Urban Fantasy Comedy

Sarah Wright woke up a few times after parties in strange places - but the morgue's a first. At 18, she's eager for a taste of independence, moving out of state to attend college. A change of scenery is extra-needed due to a bad breakup with her boyfriend, Scott. However, soon after escaping the body cooler, she makes two startling realizations: vampires are real and she is one. There's nothing quite like an untimely death to ruin plans. California's sunny beaches aren't the best place for vampires to chill, and worse, she winds up stuck in Seattle, living with her parents.

Kai, heir of the dilapidated clan who's established residence in the most dangerous mountain on Gaia to avoid persecution, has enough problem on his plate. For starters? Finding enough food. Lack of running water. Keeping the kids alive - and out of the slave trade. The torrential snow. But when he sees that innocent, defenseless girl who persists in staying in the cold wastelands all by herself, he can't close his eyes. She becomes his to care for.

Ben Carter, pet care specialist, is hired to walk a Shiba Inu named Toby. Unbeknownst to Ben, Toby is no ordinary dog but an inugami - an immortal demon born in feudal Japan and bred for only one purpose...murder. A mysterious cult seeks to capture the inugami and harness its power for evil. With the help of an elderly luchador and a cop with a heart of gold, Ben must protect Toby and uncover the secret of the Tengu.

Jacob Greene was a sweet boy raised by a loving, tight-knit family... of cultists. He always obeyed, and was so trusted by them that he was the one they sent out on their monthly supply run (food, medicine, pig fetuses, etc.). Finding himself betrayed by them, he flees the family's sequestered compound and enters the true unknown: college in New York City. It's a very foreign place, the normal world and St. Mark's University. And then his estranged sister arrives in town to kick off the apocalypse....

Question: when do sewer rats in suburbia acquire intelligence and cunning? Answer: when they begin calling each other names. For Duff and Tuff, newly arrived on Conner's lawn after being ejected from a drain culvert during a flood, their I.Q. soon begins to rise while Conner's falls. Conner, you see, is obsessed with TV. Now the plan is to keep this bachelor from going through with his vow to change his life (and their situation) by pretending to be his supposedly deceased ex wife. Inspired by "Who Moved My Cheese?", this short fable has but one lesson: imagination is linked to reading, not watching television.

They say you should never go backward in life and dwell in the past. Well I am making an exception! After about 30 years I think we all have a right to know if Clerb ever came back. Surely in this time of uncertainty and world crisis Clerb is needed more than ever. So here he is again just for the fun of it and just to ensure that trees everywhere have a right to be really bored once in a while again. Enjoy!

The door to Hell is open and demons are flooding the mortal realm; rampaging, burning, and destroying. The City Council controls the situation with a dirty cover-up, courtesy of a treacherous alliance with toilet dwelling Illuminati. The demons split into a civil war, one half wanting to conquer the Earth, the others wanting to collective bargain with Satan for better conditions in Hell; with wages, paid holiday, and maternity leave. The situation threatens to spiral out of control with planned protests and marches for their rights.

My Hellicorn keeps pestering me to take a trip to the beach with him, my pet demons want a family fun day out, and my demon partner wants to start a war with the local Yakuza clan.... And that’s just before breakfast. As the FPD’s only occult investigator, I deal with a lot more than your average cop, and often that means babysitting a bunch of volatile demons...when I’m not working cases that is. Speaking of which, a pregnant girl has walked into the precinct claiming she has a monster in her belly, put there by a demon-worshiping cult.

The earth has been invaded by unfathomable terrors from another dimension and international governments are doing their best to pretend nothing is happening. But you can’t keep an alien invasion hidden forever. A Hollywood production company is filming in the city: A spy thriller blockbuster that will introduce the Venislarn monsters to the viewing public. It’s a dream come true for the marketing team.

Working for the man upstairs stinks, but working with Samantha, an angel in training? Offensive! Only one thing is so powerful, so dangerous that Heaven and Hell must work together to find it: The Shard of Gabriel. With a mysterious black cloud of death hot on the shard's trail, a desperate Heaven enlists the help of Bartholomew, a demon who knows more about the shard than almost anyone. Six years ago, he had it in his hands. If only he'd used it before his coup to overthrow the Devil failed.

The universe holds various immutable constants: death, gravity, taxes...and the Wright family road trip. Every summer, Dad plans a vacation-by-car somewhere across the country. Lameness has increased each year, but Sarah blames that on growing older. She thought dying might get her out of going, but her father’s not about to let something that trivial put an end to the tradition. Of course, as a vampire, Sarah can’t seem to go anywhere without attracting the weird...and the deadly.

Alan Pender, a bored, 20-something, college graduate with a degree in general studies woke up the day after graduation and suddenly realized his degree was useless and he had to get a job. As he walked around looking for help wanted signs, a series of unfortunate accidents occurred resulting in him entering a coma. When he woke up, he discovered he'd been granted a mysterious system. Moreover, the system finally provided him with some direction about what he should do with his life. Follow Alan as he explores his new found calling!

Veranix Calbert is the Thorn - the street vigilante who became a legend to the people of Maradaine, especially the gangs that run the neighborhood of Aventil. The Thorn continues to harass Willem Fenmere, the drug kingpin of the Dentonhill neighborhood. Veranix is still determined to stop Fenmere and the effitte drug trade, especially when he discovers that Fenmere is planning on using the Red Rabbits gang to bring the drug into Aventil. But it’s also Exam Week at the University of Maradaine, where Veranix is a magic student.

For a formerly mindless thrall, Badass Mike’s life isn’t easy. Ever since he got into a tussle with the American justice system, his body has been forced to wander the Earth while his head is trapped in a jar. He could, of course, rely on his new acquaintance Billy Bitchcakes to help him out - that is if the little guy isn’t too busy working on his “brand”. Oh, and there’s also his lawyer, whose name is...

Lincoln Larkin’s most recent novels are so awful that they’ve pushed him to the brink of self-destruction. Now, those same stories are literally trying to kill him and everyone he gets close to. His novel Vriends is anything but a masterpiece and didn’t land him on any best-seller lists, but the characters from this spoof - a quirky group of vampires who crave caffeinated blood - are coming to life and draining innocent people all over the city.

For the women of Marestam, "happily ever after" has always come with a grain of salt. Be it infidelity or aging, deferred dreams or lost love, or the pressures of raising a family, they have always seen each other through life's trials with laughter, wine, and a brand new take on old-fashioned chivalry. But when rage and treachery take over, everything they hold dear comes under attack....

A couple of jerks wake me up at the crack of noon. Seems my klepto uncle stole an ancient deck of Tarot cards from a high-powered wizard, and too many losers want to ruin my day to get them back. The cards are cool, so I check them out, but my magic-happy cousin, Sabrina, tells me I'm not supposed to touch them. Oops. Too late. Now the damn cards are tuned to me, and if someone else wants to use them, I have to die. Why couldn't she have led with that information?

In this, the first story in a new series featuring a character from Dark Elves, Dragons and Dinosaurs as well as Beholder Baseball and Other Bad Ideas, Magnus the scientist who formerly "dated" Lorelei the dark elf priestess is now in Manhattan and single. He is visited in the dead of night by a dead folksinger, who is now a vampire and needs his assistance on a mission to take down a dangerous necromancer.

Simon and Emily are in love. They're also damned to hell. It's complicated, but trust me, I'll walk you through the details. Perhaps I should introduce myself: Hi, I'm your narrator, and I talk too much. However, this is a story that requires lots of words to be told, lots of tangents, and far too many expletives.

In this collection of 19 short stories, Craig Nybo invites you to visit the lives of mostly unfortunate souls as they face the most terrifying moments of their existences. With everything from vampire hunting to zombie bashing, from steampunk death devices to shifty soul brokers, Nybo brings his own sense of perspective and, of course, his sense of humor to this collection of departures from reality. Terrifying Lies contains Nybo's acclaimed story, "The Mechanic", along with 18 other tales of the macabre.