HEDDA LUNDQUIST MUST SAVE WORM
West Hollywood, 1985. Aspiring songwriter Hedda “Hedy” Lundquist is used to being on the wrong side of trouble. Back home she was on a first-name basis with the local Barney Fife. When she stumbles into a restroom brawl between shapeshifters and a legendary immortal on the Sunset Strip, her life as a cocktail waitress hauling trays and griping over stingy tips explodes. Terrified and helpless, panic surges through Hedy. A thousand strands of frenzied electricity swarm from the nearest wall outlet like angry ants, climbing Hedy’s arms and legs, clambering one over the other, massing around her fingers. A flash of light as bright as a thousand stars crushing down onto the point of a needle obliterates the room. Hedy has been announced to the hidden world and to herself.
For her part, Hedy has no problem staying hidden. Her usual method of rationalizing the impossible is the same as any sane person’s: lie to herself. Like her life depends on it. Wall outlet? Fried because of faulty wiring. Payphone zapping her? Payphones constantly go on the fritz. Cash register exploding? Creepy-the-clerk admitted the piece of junk was a fire hazard. What about that hobgoblin the size of a fire hydrant who’d tried to get her into a freaking van? The little weirdo had boosted a costume from a movie set. So obvious.
There is no way Hedy can lie to herself when the feral Grendel snatches her roommate and best friend, Worm. Hedy embarks on a desperate cross-city search that rips the veil off a vivid, unknown-to-humans world teeming with mythical icons: rock star Dr. Jekyll, librarians Rumpelstiltskin and Rip Van Winkle, shopkeeper Nostradamus, and the psychotic, reanimated Romanov sisters. Even if Hedy doesn’t understand who and what she is, they know. Or they think they do.
CHEMIST MARTYR JINN
Chemistry student and first-generation American Abigail Adulai’s mother has died. When a distraught woman brings her mother’s service to a crashing halt, a secret is unearthed, a secret—and the presence of a ghost. A ghost who reveals an unfinished journey Abigail must finish no matter the risk or the sacrifice. Abigail's relentless devotion will take her deep into a mire filled with unimaginable danger, Iraq 2007, a warzone where the long fingers of treachery and the threat of a violent death lurk around every corner.
Abigail is the Chemist.
Titan Mercier is a good young man trapped in a disposable life. When his superstar younger brother commits the ultimate gangland sin, Titan is ordered to pay the price. To stop an all-out street war, he will join the military and carry out an impossible mission: steal high powered weapons, ship them home to a Machiavellian gangland overlord. Titan’s success or failure will decide if his kid brother lives or dies.
Titan is the Martyr.
The stoic Spectre is an Iraqi translator who recently hired on with Dragon Fire, a grizzled platoon fighting in and around Baghdad. When Dragon Fire teams with intelligence agents to raid an operation trafficking stolen antiquities, Spectre’s hidden skills lead him to discover the operation’s leader, a corrupt American Sergeant. The Seargent turns the tables on Spectre, threatening to reveal Spectre’s secret; he is in truth a hunted man living in disguise.
Spectre is the Jinn.
In the harsh, breathtaking expanse of Iraq’s Arabian Desert, Abigail’s quest will intertwine with Titan’s desperate mission, Spectre’s masquerade—and the fate of a secretive, tortured young man whose desires will put all their lives in grave danger.
SHARED SKIN
The year is 2066. Nuclear fire has ended civilization.
Hotel maid gynoid T-3BR, called Tiber, survived the blast. At the exact moment of detonation, Tower, an AI Guardian, rerouted his entire consciousness through her active language uplink and uploaded himself into her neural core.
Now two minds share one synthetic body in the ashes of a ruined city.
Tower’s mission is clear. Reach the hidden nursery where the last genetically modified infants are still growing in artificial wombs. They are the only living hope for humanity. Tiber was built only to serve. Her hotel-maid protocols never included violence. Now she is free to choose. Tower has a secret she can sense but cannot unravel. Yet for the good of whatever remains, Tiber chooses to brave the apocalypse and rescue the infants before their nutrient tanks run dry.
Radiation storms rage. Scavenger gangs prowl. AI drones hunt surviving synthetics. Clashing wills in one damaged frame will either save the future or rip their shared skin apart.