A cynical, wise-cracking vampire charged with protecting the Balance between vampires and humans, he is part cop, part spy, and part commando -- James Bond with fangs. Lawson mixes shrewd cunning with unmatched lethality to get his job done. He tries his best to dismantle conspiracies, dispatch bad guys, and live long enough to get home.

    A suburban mom with two young children, her life revolves around her family, her job, and the comforts of home. So when her estranged, wild-child sister comes to her, begging for help and claiming a witch murdered her husband and wants to steal her baby daughter in payment for a long-ago oath, Tamara thinks she’s gone crazy. Until she turns up dead, and the baby vanishes without a trace. If Tamara’s going to get her niece back, she’ll have to expand her worldview fast. She’ll also need some expert help. But where can a normal, practical woman find help dealing with an evil witch? Fortunately for her, aid is closer than she thinks. Who better to give button-down Tamara a crash course in things that go bump in the night than Stanford occult studies professor Dr. Alastair Stone? At least he can offer some tips, even if she’s sure he can’t help her any other way. Because magic isn’t real…right? Welcome to the spooky side of the street, Tamara. Hope you survive the experience. Devil's Bargain is a short, standalone novel in the world of the Alastair Stone Chronicles urban fantasy series. Don't miss the rest of the series: Stone and a Hard Place The Forgotten The Threshold The Source Core of Stone Blood and Stone Heart of Stone Flesh and Stone The Infernal Heart The Other Side Path of Stone Necessary Sacrifices Game of Stone Steel and Stone Stone and Claw The Seventh Stone and two standalone novellas: Turn to Stone Shadows and Stone

    A gang-infested school. A vengeful teacher. After his star pupil, Rina Ogawa, is sexually assaulted in a school restroom, Edward Clifford sets out on a journey to find the truth and bring her attackers to justice. He finds himself delving head-first into the lives of his other students—lives filled with crime, violence, and hatred. What starts as a desperate attempt to achieve justice quickly sends Edward down the path of vengeance... Who attacked Rina Ogawa? Can Edward bring her attackers to justice? Or will he take matters into his own hands? From the provocative author of The Law of Retaliation and Grandfather’s House, Jon Athan brings you a shocking thriller packed with mystery, suspense, and extreme violence. This is a story of human horror. WARNING: This novel contains graphic content. Reader discretion is advised.

    Real true crime is not for everyone. The stories in this book represent humanity at its absolute worst. Pure evil. Television crime shows and news articles often skip the gruesome parts of true crime stories. The real details are just too grisly for the average viewer or reader.In my books, however, I do my best to include the details, regardless of how unsettling they may be. Each story requires hours of research. I search through old newspaper articles, court documents, police reports, autopsy results, and first-hand descriptions. Some of the specifics can be disconcerting. I choose to include the details not to shock, but to give the reader a deeper view into the mind of the killer. Although it’s unlikely any of us will understand the motives of a diabolical monster, the level of depravity will keep you turning pages.That being said, if you are overly squeamish about the details of true crime, this book may not be for you. If you’re okay with it… then let’s begin.Volume 7 features: Longer stories, more photos, a bonus chapter, and an online appendix with additional photos, videos, and documents. Volume 7 of True Crime Case Histories features twelve new stories from the past fifty years.A sampling of the stories include:You’ll read about a law enforcement officer that took advantage of the trust associated with his uniform. His brutal reign of terror lasted eight years. It took the bravery of two young women that escaped his grasp to bring him down.There’s the story of the recent law school graduate with a crush on his neighbor. Rather than asking her out on a date, he stalked and spied on his classmate, eventually taking her life. There’s also the heartbreaking story of a single mom, drowning in debt, that did the unthinkable for insurance money.Seven of the stories in this book feature women killers, two of which took the time to meticulously dismember their victims—a task that can take great strength. Another woman manipulated her two teenage boys into killing for her. Yet another woman staged an elaborate hoax to get rid of her loving husband rather than go through the agony of a messy divorce.You’ll also read of a sadistic group of up to twelve killers that took joy in abducting and torturing young men in Australia. Sadly, only one of the mysterious group has been brought to justice.Plus many more disturbing stories.The twelve stories in this volume are shocking and disturbing, but they’re true. These things really happen in the world. We may never understand why killers do what they do, but at least we can be better informed. You may have heard of a few of the stories in this volume, but there are several I’m almost certain you haven’t.

    From torture chambers in Iraq to race riots in the United States, the Whargoul was there - killing and raping. It is a beast born in bullets and shrapnel, feeding off of pain, misery, and hard drugs. Cursed to wander the Earth without the hope of death, it is reborn again and again to spread the gospel of hate, abuse, and genocide. But what if it's not the only monster out there? What if there's something worse? From Dave Brockie, the twisted genius behind GWAR, comes a novel about the darkest days of the twentieth century. The modern world is dying and Brockie is here to put a bullet between its eyes and violate the corpse. This is all-out fucking war!

    From steamy Los Angeles to post-apocalyptic Reno, Cèsar's getting deeper into preternatural trouble by the moment. A collection of four New York Times bestselling author SM Reine's books. Included are Shadow Burns, Deadly Wrong, Ashes and Arsenic, and Once Darkness Falls. ABOUT SHADOW BURNS When more than a dozen people die at a retirement home, the official story is carbon monoxide poisoning. Cèsar Hawke is convinced the reason is less mundane and more infernal. But that’s his job. As an agent working for the Office of Preternatural Affairs, he’s always looking for supernatural answers to deadly questions. Isobel Stonecrow agrees to help him find the truth. With her powers of necrocognition, she can speak to the dead and get the real story. But when they return to the crime scene, they find a lot more than cadavers. They find a nightmare that they can’t escape—a nightmare from Isobel’s past, which even she can’t completely remember thanks to the contract that signed away her soul. Cèsar will have to disinter Isobel’s secrets to save her. He’ll learn who Isobel used to be, what she’s done, and the price she paid…no matter how deadly the knowledge might be. ABOUT DEADLY WRONG Isobel Stonecrow’s life has an expiration date: One month, two weeks, four days, and six hours remaining. Not that she’s counting. When she signed a contract giving her soul and memories to a demon named Ander, she didn’t expect that she would ever have to face termination. But now Ander is dead and she’ll be following suit if she can’t find a way to dissolve the deal. Too bad she can’t remember anything from the time before she signed the contract. Fritz Friederling, a billionaire demon hunter who owns several businesses in Hell, isn’t ready to give up on Isobel. But she isn’t sure that working with Fritz is better than dying. She doesn’t know much about her past life, but she knows that she signed Ander’s contract for a reason—and that getting away from Fritz was a significant part of it. Escaping her contract means remembering the life that she chose to forget. And it means trusting Fritz Friederling, who Isobel fears might be the biggest danger of all… ABOUT ASHES AND ARSENIC Agent Cèsar Hawke is in his element when he’s investigating magical crime. And with his boss out of town, Cèsar gets to pick which cases he works on. He’s bent on doing nothing involving demons, zombies, or fallen angels this time. Instead, he’s going to find the witch who used magic to rob a bank. Easy stuff. Cèsar plans to catch the perp before his boss gets home. But when he digs into the robbery, he finds much more than missing money. He also finds a deadly turf battle between two covens and a trail of bloody violence. A trail that leads directly to his brother, Domingo Hawke. Domingo wants Cèsar’s help taking down his enemies. Forget that Cèsar works for the Office of Preternatural Affairs, forget allegiances, forget pesky “contracts” and “conduct.” Domingo is calling in a favor and the Hawke family is too tight to refuse. Blood is the most powerful ingredient in any witch’s spell, after all… ABOUT ONCE DARKNESS FALLS The worst case scenario has happened: Reno NV has fallen to d

    When empath Jade Calhoun moves into an apartment above a strip bar on Bourbon Street, she expects life to get interesting. What she doesn't count on is making friends with an exotic dancer, attracting a powerful spirit, and developing feelings for Kane, her sexy landlord. Being an empath has never been easy on Jade's relationships. It's no wonder she keeps her gift a secret. But when the ghost moves from spooking Jade to terrorizing Pyper, the dancer, it's up to Jade to use her unique ability to save her. Except she'll need Kane's help--and he's betrayed her with a secret of his own--to do it. Can she find a way to trust him and herself before Pyper is lost?Witches of Bourbon StreetJade Calhoun was never fond of her empath abilities. Now she's discovered she has another gift she'd rather not unwrap--magic. But when her mentor, Bea, becomes gravely ill and insists Jade's the only one who can help, she's forced to embrace her witchy side.It's too bad she spent a decade shunning the magical community and never learned to harness her powers. Because time's run out. A trapped spirit has revealed a clue to Jade's long-lost mother. The resident angel has gone rogue and disappeared with Jade's boyfriend, Kane. And if that wasn't enough, her ex appears to be possessed.To save any of them, Jade will need to find a way to control her inner white witch--without succumbing to black magic. Otherwise, she'll lose everything...including her soul.

    Once upon a time, in a land blighted by terror, there was a very clever boy.The people thought the boy could save them, so they opened their gates and sent him out into the world.To where the monsters lived.

    In this creepy tale, the twist comes with the very last word…

    He's still alienated from his closest friend, Karrin Murphy, and on exceedingly poor terms with Chicago's number one gangster, John Marcone. And that's just the small stuff — the creatures of the Nevernever don't take vacations and aren't particularly worried about Harry's friendships or love life

    And an old flame to complicate the trip.Check out this beach-y Violet Darger short featuring Darger, Loshak, Owen, and Spinks.When 17-year-old Micaela Tolliver goes missing during her beach vacation, FBI profiler Violet Darger heads to Curacao to investigate. The case vexes local law enforcement, with plenty of suspicious characters around and comparisons to Natalee Holloway aplenty.Red herrings. False starts. People who will go great lengths to protect the island's long held secrets.Further complications emerge due to someone else entangled in the case -- Darger's old friend and former lover, private investigator Owen Baxter. They're working together for the first time after a bad breakup. The tension is palpable, and Darger begins to question the knot of conflicts in her own heart.Corruption. Death. Sand. Romance.Once again, Violet Darger shines her light into the shadows. And what she finds there in the darkness will change her.

    ‘Come on! Move it!’ Pilcher, though considerably older than the others, ran with surprising speed from the base of the Needle to the helicopter. Reynolds…brought up the rear, his M16 swinging left and right in case any targets popped up. ‘Evans,’ Reynolds said, “ETA on Pam.’ ‘She’s about a minute away.’ ‘And the abbies?’ ‘They’re right behind her.’” The genius architect of Wayward Pines, David Pilcher, decides to lead a scouting party out of his secluded mountain fortress to make sure the dying world he once knew has disappeared. It has…mostly. But the abbies are out there, too—millions of monstrous reminders of what humanity has involved into. And every one of them wants to tear Pilcher and his crew apart.Brett Battles’s Alone is another wildly inventive, hair-raising chapter in the Wayward Pines series.

    In laymen's terms, Witch. In my world I'm the normal one. Ivan Westerfield on the other hand, is a Cyber Witch. He doesn't need a computer to do a bit of web surfing. He's anything but normal. So I asked him to help me steal a file from the Computer of a Ceremonial Magician. It seemed like a good idea...

    

    Harshwardhana, the leader, believes they will win…Until he falls upon a sinister secret of the dark forces.Centuries later… Prithvi Sen is a regular college-going boy. His growth from childhood to adulthood has been plagued by an uncanny disease. Although medicines have it under control, Prithvi feels that the illness hasn’t revealed its truest nature yet. During his existential crisis, a drastic series of events occur and bring the most unexpected twist into his life. Could there be a link between Prithvi and the Dharmayodhas?