The whole night felt wrong.  The air was colder than normal.  Her breath was coming out in puffs. The trees rattled their branches together over her head.

Abby had changed into a dark wool coat and boots with a more practical heel. There was no use in turning your ankle because of fashion.  Looking good was nice, but practicality won out when tracking down monsters.

She had wandered downtown Fredericton for hours trying to catch sight of one of these ghosts.  Ku'uaki had told her that they weren't true spirits of the dead.  Her guess was some type of poltergeist or other mischievous entity having fun with the humans.  Abby wished that she had a portable encyclopedia so she could be aware of all the possibilities. Something she could take with her and look up what she was facing.  And it would be voice activated.

Her daydreams were intrurupted by a scream than sent Abby into a full run.  Nobody saw her as she raced past them at speeds greater than a cheetah's.  Their brains would not let them see her.  Human brains had the great capacity to recreate reality into something they could believe.  To them she was some passing shadow, or the reflection off a car.  Anything other than a person running by at 100 km⁄h.

She got to the intersection of Queen and Carleton.  There was a cluster of girls in mini-skirts and camisoles and goose bumps huddled together outside of Rye's.  They were jumping up and down waving their arms.  Abby approached and ask them what the excitement was.

"Oh my gawd! It's like that Hot Toddy is like playing here!" One of the girls told her as she pointed to a photocopied poster stuck to the lamp post.

"They liked played at our school -- it was totally the bomb!" Another girl chimed in.

"Hot Toddy is playin' on Friday"

"Us guys are goin' to thuh show"

"They are old but still bitchin' lookin'"

"Did you heare what happened to Melissa.  That fox got to go to one of their workshops"

"Cool"

It was hard to imagine that Abby had been one of those girls once.  At least she had some fashion sense.  Girls todays didn't realize that it was far better to hint at something than to display it openly. Also, it was warmer and demonstrated common sense.