Dark Occult

Christmastide. A time of feasting and good cheer. Gifts, cards, and blazing holly logs. Snow falls while family and friends trim the tree and kiss under the mistletoe. But it isn’t always joyful. It’s the coldest time of year. The days are short, the nights long. Chilling myths lie concealed behind the raucous revelry...The ghoulish events in the frozen workhouse...The undead presence at the costumed ball...The pantomime that became a massacre...The winter goddess with the heart of ice...The thieves who woke the dark side of the festive spirit...

From astronauts in deep space to the ghosts of the Civil War, New York Times best-selling author Alethea Kontis creates worlds of wonder and delight, of weirdness and despair, of whimsy and darkness. Here are 20 stories and poems that will transport you to the magical dangerous worlds you've always known should exist, but have never quite been able to find.

Her name was Crimson...and she was a legend. A beautiful pirate queen who plundered the 16th Century Caribbean sea by day and confronted voodoo and vampires during the steaming tropical nights.

What the Dark Brings is a collection of 19 short stories, beginning with "Literary Sweets," a tender jaunt into Christmastime that proves all is not lost for one jaded gentleman. But by the time you reach the final tale, "Come to Jesus Meeting," the darkness is all encompassing.

While traveling back home from a job interview in California, Mark and Ally Thurston suffer a car accident in Middle of Nowhere Kansas. After walking for miles to the nearest convenience store, they are greeted by Hap, the store owner, who invites them to stay the night at his home.

In this new collection, Patrick Barb explores themes of family found and lost, media consumption and the dangers of runaway nostalgia, the supernatural in our lives, and the impact of violence in both the long- and short-term. From rural backwoods to Park Slope brownstones, Barb's characters face impossible, awful situations, testing their inner strength and understanding of reality. Covering quiet horror, weird fiction, supernatural horror, slasher horror, topical dark fiction, and more, these stories spotlight supposedly familiar terrors and fears in new and unexpected ways.

The land of Ursurla moved around her as the wind struck a chord with the moonlight playing on the reddened grass before her. The night cracked and sparked as a sudden storm dissolved the stars and unleashed its force upon the moon, hiding it beneath thick clouds, layers, and darkness.

A quiet little mountain town is hiding a big problem. When the townsfolk of Raven's Peak start acting crazy, Abigail Dressler is called upon to find out what is happening. She uncovers a demonic threat unlike any she's ever faced and finds herself in a fight just to stay alive. She rescues Haatim Arison from a terrifying fate and discovers that he has a family legacy in the supernatural that he knows nothing about. Now she's forced to protect him, which is easy, and also trust him if she wants to save the townsfolk of Raven's Peak.

What happens when The Firm meets Anita Blake? You get the Halls of Power - our modern world, but twisted. Law, finance, the military, and politics are under the sway of long-lived vampires, werewolves, and the elven Alfar. Humans make the best of rule by “the Spooks”, and contend among themselves to affiliate with the powers-that-be, in order to avoid becoming their prey. Very loyal humans are rewarded with power over other women and men. Very lucky humans are selected to join the vampires.

Jebediah Skayne has been hunting husks his entire adult life, but there's something different about the trail leading to the fishing town of Portis on the shores of the Chalice Sea: no spoor, no footprints; nothing save the unmistakable feeling of wrongness. Finding a husk in Portis would be near impossible for someone who didn't have the sixth sense, but the instant Jeb arrives, all trace of the incursion vanishes.

When two cannibalistic, gravely wounded men stagger into the town of Gehenna, all hell breaks loose. Infamous outlaw Mad Dog McCall, stuck in the city jail, must fight for his life to escape. The lonely, intelligent, and snarky Karen must make horrific sacrifices to survive the night against the growing army of the dead. Together, they set upon a journey of biblical proportions, fighting against the living and the infected, hoping against hope to find a safe haven in the middle of Hell.

I grew up in a world of magic. By the time I was ten I understood nature, talked to the trees, and listened to the wind. When the kingdom of men conquered my town, I was murdered by one of my own - the betrayer of my kind. But I didn't stay dead. I woke to find myself in a strange new world called Los Angeles. The only keys to the life I remembered were my father's ring, my unique abilities, and the onslaught of demons that seemed hell-bent on finding me. Now I must learn who I really am, protect my friends, get the girl, and find my way back to my beloved hometown of Orenda.

Darkest of Storms is an epic dark fantasy series that begins in Sclavonia in the 1400s. If you were looking for vampires, demons, magic, dragons, a struggle between light and dark, a great evil that has returned from the past, and more...then you have come to the right place. Throw in suspense, drama, romance, horror, mystery...this book has it all!

"Il Maestro e Margherita" è il romanzo più conosciuto di Michail Bulgakov e capolavoro della letteratura del XX secolo. Dopo svariate stesure viene ultimato dalla moglie dello scrittore un anno dopo la sua prematura morte. Oggetto di censura da parte dell'autorità dell'Unione Sovietica, vede la pubblicazione nella sua integrità solo venti anni più tardi. A rendere il romanzo tanto scabroso è l'impietoso e satirico ritratto della Russia stalinista che l'autore fa emergere attraverso le caratterizzazioni dei numerosi personaggi che prendono parte alla storia: individui meschini e gretti, la cui infima statura morale viene svelata dall'arrivo, inatteso e incredibile, di Satana in persona, incarnato nell'esperto di magia nera Woland, e del suo losco e bizzarro entourage.

In a future uncomfortably close to the present day, the apocalypse has surpassed all expectations. Hideous demons roam the streets in an orgy of terror, drawing pleasure from torturing humans as sadistically as possible. Ira, a young San Francisco artist, becomes involved with a strange group of scientists and philosophers desperately trying to end the bloody siege. But the most shocking revelation is yet to come.

Baxter has been packed off to Hexpoort, a magical training school for MK6 agents. It sucks, but Baxter slowly learns to control his fledgling abilities and takes his first steps to becoming a dreamwalker. Lessons with Jackie Ronin lead them to suspect that the Obayifo may be involved with a doorway that Baxter inadvertently opened when operating the Mantis. Baxter and Jackie are plunged into the most dangerous place they've encountered yet: Cape Town Fashion Week.

Picking up a small, pink shoe from the grass forever changed young Jackson Lee’s life. Not only did its presence mean that his sister Tessa was dead - murdered and stuffed in the deep, black water of a narrow well - but the shoe itself told him so. Tessa’s death triggers an even more horrific family massacre that, combined with this new talent he neither wants nor can handle, throws Jack’s life into a tailspin. The years quickly take him from state homes to the streets to grifting in a seedy carnival, until he finally becomes the cynical All Seeing Eye, psychic-for-hire. At last, Jackson has left his troubled past behind and found a semblance of peace....

When seers Céline and Amelie Fawe fled Shetâna under threat of death, they vowed never to return. Yet less than a year later, they are summoned back - to aid the man who once tried to kill them.... The cruel prince Damek is on the verge of closing marriage negotiations with the powerful family of a young noblewoman when his intended's sister is murdered. To keep the engagement from falling through, Damek must expose the killer quickly - and he needs the seers' powers to do so.

Michelle was brutally attacked in her locked hotel room in Las Vegas. The police didn't believe her and thought she must have lured a man up to her hotel room for a little sexual adventure, which went dangerously out of control. Michelle sustained visible scars from the terrifying and almost lethal attack, but pure fear motivated the move from her home in California to Hawaii. She's scared her attacker will come back. She's sure the next time he'll kill her.

I have no idea who I am anymore. In Los Angeles, I would have given anything to go home to Orenda, my world where magic was alive and nature spoke to me. Now that I'm back I feel out of place, burdened with responsibility. The human part of me misses the simplicity of Earth, the mage part begs for connection with magic, and the demon part? I don't want to admit that exists.