Urban City

For Veronica “Roni” Ryder, the journey to becoming leader of the Parallel Society has been tough. She has fought people and monsters, experienced magic and mayhem, traveled the Earth and universes beyond. But one creature, one vile monstrosity, has been her most daunting rival–Yal-hara.

The Iron City is a prison, a maze, an industrial blight. It is the result of a war that saw the goblins grind the fae beneath their collective boot heels. And tonight, it is also a city that churns with life.

Hanz Waterman of the Seventh Fire Watch House is a firefighter and the chief criminal investigator for his district. Like the great river, Waterman’s life flows smoothly in the Burgevin capital, the City of Bridges, until he is ordered to investigate the murder of a woman attached to the mighty Khalzidi Empire’s embassy. Now, Waterman is caught up in the machinations of the rich and powerful. Will Waterman and his men find the killer before politics and technological change engulf the City of Bridges in a cataclysm of smoke, fire, and blood?

"Welcome to hell, ladies and gents, where the demons are monsters and so are the angels." In a city filled with angels and demons, the real monsters are harder to find. When Arija jumps through a portal, she finds herself in the most beautiful city she's ever seen. But looks can be deceiving. Has she found a paradise, or is it hell? Adal can't believe he let Arija go into the portal alone. When he goes in looking for her, he finds himself in a hellscape. With a demon around every corner, Adal must find his girlfriend before it's too late. But someone watches from the shadows.

Mystery. Love. Lies. It's been a year since Grace's world was ripped asunder. The Shadow Children are fighting a losing battle to rescue the halfborn from the Silent Homes, but when a routine mission takes a sinister turn, Grace and her friends are faced with an impossible decision - battle on alone and risk losing everything, or place their trust in the people who have hunted them for centuries. With allies by her side and enemies at her heels, Grace must negotiate her way through the secrets and lies that pave the roads of the Shadow City. The dark is closing in....

One woman is his soul and the other woman owns half. Sam just hopes to get killed less this time around. With a bag full of money and his wife riding shotgun, Sam Flint is ready to let the siren call of the open road pull him to distant shores. Mountain City is almost in his carburetor-ed pony's rearview, when a mysterious vampire attack on werewolf alpha Ethan Grisom leaves the Flints turning back to help. In exchange for information about the attack, Fox agrees to work with Sarah Roswell as she attempts to dethrone Lloyd Burgess at the helm of Mountain City.

My name's Morgan Rook, supernatural detective, undercover agent, odd jobs man. I take out the nightmares, demons, and werewolves. Guys like us call them Nightkind. I had one final job. There's always one. This time a call to eliminate a cruel, rogue vampire, named Mr. Tudor. Simple, right? Sure. Until the bodies started piling up in a new wave of vicious occult killings leading scarily close to my own front door, sparking a series of deadly events that would make my years of fighting the Nightkind look like a cakewalk.

It's tough being a faery in New Orleans, a city fraught with vampires...especially when their very existence drains your life force. Willow Rhoswen, owner of The Fated Cupcake and part-time vampire hunter for the Void is having a rough week. Four years after her twin brother's mysterious death, Willow's life is threatened and the director saddles her with a new partner-her ex-boyfriend, David. To her horror, he's turned vamp, which causes her physical pain whenever she touches him

What does it mean to be truly human? When an orphaned kit fox named Tom is transformed by a witch’s spell into a 12-year-old boy, he’s given a deadline of summer’s end to become fully human. Befriended by fellow orphan Nora, he spends the summer enjoying normal human activities, always fearing that he won’t discover how to become fully human in time, and unaware that soon he and Nora will be fighting for their lives....

"Warum hast du mich hergeholt?" "Weil wir einen Helden brauchen, der uns rettet. Weil ich einen Helden brauche..." Ich bin Andrew. Mitte zwanzig, Computernerd und mit meiner Nickelbrille und dem hageren Body bestimmt kein Supermodel. Auch kein Superheld, aber für diesen Zweck habe ich ja meine virtuellen Spiel-Charaktere. Mein Leben war ein ruhiger, gemütlicher Trott – bis zu dem Tag, als ich in ein verrücktes Paralleluniversum geriet. Ich rate euch eins: Lauft nie einem weißen Hasen hinterher.

When the FBI uses an anti-magic law to arrest and torture Riley's boyfriend, they have no idea what hell they are about to unleash. If Riley can't rescue Clay before he breaks, the result will be a disaster of epic proportions. With time running out, Riley and her family must rely on two people more likely to stab them in the back than actually help. And, even if Riley manages the rescue, she's still got to deal with two kidnappings and the return of her dad from the dead-the same dad who'd been willing to see her dead to protect his secrets.

Magical tracking expert Riley Hollis is on a mission to save five teenagers lost inside a mountain. But nothing is what it seems, and soon Riley finds herself bruised, bloodied, and embroiled in a battle to bring down a sadistic criminal dealing in human souls and the darkest of magic. Her only hope may be to swallow her pride and ask for help from her not-quite-ex-boyfriend and his notorious brother - Tyet criminal boss, Gregg Touray.

Even the most powerful tracers can't track you if the magical trace you leave behind is too old. But I can track almost anything, even dead trace. That makes me a unicorn, the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny, and the Loch Ness Monster all rolled into one. In a word, I am unique. A very special snowflake. And if anyone ever finds out, I'll be dead or a slave to one of the Tyet criminal factions. Riley Hollis has quietly traced kidnapped children and quietly tipped the cops to their whereabouts one too many times.

Finding the perfect dress can be hell...especially when a stranger tries to gun you down in broad daylight. Void agent and magical baker extraordinaire, Willow Rhoswen has been anticipating her first date with Talisen Kavanagh since she was sixteen. After eight years of waiting, there are only two things that can stand in her way--an assassination attempt and a new game-changing drug. Talisen's invented a new elixir that creates superhumans, ones that can rival vampire strength, and everyone wants it. Including the vampires.

Magic City's future hangs on the roll of the dice, or the turn of a card. Will fortune favor Ruby Achera, or turn against her? All the threads of criminal activity in Magic City are weaving together to form a dangerous web. The anti-human movement and the Drow who leads it have found common cause with the troublemaker in the Council. The PDA is the wildcard. Will they help her or turn against her?

The Paranormal Defense Agency is after her. There's a mysterious figure whipping up anti-human sentiment in town. And, behind it all, an old nemesis plots and plans. Can Ruby Achera handle this triple-headed threat? The self-declared defender of Magic City has a lot on her plate. First it was just Gabriel "The Nightmare" Sloane, but now problems are coming from every direction. The PDA has put a false bounty out on the city's protectors, and now bounty hunters are in the mix. Do they know they're aiming at the wrong guy?

In the middle of Colette and Rome’s much-needed break from the problems of Mayfield, things take a dark turn. Though mating between humans and vampires isn’t supposed to be possible, Colette is about to learn that when it comes to Rome, even the oldest rules were made to be broken. When danger comes for them, crashing their fragile connection, Colette knows she must get to the bottom of who is behind these attacks, or she will never be able to rest again.

When the city she loves threatens to destroy itself in her absence, Colette knows she will have to return to the fight. Hiding in the woods seemed like the only option when threats of abduction could not be ignored any longer. But when the vampire mating bond begins to take unfortunate turns, Colette isn’t sure she will survive the changes. The only way to cure her is for Rome to come back and fix the bond he broke. But if he cannot forget his affection for Colette, their forbidden love just might be the thing that tears the city apart.

Urban fantasy offers a diverse playground for some extremely powerful stories. Professional writer and editor Kerrie L. Hughes pulled some fantastic tales out of 14 top writers for this fifth installment of Fiction River. Set in urban lands from modern Portland, to a future Detroit, to a wild Washington, D.C., and ending the tour in London, these top writers take the idea of "Hex" and stretch and twist it into stories with a magickal grip on the imagination.

When Rodney Mason, an ex-con drug dealer from Newark's rough South Ward, was shot and paralyzed, he vowed to turn his life around. A former high-school pitching ace with a 93-mph fastball, Mason decided to form a Little League team to help boys avoid the street life that had claimed his youth and mobility. Predictably, the players struggle but through the fists and tears, lopsided losses and rare victories, this bunch of misfits becomes a team, and in doing so gives the community something to root for.