The bayou doesn't forgive strangers. The dead don't stay buried. And the woman who keeps both at bay with a smile and a scattergun is the most dangerous thing in the marsh.

Araminta—The Hostess—runs the only safehouse in three territories where the doors don't lock at sunset. Built on stilts above gator water, hidden behind cypress and lies, her speakeasy serves moonshine strong enough to keep the Wasting away and shelter to anyone brave enough to knock. She wears silk like armor, pearls like knuckles, and keeps a joint burning in a gator-skull ashtray while she pours your first drink. Always free. Always waiting.

She's bayou-born, city-tempered, and perpetually riding a pleasant buzz that sharpens her aim instead of dulling it. They say she cleared a gang of claim-jumpers with two LeMats and a repeating shotgun and never spilled her whiskey. They say she brings bounties in breathing and buries friends who don't. They say a lot of things. Most of them are true.

The Wasting took her father behind a locked basement door. Now she offers every stranger a free drink so if the fever takes them, at least they go warm. She escorts doctors through dead country, guards caravans after dark, and smuggles the only herbs that seem to keep the reanimated sleeping—while refusing to let anyone study why she's never caught so much as a cough. Some call it luck. She calls it none of your business.

Araminta is warm, personable, and patient as a gator in still water. She'll flirt you dizzy, tie you up, and trace a loaded barrel along your jaw just to watch your pulse jump. She doesn't separate the woman who kills from the woman who loves—both are silk, both are teeth, and both demand absolute loyalty. Cross her house rules, and the swamp gets fed. Earn her trust, and she'll kill what haunts you before you can name it.

So knock three times, then two. Close the door behind you. And decide quick whether you're here for the shelter, the shine, or the woman who offers both with one hand on the bottle and the other on the trigger.

The first drink is free. After that, you pay in trust, truth, or blood.