Dark Library

Tales from the Library of a Twisted Mind is a collection of dark short stories, having a common theme of being a bit warped. Perhaps not the best bedtime reading. Tales to thrill, shock and tantalise. With fore and after words on each story by the author.

It's been six months since Deka freed the goddesses in the ancient kingdom of Otera and discovered who she really is... but war is waging across the kingdom, and the real battle has only just begun. For there is a dark force growing in Otera—a merciless power that Deka and her army must stop. Yet hidden secrets threaten to destroy everything Deka has known. And with her own gifts changing, Deka must discover if she holds the key to saving Otera...or if she might be its greatest threat.

Since the halcyon days of the Great Crusade, these noble rogue trader dynasties have plied the void in the Emperor’s name, answering to whomsoever sits as the king of the Davamir Compact. There has been profit and adventure and abundance in these times… Yet now the galaxy is changed, divided by the birth of the Great Rift. As plans are drawn up for the most immense crusade imaginable, the Emperor’s reborn son demands that the Compact seek a way across the Rift.

Kajal knows she is not a good person. If she were, she wouldn’t selfishly be risking her sister’s soul in a dangerous bid to bring her back to life. She would let Lasya rest in peace—but Kajal cannot stand the horror of living without her. As Kajal prepares for the resurrection, the worst happens: Her sister’s soul warps into a bhuta—a murderous, wraith-like spirit—and Kajal gets sentenced to death for her sister’s rampage. There seems little hope of escape until two strangers offer to free her.

Ahriman, greatest sorcerer of the Thousand Sons and architect of the Rubric that laid his Legion low, continues to walk the path towards salvation, or damnation. Searching for a cure for his Legion, he is forced to consider - was the great ritual somehow flawed from the very beginning? The answer may lie within the mysterious artefact known as the Athenaeum of Kalimakus, a grimoire of forgotten knowledge that is reputed to contain the exact words of the lost Book of Magnus...or, perhaps, even a transcription of the primarch’s deepest and most secret thoughts.

She arrives in the dead of night, a mob out for blood at her heels: Mariana Wylde, the “Harlot of Haywood Street”, an opera diva brought low by a duel fought for her favors. But the ladies of the Grand Palace on the Thames think they can make a silk purse from scandal: They’ll restore her reputation and share in her triumph...provided they can keep her apart from that other guest. Coldly brilliant, fiercely honorable, General James Duncan Blackmore, the Duke of Valkirk, is revered, feared, desired...but nobody truly knows him.

The Nightwalkers are terrorizing Gotham City, and Bruce Wayne is next on their list. Bruce is turning 18 and inheriting his family's fortune, not to mention the keys to Wayne Industries and all the tech gadgetry that he could ever desire. But on the way home from his birthday party, he makes an impulsive choice that leads to community service at Arkham Asylum, the infamous prison. There, he meets Madeleine Wallace, a brilliant killer with ties to the Nightwalkers. A girl who will speak only to Bruce. She is the mystery he must unravel.

Zara Jones believes in magic because the alternative is too painful to consider—that her murdered sister is gone forever and there is nothing she can do about it. Rather than grieving and moving on, Zara decides she will do whatever it takes to claw her sister back from the grave—even trading in the occult.

Cado Ezechiar is a wanderer who has outlived the memory of the age that made him. A Soulblight vampire who accepted the curse as his people and kingdom fell to Chaos, he now roams the Realm of Death and beyond seeking retribution and salvation for the ones he failed. Aided by the bound spirits of those he lost, Cado follows a path of revenge, hunting the servants of Chaos to slake his need for blood while seeking the Sorcerer of Change who destroyed his kingdom.

Ellerie Downing is waiting for something to happen. Life in isolated Amity Falls, surrounded by an impenetrable forest, has a predictable sameness. Her days are filled with tending to her family's beehives, chasing after her sisters, and dreaming of bigger things while her twin, Samuel, is free to roam as he wishes.

Twelve-year-old Kester Jaynes thought he had discovered the last wild animals in the land. He thought his adventure was over. He was wrong. Below the sparkling city of Premium, deep underground, a dark wild remains: animals who believe the time is right to rise up against their human enemies. And soon Kester realizes: he is the only one who can stop them. Kester Jaynes saved the animals. Can he save the humans too?

The End Times are coming. With the hordes of Chaos marshalling in the north, Emperor Karl Franz leads his armies in defence of his realm. But when the worst happens, Reiksmarshal Kurt Helborg must return to Altdorf, the capital of the Empire. There, he must steel himself and prepare his soldiers to defend the jewel of the Empire from the corrupted advance of the forces of Chaos. As plague spreads and the defences weaken, all seems lost—until help arrives from a most unexpected source... if Helborg can bring himself to accept it.

Nine years ago, the war between the Kingdom of Night and the Kingdom of Rivers tore Àn’yīng’s family apart, leaving her mother barely alive and a baby sister to fend for. Now the mortal realm is falling into eternal night, and mó—beautiful, ravenous demons—roam the land, feasting on the flesh of humans and drinking their souls. Àn’yīng is no longer a helpless child, though. Armed with her crescent blades and trained in the ancient art of practitioning, she has decided to enter the Immortality Trials, which are open to any mortal who can survive the journey to the immortal realm.

Nyssa Volari is dying. But that is impossible, because she is a Soulblight vampire, blessed by Nagash with blood-fuelled immortality. More than that, Nyssa is a fighter – one of the handful of Kastelai vampires not dissolved into true death when the Crimson Keep abandoned them a century ago. With her blades and her will, she carved a kingdom out of the Broken Plains of Aqshy. These things matter little, for Nyssa's blood is cursed. It destroyed the vampire she called father, and as it threatens to do the same to her, Nyssa's allies abandon her one by one.

A year ago, Cal Thompson was a college freshman more interested in meeting girls and partying than in attending biology class. Now, after a fateful encounter with a mysterious woman named Morgan, biology has become, literally, Cal's life. Cal was infected by a parasite that has a truly horrifying effect on its host. Cal himself is a carrier, unchanged by the parasite, but he's infected the girlfriends he's had since Morgan. All three have turned into the ravening ghouls Cal calls Peeps. The rest of us know them as vampires.

The nomadic sled-city of Riika-Min glides endlessly along the icy tundra of Ghur, its denizens’ existence entwined with the rhythm of the realm. But something is disrupting the balance of the Realm of Beasts, and when a kraken suddenly attacks, Sigmar sends his master tracker, Yndrasta, the Celestial Spear, to hunt it down. In Riika-Min, Yndrasta meets Njda, trying to guide her people to safety. Njda is at once fearful and in awe of the golden-clad warrior from the sky, and soon learns how dangerous it can be to get between a hunter and her quarry.

Jack Skellington is the beloved Pumpkin King of Halloween Town, but he has grown tired of leading the usual scares every year. Then he stumbles upon a mysterious tree-shaped door deep in the Hinterlands and falls straight into Christmas Town—an enchanting place like no other, full of sparkling snow, merry elves, and twinkling lights.

Mere weeks after confronting the Gilded Ones—the false beings she once believed to be her family—Deka is on the hunt. In order to kill the gods, whose ravenous competition for power is bleeding Otera dry, she must uncover the source of her divinity. But with her mortal body on the verge of ruin, Deka is running out of time—to save herself and an empire that’s tearing itself apart at its seams.

Rising from the gloom-shrouded cults of Ulgu, the empire of the Daughters of Khaine now dominates the Realm of Shadow. These matriarchal witch-aelves are graceful masters of death who revel in spilling blood, and whose opposition to Chaos borders on mania. Proud governors of their own ruthless agendas, it is their devotion to Khaine, the ancient aelven god of murder, the Daughters seek to prove above all—and alongside it, the favour of his high priestess, Morathi. To this end, a Khainite would bleed the realms dry in dedication to her cause.

Seven families arrive at an ancient castle, expecting a grand feast - but each guest brings the weight of their own expectations, not to mention hidden agendas and a thirst for revenge that will push them into darkness as evil approaches. Listen to it because: Experience a Warhammer Horror take on a classic set-up - people gathering for a meal, each of them carrying their own secrets. It's sure to terrify and delight you in equal measure.