Free The Grendel Affair: A SPI Files Novel by Lisa Shearin

moon. Werewolves at SPI automatically got three days a month off: the day before, the day of, and the day after a full moon. Though some missions went better and got resolved faster when you had an irate werewolf on your team. Most supernatural baddies surrendered on the spot to keep from having a full-moon–crazed werewolf, who could do zero to sixty in six strides, turned loose on them.
    But on those occasions when the moon was full, a werewolf agent was needed, and chances were high that the public might accidentally get a glimpse, SPI’s Research and Development department had come up with a disguise for “that time of the month.” Mood swings, cravings, anger, and irritability—trust me, you ain’t seen cranky until you’ve seen a werewolf trying to force down their natural inclinations during a full moon.
    I didn’t understand how it worked, but it involved a little science, a lot of magic, and worked on the same principle as a goblin being able to walk down Broadway while looking just as human as anyone else.
    The disguise R&D settled on? A German shepherd. Readily accepted the world over as police and military dogs. Pair a K-9 with a SPI commando in a flak vest or body armor, and your average New Yorker wouldn’t bat an eye.
    Yasha glanced up, saw me, smiled, and waved me over. The big Russian was wearing his usual uniform of fatigues, combat boots, and a T-shirt. Today’s T-shirt phrase of the day was: “In case of emergency, lift shirt, pull .44.”
    I liked Yasha.
    All eyes were focused on a bank of six screens. Two of the images appeared to be from street cameras like the ones the city used to keep an eye on traffic at major intersections.
    Kenji Hayashi was SPI’s resident tech geek. He was also an elf. I didn’t know if he was half elf/half Japanese human or all Japanese elf. Heck, I didn’t even know Japan had elves, and I didn’t know Kenji well enough yet to ask. Some supernaturals could be even more sensitive and PC about those things than humans. Multi-cultural was one thing. But multi-species? Not sticking my foot in my mouth would be next to impossible, so I had kept it shut on that topic.
    What I knew for sure was that if information was buried deeper than a politician’s past or encrypted six ways from Sunday, Kenji was the go-to guy to dig it out and make it sing.
    During his in-office hours, he was surrounded by computer screens directing teams of monster-hunting agents. He did exactly the same thing in his off-duty time, only then it was called gaming. Not being a gaming, anime, or comic aficionado, I didn’t recognize most of the figures and toys on every exposed surface in Kenji’s workspace, but there were two that I did—a foot-tall Godzilla complete with glowing red eyes, gripping a headless Jar Jar Binks action figure. The head was in Godzilla’s mouth. It was my favorite.
    There was one toy that both Kenji and I had at our desks, as did everyone else on SPI’s company paintball team—a semiautomatic paintball rifle. It was a company-approved and encouraged activity because paintballs could be easily switched out for balls filled with holy water, which I’d heard had come in handy on more than one mission.
    “Hacking into the city’s cameras again, Kenji?” I asked.
    His lips quirked in a quick grin, his eyes never moving from the computer screen where he was scrolling through a black-and-white video recording. “Only when they’re showing TV worth watching.”
    I moved in closer. “What’s on tonight?”
    “What we heard, but didn’t see,” Ian said.
    “Huh?”
    “We have a camera mounted on the roof of the building across the alley from Ollie’s office,” Kenji said.
    I blinked. “You watch Ollie’s office?”
    “Occasionally watching but always recording,” Kenji said. “Ollie knows several interesting people, and we like to know when they visit.”
    “The dead guy was one of them?”
    “Never seen him before. But don’t blink; you’re about to