That's why he's been hired to descend into the Nightside, an otherworldly realm in the center of London where fantasy and reality share renting space and the sun never shines.

    The story is available for free on Karen Chance's website.

    It’s his job to keep strangers out. Especially when a demon is hell-bent on stealing their most precious resource—magic.Can Quinn lower his shields enough to let Bobbi in?Can Bobbi trust these witches to help her tame the wild magic inside her?No one can stand alone against the coming darkness.No witch can hide any longer.Inborn Magic, Book 1 of the Hidden Coven series. You’ll love this sizzling paranormal suspense because of its quirky characters and action-packed story.

    Owen Grayson is still wracked with guilt over the end of his love affair with Gin Blanco, and there aren’t enough gin and tonics in all of Ashland to ease his heartache. But when Gin happens to show up at the same nightclub, he isn’t the only one hoping to get her alone. Some shadowy figures will do anything to take down the Spider, Gin’s assassin alter ego, and Owen will do anything to protect her. This could be the way to win her back, or at least give her a night off from fighting for her life—if Owen can survive...

    Recent college grad, magic user and severely unemployed. Until I got a call out of nowhere to interview for a job I hadn't applied for. It smelled fishy, but the brutal truth was I needed the work—so off I went.Two days later I'm a PUPI—me and Nick, Sharon, Nifty and Pietr. Five twentysomethings, thrown into an entirely new career in forensic magic.The first job we get is a doozy: proving that the deaths of two Talents were murder, not suicide. Worse, there are high-profile people who want us to close up shop and go away. We're sniffing out things they'd rather keep buried.Looks as if this job is gonna get interesting. The only problem is, we're making it up as we go along….

    Only it’s not like the movies or old man Stoker’s storybook. It’s worse. Especially if you happen to be one of them. Just ask Joe Pitt. There’s a shambler on the loose. Some fool who got himself infected with a flesh-eating bacteria is lurching around, trying to munch on folks’ brains. Joe hates shamblers, but he’s still the one who has to deal with them. That’s just the kind of life he has. Except afterlife might be better word.From the Battery to the Bronx, and from river to river, Manhattan is crawling with Vampyres. Joe is one of them, and he’s not happy about it. Yeah, he gets to be stronger and faster than you, and he’s tough as nails and hard to kill. But spending his nights trying to score a pint of blood to feed the Vyrus that’s eating at him isn’t his idea of a good time. And Joe doesn’t make it any easier on himself. Going his own way, refusing to ally with the Clans that run the undead underside of Manhattan–it ain’t easy. It’s worse once he gets mixed up with the Coalition–the city’s most powerful Clan–and finds himself searching for a poor little rich girl who’s gone missing in Alphabet City.Now the Coalition and the girl’s high-society parents are breathing down his neck, anarchist Vampyres are pushing him around, and a crazy Vampyre cult is stalking him. No time to complain, though. Got to find that girl and kill that shambler before the whip comes down . . . and before the sun comes up.

    The crime scenes show signs of residual magic, but the Guild, which polices the fey, has more "important" crimes to investigate and dumps the case on human law enforcement. Boston police call in Connor Grey, a druid and former hotshot Guild investigator-whose magical abilities were crippled after a run-in with a radical environmentalist elf. As Connor battles red tape and his own shortcomings, he realizes that the murders are not random, but part of an ancient magical ritual. And if Connor can't figure out the killer's M.O., the culmination of the spell might just bring about a worldwide cataclysm.

    All in a day's work.For Evangeline Hollis, a long ago fling with a bad boy from the wrong side of the tracks just became a disaster of biblical proportions. One night with a leather-clad man of mystery has led to a divine punishment: the Mark of Cain.Thrust into a world where sinners are drafted into service to kill demons, Eve's learning curve is short. A longtime agnostic, she begrudgingly maneuvers through a celestial bureaucracy where she is a valuable but ill-treated pawn. She's also become the latest point of contention in the oldest case of sibling rivalry in history... But she'll worry about all that later. Right now she's more concerned with learning to kill while staying alive. And saving the soul she'd never believed she had.

    The illegal treatments keeping him alive are expensive, and the side effects a mixed bag:Conor can raise the dead.When a low-end hit points to a high-end job, Conor is suspicious, but it's an opportunity he can't afford to ignore. Armed with a set of soul-sucking ancient dice, a collection of corpses, and the estranged daughter of one of the most powerful wizards on Earth, it will take all of his wit, charm, and magic to navigate the treacherous world of the dominant Houses and either finish the job, or be finished himself.He's got 99 problems, and dying is only one.

    And then Quentin Draith wakes up in a private sanatorium, severely injured and with no memory of who he is. Are these strange incidents related? And if so, how deadly are the answers?Draith doesn’t know who he is, but after escaping he slowly learns what he is. An investigator and blogger specializing in the supernatural, he begins to piece together his life—and the accident that took away his memories. He discovers that he is a special breed, a person with relatives of great age and power, all of whom mistrust or even hate him. And when he falls under suspicion for a series of murders involving seemingly mundane objects, Quentin’s search for the truth behind his identity becomes a desperate race to clear his name.Bristling with energy and almost unbearable suspense, Technomancer: Unspeakable Things #1 is the first in best-selling author B. V. Larson’s thrilling new series that will draw you to the edge of your seat and chill you to the bone.

    Banks, Kelley Armstrong, and many more! Horror fiction explores the dark side of human nature, often pushing the limits of violence, graphic gore, and extreme emotions. But with the popularity of shows and movies, such as "The Walking Dead," "True Blood," "Twilight," "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," audiences have demonstrated their love for the genre--especially accompanied with a dose of humor to tone down the terror."Blood Lite III: Aftertaste" continues to put the fun back into dark fiction, featuring a wide range of humorous and highly entertaining horror-filled tales. Edited by Horror Writers Association founding member and award-winning author Kevin J. Anderson, the stories vary in tone from wry to downright laugh-out-loud funny. Featuring such well-known horror writers as Jim Butcher, Sherrilyn Kenyon, Christopher Golden, and many others, this collection of tales is perfect for anyone who enjoys being entertained as much as they love a good scare.Contents:I was a teenage Bigfoot / Jim Butcher --Blood-red greens / Joel A. Sutherland --V plates / Kelley Armstong --Put on a happy face / Christopher Golden --Devil's contract / E.S. Magill --Nine-tenths of the law / Eric James Stone --Scrumptious bone bread / Jeff Strand --Let that be a lesson to you / Mark Onspaugh --Mint in box / Mike Baron --Great zombie invasion of 1979 / J.G. Faherty --Dating after the apocalypse / Stephen Dorato --Typecast / Jeff Ryan --Making the cut / Mike Resnick, Lezli Robyn --Acknowledgments / Will Ludwigsen --Mannequin / Heather Graham --Short term / Daniel Pyle --Distressed travelers / Nina Kiriki Hoffman --Bayou brawl / L.A. Banks --Steeple people / John Alfred Taylor --For sale / David Sakmyster --Man who could not be bothered to die / Norman Prentiss --Last demon / Don D'Ammassa --Misadventure to call your own / Adrian Ludens --Smoke and mirrorballs / Chris Abbey --Brians!!! / D.L. Snell --Still life / Ken Lilli-Paetz --Day in the life / Sherrilyn

    As a cursed immortal, she was banished from entering heaven years ago. When paradise is out of reach, one must bargain away their fate. Recruited by a corrupt archangel named Ereziel, Thalia must fight her way back into heaven and find a way through the gates of purgatory. Tasked with killing souls so vile, their darkness must be extinguished and collected as currency back into heaven. Thalia gains an unfortunate reputation as a blood-thirsty, self-destructing mercenary. When one of vile souls tells her she’ll never be able to buy her way back into purgatory to reach heaven for she is not from either kingdom, she doesn’t believe him, even when he gifts her a locket he claims belongs to her. Killing him only brings the wrath of all the orders of demons and archangels in the city. Barely escaping their clutches alive, she must hustle to discover what the locket does and to confirm if a legendary realm outside of heaven, hell, and earth truly exists. Accursed Archangels is a breakneck young adult urban fantasy adventure series which will appeal to readers of paranormal romance, vampires, reverse harems, angels, demons, and supernatural lore.

    I’ve been on the run from the Council of Mages for as long as I can remember. You’d have to ask the Council why, because I have a long memory and don’t know what I or my parents did wrong.  I had everything figured out at one point. Then, I broke one of my own rules.  I had drinks and there was this woman – my main rule is no women, connections and entanglements – it makes for a lonely existence. Now I’m running for my life from the world’s foremost assassin.  He is thought to be immortal, which would make killing him a little tougher than I’d hoped. My nomadic existence has led me to my becoming a prepper. A mage prepper. I can inscribe runes into ordinary objects to give them extraordinary power. I can also see up to five seconds into the future, which comes in handy when you challenge a young rogue alpha werewolf. That scrape was worth it. Not only was I granted my own accorded pack territory, but rescuing that fairy from the Alpha earned me one of my closest friends. When she’s not spewing pop culture references, there are glitter bombs and snark. Another close friend is the Sheriff, and just thinking about her has me wanting to break my own rules.   Topping my “to do” list, though, are divining the future to stay alive and solving my parents’ murder. Maybe some payback, though the chips are stacked against me.

    Then she usually kills them, since self-preservation comes first. So when an old vampire friend kills himself, Eleisha is shocked. And what she finds in his home shows how world-weary he had become; hoarding corpses and keeping records of vampires actual names and addresses. Now the police know who Eleisha is, and more alarmingly, what she is. But she soon realizes that being known may have its uses, even if it puts her and her kind at risk.

    Not since he was trained to kill creatures that were supposed to exist only in nightmares.Yet the teenage girl on his doorstep not only knows his real name, she claims she's his daughter.Before Lockman can learn how the girl found him, he's attacked by a black-ops team of assassins. But these aren't ordinary killers—they're heavily armed vampires sent by his most hated enemy.Forced on the run, Lockman protects his daughter from an onslaught of horrors while searching for who betrayed him and why. The investigation leads him to Detroit, where he unwittingly sets a plan into motion that could trigger a paranormal apocalypse and cost him his soul.For fans of Jim Butcher, Simon R. Green, and Laurell K. Hamilton… Darker Things is an 82,000-word urban fantasy loaded with double-crosses, thrilling action, and shocking twists.