Kirjahaku

Secrets, guilt, and shame―Annabelle Morgan has them in droves. Fortunately, only one can kill her.Anna's gift, psionic control over electricity, goes haywire in moments of high emotion. One such episode leaves her homeless at twelve after her father's "accidental" death. Unfortunately, in Britain, unregistered psionics are against the law. After a close call with government agents, she turns to Zoom―a powerful hallucinogenic-to hide her spontaneous outbursts.Her safety blanket becomes a devouring pit.In 2413 London, Anna lives low, unable to even keep work as an exotic dancer and prostitute. Not until her pimp fires her for being too high does she realize how lost she is.When a new kid joins her circle of vagrants, Anna is determined not to let the girl make the same mistakes she did. Attempting to break her Zoom habit, she takes a job from her old Syndicate handler. It ends on shaky ground, but she finds Doctor James Mardling, a university professor looking for people just like her-unusually powerful psionics.He offers the one thing she has always longed for: dignity.His price, however, may be too much to pay.

Safety is at best a relative thing in 2073, fifty-one years after nuclear war scorched the world. Kevin found a quiet little place to hole up with the woman who came to mean more to him than his lifelong dream, and a little girl she took in after the Virus wiped out her home. They're well defended against bandits, raiders, and the occasional stray Infected. But walls don't face the sky, and all the guns in what's left of the world won't do a thing against a biological weapon dropped from an Enclave drone. A message from a dead man disturbs this tenuous peace with a chance to stop the Virus for good, but it would send them right to the Enclave's back yard. Tris can't say no, and Kevin refuses to leave her side again, but they won't bring a child along for such a dangerous ride. Knowing it's not only their lives, but the lives of everyone outside the Enclave at stake, they decide to hit the road once again, hoping their home―and their daughter―will still be there when they return.

Althea struggles to adapt to an unexpected twist in her life-not being kidnapped in six whole months.The strange police from the faraway city claim the abilities she thought of as magic are really 'psionics, ' and say she is far stronger than anyone they have ever seen. Despite their curiosity, they let her remain in the Badlands to protect her from an evil they call corporations.Of course, Althea knows all too well how powerful her healing gift is. For most of her life, she'd been a prize taken in raids. Tribes have killed to own her, and she let them.But the Prophet is done being passive.Having a family changes everything. No longer afraid to use her powers to protect herself, Althea refuses to be taken again... even when corporate mercenaries find her

Sarah Wright has gone through a lifetime of mess in a mere five months, but her most difficult challenge yet is making it through Thanksgiving without spilling blood.It isn't only her extended family tempting her to sprout claws. A vampire hunter has arrived in Seattle, his sights set on Professor Heath. Worse, the hunter seems like a relatively nice guy. Dedicating one's entire life to destroying undead sounds like a perfectly reasonable response to witnessing a vampire kill your parents, right?She doesn't believe her mild professor used to be a bloodthirsty mass-murderer, nor does she want to straight-up kill a living man for merely existing. Her indecision and silence backfires. One of the local vampire elders, still fuming over Sarah's decision to remain with her mortal family, seizes the chance to back her into a political corner: If Sarah doesn't kill the hunter, she'll bear the responsibility for anyone he destroys

Giant insects and murderous raiders are a daily nuisance in the Badlands; Althea faces a new, even more confusing challenge-friends.Being the Prophet had some good parts: no one dared hurt her and she got to heal people. It also had bad parts, like constant kidnapping. In all her twelve years of life, she couldn't remember spending more than a few months in the same place... until now.In Querq, Althea is safe and loved. She isn't sure how to simply 'be friends' with other kids her age. It's a weird experience, but one she's trying to learn... until an outsider brings a reminder she is far from ordinary.The visitor speaks of a village stricken by angry, vengeful spirits where everyone is sick or dying. It's a first to be asked for help instead of taken.Althea can't say no, even if she might not make it home.

Sophie lives in a most peculiar cottage at the center of the Forgotten Forest, its inside much larger than its outside. You see, the house must be large, for it holds a great troll as well as a little girl. As one might expect, working for such a creature is rather frightening to a seven-year-old, but the endless expanse of black trees outside is even scarier. She's afraid to make even the slightest sound, for the troll abhors loud children. He's not terribly fond of quiet children either―unless they're in his stew. Sophie's precious light offers comfort in her darkest moments. She can't remember where it came from, but it's her only source of hope holding back the gloom that yearns to devour her soul. Trolls are covetous beasts, and when he spots her shiny bauble and steals it, Sophie faces two terrible options: Stay and suffer the wrath of a furious troll, or take her chances in a forest of her deepest fears.

At eighteen, Sarah Wright never had to cope with a death in her family before―least of all her own.Two weeks after waking up as a vampire, she's starting to feel comfortable in her fangs. Sarah's doing okay, if you don't count wicked mood swings, crushing guilt, and a pervasive sense of existential dread. On the upside, her family is adjusting to the new normal of supernatural in stride and she's even testing the waters with a new guy.However, something's changed with her best friend Ashley, who's not acting at all like herself. To make matters worse, someone's stalking Sarah. Mom copes with her daughter's undeath by largely ignoring it, sending her on errands during the day when her powers won't work and she's scared of being killed for good.Formal entry into vampire society sends her down a dangerous path, right into the middle of a war between elders―that her sire started. All Sarah wants is some semblance of a normal unlife, but she finds herself stuck between two groups of angry vampires itching to spill blood...And they don't care if it's from her innocent family.

Most Citizens hold Outcasts in dim regard, but Sima never expected they'd throw her off the planet.In 2411, overpopulation has spread a plaque of filthy, congested city to the corners of the Earth. Government has raised corruption to an art form, and no one hears the cries of those left to die in the dark passageways of civilization. Following the End of Nations, people cling to the only division left: social status.Since running away from home four years ago, she's managed to stay a step ahead of death―or worse. At sixteen, she's getting too old to survive from begging, despite her best effort to pretend she's younger. Worse, the sidewalks teem with little kids edging in on her turf, monopolizing Citizens' charity with their wide, pleading eyes and genuine innocence.A chance meeting with suspiciously nice cops leaves her more confused than ever. Between deadly gangs, unforgiving security forces, and a terrifying madam eager to exploit a girl her age, merely getting older is the biggest threat to her life. With no good choice to make, she risks the least of three evils.Sima thought her life on Earth had been dangerous...She hasn't seen anything yet.

Agent Kirsten Wren has her fair share of demons to deal with-and some are literal. Despite discovering the world beyond death is more complicated than simple ghosts, she's almost got her life in order. Her effort to adopt Evan appears to be on track, no one's tried to kill her for a whole week, and most unbelievable of all, a billionaire is in love with her. Kirsten's bleak childhood has left her with great contempt for the wealthy and a deep mental scar that makes intimacy terrifying. Konstantin's high-society world is not for her, but thoughts of leaving him make her physically ill.A series of murders with ritualistic overtones leads her to suspect someone's using paranormal means to destabilize the nation. Stuck between her tortured past, an even scarier future, and a government doubting her stories of the Abyss, she has a mere week to find the killer before all hell breaks loose.However, the demons are far closer than she expects.

Some soldiers don't let anything sway them from their mission-not even death from high explosives.Free from her troubled past, Agent Kirsten Wren finds peace in mentoring Evan, a little boy with psionic talents similar to hers, and soon develops strong protective feelings for him.A team of corporate "issue resolution consultants" tears up the city, continuing their mission to kill a man in the afterlife. Kirsten pursues the unusually potent spirits, trying to stop their rampage before more people die. Her investigation leads her to a strange ritual circle that gives off energy darker than any wraith she has yet encountered.Unable to make sense of the ancient pictographs, she seeks help from the only person in the area capable of understanding them, an enigmatic billionaire who takes a strange fancy to her. His opinion that she's chasing demons calls into question everything she believes.Kirsten's not about to let superstition scare her away from protecting an innocent ghost. Alas, the demons give her an impossible choice: back off and let a man die-or they take the boy she considers a son.

Agent Kirsten Wren thought she'd seen the true face of evil on the Moon, but the demon Avarazel didn't prepare her for an even more insidious enemy―politics.After a month to recover, Kirsten returns to active duty with a heavy heart, already missing having all day to spend with her adopted son. Reeling from her disastrous last attempt at a relationship, she takes things slow with Sam, unsure if she's even capable of welcoming a man into her life.The influential Senator Preston Winchester catches her off guard, requesting her by name to dispel a haunting at his earthbound vacation home. A subsequent string of escalating spectral assaults on seemingly random, unrelated people strikes her as too coincidental, and when the angry spirit attacks her son, Kirsten suspects she is the spirit's true target.Her investigation leads her to doubt Winchester is as squeaky clean as he appears. She is determined to bring him down, but following her moral compass threatens her guardianship of Evan, as well as the very existence of Division 0.

The universe holds various immutable constants: death, gravity, taxes... and the Wright family road trip.After a couple months as a vampire, Sarah's mostly adjusted to her new unlife. Despite being eighteen and immortal, she embraces staying at home. Her almost demise makes her quite aware that her family won't be around forever. She only needs to keep her supernatural and normal lives separate.Yeah... that'll happen.Every summer, Dad plans a vacation-by-car somewhere across the country. Lameness has increased each year, but Sarah blames that on growing older. She thought dying might get her out of going, but her father's not about to let something that trivial put an end to the tradition. After renting an RV and tinting the back windows, he's confident he can bring the whole family along.Of course, as a vampire, Sarah can't seem to go anywhere without attracting the weird.... and the deadly.

Fantasy roleplayers often get deep into their games, but thirteen-year-old Keith Croft is about to take it to a new level.He's been invisible for seven years, smart but not working hard, athletic enough, but too lazy to excel. His parents are sorta cool, but only two weeks into his eighth-grade year, his friends are all busy with sports or projects and can't hang out. On the way home one day, he stops at a neighbor's yard sale and discovers a book for Crypts & Creepers that the lonely old woman says belonged to her granddaughter who disappeared without a trace.Days after he convinces his friends to try this bizarre game that doesn't require electronics, strange noises in his closet wake him. His increasing inability to focus on anything other than a girl who vanished before he was born―and his obsession with her NPC ranger―drives him to dig deeper into the past, searching for what really happened to her.By the time Keith realizes the Gamemaster's Codex holds something darker than rules within its pages, the curse that claimed the soul of a girl in 1987 has its claws in his group as well.Keith vows his friends will escape―even if he can't.

For most twelve-year-olds, being kidnapped is terrifying. For Althea, it's only Tuesday.Her powers of healing make her a precious commodity in the Badlands, a place where the strong write the law in blood. For as long as she can remember, she has lived either as a possession or a goddess. Althea contents herself with captivity as long as she can help others, even those who killed to own her.After three whole months in the same village, the friendship of a young warrior makes her feel almost like a member of the tribe rather than a prisoner. Alas, raiders seize her yet again. For the first time in six years, being stolen hurts.Following a reluctant escape, she questions if she should dare risk using her powers to defend herself, and those she has come to love. Her attempt to return to the tribe leaves her lost and alone and, for the first time in her life, trying to stay free.Alas, two threats far beyond her experience to understand also hunt her. One wishes to use her for his grand scheme-and one wants to destroy her.

Mamoru Saitō was well suited for life as a samurai of Matsushita Electronics Corporation, except for one thing-his conscience.In 2418, Japan has reinvented itself as an anachronism of feudalism and high technology. Corporations govern entire prefectures, each ruled by a CEO wielding the authority of a warlord.Mamoru's supernatural ability to embody machines and change software at a thought makes him a coveted weapon in an endless cyberspace war. Ever with the sense he does not belong, he serves without question until an outsider wrests him from his master's grip, forcing him to flee Japan.Now a ronin, his sense of honor compels him to exact revenge upon the person responsible for his disgrace. His search reunites him with his past and brings acceptance that he is one of a handful of rare, potent psionics who call themselves The Awakened.Caught between two factions vying to control him, Mamoru realizes that family is all he truly wanted, but his epiphany may have come too late.

Designed to be the perfect assassin, Kate is as beautiful as she is deadly-everything she touches, burns.The government attempted to engineer a pyrokinetic agent, but their plans went awry. Her power to command fire as a living extension of her psyche exceeded expectations, except for one problem: her skin is hot enough to destroy most materials on contact. Useless for infiltration, they declared her a failure and tried to kill her at the age of seven.Years after escaping, she hides on the outskirts of society in the shadows of East City, hiding under the wing of a Syndicate underboss. Kate kills without hesitation to earn the favor of the only person ever to show her kindness, but her happiness is as false as her holographic clothing.An eerie figure offers end to her curse, if she joins The Awakened-a group of psionics as powerful as she. To find them, she must travel thousands of miles across the country, but with her condition, she can't exactly fly commercial. Desperate for human contact, Kate sets out to cross the Badlands on foot, unconcerned with danger.Cured or dead... Either way she wins.

Division 0 Officer Aaron Pryce understood any day on the job could be the last for him or his wife-but he never imagined he'd be the one to kill her.As it turned out, the world of professional sports frowned on using Telekinesis on the field. So, a "career ending injury" quietly sent him to West City to escape anti-psionic Britain. Joining Division 0 made for a drastic change of lifestyle for a once-famous Frictionless player, but meeting Allison made his exile worth it.Two years into his new life as a cop, he corners a psionic suspect in the middle of a robbery... and she compels Aaron to shoot his partner. Despite his love for his wife, he loses an agonizing battle of wills. His mind-and his world-shatter. When he wakes, the store is gone. Only a field of debris and dead civilians remains.A department telepath attempts to verify his story, but triggers another fatal backlash, killing several officers. Considered a murderer with out-of-control powers, Aaron has no choice but to go rogue.On the run from the law, he has one goal: to find the woman who killed Allison-and end her.

When an angel returns to Earth, millions will die.A being born of darkness bends the Angel to his will, intent on covering West City with a rain of fire. The authorities close in on Archon, forcing him to act in haste. His meticulous plan to seek sanctuary for psionics in deep space frays at the seams, providing the perfect venue for a demon to reshape the world.Seven individuals-The Awakened-fight for their place in a society unprepared for them.One discovers the light within and risks everything she loves to help others.One learns she lives a comfortable lie, but chooses a painful truth.One gives himself to darkness in hopes of saving the only family he has left.One struggles with anger, trying to fit into a civilization that never wanted her.One searches for absolution from the harshest judge of all-himself.One will do anything it takes to protect his people....and One just wants to watch the show.

Everything Risa Black believes is a lie.Her angel is dead, the cause she's killed for is as false as her metal eyes, and the one man she thought she could trust has deceived her for sixteen years. Smothered by deepening layers of conspiracy, she decides to embark upon the most frightening mission of her life: leaving the Martian Liberation Front.After eight years of trying to free Mars with high explosives, and a reputation as a less-than-sane killer who hears the voices of angels in her head, Risa didn't expect to walk away clean. Her former bosses won't let go easy, agents on both sides of the war want her dead, and truth is in short supply. A politically connected enemy threatens to purge the Front of those unwilling to play by their rules. To survive, Risa must become that which she has so long denied being-an assassin.With bombs poised to bury her former life and everyone associated with it deep beneath the surface of Mars, Risa has thirty minutes to make an impossible choice: save the life of her daughter by killing her best friend, or disarm the bombs and let her child die.