Las Vegas socialite and otherwordly avenger Joanna Archer gave up everything when she embraced mortality – abandoning her powers and altering her destiny to save a child… and a city. Now her former allies are her enemies – and her enemies have nothing to fear.Yet still she is bound to a prophecy that condemns her to roam a nightmare landscape that ordinary humans cannot see and dare not enter. And a beast is on her trail – an insane killer blinded by bloodlust, who's determined to rip much more from Joanna than merely her now-fragile life. Survival is no longer an option in this dark realm where good and evil have blurred into confusing shades of gray – unless she can gather together an army of onetime foes and destroy everything she once believed in.

In Sin City, a little girl suffers from a strange and terrible malady. If she dies, the Light will die along with her.Warrior, avenger, Joanna Archer has survived countless otherworldly terrors – and has found her rightful place among the agents battling the all-pervasive evil of Shadow… even as she struggles against the darkness within herself.A war is raging for Las Vegas – a city without a heart – one that catapults Joanna into a new world hidden from mortal sight. In this lethally seductive alternate dimension the lines blur between good and evil, love and hate, and here lies the last hope for the Light. But Joanna's price of admission is a piece of her own soul – and the odds of her escaping are slim… to none.

Elrod's second urban fantasy anthology is not quite as good as 2009's Mean Streets, though the one author both volumes share, Jim Butcher, does his usual top-notch job with the Dresden Files tie-in "Even Hand," a dramatic character study of Chicago crime boss John Marcone and his little-known but powerful drive to protect small children at any cost. Equally as good is Carrie Vaughn's taut and suspenseful "God's Creatures," in which a hunter searches for a werewolf among the residents of a Catholic reform school. Rachel Caine's "Even a Rabbit Will Bite," in which a dragon slayer is rendered redundant by the near extinction of her quarry, is unexpectedly poignant. Six less memorable stories round out the volume.

This holiday, spend quality time with family and loved ones—living and dead…There's no place like home for the horrordays—unless you'd prefer a romantic midnight walk through a ghost-infested graveyard… or a haunted house candlelight dinner with the sexy vampire of your dreams. The (black) magical season is here—and whether it's a solstice séance gone demonically wrong with the incomparable Kim Harrison, a grossly misshapen Christmas with the remarkable Lynsay Sands, a blood-chilling-and-spilling New Year's with the wonderful Marjorie M. Liu, or a super-powered Thanksgiving with the phenomenal Vicki Pettersson, one thing is for certain: in the able hands of these exceptional dark side explorers, the holidays are going to be deliciously hellish!KIM HARRISON introduces us to a younger Rachel Morgan—an undergraduate witch-in-training—who naively resurrects a spirit and sparks a terrifying showdown with a deadly undead adversary.LYNSAY SANDS serves up a scrumptious stew of Yuletide suspense when, in order to escape from a determined stalker, a beautiful, reluctant shape-shifter must assume different forms.MARGARET M. LIU keeps a petite-but-powerful government agent's hands full when she must join forces with a hunky necromancer to prevent an unholy brotherhood of terrorists and vampires from ringing in the New Year with blood.VICKI PETTERSSON brings a former superhero—an elite Zodiac warrior-back to the mortal world for a Thanksgiving reunion with her equally hated and beloved enemy to do battle for the lives of her imperiled children.

He's a fallen angel. She's a rockabilly reporter. Together they must solve a deadly string of murders plaguing the mortal and the immortal worlds.Griffin Shaw used to be a PI, but that was over fifty years ago when gumshoes hoofed the streets… and he was still alive. Now he's a Centurion, an angel who assists other murdered souls through their journey to the afterlife. But while Shaw might be an angel… he's no saint. Haunted by the mysterious events surrounding his own death, he seizes a chance to wreak some vengeance when he witnesses a deadly attack on journalist Katherine "Kit" Craig.Joining forces, the unlikely avengers take to the streets, hunting a killer whose trail of bodies stretches across Las Vegas and into an immortal netherworld. It is a dangerous trek that lead them into the darkest corners of Sin City and into the heart of an evil conspiracy extending beyond the lights of the Strip that could destory them both.But destruction isn't the only threat Griffin faces. The closer he gets to Kit, the more he finds himself bewitched by her mortal charms. Can he resist falling under her spell? And does he want to?

"The forces of Light and Datk battle over Las Vegas in this very exciting series… Read at your own risk – it'll keep you up past your bedtime." – Charlaine HarrisVicki Pettersson returns with the second sign of the Zodiac! Joanna Archer has discovered the truth about her mysterious heritage to become a fully-fledged member of the supernatural Zodiac force, the Archer.Even as a mortal, Joanna Archer was nobody's idea of a victim. But now, infused with the power to alter the supernatural battle between Shadow and Light forever, what she's become is a target. And when a toxic virus invades the valley, so do all of her allies. It's up to Joanna to find the cure that will save them all, but in order to do so she'll have to embrace her Shadow side… even if it leaves her with nowhere to hide in an all-out battle with the demons of her past.

On the surface she's a sexy, sophisticated socialite, at home among the beautiful people of the Las Vegas upper crust. But Joanna Archer inhabits another world: a place ordinary humans cannot see… a dangerous dimension where an eternal battle rages between the agents of Light and Shadow. And Joanna is both.Stalked by an enigmatic doppelganger from a preternatural realm, Joanna can feel the Light failing – which is propelling her toward a terrifying confrontation with the ultimate master of evil, the dark lord of Shadow: her father.Vegas is all about winning big… or losing everything. To save her friends, her future, her worlds, Joanna Archer must gamble it all by fully embracing the darkness inside her.

Not all hunters are bound by human laws…Revisiting the paranormal realms they've made famous in their wildly popular fiction, New York Times bestselling authors Kim Harrison, Jeaniene Frost, Vicki Pettersson, and Jocelynn Drake — plus New York Times bestselling YA author Melissa Marr with her first adult supernatural thriller — unleash their full arsenal of dark talents, plunging us into the shadows where the supernatural stalk the unsuspecting… and every soul is a target.Get ready for the ride of your life — because the wildest magic has just been unleashed… and evil is about to have its day.