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Demon Thief
Chapter 29
The second novel in this bonechilling series by Darren Shan, author of the New York Times bestselling Cirque Du Freak series is sure to give you goosebumps. Kernel Fleck has always known he's weird. He sees lights. Strange, multi-colored patches of light, swirling through the air. But it's not until a window opens into a demon world, with horrific consequences, that Kernel discovers his powers. As a Disciple, his mission is to hunt vicious, powerful demons to the death...
People think I'm crazy because I see lights. I've seen them all my life. Strange, multicoloured patches of light swirling through the air. The patches are different sizes, some as small as a coin, others as big as a cereal box. All sorts of shapes - octagons, triangles, decagons. Some have thirty or forty sides. I don't know the name for a forty-sided shape. Quadradecagon?
No circles. All of the patches have at least two straight edges. There are a few with curves or semi-circular bulges, but not many.
Every colour imaginable. Some shine brightly, others glow dully. Occasionally a few of the lights pulse, but normally they just hang there, glowing.
When I was younger I didn't know the lights were strange. I thought everybody saw them. I described them to Mum and Dad, but they thought I was playing a game, seeking attention. It was only when I started school and spoke about the lights in class that it became an issue. My teacher, Miss Tyacke, saw that I wasn't making up stories, that I really believed in the lights.
Miss Tyacke called Mum in. Suggested they take me to somebody better qualified to understand what the lights signified. But Mum's never had much time for psychiatrists. She thinks the brain can take care of itself. She asked me to stop mentioning the lights at school, but otherwise she wasn't concerned.
So I stopped talking about the lights, but the damage had already been done. Word spread among the children - Kernel Fleck is weird. He's not like us. Stay away from him.
I never made many friends after that.
My name's Cornelius, but I couldn't say that when I was younger. The closest I could get was Kernel. Mum and Dad thought that was cute and started using it instead of my real name. It stuck and now that's what everybody calls me.
I think some parents shouldn't be allowed to name their kids. There should be a committee to forbid names which will cause problems later. I mean, even without the lights, what chance did I have of fitting in with any normal crowd with a name like Kernel - or Cornelius - Fleck!
We live in a city. Mum's a university lecturer. Dad's an artist who also does some freelance teaching. (He actually spends more time teaching than drawing, but whenever anyone asks, he says he's an artist.) We live on the third floor of an old warehouse which has been converted into apartments. Huge rooms with very high ceilings. I sometimes feel like a Munchkin, or Jack in the giant's castle.
Dad's very good with his hands. He makes brilliant model aeroplanes an

Tick Tock
Chapter 35
Tommy Phan, a successful detective novelist, comes home one evening to find a small rag doll on his doorstep. That night, with the popping of two stitches, something terrifying will emerge to tear apart the fabric of Tommy's reality--and his life.
ONE
Out of a cloudless sky on a windless November day came a sudden shadow that swooped across the bright aqua Corvette. Tommy Phan was standing beside the car, in pleasantly warm autumn sunshine, holding out his hand to accept the keys from Jim Shine, the salesman, when the fleeting shade touched him. He heard a brief thrumming like frantic wings. Glancing up, he expected to glimpse a sea gull, but not a single bird was in sight.
Unaccountably, the shadow had chilled him as though a cold wind had come with it, but the air was utterly still. He shivered, felt a blade of ice touch his palm, and jerked his hand back, even as he realized, too late, that it wasn't ice but merely the keys to the Corvette. He looked down in time to see them hit the pavement.
He said, ‘Sorry,' and started to bend over.
Jim Shine said, ‘No, no. I'll get ‘em.'
Perplexed, frowning, Tommy raised his gaze to the sky again. Unblemished blue. Nothing in flight.
The nearest trees, along the nearby street, were phoenix palms with huge crowns of fronds, offering no branches on which a bird could alight. No birds were perched on the roof of the car dealership either.
‘Pretty exciting,' Shine said.
Tommy looked at him, slightly disoriented. ‘Huh?'
Shine was holding out the keys again. He resembled a
pudgy choirboy with guileless blue eyes. Now, when he winked, his face squinched into a leer that was meant to be comic but that seemed disconcertingly like a glimpse of genuine and usually well-hidden decadence. ‘Getting that first ‘vette is almost as good as getting your first piece of ass.'
Tommy was trembling and still inexplicably cold. He accepted the keys. They no longer felt like ice.
The aqua Corvette waited, as sleek and cool as a high mountain spring slipping downhill over polished stones. Overall length: one hundred seventy-eight and a half inches. Wheelbase: ninety-six-point-two inches. Seventy-point-seven inches in width at the dogleg, forty-six-point-three inches high, with a minimum ground clearance of four-point-two inches.
Tommy knew the technical specifications of this car better than any preacher knew the details of any Bible story. He was a Vietnamese-American, and America was his religion; the highway was his church, and the Corvette was about to become the sacred vessel by which he partook of communion.
Although he was no prude, Tommy was mildly offended when Shine compared the transcendent experi¬ence of Corvette ownership to sex. For the moment, at least, the Corvette was better than any bedroom games, more exciting, purer, the very embodiment of speed and grace and freedom.
Tommy shook Jim Shine's soft, slightly moist hand and slid into the driver's seat. Thirty-six and a

Alice in Zombieland
Chapter 63
She won't rest until she's sent every walking corpse back to its grave. Forever.If anyone had told Alice Bell that her entire life would change course between one heartbeat and the next, she would have laughed. From blissful to tragic, innocent to ruined? Please. But that's all it took. One heartbeat. A blink, a breath, a second, and everything she knew and loved was gone.Her father was right. The monsters are real.To avenge her family, Ali must learn to fight the undead. To survive, she must learn to trust the baddest of the bad boys, Cole Holland. But Cole has secrets of his own, and if Ali isn't careful, those secrets might just prove to be more dangerous than the zombies.
1
Down the Zombie Hole
Six months ago
"Please, Alice. Please."
I lay sprawled on a blanket in my backyard, weaving a daisy chain for my little sister. The sun shone brightly as puffy white clouds ghosted across an endless expanse of baby blue. As I breathed in the thick honeysuckle and lavender perfume of the Alabama summer, I could make out a few shapes. A long, leggy caterpillar. A butterfly with one of its wings shredded. A fat white rabbit, racing toward a tree.
Eight-year-old Emma danced around me. She wore a glittery pink ballerina costume, her pigtails bouncing with her every movement. She was a miniature version of our mother and the complete opposite of me.
Both possessed a slick fall of dark hair and beautifully uptilted golden eyes. Mom was short, barely over five-three, and I wasn't sure Em would even make it to five-one. Me? I had wavy white-blond hair, big blue eyes and legs that stretched for miles. At five-ten, I was taller than most of the boys at my school and always stood out - I couldn't go anywhere without getting a few what-are-you-a-giraffe? stares.
Boys had never shown an interest in me, but I couldn't count the number of times I had caught one drooling over my mom as she walked by or - gag - heard one whistle as she bent over to pick something up.
"Al-less." At my side now, Em stomped her slippered foot in a bid for my attention. "Are you even listening to me?"
"Sweetie, we've gone over this, like, a thousand times. Your recital might start while it's sunny out, but it'll end at dark. You know Dad will never let us leave the house. And Mom agreed to sign you up for the program as long as you swore never to throw a tantrum when you couldn't make a practice or a, what? Recital."
She stepped over me and planted those dainty pink slippers at my shoulders, her slight body throwing a large enough shadow to shield my face from the overhead glare. She became all that I could see, shimmering gold pleading down at me. "Today's your birthday, and I know, I know, I forgot this morningand this afternoonbut last week I remembered that it was coming up - you remember how I told Mom, right? - and now I've remembered again, so doesn't that count for something? 'Course it does," she added before I could say anything. "Daddy has to do whatever you ask. So, if you ask

Dreadful Skin
Chapter 31
I ducked into a niche between a cabin and the pilot house and hiked my skirt up enough to reach down into my garter holster. I've heard it said that God made all men, but Samuel Colt made all men equal. We'd see what Mr. Colt could do for a woman.Jack Gabert went to India to serve his Queen. He returned to London a violently changed man, infected with an unnatural sickness that altered his body and warped his mind. Eileen Callaghan left an Irish convent with a revolver and a secret. She knows everything and nothing about Jack's curse, but she cannot rest until he's caught. His soul cannot be saved. It can only be returned to God. In the years following the American Civil War, the nun and unnatural creature stalk one another across the United States. Their dangerous game of cat and mouse leads them along great rivers, across dusty plains, and into the no man's land of the unmarked western territories. Here are three tales of the hunt. Reader, take this volume and follow these tormented souls. Learn what you can from their struggle's against each other, against God, and against themselves.
I.
I will tell you how it happened.
It unfolded.
My name was Christopher Cooper, and I gambled for my money like a good little sinner. The big-stakes games in Texas, and out in California - they kept me very well fed, and dressed in all the imported clothes I could stand.
I was a big man - once a hard-working man with lots of muscles, but I admit in time that it all ran to fat. It took a lot of cash to clothe me.
I liked big jackets with deep pockets, and I liked boots with quiet heels. No sense in announcing yourself everywhere, I always said. Sometimes I wore bolo ties, but I never resorted to cowboy hats like some of the fellows out west. I always preferred to think of myself as a northeastern lad. The bolo was merely a concession to fashion and a conversation piece.
Women seemed to like it. They'd touch it with their pretty-smelling fingers and twist it around their nails, asking me where I got it from. Once upon a time there was a turquoise slide on it - a fine polished stone set in silver. It matched a pocket watch I carried, and I liked to have them together.
The watch was a gift from a married woman who wouldn't let me keep her. She had it engraved, so I'd always remember why I loved her, and that she'd sent me on my way. She was a cruel little beast. I worshipped the ground she walked on.
Think of me every moment.
If I was very lucky, she might have thought about me once in a blue moon. I didn't need a reminder, but the watch was too beautiful to discard in some sentimental gesture. It was worth a small fortune. She'd commissioned it from a jewelry maker in San Francisco. He was an Austrian, she said.
In time, the nuisance longing I felt for her faded to a dull pang noticed only on occasion. But I always did love that watch, shining merrily on its matching silver chain. And every time I considered the time, until the day I died, I thought of her.
* * *

The Dead Zone
Chapter 28
Johnny, the small boy who skated at breakneck speed into an accident that for one horrifying moment plunged him into The Dead Zone. Johnny Smith, the small-town schoolteacher who spun the wheel of fortune and won a four-and-a-half-year trip into The Dead Zone. John Smith, who awakened from an interminable coma with an accursed power—the power to see the future and the terrible fate awaiting mankind in The Dead Zone.~
By the time he graduated from college, John Smith had forgotten all about the bad fall he took on the ice that January day in 1953. In fact, he would have been hard put to remember it by the time he graduated from grammar school. And his mother and father never knew about it at all.
They were skating on a cleared patch of Runaround Pond in Durham. The bigger boys were playing hockey with old taped sticks and using a couple of potato baskets for goals. The little kids were just farting around the way little kids have done since time immemorial - their ankles bowing comically in and out, their breath puffing in the frosty twenty-degree air. At one corner of the cleared ice two rubber tires burned sootily, and a few parents sat nearby, watching their children. The age of the snowmobile was still distant and winter fun still consisted of exercising your body rather than a gasoline engine.
Johnny had walked down from his house, just over the Pownal line, with his skates hung over his shoulder. At six, he was a pretty fair skater. Not good enough to join in the big kids' hockey games yet, but able to skate rings around most of the other first graders, who were always pinwheeling their arms for balance or sprawling on their butts.
Now he skated slowly around the outer edge of the clear patch, wishing he could go backward like Timmy Benedix, listening to the ice thud and crackle mysteriously under the snow cover farther out, also listening to the shouts of the hockey players, the rumble of a pulp truck crossing the bridge on its way to U.S. Gypsum in Lisbon Falls, the murmur of conversation from the adults. He was very glad to be alive on that cold, fair winter day. Nothing was wrong with him, nothing troubled his mind, he wanted nothing ... except to be able to skate backward, like Timmy Benedix.
He skated past the fire and saw that two or three of the grown-ups were passing around a bottle of booze.
'Gimme some of that!' he shouted to Chuck Spier. who was bundled up in a big lumberjack shirt and green flannel snowpants.
Chuck grinned at him. 'Get outta here, kid. I hear your mother callin you.'
Grinning, six-year old Johnny Smith skated on. And on the road side of the skating area, he saw Timmy Benedix himself coming down the slope, with his father behind him.
'Timmy!' he shouted. 'Watch this!'
He turned around and began to skate clumsily backward. Without realising it, he was skating into the area of the hockey game.
'Hey kid!' someone shouted. 'Get out the way!' Johnny didn't hear. He was doing it I He was skating backward! He had caugh

Dark Calling
Chapter 23
The Disciples are being manipulated by beings older than time. Only Kernel Fleck knows that something is wrong. But he is in the grip of a creature who cares nothing for the fate of humanity. Voices are calling to him from the darkness and he's powerless to resist. Kernel has already been to hell and back, now he's about to go further.

Forever Odd
Chapter 30
I see dead people. But then, by God, I do something about it.Odd Thomas never asked for his special ability. He's just an ordinary guy trying to live a quiet life in the small desert town of Pico Mundo. Yet he feels an obligation to do right by his otherworldly confidants, and that's why he's won hearts on both sides of the divide between life and death. But when a childhood friend disappears, Odd discovers something worse than a dead body and embarks on a heart-stopping battle of will and wits with an enemy of exceptional cunning. In the hours to come there can be no innocent bystanders, and every sacrifice can tip the balance between despair and hope. You're invited on an unforgettable journey through a world of terror and transcendence to wonders beyond imagining. And you can have no better guide than Odd Thomas.
ONE
WAKING, I HEARD A WARM WIND STRUMMING THE LOOSE screen at the open window, and I thought Stormy, but it was not.
The desert air smelled faintly of roses, which were not in bloom, and of dust, which in the Mojave nourishes twelve months of the year.
Precipitation falls on the town of Pico Mundo only during our brief winter. This mild February night was not, however, sweetened by the scent of rain.
I hoped to hear the fading rumble of thunder. If a peal had awakened me, it must have been thunder in a dream.
Holding my breath, I lay listening to the silence, and felt the silence listening to me.
The nightstand clock painted glowing numbers on the gloom -
2:41 a.m.
For a moment I considered remaining in bed. But these days I do not sleep as well as I did when I was young. I am twenty-one and much older than when I was twenty.
Certain that I had company, expecting to find two Elvises watching over me, one with a cocky smile and one with sad concern, I sat up and switched on the lamp.
A single Elvis stood in a corner: a life-size cardboard figure that had been part of a theater-lobby display for Blue Hawaii. In a Hawaiian shirt and a lei, he looked self-confident and happy.
Back in 1961, he'd had much to be happy about. Blue Hawaii was a hit film, and the album went to number one. He had six gold records that year, including Can't Help Falling in Love, and he was falling in love with Priscilla Beaulieu.
Less happily, at the insistence of his manager, Tom Parker, he had turned down the lead in West Side Story in favor of mediocre movie fare like Follow That Dream. Gladys Presley, his beloved mother, had been dead three years, and still he felt the loss of her, acutely. Only twenty-six, he'd begun to have weight problems.
Cardboard Elvis smiles eternally, forever young, incapable of error or regret, untouched by grief, a stranger to despair.
I envy him. There is no cardboard replica of me as I once was and as I can never be again.
The lamplight revealed another presence, as patient as he was desperate. Evidently he had been watching me sleep, waiting for me to wake.
I said, Hello, Dr. Jessup.
Dr. Wilbur Jessup was incapable of a respons

Claimed By Blackstone
Chapter 8
Claimed By Blackstone Read Free
***The following SHORT STORY is a hot, steamy adventure to the other side with a wicked and dominant ghost!****USA Today bestselling author brings you a sizzling tale of a ghost who has some naughty tricks and treats in store for the lady of the house...read if you dare!Kayla Swanson doesn't believe in ghosts so when she sinks her entire savings into an old Victorian house in the hopes of restoring it for business, she's more focused on the here and now than the salacious and brutal history of the original owner, Archibald Blackstone. Kayla and her younger sister, Lola, are two of the hottest new interior decorators in the Bay Area and they're determined to turn their fledgling business into a household name. But first, Kayla has her work cut out for her restoring the Victorian to its former glory. When odd occurrences start stacking up -- ones she can't explain away -- Kayla starts to question her sanity. When the dreams start -- dreams that leave her panting and moaning -- she doesn't know what to think anymore. Kayla doesn't buy into the hocus-pocus, woo-woo stuff but there's something about her house...even if she's not ready to admit it.Archibald Blackstone has waited decades for the right woman to come along, someone worth parting the veil for during the witching hour on Halloween and the minute he sees Kayla step over the threshold, he knows the time has come. For a man with a voracious appetite, the celibacy of the afterlife is an interminable torture but Kayla was a woman worth waiting for -- and he's done waiting. Archibald, openly wicked in life, is unabashedly wicked in death and Kayla is about to discover the pleasure -- and delicious pain - of being claimed by the infamous Blackstone.After one night...Kayla will never be the same again.
***************
Kayla Swanson doesn’t believe in ghosts so when she sinks her entire savings into an old Victorian house in the hopes of restoring it for business, she’s more focused on the here and now than the salacious and brutal history of the original owner, Archibald Blackstone. Kayla and her younger sister, Lola, are two of the hottest new interior decorators in the Bay Area and they’re determined to turn their fledgling business into a household name. But first, Kayla has her work cut out for her restoring the Victorian to its former glory. When odd occurrences start stacking up — ones she can’t explain away — Kayla starts to question her sanity. When the dreams start — dreams that leave her panting and moaning — she doesn’t know what to think anymore. Kayla doesn’t buy into the hocus-pocus, woo-woo stuff but there’s something about her house…even if she’s not ready to admit it.
Archibald Blackstone has waited decades for the right woman to come along, someone worth parting the veil for during the witching hour on Halloween and the minute he sees Kayla step over the threshold, he knows the time has come. For a man with a voracious appetite, the celibacy of the

Necroscope II: Wamphyri
Chapter 17
Things in the grounds, thinking their thoughts... thoughts they can express only through Harry Keogh, Necroscope. For that's Harry's talent, and his burden: he can read the thoughts of the dead in their graves—and the thoughts of the UNdead! Except... the undead are thinking things that are totally—unthinkable!Yulian Bodescu's mother fainted at the tomb of Thibor Ferenczy, vampire. Corrupt from birth, now Yulian feels a strange compulsion: to discover his real father and spread his works abroad. Only Harry Keogh, prisoner of the metaphysical Möbius Continuum, can stop him. Harry's other big problem is this: he doesn't have a body!Necroscope II: Wamphyri! is the chilling sequel to Necroscope, an intoxicating brew of necromancy, vampirism and shrieking terror from the modern master of all-out horror.
Afternoon of the fourth Monday in January 1977; the Chateau Bronnitsy off the Serpukhov road not far out of Moscow; 2.40 P.M. middle-European time, and a telephone in the temporary Investigation Control Room ringing... ringing... ringing.
The Chateau Bronnitsy stood central on open, peaty ground in the middle of a densely wooded tract now white under drifted snow. A house or mansion of debased heritage and mixed architectural antecedents, several recent wings were of modern brick on old stone foundations, while others were cheap breeze blocks camouflaged in grey and green paint. A once-courtyard in the 'U' of polyglot wings was now roofed over, its roof painted to match the surrounding terrain. Bedded at their bases in massive, steeply gabled end walls, twin minarets raised broken bulbous domes high over the landscape, their boarded windows glooming like hooded eyes. In keeping with the generally run-down aspect of the rest of the place, the upper sections of these towers were derelict, decayed as rotten fangs. From the air, the Chateau would seem a gaunt old ruin. But it was hardly that, even though the towers were not the only things in a state of decay.
Outside the roofed courtyard stood a canopied ten-ton Army truck, the canvas flaps at its rear thrown back and its exhaust puffing acrid blue smoke into the frosty air. A KGB man, conspicuous in his 'uniform' of felt hat and dark grey overcoat, stared in across the truck's lowered tailgate at its contents and shuddered. Hands thrust deep in his pockets, he turned to a second man dressed in the white smock of a technician and grimaced. 'Comrade Krakovitch,' he grunted, 'what the hell are they? And what are they doing here?'
Felix Krakovitch glanced at him, shook his head, said, 'You wouldn't understand if I told you. And if you understood, you wouldn't believe.' Like his ex-boss, Gregor Borowitz, Krakovitch considered all KGB low life-forms. He would keep information and assistance to the barest minimum - within certain limits of prudence and personal safety, of course. The KGB weren't much for forgiving and forgetting.
The blocky Special Policeman shrugged, lit a stubby brown cigarette and drew dee

Odd Thomas
Chapter 41
The dead don't talk. I don't know why. But they do try to communicate, with a short-order cook in a small desert town serving as their reluctant confidant. Sometimes the silent souls who seek out Odd want justice. Occasionally their otherworldly tips help him prevent a crime. But this time it’s different.A stranger comes to Pico Mundo, accompanied by a horde of hyena-like shades who herald an imminent catastrophe. Aided by his soul mate, Stormy Llewellyn, and an unlikely community of allies that includes the King of Rock ’n’ Roll, Odd will race against time to thwart the gathering evil. His account of these shattering hours, in which past and present, fate and destiny, converge, is a testament by which to live—an unforgettable fable for our time destined to rank among Dean Koontz’s most enduring works.
ONE
MY NAME IS ODD THOMAS, THOUGH IN THIS AGE WHEN fame is the altar at which most people worship, I am not sure why you should care who I am or that I exist.
I am not a celebrity. I am not the child of a celebrity. I have never been married to, never been abused by, and never provided a kidney for transplantation into any celebrity. Furthermore, I have no desire to be a celebrity.
In fact I am such a nonentity by the standards of our culture that People magazine not only will never feature a piece about me but might also reject my attempts to subscribe to their publication on the grounds that the black-hole gravity of my noncelebrity is powerful enough to suck their entire enterprise into oblivion.
I am twenty years old. To a world-wise adult, I am little more than a child. To any child, however, I'm old enough to be distrusted, to be excluded forever from the magical community of the short and beard­less.
Consequently, a demographics expert might conclude that my sole
audience is other young men and women currently adrift between their twentieth and twenty-first birthdays.
In truth, I have nothing to say to that narrow audience. In my experience, I don't care about most of the things that other twenty-year-old Americans care about. Except survival, of course.
I lead an unusual life.
By this I do not mean that my life is better than yours. I'm sure that your life is filled with as much happiness, charm, wonder, and abiding fear as anyone could wish. Like me, you are human, after all, and we know what a joy and terror that is.
I mean only that my life is not typical. Peculiar things happen to me that don't happen to other people with regularity, if ever.
For example, I would never have written this memoir if I had not been commanded to do so by a four-hundred-pound man with six fingers on his left hand.
His name is P. Oswald Boone. Everyone calls him Little Ozzie because his father, Big Ozzie, is still alive.
Little Ozzie has a cat named Terrible Chester. He loves that cat. In fact, if Terrible Chester were to use up his ninth life under the wheels of a Peterbilt, I am afraid that Little Ozzie's big heart would not survive the loss.
Personally

Pretty When She Kills
Chapter 53
Amaliya Vezorak never believed in happy endings…When Amaliya harnessed her necromancer powers to defeat her greatest enemy, she believed she had finally found a happy ending with Cian, her lover and the master of Austin. That happiness is short-lived when the vampire ruling over San Antonio attempts a takeover of Austin in order to capture Amaliya and use her power for his own devices. To make matters worse, Samantha, Cian’s ex-fiancée, is seeing ghosts, the untested vampire hunters of Austin are running scared as a supernatural war looms, a mysterious man is hunting Amaliya with the help of her one time lover, Pete, and Rachoń, the Summoner’s favorite progeny, appears to be out for revenge.When Amaliya’s grandmother, a powerful medium, experiences terrible visions that reveal there is another necromancer vampire and she is crying out for help, Amaliya realizes happy endings do not come easily…
Prologue
The girl stood drenched in blood in the center of the graveyard. Languorously, she swayed as the night wind tossed about her unfettered white-blond hair and tugged at the white lace dress that was dangerously close to sliding off her delicate shoulders.
Enormous blue eyes gazed vacantly at the bodies at her feet. The askew forms of the young men foolish enough to dig her up out of her grave bore brutal wounds inflicted by her long, sharp teeth. Tilting her head, the girl gazed past the treetops at the bloated harvest moon ascending in the night sky. The orb spilt light through the branches and cast a bluish glow over the old cemetery. Her pink tongue licked the blood from her full red lips.
Rachon stood in the dark shadows of the pine trees watching the ghostly figure. Her eyes thoughtfully surveyed the scene before her, her long blue nails tapping against the trunk of the tree she leaned against. Tilting her head, she sniffed the air. The coppery smell of blood mingled with the scents of fresh earth and chemicals.
It wasn't difficult to stitch together what had occurred just a few minutes before she had arrived on the edges of the old cemetery in East Texas.
"She's awake," Rachon said, her naturally husky voice sensual to the ear.
"Why do you always end up with the messy jobs?" a voice grumbled behind her.
Flicking her gaze in the direction of her companion, she bestowed an annoyed look upon the immaculately dressed man maneuvering over the uneven forest floor. Prosper's skin was as dark as hers, but whereas her afro was shaped into twists, his head was shaved. Despite being blood relations in life, his eyes were black and hers were maroon. He bared his fangs as he grimaced.
"The Master calls and I obey," she said, annoyance in her voice.
"You're a stupid woman for loving that pasty man," Prosper said, shrugging.
"He's my Master. I obey him whether I want to or not," Rachon said in a low, dangerous voice. "Whether I love him, or not."
"Kill her and be done with it." Prosper lifted one of his fine Italian loafers out of the dirt and sighed. "We'v

Between the Bear's Sheets (Wylde Brothers 2)
Chapter 39
Between the Bear's Sheets (Wylde Brothers 2) Read Free
The Wylde Bears, 2Talia Landon, a red fox shifter with a weight complex, knew she was in trouble when she saw Ford Wylde for the first time. The alpha bear shifter was the type of male she should stay away from. It was clear he was far too experienced in sex, but what was supposed to be a one-night stand turns into mating with a Wylde bear. Ford wasn't going to give up Talia, not after he marked her as his mate. But when Ford's ex-girlfriend, Mina, comes back to Sweet Water after ten years, he knows he has to be honest about his relationship with Talia. Things get sticky when Mina shows an interest in him again, but Ford makes it known that Talia is his, and nothing and no one was going to get in the way of him claiming his female.Be Warned: rimming, spanking
***************
Prologue
Ten years ago
Ford had been disconnected for far too long, his inner animal—his bear—knowing from the beginning she wasn’t his mate.
But loneliness had people seeking warmth and a connection.
Had they even had that together? Maybe not.
But he wanted a change. Ford didn’t feel things he should in a relationship. They were two separate people now, the connection gone… if it had even been there at all, if he were being honest.
“You heading out?” Ford asked, but he wasn’t even granted a response.
Silence. It was always silence. His thoughts drifted to better times, happier ones that didn’t have him questioning everything and having the gut feeling that Mina wasn’t honest with him.
They’d had that cliched, young relationship, and he always hoped he’d feel something more for her. But she’d been there to help ease his loneliness. He used her in that way, and he was a bastard for it.
It wasn’t unusual for a shifter to be with a human, and maybe he’d been so sick of feeling that hollowness that he’d just given over to the need to feel… something.
But if he were being honest, he questioned what they were doing together from the beginning.
Mina came out of the bathroom dressed and grabbed her purse off the floor. “I gotta run, Ford.” She said it without even looking at him. Her makeup was freshly applied, and he caught the scent of the perfume she just spritzed on.
It pissed him off even more, not because she was leaving, and not because she was apathetic. Hell, he was right there too. He was pissed because she couldn’t even look him in the eye.
He wasn’t a fool, not when his inner animal smelled her desire. And the fact that she knew he had those attuned senses and didn’t even try to hide it or act like she cared had him feel… nothing.
I feel nothing.
This needed to be done, a Band-Aid pulled off fast. “Mina, we need to talk.” This conversation was a long time coming. Without looking at him, she adjusted her skirt and made an annoyed sound in the back of her throat. When she finally glanced up at him, he saw clear indifference.
“About what? I kind of need to get out of here, Ford. Can we talk tomorrow?” Her tone was annoye

Unrequited Death
Chapter 32
The Graysheets remain ominously quiet during the teen's senior year. When tragedy strikes Tiff, her confidence shatters into a million pieces and the group doesn't know how to pick up the splintered mess of her emotional health.As the control of the Zondorae scientists slips away, they make a final move to swing the balance in their favor, negotiating a future for the paranormals that is so final, a covert group moves to halt the momentum of their control over humanity with Jeffrey Parker as the catalyst.In a final bid to protect everyone, Caleb discovers he was at the center from the beginning, an unwilling pawn moved on a chess board that no longer exists. Will he have a future of safety and happiness for himself and Jade? Or will the decisions made before the fateful day of inoculation remain to hinder that forever?
CHAPTER 1
now
KPH graduating class of 2029
I adjusted the cap on Jade's head and she ducked away from my nimble fingers, a frown puckering the smooth mocha perfection of her forehead.
"Come on, babe, come here." I reached to scoop her back to me and she huffed. "No, Caleb, you're going to wreck my hair!"
Wreck. The. Hair. Uh-huh.
We couldn't have that. I mean, graduation and all. Monumental.
I couldn't have cared less but this was Jade's day, John's day. The prison doors were opening with a whisper and closing with a clank.
We were free.
"It's hanging crooked," I argued logically. The deep royal blue of the cap contrasted with the naturally black hair that flowed down her back in an artful silken waterfall.
It was a mite distracting as Clyde would say. He had given me a level of vocabulary that even my Grammar-Nazi mom couldn't compete with. I dug that.
Clyde would be here today with Bobbi. He wouldn't miss it.
Jade shrieked as I raced after her, my arms going around her waist and I lifted her as she squealed.
Alex came in and saw the two of us doing a staggering dance of hyperactivity. "What... is this like a porn thing here?"
What? I looked at him, bodily turning around to face him with Jade in my arms.
Her embarrassment was tangible.
I hadn't been thinking that way but now that he mentioned it....
Jade was dying, I noticed, a flush creeping up on her cheeks.
"No man, she won't cooperate with a hat fix," I said, saving the moment.
Alex's eyes shifted to the crooked graduation cap, the tassel swinging in Jade's face like a pendulum gone bad and smiled.
"Yeah, that bad cap. I hear that." Mucho-sarcasm.
I let Jade down and gave a chuckle. Perv-Alex was right on board as usual. Then Randi came up behind him and goosed him in the ass and it was his turn to get embarrassed.
Randi peeked around his big body and looked at Jade. "See how that works?"
Jade nodded, grinning. "I do, yes."
The girls looked at each other smugly and Alex grunted. "The girls have the power man," he said, only half-teasing.
"That's smart that ya just figured that out," I responded and gave him a sly smile, suppressing a girl-worthy eye roll.
"Merranda?" Principa

Fighting to Survive
Chapter 64
Sometimes when a plan goes awry, it still works out as intended, side effects and all. After finishing Frater's first book, The First Days, I quickly ordered the sequel from the library, planning to save it for a slow and deadly boring night of the living dead shift. Unfortunately, I was placed 'on-call,' which meant while I didn't have to work that moment, it was quite possible in the next eight hours I would be needed for brains to work. I celebrated my night almost-off by staying up afraid of zombies to read "Fighting," taking another hour to ratchet down from zombie-caused tension and ended up being up until 4 a.m. anyway, accomplishing the goal of reading and wakefulness--however unnecessary. Briefest of summaries: survivors are walled off in a town center post-zombie apocalypse. Survivors are trickling in, putting pressure on space and resources. The goal becomes expanding into a store block for resources, and a nearby hotel to provide living space. Relationships continue to grow among the central characters, and individuals continue to deal with emotional fallout after having their loved ones turned into zombies. As the camp is taking a breather, internal malcontents trouble the group's unformed justice system, followed by problems from external marauders. A bundle of improvements since the last book made it more compelling than the last. Similarly to the first book, the plot moves briskly along, making this a quick and engaging read. There are plenty of zombies, all the better to eat you entertain. you. As far as writing style, there was more sophistication in word choice, making for a better reading experience. However, there is still a tendency to describe repetitively people in single notes, which seems more of an author issue with characterization. Jenni, one of our heroines, is the locaone, Nerit is the icy sharpshooter, Curtis the red-faced inexperienced cop, etc. I get that a large group of people new to each other might tend to repetitively generalize, but eventually it's too easy for the author and the shortcuts make for shallow graves characters that are defined by one or two traits. Speaking of characterization, my hackles rose a little when it was pointed out the bisexual character was finally in "comfortable shoes and casual t-shirts." Because, isn't that where all lesbians bisexuals (yes, we are still making an issue of her sexuality in this book) prefer to be? And why did the heavyset young black female come with stereotypical gay-boi sidekick with equally stereotypical dialogue? The rich people were right out "Rich Snob Here" character casting, and it is only a matter of time before the trophy wife becomes zombie bait. Honestly, Frater, you aren't being inclusive in the post-apocalypse community if the only thing you are including are stereotypes.Still, the zombie bits are done well, and the (as always) living human meat-heads in and outside the fort are providing much of the threat. The scenes clearing the hotel were hair

Working Stiff
Chapter 61
Bryn Davis knows working at Fairview Mortuary isn't the most glamorous career choice, but at least it offers stable employment--until she discovers her bosses using a drug that resurrects the clientele as part of an extortion racket. Now, Bryn faces being terminated--literally, and with extreme prejudice.With the help of corporate double-agent Patrick McCallister, Bryn has a chance to take down the bigger problem--pharmaceutical company Pharmadene, which treats death as the ultimate corporate loyalty program. She'd better do it fast, before she becomes a zombie slave--a real working stiff. She'd be better off dead...
Chapter 1
Bryn's first embalming instructor had told her, straight up, that two kinds of people entered the death business: freaks and true believers. Bryn Davis didn't think she was either one of those. For her, it was a prime career opportunity - a genuine profession.
Oh, she'd picked up odd paychecks during college as an office temp, a dog walker, and one memorable afternoon at a chicken factory, but none of those had ever felt real to her. Joining the army after college had seemed like a good idea at the time (steady job, good wages), but four years in Iraq hadn't made her want to be a career soldier; it had, though, given her a bedrock understanding of the fragility of human life. After that, dead bodies didn't scare or disgust her.
One good thing she could say for her time in the military: it had led her to where she was now, to this joba good, stable one, and even better, an important one.
Bryn smiled a little at the thought. Maybe she was a true believer, after all.
She smoothed the white lab coat - with her name stitched on the left breast - and felt a warm surge of accomplishment. Bryn Davis, Funeral Director, Fairview Mortuary. Her business cards rested in a neat little cardboard box on her shiny new desk, all sober black ink in raised type, with the Fairview logo embossed in the corner. They wouldn't stay in the box for long; Fairview had furnished her with nice wooden desk accents, including a business card holder, and just as soon as possible, she intended to make that desk her own. She'd never had an office before.
The cards and desk were elegant, like everything here. The room was neat and clean, filled with sober antique furniture and soft, dark cloth. Deep carpets. Subtle fragrances. Not a lot of flowers to overwhelm the already raw senses of the grieving.
She was a little nervous, but she also felt proud and happy. In fact, she felt ready. She tried not to feel too happy, though; it didn't seem appropriate to be so glee-filled about starting a job that was all about someone else's loss. The mirror on the wall confirmed that there was still a smile hiding in the corners of her mouth that she couldn't quite get rid of, and for a moment, she worried about the shade of her lipstick. She'd chosen a light pink, but was it too light? A little too festive? She'd spent too many years in khaki, far away from the fairy-tale

The Darkest Evening of the Year
Chapter 33
With each of his #1 "New York Times" bestsellers, Dean Koontz has displayed an unparalleled ability to entertain and enlighten readers with novels that capture the essence of our times even as they bring us to the edge of our seats. Now he delivers a heart-gripping tour de force he's been waiting years to write, at once a love story, a thrilling adventure, and a masterwork of suspense that redefines the boundaries of primal fear--and of enduring devotion. Amy Redwing has dedicated her life to the southern California organization she founded to rescue abandoned and endangered golden retrievers. Among dog lovers, she's a legend for the risks she'll take to save an animal from abuse. Among her friends, Amy's heedless devotion is often cause for concern. To widower Brian McCarthy, whose commitment she can't allow herself to return, Amy's behavior is far more puzzling and hides a shattering secret. No one is surprised when Amy risks her life to save Nickie, nor when she takes the female golden into her home. The bond between Amy and Nickie is immediate and uncanny. Even her two other goldens, Fred and Ethel, recognize Nickie as special, a natural alpha. But the instant joy Nickie brings is shadowed by a series of eerie incidents. An ominous stranger. A mysterious home invasion. And the unmistakable sense that someone is watching Amy's every move and that, whoever it is, he's not alone. Someone has come back to turn Amy into the desperate, hunted creature she's always been there to save. But now there's no one to save Amy and those she loves. From its breathtaking opening scene to its shocking climax, The Darkest Evening of the Year is Dean Koontz at his finest, a transcendent thriller certain to have readers turning pages until dawn.
PART ONE
***
"The woods are lovely, dark, and deep"
– ROBERT FROST
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
Chapter 1
Behind the wheel of the Ford Expedition, Amy Redwing drove as if she were immortal and therefore safe at any speed.
In the fitful breeze, a funnel of golden sycamore leaves spun along the post-midnight street. She blasted through them, crisp autumn scratching across the windshield.
For some, the past is a chain, each day a link, raveling backward to one ringbolt or another, in one dark place or another, and tomorrow is a slave to yesterday.
Amy Redwing did not know her origins. Abandoned at the age of two, she had no memory of her mother and father.
She had been left in a church, her name pinned to her shirt. A nun had found her sleeping on a pew.
Most likely, her surname had been invented to mislead. The police had failed to trace it to anyone.
Redwing suggested a Native American heritage. Raven hair and dark eyes argued Cherokee, but her ancestors might as likely have come from Armenia or Sicily, or Spain.
Amy's history remained incomplete, but the lack of roots did not set her free. She was chained to some ringbolt set in the stone of a distant year.
Although she presented herself as such a blithe sp

Vampire a Go-Go
Chapter 27
Victor Gischler is a master of the class-act literary spoof, and his work has drawn comparison to that of Douglas Adams, Kurt Vonnegut, and Thomas Pynchon. Now, Gischler turns his attention to werewolves, alchemists, ghosts, witches, and gun-toting Jesuit priests in Vampire a Go-Go, a hilarious romp of spooky, Gothic entertainment. Narrated by a ghost whose spirit is chained to a mysterious castle in Prague, Gischler's latest is full of twists and surprises that will have readers screaming - and laughing - for more.

Volatile Love (The Gilded Sovereign 2)
Chapter 72
Volatile Love (The Gilded Sovereign 2) Read Free
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Prologue
Present Day
Once I knew I was in this life for good, I promised myself I would never let anyone else in my family feel the impact of what’s to come. I fought it; I asked and begged Abner to let Etienne go, but he refused.
The man is a monster.
And now my son is one of the Crowns.
At first, I thought he’d fall into the same trap we all did. But seeing him here, grown up, more mature than I could’ve ever expected, is far more jarring than if he’d been a party animal. When I left Tynewood, Etienne and his friends were always at the lake house drinking and having keggers and I worried about him. But then I realized it was normal teenage behavior, I’d done the same.
What concerned me more though was the thought of him turning into Abner Lancaster. Even though the man was a friend, I knew how much of an asshole he was. I knew he wasn’t good.
My formative years were spent with Abner, and Tarian’s uncle and mother, Thane and Yasmine. I knew all along I didn’t want Etienne to be like me, or them in any way. We did things I’m not proud of, but Abner always took it a step too far by reveling in the violence, blackmail, and illegal activities that ultimately brought him down.
I never wanted my son to be burdened with the darkness that came with the Sovereign. Once you’re sworn in, it’s as if your soul is blackened with the filth that resides within the walls of the dungeons where our meetings are held.
Knowing how Abner tore apart the Tynewood faction only cements my need to break the whole Sovereign down, but I know it will never happen. As much as I want to deny that I wouldn’t cross the line if I needed to, I can’t. If it means keeping Etienne safe, I’ll do anything. I pray with all I have that Etienne, Tarian, Ares, and Philipe will find a way to change the filth that’s plagued the society and turn it into something good. Something worthy of being a part of.
As much as I hate being a Crown, I can’t forsake what I’ve worked so hard to accomplish. Lifting the glass to my lips, I take a long sip of the deep crimson liquid. Port has been my drink of choice for a long while, and I savor the sweetness and burst of flavors that hit my tongue.
The office is silent, and I close my eyes for a moment to soak up my aloneness. It’s not often I get the chance to be with my own thoughts. Running the London wing of the Sovereign has its pitfalls, one of them being that I’m always watched by the men who I govern.
It’s been a long time since I first walked into this room and took the seat at the head of the table. When the man who I worshipped ran this place, it felt as if we were in the army—he ruled with an iron first. But the day he died, a part of this manor house went with him.
I’ve lived here for almost seven years, and I swear I still feel his presence. As if his ghost still walks amongst the carpeted halls. Every step that creaks, each window that affords a view of the vast grounds make it

Maleficium: Duo (Devil's Playground 2)
Chapter 65
Maleficium: Duo (Devil's Playground 2) Read Free
“Think Escape Room, meets Saw, meets Battle Royale. That’s what we’re dealing with.”
The following ratings are out of 5:
Romance:

Life Expectancy
Chapter 40
In the dazzling new thriller from the master of dark suspense, the hand of fate reaches out to touch an ordinary man with greatness. So long as he is ready. So long as he is, above all, afraid.Jimmy Tock comes into the world on the very night his grandfather leaves it. As a violent storm rages outside the hospital, Rudy Tock spends long hours walking the corridors between the expectant fathers' waiting room and his dying father's bedside. It's a strange vigil made all the stranger when, at the very height of the storm's fury, Josef Tock suddenly sits up in bed and speaks coherently for the first and last time since his stroke.What he says before he dies is that there will be five dark days in the life of his grandson – five dates whose terrible events Jimmy will have to prepare himself to face. The first is to occur in his 20th year; the second in his 23rd year; the third in his 28th; the fourth in his 29th; the fifth in his 30th.Rudy is all too ready to discount his father's last words as a dying man's delusional rambling. But then he discovers that Josef also predicted the moment of his grandson's birth to the minute, as well as his exact height, weight, and the fact that Jimmy would be born with syndactyly – the unexplained anomaly of fused digits on his left foot. Suddenly, the old man's predictions take on a chilling significance.What terrifying events await Jimmy on these five dark days? What nightmares will he face? What challenges must he survive? As the novel unfolds, picking up Jimmy's story at each of these crisis points, the path he must follow will defy every expectation. And with each crisis he faces, he will move closer to a fate he could never have imagined. For who Jimmy Tock is and what he must accomplish on the five days his world turns is a mystery as dangerous as it is wondrous – a struggle against an evil so dark and pervasive only the most extraordinary of human spirits can shine through.
PART ONE
Welcome to the World,
Jimmy Tock
in the night that I was born, my paternal grandfather, Josef Tock, made ten predictions that shaped my life. Then he died in the very minute that my mother gave birth to me.
Josef had never previously engaged in fortune-telling. He was a pastry chef. He made eclairs and lemon tarts, not predictions.
Some lives, conducted with grace, are beautiful arcs bridging this world to eternity. I am thirty years old and can't for certain see the course of my life, but rather than a graceful arc, my passage seems to be a herky-jerky line from one crisis to another.
I am a lummox, by which I do not mean stupid, only that I am biggish for my size and not always aware of where my feet are going.
This truth is not offered in a spirit of self-deprecation or even humility. Apparently, being a lummox is part of my charm, an almost winsome trait, as you will see.
No doubt I have now raised in your mind the question of what I in
tend to imply by "biggish for my size." Autobiography is proving to be a trickier task tha

Through the Zombie Glass
Chapter 66
Zombies stalk the night.Forget blood and brains. These monsters hunger for human souls.Sadly, they've got mine...Alice Bell has lost so much. Family. Friends. A home. She thought she had nothing else to give. She was wrong.After a new zombie attack, strange things begin to happen to her. Mirrors come to life, and the whispers of the dead assault her ears. But the worst? A terrible darkness blooms inside her, urging her to do very wicked things.She's never needed her team of zombie slayers more, but ultra bad-boy Cole Holland, the leader and her boyfriend, suddenly withdraws from her...from everyone. Now, with her best friend, Kat, at her side, Ali must kill the zombies, uncover Cole's secret and learn to fight the darkness.But the clock is ticking...and if she fails at a single task, they're all doomed.
Chapter 1
Begin at the Beginning
A few months earlier
More and more I'd been dreaming about the crash that killed my parents and younger sister. I relived the moments as our car flipped end over end. The sounds of metal crunching into pavement. The stillness when everything was over, and I was the only one awake...maybe the only one alive.
I'd struggled to free myself from the seat belt, desperate to help little Emma. Her head had been twisted at such an odd angle. My mother's cheek had been slashed open like a Christmas ham, and my father's body had been thrown out of the car. Panic had made me stupid, and I'd hit my head on a sharp piece of metal. Darkness had swallowed me whole.
But in my dreams, I watched my mother blink open her eyes. She was disoriented at first, moaning in pain and trying to make sense of the chaos around her.
Unlike me, she had no problem with her seat belt, freeing herself and turning, her gaze landing on Emma. Tears began to rain down her cheeks.
She looked at me and gasped, reaching out to place a trembling hand on my leg. A river of warmth seemed to rush through me, strengthening me.
"Alice," she shouted, shaking me. "Wake up - "
I jolted upright.
Panting, my body dotted with perspiration, I scanned my surroundings. I saw walls of ivory and gold, painted in swirling patterns. An antique dresser. A furry white rug on the floor. A mahogany nightstand, with a Tiffany lamp perched next to a photo of my boyfriend, Cole.
I was in my new bedroom, safe.
Alone.
My heart slammed against my ribs as though trying to burst free. I forced the dream to the back of my mind and moved to the edge of the bed to peer out the large bay window and find a sense of calm. Despite the gorgeousness of the view - a garden teeming with bright, lush flowers that somehow thrived in the cool October weather - my stomach twisted. Night was in full bloom, and so were the creepies.
Fog that had brewed on the horizon for hours had finally spilled over, gliding closer and closer to my window. The moon was round and full, set ablaze with orange and red, as if the surface had been wounded and was bleeding.
Anything was possible.
Zombies were out tonight.
M

The Shining
Chapter 56
Jack Torrance's new job at the Overlook Hotel is the perfect chance for a fresh start. As the off-season caretaker at the atmospheric old hotel, he'll have plenty of time to spend reconnecting with his family and working on his writing. But as the harsh winter weather sets in, the idyllic location feels ever more remote...and more sinister. And the only one to notice the strange and terrible forces gathering around the Overlook is Danny Torrance, a uniquely gifted five-year-old.
This is for Joe Hill King, who shines on.
My editor on this book, as on the previous two, was Mr. William G. Thompson, a man of wit and good sense. His contribution to this book has been large, and for it, my thanks
S. K.
Some of the most beautiful resort hotels in the world are located in Colorado, but the hotel in these pages is based on none of them. The Overlook and the people associated with it exist wholly within the author's imagination.
It was in this apartment, also, that there stood... a gigantic clock of ebony. Its pendulum swung to and fro with a dull, heavy, monotonous clang; and when... the hour was to be stricken, there came from the brazen lungs of the clock a sound which was clear and loud and deep and exceedingly musical, but of so peculiar a note and emphasis that, at each lapse of an hour, the musicians of the orchestra were constrained to pause... to hearken to the sound; and thus the waltzers perforce ceased their evolutions; and there was a brief disconcert of the whole gay company; and; while the chimes of the clock yet rang, it was observed that the giddiest grew pale, and the more aged and sedate passed their hands over their brows as if in confused reverie or meditation. But when the echoes had fully ceased, a light laughter at once pervaded the assembly... and [they] smiled as if at their own nervousness... and made whispering vows, each to the other, that the next chiming of the clock should produce in them no similar emotion; and then, after the lapse of sixty minutes... there came yet another chiming of the clock, and then were the same disconcert and tremulousness and meditation as before.
But in spite of these things, it was a gay and magnificent revel...
E. A. POE, "The Masque of the Red Death"
The sleep of reason breeds monsters.
GOYA
It'll shine when it shines
FOLK SAYING
Part One. Prefatory Matters
1. Job Interview
Jack Torrance thought: Officious little prick.
Ullman stood five-five, and when he moved, it was with the prissy speed that seems to be the exclusive domain of all small plump men. The part in his hair was exact, and his dark suit was sober but comforting. I am a man you can bring your problems to, that suit said to the paying customer. To the hired help it spoke more curtly: This had better be good, you. There was a red carnation in the lapel, perhaps so that no one on the street would mistake Stuart Ullman for the local undertaker.
As he listened to Ullman speak, Jack admitted to himself that he probably could not have li

Degenerates (Badlands 5)
Chapter 95
Degenerates (Badlands 5) Read Free
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PRELUDE
In Nomine Satanas Cum Potentia Inferni
Badlands
[Bad-Lands]
-noun
1. Often referred to as hell on earth.
2. A place where humanity has ceased to exist. Cannibals lurk in the shadows. Stronger factions take out the weak.
It’s a place where the satanic Savages reign supreme, beneath the tyranny of a man revered as the devil himself, a deviant self-made king.
That same man just so happens to be my father.
My mother is his queen.
I don’t mean that in the pet-name sort-of way either, that’s legitimately how she is seen.
I can’t tell you what the world was like when a government was in place, whole cities weren’t abandoned, and death wasn’t always waiting for you to fuck up so he could harvest your soul.
Fortunately, I wasn’t born yet because that kind of world sounds like a nightmare.
What I can tell you is that the Badlands isn’t a place anyone weak hearted would willingly choose to live, and for me, it was home sweet home, my very own wonderland wasteland.
I’m, Adelaide Deville.
Savage Princess.
Satan’s Daughter.
A tad bit debauched.
I’m part of the poisoned youth.
We’re a generation of degenerates.
We set fire to our insides for fun.
We cut ourselves open to feel.
We’re heartless, reckless, and all around fucked up.
But most importantly, we’re family.
And I can honestly say t
hat I never had much to complain about. My life was mostly smooth sailing with the occasional bump in the road.
One fucking night was all it took for that to change.
Meeting him was a cruel act of fate, something I had never believed in until I quite literally ran across his path.
His name was, Zane.

I, Zombie
Chapter 23
***WARNING: NOT FIT FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION***This book contains foul language and fouler descriptions of life as a zombie. It will offend most anyone, so proceed with caution or not at all.And be forewarned: This is not a zombie book. This is a different sort of tale. It is a story about the unfortunate, about those who did not get away. It is a human story at its rotten heart. It is the reason we can't stop obsessing about these creatures, in whom we see all too much of ourselves.
Part I • The Hunger
Gloria • Michael Lane • Jennifer Shaw
1 • Gloria
There was a hole in Gloria's smile the size of an apple. When she ate, much of what she chewed passed through her cheek and spilled down her neck. And when a scent caught her attention - usually the smell of the living - she would lift her head to take a sniff and feel the air pass through her open face to hammer her rotting teeth.
Gloria was dead, and so were her teeth, but they were all still sensitive to the pain.
Bowing her head back over her meal, she tried not to watch what she was doing. The stench and texture were visceral enough, the taste both revolting and sickly soothing. A pack of five or so ripped into the man, the scene calmer than a big feed. There were grunts and contented smacking sounds, not the angry roars from those on the outside clawing to get in. Instead, she and four other monsters huddled together like hyenas on the Serengeti. They rubbed shoulders and listened to the sounds of flesh tearing and tendons snapping, the hotness of the man up to her elbows, blood dripping from her chin.
Gloria ate, and much of what she chewed spilled down her neck.
The revulsion she felt was mental. Gloria wished it were physical. She wanted to vomit, dearly wanted to vomit, but she couldn't. The meat of the man tasted too good. It satisfied too deep and strong a craving, this new hunger that reminded her of all her old and equally primal urges.
There were two years in high school when Gloria had tried to become a vegetarian. This monster she had turned into reminded her of those years, of the meals that came after she'd given up trying to be good. She remembered how badly she had felt for that chicken even as she tore through its meat. There was a night out with friends, laughing, spilling beer, a hundred screens of sports she cared nothing about, and baskets of wings. She had held one, fingers sticky with sauce, a bite taken out of the flesh, and she had looked down, had seen those tendons and bone, and had realized what she was doing.
Even then, Gloria had known it was wrong. But she loved it too much. The taste was always stronger than her compassion. And so she ate and felt sick at the same time. She loved the meat and hated herself.
The dead body in the blue jeans and ruined button-up reminded her of that chicken wing. It was barely recognizable as a person anymore, covered in its own sauce. The pack grew to seven, and the man's lower half was dragged away and fought ove

Hellions (Badlands 6)
Chapter 73
Hellions (Badlands 6) Read Free
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PRELUDE
Veni, omnipotens aeterne diabolus.
What can I say that hasn’t been said a thousand times before?
By now, you should know my world isn’t for the faint hearted or weak willed. It’s a beautiful wasteland built upon pain, bloodshed, and violence.
There are only lions and sheep, predators and prey, those doomed to fall and those destined to rise.
I have been the sheep, the prey, and the fool who fell for the lies spun from a silver tongue. Now, I will become the lion, the predator, and flip the fucking script.
The ones responsible for the hurt will learn that their most fatal mistake was showing me a mercy I won’t reciprocate.
I’m a harbinger, a shepherd of souls, and I have a list of names that need to be sent to an early grave.
Like a reckoning, they won’t see me coming.
Just as I, never in a hundred years, would have expected him.
Maliki Erebus.
He stroked the deepest parts of my tar-black soul without having to touch me with his hands. He dared take residence inside my ghost town of a heart. What we had was at times unsteady, sick and twisted, but it was also addictively enthralling.
We were the ugly truth of the world we came from, born with tragedy coursing through our blood.
He was angry, a vicious sadist full of rage.
I was lost, a masochist trapped in a state of chaos.
We were hellions embarking on a path of carnage, feeding our demons and using one another.
We turned pain to power, and we thrived on our insatiable lust for darkness and death.
Together, we were two vicious, chaotic gods.
Unus
cruor
Facilis descensus averno
(the) descent to hell is easy.
Chapter One
Unus
I find it strange the way a heart breaks in silence, how a chest can split open without making a single sound. It’s as if the universe takes a moment to pay your devastation the same respect you’d garner from a funeral. I stood there with a heart once solid now made of fragmented glass.
Every inhalation brought with it the aseptic smell of medicine and an undertone of bleach.
The only sound punctuating the thick air was the steady beeping of the monitor Cam was hooked up to.
If there was ever a moment I wanted to scream, it would be this one.
Why?
Nothing—not anyone or anything—could make me understand.

Odd Apocalypse
Chapter 37
Once presided over by a Roaring ’20s Hollywood mogul, the magnificent West Coast estate known as Roseland now harbors a reclusive billionaire financier and his faithful servants—and their guests: Odd Thomas, the young fry cook who sees the dead and tries to help them, and Annamaria, his inscrutably charming traveling companion. Fresh from a harrowing clash with lethal adversaries, they welcome their host’s hospitality. But Odd’s extraordinary eye for the uncanny detects disturbing secrets that could make Roseland more hell than haven. Soon enough the house serves up a taste of its terrors, as Odd begins to unravel the darkest mystery of his curious career. What consequences await those who confront evil at its most profound? Odd only knows.
One
NEAR SUNSET OF MY SECOND FULL DAY AS A GUEST IN Roseland, crossing the immense lawn between the main house and the eucalyptus grove, I halted and pivoted, warned by instinct. Racing toward me, the great black stallion was as mighty a horse as I had ever seen. Earlier, in a book of breeds, I had identified it as a Friesian. The blonde who rode him wore a white nightgown.
As silent as any spirit, the woman urged the horse forward, faster. On hooves that made no sound, the steed ran through me with no effect.
I have certain talents. In addition to being a pretty good short-order cook, I have an occasional prophetic dream. And in the waking world, I sometimes see the spirits of the lingering dead who, for various reasons, are reluctant to move on to the Other Side.
This long-dead horse and rider, now only spirits in our world, knew that no one but I could see them. After appearing to me twice the previous day and once this morning, but at a distance, the woman seemed to have decided to get my attention in an aggressive fashion.
Mount and mistress raced around me in a wide arc. I turned to follow them, and they cantered toward me once more but then halted. The stallion reared over me, silently slashing the air with the hooves of its forelegs, nostrils flared, eyes rolling, a creature of such immense power that I stumbled backward even though I knew that it was as immaterial as a dream.
Spirits are solid and warm to my touch, as real to me in that way as is anyone alive. But I am not solid to them, and they can neither ruffle my hair nor strike a death blow at me.
Because my sixth sense complicates my existence, I try otherwise to keep my life simple. I have fewer possessions than a monk. I have no time or peace to build a career as a fry cook or as anything else. I never plan for the future, but wander into it with a smile on my face, hope in my heart, and the hair up on the nape of my neck.
Bareback on the Friesian, the barefoot beauty wore white silk and white lace and wild red ribbons of blood both on her gown and in her long blond hair, though I could see no wound. Her nightgown was rucked up to her thighs, and her knees pressed against the stallion's heaving sides. In her left hand, she twined a fistful o

These Haunted Hearts
Chapter 24
These Haunted Hearts Read Free
On one fateful wedding day at Marston Hall in 1818, four linked destinies hover in the balance.Josiah Aston, Earl of Stansfield, wakes to discover he's seventy years dead and he alone can free his beloved wife Isabella's tormented soul. But first he must convince her to trust him against all the evidence… Lady Isabella Verney, beautiful and tempestuous, married the man of her dreams, only to die violently on her wedding day. Every clue points to Josiah as the murderer… Is true love strong enough to defeat ancient malevolence forever?Miles Hartley, Viscount Kendall, is society's ideal catch, but what does that matter if he can't convince Calista Aston that he loves her? When an age-old curse strikes, only by proving himself worthy of her faith can he save their happiness… Lady Calista Aston, noted bluestocking, fears she loves Miles Hartley not wisely, but too well. On her wedding day, her doubts place her at evil's mercy. When death and disaster loom, is it courage or mad folly to believe that Miles loves her in spite of all her faults? On one fateful wedding day at Marston Hall in 1818, will the lovers emerge triumphant or will darkness conquer all?Expanded version of the story "The Chinese Bed", which originally appeared in the anthology, The Mammoth Book of Ghost Romance.
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Chapter One
Marston Hall, Norfolk, May 1818
JOSIAH WOKE TO thick darkness.
He knew immediately where he was. Sprawled across the great Chinese bed at Marston Hall. His glorious, extravagant marriage bed. The king’s gift to his dear friend, Lord Stansfield, upon the earl’s nuptials. Josiah had expressed suitable gratitude for the royal generosity, but he couldn’t avoid thinking a second-hand bed was a rum sort of present for a man supposedly in the regal favor.
Thick green hangings enclosed him, hangings cut from robes sewn for a Chinese princess’s wedding. A wedding that had never taken place. The elaborate scroll accompanying His Majesty’s gift had laid out the legend as a quaint piece of history. The princess’s lowborn lover had betrayed her instead of stealing her away. Cursing all marriages, she’d poisoned herself on the day she was to marry a powerful warlord.
Or so the story went.
In search of warm, sleepy Isabella, Josiah’s hand slid across the silk counterpane, feeling the raised patterns of embroidery under his palm. But he already knew his beloved wasn’t lying beside him.
By God, he must have been half-seas over before he tumbled onto the cream cover with its thickly twining peonies and fragile pagodas. He was still wearing his wedding clothes. He hadn’t been sober enough to undress. No wonder Isabella had left him to sleep it off. His darling had a temper. He’d hear about his excesses soon enough. He deserved to.
He didn’t even remember crawling into bed.
Which, now he thought about it, struck him as rather odd.
This couldn’t be right. On his wedding day, he’d been drunk on love, not liquor. And he certainly didn’t rec

Vampire Apocalypse: A World Torn Asunder
Chapter 34
This is the first book in Derek Gunn's Vampire Apocalypse series.The war is over and the Vampires have won. The drying up of the world's oil resources leads to the fabled End of Days. Technology stagnates and communities grow ever more insular. With communication between cities lost and attention turned inward, the vampires rise from the shadows where they have survived for centuries and sweep across the globe. By the time word spreads it is far too late and Vampires enslave humanity and keep them in walled cities to breed. The Vampires are masters of the darkness but maintain control by day through the use of Thralls - humans who have been bitten but have not yet crossed over, and whose inhuman lusts make daylight as terrifying as night. In the midst of chaos, a small band of rebels lead a terrified existence, but their survival is threatened by the Vampire's new scanning procedures. Peter Harris is an ordinary man. Young and reckless, he is frustrated with the group's stagnation and pushes for one more daring mission. His recklessness has exposed the group - but it has also increased the size of their community. Now, as circumstances force them to take the offensive, and accompanied by a small group of professional Vampire assassins, John will make one last stand for humanity's survival in the Vampire Apocalypse.