Search Worlds Without End

Now, together in one place for the first time, Quick Bites combines Jennifer Rardin's short stories into a wild ride of vampires, zombies, and voodoo that is impossible to put down. This omnibus edition includes the stories:

• Scouting Jasmine
• The Golem Hunt
• An Evening For Jaz and Vayl
• Paul and Brady Get Hoodoo with the Voodoo
• Zombie Jamboree

I'm Jaz Parks. My boss is Vayl, born in Romania in 1744. Died there too, at the hand of his vampire wife, Liliana. But that's ancient history. For the moment Vayl works for the C.I.A. doing what he does best--assassination. And I help. You could say I'm an Assistant Assassin. But then I'd have to kick your ass.

Vayl and I have to take out a Miami plastic surgeon with ties to terrorism. But the assignment gets complicated when it turns out he's in cahoots with a supernatural nasty powerful enough to bring America to her knees.

I'm Jaz Parks. CIA assassin. Black belt. Belly dancer at the Corpus Christi Winter Festival. The last is cover for my latest mission: retrieve a vital piece of biotechnology by killing the maniac who stole it. He's Chien-Lung, an obsessive vamp who's invulnerable while wearing his armor - which is constantly.

Then there are the reavers, ancient fiends who murder innocents and eat their souls. Only I can sense them. So it's not long before they'll want me dead, dead, dead.

I'm Lucille Robinson (aka Jaz Parks).This is a mission unlike anything my vampire boss, Vayl, and I have ever been on. It's not our usual take-them-out-and-run; it's an undercover mission that needs the whole gang: a psychic, an interpreter, and a weapons specialist.

We've never gone in which such heavy artillery before, but the more the merrier, right? Um... nope. At least not since Vayl and I learned part of our job is to ferret out a mole concealed in our unit.

To add to our problems, we're being harried by a pack of reavers bent on revenge, and targeted by a Seer who wants to share Vayl's power - at any cost. This is going to be a blast.

Jaz Parks here.My latest mission has taken me to the ancient Greek city of Patras; but instead of soaking up its splendor, I'm here to infiltrate a Vampere Trust.

Only two vamps have ever escaped the tightly bound communities and lived to tell the tale: Edward 'The Raptor' Samos, the most reviled criminal mastermind in recent memory, and Vayl, the CIA's number one assassin, who also happens to be my boss.

The Raptor is trying to take over Vayl's former Trust. Unfortunately, the Trust's new leader has her own plans.

This job is going to be the death of me.

It's Jaz Parks. I've already smoked the guy who was the pain in the CIA's you-know-what for the past few years. But now, in the power vacuum left by the death of Edward 'The Raptor' Samos, a struggle for supremacy has begun between his former allies. The CIA feels the balance must be maintained. So when an agent planted among the Weres discovers a plot to assassinate the Coven's leader, my vampire boss and I are brought in to take out the woman hired to do the deed, a killer who might be as wily and Gifted as ourselves.

So it's off to the Scottish Highlands for some twisted fun among murderers, demons and half-crazed relatives. Sometimes being a top-secret CIA assassin isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Jaz Parks here. But I'm not alone. I'm hearing voices in my head - and they're not mine. The problem, or maybe the solution, is work. And the job's a stinker this time -- killing the gnomes that are threatening to topple NASA's Australian-based space complex. Yeah, I know. Vayl and I should still be able to kick this one in our sleep. Except that Hell has thrown up a demon named Kyphas to knock us off track. And damn is she indestructible!

Jaz Parks here. I. Am. Pissed. Just as Vayl and I arrive in Morocco to secure an ancient artifact, he wakes up calling me by another woman's name. And it's not even a good one. But since any form of argument transforms him into an unholy terror, I'm forced to play along until the gang and I can figure out what kind of power has so vastly altered his perceptions.

So it's time for me to do what any well-trained assassin in my position might do. I attack. What follows is a hair-raising, breath-taking bullet train ride to the finish as the crew battles on multiple fronts. I now know what I have to do - I must return to hell one last time.

I have two choices. Carve Brude's name into Hell's bile-encrusted gates. Or lose my soul.

After an assassination attempt on Vayl, I find myself pulled into a tangled web that takes the gang to Romania. So how will I save a ghost, rescue a demon, and cheat the Great Taker out of a soul he's slavering for while defeating my nastiest foe yet so that Vayl can, at last, cherish a few precious years with his sons? With careful planning, major violence, and one (hopefully) final trip to Hell.