Search Worlds Without End

Keleios the Half-Elf was but five years old when she saw her mother murdered by the evil witch Harque. For years she has asked the gods for the strength she'll need to avenge this foul death, and it seems the gods have answered her. She's been granted an array of powers never before seen in one person, but she has also acquired a most terrifying burden, a demonmark. This mark can open the door to undreamed abilities, but it can also open her soul to the forbidden dark side of magic. Keleios must choose between the demonmark's tainted power and the lives of those she holds most dear.

In an epic battle of good versus evil, of enchanted swords and shapeshifting dragons, of unquenchable hatred and unlikely love, Keleios must face her own demons—before she can acquire the most important power of all: the power to forgive.

From a woman who marries into a family of volatile wizards to a couple fleeing a gang of love-hungry cupids, from a girl who seeks sanctuary in the form of a graceful goose to the disgruntled superhero Captain Housework, readers will revel in the many twists and turns of fortune in these fantastical fairy tales and lush parables. Even hardened vampire hunter and zombie animator Anita Blake gets blindsided by the disturbing motives of her clients in the new "Those Who Seek Forgiveness" and in "The Girl Who Was Infatuated with Death."

Table of Contents:

• Introduction (Strange Candy) - (2006)
• Those Who Seek Forgiveness - [Anita Blake] - (2006)
• A Lust of Cupids - (2006)
• The Edge of the Sea - (2006)
• A Scarcity of Lake Monsters - (2006)
• Selling Houses - (2006)
• A Token for Celandine - [Nightseer] - (1989)
• A Clean Sweep - (1995)
• The Curse-Maker - [Nightseer] - (1991)
• Geese - (1991)
• House of Wizards - (1989)
• Here Be Dragons - (2006)
• Winterkill - [Nightseer] - (1990)
• Stealing Souls - [Nightseer] - (1989)
• The Girl Who Was Infatuated With Death - [Anita Blake] - (2005)

The fantastically addicitive first Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, novel

'I don't date vampires. I kill them.'

My name is Anita Blake. Vampires call me the Executioner. What I call them isn't repeatable.

Ever since the Supreme Court granted the undead equal rights, most people think vampires are just ordinary folks with fangs. I know better. I've seen their victims. I carry the scars...

But now a serial killer is murdering vampires - and the most powerful bloodsucker in town wants me to find the killer.

After a few centuries, the only death 'big enough' is a human sacrifice. I know because I'm an animator. My name is Anita Blake. Working for Animators, Inc. is just a job - like selling insurance. But all the money in the world wasn't enough for me to take on the particular job Harold Gaynor was offering. Somebody else did, though - a rogue animator. Now he's not just raising the dead... he's raising Hell. And it's up to me to stop it.

A thrilling Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, novel

'Most women complain that there are no single straight men left. I'd just like to meet one that's human.'

I'm Anita Blake, expert on creatures of the night. I've dined with shapeshifters, danced with werewolves, and been wooed - but not won - by Jean-Claude, the Vampire Master of the City.

And now a darkly dangerous vampire named Alejandro has hit town. He wants me for his human servant. A war of the undead has begun. Over me...

A mesmerising Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, novel

'You don't volunteer for slugfests with vampires. It shortens your life expectancy.'

And you don't fall in love with a werewolf. It interferes with your work. Especially when you're a preternatural expert, like me. My name is Anita Blake. My business brings me up close and personal with all shapes and sizes of monsters. And not all of them want to kill me.

Take, for instance, the local pack of lycanthrops - they're werewolves to you. A number of them are missing, and they've come to me for help. Maybe because I'm dating the leader of the pack. I've survived a lot - from jealous vampires to killer zombies - but this love thing may kill me yet.

A gripping and thrilling Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, novel

'When the monsters are involved, it's never just one dead body. One way or another the dead multiply.'

First, there were the dead in the graveyard, two hundred years dead. I'd been hired to raise them to settle a dispute over who owned the land they were buried in.

Then there were the three dead teenagers in the woods, slaughtered in a way I'd never seen before.

An Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, novel

'These days my life is a cross between a preternatural soap opera and an action-adventure movie.'

The first hit man came after me at home, which should be against the rules. Then there was a second, and a third. Word on the street is that Anita Blake, preternatural expert and vampire killer extraordinaire, is worth half a million dollars. Dead, not alive.

So what's a girl to do but turn to the men in her life for help? Which in my case means an alpha werewolf and a master vampire. With professional killers on your trail, it's not a bad idea to have as much protection as possible, human or otherwise.

But I'm beginning to wonder if two monsters are better than one...

An Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, novel

'You can't trust anyone who sleeps with the monsters.'

That's what I've always said. That's what I've always believed. But now I'm the one sharing a bed with the Master Vampire of the City.

I'm Anita Blake, the woman the vampires call the Executioner. From part of the solution, I've become part of the problem. So it hits close to home when an arsonist begins to target vampire-owned businesses all over town – an arsonist who seems to want to destroy more than just property.

It's the monsters who are in danger now. And it's up to the Executioner to save them from the inferno.

An Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, novel

'Richard was an alpha werewolf. It was his only serious flaw. We'd broken up after I'd seen him eat somebody.'

You never forget your ex-fiance. And when the call came at three in the morning, I thought for a moment it was him. It wasn't. It was his brother. And it wasn't good news.

Apparently the former love of my life had got himself thrown into jail for assaulting a woman. Since I make my living as a preternatural expert, I tend to believe almost anything's possible. But though he may be one of the monsters, Richard would never harm a woman. So it's Anita Blake to the rescue. I've got just a few days to spring Richard and find out who framed him – and why. There's a full moon coming, and if my werewolf love is still behind bars when it rises, he'll be facing a lot worse than an assault charge...

An Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, novel

'I was covered in blood, but it wasn't mine, so it was okay.'

Edward is a hit man. He specialises in monsters. Vampires, shape-shifters, anything and everything. There are people like me, Anita Blake, who do it legally, but Edward doesn't sweat the legalities or, hell, the ethics. He is an equal opportunity killer.

I may be one of the few friends that Edward has, but it's like being friends with a tame leopard. It may curl on the foot of your bed and let you pet its head, but it can still eat your throat out...

Six months of celibacy have made Anita crave the two men in her life like never before. But merging their powers together will give this mortal woman a taste of immortal hunger that she'll never be able to forget...

With her New York Times bestselling Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter novels, Laurell K. Hamilton wraps readers up in stories of suspense and sensuality. Cerulean Sins is no exception. Now, Anita learns what it's like to be at the new end of a centuries-old bloodline-and just how far she'll let herself get pushed around by one of the oldest vampires alive...or should we say dead?

No one is as good at stripping bare the dark desires of the inhuman soul as Laurell K. Hamilton, something she has proven time after time in her New York Times bestselling Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter novels. Now, in Incubus Dreams, Anita's life is more complicated than ever, as she is caught between her obligations to the living and the undead.

A vampire serial killer who preys on strippers is on the loose. Called in to consult on the case, Anita fears her judgment may be clouded by a conflict of interest. For she is, after all, the consort of Jean-Claude, the ever-intoxicating Master Vampire of the City. Surrounded by suspicion, overwhelmed by her attempts to control the primal lusts that continue to wrack her as a result of her passionate contacts with vampires, werewolves, and the shapeshifter Micah, Anita does something unprecedented: She calls for help.

Vampire hunter Anita Blake is called on to raise the dead-while trying to suppress her ever-growing feelings for a certain wereleopard.

In the thralls of supernatural passion, Anita Blake faces a most human dilemma.

Into Anita Blake's world-a world already overflowing with power-come creatures so feared that centuries-old vampires refuse to mention their names.

A favor for a friend puts Anita Blake in the center of a full-blown scandal that threatens master vampire Jean- Claude's reign-and makes her a pawn in an ancient vampire queen's new rise to power.

When a vampire serial killer sends Anita Blake a grisly souvenir from Las Vegas, she has to warn Sin City's local authorities what they're dealing with. Only it's worse than she thought. Ten officers and one executioner have been slain-paranormal style.

Anita heads to Vegas, where's she's joined by three other federal marshals, including the ruthless Edward. It's a good thing he always has her back, because when she gets close to the bodies, Anita senses "tiger" too strongly to ignore it. The weretigers are very powerful in Las Vegas, which means the odds of her rubbing someone important the wrong way just got a lot higher.

When Anita Blake meets with prospective client Tony Bennington, who is desperate to have her reanimate his recently deceased wife, she is full of sympathy for his loss. Anita knows something about love, and she knows everything there is to know about loss. But what she also knows, though Tony Bennington seems unwilling to be convinced, is that the thing she can do as a necromancer isn't the miracle he thinks he needs. The creature that Anita could coerce to step out of the late Mrs.Bennington's grave would not be the lovely Mrs.Bennington. Not really. And not for long.

The all-new novel in the number-one best-selling Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter series.

The triumvirate created by master vampire Jean-Claude, necromancer Anita Blake, and werewolf Richard Zeeman has made Jean-Claude one of the most powerful vampires in the U.S. He's consolidating power in himself and those loyal to him, doing in America what Belle Morte did in Europe when she was at her height of power. She almost owned Europe, and there was those who are determined that Jean-Claude won't do the same in America. Jean-Claude's motives may be kinder, but as any lawyer will tell you: motives matter, but you're just as dead. Assassins are coming to St. Louis to kill them all. Anita knows they're coming, but even being forewarned doesn't mean you can win.

A serial killer is hunting the Pacific Northwest, murdering victims in a gruesome and spectacular way. The local police suspect "monsters" are involved, and have called in Anita Blake and Edward, U.S. Marshals who really know their monsters, to catch the killer.

When a 15-year-old girl is abducted by vampires, it's up to U.S. Marshal Anita Blake to find her. And when she does, she's faced with something she's never seen before: a terrifyingly ordinary group of people - kids, grandparents, soccer moms - all recently turned and willing to die to avoid serving a master. And where there's one martyr, there will be more....

But even vampires have monsters that they're afraid of. And Anita is one of them....

Some zombies are raised. Others must be put down. Just ask Anita Blake.

Before now, she would have considered them merely off-putting, never dangerous. Before now, she had never heard of any of them causing human beings to perish in agony. But that's all changed.

Micah's estranged father lies dying, rotting away inside from some strange ailment that has his doctors whispering about "zombie disease."

Anita makes her living off of zombies--but these aren't the kind she knows so well. These creatures hunt in daylight, and are as fast and strong as vampires. If they bite you, you become just like them. And round and round it goes...

Where will it stop?

Even Anita Blake doesn't know.

"Enjoying pain with your pleasure is something you either get, or you don't. If you get it, then you don't really need it explained, because you know how good it feels, and if you don't get it then no amount of talking is going to convince you it makes sense."

But sometimes you have to explain the unexplainable, especially if the love of your life needs to understand, or she'll leave you. Jason Schuyler is one of Anita Blake's best friends and favorite werewolves, with benefits. J.J. is his lady love, an old flame from childhood who dances at one of the top ballet companies in New York. She's accomplished, beautiful, and she's crazy about him, too. Neither of them wants to be monogamous, so what could go wrong?

J.J. is enthusiastically bisexual, with an emphasis on the female side of things. She plans to keep sleeping with women, because Jason can't meet that need, just like she can't meet Jason's need for rough sex and bondage. J.J. doesn't understand why Jason isn't content to go elsewhere for a need she can't fulfil, so Jason asks Anita to help him explain.

Anita is having her own relationship growing pains with her only female lover ever, Jade. Jason suggests that J.J. might be able to help Anita with her girl problem, while she helps him with his kinky explanations. With some encouragement from a few other lovers in Anita's life she reluctantly agrees, and J. J. makes plans to fly into town for an experience that none of them will ever forget.

Becoming the fiancée of master vampire Jean-Claude is wreaking havoc with Anita Blake's reputation as a hardass--to some extent. Luckily, in professional circles, she's still the go-to expert for zombie issues. And right now, the FBI is having one hell of a zombie issue.

Someone is producing zombie porn. Anita has seen her share of freaky undead fetishes, so this shouldn't bother her. But the women being victimized aren't just mindless, rotting corpses. Their souls are trapped behind their eyes, signaling voodoo of the blackest kind.

It's the sort of case that can leave a mark on a person. And Anita's own soul may not survive unscathed...

In her twenty-fifth adventure, vampire hunter and necromancer Anita Blake learns that evil is in the eye of the beholder...

Anita has never seen Damian, her vampire servant, in such a state. The rising sun doesn't usher in the peaceful death that he desperately needs. Instead, he's being bombarded with violent nightmares and blood sweats.

And now, with Damian at his most vulnerable, Anita needs him the most. The vampire who created him, who subjected him to centuries of torture, might be losing control, allowing rogue vampires to run wild and break one of their kind's few strict taboos.

Some say love is a great motivator, but hatred gets the job done, too. And when Anita joins forces with her friend Edward to stop the carnage, Damian will be at their side, even if it means traveling back to the land where all his nightmares spring from... a place that couldn't be less welcoming to a vampire, an assassin, and a necromancer: Ireland.

Vampire hunter Anita Blake has always managed to overcome everything she faces. But this time there's a monster that even she doesn't know how to fight...

A remote Florida island is the perfect wedding destination for the upcoming nuptials of Anita's fellow U.S. Marshal and best friend, Edward. For Anita, the vacation is a welcome break, as it's the first trip she gets to take with just wereleopards Micah and Nathaniel. But it's not all fun and games and bachelor parties...

In this tropical paradise, Micah discovers a horrific new form of lycanthropy, one that has afflicted a single family for generations. Believed to be the result of an ancient Greek curse, it turns human bodies into a mass of snakes.

When long-simmering resentment leads to a big blow-up within the wedding party, the last thing Anita needs is more drama. But it finds her anyway when women start disappearing from the hotel, and worse, her own friends and lovers are considered the prime suspects. There's a strange power afoot that Anita has never confronted before, a force that's rendering those around her helpless. Unable to face it on her own, Anita is willing to accept help from even the deadliest places. Help that she will most certainly regret--if she survives at all, that is...

A brutal murder, a suspect in jail, and an execution planned--but what if the wrong person is about to be killed?

When a fellow U.S. Marshal asks Anita Blake to fly to a tiny community in Michigan's Upper Peninsula on an emergency consult, she knows time is running short. When she arrives, there is plenty of proof that a young wereleopard killed his uncle in the most gruesome and bloody way possible. As the mounting evidence points to him, a warrant of execution is already under way.

But something seems off about the murder, and Anita has been asked for her expert opinion on the crime scene. Despite escalating pressure from local cops and the family's cries for justice for their dead patriarch, Anita quickly realizes that the evidence doesn't quite add up.

Time is against Anita, as the tight-knit community is up in arms and its fear of supernaturals is growing. She races to uncover the truth and determine whether the Marshals have caught the killer or are about to execute an innocent man--all in the name of justice.

"All it would take was my true name being mentioned after dark, and it would float back to my aunt. She was the Queen of Air and Darkness, and that meant that anything said in the dark was hers to hear, eventually.

"The fact that spotting the missing Elven American Princess had become more popular than spotting Elvis helped. Her magic was always chasing blind leads: Princess Meredith skiing in Utah. Princess Meredith dancing in Paris. Princess Meredith gambling in Vegas. After three years, I was still a front-page story for the tabloids, though the latest headlines had been speculating that I was as dead as the King of Rock and Roll."

In fact, Meredith has been posing as a human in Los Angeles, living as a private investigator specializing in supernatural crime. But now Doyle, the Queen's chief bodyguard and assassin, has been dispatched to fetch her back - whether she likes it or not. And suddenly Meredith finds herself a pawn in her dreaded aunt's plans...plans that affect the future of the entire UnSeelie Court.

The requirements of the job: to enjoy the constant company of the most beautiful - and immortal - men in the world. The reward: the crown - and the opportunity to continue to live. The penalty: death.

"I am Princess Meredith, heir to a throne - if I can stay alive long enough to claim it. My cousin, Prince Cel, is determined to see that I don't. As long as we both live, we are in a race for the crown; whichever one of us reproduces first gets the throne.

"So now the men of my royal guard - frightening warriors skilled with blade, spell, and gun - have become my lovers, auditioning with pleasure for the role of future king and father of my child. And they must still protect me from assasination attempts - for unlike most fey, I am part human, and very mortal.

"All this royal backstabbing makes it difficult for me to pursue my living as a private investigator in Los Angeles, especially since the media made sure the whole world knows the Faerie princess is alive and well in sunny California.

"Now, in the City of Angels, people are dying in mysterious, frightening ways. What the human police don't realize is that the killer is hunting fey as well. Havoc lies on the horizon; the very existence of the place known as Faerie is at grave risk.

"So now, while I enjoy the greatest pleasures of my life with my guardians, I must fend off an ancient evil that could destroy the very fabric of reality. And that's just my day job."

"I am Meredith Gentry, P.I., and Princess Merry, heir to the throne of Faerie. Now there are those among us who whisper I am more. And who can blame them? I've awakened the dazzling magic that's slumbered in them for thousands of years. But the thing is, I can't figure out why.

"My aunt, Queen of Air and Darkness, is no longer distracted by her sadistic hobbies. Her obsession has turned unwaveringly to me. The mission to get me pregnant and beat my cousin Prince Cel to the crown is taking longer than expected. Even though I spend each night with the Queen's Ravens, my immortal guards, no child has come of our decadent pleasures.

"But something else is happening. My magic courses through me uncontrollably. And as I lock my half-mortal body with their full-Sidhe-blooded ones, the power surges like never before.

"It all began with a chalice. I dreamed of it, and it appeared, cool and hard, beside me when I awoke. My guards know the ancient relic well - its disappearance ages ago stripped them of all of their vital powers. But it is here with us now. My touch resonates with its force, and they're consumed with it, their Sidhe essences lit up by it.

"But even as they cherish me for this unexpected gift, there are those who loathe me for it. Me, a mongrel, only half fey and part mortal. The Unseelie court has suffered for so long, and there are some who would not have it weakened further by an impure queen. My enemies grow in number every day. But they do not know what I am capable of. Nor, for that matter, do I."

"I am Meredith Gentry, P.I., solving cases in Los Angeles, far from the peril and deception of my real home - because I am also Princess Meredith, heir to the darkest throne faerie has to offer.

"The Unseelie Court infuses me with its power. But at what price does such magic come? How much of my human side will I have to give up, and how much of the sinister side of faerie will I have to embrace? To sit on a throne that has ruled through bloodshed and violence for centuries, I might have to become that which I dread the most.

"Enemies watch my every move. My cousin Cel strives to have me killed even now from his prison cell. But not all the assassination attempts are his. Some Unseelie nobles have waited centuries for my aunt Andais, Queen of Air and Darkness, to become weak enough that she might be toppled from her throne. Enemies unforeseen move against us - enemies who would murder the least among us.

"The threat will drive us to allow human police into faerie for the first time in our history. I need my allies now more than ever, especially since fate will lead me into the arm of Mistral, Master of Storms, the queen's new captain of her guard. Our passion will reawaken powers long forgotten among the warriors of the sidhe. Pain and pleasure await me - and danger, as well, for some at that court seek only death.

"I will find new joys with the butterfly-winged demi-fey. My guards and I will show all of faerie that violence and sex are as popular among the sidhe as they are among the lesser fey of our court. The Darkness will weep, and Frost will comfort him. The gentlest of my guards will find new strength and break my heart. Passions undreamed of await us - and my enemies gather, for the future of both courts of faerie begins to unravel."

"I am Princess Meredith, heir to a throne of fairie. My day job, once upon a time, was as a private detective in Los Angeles. Unfortunately, princess has now become a full-time occupation.

"My aunt, Queen Andais, will have it no other way. And so I am virtually a prisoner in fairie - trapped here with some of the realm's most beautiful men to serve as my bodyguards...and my lovers. For I am compelled to conceive a child: an heir to succeed me on the throne.

"Yet after months of amazing sex with my consorts, there is still no baby. And no baby means no throne. The only certainty is death at the hands of my cousin Cel, or his followers, if I fail to conceive.

"Now Mistral, Queen Andais' new captain of the guard, has come to my bed - defying her and risking her terrible wrath in doing so. But even she will hesitate to punish him in jealous rage, because our joining has reawakened old magic - mystical power so ancient that no one stands against it and survives, not even my strongest and most favored: my Darkness and my Killing Frost. Not even Mistral himself, my Storm Lord. But because Mistral has helped to bring this magic forth, he may live another day.

"If I can reclaim control of the fey power that once was, there may be hope for me and my reign in fairie. I might yet quell the dark schemes and subterfuges surrounding me. Though shadows of obsession and conspiracy gather, I may survive."

"I am Meredith Gentry, princess and heir apparent to the throne in the realm of faerie, onetime private investigator in the mortal world. To be crowned queen, I must first continue the royal bloodline and give birth to an heir of my own. If I fail, my aunt, Queen Andais, will be free to do what she most desires: install her twisted son, Cel, as monarch...and kill me.

"My royal guards surround me, and my best loved - my Darkness and my Killing Frost - are always beside me, sworn to protect and make love to me. But still the threat grows greater. For despite all my carnal efforts I remain childless, while the machinations of my sinister, sadistic Queen and her confederates remain tireless. So my bodyguards and I have slipped back into Los Angeles, hoping to outrun the gathering shadows of court intrigue. But even exile isn't enough to escape the grasp of those with dark designs.

"Now King Taranis, powerful and vain-glorious ruler of faerie's Seelie Court, has leveled accusations against my noble guards of a heinous crime - and has gone so far as to ask the mortal authorities to prosecute. If he succeeds, my men face extradition to faerie and the hideous penalties that await them there. But I know that Taranis' charges are baseless, and I sense that his true target is me. He tried to kill me when I was a child. Now I fear his intentions are far more terrifying."

"I am Meredith, princess of faerie, wielder of the hands of Flesh and Blood, and at long last, I am with child twins, fathered by my royal guard. Though my uncle, Taranis, King of Light and Illusion, claims that he is the true father, since he abducted me from my home, betrayed, and defiled me. And now he has branded my guards as a threat to my unborn children.

"Bearing an heir has placed me halfway to my aunt's throne, that much closer to my reign over the Unseelie Court and well ahead of her son, my cousin Cel, in this race. Now I must stay alive to see my children born and claim my place as queen.

"But not all in faerie are pleased with the news, and conspirators from every court in the realm plot against me and mine. They seek to strip my guards, my lovers, from me by poisoned word or cold steel. But I still have supporters, and even friends, among the goblins and the sluagh, who will stand by me.

"I am Meredith Nic Essus, and those who would defy and destroy me are destined to pay a terrible price for I am truly my father's daughter. To protect what is mine, I will sacrifice anything, even if it means waging a great battle against my darkest enemies and making the most momentous decision ever made as princess of faerie."

Some know her as Meredith Nic Essus, princess of faerie. Others as Merry Gentry, LA private eye. In the fey and mortal realms alike, her life is the stuff of royal intrigue and celebrity drama.

Among her own kind, she has confronted enemies, endured the treachery and malevolence of her kith and kin, and honoured her duty to conceive a royal heir... all so she could claim a throne. But now she's turned her back on court and crown in favour of exile in the human world.

However, while she may have rejected the throne, she cannot abandon her people. Someone is killing the fey. The LAPD are baffled and Merry is worried: her kind are not easily captured or killed. At least not by mortals. And it's not just these murders that concern her. It appears mortals who she once healed with magic are now able to perform miracles themselves - a phenomenon that's wreaking havoc on relations between man and fey and provoking suspicions of forbidden powers.

So much for leaving blood and politics behind her. Merry had dreamed of a quiet life, but evil knows no borders and it seems nobody lives forever - not even the immortal...

I am Princess Meredith NicEssus. Legal name Meredith Gentry, because Princess looks so pretentious on a driver's license. I was the first faerie princess born on American soil, but I wouldn't be the only one for much longer...

Merry Gentry, ex-private detective, now full-time princess, knew she was descended from fertility goddesses, but when she learned she was about to have triplets, she began to understand what that might mean. Infertility has plagued the high ranks of faerie for centuries. Now nobles of the both courts of faerie are coming to woo Merry and her men at their home in exile in the Western Lands of Los Angeles, because they will do anything to have offspring of their own.

Taranis, King of Light and Illusion, is a more dangerous problem. He tried to seduce Merry, and failing that, raped her. He's using the human courts to sue for visitation rights, claiming that one of the children is his. And though Merry knows she was already pregnant when he took her, she can't prove it.

To save herself and her babies from Taranis Merry will use the most dangerous powers in all of faerie: a god of death, a warrior known as the Darkness, The Killing Frost, and a king of nightmares. They are her lovers, and her dearest loves, and they will face down the might of the high courts of faerie - while trying to contain the war, to keep it from spreading to those innocent humans who are in very real danger of becoming collateral damage...

After 200 years of civil war, the planet Oriana is dying. Most of the surface vegetation is gone, the air is almost unbreathable, and the population is nearly extinct. The two warring factions have finally agreed to talk peace, and Captain Picard and the U.S.S. Enterprise are sent to help them negotiate a settlement. Picard, Lt. Worf, and Counsellor Troi beam down to Oriana, just as the Enterprise is called away on another urgent mission. Alone on the planet, the U.S.S. Enterprise team learns that there are people who would rather finish the devastating conflict than talk peace. Now, Worf and Troi must prevent planet-wide disaster, before time runs out....

Angels walk among us, but so do other unearthly beings...

Meet Detective Zaniel Havelock, a man with the special ability to communicate directly with angels. A former trained Angel speaker, he devoted his life to serving both the celestial beings and his fellow humans with his gift, but a terrible betrayal compelled him to leave that life behind. Now he's a cop who is still working on the side of angels. But where there are angels, there are also demons. There's no question that there's evil at work when he's called in to examine the murder scene of a college student--but is it just the evil that one human being can do to another, or is it something more? When demonic possession is a possibility, even angelic protection can only go so far. The race is on to stop a killer before he finds his next victim, as Zaniel is forced to confront his own very personal demons, and the past he never truly left behind.