Winter Tails: A Limited Edition Winter Shifters Collection

by Fox, Piper

  Some of them were hidden in plain sight, like the copper stiletto 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 some time 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 gotten them, too. 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 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’ve 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’ve 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 two days after Christmas. 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 can’t.

  But 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 chiles 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’ve 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—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.

  Chapter 2

  MaddieAnne

  When I stepped off the train, the heat was like a wall. I’d expected late December 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 “New Year, New You” plan, 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’ve known 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.

  Chapter 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, dark 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.

  It 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 up 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’ve shot him down, but the cowboy 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 them 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. 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.

  Chapter 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.

  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.