Dark Occult

Baxter Zevcenko's life is pretty sweet. He's making a name for himself as the kingpin of his smut-peddling high school syndicate, the other gangs are staying out of his business, and he's dating the girl of his dreams, Esme. But when Esme gets kidnapped, things start to get seriously weird, and the only man drunk enough to help is a bearded, booze-soaked, supernatural bounty hunter who goes by the name of Jackson "Jackie" Ronin.

Yancy Lazarus is having a bad day: there's a bullet lodged in his butt cheek, his face looks like the site of a demolition derby, and he's been saran-wrapped to a banquet table. He never should have answered the phone. Stupid bleeding heart - helping others in his circles is a good way to die - just ask the gang members ripped to pieces by some kind of demonic nightmare in LA.

Kali Māhoe, Hawaiian cultural expert and detective with the Maui Police Department, has been called to a bizarre crime scene. In the recesses of a deep trench on Lana'i Island, a derelict refrigerator has been unearthed. Entombed inside are the skeletal remains of someone buried decades ago. Identification is a challenge. The body is headless, the skull replaced with a chilling adornment: a large, ornately carved wooden pineapple.

Still in New York, Katie is working on creating an additional base for herself and her team as Pandora contemplates how she can mess up Calvin's love life. What will happen when Katie meets the woman who means the most to her? And what is Calvin going to do, since the gang in Mexico is not giving up?

Last Spring, Claire was framed for the murder of Junior, the Devil's oldest hellspawn. Last Summer, she reawakened the fourth realm, saved the world (after almost destroying it), and wound up with the worst job ever. Now, Claire's been locked out of her realm, given an assistant that doesn't actually assist, and told to handle a small problem in Underworld that might just get her killed. And to top it all off, Mab's made one of the contenders her untouchable. So, yeah, you could say Claire's having one of those days.

The battle for Templar has only just begun. The city is under attack by a mysterious woman in a purple cloak who wields an extraordinary elemental power: Every few hours, a sustained lighting column strikes the city, slowly draining the lives of everyone it touches with its deadly, crackling energy bolts.

When Ava López’s new life is at stake, she wants nothing more than to be free of her mortal shackles, but just when she’s ready to walk away from her upbringing, her past comes back to haunt her. To force her hand, the newcomer takes the only things of value to Ava—her amulet and her sire. With the looming threat of world annihilation, Ava must destroy the black onyx crystal, stop a rogue vampire army, and rescue Jasik, but a confession from an ally shatters the idyllic illusion surrounding Darkhaven’s magical community.

Paul Mahan escaped the terrifying evil that dwelled in the Rookwood Apartments. But others have not been so lucky. Young Ella Cotter, an innocent child, finds herself tormented by a ghost Paul unwittingly freed when he escaped the building's haunted grounds. As Paul attempts to use hypnosis to separate the child from the tortured entity that clings to her soul, blood runs in the streets.

On the night of his 60th birthday, Sheriff John Mucklow’s wife dies in a car accident. He thought her death was the worst thing to ever happen to him. He was wrong. Seeking a diversion from his grief, John throws himself into investigating the recent disappearance of a local teenager. After discovering a video depicting a bizarre murder with occult undertones, John becomes obsessed with catching the killer.

Brenda Strange is back and is spooked by a fishy apparition that leaves wet footprints behind. During her most current murder investigation, she's got the living and the dead wanting a piece of the action.

Stefan Korzh continues to unleash his bloodthirsty haunted antiques onto an unsuspecting world. But as his past catches up with him, he discovers that there's a price to pay for his murderous desires. The latest item is an eerily cold, silver class ring that drives its wearer into a frenzy for human flesh. A brutal urge to plunge a knife deep into innocent bystanders is overtaking the residents of Concord, New Hampshire. An unlikely alliance is formed between Ariana Leckie and Victor Daniels on their hunt for Stefan and the collectibles.

Once more Wren Valere's game plan has taken an unexpected direction. She'd agreed to a bargain with one supersecret magic-watching outfit to protect her and her partner on their last job. But now the Silence is trying to wedge them apart. On the one hand, ever since she and Sergei began to talk about their "relationship," things have been tricky. On the other, though... Well, no one better try to stand between Wren and Sergei when danger is near!

Naked. Incoherent. Covered with blood. That's how Detective Frank Blackburn finds her - a beautiful Jane Doe brandishing a pair of scissors near the scene of a brutal murder. Is she the perpetrator? Or is she the only eyewitness to the handiwork of Vincent Van Gogh, a twisted serial killer with an "artistic" bent? To find out, Blackburn takes her to renowned psychiatrist Dr. Michael Tolan. But Tolan has problems of his own. One year ago today, his beloved wife, Abby, was savagely slaughtered by the very same serial killer.

Charles L. Grant's town of Oxrun Station became real to horror fans (much like Lovecraft's Arkham and King's Castle Rock). While most of Grant's stories were contemporary, he did write a trilogy of "historical" novels placed in an earlier Oxrun. The Dark Cry of the Moon is a classic werewolf tale for fans of the old Universal and Hammer horror films. The emphasis is on character and atmosphere, not on gore. It is the second volume in Grant's acclaimed "historical horror" trilogy.

Representing the dark underbelly of Romanticism and beyond, these stories reach the shadowy corners of the human soul as seen through the writings of some of the most prominent authors of the 19th and early 20th centuries.

How could Sadie have lived so long in this town without knowing it was harboring a very old secret? The dark side of the woods was a place she walked by nearly every single day and it seemed perfectly normal. But one day, she realized that nothing that walked in there walked back out. Curses and wolves are somehow entangled in Sadie's new romance, and a gruesome transformation threatens to change everything she has ever known. She's the only one who can save her town, her love, and herself. It has to end where it started, in the center of the forest.

Life at St. Agatha's School for Girls is anything but a fairy tale. With ratty blankets and a torturous device called the box, it's not hard to understand Eliza's desperation to escape. When the timing is right, Eliza manages to run away with her best friend, Millie, heading through the Louisiana swamps to the town on the other side. But the swamps may be even more dangerous than the orphanage. Silver and black fairies invite the girls to experience a world where they can have it all, but Eliza doesn't trust the sparkling beauty.

Everyone knows Jaxon Slater. He's the life-of-the-party guy. He's the fun guy we want to invite to our outdoor barbeques but not to marry our daughters. He is our nephew, the next-door neighbor who drinks too much, a friend of a friend that overdosed on heroin. He's the class clown in high school that was always in trouble from drinking and driving.

Ava López's best friend from childhood is missing, and her former coven has asked for her help to find her. Despite all the pain the witches have treated Ava to with their rejection, she is determined to find Liv - even though her new allies harbor resentment. Ava hopes finding Liv will put an end to the feud between the two groups, but she realizes that to help the witches, she must turn her back on the vampires. But this is the least of her problems.

New curses arise, along with the return of the Nine Witches. They hunt for items of the occult, items that threaten not only Camelot, but all of the surrounding lands. His coven is in trouble, his friends being targeted, and his throne threatened. If Arthur can't find a way to defeat the Nine, all he holds dear will be forfeit. But if we know anything of Arthur and his ladies, it's that they know how to bring the pain with a vengeance. And have spicy fun along the way.