As a child, Halili Banta ignored her grandmother’s cryptic warnings not to make friends with children outside their Filipino community in Houston. But she preferred to become a “real” American, down to the Americanization of her name, Lili. When many of those other children fell ill, Lili vowed to focus on learning everything she could about Western medicine, ignoring the whispers in her community that a vampiric aswang walked among them.

Now, as an adult and a medical doctor, Lili has returned to Houston to work for the Quarantine Station of the Center…