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Chicks are awesome--and never more so than when they are kicking some serious vampire/werewolf/demon/monster butt.

Chicks Kick Butt is an anthology that features one of the best things about the urban fantasy genre: strong, independent, and intelligent heroines who are quite capable of solving their own problems and slaying their own dragons (or demons, as the case may be).

Edited by Kerrie Hughes and Rachel Caine, Chicks Kick Butt features original stories from thirteen authors, eleven of whom are New York Times bestsellers.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - essay by Rachel Caine
• Shiny - shortfiction by Rachel Caine
• In Vino Veritas - shortfiction by Karen Chance
• Hunt - shortfiction by Rachel Vincent
• Monsters - shortfiction by Lilith Saintcrow
• Vampires Prefer Blondes - shortfiction by P. N. Elrod
• Nine-Tenths of the Law - (2011) - novelette by Jenna Black
• Double Dead - shortfiction by Cheyenne McCray
• A Rose by Any Other Name Would Still Be Red - shortfiction by Elizabeth Vaughan
• Superman - shortfiction by Jeanne C. Stein
• Monster Mash - shortfiction by Carole Nelson Douglas
• Wanted: Dead or Alive - shortfiction by L. A. Banks
• Mist - shortfiction by Susan Krinard
• Beyond the Pale - shortfiction by Nancy Holder

Petty criminal Zara Cole has a painful past that's made her stronger than most, which is why she chose life in New Detroit instead moving with her family to Mars. In her eyes, living inside a dome isn't much better than a prison cell.

Still, when Zara commits a crime that has her running scared, jail might be exactly where she's headed. Instead Zara is recruited into the Honors, an elite team of humans selected by the Leviathan--a race of sentient alien ships--to explore the outer reaches of the universe as their passengers.

Zara seizes the chance to flee Earth's dangers, but when she meets Nadim, the alien ship she's assigned, Zara starts to feel at home for the first time. But nothing could have prepared her for the dark, ominous truths that lurk behind the alluring glitter of starlight.

Savvy criminal turned skilled Leviathan pilot Zara Cole finds new friends and clashes with bitter enemies in the second book of this action-packed series from New York Times bestselling authors Rachel Caine and Ann Aguirre that's perfect for fans of The 100 and The Fifth Wave.

Zara Cole was a thief back on Earth, but she's been recently upgraded to intergalactic fugitive. On the run after a bloody battle in a covert war that she never expected to be fighting, Zara, her co-pilot Beatriz, and their Leviathan ship Nadim barely escaped the carnage with their lives.

Now Zara and her crew of Honors need a safe haven, far from the creatures who want to annihilate them. But they'll have to settle for the Sliver: a wild, dangerous warren of alien criminals. The secrets of the Sliver may have the power to turn the tide of the war they left behind--but in the wrong direction.

Soon Zara will have to make a choice: run from the ultimate evil--or stand and fight.

Quick-thinking Leviathan pilot Zara Cole must stop a planet-eating monster or lose everyone she loves in the finale of this acclaimed trilogy.

Space renegade Zara Cole may have finally met her match. Lifekiller--a creature that can devour entire planets--is spreading terror throughout the universe, and it seems nothing can stand in the monstrous godking's way.

Zara's street smarts may not be enough when their enemy could be anywhere, destroying civilizations and picking his teeth with the bones.

With human enemies, alien creatures, and mechanical stalkers on her tail, it's down to the wire for Zara to save the galaxy--and the people she calls home--before the godking consumes them all.

Once she was Cassiel, a Djinn of limitless power. Now, she has been reshaped in human flesh as punishment for defying her master--and living among the Weather Wardens, whose power she must tap into regularly or she will die. And as she copes with the emotions and frailties of her human condition, a malevolent entity threatens her new existence...

Living among mortals, the djinn Cassiel has developed a reluctant affection for them-especially for Warden Luis Rocha. As the mystery deepens around the kidnapping of innocent Warden children, Cassiel and Luis are the only ones who can investigate both the human and djinn realms. But the trail will lead them to a traitor who may be more powerful than they can handle...

After Cassiel and Warden Luis Rocha rescue an adept child from a maniacal Djinn, they realize two things: the girl is already manifesting an incredible amount of power, and her kidnapping was not an isolated incident.

This Djinn-aided by her devoted followers-is capturing children all over the world, and indoctrinating them so she can use their strength for herself. With no other options, Cassiel infiltrates the Djinn's organization-because if Cassiel cannot stop the Djinn's apocalyptic designs, all of humanity may be destroyed.

For millennia, Cassiel was a powerful Djinn--until she was exiled to live among mortals. Now the threat of an apocalypse looms, and Cassiel is in danger of losing everything she has come to hold dear...

As the world begins to fall apart around her, Cassiel finds herself fighting those she once called her own: the Djinn. With Weather Warden Luis Rocha and the rescued child Ibby by her side, Cassiel struggles to find a way to protect those who are in her charge and come to terms with the leadership role she never asked for.

Cassiel is opposed by Pearl--a powerful Djinn bent on raising an army of kidnapped Warden children to bring about nothing less than the end of the world. It will take everything Cassiel has to stop the Djinn from starting a war that will wipe all of humanity from the face of the earth. She knows that this might not be a battle she can survive, but protecting those she loves is worth any cost...

Bryn Davis was killed on the job after discovering her bosses were selling a drug designed to resurrect the dead. Now, revived by that same drug, she becomes an undead soldier in a corporate war to take down the very pharmaceutical company responsible for her new condition....

After dying and being revived with the experimental drug Returne, Bryn Davis is theoretically free to live her unlife - with regular doses to keep her going. But Bryn knows that the government has every intention of keeping a tight lid on Pharmadene's life-altering discovery, no matter the cost. Thankfully, some things have changed for the better; her job at the rechristened Davis Funeral Home is keeping her busy and her fragile romance with Patrick McCallister is blossoming - thanks in part to their combined efforts in forming a support group for Returne addicts. But when some of the group members suddenly disappear, Bryn wonders if the government is methodically removing a threat to their security, or if some unknown enemy has decided to run the zombies into the ground.

Already addicted to the pharmaceutical drug that keeps her body from decomposing, Bryn has to stop a secretive group of rich and powerful investors from eliminating the existing Returné addicts altogether. To ensure their plan to launch a new, military-grade strain of nanotech, the investors' undead assassin--who just happens to be the ex-wife of Bryn's lover Patrick--is on the hunt for anyone that stands in their way.

And while Bryn's allies aren't about to go down without a fight, the secret she's been keeping threatens to put those closest to her in even more danger. Poised to become a monster that her own side--and her own lover--will have to trap and kill, Bryn needs to find the cure to have any hope of preserving the lives of her friends, and her own dwindling humanity...

Note: Julie Fortune is a pen-name for Rachel Caine.

The goddess hunts...

Just four days after Major Kawalsky's death, Colonel Jack O'Neill leads the newly commissioned SG-1 on their first mission through the Stargate.

Their destination is Chalcis, a peaceful society at the heart of the Helos Confederacy of planets. But Chalcis harbors a dark secret, one that pitches SG-1 into a world of bloody chaos, betrayal and madness. Battling to escape the living nightmare, Dr Daniel Jackson and Captain Samantha Carter soon begin to realize that more than their lives are at stake. They are fighting for their very souls.

But while O'Neill and Teal'c struggle to keep the team together, Daniel is hatching a desperate plan that will test SG-1's fledgling bonds of trust and friendship to the limit...

Rachel Caine rewrites history, creating a dangerous world where the Great Library of Alexandria has survived the test of time....

Ruthless and supremely powerful, the Great Library is now a presence in every major city, governing the flow of knowledge to the masses. Alchemy allows the Library to deliver the content of the greatest works of history instantly--but the personal ownership of books is expressly forbidden.

Jess Brightwell believes in the value of the Library, but the majority of his knowledge comes from illegal books obtained by his family, who are involved in the thriving black market. Jess has been sent to be his family's spy, but his loyalties are tested in the final months of his training to enter the Library's service.

When he inadvertently commits heresy by creating a device that could change the world, Jess discovers that those who control the Great Library believe that knowledge is more valuable than any human life--and soon both heretics and books will burn....

With an iron fist, The Great Library controls the knowledge of the world, ruthlessly stamping out all rebellion, forbidding the personal ownership of books in the name of the greater good.

Jess Brightwell has survived his introduction to the sinister, seductive world of the Library, but serving in its army is nothing like he envisioned. His life and the lives of those he cares for have been altered forever. His best friend is lost, and Morgan, the girl he loves, is locked away in the Iron Tower and doomed to a life apart.

Embarking on a mission to save one of their own, Jess and his band of allies make one wrong move and suddenly find themselves hunted by the Library's deadly automata and forced to flee Alexandria, all the way to London.

But Jess's home isn't safe anymore. The Welsh army is coming, London is burning, and soon, Jess must choose between his friends, his family, or the Library willing to sacrifice anything and anyone in the search for ultimate control...

The unforgettable characters from Ink and Bone and Paper and Fire unite to save the Great Library of Alexandria from itself in this electrifying adventure in the New York Times bestselling series.

Hoarding all the knowledge of the world, the Great Library jealously guards its secrets. But now a group of rebels poses a dangerous threat to its tyranny....

Jess Brightwell and his band of exiles have fled London, only to find themselves imprisoned in Philadelphia, a city led by those who would rather burn books than submit. But Jess and his friends have a bargaining chip: the knowledge to build a machine that will break the Library's rule.

Their time is running out. To survive, they'll have to choose to live or die as one, to take the fight to their enemies--and to save the very soul of the Great Library....

To save the Great Library, the unforgettable characters from Ink and Bone, Paper and Fire, andAsh and Quill put themselves in danger in the next thrilling adventure in the New York Times bestselling series.

The opening moves of a deadly game have begun. Jess Brightwell has put himself in direct peril, with only his wits and skill to aid him in a game of cat and mouse with the Archivist Magister of the Great Library. With the world catching fire, and words printed on paper the spark that lights rebellion, it falls to smugglers, thieves, and scholars to save a library thousands of years in the making... if they can stay alive long enough to outwit their enemies.

With the future of the Great Library in doubt, the unforgettable characters from Ink and Bonemust decide if it's worth saving in this thrilling adventure in the New York Times bestselling series.

The corrupt leadership of the Great Library has fallen. But with the Archivist plotting his return to power, and the Library under siege from outside empires and kingdoms, its future is uncertain. Jess Brightwell and his friends must come together as never before, to forge a new future for the Great Library... or see everything it stood for crumble.

WELCOME TO MORGANVILLE. YOU'LL NEVER WANT TO LEAVE.

By day, Morganville, Texas, is just a typical college town. By night, the vampires emerge and take control....

In a town where it's not safe to be out after dark, student Claire Danvers and her friends have had their fair share of thrills. But Morganville still has a few secrets left to tell.

Now, in this collection, you can venture down the town's strange streets, revisit all the tales you've come to love, and experience six new stories featuring your favorite Morganville residents--both human and vampire...

College freshman Claire Danvers has had enough of her nightmarish dorm situation, where the popular girls never let her forget just where she ranks in the school's social scene: somewhere less than zero.When Claire heads off-campus, the imposing old house where she finds a room may not be much better. Her new roommates don't show many signs of life. But they'll have Claire's back when the town's deepest secrets come crawling out, hungry for fresh blood.

Claire has her share of challenges. Like being a genius in a school that favors beauty over brains; homicidal girls in her dorm, and finding out that her college town is overrun with the living dead. On the up side, she has a new boyfriend with a vampire-hunting dad. But when a local fraternity throws the Dead Girls' Dance, hell is really going to break loose.

Claire Danvers's college town may be run by vampires but a truce between the living and the dead made things relatively safe. For a while. Now people are turning up dead, a psycho is stalking her, and an ancient bloodsucker has proposed private mentoring. To what end, Claire will find out. And it's giving night school a whole new meaning.

In the college town of Morganville, vampires and humans have learned to live in relative peace. Still, students like Claire Danvers know that after dark, studying can take a backseat to staying alive. But the tenuous good-neighbor policy is really turned on its head with the arrival of Mr. Bishop. Bad to the bone, the ancient old-school vampire cares nothing about harmony. Staying at the top of the food chain is enough. What he wants from the town's living and dead is unthinkably sinister. It's only at a formal ball attended by vampires and their human dates that Claire realizes Bishop's plan---and the elaborately evil trap he's set for the warm-blooded souls of Morganville.

In the college town of Morganville, vampires and humans have coexisted in bloodless harmony until the arrival of Bishop, a master vampire who threatens to put the evil back in evil undead and smash the fragile peace. But Bishop isn't the only threat.

Violent black clouds promise a storm of devastating proportions. As student Claire Danvers and her friends prepare to defend Morganville against the elements---both natural and unnatural---the unexpected happens: Morganville's vampires begin to vanish one by one. Discovering why leads Claire to one last choice: Swear allegiance to Bishop... or die.

In the small college town of Morganville, vampires and humans lived in (relative) peace---until all the rules got rewritten when the evil vampire Bishop arrived, looking for the lost book of vampire secrets. He's kept a death grip on the town ever since. Now an underground resistance is brewing, and in order to contain it, Bishop must go to even greater lengths. He vows to obliterate the town and all its inhabitants---the living and the undead.

Claire Danvers and her friends are the only ones who stand in his way. But even if they defeat Bishop, will the vampires ever be content to go back to the old rules, after having such a taste of power?

Without the evil vampire Bishop ruling over the town of Morganville, the resident vampires have made major concessions to the human population. With their newfound freedoms, Claire Danvers and her friends are almost starting to feel comfortable again. Now Claire can actually concentrate on her studies, and her friend Eve joins the local theater company.

But when one of Eve's castmates goes missing after starting work on a short documentary, Eve suspects the worst. Claire and Eve soon realize that this film project, whose subject is the vampires themselves, is a whole lot bigger - and way more dangerous - than anyone suspected.

Vampire Michael Glass just received the call he's been waiting for all his life. His music has attracted the attention of a heavily connected music producer who wants him to cut a demo and play some dates - which means that Michael will have to enter the human world. But he won't be alone. He's been assigned an undead escort, which includes immortal enforcer Oliver, as well as Michael's human friends: rebellious Eve, oft-misunderstood Claire, and courageous Shane.

And with that mix of personalities, this is going to be a road trip from hell. But what waits for them proves more perilous than they thought. Caught between humans who hate them and a savage party of traveling vampires out to create a blood-soaked feast for themselves, Michael and his friends may not make it to the show on time... or ever.

While developing a new system to maintain Morganville's defenses, student Claire Danvers discovers a way to amplify vampire mental powers. Through this, she's able to reestablish the field around this vampire-infested Texas college town that protects it from outsiders.

But the new upgrades have an unexpected consequence: people inside the town begin to slowly forget who they are - even the vampires. Soon, the town's little memory problem has turned into a full-on epidemic. Now Claire needs to figure out a way to pull the plug on her experiment - before she forgets how to save Morganville.

After discovering that vampires populate her town, college student Claire Danvers knows that the undead just want to live their lives. But someone else wants them to get ready to rumble. There's a new extreme sport getting picked up on the Internet: bare-knuckle fights pitting captured vampires against each other - or humans. Tracking the remote signal leads Claire - accompanied by her friends and "frenemies" - to discover that what started as an online brawl will soon threaten everyone in Morganville.

With her boss preoccupied researching the Founder Houses in Morganville, student Claire Danvers is left to her own devices when she learns that three vampires have vanished without a trace. She soon discovers that the last person seen with one of the missing vampires is someone new to town - a mysterious individual named Magnus. After an uneasy encounter with Morganville's latest resident, Claire is certain Magnus isn't merely human. But is he a vampire - or something else entirely?

In Last Breath, the rain brought a new and dire threat to Morganville and its vampires... their ancient enemies, the draug. Now, the vampires are fighting a losing war, and it will fall to the residents of the Glass House - Michael, Eve, Shane, and Claire - to take the fight to an enemy who threatens to destroy the town, forever. Lovers of Morganville, rejoice: Black Dawn takes the intrigue, romance, and nail-biting suspense of the series to its highest level yet.

Thanks to the eradication of the draug, the vampires of Morganville have been freed of their usual constraints. With the vampires indulging their every whim, the town's human population is determined to hold onto their lives by taking up arms. But college student Claire Danvers isn't taking sides, considering she has ties to both humans and vampires. To make matters worse, a television show comes to Morganville looking for ghosts, just as vampire and human politics collide. Now, Claire and her friends have to figure out how to keep the peace without ending up on the nightly news... or worse.

Thanks to its unique mix of human and vampire residents, Morganville is a small college town with big-time problems. But it isn't the only town with vampire trouble...

Claire never thought she'd leave Morganville, but when she gets accepted into the graduate course at MIT, she can't pass up the opportunity. Saying goodbye to her friends, especially her boyfriend Shane, is bittersweet, and her new life at MIT is both scary and exciting. Enrolled in a special advanced study programme with Professor Irene Anderson, former Morganville native, Claire is able to work on VLAD, her machine designed to cancel the mental abilities of vampires.

But Morganville and its inhabitants are never really far from Claire's mind. When she begins testing her machine on live subjects, things quickly spiral out of control, and Claire begins to wonder whether leaving Morganville was the last mistake she'll ever make...

Something drastic has happened in Morganville while Claire Danvers and her friends were away. The town looks cleaner and happier than they've ever seen it before, but when their incoming group is arrested and separated - vampires from humans - they realise that the changes definitely aren't for the better.

It seems that an organisation called the Daylight Foundation has offered the population of Morganville something they've never had: hope of a vampire-free future. And while it sounds like salvation - even for the vampires themselves - the truth is far more sinister and deadly.

Now, Claire, Shane and Eve need to find a way to break their friends out of Daylighter custody, before the vampires of Morganville meet their untimely end...

The Wardens Association has been around pretty much forever. Some Wardens control Fire, others control Earth or Water or Wind--and the most powerful can control more than one. Without wardens, Mother Nature would wipe humanity off the face of the earth...

Joanne Baldwin is a Weather Warden. Usually, all it takes is a wave of her hand to tame the most violent weather. But now, Joanne is trying to outrun another kind of storm: accusations of corruption and murder. So, she's resorting to the very human tactic of running for her life...

Her only hope is Lewis, the most powerful warden known. Unfortunately, he's also on the run from the Council. It seems he's stolen not one but three bottles of Djinn--making him the most wanted man on earth. And without Lewis, Joanne's chances of surviving are as good as a snowball in--well, a place she may be headed. So, she and her classic Mustang are racing hard to find him--because there's some bad weather closing in fast...

Accused of murder, Weather Warden Joanne Bladwin was chased across the country - and killed - by a team charged with hunting down rogue Wardens. Five days later, Joanne had a lovely funeral and was posthumously cleared of all charges. Her human life was over, but she had been reborn into Djinnhood. Now, until she masters her enhanced powers, Joanne must avoid being 'claimed' by a human. But when a hazard that only a Djinn could sense infiltrates Earth's atmosphere, Joanne must somehow convince someone to do something about it - or the forecast will be deadly. So who said being all - powerful was going to be easy?

Weather Warden Joanne Baldwin has protected the human race from monster storms, been killed, reborn as a Djinn, and then restored to her original form. Now she's throwing the dice to stop an infinitely powerful, deeply disturbed teenager-who is holed up in a Vegas hotel-from bringing on a new ice age.

Weather Warden Joanne Baldwin's stormy personal life is taking its toll on her patience-and her powers. But when the truce between the Wardens and the mystical Djinn starts to self-destruct, Joanne finds herself forced to choose between saving her Djinn lover, saving her Warden abilities-and saving humanity.

The genie is out of the bottle. Rogue Weather Warden Joanne Baldwin is racing to New York to warn her former colleagues of the impending apocalypse. An ancient agreement between the Djinn and the Wardens has been broken, and the furious Djinn, slaves to the Wardens for millennia, are now free of mortal control. With more than half the Wardens unaccounted for in the wake of the Djinn uprising, Joanne realizes that the natural disasters they've combated for so long were merely symptoms of restless Mother Nature fidgeting in her sleep. Now she's waking up - and she's angry...

After preventing Mother Earth from destroying the planet, Joanne Baldwin lost her memories thanks to Ashan the djinn-and they will remain lost forever unless Joanne can recover her identity-and destroy the demon who is impersonating her, fabulous shoes and all...

Weather Warden Joanne Baldwin is on vacation when her Djinn lover, David, asks Joanne to marry him. She's thrilled to say yes, even if some others may be less than happy about it.

Unfortunately, Joanne's pre-marital bliss is ended by a devastating earthquake in Florida. And she can't ask David and his kind for assistance. Because the cause of the quake is unlike anything Joanne has ever encountered and a power even the Djinn cannot perceive.

Weather Warden Joanne Baldwin and her new husband, the Djinn David, are running from a malevolent hurricane bent on destroying her. Joined by an army of fellow Wardens and Djinn onboard a hijacked luxury liner, Joanne has lured the storm into furious pursuit. But even their combined magic may not be enough to stop it-nor the power-mad ex-Weather Warden controlling it...

Weather Warden Joanne Baldwin, her husband, the djinn David, and the Earth herself have been poisoned by a substance that destroys the magic that keeps the world alive. The poison is destabilizing the entire balance of power, bestowing magic upon those who have never had it, and removing it form those who need it. It's just a matter of time before the delicate balance of nature explodes into chaos-and doom.