Special Monsters Unit

CONTENTS Also by Eve Langlais Introduction Prologue Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Epilogue Need more books? Copyright © 2022/2023 Eve Langlais Cover Art by Addictive Covers © 2022 Produced in Canada Published by Eve Langlais http://www.EveLanglais.com Digital ISBN: 978 177384 3629 Print ISBN: 978 177384 3636 All Rights Reserved This book is a work of fiction and the characters, events and dialogue found within the story are of the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, either living or deceased, is completely coincidental. No part of this book may be reproduced or shared in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including but not limited to digital copying, file sharing, audio recording, email and printing without permission in writing from the author. ALSO BY EVE LANGLAIS WEBSITE: EVELANGLAIS.COM Magic and Kings featuring The Barbarian’s King Assassin. Earth’s Magic set in the same world as Earth’s Nexus. Werewolves Vampires and Demons, Oh My starts with Indecent Werewolf Exposure. Mist and Mirrors is epic fantasy featuring featuring a mature heroine. The Forsaken Chronicles is dark urban fantasy. Even more books to be found at EveLanglais.com INTRODUCTION TROUBLE IS BREWING IN NEXUS, AND FOR SOME REASON, THEY THINK I CAN STOP IT. Some people are born to greatness. My mother wanted to strangle me at birth. I’ve not had an easy life, not in a world that thrives on magic. Spells to reinforce buildings. Hexes to give you the face of a supermodel. Or so I’ve been told. No one can hide their true face from me, and people get ugly when they find out my presence is the reason magic shrivels and dies. It’s not as cool as it sounds, so when I’m offered a job with the Special Monsters Unit, I take a chance and join a misfit crew to find out why the town of Nexus is a magnet for cryptids. At least I’m part of a team. I’m making friends. I’m— Finding out secrets about my past that are hard to handle. But my emotional scars will have to wait until after we deal with the monsters. Especially those with human faces. Based on the world introduced in the Earth’s Magic series. For more Eve Langlais books visit EveLanglais.com PROLOGUE I will not be bad today. I will not be bad today. To keep my promise, I did everything I could to ensure my first day at my new school went well. The night before, I dyed my vibrant red hair a dark brown, a dull color that made my skin appear sallow. Totally not attention-getting from anyone but my mother, although her issue wasn’t with the hair color itself. “What did you do to the sink?” she’d screamed, pointing at the discoloration. I’d tried to scrub it clean. It didn’t work as well as I’d hoped. Perhaps I should have paid a few extra dollars and gotten a more reputable brand of hair dye. Only I didn’t have more money, so the dollar store dye was what I bought. Mother lost her mind for a bit, which happened quite often—meaning it didn’t have the impact it used to now that I’d heard it so many times. Mother—don’t call her anything else—told me I’d be paying the damage deposit. Not sure how. I’d used the last of my puny hoard on the dye. I’d need to find a job and soon. The last time I’d run dry of cash happened to coincide with Mother getting hot and heavy with some guy at work. Who turned out to be married. Not something she knew until she’d wasted her savings and paychecks helping him buy a car, which he then used to move his wife and two kids. It left us in a bad way. I had to ration my ramen noodles. It took her a month before she snapped out of it. Blamed me. Moved us again. I’d lost track of how many times. How long would this new place last? At least she had a job. With her currently sober and having a reason to get up in the morning, maybe things would finally not suck. She left, her parting words, “Do not make me come to that school.” As if I purposely got in trouble. Most of the time, I wasn’t to blame. Mother left for work, and I had a lovely time eating my bowl of cereal in absolute quiet. Nothing too heavy for my first day of school. Already I felt slightly queasy about the fact that, within the hour, I’d be walking into a classroom filled with strangers, all of them staring at the new girl. No matter how many times it happened in my life, starting over never got easier, but I’d gotten better at feigning aloofness. No one knew how terrified I was inside. It was a good fifteen-minute walk to my school, not a bad commute given I’d done a year and a half in a place that was more than thirty on a good day. It sucked in the winter. We’d scored a basement apartment in suburbia, which meant green grass and a school not surrounded by traffic and concrete. It was huge. Two stories and sprawling, with big sports fields past it, a massive parking lot in the front. Within a year I’d be sixteen, and if I saved up, I could be driving myself instead of pounding pavement. Kids converged on the sidewalks leading into the massive edifice of learning and spilled over onto the grass past the bike racks, where a few trees provided zones for the groups of kids to congregate. I spotted the goth group