Urban Fantasy Horror

FBI special agents Dana Scully and Fox Mulder go hunting in the shadows for dangerous truths in this new collection of original, never-before-published tales of The X-Files. Edited by New York Times best-selling author Jonathan Maberry, Secret Agendas features heart-stopping stories by some of today's hottest writers of mystery, thrillers, science fiction, and horror.

It has been two years since Violet Eden walked away from the city, her friends, her future and most importantly, her soulmate, Lincoln. Part angel, part human, Violet is determined to stand by the promises she made to save the one she loves.

Once a legendary police inspector, Nicolas Lenoir is now a disillusioned and broken man who spends his days going through the motions and his evenings drinking away the nightmares of his past. Ten years ago, Lenoir barely escaped the grasp of the Darkwalker, a vengeful spirit who demands a terrible toll on those who have offended the dead. But the Darkwalker does not give up on his prey so easily, and Lenoir has always known his debt would come due one day. When Lenoir is assigned to a disturbing new case, he treats the job with his usual apathy- until his best informant, a street savvy orphan, is kidnapped.

These stories present electric messiahs, identity constructs, the Beatles, and even a nuclear Armageddon, which serve as comic foils for Lain's everyman characters. Here is an America where packets of Sea Monkeys arrive in the mail containing secret messages, and the girl next door can breathe underwater. With Last Week's Apocalypse, Douglas Lain arrives with a punch line and a warning.

Late one night, exploring her father's library, a young woman finds an ancient book and a cache of yellowing letters. The letters are all addressed to "My dear and unfortunate successor", and they plunge her into a world she never dreamed of - a labyrinth where the secrets of her father's past and her mother's mysterious fate connect to an inconceivable evil hidden in the depths of history.

Taking a night off from running her successful San Francisco clothing store, Lily attends a local art deco ball where vintage fashions steal the show. But when a young woman at the event falls under a mysterious sleeping sickness, Lily senses that a curse was placed on the woman's corsage. Before Lily can solve the woman's magical ailment, she's asked to assist in investigating a string of poisonings in the Bay Area witchcraft community.

Johannes Cabal, a necromancer of some little infamy, has come into possession of a vital clue that may lead him to his ultimate goal: a cure for death. The path is vague, however, and certainly treacherous as it takes him into strange territories that, quite literally, no one has ever seen before. The task is too dangerous to venture upon alone, so he must seek assistance - comrades for the coming travails.

There’s a hit list circulating the prison, offering up large sums of cash for our deaths—me and all of my men. Assassins, serial killers, and murderers...They’re all coming out of the woodwork to collect their prize. Even a queen and her kings can't fight off an entire army. Escape is our only option if we want to survive.

Zoe Lake is heading off to college - and she's excited. It's not a regular college, though. It's a magical college full of vampires, werewolves, ghosts, witches, sphinxes - and pretty much everything else you can imagine. Despite the monsters, it's often human nature that threatens her life most.

You may know me best as Meredith Nic Essus, princess of faerie. Or perhaps as Merry Gentry, Los Angeles private eye. In the fey and mortal realms alike, my life is the stuff of royal intrigue and celebrity drama. Among my own, I have confronted horrendous enemies, endured my noble kins treachery and malevolence, and honored my duty to conceive a royal heirall for the right to claim the throne.

Nettie Lonesome made a leap—not knowing what she'd become. But now her destiny as the Shadow is calling. A powerful alchemist is leaving a trail of dead across the prairie. And Nettie must face the ultimate challenge: Side with her friends and the badge on her chest or take off alone on a dangerous mission that is pulling her inexorably toward the fight of her life. When it comes to monsters and men, the world isn't black and white. What good are two wings and a gun when your enemy can command a conspiracy of ravens?

Bram Stoker kept secret a tale even more terrifying than Dracula. It begins among the Carpathian peaks, when an intrepid explorer discovers a mysterious golden box. She brings it back with her to the foggy streets of Victorian London, unaware of its dangerous power…or that an evil beyond imagining has already taken root in the city. Stoker, a successful theater manager but frustrated writer, is drawn into a deadly web spun by the wealthy founders of a mission house for the poor. Far from a safe haven, the mission harbors a dark and terrifying secret.

Having my birth mother back in my life? To say it's a big transition is an understatement. Especially when she's basically a stranger to me, and I'm not sure yet whether I can trust her to be any more maternal than the average fearmancer parent (which, spoiler, isn't much). Unfortunately, the other barons aren't giving me time to ease into the situation. They've turned their sights on my fellow scions and newfound lovers, putting them under fire from far too close to home. As if that wasn't enough, an unsettling plan is unfolding that threatens every student on campus.

When vampire hunter Laura Caxton is locked up in a maximum-security prison, the cop-turned-con finds herself surrounded by countless murderers and death-row inmates with nothing to lose and plenty of time to kill. Caxton’s always been able to watch her own back—even when it’s against a cell-block wall.

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!

Laura Caxton vowed never to face them again. The horror of what the vampires did is too close, the wounds too fresh. But when Jameson Arkeley, broken and barely recognizable, comes to her with an unfathomable, unholy discovery, her resolve crumbles.

Doc and Jury have been pulled deeper into Bosch's web than they ever could have imagined, revealing a plot that threatens the entire Hidden. Always five steps ahead, Bosch is in complete control of the game, but Doc is proving to be a more formidable opponent than expected. Unfortunately, Doc is playing catch-up and missing too many details to solve the mystery before it's too late. Never one to back down from a fight, Doc will stop at nothing to win. It may be suicide, but even immortals have to die sometime...

City of elegance and squalor. Of religious fervor and wanton lusts. And everywhere, on the walls of courtyards and churches, an incandescent fungus of mysterious and ominous origin. In Ambergris, a would-be suitor discovers that a sunlit street can become a killing ground in the blink of an eye. An artist receives an invitation to a beheading - and finds himself enchanted. And a patient in a mental institution is convinced he has made up a city called Ambergris, imagined its every last detail, and that he’s really from a place called Chicago.

Bob Howard's career in the Laundry, the secret British government agency dedicated to protecting the world from unspeakable horrors from beyond spacetime, has entailed high combat, brilliant hacking, ancient magic, and combat with indescribably repellent creatures of pure evil. It has also involved a wearying amount of paperwork and office politics, and his expense reports are still a mess. Now, following the invasion of Yorkshire by the Host of Air and Darkness, the Laundry's existence has become public.

Fathered by an incubus, raised by a mortal mother, and liaison to the Pemkowet Police Department, Daisy Johanssen pulled the community together after a summer tragedy befell the resort town she calls home. Things are back to normal - as normal as it gets for a town famous for its supernatural tourism, and presided over by the reclusive Norse goddess Hel. Not only has Daisy now gained respect as Hel’s enforcer, she’s dating Sinclair Palmer, a nice, seemingly normal human guy. Not too shabby for the daughter of a demon.