Sometimes, all that separates them is a fine line. The stories within “Parallel Worlds” explore the lives of such heroes and what drives them – and what keeps them from crossing over to the other side. This anthology features nineteen stories from bestselling, award-winning, and emerging authors, and includes brand new, never-before seen stories from Jim Butcher's, "Dresden Files," and Robert Asprin's "The Myth-Adventures" by Jody Lynn Nye.

    Mick Oberon may look like just another private detective, but beneath the fedora and the overcoat, he's got pointy ears and he's packing a wand. Oberon's used to solving supernatural crimes, but the latest one's extra weird. A mobster's daughter was kidnapped sixteen years ago, replaced with a changeling, and Mick's been hired to find the real child. The trail's gone cold, but what there is leads Sideways, to the world of the Fae, where the Seelie Court rules. And Mick's not really welcome in the Seelie Court any more. He'll have to wade through Fae politics and mob power struggles to find the kidnapper – and of course it's the last person he expected.

    But when he sees something he was never meant to see on a covert mission gone bad, he finds himself—and his family—in the crosshairs. Nothing means more to Jim than protecting his loved ones, but when the enemy brings the battle to his front door, he is overwhelmed and taken down.It should be the end of the story. But Jim is raised from the dead by a sorcerer and recruited by a top secret unit dabbling in the occult, known only as the Gemini Cell. With powers he doesn’t understand, Jim is called back to duty—as the ultimate warrior. As he wrestles with a literal inner demon, Jim realizes his new superiors are determined to use him for their own ends and keep him in the dark—especially about the fates of his wife and son…

    For a long time, Jeff only had eyes for the beautiful Fallon Keene. Unfortunately, she is the only sister of the lethal North American Central Pack Apex Gabriel Keene. But fate takes a hand when the Pack's totem is stolen, and Fallon enlists Jeff's help to retrieve it before the Pack is thrown into chaos. Can she and Jeff find the totem, and restore order, before it's too late? And will Jeff finally be able to prove himself to the only person he truly loves?In Lucky Break, Merit and Ethan are in desperate need of some alone time, but their attempt at a romantic getaway is quickly interrupted when one of Ethan's vampire friends shows up at their door-covered in blood and accused of killing her shifter husband. Now, Merit and Ethan must put their passion on pause to figure out who's really responsible for the murder before all hell breaks loose...

    She has no memory of her parents or her childhood. In a decade of service with the State Police, Sam has exhausted the resources of the force searching for clues to her identity. But all mention of her family seems to have been deliberately wiped off the record. Everything changes the night Sam’s missing partner resurfaces as a vampire . . . and forces her to kill him in self-defense. Now Sam is charged with murder. Suspended from the force, and with no one left to trust, Sam accepts some unexpected help from Gabriel Stern, a shapeshifter who conceals startling secrets.While investigating the circumstances surrounding her partner’s strange behavior, Sam discovers that Garbriel’s been involved with a dangerous organization that’s planning a war on the human race. More immediate, someone is guarding the truth about Sam’s past—someone who’d rather see her dead than risk her knowing too much. To stay alive, Sam must unravel the threads of her past—and find out not only who she is but what she is.

    Now the book has been stolen, and the sect races to retrieve it before their purpose is discovered: a final purge of all vampires. As the line between saints and shadows grows ominously faint, private eye Peter Octavian is drawn into the search. And he'll do anything to find the book ... for Peter Octavian is also a vampire.Ostracized by his kindred for refusing to take part in the 'blood song', he cannot stand by and watch while they are destroyed. In a deadly game with a driven, sadistic assassin, the trail leads to Venice at the time of carnival, where the Defiant Ones, as the vampires are known, are engaged in a savage battle for their lives. Filled with plot twists, mystery, sex and violent death, Of Saints and Shadows is a spine-tingling thriller which opens the door to the world of Peter Octavian.

    Now Myst, the Vampiric Fae Queen of the Indigo Court, has enough power to begin a long prophesied supernatural war. And Cicely Waters, a witch who can control the wind, may be the only one who can stop her-and save her beloved Fae prince from the Queen's enslavement.Cicely Waters, a witch who can control the wind, has returned home to New Forest, Washington, after learning that her family is in danger. The Indigo Court holds the city in fear. People are vanishing, and strange deaths plague the town. And when she is swept into an unexpected and passionate reunion with Grieve, the Fae prince who taught her how to harness the wind, Cicely finds herself with a fierce and territorial lover.But Greive has been enslaved in Myst's court, and now, caught between two evils, the lovers must survive the machinations of the Vampiric Fae queen, even as Cicely untangles the hidden secrets to her own heritage.

    The angels are no longer in charge. From the extravagant appetites of the vampire world above, to the gritty defiance of the werewolves below, the specter of darkness lives around every corner, the hope of paradise in every heart. All walk freely with humans in a tentative peace, but to live in Los Angeles is to balance on the edge of a knife. One woman knows better than most that death lurks here in nights of bliss or hails of UV bullets. She’s about to be tested, to taste true thirst. She’s about to regain the power she’s long been denied. And Fleur Dumont is about to meet the one man who may understand her: a tormented protector who’s lost his way and all he loved.

    He’s turned it into a lucrative career putting troublesome spirits to rest, sometimes taking on even more dangerous things. For a fee, of course.When he left L.A. fifteen years ago he thought he’d never go back. Too many bad memories. Too many people trying to kill him.But now his sister’s been brutally murdered and Carter wants to find out why.Was it the gangster looking to settle a score? The ghost of a mage he killed the night he left town? Maybe it’s the patron saint of violent death herself, Santa Muerte, who’s taken an unusually keen interest in him.Carter’s going to find out who did it and he’s going to make them pay.As long as they don’t kill him first.

     9 ALL NEW action packed stories from NYT & International Bestselling Urban Fantasy authors. THE BULL DEMON KING by J.A. Cipriano - Mac Brennan just wanted to take his girlfriend to the fair, but the Bull Demon King had other plans... THE BLACK DOOR by Domino Finn - Cisco Suarez is dragged to the depths of the underground Miami nightlife, where seekers of arcane knowledge may just get their wish. DANCE OF THE DEAD by Sonya Bateman - Halloween in Manhattan gets weirder than usual for Gideon Black, who finds himself up against a powerful necromancer looking to raise a lot more than the dead. HARD ROW by Ambrose Ibsen - Demon-hearted brawler Lucian Colt prepares to trace a human trafficking operation to its fountainhead. But will he and his teammates prove a match for what awaits them in the seedy stretch of Hard Row? ANGRY SPARK by Al K. Line - When an old vampire "buddy" calls you in the middle of the night, and asks for a favor, hang up on the them and stay the hell in bed. I was stupid. I got dressed, and nearly got dead soon after.  FAMILY BUSINESS by Rob Cornell - Sorcerer Sebastian Light expects his first day as a demon hunter to go off without a hitch, but sometimes family issues are harder to slay than even the surliest of goblins. VALENTINE BLUES by James A. Hunter - As violence breaks out and people start dying, only Yancy Lazarus—bluesman, gambler, mage, and former wet-works man—can put things right. Well, he can try … A DRIVE IN THE COUNTRY by Craig Schaefer - For Daniel Faust, driving a condemned man to his death dredges up old memories and old ghosts. You can't outrun the past. CHASE THE DARK by Pippa DaCosta - New York’s sewers are infested with gators. As Ace Dante investigates, it becomes clear there’s something far worse beneath the streets, and it’s out for revenge.

    1 The Bastard Stepchild - George R.R. Martin 2 Death by Dahlia - Charlaine Harris 3 The Bleeding Shadow - Joe R. Lansdale 4 Hungry Heart - Simon R. Green 5 Styx and Stones - Steven Saylor 6 Pain and Suffering - S.M. Stirling 7 It's Still the Same Old Story - Carrie Vaughn8 The Lady is a Screamer - Conn Iggulden 9 Hellbender - Laurie R. King 10 Shadow Thieves - Glen Cook 11 No Mystery, No Miracle - Melinda M. Snodgrass 12 The Difference Between a Puzzle and a Mystery - M.L.N. Hanover13 The Curious Affair of the Deodand - Lisa Tuttle 14 Lord John and the Plague of Zombies - Diana Gabaldon15 Beware the Snake - John Maddox Roberts 16 In Red, with Pearls - Patricia Briggs 17 The Adakian Eagle - Bradley Denton

    Inheriting a huge expanse of land should have made him a rich and happy man; but something about this birthday, his name, and the beautiful woman whose life he just saved, has suddenly made him-and everyone he loves-into a target. A target for extreme and uncompromising violence . . . In Alex, Terry Goodkind brings to life a modern hero in a whole new kind of high-octane thriller.

    . . ." The best stories pull readers in and keep them turning the pages, eager to discover more—to find the answer to the question: "And then what happened?" The true hallmark of great literature is great imagination, and as Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio prove with this outstanding collection, when it comes to great fiction, all genres are equal. Stories is a groundbreaking anthology that reinvigorates, expands, and redefines the limits of imaginative fiction and affords some of the best writers in the world—from Peter Straub and Chuck Palahniuk to Roddy Doyle and Diana Wynne Jones, Stewart O'Nan and Joyce Carol Oates to Walter Mosley and Jodi Picoult—the opportunity to work together, defend their craft, and realign misconceptions. Gaiman, a literary magician whose acclaimed work defies easy categorization and transcends all boundaries, and "master anthologist" (Booklist) Sarrantonio personally invited, read, and selected all the stories in this collection, and their standard for this "new literature of the imagination" is high. "We wanted to read stories that used a lightning-flash of magic as a way of showing us something we have already seen a thousand times as if we have never seen it at all." Joe Hill boldly aligns theme and form in his disturbing tale of a man's descent into evil in "Devil on the Staircase." In "Catch and Release," Lawrence Block tells of a seasoned fisherman with a talent for catching a bite of another sort. Carolyn Parkhurst adds a dark twist to sibling rivalry in "Unwell." Joanne Harris weaves a tale of ancient gods in modern New York in "Wildfire in Manhattan." Vengeance is the heart of Richard Adams's "The Knife." Jeffery Deaver introduces a dedicated psychologist whose mission in life is to save people in "The Therapist." A chilling punishment befitting an unspeakable crime is at the dark heart of Neil Gaiman's novelette "The Truth Is a Cave in the Black Mountains." As it transforms your view of the world, this brilliant and visionary volume—sure to become a classic—will ignite a new appreciation for the limitless realm of exceptional fiction.

    His fiercely loyal agent finds him just such a place in a luxurious forgotten mansion high in the Hollywood Hills. But the original owner of the mansion was a beautiful woman devoted to pleasure at any cost, and the terrible legacy of her deeds has not yet died. There are ghosts and monsters haunting Coldheart Canyon, where nothing is forbidden . . .

    . . .When Evangeline Stone wakes up naked and bruised on a cold slab at the morgue—in a stranger’s body, with no memory of who she is and how she got there—her troubles are only just beginning. Before that night she and the two other members of her Triad were the city’s star bounty hunters, mercilessly cleansing the city of the murderous creatures living in the shadows, from vampires to shape-shifters to trolls. Then something terrible happened that not only cost all three of them their lives but also convinced the city’s other Hunters that Evy was a traitor—and she can’t even remember what it was.Now she’s a fugitive, piecing together her memory, trying to deal some serious justice—and discovering that she has only three days to solve her own murder before the reincarnation spell wears off. Because in three days Evy will die again—but this time there’s no second chance. . . .