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  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 o
f 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.