Showing results by narrator "Nicole Poole" in All Categories

Ever since Callie - the Vatican's rookie monster hunter - killed a demon a few weeks ago, Kansas City's been eerily quiet. But she soon learns it's just the calm before the storm. Because werewolves begin abducting young women in Kansas City, and a new church opens its doors, pronouncing death to all idols, including these "make-believe" monsters and wizards. But when one of their congregation is disemboweled by a monster on the steps of the church with the phrase God is dead painted in blood, someone in the church decides to take a lesson from the Salem Witch Trials.... And the police seem to be helping.

Tensions escalate across the Imperium Empire. Dwerves hunt for new Krackus worlds to raid. The Imperium executors hope to put an end to the huge armed ship’s rampage, and they delegate the duty to those imperators with the most experience against the empire’s invaders.

Cremsylon and his companions visited the center of the Imperium Empire. That provided an opportunity for Kreus, the first Krackus SADE, to contact the Imperium governor, an AI who controls the planet’s communications. It’s also the repository for the empire’s critical data. The visit to Imperium happens, not once, but twice. Each time, Kreus spends time perusing the governor’s records, invasions that the AI is incapable of stopping. These intrusions initiate an odd sequence of events.

Pixies are disappearing, and not in a good way. The flighty little creatures are made of pure magic, making them both extremely powerful and vulnerable. A mage with the right knowledge can capture and drain them, becoming a wizard of near-godlike power in the process. It's happened before, and it's happening again. But no one will believe the pixies. That same flighty reputation means nobody is taking the abductions seriously - except Kylara Diamantine, the only mage who can transform into a dragon.

One of the Vatican’s most infamous Shepherds has been murdered, and Callie’s friends are the prime suspects. To prove them innocent, Roland and Callie must risk their very souls.... Because Callie can’t reveal that she’s hearing strange whispers when she uses her magic, or that she’s harboring an Angel’s Grace. And if the Shepherds discover the hellish bargain Roland made, the streets of Rome will flow with blood as brother turns against brother.

My name is Callie Penrose - and I'm a rookie spell-slinger from Kansas City. I work part-time for the Vatican Shepherds, hunting monsters for them, but you won't find me in the pews on Sundays. Not really my thing. But when my boss is injured by a werewolf, it's time for me to put my big girl pants on. Because the Spear of Longinus - the one that allegedly stabbed Jesus on the Cross - has surfaced, and it's going up for auction.

Our enemy claims that the darkness lives in all Arcana. That in a world of light and shadow, one cannot exist without the other. That we're all but one tragedy away from giving in. Even the mages who've sworn to love and protect me. Even me - the Star herself. We call ourselves the Light Arcana, but you know what? The enemy's right. I've seen that darkness. Tasted it. Felt it flickering inside me like a black flame.

The Sisterhood’s dangerous militarist sect finds a foothold in a broad swath of space inhabited by the descendants of Earth’s fourth colony ship, Destiny. They’re welcomed by the mining corporations, whose leaders see unbridled opportunity in the sisters’ advanced tech. Five powerful corporations own six mining planets. One company, CenGas, mines Delhart, an ice-covered body, and struggles against the planet’s natural challenges to deliver timely orders to the other companies.

Nicola Price used to have it all - a great career, the perfect boyfriend, an excessive shoe collection, and an apartment in one of San Francisco's best neighborhoods. But when she gets knocked up and her asshat boyfriend leaves her high and dry, Nicola's perfectly crafted world comes tumbling down. She's struggling and scared - and nowhere near where she thought she'd be at age 31. Nicola's saving grace comes in the form of tall, handsome, and wealthy Scotsman Bram McGregor.

There was a time when Joanna Sheraton knew nothing of the Void. She was an ordinary computer programmer, toiling in a cubicle in air-conditioned Southern California comfort, unaware that sinister forces had penetrated her universe. But from across the interdimensional divide, an evil mage had put in motion a scheme for eternal life by transferring himself into a computer that feeds on Earth’s life force. Called upon to help by the wizard Antryg, Joanna could do nothing more than delay.

Imperium executors face daunting pressure to control their territories. The assembly’s election of a presiding executor upsets the body’s balance of power. A moderate, Gaketork, wins the election, unseating Rebtar. As required by Imperium law, Rebtar is forced to trade territories with Gaketork. Rebtar inherits a territory where a conclave fleet resides. Despite the Imperium’s peacekeepers being ejected by conclave forces from there, the executor orders both patrol fleets to return. This sets up a dangerous collision between the Krackus fleets and the conclave ships.

Jacqui still remembers what it was like before the honeybee virus destroyed her world. Before children turned into beasts and men desperate for power became raiders. Before she had to disguise herself as a boy. And before her brother Dean left and never came back. "Jack" asks Fiona and Jonah Tarsis to help find Dean, and they quickly set out - along with Fiona's boyfriend, Bowen - in search of their loved ones. But Jacqui soon discovers that they've kept a dangerous secret from her: they have the cure.

Scholarship student Thracius "Tracy" Belmanor and Princess Mercedes de Arango have graduated from the High Ground and become officers in the Orden de la Estrella. Stung by Mercedes' choice of Beauregard “Boho” Cullen as her consort, Tracy is glad they are posted on battleships light years apart but soon finds that without her protection, he is nothing but a target. Meanwhile, Mercedes' posting has its own challenges, not least her unfaithful husband.

Thracius "Tracy" Belmanor has struggled to do his patriotic duty in the wake of the loss of the love of his life, Empress Mercedes de Arango. Amid a desperate war, the Solar League cannot afford his grief, nor the political instability of admitting the depth of their relationship. It is for duty alone, both as a soldier and as a father, that he has entered into a loveless marriage that makes him part of the royal family to shepherd his son and the Solar League towards what seems to be humanity's triumph against its foe.

He was stationed at Area 51, a loyal soldier serving his country, and later injected with what he believed to be a standard vaccination, only it was an experiment. Now he's a weapon, a man with skills like no other, who can travel with the wind, a man with darkness within that he battles every day of his life.

Admiral Cordelia prosecutes multiple Krackus territories simultaneously with Trident squadrons. However, the success of the Liberation and its Trident escorts to clear territories comes to an end with the loss of multiple warships in a furious engagement against a capable Krackus fleet imperator. Forced to return to Helgart, Captain Mila Pappas offers a harsh solution to enable the Liberation to return residents to their home worlds. She suggests they no longer engage in ship-to-ship battles against Krackus fleets. Instead, Juno and her companions should fight with the deadly Elvian drones. The idea is readily accepted.

In a world where wizards are relegated to ghettos, it is no surprise to see one murdered in the street. But for Stonne Caris, a young warrior monk who sees the killing and gives chase to the culprit, there is nothing ordinary about seeing a murderer disappear into a black, inky portal. The Archmage sends him in search of Antryg Windrose - a half-mad mage who understands the nature of these passages between dimensions.

The conclave continually pressures the Imperium Empire by ousting peacekeepers and Radag mercenaries from imperial territories. This interdicts resources bound for Krackus worlds from the suborned races and exacerbates Imperium distribution protocols. On Jegstrat, a populous Krackus world, declining grain shipments lead to favoring distribution to large companies. Saboteurs plan to slow production at Imperial Grains, the largest processing plant. The goal is to rebalance grain distribution, but the attack goes terribly awry, causing death and great damage.

Opportunity is presented to Admiral Cordelia. Imperium’s Presiding Executor Gaketork sends emissaries to establish communications with her, and she responds by installing a comm system aboard the executor’s transport. The Imperium governor, who has become sentient, uses the new comm system to send her critical data. Cordelia shares the governor’s information with newly assembled Trident squadron commanders. She directs the commanders to scour another executor’s territory and free suborned worlds of mercenary Radags and Krackus overseers.

Urban is no longer master of the fearsome starship Dragon. Driven out by the hostile, godlike entity, Lezuri, he has taken refuge aboard the most distant vessel in his outrider fleet. Though Lezuri remains formidable, he is a broken god, commanding only a fragment of the knowledge that once was his. He is desperate to return home to the ring-shaped artificial world he created at the height of his power, where he can recover the memory of forgotten technologies.