It was just a bit of fun, a local legend. The Devil's Footsteps: thirteen stepping stones, and whichever one you stopped on in the rhyme could predict how you would die. A harmless game for kids - and nobody ever died from a game.But it's not a game to Bryan. He's seen the Dark Man, because the Dark Man took his brother five years ago. He's tried to tell himself that it was his imagination, that the Devil's Footsteps are just stones and the Dark Man didn't take Adam. But Adam's sti...

Justin hasn't ever really believed in the occult, even though his Grandpa Blake is an expert in it and has a house full of curious objects and old tattered books on magic. But when Daniel Eilersen, the class know-it-all, starts acting all high-and-mighty, Justin thinks he can scare him by performing a magic ritual from the ancient book he's stolen from his granddad's study. His friend Trevor, who always goes along with what Justin says and his little sister, Joy, complete the grou...

A tough, hard-nosed career officer in the male-dominated world of British policing, DCI Claire Pierce of North Yorkshire Police heads Northern England’s underfunded and understaffed Ritual Crime Unit. Unregarded by the traditional police, struggling with an out-sized caseload, Pierce is about to tackle her most shocking case so far.Following reports of unlicensed shapeshifters running wild in the Dales, DCI Pierce leads a failed raid to capture the skinbinder responsible. While the dust is...

A hard-nosed career officer in the male-dominated world of British policing, DCI Claire Pierce of North Yorkshire Police heads Northern England’s underfunded and understaffed Ritual Crime Unit. Injured in the line of duty, Pierce returns to work to find her new Detective Inspector has brought in a self-proclaimed necromancer to question the victim of a murder, there’s a coven of druids outside protesting the sale of their sacred site, and an old iron lantern in the evidence room has just s...

Bryan was 10 when his brother, Adam, just . . . disappeared. That was five years ago, and now Bryan is the only one who seems to remember what happened.Until he meets two others with their own unsolved mysteries. It seems that Adam isn’t the first to disappear. Someone or something is after the kids in their neighborhood.The adults can’t hear it, and they can’t see it or feel it—but the kids can. And it all comes back to the skipping rhyme that every child in town knows by ...

Joel Demetrius is quite looking forward to moving in with his new step-family, but as far as his sister Cassie's concerned, they're nothing but intruders. She doesn't want anything to do with Gerald and his two sons, and to make matters worse their new home is a derelict old house, neglected for decades. Joel thinks it's interesting. Cassie thinks it's a dump.But his sister isn't the only reason the house doesn't feel like a home. As fascinated as he is by the place, Joel has to ad...

Welcome to the Ritual Crime Unit.A hard-nosed career officer in a male-dominated world, DCI Claire Pierce of North Yorkshire Police heads Northern England’s underfunded and understaffed Ritual Crime Unit. Dismissed by the traditional police, struggling with an outsized caseload, the RCU is the country’s last line of defence against horrors few can imagine.A failed raid to capture an unlicensed skinbinder becomes a murky off-the-record hunt for a monster. In...

When Nick Spencer stumbles upon Bargains, the odd little back street shop seems like the perfect place to buy the present he's been searching for. And when the shopkeeper wants to take some of Nick's artwork instead of money for payment, he's even happier.But Nick soon realizes that the deal he's made is not quite the bargain he thought it was. His drawing skills have disappeared, and when he returns to the shop he finds himself trapped into a job he didn't sign up for, collecting ...

On a chilly morning in February, DCI Claire Pierce is called off her latest investigation—an animal sacrifice case—to a graveyard in Nottinghamshire, where a murder scene looks set to re-open an old case.Three times before, Yorkshire’s Ritual Crime Unit tried and failed to catch the “Valentine Vampire,” a ritualistic serial killer whose victims show up drained of blood. Fourteen years after the last deaths, it seemed the case would never be solved.Now there’s another body, ...

Max and Tom are old, old friends, once actors. Tom now owns a jazz nightclub called Deadbeat which, as well as being their source of income, is also something of an in-joke. In a dark suburban churchyard one night they see a group of men are loading a coffin into the back of a van.But, why would you be taking a full coffin away from a graveyard and, more importantly, why is the occupant still breathing? Tom and Max are on the case. God help us...

The citadel has long been the stronghold of Highkell. All that is about to change because the traitor, Vasic, is marching on the capital. Against her better judgement, Queen Alwenna allows herself to be spirited away by one of the Crown's most trusted servants, safe from the clutches of the throne's would-be usurper.Fleeing across country, she quickly comes to learn that her pampered existence has ill-equipped her for survival away from the comforts of the court. Alwenna must tough...

The fourth book in New York Times-bestselling Seanan McGuire's witty urban fantasy InCryptid series about a family of cryptozoologists who act as a buffer between humans and the magical creatures living in secret around us."The only thing more fun than an October Daye book is an InCryptid book." —Charlaine Harris, #1 New York Times-bestselling author of Sookie Stackhouse seriesEndangered, adjective: Threat...