Arthur Vangeest has been hunting a cult known as the Ninth Circle for months and finally located their base of operations, but something goes terribly wrong before he can strike at them. Someone he trusts betrays him, and his wife and young daughter are murdered. Now he isn't sure if there is anything left to live for. But, when he exacts his revenge on the people that hurt him, he finds a new reason to stay alive.

Even before the first rumblings of secession shook the halls of Congress, British involvement in the coming schism was inevitable. Britain was dependent on the South for cotton, and in turn the Confederacy relied almost exclusively on Britain for guns, bullets, and ships. The Union sought to block any diplomacy between the two and consistently teetered on the brink of war with Britain. For four years the complex web of relationships between the countries led to defeats and victories both minute and history-making.

At fourteen, Nick Gautier thinks he knows everything about the world around him. Streetwise, tough and savvy, his quick sarcasm is the stuff of legends. Until the night when his best friends try to kill him. Saved by a mysterious warrior who has more fighting skills than Chuck Norris, Nick is sucked into the realm of the Dark-Hunters: immortal vampire slayers who risk everything to save humanity. Nick quickly learns that the human world is only a veil for a much larger and more dangerous one.

When Thomas wakes up in the lift, the only thing he can remember is his name. He's surrounded by strangers - boys whose memories are also gone. Outside the towering stone walls that surround them is a limitless, ever-changing maze. It's the only way out - and no one's ever made it through alive. Then a girl arrives. The first girl ever. And the message she delivers is terrifying: Remember. Survive. Run.

A former priest and demon hunter, Father Gunter is a demon's worst nightmare. But even he will need help to destroy the demons that threaten the small farming community of Bucktown. When he sees a news broadcast about tragic events taking place in the town, he realizes he has work to do. Along the way, help arrives - but from an unexpected source. Will it be enough to see the demon hunter through the final showdown with evil?

Ten years ago, Calamity came. It was a burst in the sky that gave ordinary men and women extraordinary powers. The awed public started calling them Epics. But Epics are no friend of man. With incredible gifts came the desire to rule. And to rule man you must crush his will. Nobody fights the Epics...nobody but the Reckoners. A shadowy group of ordinary humans, they spend their lives studying Epics, finding their weaknesses, and then assassinating them. And David wants in. He wants Steelheart - the Epic who is said to be invincible. The Epic who killed David's father.

Court Gentry is known as The Gray Man—a legend in the covert realm, moving silently from job to job, accomplishing the impossible, and then fading away. And he always hits his target. But there are forces more lethal than Gentry in the world. And in their eyes, Gentry has just outlived his usefulness. Now, he is going to prove that for him, there's no gray area between killing for a living-and killing to stay alive.

Evan Smoak is a man with skills, resources, and a personal mission to help those with nowhere else to turn. He’s also a man with a dangerous past. Chosen as a child, he was raised and trained as an Orphan, an off-the-books black box program designed to create the perfect deniable intelligence asset: An assassin. Evan was Orphan X - until he broke with the program and used everything he learned to disappear. But now someone is on his tail.

Jake Sullivan is a licensed private eye with a seriously hardboiled attitude. He also possesses raw magical talent and the ability to make objects in his vicinity light as a feather or as heavy as depleted uranium, all with a magical thought. It's no wonder the G-men turn to Jake when they need someoneto go after a suspected killer who has been knocking off banks in a magic-enhanced crime spree.

When you have to kill the same terrorist twice in one week there’s either something wrong with your world or something wrong with your skills - and there’s nothing wrong with Joe Ledger’s skills. And that’s both a good and a bad thing. It’s good because he’s a Baltimore detective who has just been secretly recruited by the government to lead a new task force created to deal with the problems that Homeland Security can’t handle....

When Edward is swept into the world of Ivalis as a Dungeon Lord, the Dark's most powerful servant, he has no servitude in mind. He'll oppose the evil plans of the Dark god, Murmur, whatever it takes. Through only his wits and his guts to help him survive a weakened arrival, Edward must rise to power if he is to earn the right to live another day. But in the battle between Dark and Light, what can Edward choose if both sides are cruel, uncaring monsters?

Renowned for his flawless kills, the Swordsman is one of the most lethal mages on Earth. His reputation for subtlety allows him to command a high price - despite his singular rule. He does not kill innocents. Recently, his employer has been a secretive group known as the Harbingers, whose latest target is not who he seems. Known only as Hawk, the man proves to be an elusive quarry.

Fourteen-year-old Vega Jane lives in the village of Wormwood, where life is nasty, brutish, and short. Villagers have been told that there is nothing outside of Wormwood except for the Quag, a foul forest filled with terrifying beasts. No one comes, no one goes, and Wormwood has stayed this way for generations. Until Vega's friend Quentin Herms disappears. Quentin leaves Vega a secret message hinting that there's a way out of Wormwood and something extraordinary on the other side.

In the war between heaven and hell, a special race of humans with supernatural abilities balances darkness and light. They are known as The Guardians. Jack Bennett comes from a long line of Guardians, but a failing mission and personal losses have left him jaded, bitter, and without room for love in his life. Addison Monroe discovers she is born of a human mother and demon father. Jack finds that a woman whose very nature should repulse him might be his saving grace.

When I was four years old, my inept biological parents decided they wanted to summon a demon. They planned to summon one and control him so they could gain riches. However, they didn't realize you can't control a demon, you can only enter into an agreement with them, and so their demon was able to walk out of the summoning circle that they didn't close properly.

If you've never read a Repairman Jack novel, this is the place to begin. It's 1990. A twenty-one-year-old named Jack has dropped out of college, leaving his old life behind to build a new one in New York City. Manhattan's rough edges are jagged enough to shred any unwary newcomer, but perhaps not one who is determined to stay off the grid, at any cost, in the busiest metropolis on earth. And to do so, he'll have to take jobs of a less than legal nature.

Alex Duncan is a mother, a sister - and the daughter of a doomsday prepper. She always thought her father was insane, raving about an apocalypse she never believed in, but when a plague hits the United States and the dead no longer stay dead, Alex discovers heeding her deceased father’s advice is what will keep her family alive. Before he died, Alex’s father created a compound in Montana just in case situations like this arose. The dead walk, hungry for human flesh. With little time to spare, Alex must make split-second decisions to prevent her family from being devoured.

One woman's story as she blogs about - and fights back against - the zombie apocalypse.

Allison Hewitt and her five colleagues at the Brooks and Peabody Bookstore are trapped together when the zombie outbreak hits. Allison reaches out for help through her blog, writing on her laptop. It may also be her only chance to reach her mother. But as the reality of their situation sinks in, Allison's blog becomes a harrowing account of her edge-of-the-seat adventures.

David was caught in the middle of the city when the zombie outbreak started. His wife and daughters were at home, stranded on the roof as zombies waited below. He would have to fight through hordes of undead, merciless other survivors, and a series of death defying stunts to get home. However, even if he makes it there, how can he be sure they're safe? Deadlocked puts you into David's head as he struggles to get home. Then a final confrontation occurs that could guarantee his family's survival, but at what cost?

U.S. Marshal Jameson Arkeley, the country’s foremost authority on vampires, taught police investigator and vampire fighter Laura Caxton everything she knows about monsters. After a bloody war visited upon Gettysburg by an army of vampires, Arkeley gave up his own life to save others—except he didn’t exactly die.

When Amanda travels east to Orlando on a hunch, she's met with the worst news possible. Kingdom Keeper Finn Whitman is missing. Calling on her own gift (she's telekinetic), her sister Jess' ability to dream the future, and their fellow Fairlie Mattie Weaver's unexplained ability to read minds through physical contact, the three gifted girls must navigate treachery, deception, and the stubborn, unwilling parents of the missing Keepers if they're to save their friends.

John Wayne Cleaver is dangerous, and he knows it. He's obsessed with serial killers, but really doesn't want to become one. So for his own sake, and the safety of those around him, he lives by rigid rules he's written for himself, practicing normal life as if it were a private religion that could save him from damnation. Dead bodies are normal to John. They don't demand or expect the empathy he's unable to offer. Perhaps that's what gives him the objectivity to recognize that there's something different about the body the police have just found behind the Wash-n-Dry Laundromat - and to appreciate what that difference means.

Alex McKenna is the new Special Agent in Charge of the Chicago office of the Bureau of Preternatural Investigations - the division tasked with investigating crimes involving shades. Or vampires, as they're more widely known. Children have been going missing, and agents are routinely being slaughtered. It's up to McKenna, and some unlikely allies, to get to the bottom of the problem, and find the kids before it's too late.

When young women start dying, Boston cop Samantha Ryan is the perfect person to investigate, for only she knows what the archais symbol carved into their flesh means. The last in a long line of ruthless witches, she grew up in a coven seduced by power and greed. And now she's sure that bad witches have returned to Salem. Reluctantly, Samantha goes undercover - into a town obsessed with black magic, into her terrifying past, and into thedark, newly awakened heart of evil.

Modern gods and goddesses, remote, revered - and like the pantheon of heroes and heroines of ancient myth - possessing great power tempered with flaws. Now, find within this anthology great tales by gifted and award-winning authors who move superheroes from the four-color panels of comic books to the fantastic pages of fiction, stories that will remind anyone who ever wanted to wear a cape or don a cowl of the extraordinary powers of the imagination!

The living dead are more alive than ever! Zombies have become more than an iconic monster for the 21st century: They are now a phenomenon constantly revealing as much about ourselves - and our fascination with death, resurrection, and survival - as our love for the supernatural or post-apocalyptic speculation. Our most imaginative literary minds have been devoured by these incredible creatures and produced exciting, insightful, and unflinching new works of zombie fiction.

Anna Strong is trained for anything-until she's attacked one night, only to awaken in a dark world that exists between the living and the dead. Here, Anna struggles with her love for the two men who inhabit the realms of each: Max, a human DEA agent, and Avery, a Night Watcher who joins Anna in pursuit of the vampire who changed her life. Now, as her two worlds collide, fate plunges Anna into the ultimate battle between good and evil - where survival is not just for the living.

Fed up with her wild behavior, 16-year-old Lex’s parents ship her off to upstate New York to live with her Uncle Mort for the summer, hoping that a few months of dirty farm work will whip her back into shape. But Uncle Mort’s true occupation is much dirtier than shoveling manure. He’s a Grim Reaper. And he’s going to teach Lex the family business. She quickly assimilates into the peculiar world of Croak, a town populated by reapers who deliver souls from this life to the next.

Charlie West just woke up in someone else's nightmare. He's strapped to a chair. He's covered in blood and bruises. He hurts all over. And a strange voice outside the door just ordered his death. The last thing he can remember is that he was a normal high-school kid doing normal things. How long ago was that? Where is he now? Who is he really?

Amy is watching TV when the world is attacked by Them. Most of the population is overtaken, but Amy manages to survive - and even rescue "Baby" a toddler she finds in an abandoned supermarket. Then, after years of hiding, they are miraculously rescued and taken to New Hope, a colony of survivors living in a former government research compound. While at first the colony seems like a dream, with plenty of food, safety, and shelter, New Hope slowly reveals that it is far from ideal. And Amy soon realizes that unless things change, she'll lose Baby - and much more.