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SPRING CLEANING

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A Heavy Metal Magic Story

Margo Bond Collins and Blaire Edens

1. Blaize

“So what the hell are we doing here?” My traveling companion, Wolf, and I rolled to a stop in front of the Amtrak station in El Paso, Texas. I hadn’t ever been here before, despite all my travels across the southwestern US. Primarily because I’d never been Called here.

And that, I assumed, was because nothing supernatural had ever threatened El Paso’s Amtrak passengers before.

I put the van in park and leaned back in the driver’s seat to check out the terrain.

Wolf leaned forward and pressed his nose up against the windshield.

From the outside, the building was pretty enough—red brick with a copper roof, a bell tower rising to one side, all of it bright and cheerful in the beautifully clear sunlight of a desert winter.

It didn’t look terribly dangerous. But if I had been Called here, then there was something monstrous lurking inside.

“You know,” I sighed, “I had hoped we would get a few more days off.”

Wolf gave me a lupine shrug.

“I guess I’d better gear up, then.” I climbed into the back of my retrofitted van. At first glance, the cargo area looked perfectly innocuous—a thin mattress the top of built-in cabinet with drawers filled with clothes, some cooking gear, a few other odds and ends. But if you knew how to look, where to flip the switches and press the panels, various parts of my mobile home revealed a surprising number of weapons. Well. Surprising for anyone who’s not me, anyway.

Some of them were hidden in plain sight, like the copper stiletto blade mixed in with my flatware, or the tiny golden blow darts mixed in with several pieces of jewelry.

Since I didn’t have any sense yet of what was awaiting us inside the train station, I gathered up a small mix of an arsenal. I took the stiletto and the blow darts, along with a steel hunting knife. I even packed a simple wooden stake, though I didn’t often see vampires in the Southwest. And finally, I strapped on the shoulder holster and tucked my loaded pistol into it. We were in Texas, so I had a concealed carry permit. Daddy had suggested I get one for every state I worked in that allowed it. Just in case.

When I had finished arming myself, I carried something for just about any kind of supernatural monster I might come up against.

Except werewolves.

Those required silver to kill from a distance, and that was the only metal I couldn’t even touch. If I touched it, it would burn me. If it got under my skin, inside my body in any way, it could kill me.

That was part of my curse as Blaize Silver, Monster Hunter.

I couldn’t touch the very thing I was named for.

The curse was even more convoluted than that, though. I was the heir to a curse created back in the 1800s by a demon with a twisted sense of humor. He’d laid some serious whammy on my ancestor, Ruby Silver, who had followed him down into a mine in the Rockies somewhere, along with several other demon hunters. They’d gotten out alive, but only barely, and although they’d managed to contain the demon, at least for a while, he’d cursed them on their way out. And now their descendants were doomed to deal with the fallout.

We couldn’t leave the geographical Old West. I think I had pushed harder than any of the other descendants, and every time I tried, I ended up sick as hell for days after I crawled my way back into my approved geographic area.

We were also Called to hunt all the monsters that haunted the Southwest. And whatever that had meant in the 1800s, now it included every kind of creature that America had inherited from all the cultures that inhabited these lands. We were never going to get rid of all of them.

I’d grown up training for this life. Even after my mother died, Daddy continued making sure I knew how to battle the demonic, the paranormal, the supernatural, and the just plain weird.

The descendants of the other people who’d been in that mine also had their own version of the curse that differed only in the kinds of metal we couldn’t use. There were always three of us when I was growing up. Me, my cousin Cassidy, and my cousin Gracie. Of course, “cousin” was a misnomer—we weren’t exactly blood-related. Probably. There might have been some crossover among our family trees early on. Nothing brings people together like a curse.

But it didn’t matter. The shared heritage had made us family.

And then I’d gotten Gracie killed. She came to help me with werewolves in Arizona and ended up getting killed by a demon we hadn’t expected to encounter.

I still couldn’t think about her without crying.

That’s when I met up with Wolf, too. Technically, he’s a werewolf. I have only seen him in his human shape once, though, when he dragged my dying ass out of a silver mine in Colorado where I’d gone to take out a vampire. I didn’t know his reasons for not shifting more often. But I did know that having him with me had saved my life. So I’d taken him home for Christmas to meet the family—in this case, Daddy.

I hadn’t had anywhere else to go.

I had no idea where that son-of-a-bitch demon had gone after it killed Gracie. There were no news reports about any monsters on the prowl anywhere in the Southwest. No chupacabra sightings. No werewolf attacks. No cow mutilations, even. No nothing.

I was on my own for the first time in years.

Well, if you count spending all my time with a werewolf who won’t shift into his human form being alone. Anyway, I didn’t have any human companions.

We’d stayed with Daddy for while after Christmas, then struck out again. Really, he’d taken Wolf’s appearance better than I had anticipated.

Apparently, it’s not entirely unheard of for some of the monsters to come over to our side once in a while. That’s what Daddy said, anyway. Wolf didn’t say anything, of course, since he won’t make himself the human mouth to say it with. Or maybe he can’t shift on demand. I’m not sure.

Anyway, as gracious as Daddy was trying to be, I could tell Wolf made him nervous, so we didn’t stay very long. Just long enough to trade Christmas gifts—a bottle of Jack Daniels from Daddy to me, a new blanket I’d picked up on the Navajo reservation last time I’d been out that direction from me to Daddy—and to go out to eat at his favorite diner, where we had our traditional Christmas Day dinner of chile rellenos, Mexican rice, and beans.

I’d given Wolf a gift, too, and wrapped it up in paper with pictures of dog bones tied up in red-ribbon bows. I thought it was hysterical. When Wolf saw it, he rolled his eyes, and when he ripped open the packaging with his teeth and paws, he huffed in irritation.

“It’ll be useful when we have to go into towns.” I clasped the turquoise-sequined collar around his neck. “And it’s pretty. It makes you look...approachable.”

Daddy hooted at that, and Wolf lifted his lip in something halfway between a smile and a snarl.

All things considered, it was probably the best Christmas that Daddy and I’d had in years. Part of that might have been because he confined his drinking to after dark—and he didn’t even get into the bottle he’d given me.

I didn’t know how much of that was Wolf’s presence, but I could almost hear him say, Staying sober when there’s a werewolf in the house is always a good idea. It was the kind of thing he would have told Gracie and Cass and me back when he was training us to be hunters.

The day after I’d given Wolf his new collar, we awoke to two freshly killed rabbits on the steps outside Daddy’s trailer. Wolf’s Christmas gift to us, I guess. Luckily, I’m not squeamish when it comes to cleaning the kills after a hunt. Even luckier, Daddy makes one hell of a rabbit fricassee. We all really enjoyed dinner that night.

But the next day it was time to move on. A few weeks later, I’d gotten Called to the El Paso Amtrak station.

And now Wolf and I were heading inside to see what the hell we were up against.

I just hoped I wouldn’t need silver to fight whatever it was.

2. MaddieAnne

When I stepped off the train, the heat was like a wall. I’d expected early spring to be at least tolerable, but I was wrong, just as I’d been wrong about nearly everything else on this stupid trip.

Carrying my valise in one hand, I made my way across the platform and into the station. It was a large brick building with a tower that looked more like the Methodist Church in my hometown than a depot.But in the hours I’d been traveling across Texas aboard the Sunset Express, I’d learned one thing: Texas is nothing like Greenwild, North Carolina.

Not even close.

Inside the depot, it was dark and cool. The highly polished floors were tiled in a star pattern and pine benches crowded the center of the large room. I walked directly to the window.

“What time will our train be leaving?”

The man behind the window, a small balding man who looked like he’d rather be anywhere other than here, shrugged. “They’re working on it now. Likely will be at least a couple of hours before she’s ready to roll out of the station again.”

I sighed. “But I’m due in Los Angeles.”

“You’re welcome to use the phone over there to see if there’s a flight.” He pointed to a red phone mounted on the far wall.

“I have a phone,” I said, holding it up. “Thanks.”

I sat on the far end of one of the benches and placed my valise beside me. I had no idea how I was going to pass the time until the train was repaired. I’d already read everything on my tablet, knitted three hats and run out of yarn on the fourth one, and journaled until I was sick of all three of those mindless activities.

When I’d boarded the Sunset Limited in New Orleans, part of my plan to spring-clean my life, I’d thought that traveling across the United States via passenger train sounded romantic and exciting and just the prescription for my overworked, overstressed life.

Lord have mercy. No one told me that trains were more boring than going to a tractor pull.

Instead of metamorphosing into a more vibrant, dynamic version of myself, my hair was flat, my clothes were wrinkled, and I’d pretty much decided to hate all of humanity, starting with my fellow passengers. They were loud and stinky, and about as common as pig tracks.

Maybe I should just fly home. Swallow my pride, buy a plane ticket to Charlotte, and forget the whole stupid transformation idea. In all honesty, I was worse as a person than I was before I left. And it had only been a few days.

What kind of heathen will I be once I get to Los Angeles?

A man wearing a starched white shirt, jeans so tight they looked like body paint, and a belt buckle the size of a Wedgwood plate sat on the bench next to me.

There was another thing I wish I’d known before I’d waved goodbye to my life and boarded this God-forsaken locomotive: a single woman, traveling alone, will meet every uninteresting man from point A to point B, and every one of those men will think he’s clearly the answer to a single woman’s prayers.

After nearly two days on the train, I was well prepared for this guy’s pitch.

“You on the Sunset Express?”

It was the railroading equivalent of “What’s your sign?” So very, very original.

I ignored him. Instead of meeting his eyes, I opened up my valise and pulled out a tattered fashion magazine. After adjusting my sterling silver monogrammed cuff bracelet, I opened the magazine and flipped through it, feigning interest. I’d read the damn thing cover to cover before the train had left Louisiana, but he didn’t know that.

“I’m talking to you,” he said, his voice louder. In the mostly empty train station, his voice echoed off the hard surfaces and sounded menacing.

I placed the open magazine on my lap, took my time smoothing out the pages, and then looked him squarely in the eye. “And I’m ignoring you,” I said, my southern accent dripping with sugar. “I’d be most appreciative if you did the same.”

With a huff, my would-be beau flung himself back against the bench.

Men like that have such delicate egos, always swanning about when their feelings get hurt.

With a secret, satisfied smile, I went back to flipping through my magazine. He should have taken one look at me and realized I’d never be interested in a man who didn’t know to take his hat off when he was inside.

I’d be out of here in a few hours, but that wouldn’t be soon enough.

3. Blaize

The El Paso train station was enormous inside, with white tiles floors and a second-story accessible by some kind of indoor balcony. “At least there will be plenty of room to fight,” I muttered to Wolf.

I blinked for a moment to let my eyes adjust to the comparative dimness inside. There weren’t very many people inside, and most of those were sitting in the benches clustered together. But as I glanced around, I didn’t see anything that looked unusual. A woman with a child walked around the perimeter of the room, the kid running ahead of her. A woman sat on a bench flipping through a magazine, doing her best to ignore the cowboy trying to hit on her. A few families sat on the benches, too, and one old woman knitting a long, light blue blanket. A dark-haired woman in a floral dress and a sweater wandered toward the bathroom. Several people were heading out the door to the trains. The ticket agent sat in his booth.

We took a few steps inside. I’d looped Wolf’s leash through his new collar but hadn’t hooked it. He’d be free to run as soon as we figured out what fight we were running toward.

Then I saw it. The young woman who had been walking away from me toward the bathrooms, her dark hair flowing down the back of the sweater she wore over a floral print dress, stopped and tilted her head up to check the air.

It was a scenting motion, the kind that predators used. It wasn’t a movement most humans made.

The motion was a subtle thing, but whatever she was, she was sniffing out her prey.

Wolf stiffened, his hackles rising and a deep growl starting in his throat as he pointed his nose toward the same woman I had noticed.

Good. He recognized it, too. Whatever she was, she didn’t belong here.

I glanced around at all the civilians in the room. I would have to find a way to get her, whatever she was, outside before I could kill her. Trying to take down monsters with regular people standing by was never easy.

From the way she was sniffing the air, I expected her to turn to attack me—or more likely, Wolf, since supernatural predators seemed to recognize each other’s scents.

But it was worse than that. She made her way directly toward the benches in the center of the room.

Crap. She’s going to take out a civilian.

“Let’s go.” I flicked my hand to pull Wolf’s leash out of his collar even as I said the words, and the two of us took off running toward the monster woman.

This was odd. Most of the time, monsters came for me right off the bat—and if they didn’t attack me, they went after Wolf. But she was headed directly toward the cowboy trying to pick up the woman to on the bench.

No. Wait. As the monster got closer, she dove for not the cowboy, but the woman who was flipping through the magazine.

The woman might have shot the cowboy down, but he was still, well, a cowboy—he was determined to be chivalrous, whether Magazine Chick wanted it or not.

In this case, it meant grabbing the attacker and holding her at arm’s length.

Unfortunately, he didn’t know what I realized as soon as I caught a look at her face.

This was a ghoul. She was undead and hungry. And the only thing that would kill her for good was bronze. Which of course I had not brought with me. In fact, I so rarely ran into ghouls that I wasn’t even sure I had any bronze weapons in my van.

But we could at least disable her. As Daddy always said, most things can’t function all that well without a head. Or any limbs.

I sighed internally. I was going to have to try to get her out to the van and contain her there until I could take her out to the desert and dismember her. Yuck.

One part of my mind began ticking off all the steps this was going to take, even as I got close to the fight, such as it was, with the cowboy holding a screeching ghoul at bay with one hand.

Until she bit him.

He shouted, “Damn it to hell, woman, what do you think you’re doing?”

As he did so, he jerked his arm back away from her, and she barreled past him, aiming for the magazine reader, who’d barely had enough time to take all this in, as it happened in just a few seconds. She let out a yelp and threw her magazine in the ghoul’s face.

It batted away the fashion magazine, but the ghoul’s target had bought herself enough time to grab her fancy overnight bag from the bench beside her. She came up swinging with it.

The injured cowboy withdrew from what was looking like it would be quite the catfight.

I arrived even as the intended victim slammed her overnight case into the ghoul’s face.

It was pretty impressive, and quick thinking for a civilian. But I had training in this. I could take the ghoul out much more quickly.

Or I could have. I hadn’t accounted for the ghoul’s opponent to misjudge whose side I was on. As Wolf and I launched ourselves into the fight, the woman shouted out something that sounded like a battle cry, slammed her case against the side of my head, and kicked Wolf in the jaw.

While we were still reeling, she hit the ghoul one more time and knocked it down, a giant, un-bleeding gash running from its neck to its temple. Not bad for a civilian with a fancy bag.

I ducked the still swinging case, waving my hands frantically. “We’re on your side! We’re here to help, we are here to help!”

I hoped she understood me in time to let me kill the ghoul and save us all.

Or at least in time to avoid getting us all eaten.

4. MaddieAnne

One minute, the cowboy was trying to work up the nerve to talk to me again, even after I’d shut him down, and the next he was holding that girl at arm’s length in an effort to protect me from her. The woman was young, with dark hair and a floral dress that she should have left in 1987 where it belonged. She was straight up ordinary, but something in her eyes was wild. Crazy. Like she was on something.

“I don’t have any cash,” I said. “So don’t bother begging.” I raised the magazine and pretended to be reading it. Again.

She swatted the magazine away, so I tossed it at her. She batted it to the floor and growled.

An honest-to-God growl, showing her teeth and everything. Like some kind of animal.

If I ever get out of Texas, I’m never coming back.

I hope Jesus is listening, because that’s a promise.

Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t all that impressed by the man with the giant belt buckle, but she was being the height of rude by inserting herself into our conversation.

“Damn it to hell, woman, what do you think you’re doing?” the cowboy roared. Blood seeped from the wound on his arm.

That woman had bitten him, and as much as I wanted to turn and run, the cowboy had tried to protect me from her.

Guess I need to do something.

The only thing I could possibly use as a weapon was my Louis Vuitton valise. I wrapped my right hand around the leather handle, rose and swung with all my might. The bag, filled with hardback books, knitting needles, and gel pens in every conceivable color, hit her squarely in the jaw with a jangly thump. As she stumbled backward, I saw another one coming at me, and this one had some sort of mangy animal with her. I wasn’t sure if it was a dog or a wolf or something in-between, but it looked like it was the devil’s spawn, and I was thankful, for perhaps the first time, that I’d packed a hardback copy of Outlander.

“WooooooooooHooooooo,” I yelled. It was the closest I’d likely ever come to a Rebel Yell, as I was a Tri-Delt who preferred Mimosas and brunch to hand-to-hand combat, but sometimes a girl has to break out of her shell.

I swung the case a second time and connected with the second woman with a loud whump. It sounded totally different than when I’d hit the first one, and my brain registered it as significant, though I didn’t know why. Just as I was confident I’d disabled her, the wolf-dog growled and lunged toward me. I kicked as hard as I could with my left leg, the heel of my Manolo Blahnik slamming into its jaw.

And I hadn’t even had a chance to properly scuff the bottoms.

Even though it seemed like an hour had passed since I’d swung the first time, I knew it had to have been only seconds. The woman in the floral dress groaned and rose, coming toward me again. By that time, I’d grabbed the handle of my valise even tighter, and I went up the side of her head with it again.

These Texas bitches were something else. If I weren’t so repulsed by them, I might admire their pluck.

She staggered backward, a huge gash opening on the side of her neck. But...

“There’s no blood,” I said, staring at her. “Why aren’t you bleeding?”

From my peripheral vision, I saw the second woman moving toward me. I raised my valise, ready to deliver another shot to her head.

She ducked this time, flailing her arms. “We’re on your side! We’re here to help, we are here to help!”

“Why isn’t she bleeding?” My voice broke, and for the first time, I realized I was shaking.

“She’s not exactly human,” the other woman said, rubbing the side of her head. “We have to finish this ghoul. Now.”

Ghoul?

I dropped my valise, and it spilled its contents on the tiled floor of the depot.

I was horrified. “Spring-Cleaning My Life” was supposed to be pleasant, relaxing, a step toward revealing my best self. I was trying to live my best life, and yet here I was, in El Paso, Texas, fighting a ghoul with a wild-looking woman and a wolf-dog, when I should have been in a spa in Atlanta with cucumbers on my eyes and new age music streaming through the speakers.

I have hit a new low.

I was a respected, Southern woman. A debutante, no less.

This was shit I didn’t need.

“Wha—, I mean, who—.” I couldn’t find the words to ask questions. Instead, I stared directly into her eyes. They were a weird green and something about them, and her, was so familiar.

“We’ll have time for a chat later,” she said. “Follow my lead.”

The woman looked at her dog, gave a small nod, and the two them seemed to sync. They launched themselves toward the ghoul in a dizzying whirl of fur, fang, and human. The three of them tumbled over benches, across the floor and toward the door leading to the platform.

Just before they slammed into the plaster wall, I saw the light glint off the edge of a blade, and for the first time, the seriousness of the whole situation clicked.

I rushed toward them, my heels clacking on the tile floor.

The only thing in the room that looked heavy enough to make a difference was a large bronze plaque on the wall. Some sort of historical marker, judging by the star in the middle and the writing underneath. I tucked my fingers underneath the edge and pulled with all my might. With a stretching sound, it came off the wall.

I expected the disc to be cool in my hands, but it wasn’t. It was warm, then warmer, until, in a fraction of a second, it was blazing hot, and even though I tried to let go of it, it seemed to be stuck to my hands.

I looked up, desperate for someone to help me get free of the bronze disc.

The only thing I saw was the disfigured, horrifying face of the ghoul coming straight at me.

And then everything went to black.

5. Blaize

When the ghoul changed direction in mid-fight, suddenly heading for someone behind me, I knew the clip-clopping noise of heels I heard must be coming from the woman the ghoul had been after to begin with.

Dammit. She was going to get herself killed.

I spun around to follow the ghoul just in time to see the other woman peel a bronze historical plaque off the wall of the train station. It was a good weapon choice, actually.

How had the woman known to go straight for the only bronze in the building?

I expected her to slam it into the ghoul’s face, as she had with the overnight bag. Instead, her eyes grew wide, terror sliding into them as she gaped at me, and she toppled over backward.

The bronze plaque landed on her chest—and where her fingers gripped the edges, a strange smoke drifted up into the air.

“Fuck,” I snarled. “Wolf, grab the ghoul and hold it still.”

Wolf leaped forward, grabbing the ghoul by the arm and pulling it toward the ground. It growled, but I ignored it as I raced past, crouched down, and peeled the unconscious woman’s fingers off the plaque.

Her fingertips were blistered and burned from simple contact with the metal.

Just like my cousin Gracie’s would have been.

“Who the ever-living hell are you?” I breathed out.

I knew all the cousins. Everyone who might be forced to take on the curse when one of us died.

Gracie hadn’t had any heirs. She was the last direct descendant of her line.

There shouldn’t be any more Bronzes around.

But the more I looked at the unconscious woman on the floor, the more I could see a resemblance to Gracie. Same blonde hair, same slightly square jawline, same skin tone.

Everything.

Consumed with examining the woman I was beginning to suspect was meant to be Gracie’s replacement, I only half-heard Wolf’s warning growl. But we were getting good at fighting together. I picked up the plaque, stood up, and swung it hard enough to smash the ghoul directly in the face. Her undead head split apart, and everywhere she came into contact with the bronze, she sizzled.

That was one good thing about ghouls. If you wounded them with bronze, they cooked from the inside. Pretty soon, she’d be a pile of smoking ash and another spontaneous human combustion mystery for a television show.

In the distance, sirens wailed.

Dammit to hell. Some idiot had called the cops.

I didn’t have time for local law enforcement.

I had a cousin to revive.

I glanced around the station. Most of the people had hightailed it out of here when the fighting started. The few remaining watched me with wary eyes.

“Time to get out of here,” I whispered to Wolf, who gave me one of his disconcertingly human nods. “And we’re taking her with us.”

This time, he whined.

I picked up the woman’s unconscious form in a fireman’s carry. Luckily, I was stronger than I looked. A lifetime spent fighting monsters and demons will do that.

As I headed toward the parking lot, the cowboy who’d been trying to hit on her approached us. “What was that thing?”

“You don’t want to know.” I didn’t feel like educating anyone today—it never worked, and people just ended up thinking I was crazy.

His eyes narrowed, but he didn’t press the issue, instead gesturing toward the woman I was hauling through the room. “Where are you taking her?”

“For help,” I answered shortly. Glancing down at his bitten arm, I grimaced. “You need to tend to that.”

He moved around to help me carry the woman. “I saw what happened. There was something wrong with that woman. Was she a zombie or something?”

“Or something.”

His face blanched. He’d clearly seen too many zombie movies. “Am I going to turn into one?”

“Not if you help me carry her all the way to my van and then follow my instructions for cleaning the wound exactly.”

It was mostly a lie—although he could turn if the bite killed him, the worst that was likely to happen was that he’d lose an arm to gangrene. Ghouls were nasty, but only rarely contagious.

“Oh. And lie to the cops for me about what happened here,” I added.

“Deal,” he said, and we headed out into the bright sunlight and toward my van.

6. MaddieAnne

I couldn’t stop gasping for breath. It was like I couldn’t get enough air no matter how I tried. My lungs felt like they were made of Styrofoam, and hands burned as if they were submerged in lava. As if from a considerable distance, I heard myself moan.

“Wake up. Wake up!” The voice was familiar and irritating. With its raspy tone and the flat Western accent, it wasn’t exactly what one would call soothing.

I opened my eyes, and immediately wished I hadn’t. I was flat on my back on a thin mattress in what looked like an RV. Wooden cabinets and drawers lined the walls, and it smelled like wet fur and Ramen Noodles. The tiny sink was the color of ripe avocados, and that nearly sent me right back into hyperventilation.

I would call it my nightmare, but even my nightmares were more genteel than this place. They didn’t have convenience food or unfortunate color palettes.

The woman from the train station, the one with the wolf-dog, was leaning over me, concern in her eyes.

“What happened back there?” I asked. I tried to pull myself upright, but when I touched my hands to the sheet, my fingertips felt as if they had no skin on them.

“It’s complicated.”

“Look, I appreciate the help and all, but I feel like I’ve been hit by a Mack truck. If you’ll just hand me my phone, I’ll call myself an ambulance.” I was finally able to contract my core muscles enough to sit up, but my whole body was sore.

“No,” the woman spat, clenching her jaw. “No hospitals. I can help you.”

If I weren’t in a 1970s version of hell, complete with zombies, I would have laughed.

“Ma’am,” I said, “while I appreciate whatever you did back there to get rid of that thing, I’m pretty sure it’s best we part ways now. It’s not as if we’re destined to be friends or anything.” I moved to swing my legs off the bed, such as it was, but she blocked me, placing her hands on my knees and pushing my back onto the bed.

“I said that I would help you.”

While I might be a lady of culture and refinement, like all the best Southern women, I am about half sunshine and half hurricane, and this person was getting ready to feel category five winds.

“Please do not touch me again,” I said through clenched teeth. I spoke slowly, enunciating each word like my beauty pageant coach had taught me. “I do not want you to help me. I want you to move out of my way so that I can retrieve my phone and get the hell out of this nightmare.”

“At least let me see your fingers. If you want to go to the hospital after that, I’ll make sure you get there.”

I shook my head. “Why?”

“Because this situation is more complicated than you realize.”

I didn’t want to show her, but I had some odd compulsion to honor her request. I flipped my hands over so that the palms faced the ceiling and placed them on my knees.

She bent to look more closely at the burns.

“There’s no doubt,” she said, mostly under her breath. She dropped my hands. “What’s your name?”

It was just then I realized that I was in the van of a woman whom I’d helped to kill a ghoul, and we had yet to cover the pleasantries.

“MaddieAnne Honeycutt.”

“I’m Blaize. You prefer Maddie or Anne?”

These Texans. Honestly. Was I going to have to explain everything to them?

“MaddieAnne. It’s one word and one name.”

I did my best to ignore her eye roll.

“MaddieAnne,” she said, “there’s no easy way to tell you this or explain what it means, but I think you and I might be cousins.”

Of all the things I thought she might say, ‘cousins’ wasn’t anywhere in the mix. The idea that I could be related to someone whose idea of a home included a chassis was beyond my comprehension.

“Not possible.” I wasn’t willing to believe that even if she had a DNA test to prove it. No one in my family would ever name a child after a conflagration. It just wasn’t done.

“Let me show you something,” she said. From a side table, she picked up the bronze disc I’d torn off the wall of the train station. “This will be uncomfortable, but it’s necessary.” She placed the edge of it against my forearm.

“Jesus H. Christ,” I yelled, momentarily abandoning my “Spring-Cleaning My Life!” pledge to refrain from taking the Lord’s name in vain. “That hurts.”

It burned, hot and cold at the same time, and it sent shock waves of electricity up my arm and all the way to my heart. She pulled it away just as tiny little blue-white explosions began to pop inside my head.

“What in the fresh hell?” I asked.

“You’re one of us,” she said, as if that explained it.

It did not explain anything. “I sincerely doubt that.”

She blew out a sigh and stared up at the van’s ugly ceiling as if trying to decide how to explain something to an idiot, or maybe a child.

“Our family—sort of an extended family, really—carries a curse.”

That I believed. Of her family, anyway.

“We can’t use certain metals. For you, that’s bronze. I can’t use silver, and our other cousin Cassidy can’t use iron.”

“That doesn’t sound too bad.” I didn’t like bronze, anyway. It was tacky.

“And we’re Called to hunt monsters in the Southwest.” I could hear the capitalization of Called.

I stared at her blankly.

“You felt some compulsion to take a train here, didn’t you? And then that ghoul showed up. And I was pulled here, too, I assume to help you.”

“Monsters in the Southwest?”

“Yeah. I’m afraid you’re stuck here.”

I ignored that, choosing instead to focus on the whole bronze-allergy thing. The monster-hunting bit was obviously this poor woman’s delusion.

“That’s complete and utter fucking bullshit.”

So much for “Spring-Cleaning My Life.” I was now cussing with wild abandon, fighting ghouls with Louis Vuitton luggage, and worrying about the wolf-dog blood on my Blahniks. I had never wanted to be in North Carolina so badly. “No one is allergic to bronze, hell no one even cares about bronze, and I assure you we are not cousins. I know my lineage through the War of Northern Aggression, back to the Revolution, and all the way to the shores of Ireland, and your people are not my people.”

“Drop the haughty Southern Belle act. I’m telling you the truth.”

“Act? You think it’s an act?” I stood, towering over her—or at least trying to. The ugly van’s ugly ceiling forced me to stoop or risk bumping my head. “Move out of my way before I do something we’ll both regret.”

Blaize rubbed her finger along her jaw. “Fine. You don’t want to listen, that’s on you. But don’t say I didn’t try to explain it to you. If you charge off half-cocked, you’ll regret it.”

“I have never done anything by half measure,” I sniped. My head was pounding, my dress was ripped and torn, and I was quite sure I did not want to see my reflection in a mirror. “I need to get to LA and forget this little adventure ever happened.”

Maybe there was still time to salvage at least one part of my ill-fated trip. I’d booked a suite at the Beverly Hills Hotel, and I sure could use a little pampering after this fiasco. If I stayed in El Paso a minute longer, I might lose what was left of my mind.

“Where’s my valise?”

“You mean your carry-on thingy?”

I took a deep breath. It was almost as if she’d never been anywhere other than this God-forsaken hell hole. “Yes. The Louis Vuitton?”

She pointed to the door. “I grabbed what I could, but some stuff may have gotten lost.”

While the leather looked a little worse for the wear, it was still Louis Vuitton and I was still MaddieAnne Honeycutt.

I wrapped my hand around the leather handle, made my way out of the back of the hell-wagon, and headed for the train station.

7. Blaize

“Wait here,” I said to Wolf, climbing out of the van and shutting the door behind me.

I skirted around the edge of the train station, avoiding the police officers who had gone inside to question people. Instead, I walked right up to the chain-link fence that separated the train tracks from the rest of the world.

I watched MaddieAnne Honeycutt, Southern Belle Extraordinaire, as she marched out of the station, battered carry-on case in hand. She strode across the rocks in her high-heeled shoes and onto the steps of the train.

There, she stopped long enough to glance over at me. I could see the derisive sniff she gave before raising her chin, tossing her head, and boarding the train as a voice announcing its departure came over the PA system.

Wolf trotted up beside me, clearly having ignored my orders to stay put.

“You know,” I said conversationally, “if you were a real dog, you wouldn’t know how to open the van doors to follow me.”

I swear his sniff matched MaddieAnne’s perfectly.

“Come on. I guess we’d better figure out where she’s headed.” I could still feel the Calling, deep down, connecting me to her. It was the first time I’d been Called to a person, not a place, and it was strange to feel it on the move.

I shuddered at the thought of what she had yet to learn. Because one thing I knew was that where there was one ghoul, there were bound to be others. I’d explained to the cowboy that the bite on his arm would swell up in an hour or two, and that he should get it to a doctor as fast as he could. It would look like a standard infection from a human bite—our mouths are dirty as hell—and the doc should give him some good antibiotics. He needed to take them all. But immediately after he got the meds, he would need to open and drain the wound and then cauterize it.

It wasn’t a pleasant process, but no one part of it would kill all the ghoul germs. And it was better than losing a limb.

I had a scar on one thigh from treating a ghoul bite.

And if MaddieAnne was a Bronze by blood, the ghouls would follow her until she taught them better.

“Besides, she’s not going to like it when the Call catches her trying to leave a job undone.” I’d had that happen a time or two. It was like the worst flu ever. With extra nausea.

I still didn’t want to go inside the station, or even stick around too close to it, so we got back in the van and I drove sedately out of the parking lot. I didn’t pull over again until I had made several turns and was certain no one followed me. We stopped at a coffee shop. I got two lattes—an unusual treat, but I figured we deserved it after having to deal with Miss Scarlett O’Hara back there—and checked our money supply.

“Okay. We have enough cash to do this run, and then I’ll have to get a job somewhere, probably,” I announced.

I tried to think what Daddy would do about MaddieAnne—or more likely, what he would tell me to do if I asked him. I could almost hear his voice. Blaize, you need to get that prissy little girl and drag her shirking ass back to Texas to finish the job.

Even the imaginary version of Daddy was right when it came to monster hunting.

So I sat in the driver’s seat in my van and looked up the route for the train she’d boarded. She was headed west, so the true misery wouldn’t start until she got close to Los Angeles—or whenever the curse figured out she didn’t plan to complete the mission it had assigned to her.

I assumed LA was where she was headed. There was nothing else among the train’s stops that someone like her might be interested in, as far as I could tell.

I mapped out my logic for Wolf, who nodded.

“But we are going to have to stop at every damned station along the way that the train stops at, just to make sure she doesn’t get off and try to go somewhere else.” I heaved out a giant sigh. “I guess we’ll have to be there to catch her when she falls.”

Wolf huffed out a laugh.

“Laugh it up, fuzzball,” I said, quoting our favorite movie—one of the few Wolf would hang around to watch with me when I turned on my old combo DVD player/TV some nights. I put the van in drive and headed back west. “But I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

8. MaddieAnne

After the Sunset Limited pulled out of El Paso, I’d slept for hours across New Mexico. It wasn’t a pleasant sleep, like I surely deserved, but it was tortured, filled with dreams of headless zombies, and lunging hairy monsters.

I woke as the sun rose over the deserts of New Mexico, and I’d looked out the windows while most of the other passengers slept. For the first time since we’d left New Orleans, I was able to simply look out of the window and appreciate the landscape outside the window.

When the train woke, the day was filled with announcements over the PA system. Most of them were from Uncle Roy, the lecherous old man who ran the ala carte dining car, and they set my teeth on edge. If he’d ever studied grammar, it certainly didn’t show.

I passed the time dreaming about how wonderful a hot shower was going to feel, and how much fun I was going to have shopping on Rodeo Drive with Daddy’s American Express Black.

In Lordsburg, New Mexico, we had a bit of a break, and I traded my blood-stained shoes for a pair of cowboy boots. When in Rome and all that. Just before I boarded the westbound train, there was a man selling used paperbacks, and I bought the five on top of his stack. While I had been sick of reading before, I was now totally invested in a series of books by an author I’d never heard of before I’d opened the first one. Now, I was hooked, reading my way through an alternative universe that existed on the night-time streets of Baltimore. There were vampires and werewolves and one bad-ass crew of women keeping them all in check, and for some reason, the books were the most compelling thing I’d read in ages.

They sure beat all the self-help tomes shoved in the bottom of my valise.

We rolled into Yuma a couple of minutes ahead of schedule. Half-past eleven at night and our next stop would be in Palm Springs, California.

Cali-fucking-fornia. Finally. I sighed with relief.

Spring-Cleaning My Life, I thought to myself, but I hated the thought of it and decided to can the whole idea of self-improvement until I’d had a couple of bottles wine, a pedicure and some time to think, preferably on high thread count Egyptian cotton sheets.

I checked the train schedule and realized I had enough time to stretch my legs before the train departed again. Grabbing only my purse, I stepped down onto the platform and breathed in the cool night air. Arizona smelled different than New Mexico or Texas had, and I found my shoulders relaxing a bit. There was no station, only a platform. I walked the length of it several times, staring at the blanket of stars above me. Out here, with nothing to impede my view, and hardly any moonlight, the sky was so much bigger than I’d ever realized.

Besides me, there were only a couple of other people who’d gotten off the train and being nearly alone made the desert and the sky seem all that much bigger. I felt better than I’d felt since I’d left North Carolina, and part of me wished I had a couple of days to spend in the town. Not only was there a famous prison to explore, but Return of the Jedi had been shot here.

What in the hell is wrong with me? I hate the desert, I hate the Southwest, and I don’t like Star Wars or prisons.

I shook my head and wrote the crazy thoughts off of as the products of disappointment and lack of decent sleep.

According to my phone, the train would be leaving in just a few minutes. I took one last look at the sky and walked back toward my car. I was nearly there when severe nausea swept over me in giant waves, and I was afraid I wasn’t going to be able to hold down the grilled cheese sandwich I’d gotten in the food car.

I stumbled on the wooden platform and tried to calm my stomach by taking deep breaths and reassuring myself that I was almost to California. I swallowed hard and took a couple of steps toward the train, but everything was spinning faster and faster until it felt like the ground and the sky were switching places.

“Ma’am?” I heard the porter’s voice as if he were miles away instead of standing right beside me.

When I turned to answer him, I saw it, and I screamed.

9. Blaize

The farther we traveled, the more a miserable anxiety over MaddieAnne ate away at the pit of my stomach. I’m not saying I would miss her if she didn’t survive her trip out West. But protecting people from monsters is kind of my thing.

That’s why I’d feel bad if she died, I told myself.

So we kept traveling, hitting every pissant town along the train’s route to make sure she hadn’t gotten off the train. But she didn’t.

At a bathroom stop, I rummaged in the back of my van in a hidden compartment where I kept several long swords and other items that might cause policemen to ask questions if they were discovered during a routine traffic stop.

I’d had a bronze dagger back here somewhere. Ghouls weren’t all that hard to take out, as long as you got them in the heart—or, as I had recently discovered, smashed them in the face with a bronze plaque.

I hadn’t paid attention to what had happened to that plaque after we finished using it to test MaddieAnne’s reactivity to the metal. I racked my brain to remember. I had dropped it next to her on the bed, and she had shifted away from it almost unconsciously.

“Is it still there?” I slammed the compartment shut and covered it up again with the van’s carpet-remnant flooring. Which, looking at it up close, could probably stand to be replaced.

Dammit. That snooty Southern bitch isn’t even here, and she’s making me feel inferior because I live in a van.

She hadn’t even had to say anything. All she had to do was curl her lip a little as she glanced around at my home. That, and pull into herself, as if trying not to touch anything while she was here.

“Bitch,” I muttered aloud.

Wolf whined a question.

“Nothing. Help me find that bronze plaque my lovely new cousin ripped off the wall?”

He sniffed it out for me—it had ended up under my blanket—and I grabbed it. “I have a feeling we’re going to need this.”

We got to the Yuma train station—really only a platform—as the train arrived. There wasn’t even anywhere to park, just a vacant, dirt lot.

The Call pulled me hard, demanding I hurry as I gathered up my weapons, including the bronze plaque.

We stepped out into the gorgeous night, and I had to fight an urge to pause and breathe in the wide-open spaces.

Girl, all you get are wide-open spaces. Get a move on. Daddy’s voice again. Nothing like parental training to fuck with your head.

Wolf growled low in his throat and sprinted up the stairs ahead of me. I followed him, and when I reached the top of the stairs, I saw MaddieAnne several yards away, bent over and clutching her stomach.

I knew she’d get sick.

I shushed the petty voice inside my head and opened my mouth to shout her name.

But I didn’t have a chance to before she looked up at the ghoul headed toward her and let out a banshee-worthy screech.

It would get to her before I could, no matter how fast I ran.

“Grab it, Wolf,” I shouted. I put on as much speed as I could drag out of myself and prayed all the way there that Wolf could hold the ghoul in place until I could smash its face in with El Paso’s train-station plaque.

10. MaddieAnne

I never thought I’d be so relieved to see that damn wolf-dog again. He came charging down the platform towards me, teeth showing, drool oozing, just as the ghoul closed in on me and reached for my arm. I jerked it back and took two steps backward, trying to decide if I was going to have to land a hit or two before the animal reached me.

My purse was tiny—a Salvatore Ferragamo mini clutch in Macadamia—and it wouldn’t pack nearly the punch my valise had, but I had to do something. And soon.

“Wolf,” Blaize yelled. “I’m right behind you.” She thundered toward us, her boots shaking the wooden slats that made up the platform. Blaize might not be the most graceful woman I’ve ever met, but she was hard to beat in a fight for one’s life.

With their help, I might just have a chance at killing the ghoul’s creepy ass after all.

Wolf lunged at the ghoul, launching himself all the way up to its neck and grabbing hold. They tumbled to the ground in a whirl of fur and screams. He held her down, his teeth mauling her neck, growling all the while. With her on the ground, I had the advantage.

“I thought we got rid of you back in El Paso,” I said to the thing. Instead of answering, it writhed and groaned, desperate to get away from Wolf.“I guess some people need to be told twice.”

I kicked her as hard as I could in the right knee with the toe of my Lucchese boot and smiled when the bone moved far to the side with a loud pop. No wonder people loved cowboy boots so much.

Blaize rushed to my side, out of breath, and panting like a dog.

Did she honestly think we were actually related?

“Move,” she said, pushing me to the side. “There’s only one thing that will stop this bitch once and for all.”

In her hands, she held the disc I’d ripped off the wall in the El Paso train station. She knelt, trusting Wolf to maintain control of the ghoul, and moved the bronze plaque toward the forehead of the ghoul. The closer she got, the more the thing twisted and tried to wrench itself free, but Wolf held tight and Blaize placed the disc squarely on the head of the demon, which instantly started smoking just like my fingertips had.

“Just making sure,” Blaize said, in an eerily calm voice. She turned to me. “Help Wolf hold the ghoul down.”

I didn’t want to touch the disgusting thing, but I followed her instructions, anyway. She’d saved me from being bitten twice now, after all.

But then, she picked up the plaque, held it high above her head, and slammed it edge-first into the ghoul’s head, where it stuck. I swear I heard the thing’s skull crack.

“Oh, I’m going to be sick,” I said.

“No you won’t. We don’t have time for that. Come on.” She stood up and grabbed me by the upper arm.

“What are you doing?” I demanded. “Unhand me.”

“I’m getting you out of the blast zone,” she said.

When we were several feet away, I looked back, discovering that the ghoul had burst into flames. The fire was weirdly contained.

I glanced over at the conductor, who had watched everything without saying a word.

Would he call the police on us?

Instead, he just shook his head and said, “Too many damned monsters out here. We’ll be leaving in five.” Then he disappeared back into the train.

I turned to Blaize. “Thanks for helping me take care of that.”

“Helping you?” Blaize asked.

“Your sarcasm is unwarranted, and you really need to consider wearing something other than black occasionally. It’s a little morbid.”

“I wear plaid sometimes,” Blaize said.

“Great Lord. With those hips? That’s even worse.”

Blaize’s eyes narrowed. “You need some training in how to fight these things.”

“What I need is a bottle of wine, a tray of chocolate-covered strawberries, and a binge of Keeping Up with the Kardashians.”

“I saw a gas station not too far back. You could get wine and chocolate there, I guess. But you’re on your own for the snooty shows.”

“I am not snooty. I’m discerning. And to that point, I’m quite sure the Beverly Hills Hotel will have wine and chocolate far superior to that of the Stop N Go, so I’m boarding this train and the next time it stops, I will be in Palm Springs. Best of luck to you and Wolf.”

He was sitting beside her, leaning his shaggy weight onto one of her legs. I could have sworn he understood every word I said.

“Toodles.”

I’d just turned to wave to them, one foot on the step, and one still on the platform when the wave of nausea hit me again, but this time I was sure I wasn’t going to be able to hold down the grilled cheese I’d eaten just east of Yuma. I ran to the other side of the platform, where the tracks were empty, and vomited all over the ground. My stomach clenched, and I was sick again, and again.

I felt someone’s palm on my shoulder and Blaize knelt beside me. “I’ll hold your hair. It’s going to be a while before I can get you to a shower.”

How humiliating.

But I let her hold my hair anyway.

11. Blaize

I watched MaddieAnne heave up whatever she’d eaten last, shaking my head, patting her back, and holding her hair out of the way. I’d been there. I knew how bad it was.

The train conductor in the doorway, the one who’d watched the ghoul self-combust without blinking an eye, leaned out.

“We’re pulling out soon, Miss.”

I nodded, but MaddieAnne paused in her retching long enough to wave her hand and whisper, “My valise. I need my valise.”

“Can you get it for her?” I asked.

He nodded and dashed into the train. Seconds later, he was out again, carrying the leather bag, now looking worse for wear.

Beating up ghouls with fine luggage will do that.

“Maybe I could...” She didn’t get any more out than that before she was retching over the platform side again, though she had puked up the last of what was in her stomach long before.

“Just wait,” I said. “It’ll pass as soon as the train leaves.”

I hoped I was right about what was causing this, anyway.

When the train wheels screeched against the tracks and began rolling, the dry-heaves slowed. By the time the train was out of sight, MaddieAnne was sitting on the platform with her knees drawn up to her chest.

“What the hell was that?” she asked, her voice shaking.

I sat down next to her. “That’s what happens when we try to buck the curse.”

“I still don’t believe there’s a curse.”

I waved a hand dismissively. “Fine. Call it a destiny. Or a calling. Or whatever you want to. We have to fight monsters in the Southwest. And if you try to get out of it in any way, you end up vomiting your guts up on the train tracks beside the smoking remains of a ghoul.”

“That seems awfully specific.” Her voice held a touch of humor for the first time since I’d met her.

“Or something equally miserable.”

She frowned. “So let’s just assume for the moment that you’re telling the truth. What am I supposed to do?”

“I wasn’t just deflecting your hips comment earlier, you know. You really do need training.”

“Who trained you?”

“My father.”

She eyed me up and down. “Oh, dear God in Heaven. Absolutely not.”

I looked at her expensive boots, her fancy luggage, her nice clothes. “No. You’re probably right. That’s a terrible idea.”

We both burst out laughing.

After she’d wiped tears from her eyes, she said, “If I accept this as my destiny—or whatever—how will I even know what I’m supposed to be doing? Surely it’s not all vomiting when I go the wrong way.”

I laughed again. “No. You’ll feel the Call. I suggest you get some hand-to-hand lessons, maybe learn to shoot a gun, hold a knife. That sort of thing.”

“Sugar, I grew up in North Carolina. I have been shooting since I was five years old.”

“That’s a good start, then. If you get stuck, you could always reach out to me. I can give you my number.”

She nodded and pulled out her phone. After we’d traded contact information, she began gathering up her belongings. “Do you think you could possibly take me somewhere with a real train station? Or maybe an airport? I’m not missing my stay at the Beverly Hills Hotel.” She glanced at me out of the corner of her eye. “Assuming you think I’ll be able to go now that I have accepted my fate?”

“If not, you’ll know it when you try to leave. And you can call me back to come get you.”

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IT TURNED OUT YUMA had an airport. I offered to let MaddieAnne stay in the van until the sun rose, but she declined. The last I saw was the determined set of her shoulders as she strode into the building.

I assumed I’d hear back from MaddieAnne after she had some more experience under her belt. Assuming she didn’t get herself killed first.

But I could just about guarantee that MaddieAnne assumed she’d never have to see me again.

I couldn’t help but snicker just a little.

Wolf glanced up at me in the closest thing I’d ever seen to a wolfy side-eye.

“I know, I know. And I really don’t want her to get hurt. But she’s so damn snooty.”

Still, I grinned as I drove away.

In that last fight, I’d seen more than a hint of Gracie in MaddieAnne. They were definitely related. And though I wouldn’t admit it to MaddieAnne, it had felt good to once again tag-team a monster while fighting beside a cousin.

That hadn’t happened in far too long.

I hoped she could come to truly, fully accept her destiny.

Her curse.

Our curse.

12. MaddieAnne

It took everything I had to trust Blaize.

As I watched the Sunset Express pull of out Yuma, Arizona on its way to cultured California, my heart sank. The last week had been the hardest of my life, and now I’d just learned that my destiny might involve breaking more than a few nails in hand-to-hand combat.

Just when you think you know yourself.

I waved good-bye to Blaize, Wolf, and the van at the departures terminal of the Yuma airport. I was sure I wouldn’t miss the van. At all.

It would be morning before I could get a flight to LA, but the airport was small, and the gate agent promised she’d wake me when my flight started boarding. I fell asleep at the gate, paperback open on my chest.

I paid careful attention to my belly as I boarded. No nausea, thank goodness.

I was in LA by nine the next morning and settling in my suite just in time for lunch.

My room was plush and luxurious and a balm to my soul.

After ordering room service, I took a shower, washed the grime of the desert and the ghouls out of my hair, and wrapped it in a towel. I ate my chicken salad croissant in my robe and then snuggled into bed for a well-deserved nap.

When I woke, it was late afternoon judging by the slant of the sunlight streaming through my windows.

I needed a manicure, and a pedicure, and a new Louis Vuitton valise. All those would be easy to procure in Beverly Hills.

But when I thought of those things, things that used to make me happy, I felt a little empty inside.

Killing not one, but two, ghouls with the help of Blaize and Wolf had awakened something in me, a satisfaction I’d never felt before El Paso.

Maybe I was more than just a Southern girl who knew Lenox flatware patterns better than anyone who didn’t work at Macy’s had any right to. Maybe I was a little bit of a monster-hunting badass.

If I was, I wasn’t going to do it like Blaize. I was going to do it my own way, with grace and style and my trademark panache.

I picked up the remote, ready to escape into the world of reality television, but before I clicked the power button, I called downstairs.

“Concierge,” a man answered.

“I’d like for you to arrange karate lessons for me. Beginning tomorrow.”

“Yes, ma’am. What time works best for you?”

“Anytime. Just let me know.”

“Of course, Miss Honeycutt.”

I hung up the phone and smiled.

It was better to be prepared. Just in case.

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THE END

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About the Authors

Margo Bond Collins

USA TODAY, Wall Street Journal, and New York Times bestselling author Margo Bond Collins is a former college English professor who, tired of explaining the difference between “hanged” and “hung,” turned to writing romance novels instead. (Sometimes her heroines kill monsters, too.

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Read More of Margo’s Books

The Shifter Shield Series

The Abracadabra Apocalypse Series

Once Upon a Fairy Tale Night (A Fairy Tale Retellings Box Set)

Moon & Fangs (An Urban Fantasy)

Tiny & Fierce (A Reverse Harem Sci-Fi Romance)

Heavy Metal (A Blaize Silver Urban Fantasy Collection)

Her Big Bad Wolves (A Reverse Harem Novella Serial)

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Blaire Edens

Blaire Edens lives in the mountains of North Carolina. She grew up on a farm that's been in her family since 1790. She's held a myriad of jobs including television reporter, GPS map creator, and personal assistant to a fellow who was rich enough to pay someone to pick up the dry cleaning. When she's not plotting, she's busy knitting, running, or listening to the Blues.

Keep in touch with Blaire online.

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