairs. “But some of the monsters, they didn’t even do that. They were victims of the curse, turned into monsters to satiate another’s lust.”
“What?” I asked. “Do you say weird shit like that all the time now? Why can’t you be normal and say, ‘they were victims of a vampire or a werewolf bite?’ God damn, you always make things sound so… complicated.”
“Either way,” Xander said, not biting on the bait I tossed him—I had even used the Lord’s name in vain, and he hadn’t bothered to acknowledge it with a sideways glance. This guy’s will was ironclad. “You expect me to kill them?”
“You become soft since joining this company,” I said.
“No,” Xander countered, stopping on the bottom step and wheeling to face me. “You went soft. My time with M.I.S. has made me reflect and change. These monsters can’t control their demons any more than a meth addict can control their craving to get high.”
“So, this is monster rehab?” I asked, needing to lighten the mood. Before our special missions with the military, Xander had had some humor to him. In the years