Dark Horror

They call me a monster. Murderous and hateful. Beautiful but broken. Nothing can calm the ever raging storm inside of me. As the ruthless leader of the Doubeck family, there is a certain standard of brutality, I have to uphold. Then I meet her. Beautiful, innocent, and so very afraid. Valentina is a rival family's daughter, and the little temptress has purposely tangled herself in my dark web. She seeks me out, needing my help, but the price for what she wants will be steep.

It's February 1991. Desert Storm is raging in Iraq but 22-year-old Jack has more pressing matters at home. His favorite bar, The Spot, is about to be sold out from under his friend Julio. No longer merely reactive, Jack takes the fight to his enemies and demonstrates his innate talent for seeing biters get bit. With a body count even higher than in Cold City, Dark City hurtles Jack toward the climax of this formative New York odyssey in which all scores will be settled, all debts paid.

Gemma Turner once dreamed of stardom. Now the actress is on the cusp of obscurity. When she’s offered the lead in a radical new horror film, Gemma believes her luck has changed—but her dream is about to turn into a nightmare. One night, between the shadows of an alleyway, Gemma disappears on set and is never seen again. Yet, Gemma is alive. She’s been pulled into the film. And the script—and the monsters within it—are coming to life. Gemma must play her role perfectly if she hopes to survive.

From werewolves and vampires, to demons and aliens, the monster is one of the most recognizable figures in horror. But what makes something, or someone, monstrous? Award-winning and up-and-coming authors like Richard Kadrey, Cassandra Khaw, Indrapramit Das, Priya Sharma, and more attempt to answer this question. These all-new stories range from traditional to modern, from mainstream to literary, from familiar monsters to the unknown . . . and unimaginable.

The city of Elendhaven sulks on the edge of the ocean. Wracked by plague, abandoned by the South, stripped of industry and left to die. But not everything dies so easily. A thing without a name stalks the city, a thing shaped like a man, with a dark heart and long pale fingers yearning to wrap around throats. A monster who cannot die.

Since the dawn of human civilization, two warring factions of near-immortals - the descendants of the gods of old - have been secretly shaping its destiny. Amanda's small clan champions progress and peace, while their powerful enemy, the Doomers, propagates ignorance and war. Descending from a single goddess - the only one to survive the ancient cataclysm that wiped out her kind - Amanda's clan members are forbidden to each other.

It’s been five years since Wendy and her two brothers went missing in the woods, but when the town’s children start to disappear, the questions surrounding her brothers’ mysterious circumstances are brought back into the light. Attempting to flee her past, Wendy almost runs over an unconscious boy lying in the middle of the road....

While in London, American heiress Denise Thorne disappears from a nightclub, never to be seen again. On that very same night Sonja Blue, a tough-as-nails vampire hunter-slayer, conceived in terror and born of blood, rises from the city's gutters. Saved by modern medicine before she completed her transformation into one of the undead, she becomes a living vampire, determined to fight for what remains of her humanity.

Bedeckt defined himself by the list of crimes he was unwilling to commit. It was such a short list. How could straying from it have gone so wrong? Now, Bedeckt must undo the damage caused by wandering from his precious list. The Geborene god seeks to remake the world with his obsessive need for cleanliness and perfection, but Bedeckt is going to bring him down. Nothing can stop him. Not even death. But the two friends he abandoned in the Afterdeath chase after him, bent on revenge.

The vampire hunter known only as D has been hired by a wealthy dying man to find his daughter, who was kidnapped by the powerful vampire Lord Meierlink. Though humans speak well of Meierlink, the price on his head is too high for D to ignore and he sets out to save her before she can be turned into an undead creature of the night. In the nightmare world of 12090 AD, finding Meierlink before he reaches the spaceport in the Clayborn States and gets off the planet will be hard enough, but D has more than just Meierlink to worry about.

In France, the brilliant young battle-mage Napoleon Bonaparte has summoned a kraken from the depths, and under his command, the Army of the Dead have all but conquered Europe. Britain fights back, protected by the gulf of the channel and powerful fire-magic, but Wilberforce's own battle to bring about free magic and abolition has met a dead end in the face of an increasingly fearful and repressive government. In Saint Domingue, Fina watches as Toussaint Louverture navigates these opposing forces to liberate the country.

Fourteen-year-old Nessa lives in a world where every teen will be "Called". It could come in the middle of the day, it could come deep in the night. But one instant she will be here, and the next she will wake up naked and alone in the Sidhe land. She will be spotted, hunted down, and brutally murdered. And she will be sent back in pieces by the Sidhe to the human world...unless she joins the rare few who survive for 24 hours and escape unscathed.

Bob Howard's career in the Laundry, the secret British government agency dedicated to protecting the world from unspeakable horrors from beyond spacetime, has entailed high combat, brilliant hacking, ancient magic, and combat with indescribably repellent creatures of pure evil. It has also involved a wearying amount of paperwork and office politics, and his expense reports are still a mess. Now, following the invasion of Yorkshire by the Host of Air and Darkness, the Laundry's existence has become public.

In the aftermath of the mysterious death of their lead singer, the young members of a now-legendary British acid folk band hole up at Wylding Hall, an ancient English country house with its own dark secrets. There they record Wylding Hall, the album that makes their reputation but at a terrifying cost when Julian Blake, their new lead singer, disappears within the mansion and is never seen again.

Since they were lured to the festival at Carousel, Riley (the Film Buff), Antoine (the Athlete), Camden (the Scholar), Anna (the Final Girl), and Kimberly (the Eye Candy) have lived through entire horror movie plots. So far, Riley's survival strategy is working. He's high on his Moxie, Hustle, and Savvy stats. But his Mettle and Grit have dropped dangerously low, leaving him vulnerable. If he gets caught by a killer, he's done for.

When the rescue team returns with Amanda and the chained Dalhu to the keep, Amanda is not as thrilled to be back as she thought she'd be. Between Kian's contempt for her and Dalhu's imprisonment, Amanda's budding relationship with Dalhu seems doomed. Things start to look up when Annani offers her help, and together with Syssi they resolve to find a way for Amanda to be with Dalhu.

Years after a harrowing war experience, ex-mercenary Jespar tre Moreste has taken to drifting. It’s a lonely existence, but barring the occasional bout of melancholia, he has found the closest thing to peace a man like him deserves. Life is “all right.”

Something unholy is hunting the streets of Burlington, Vermont, stalking the campus of the local university. Chris Gordon and his contingent of demon hunters is drawn to the northern Vermont city by a brutal murder of hellish proportions, ready to banish it from Earth. But this Hellion is direct from the Abyss, incarnate and fully possessed of all the powers of high Hell royalty - female royalty at that. It’s been said that the female of the species is deadlier than the male, and this one might be the deadliest of all.

In 1914, fear and paranoia rule the high seas. Iain Cosgrove sets sail for a research trip aboard the last of Dundee’s once-grand sealing fleet. Fueled by rum and the eerie tales of the crew, they obsess over ancient superstitions, which Iain dismisses as simple lore...until they reach the frigid Arctic seas. Soon, Iain begins to question his beliefs. But none of them are prepared for what they are about face in the frigid, dark waters of the north.

In this gloriously over-the-top tale, Aoyama, a widower who has lived alone with his son ever since his wife died seven years before, finally decides it is time to remarry. Since Aoyama is a bit rusty when it comes to dating, a filmmaker friend proposes that, in order to attract the perfect wife, they do a casting call for a movie they don't intend to produce. As the resumes pile up, only one of the applicants catches Aoyama's attention - Yamasaki Asami - a striking young former ballerina with a mysterious past. But she is a far cry from the innocent young woman he imagines her to be.