Showing results by author "Craig Schaefer" in All Categories

It should have been a routine mission: stop the sale of a bio-organic weapon, round up the bad guys, and fly home before breakfast. Harmony Black and Jessie Temple are field agents for Vigilant Lock, a covert agency that defends humanity against supernatural threats; espionage, monsters, and mayhem are all in a day’s work. What they find this time, though, is a puzzle demanding an answer.

To the church, she is a heretic, tried in absentia and sentenced to burn. To her brother, Carlo, she stands as a threat to his corrupt rule and a symbol of resistance. To her new "allies" in the East, she is a pawn to be played and sacrificed as they see fit. They don't hear the whispers that follow her in the streets: whispers of hope and the name of a long-dead saint. When Livia rises up to fight, she will not rise alone.

Hard-bitten bodyguard Charlie McCabe is lucky to be alive after her recent foray into Boston’s criminal underworld. So she’s taking no chances with this next job: protecting Hayden Cobb, key witness in the trial against a trio of murderous cops known as the East Boston Three. If Cobb drops dead, the Three walk. After an attempt on Cobb’s life, Charlie suspects the Three have somehow put a hit on him from behind bars, and the assassin’s still at large.

Believing her lover has been killed, Nessa - the living archetype of the wicked witch and a fairy tale brought to murderous life - flies across the Mojave Desert on a mission of vengeance. Meanwhile, Marie is stranded on a dystopian, parallel Earth, forced to confront her own dark side as she comes face-to-face with the architect of an insidious plot.

Once upon a time, Lionel Page didn’t believe in magic. That was before his odyssey to New York City, the quest for a lost manuscript that ended in mysteries, murder, and the buried secrets of his own past. He used to be a professional skeptic. Now, he’s a witch in the service of Hekate, chasing myths across the heartland of a haunted America

When two operatives go dark in Tampa, chasing the trail of an oligarch with ties to the demonic underworld, Vigilant Lock - the nation’s first and last line of defense against occult attack - sends their best to the rescue: Harmony Black, a troubled investigator and an elemental witch with a keen but tangled mind; and her partner Jessie Temple, the daughter of a supernatural slasher and the inheritor of her father’s powers.

The House of Dead Roses offers murder, espionage, and mayhem to the highest bidder. Agent Harmony Black's war against the infernal cult -- and their seductive, sadistic mistress, the demoness Nadine -- last found her facing off against Nadine's top assassin under the glittering lights of Las Vegas, a battle that left her physically and psychically scarred.

Out of prison and back on the streets, Daniel Faust returns home to a city on fire. The Chicago mob is making their play for control of Las Vegas, with an army of gunmen and a lethal shapeshifter on their side, while Daniel's friend Jennifer marshals the forces of the Vegas underworld. Staying on the sidelines isn't an option, especially when a Metro detective orders him to get the war under control - and if he can't, he'll expose Daniel's secrets to the FBI.

FBI agent Harmony Black and her team, Vigilant Lock, face a new type of threat: one from beyond the stars. They'd always heard the Red Knight was an urban legend: in 1954, three years before Sputnik launched, a mysterious satellite was sighted circling Earth, though no power on the planet had such technology.

When a high roller dies in his Vegas penthouse suite, that's a problem. When his ghost refuses to leave, that's a bigger problem. Daniel Faust is the solution. Called in to clean up the casino's mess, the modern-day sorcerer soon learns that the restless spirit isn't going down without a fight. To set things right, he'll have to delve someplace even seedier, even more treacherous, than the Vegas Strip: the Los Angeles music industry.

Faust has been caged, buried, cut off from his allies and his magic. His enemies think they've won. They're about to learn, the hard way, that this is one sorcerer who always has a trick up his sleeve. Nobody has ever escaped from the Iceberg. But the Iceberg has never had a prisoner like Daniel Faust.

It's hard to make a dishonest buck in Sin City, especially when a rogue FBI agent is gunning for your head. Flat broke and one step ahead of the law, Daniel Faust flees Vegas and lands in Chicago, where a risky heist promises to fill his pockets with cash.

For Roy Mackey—a recovering addict who makes his living as an unlicensed PI and occasional muscle for hire—tracking down a dead writer's final manuscript should be a walk in the park. Too bad his client is a phony, the dead writer is a thief, and shadowy men are watching his every move. All clues lead to a canceled pulp-adventure comic, The Midnight Jury, and its reclusive author.

Daniel Faust, Las Vegas sorcerer and career criminal, has never pulled the trigger on an innocent man. When the infernal Prince Sitri challenges him to do just that, though, he can't walk away. His lover, Caitlin, is Sitri's right hand... and if Daniel refuses the job, he'll never see her again. While Daniel works to unravel Sitri's twisted game, putting his principles and his life on the line, Caitlin has problems of her own.

Marie Reinhart is an NYPD detective on the trail of a serial killer. When she sleeps, though, she dreams of other lives; she dreams of being a knight, in strange wars and strange worlds. On the other side of the city, Nessa Roth is a college professor trapped in a loveless marriage, an unwilling prop in a political dynasty. She's also a fledgling witch, weaving poppets and tiny spells behind closed doors. When Marie's case draws her into Nessa's path, sparks fly. What comes next is more than a furtive whirlwind affair; it's the first pebbles of an avalanche.

Framed for a casino massacre, Harmony and Jessie are on the run - in the real world and in their own. From the seedy casinos of Atlantic City to the steamy bayous of Louisiana and the imposing facades of Washington, DC, there's not a soul on earth they can trust. The only way they can clear their names is to take down the conspiracy from within and uncover the truth behind a secret that both the government and the powers of hell want to keep buried.

Conspiracies swirl like shadows around Livia, the pope's daughter, who refuses to be anyone's pawn: chasing the whispers of a deadly coup, she vows to expose the truth and save her church from disaster. Livia has secrets of her own, though, and one wrong move could cost her life and her soul.

As the FBI closes in on the Las Vegas underworld, Daniel Faust - grifter, thief, and sorcerer - isn't the only one feeling the heat. Half-demon racket boss Nicky Agnelli is fighting to hang on to his empire, leaving a trail of dead informants in his wake, while Daniel's ex-girlfriend, Jennifer, rallies her forces on the street and aims her sights at Nicky's crown. May the best villain win.

For Harmony Black, practicing witch and government agent, defeating criminal masterminds and eliminating supernatural threats are all in a day's work. She's ready to fight, as long as she can count on her partner, Jessie Temple; her team at off-the-books special FBI unit Vigilant Lock; and her magic. But her latest case threatens it all.

Daniel Faust - sorcerer, thief, and newly-minted Las Vegas crime boss - has debts to pay. One of those debts has just come due, an IOU to be paid in the form of a high-risk heist, and it's a job he can't refuse. The mark? Daniel's arch-nemesis, a man with a Cheshire smile and the powers of a living god. The score? A sacrificial dagger buried under layers of electronic, occult, and human security, snug on the far side of a custom-built deathtrap.