Occult Fiction

A wealthy man attempts to escape a global plague by hiding in an underground city. Jolly old Saint Nick delivers an unexpected and terrifying present. A loner endures a curse that causes his eyes to bleed. A jealous actor plans for fiery revenge on stage. A woman investigates the urban legend of the murderous “Johnny Blackjack.”

Beaten, bloodied, and barely alive, the survivors of Black River’s cursed families have been cut off from their bloodlines for violating old traditions. But they continue their battle to end the evil of the Bell Witch and release the town from her reign of terror. Pursued by the witch’s minions, the group takes shelter in the Leviathan, an abandoned opera house built a century ago. Its corridors exude supernatural power, and they soon discover that the haunted old building was designed for a very special purpose...to trap the Bell Witch within its walls.

Blackhall Manor has witnessed many dark crimes, long before five teenage girls break in to play the Midnight Game. It was supposed to be a game, but only four girls come home. Detective Sarah Noble has just returned to the force, and no one knows more about Blackhall Manor than her. Except perhaps Elliott Carter, who is only seven but has seen things in his dreams most adults could never imagine. It's a case that will bring them together and shake Sarah to her core. Will she be ready to meet the Midnight Man?

For as long as I can remember, I've been the girl who didn't fit in, the girl who collapsed in the middle of class, just because my brain decided to turn on me. I can't really complain, though. We don't live in the Middle Ages, so I have yet to be subjected to an exorcism. I can get treatment for my condition. Epilepsy aside, I can mostly be a normal person and have a normal life. There's just one problem. I'm not a normal person. I never have been. And the first time I find this out is upon receiving an exclusive invitation to The Academy of the Devil.

In Sandman Slim Stark came back from hell for revenge. Once again all is not right in L.A. Lucifer is back in Heaven, God is on vacation, and an insane killer mounts a war against both Heaven and Hell. Stark’s got to head back down to his old stomping grounds in Hell to rescue his long lost love, stop an insane serial killer, prevent both Good and Evil from completely destroying each other, and stop the demonic Kissi from ruining the party for everyone. Even for Sandman Slim, that’s a tall order. And it’s only the beginning.

You wouldn’t think events happening years apart, at points in the solar system hundreds of millions of miles distant, would have anything to do with each other. When she was six, Daphne was taken into a neighbor’s tool shed and came within seconds of never coming out alive. Most of the scars healed. Except for the one that went all the way through. You wouldn’t think that the serial murders of children and the one who got away would have any connection with the strange fate of one of Jupiter’s moons.

Dorian Lake spent years cornering the Baltimore hex-crafting market, using his skills at the hermetic arts to exact karmic justice for those whom the system has failed. He keeps his magic clean and free of soul-corrupting Netherwork, thus avoiding both the karmic blow-back of his practice and the notice of the Presidium, a powerful cabal of practitioners that polices the esoteric arts in America.

Thirteen-year-old Angel Sullivan falls in love with her family's new home - the house that stands at Black Creek Crossing in the small town of Roundtree, Massachusetts. But the idyll is soon shattered as Angel learns a shocking secret about the house.

Mary Fawcett refines the healing recipes she’s inherited from generations of women before her—an uncanny and moral calling to empathize with the sick. When witchfinder Matthew Hopkins arrives in her small village, stoking the fires of hate, he sees not healing but the devil at work. Mary’s benevolent skills have now cast her and her young brother under suspicion of witchery. Soon, the husband of one of Mary’s patients is found murdered, his body carved with strange symbols.

Chris and Tanya have been assigned as Coven Rovers, travelling the country and troubleshooting the supernatural community. It's a job that's part cop and part auditor, one that should be long periods of boredom mixed with small parts of action. But this is Chris and Tanya, so a sudden assignment to check on a rogue vampire leads to a run-in with a hostile master vampire, a hit squad, monsters straight out of Native American folklore, black ops teams, and, worst of all, vampire politics.

It’s the mid-'90s. Grunge and flannel are fading as the Spice Girls and Hot Topic conquer the malls. Cherry gloss glistens on the lips of the youth. Modems hiss as America comes online. And in a fog-drenched cove at the edge of New England, something terrible awakens when a fisherman reels in a gruesome catch: the remains of a young woman. Remains still pulsing with furious life.

When Lucas Smoke learns the Ojibway art of carving from his grandfather, he proves to be a natural. He can literally make people come to life in wood. Then Lucas’s growing reputation attracts a mysterious stranger, who offers him a large advance to carve a spirit mask. This mask is to represent the master, but Lucas must find its face in his dreams. As his dreams become more and more disturbing, he feels himself changing. And the mask takes control of his life. Then an encounter with an old woman introduces him to the identity of the master: an ancient sorcerer named Him Standing.

This is volume two of a two-volume omnibus set comprising the complete fictional works of Howard Phillips Lovcecraft. Every story written for publication under his own name is included in this set, from 1927 through 1935. (Poems, ghostwritten material, and stories written in collaboration with other writers are not included.)

Sarah Crowe left Atlanta, and the remnants of a tumultuous relationship, to live alone in an old house in rural Rhode Island. Within its walls she discovers an unfinished manuscript written by the house's former tenant - a parapsychologist obsessed with the ancient oak growing on a desolate corner of the property. And as the gnarled tree takes root in her imagination, Sarah risks her health and her sanity to unearth a revelation planted centuries ago.

Juniper should have known better after her last foray into the otherworld. But when she’s asked to look into a mysterious box full of poltergeists she ends up making a promise to seven teenage ghosts that puts here directly in the crosshairs of a blood witch’s deadly ire.

All Essie ever wanted was to have a normal life but in the end she found herself drawn back to Beldam House because she just can’t stop her witchiness. Into this coven of chaos stumbles gorgeous, clueless Josh, their new landlord—and he’s just discovered his tenants haven’t paid rent since the 1700s! As Josh is drawn further into the lives of the inhabitants of Beldam House, Essie is determined to keep him at broomstick’s length. That is, until a family secret, lying hidden for centuries, puts Josh firmly under her spell.

Ceit Robertson, age 10, is the next Matrarc to the Society, a cultish matriarchal group living in an inconspicuous cul-de-sac in Venice Beach. When Ceit’s mother is attacked by spirits from the old world, a failed exorcism results in Ceit’s exile into the foster-care system in Los Angeles. She eventually lands in the infamous MacLaren Hall, a very real and historically auspicious center for disturbed and abandoned children in El Monte. As Ceit grows into a force of nature, she discovers that the devil might not be what we should truly fear.

Over 100 years ago, a group of witches made their way from New England to Whitewater, Wisconsin, known as Second Salem. Others also made their way to the city and, through their ignorance, unleashed an evil entity. Three sisters, the Willoughby Witches, created an incantation strong enough to ensnare the demon. Lord Henry McDermott, college professor, anthropologist, and archaeologist, has yearned to learn more about the legend of the Willoughby Witches. Taking the summer off to research the folklore, Henry discovers that there is more waiting for him in Whitewater than just a story.

After sending their only daughter off to boarding school, Cookson Selway and his wife, Ellen, travel to London to escape their empty house. But their quiet hotel has guests other than those on the register, and the vacation turns into a journey not only to another city but to another time. As Selway is drawn into a series of mysterious encounters with a young girl who died in a fall from his hotel window sixty years earlier, the characters of her life become more real to him than those of his own.

Edgar Allan Poe was a writer, poet, editor and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre, and is widely regarded as a central figure of Romanticism in the United States and of American literature. Poe was one of the country's earliest practitioners of the short story and considered to be the inventor of the detective fiction genre, as well as a significant contributor to the emerging genre of science fiction.