Casey and Grant had returned to the lodge a few days ago. All of the hunters in their group worked out of the building. It was an older estate passed down to Edward, one of the other hunters in the group, and he had decided to make it their headquarters. While the house was quite large, there wasn't much room to spare with fourteen people living there.
Casey, her dad, her brother, and the eleven other monster hunters made the common areas all high traffic, and some of the men ended up having to share the living room as a barracks. All of the other hunters, including her father, were in their thirties aside from her brother. Casey, as the only woman, got her own room. Along with that was privacy, with it being on the third floor and away from the others. Now that she was back under the watchful eye of her father, she had to be on her best behavior, or at the very least make him think that she was.
The first thing Casey had done after getting home was change out of the thrift store hoody and jeans that Grant had bought her, so she hadn't come home completely naked. Once she was back in her own clothes, a white button-down shirt with a few too many buttons undone, and a pair of shorts, she felt much better. Now she just needed to be sent out on another hunt.
Her father was responsible for handing out assignments, and he usually stayed at the lodge with the others coming and going as the work demanded. That was just usually though. Casey had been surprised when he had come to her and offered to go on a hunt. She wanted to go on hunts on her own now, but she wouldn't turn down the opportunity. Casey suspected it was just a compromise on her dad's part. She got to go on a hunt, but he got to keep an eye on her.
As they had driven away from the house and were on their way, it became clear that Grant hadn't told him anything. Grant had promised not to breathe a word of what happened between the two of them for his own sake. He didn't mention what had happened with her and the werewolf for her sake. The werewolf had gotten away, but failed hunts weren't all that uncommon. The hunters' safety was always the most important, even if that meant the creature slipping away.
Casey and her dad got along well enough if they weren't arguing about hunts. This case was about what she had expected. Her dad had almost leaped at the chance to give it to her so it couldn't be dangerous. There was a bit of trouble in a college town, Hilbury, but not the usual kind that got their attention. It was mostly unusual events and unexplained pranks.
According to multiple reports, the college dorms had suddenly been on fire, but once the firefighters arrived nothing was burned, and no one was hurt. A half dozen brown bears were wandering through the streets a week later, terrifying everyone, but once they were cornered, they had disappeared into a garage and vanished. It was all bizarre stuff that couldn't be explained.
"I expect it's a trickster or a hoodwinker," her dad explained as they drove into Hilbury.
"Those are both pretty harmless I thought," Casey answered, getting out of the truck as they parked.
"Harmless or not, we can't have them causing this sort of trouble for folks. Someone could have gotten hurt running away from a fire that wasn't there," her dad said. "This foolishness needs to be stopped."
"We aren't going to kill it are we?" Casey asked. "It's not like it's directly hurting people,"
"Not if we don't need to," he replied. "If it leaves town and isn't going to cause any more trouble then there won't be a need for violence." Even with his words, he was still keeping his pistol in his coat.
The two of them went through the Hilbury, trying to get a hint where the monster could be hiding. They talked to a bunch of the people but didn't get much in the way of clues. The dorm and the main street were pretty far from each other, so there wasn't a common spot between them where the creature could be hiding. Her dad had been handling the conversations pretty well until they had talked to some college guys that were more interested in checking her out than answering questions.
Casey didn't blame them, but her dad's glares didn't help the matter. They ended up walking away with no new information aside from the guy's number that had been slipped to her while her dad's back was turned. While everyone in town knew about the strange events, no one had any new information. The sun was going down when the two of them headed to the motel with the day being a bust.
