Search Worlds Without End

This short story originally appeared in the anthology Dark Duets: All-New Tales of Horror and Dark Fantasy (2014), edited by Christopher Golden, and was reprinted in Lightspeed, August 2016.

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

At fourteen, Nick Gautier thinks he knows everything about the world around him. Streetwise, tough and savvy, his quick sarcasm is the stuff of legends... until the night when his best friends try to kill him. Saved by a mysterious warrior who has more fighting skills than Chuck Norris, Nick is sucked into the realm of the Dark-Hunters: immortal vampire slayers who risk everything to save humanity.

Nick quickly learns that the human world is only a veil for a much larger and more dangerous one: a world where the captain of the football team is a werewolf and the girl he has a crush on goes out at night to stake the undead.

But before he can even learn the rules of this new world, his fellow students are turning into flesh eating zombies. And he's next on the menu.

As if starting high school isn't hard enough... now Nick has to hide his new friends from his mom, his chainsaw from the principal, and keep the zombies and the demon Simi from eating his brains, all without getting grounded or suspended. How in the world is he supposed to do that?

Nick Gautier's day just keeps getting better and better.

Yeah, he survived the zombie attacks, only to wake up and find himself enslaved to a world of shapeshifters and demons out to claim his soul.

Being a teenager is no picnic either. His new principal thinks he's even more of a hoodlum than the last one, his coach is trying to recruit him to things he can't even mention, and the girl he's not seeing, but is, has secrets that terrify him.

But more than that, he's being groomed by the darkest of powers, and if he doesn't learn how to raise the dead by the end of the week, he will become one of them...

The world has fallen in love with Nick Gautier and the Dark-Hunters.

Now Nick's saga continues in the next eagerly anticipated volume...

Go to school. Get good grades. Stay out of trouble. That's the mandate for most kids. But Nick Gautier isn't the average teenager. He's a boy with a destiny not even he fully understands. And his first mandate is to stay alive while everyone, even his own father, tries to kill him.

He's learned to annihilate zombies and raise the dead, divination and clairvoyance, so why is learning to drive and keep a girlfriend so dang hard? But that isn't the primary skill he has to master. Survival is.

And in order to survive, his next lesson makes all the others pale in comparison. He is on the brink of becoming either the greatest hero mankind has ever known.

Or he'll be the one who ends the world. With enemies new and old gathering forces, he will have to call on every part of himself to fight or he'll lose everyone he cares about.

Even himself.

The heat is on, and a new threat to humanity has risen...

Nick has his driver's license and he's not afraid to use it. But turning sixteen isn't what he thought it would be. While other boys his age are worried about prom dates and applying for college, Nick is neck deep in enemies out to stop him from living another day. No longer sure if he can trust anyone, his only ally seems to be the one person he's been told will ultimately kill him.

But life spent serving the undead is anything except ordinary. And those out to get him have summoned an ancient force so powerful even the gods fear it. As Nick learns to command and control the elements, the one he must master in order to combat his latest foe is the one most likely to destroy him. As the old proverb goes, fire knows nothing of mercy, and if Nick is to survive this latest round, he will have to sacrifice a part of himself. However, the best sacrifice is seldom the sanest move. Sometimes it's the one that leaves your enemies confused.

And sometimes, you have to trust your enemy to save your friends. But what do you do when that enemy is you?

Be careful what you wish for...You just might get it.

Nick Gautier is tired of his destiny. He doesn't want to be the son of a demon who's fated to end the world. Nor does he want to see another demon or other preternatural creature who wants to kill or enslave him. He just wants to be normal teenager and have normal problems like everyone else.

But normality isn't all it's cracked up to be. When he gets sucked into an alternate reality where his mother has married his mentor and his Atlantean god best friend has become a human geek, he begins to understand that no life is free of pain, and that every person has a specific place in the universe... even the son of a hated demon. Most of all, he sees that his powers aren't the curse he thought they were, and that the world needs a champion, especially a champion the world's enemies can't imagine rising up to defend the very people he should destroy.

Old enemies and new friends square off for a major battle that will either restore Nick to his real world, or end him forever...

Being a teen is never easy...

Zombies, demons, vampires, shapeshifters-another day in the life of sixteen-year-old Nick Gautier-and those are just his friends. But now that he's accepted the demon that lives inside him, he must learn to control it and temper the very emotions that threaten the lives of everyone he cares for. Something that's hard to do while trying to stay off the menus of those who want his head on a platter. And no one wants him more than the dark gods who created his race. Now that they know where he is, they will stop at nothing to reclaim him. And without knowing it, Nick has just embraced the one person he should never have trusted. The one person who will hand him over to his enemies to get back the life they lost.

Nick has finally accepted his fate, now he must learn to defy his destiny, and the dark, deadly forces that will stop at nothing to destroy everyone he loves so that they can again return to the world of man and own it...

Think you have a lot of pressure on your shoulders? Nick Gautier was born to bring about the end of the world... it's not easy being the heir of a demon overlord.

But Nick is determined to thwart his destiny and get into a good college. To be more than his genetics and prophecy foretell. No one is ever going to tell this stubborn Cajun who and what he really is. Or how to live his life.

Not even the Fates of the Universe. But now that he and his team of ancient gods and demons have claimed the Eye of Ananke and he sees the missteps of the future, he has to battle the demons within that are far deadlier and more treacherous than any he's battled before. All the while his arch nemesis is back and determined to reclaim his place as the harbinger for Armageddon. Even if it means killing Nick and barbecuing everyone he loves to do so.

It's a demon-eat-demon world for Nick Gautier. Just when he thinks he's finally gotten a handle on how not to take over the world and destroy it, Death returns with an all-star cast that is determined to end the Malachai reign and lineage forever. Worse? Death and War have found the one, true enemy Nick can't find, and even if he did, it's one he could never bring himself to banish or kill.

Now framed for murders he hasn't committed, and surrounded by new friends who might be turncoats, Nick is learning fast how his father went down in flames.

The heat in New Orleans is rising fast, and Nick's threat-level has gone into a whole new level of intensity. He's learning fast that when War and Death decide to battle, they don't take prisoners. They don't negotiate. And they're both immune to his biting sarcasm and Cajun charm. To win this, he will have to embrace a new set of powers, but one wrong step, and he will belong to the side of Darkness, forever.

Deadmen tell their tales...

To catch evil, it takes evil. Enter Devyl Bane?an ancient dark warlord returned to the human realm as one of the most notorious pirates in the New World. A man of many secrets, Bane makes a pact with Thorn?an immortal charged with securing the worst creations the ancient gods ever released into our world. Those powers have been imprisoned for eons behind enchanted gates... gates that are beginning to buckle. At Thorn's behest, Bane takes command of a crew of Deadmen and, together, they are humanity's last hope to restore the gates and return the damned to their hell realms.

But things are never so simple. And one of Bane's biggest problems is the ship they sail upon. For the Sea Witch isn't just a vessel, she's also a woman born of an ancient people he wronged and who in turn wronged him during a centuries long war between their two races?a woman who is also sister to their primary target. Now Marcelina, the Sea Witch, must choose. Either she remains loyal to her evil sister and almost extinct race against Bane and his cause, and watches humanity fall, or she puts faith in an enemy who has already betrayed her. Her people over the totality of humanity?let's hope Bane can sway her favor.

Deadmen Walking is the first historical fantasy title in New York Times bestselling author Sherrilyn Kenyon's Deadman's Cross series. It is a tale of passion and loss, emotions that wound and heal... and ultimate redemption

The Deadmen are back, but so are the demons who have broken free of their eternal prison and are bent on mankind's destruction. The worst of the lot is Vine, determined to claim their lives for taking hers. She will see the world burn... and has the perfect lure to destroy them all. One of their own.

Kalder Dupree has never known a day of mercy. Born to the cruelest of mer-races, he sacrificed himself for his crew and is in Vine's hands. He expects no mercy or rescue.

Yet Cameron Jack is determined to set Kalder free. As a Hellchaser, it's her calling, and she cannot allow even a not-so-innocent to be tortured for an act of kindness that spared her damnation.

To defeat evil, it sometimes takes an even worse evil, and Cameron is willing to do whatever she must to make this right. If Vine thought she had her hands full before, she hasn't seen anything nearly as powerful as Cameron's resolve.