Dark Occult

That there is darkness at the heart of the Yuletide season should not surprise. Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol is filled with scenes that are unsettling. The hideous children - Want and Ignorance - beneath the robe of the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. In the finest versions of this story, the best parts are the terrifying parts. Best-selling author and editor Christopher Golden shares his love for Christmas horror stories with this anthology of all-new short fiction from some of the most talented and original writers of horror today.

Halloween, 1963. They call him the October Boy, or Ol' Hacksaw Face, or Sawtooth Jack. Whatever the name, everybody in this small Midwestern town knows who he is. How he rises from the cornfields every Halloween, a butcher knife in his hand, and makes his way toward town, where gangs of teenage boys eagerly await their chance to confront the legendary nightmare. Both the hunter and the hunted, the October Boy is the prize in an annual rite of life and death. Pete McCormick knows that killing the October Boy is his one chance to escape a dead-end future in this one-horse town.

I'll become bride of monsters but the happy ending I desire will come at a spell-binding cost. My monsters--Altair, Morpheus, and Dominik--have vanished, taken by some evil magic I know will require a great sacrifice to unravel. But I'm prepared to do anything. My sister is still missing. Even worse, I think she's tied up in my cruel fate in some way. The coven hates me for what I took away from them, and some unknown entity has a target on my back. I thought the most challenging obstacle would be figuring out how to break my betrothal to a spiteful shifter prince so I could live happily ...

When love burns this hot, even demons fear the flames... I thought getting through my ongoing messy divorce was hard enough. Then, a magical accident left me sharing my body with Indigo—a witch with a dark past and even darker enemies. Since then, my life has been anything but ordinary. I’m currently living in Haven Hollow, running an occult bookshop, dodging my petty ex-husband, and trying desperately not to fall for Angelo, the devastatingly handsome incubus who’s become my unlikely protector. But soon, I find myself caught in a dangerous game of magical cat-and-mouse with a shadowy...

"Dancers in the Dark" is set in the Sookieverse and features Sean and Layla. Dancer Layla Rue Le May's childhood prepared her to handle just about anything, including her aloof partner, Sean McClendon, a 300-year-old, redheaded vampire. Even so, when she somehow acquires a stalker, Layla Rue is surprised to find that Sean is the only one she can trust.

On a brisk autumn day, a 13-year-old boy stands on the shores of the gray Atlantic, near a silent amusement park and a fading ocean resort called the Alhambra. The past has driven Jack Sawyer here: His father is gone, his mother is dying, and the world no longer makes sense. But for Jack everything is about to change. For he has been chosen to make a journey back across America - and into another realm. One of the most influential and heralded works of fantasy ever written, The Talisman is an extraordinary novel of loyalty, awakening, terror, and mystery.

Hi, my name is Lydia, and I’m a gypsy. Or, I was a gypsy. Now, I’m not really sure what I am. What I do know is that I’m in trouble. That’s the reason why I’m in the process of moving to Haven Hollow: because I need the safety and protection only a hollow can offer. After a witch named Indigo walked into my occult shop and literally blew up, her soul affixed itself to mine, and now I’m basically possessed. To make matters worse? Whoever was responsible for Indigo going ‘boom’ knows she’s not exactly dead and gone. Which means he’s now after me. As if I didn’t have ...

🌶🌶🌶🌶🌶 "This is one of the hottest books I have ever read." —Amazon Reviewer The car wreck should have killed Savannah. Instead, she has awoken to a dark and steamy world filled with immortals, fae, vampires, werewolves, and witches. She may be immortal, too, but the hunky billionaire who owns the opulent mansion overlooking Astoria, Oregon, certainly is. For the first time in her life, Savannah feels safe, then she learns there are forces in the world who want to corrupt and harm people like her. Like the ancient goddess Lilith and her Lilin huntresses. Welcome to Carnal ...

In the harsh, sun-scorched deserts of the American Southwest in 1899, Reno Nevada, a former gunslinger turned disillusioned inventor, is haunted by the ghosts of his past. Once a legend of the frontier, Reno now lives in the shadow of guilt after the tragic death of his wife. But when the Gates of Hell are thrust open, unleashing unspeakable horrors upon the land, Reno is thrust into a battle he never asked for—and a chance at redemption he doesn’t believe he deserves. As demons and the undead ravage the frontier, Reno finds himself reluctantly allied with a mysterious preacher and his ...

What I’m about to tell you is going to be hard to believe… The truth has been hidden for a long, long time… Do you have what it takes to find the truth? I wasn’t looking for anything. You might be the kind of person who wants to know what’s going on around you, but I was content just doing my job and being left alone. But sometimes life gets messy and the curtain that hides reality from most of us gets pulled back. All I can tell you is… there are some things you can’t unsee. So tread carefully. What you have in your hands is the true account of Hank Downes. I thought of ...

A mix of paranormal mystery, dark humor, and supernatural crime-solving, The Dead Detective box set follows Richelle Dadd, a cop who wakes up to find herself in the middle of a murder scene—her own. Book 1: The Dead Detective Detective Richelle Dadd has seen plenty of crime scenes, but she never expected to wake up in one. Now, as an undead investigator, she’s dealing with more than just a bitter divorce—she’s also on a mission to solve her own murder. But being reanimated comes with a catch: she’s been turned into a zombie assassin, forced to carry out dangerous assignments while...

Korus Kezz’arg, known as the latest incarnation of the revered Ocean Serpent, has finally begun to fulfill the dream of his father, Kalligus. As he struggles to unite the Sendyne continent and build an extended empire, he faces the same threats that his late father and brother faced themselves. There are potential enemies at every turn, from his own court to criminal syndicates, from far flung battlefields to the high seas, from religious zealots to his own blood itself. Meanwhile, Telldor the Prognosticator plots his own version of the future for Lower Sendya. Invited to discuss peace ...

Seabury Quinn's most famous character, the supernatural French detective Dr. Jules de Grandin, investigated cases involving monsters, devil worshippers, serial killers, and spirits from beyond the grave. The Complete Tales of Jules de Grandin, presents all 93 published works featuring the supernatural detective. Presented in chronological order over five volumes, this is the definitive collection of an iconic pulp hero. The third volume, The Dark Angel, includes all Jules de Grandin stories from "The Lost Lady" to "The Hand of Glory", as well as The Devil's Bride.

The first collection of stories Stephen King has published since Nightmares & Dreamscapes nine years ago, Everything's Eventual includes one O. Henry Prize winner, two other award winners, four stories published by The New Yorker, and "Riding the Bullet", King's original e-book, which attracted over half a million online readers and became the most famous short story of the decade. Intense, eerie, and instantly compelling, they announce the stunningly fertile imagination of perhaps the greatest storyteller of our time.

Secrets and death. The major themes of my life since the night Death himself came to visit me before my parents burned alive in my childhood home. Growing up without parents created a teen who hated following the rules. Everything I ever did, I did loud and without apology…after all, life is short. A Tarot reading catapulted me on a mission to find the witch who raised my mother. The only person I knew who could help me with a dark magic like this was also the woman my family warned me to stay away from. One simple stop in Vegas pulled me inside the web of The Alvarez family, a tight-knit...

Hunting Angels In a chilling narrative inspired by true events. Hunting Angels follows a struggling author whose life takes a horrifying turn when he is drawn into a web of darkness and deceit. When called upon by the police to use his expertise in occult symbolism to help solve a grotesque double murder, he unwittingly uncovers the terrifying presence of an insidious satanic cult. At its helm is the enigmatic and alluring Fabienne Wilder, a figure whose beauty belies her connection to the demon Baphomet. As the author delves deeper into the investigation, he realises he is not just a ...

What if the dark magic that runs in your family's blood awakens... in you? I thought I'd outgrown my fear of Mémé. I was wrong. When the shadows lengthen and the storm howls, will you be ready to face what lurks in the corners of your ancestral home? _Can you resist the siren call of forbidden knowledge passed down through generations?_ Uncover the chilling secrets that bind blood and spirit in this gripping tale of inherited power and unspeakable horror. Will you embrace the darkness... or let it consume you? Whispers Of Abaddon is the haunting blend of Southern Gothic and cosmic horror ...

Today the names of H. P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, August Derleth, and Clark Ashton Smith, all regular contributors to the pulp magazine Weird Tales during the first half of the twentieth century, are recognizable even to casual readers and listeners of the bizarre and fantastic. And yet despite being more popular than them all during the golden era of genre pulp fiction, there is another author whose name and work have fallen into obscurity: Seabury Quinn. Quinn's short stories were featured in well more than half of Weird Tales's original publication run.

While on a singles tour of Europe, Seattle's own Pia Thomason is looking for a man and trying not to think about her 40th birthday. Too bad her choice of suitors is less than appealing. But when she meets two mysterious strangers in Iceland, Pia becomes immersed in an undead love affair.

A missing father. A lifetime of secrets. An ancient evil. Daniel Wester graduated from college two months ago. He has a degree in history, a pile of student loan debt, and no job prospects in sight. When his dad mysteriously vanishes inside their locked home, Daniel finds an old box covered in strange symbols, a creepy collection of books about demonology, instructions to find an aunt he's never met, and driving directions that lead him across the United States to a threatening iron security fence in the middle of nowhere. Daniel makes the journey there with his best friend, Lena, a recent ...