Occult Fantasy

The profoundly original and wildly entertaining short stories of a legendary Twilight Zone writer. It is only natural that Charles Beaumont would make a name for himself crafting scripts for The Twilight Zone - for his was an imagination so limitless it must have emerged from some other dimension. Perchance to Dream contains a selection of Beaumont's finest stories, including five that he later adapted for Twilight Zone episodes.

The year is 2048. Climate change and bio-warfare have ravaged much of the Earth, and societal meltdown has splintered the US into fragments. But out of the ruins, Northern California has built a thriving culture based on respect for the four sacred things: air, fire, water and earth.

James Stark, a.k.a. Sandman Slim, crawled out of Hell, took bloody revenge for his girlfriend’s murder, and saved the world along the way. After that, what do you do for an encore? You take a lousy job tracking down monsters for money. It’s a depressing gig, but it pays for your beer and cigarettes. But in L.A., things can always get worse. Like when Lucifer comes to town to supervise his movie biography and drafts Stark as his bodyguard.

All Essie ever wanted was to have a normal life but in the end she found herself drawn back to Beldam House because she just can’t stop her witchiness. Into this coven of chaos stumbles gorgeous, clueless Josh, their new landlord—and he’s just discovered his tenants haven’t paid rent since the 1700s! As Josh is drawn further into the lives of the inhabitants of Beldam House, Essie is determined to keep him at broomstick’s length. That is, until a family secret, lying hidden for centuries, puts Josh firmly under her spell.

Beatrice Bird is plagued by ghosts. It’s a gift she’s had since she was a small child. Unfortunately, it’s a gift that has grown more intense, shifting from flashes and feelings to physical manifestations she can’t escape. In a desperate attempt for relief, Beatrice flees her home, her partner, and a psychology practice in San Francisco for a remote island with only nuns and a few cows for company. She sees as few people as she possibly can. She doesn’t call home. Then she meets Anne Iredale, a timid woman who has lost everything that matters to her.

Victorian London is a place of fluid social roles, vibrant arts culture, fin-de-siecle wonders...and dangerous underground diabolic cults. Fencer Evadne Gray cares for none of the former and knows nothing of the latter when she's sent to London to chaperone her younger sister, aspiring art critic Dorina. Unfortunately for Evadne, she soon learns too much about all of it when Dorina meets their uncle's friend, Lady Henrietta "Henry" Wotton. A semi-respectable aristocrat in public, in private she is secretly in the thrall of a demon.

What do you do after you’ve saved the world and nobody believes you? Amber is a teenage runaway, hiding out in Los Angeles, who is also a daughter of the wolf kind. And, not long ago, she had her own personal demon. Richard was her servant, her lover, and a hellish force bound to the Earth against his will. Together they turned back the World Snake that threatened to destroy the city and she had granted Richard his freedom. Now Amber is alone, but nobody accepts that she has truly shed her demon.

After surviving the destruction of Chaenbalu, new mysteries and greater threats await Annev and his friends in the capital city of Luqura. As they navigate the city’s perilous streets, Annev searches for a way to control his nascent magic and remove the cursed artifact now fused to his body. But what might removing it cost him?

Some wounds take time to heal . . . and some scars never fade. Rachel Morgan, kick-ass witch and bounty hunter, has taken her fair share of hits, and has broken lines she swore she would never cross. But when her lover was murdered, it left a deeper wound than Rachel ever imagined, and now she won't rest until his death is solved . . . and avenged. Whatever the cost.

Aspiring supervillains (and super nerds) Jonathan and Andrew attempt to hold their own in a town full of monsters, while eleven-hundred-year-old vengeance demon Anya is just looking for something to give her life purpose again, spending her days working at an evil juice bar. But soon word gets out that there's a new Big Bad on the scene, one more powerful and more destructive than anyone who has come before. She, of course, is Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And she's hell-bent on rooting out all of this reality's evil by any means necessary.

In Sandman Slim Stark came back from hell for revenge. Once again all is not right in L.A. Lucifer is back in Heaven, God is on vacation, and an insane killer mounts a war against both Heaven and Hell. Stark’s got to head back down to his old stomping grounds in Hell to rescue his long lost love, stop an insane serial killer, prevent both Good and Evil from completely destroying each other, and stop the demonic Kissi from ruining the party for everyone. Even for Sandman Slim, that’s a tall order. And it’s only the beginning.

From the cramped bowels of a dimly lit radio station, Ghost Radio is beamed onto the airwaves. More than a call-in show to tell scary stories, Ghost Radio is a sanctuary for those sleepless denizens of the night, lost halfway between this world and the next. Joaquin, the host, slowly he finds himself unable to distinguish between the real world and the world populated by the nightmares on Ghost Radio.

The novel opens with the vampire world in crisis… vampires have been proliferating out of control; burnings have commenced all over the world, huge massacres similar to those carried out by Akasha in The Queen of the Damned… Old vampires, roused from slumber in the earth are doing the bidding of a Voice commanding that they indiscriminately burn vampire-mavericks in cities from Paris and Mumbai to Hong Kong, Kyoto, and San Francisco.

Ramses the Great, former pharaoh of Egypt, is reawakened by the elixir of life in Edwardian England. Now immortal with his bride-to-be, he is swept up in a fierce and deadly battle of wills and psyches against the once-great Queen Cleopatra. Ramses has reawakened Cleopatra with the same perilous elixir whose unworldly force brings the dead back to life.

At the novel's center: the vampire Lestat de Lioncourt, hero, leader, inspirer, irresistible force, irrepressible spirit, battling (and ultimately reconciling with) a strange otherworldly form that has somehow taken possession of Lestat's undead body and soul. This ancient and mysterious power and unearthly spirit of vampire lore has all the force, history, and insidious reach of the unknowable universe.

Avery and the White Haven witches have finally found their grimoires and defeated the Favershams, but their troubles are only just beginning. Something escaped from the spirit world when they battled beneath All Souls Church, and now it wants to stay, unleashing violence across Cornwall. On top of that, the magic they released when they broke the binding spell is attracting powerful creatures from the deep, creatures that need men to survive. And then there’s the Witches Council. Thirteen covens spread across Cornwall, and not all of them welcome the White Haven witches.

It's been seven months since Chris Gordon met Tanya Demidova, and a lot has changed. He's stronger and faster and has the senses of a vampire and the appetite of a werewolf. But even as he settles into his new position with the Special Situations Squad and his relationship with Tanya, new threats appear. From south of the border, north of the city, inside the NYPD, and the federal government. But the hardest fight Chris will face is with himself.

Warrior angels, vampire hunters, and angels gone bad heat up this altogether sizzling paranormal alternate universe. This anthology of novellas features Angels' Wolf, Angels' Judgment, Angels' Pawn, and the never-before-published Angels' Dance.

In this seventh series installment, a ship that vanished (along with everyone on board) 25 years ago has reappeared. Hired to investigate, Seattle PI Harper Blaine soon uncovers evidence that a powerful being may be responsible. Meanwhile, local police detective Rey Solis attempts to solve the mystery of the death of a passenger’s wife.

When Branson, Missouri, is hit with a death wave - four unsolved murders - it doesn't take an expert to realize that all is not well. But luckily for the locals, Anita Blake is an expert in the kinds of preternatural goings-on that have everyone spooked. And she's got an "in" with the creature that can make sense of the slayings - the sexy master vampire known as Jean-Claude.