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back to Hell?” I asked.
    She nodded. “Yes, baby. I want to show you tonight that the story I would tell you is true. I’m a Hunter, and when you turn sixteen, and are mature enough, you will be too. We send the bad people away.”
    “Really?” That was cool. I’d always imagined being the girl in the story. Saving the world.
    “Yes.” She slowly drew a long knife from her trouser waistband. “Don’t be scared. This is a special weapon. It’s been blessed by a priest. It’s what Hunter’s need to send the bad people away. A Blessed weapon only hurts the Damned soul, but not the host’s body unless they are not possessed. Okay?”
    But, I was scared. The knife glinted dangerously in the moonlight. Knives were bad, weren’t they?
    “I want you to hide behind this tombstone and watch me, okay? Don’t come out until I tell you to. That’s extremely important. You do not come out until I tell you.”
    I nodded, shaking from the cold and fear. “Okay, mummy.”
    She hid me behind the tombstone and disappeared into a crypt a little way away from where I hid. Suddenly she reappeared, but she wasn’t alone. A man was with her, his hands tied in front of him. Mum pushed him forward so that he stumbled and fell to his knees.
    “Get up,” she demanded.
    “Screw you,” he said.
    She reached down and cut the rope from his wrists with her knife. As soon as she did, he lunged for her, his fist pulled back. She sidestepped the attack, reached out, and then shoved him away. He tripped but didn’t fall, coming back at her. I watched as they fought - my eyes wide. He never got to touch her. She blocked, kicked, and jabbed. She moved so quickly, so gracefully that part of me was excited by it. She was just like the girl in the story!
    Finally, she hit him so hard that he fell back, and quick as a whip, she was on him, plunging the knife deep into his heart.
    I screamed, jumping up just as a puff of black smoke rose out of the man and evaporated into the air.
    “Mummy, you killed him!” I yelled.
    Slowly, she slipped the knife back in her waistband and made her way towards me. “No, Amerie , I saved him. The evil is gone, and the man will wake up soon and have his body back. You remember what the story says.”
    I did. The girl has to send the bad man back to Hell. Was that how it was done?
    “Do you see what I can do? We’re special, Amerie . We were created by a force called The Sisterhood, who is so powerful that they don’t even live in this universe. We are rare, but there are other people like us, other women. Stronger than ten men. Whatever the Damned can do, we can do too. And today, today begins your training so that when you are sixteen, you will become the Hunter I know you can be.”
    I stared up at her, confused, afraid, and excited. I was special. I would help save the world from monsters. I would be better than the girls at school who pulled my hair.
    “But Amerie ,” Mum said, taking my hand, and leading me towards the car. “You can tell no one. This is our little secret.”

    I bolted upright in my uncomfortable bed, the sheets sweaty beneath me. I’d been dreaming more and more about Mum and my training with her these last few months, as though my subconscious was trying to tell me not to give up. Well, my subconscious could go screw itself. There was no way I was going to Hunt. Not after what it did to my mother.
     
    When I woke up again, later the next morning, it was as if I lived in an igloo. I pulled the duvet off the bed and wrapped it around my shoulders as I went in search of my dad. Why the hell was it so cold in here?
    He was still sleeping, of course. I banged on his door with my fist.
    “Dad!” I shouted. “Wake up! It’s like Antarctica in here.”
    He groaned, and I pushed open his bedroom door, which stuck slightly before I shouldered it the rest of the way.
    “What?” he asked groggily.
    “It’s cold in here. I can see my breath. Did you forget to pay the gas company