Horror Urban Fiction

The god killer has escaped from her chains on Prometheus' Rock. Aura from Dimension Beta killed Athena and unleashed eldritch horrors on Gaia Beta with the Apocalypse weapons stolen from Hephaestus' lost armory on Oblivion. She executed a plan that Cain never saw coming and even fooled the gods. The gods are too busy fighting minions of the Elder Things in the divine realm to care about an escaped elf, no matter how dangerous she is. Since no one else will track down Aura Beta, Cain decides to take on the task himself.

A masterful anthology featuring 19 pieces of short fiction, Growing Things is an exciting glimpse into Paul Tremblay's fantastically fertile imagination. From global catastrophe to the demons inside our heads, Tremblay illuminates our primal fears and darkest dreams in startlingly original fiction that leaves us unmoored. As he lowers the sky and yanks the ground from beneath our feet, we are compelled to contemplate the darkness inside our own hearts and minds.

The Oblivion Guard is trying to kill Cain. That should be impossible. After all, Cain has a bargain with the summer and winter queens that keeps him safe from them directly or indirectly harming him. Cain discovers that many of these would-be assassins come from Alpha and Beta dimensions, and they seem to have found a loophole that allows them to kill him without harming the queens. Anyone associated with Cain is fair game, and Aura and Layla are forced to hide out at Sanctuary with Cain. But not even his secret hideout is safe anymore.

Everyone’s favorite fifteen-year-old ghostalker, Ropa, arrives at the worldwide Society of Skeptical Enquirers’ biennial conference just in time to be tied into a mystery—a locked room mystery, if an entire creepy haunted castle on lockdown counts. One of the magical attendees has stolen a valuable magical scroll. Caught between Qozmos, the high wizard of Ethiopian magic; the larger-than-life Lord Sashvindu Samarasinghe; England’s Sorcerer Royal; and Scotland’s own Edmund MacLeod, it’s up to Ropa to sort through the dangerous secret politics and alliances to figure out what really happened.

After three decades of hiding, Ariane is ready to take her place as a respected member of the American vampire society...or so she hopes. The aristocracy of the night enjoys games. Schemes already abound from enemies old and new, but Ariane is not alone and she is not the naive girl she once was.

Faust has been caged, buried, cut off from his allies and his magic. His enemies think they've won. They're about to learn, the hard way, that this is one sorcerer who always has a trick up his sleeve. Nobody has ever escaped from the Iceberg. But the Iceberg has never had a prisoner like Daniel Faust.

There’s only so much room on the Island, only so much blood, and Manhattan’s Vampyre Clans aren’t interested in sharing. So when the Vyrus-infected dregs of New York’s outer boroughs start creeping across the bridges, the Clans want to know why. Bad luck for PI Joe Pitt. Joe used to be a Rogue, work off his own dime, pick his own gigs, but tight times and a terminally ill girlfriend pushed him to the renegade Society Clan. Now he has all the cash and blood he needs, but at a steep price.

After breaking the code of secrecy and facing the judgement of the High Council, Jess and Hannah have no choice but to become Trackers, working to take down those who would exploit the spirit world for profit or power. Their first assignment takes them into the deep South, where Jeremiah Campbell, a self-proclaimed spiritual guru, lures wealthy and desperate devotees with promises of a deeper connection with the dead. As the girls go undercover, it soon becomes clear that they, and the spirit world they are sworn to protect, are once again in unimaginable danger.

Just when I thought it was safe to step onto my porch, the power of the Oracle has sent another person in need to my stairs. He thinks he's searching for his missing husband, but the moment I smell him, I know he's dragging along a curse from a necromancer with a stench strong enough to curl the leg hairs I haven't had time to shave. Which reminds me—I should probably do some grooming before my date. Did I mention I have an arraignment in court? For murder? It's all I can do to put this legal nonsense to bed before the rotten bouquet of necromancy wafts into my world yet again.

Yes, you should be afraid of the dark.... A powerful demon is hell-bent on revenge, and he knows paranormal investigator Ford Atticus Ford by name. As Ford wrestles with the uncertain nature of his future, a different kind of evil storms into his world, proving that not all demons are inhuman. Trailing in Lauren Coeburn's wake are some of the most elusive and terrifying paranormal entities in existence - the black-eyed children.

In a London funeral parlor, the dead rise and walk again. On a train in the London Underground, a young couple is terrorized by a demon. In a suburb, a poltergeist forces a family to flee their home. Hellboy has his hands full. While the supernatural is on a rampage in London, a series of brutal Torso Murders turns up at various sites around the city. All of the corpses are headless, limbless, and drained of their blood.

When aimless twenty-something Mara lands a job as the night-shift production assistant on her cousin’s ghost hunting/home makeover reality TV show Haunt Sweet Home, she quickly determines her new role will require a healthy attitude toward duplicity. But as she hides fog machines in the woods and improvises scares to spook new homeowners, a series of unnerving incidents on set and a creepy new coworker force Mara to confront whether the person she's truly been deceiving and hiding from all along—is herself.

The parish of Manningtree and Mistley has a dark history. In 1644, Cromwell's Witchfinder General tortured scores of women there, including Liza the herbalist, whose cottage still stands. Some say the spirits of his victims still haunt the old shop on the High Street. Emma Dickson gave up her high-flying career to live in Liza’s cottage, but as Halloween approaches, visions of a terrible past are driving her to madness. In despair, Emma turns to the local rector for help, but he, too, is in the grip of something inexplicably dangerous.

In the dark, they are watching... They are waiting for you. No one has ever lived to tell the horrifying truth about them. Yet even now the Wolfen are gathered in the night-dark alleys ... unseen, poised ... ready to destroy their helpless human prey. Only one man and one woman, trained cops, willing to risk their lives, stand in the way

Longtime contributor to the Hellboy mythos Christopher Golden brings together a crew of luminaries including Joe R. Lansdale and China Miéville, cross-genre sensation Barbara Hambly, celebrated mystery writer Ken Bruen, best-selling science-fiction and fantasy novelist Tad Williams, and a bevy of other skilled storytellers eager to spin a tale or two about the world's greatest paranormal detective. Some of the biggest names in horror, mystery, and fantasy come together to pay homage to Mike Mignola's Hellboy!

The sexy, thrilling adventures continue in best-selling author Keri Arthur's new Dark Angels series, set in the realm of danger and desire known as the Guardian World.... Half-werewolf, half-Aedh Risa Jones can enter the realm between life and death, and she can see the Reapers who collect the souls of the dead. Now, she is using her gifts - and the investigative know-how of a man who broke her heart - to find a cabal searching for the power to control time, reality, and fate. And this is besides her work for the Vampire Council, half of whom want her dead.

Still in New York, Katie is working on creating an additional base for herself and her team as Pandora contemplates how she can mess up Calvin's love life. What will happen when Katie meets the woman who means the most to her? And what is Calvin going to do, since the gang in Mexico is not giving up?

This panoramic fictional oral history begins with one small mystery: the body of a young woman found in an Arizona border town, presumed to be an illegal immigrant, disappears from the town morgue. Soon, the US government - and eventually biomedical researchers, disgruntled lawmakers, and even an insurgent faction of the Catholic Church - must come to terms with what they're too late to stop: an epidemic of vampirism that will sweep first the United States, and then the world. With heightened strength and beauty and a steady diet of fresh blood, these changed people, or "Gloamings", rapidly rise to prominence in all aspects of modern society.

Tamara Garvey lands her first book deal, but her friend's reactions aren't what she expected. They are less than supportive - even her dead best friend brushes off this momentous achievement. Question is, why? Tamara expected her life to improve, but the Dead House has a few paranormal surprises for her. Her ghostly writing is attracting disturbing spiritual activity, putting her and her family at risk.

For more than 30 years, Ellen Datlow has been at the center of horror. Bringing you the most frightening and terrifying stories, Datlow always has her finger on the pulse of what horror fans crave. Now, with the 11th volume of the series, Daltow's back again to bring you the stories that will keep you up at night. With each passing year, science, technology, and the march of time shine light into the craggy corners of the universe, making the fears of an earlier generation seem quaint. This light creates its own shadows. The Best Horror of the Year chronicles these shifting shadows.