Evil Fiction

Back in the summer of 1988, a young Richard Chizmar was catapulted into the center of a living nightmare as the serial killer Joshua Gallagher—dubbed by the media as “The Boogeyman”—stalked his tranquil Maryland town. A lot has changed in the intervening years. These days, Chizmar enjoys a certain level of celebrity and notoriety himself, being the only person that an incarcerated Josh Gallagher will speak to on or off the record.

Paris, 1393. Recent widow Christine de Pizan became a scribe to support her family, but when she is called to the palace to work, she dreads going. There, everyone fears the king's attacks of unreason and they believe the charlatans who claim they can cure him with vile potions. But when a mysterious book of magic leaves a trail of real murdered bodies in its wake, Christine has more than black magic to worry about. Then one of the king's favorites, Hugues de Precy, is found murdered and his wife Alix de Clairy is blamed.

Supervillains are murdering people in the streets, but yet superheroes are more concerned with gaining popularity than bringing the villains to justice. These villains think they are above the law and that nobody can stop them, but they never planned for me. I’ll murder every one of them with my powersuit, traps, and sidekicks. And if killing bad guys makes me a villain in the eyes of the heroes, well...I’ll destroy them too.

Jake McQuade's the smartest kid in the universe—or at least he was. But just as his training with the secret agency known as the Consortium is about to start, Jake's jelly beans go missing! And to make matters worse, they (and Jake's genius!) might be wearing off right when he needs his smarts most! Jake needs to solve this mystery fast. Who stole the jelly beans and why? Can Jake figure out what's going on, recover the missing jelly beans, and stop a high-tech heist before it's too late?!

Hot on the heels of Kissing Sin, Riley Jenson-half-vampire, half-werewolf-returns in her most dangerous mission yet: facing the chilling evil behind the secret cloning lab.

All legends are born of truths. And just as much lies. These are mine. Judge me for what you will. But you will hear my story first. I buried the village of Ampur under a mountain of ice and snow. Then I killed their god. I've stolen old magics and been cursed for it. I started a war with those that walked before mankind and lost the princess I loved, and wanted to save. I've called lightning and bound fire. I am legend. And I am a monster.

Moongobble must complete one last Mighty Task before he is accepted into the Society of Magicians. But this one is a doozy: he must retrieve "The Queen's Belly Button", an enchanted stone that has turned an entire elf village bad! Soon Edward and Moongobble, along with Urk the Toad, Fireball the Dragon, and the Rusty Knight, are off on their greatest adventure yet. Can they regain the stone without turning evil themselves?

With a show to produce and my career as an actress on the line, I really don’t have time to die—especially violently. However, while that might not be on my agenda, it seems to be on other’s. Awesome. Instead of acting in my latest endeavor, I’m playing the real-life role of Reluctant Demon Who Has To Save The World—or at the very least, the hot hero.

Our love story is simple. I met a gorgeous woman. We fell in love. We had kids. We moved to the suburbs. We told each other our biggest dreams and our darkest secrets. And then we got bored. We look like a normal couple. We're your neighbors, the parents of your kid's friend, the acquaintances with whom you keep meaning to get dinner. We all have our secrets to keeping a marriage alive. Ours just happens to be getting away with murder.

Desperate to escape the terrors of Ravenloft, Marguerite came to Lord Donskoy's castle full of hope for the future. Instead, she found herself betrothed to a mysterious purveyor of flesh whose secret past, like the dead, refused to stay buried. Now Donskoy's marriage has invoked a dark curse, and Marguarite into a web of fear and passion.

A girl who can speak to gods must save her people without destroying herself. A prince in danger must decide who to trust. A boy with a monstrous secret waits in the wings. Together, they must assassinate the king and stop the war. In a centuries-long war where beauty and brutality meet, their three paths entwine in a shadowy world of spilled blood and mysterious saints, where a forbidden romance threatens to tip the scales between dark and light.

Unimaginable monsters that kill without mercy. Plants that consume and liquefy their victims. Hell has infiltrated Earth; no matter where you hide, the demonic creatures will find you. But all is not lost. Heaven has sent its most ruthless Angels with the power to destroy the evil invaders and protect the innocent. There’s just one thing – Arlo’s stuck in the middle, and both Heaven and Hell are fighting to take his soul.

Following her dramatic abduction of Fifer and Thisbe, the dragon woman traps the twins in an isolated, crumbling palace and surrounds them with four killer dragons in an attempt to coerce them to join her side. Hope finally arrives when Dev sneaks into the castle and the threesome reunites, hatching a plan against the Revinir so devious, so horrifying, that it just might work. But when it comes time to act, Thisbe struggles to confront her deepest fears about her inner levels of good and evil and, to her own dismay, questions if she's really been on the right side all along.

Drake Woolf is the perfect throwaway agent - a deadly, invisible force able to handle the blackest of black-ops missions. No one's better when it comes to search and destroy. But his lethal drive feeds a relentless hunger. It's all his handlers at Task Force Orange can do to point him at the right targets. This time, he's up against a massive, global conspiracy. In his deadly crosshairs are a Venezuelan terrorist, hordes of elite Iranian assassins, and a beautiful and wily FBI counterintelligence agent.

Villains take center stage in this collection of 19 dark and magical stories. Listeners will be cheering for all the wrong heroes as some of the most fearsome, devious, and brutal antagonists perform savage deeds towards wicked ends. And why not? These characters are the champions of their own stories - evil is a matter of perspective. Contributors also include Mark Adler, Bradley P. Beaulieu, E.V. Morrigan, Peter Orullian, Matthew Ward, Kaaron Warren, Deborah A. Wolf, and Janny Wurts.

Two years ago, former Washington, DC, socialite Caitlyn Cahill defied her powerful senator father and risked the ruin of her family by helping the FBI link her troubled brother to a string of horrific murders. The "Capital Killer" was sent to prison for life - and Caitlyn’s world fell apart. Now FBI agent Reid Novak is forced to rend the peace Caitlyn has found on a Virginia horse farm. A copycat killer is on the loose and toying with Caitlyn - his ultimate target - in a terrifying cat-and-mouse game.

When outlaw biker Cole Austin sees a young woman handcuffed and being dragged across the yard of the Dead Souls Motorcycle Club's remote clubhouse, he's stunned by the realization of just how dark his world has become. This scene is even more than his twisted soul can stomach. Compelled to intercede and save her, he has no idea his whole world is about to change.

On a crisp autumn day in Painters Mill, Chief of Police Kate Burkholder responds to a call only to discover an Amish man who has been violently killed with a crossbow, his body abandoned on a dirt road. Aden Karn was just twenty years old, well liked, and from an upstanding Amish family. Who would commit such a heinous crime against a young man whose life was just beginning? The more Kate gets to know his devastated family and the people—both English and Amish—who loved him, the more determined she becomes to solve the case.

The Devil's Bible. Once considered an eighth wonder of the world, the ancient book is shrouded in mystery. No one knows who wrote it or where it was written. Even dry-boned scholars whisper about the secrets hidden in the book: how it calls to the power-hungry. How it drives people mad. How it was written in the shadows by the hand of the devil himself. But no one knows the truth - no one except Mouse.

The brutal murders of three young boys paralyze the citizens of Platte City, Nebraska. What's worse is the grim realization that the man recently executed for the crimes was a copycat. When Sheriff Nick Morrelli is called to the scene of another grisly murder, it becomes clear that the real predator is still at large, waiting to kill again.