Kirjahaku

Take one wizard-that's me-add a hot female vampire, give them a nice place in the country and what do you get?Paradise. Heaven on earth.So, of course, someone decided to go spoil it. No, it wasn't me, not this time.The Hidden world is in chaos, and apparently I'm the one that's supposed to deal with it Smart trolls, even smarter vampires-and not the nice ones like Kate-witches on the rampage, inebriated gremlins, and imps intent on causing nuclear Armageddon, they have all combined to ruin my perfect life. I'm not even going to mention the chicken.Well, I'm Faz Pound... Okay, you know the rest by now If they want trouble I'll give it to them.Honest, I just want to live a quiet life. Although, you know, not too quiet.

I'd been gone for a year, incarcerated in a Hidden prison. The verdict was guilty, punishment death.Invoking the Law, I've got my freedom until my sentence is carried out. Three days then I'm history. Gone, not even a memory. Wiped from the collective consciousness of those that knew, even loved me.Magic drives me on as I try to right so many wrongs committed in the name of justice.The vamps are mad, everyone's acting weird, I've got to clear my name, and nobody seems to believe I don't know what to do. Panic makes me act irrationally as the hours slip away and I become increasingly frantic.If it wasn't for Kate, and the need to help my nearest and dearest, I'd have let the Council put me out of my misery. But I'm alive, and I uncover information that ensures I'll do whatever it takes to remain that way. I just have to avoid getting crushed, bitten, beaten, eaten, or zapped with the dark arts.I should have stayed in prison. At least in there nobody tried to stomp me.

The vampire was squashed as flat as my hair on a bad day, and the troll had his eye on me next. Then I nearly got killed because of a pigeon, and then I forgot the bloody shopping. I knew the rest of the day would suck. It did. I got a call. I had a job. With the city still in chaos after the Rift spat out more Strange than we could cope with, and me seriously reconsidering my role as Justice, I get dragged down deep into the dark underbelly of all things magical. Things go from bad to worse as I chase a way too hot shifter monster across the scarred landscape of ground zero, a mystery reveals itself that threatens our already tenuous future, and everything unravels as violence escalates. It doesn't help that a demon who thinks fo' shizzle is the latest in street talk insists on tagging along, the dark elves are amassing on the other side, and I almost lost Mr. Moppet. Whatever, I'm a five-hundred-year-old witch and I'm gonna clean up this city no matter what. I'm Swift, and I'll show them Justice. Welcome to Strangetown.

A hundred years I've waited for this, my chance for revenge. To confront and kill the person who murdered my parents and caused such unbearable heartache.Tokyo has other ideas. As neon burns my retinas, and bizarre, utterly foreign Hidden try to thwart me at every turn, I lose control. Obsessed, single-minded, and utterly deranged, I sink deeper and deeper into a desperate madness as I chase across the megalopolis seeking vengeance.They torture me, they blast me, they try to eat me, and they threaten my very soul, but they don't know what they're dealing with, and neither do I any longer.Strange powers stir inside my battered body, forces I have little control over, and it isn't long before this fury will explode and rain down bloody hell on all who stand in my way.I'm not called Black Spark for nothing, and my nemesis is going to pay for her crimes even if it costs me my life. I'll show her, I'll show them all.Look out Tokyo, the gaijin's in town.

I'd had it with magic. Me and it were no longer friends. This addict went cold turkey. Five years I'd been clean for, not even a taste of the good stuff. No longer a space cadet. Life was quiet, life was good. Life was as boring as a conference on boring hosted by Professor Boring McBoring from Boringsville University. So, I have to admit, that when I got drawn back into the Hidden world I wasn't as reluctant as I made out. What I wasn't expecting was having to deal with a dragon holding the dwarves' gold hostage, accidentally unleashing a maniac on the city, and fighting for my life as everything goes into free fall. Oh, plus I've got myself lumbered with a rather keen wizard-in-training. Now I'm almost out of time, certainly out of luck, but I have responsibilities and I will fight until the bitter end. Problem being, the end is looking decidedly nasty, and a blast from our collective past threatens to leave the entire world a barren wasteland. Hi, I'm Faz Pound, and once again you can call me Black Spark, Dark Magic Enforcer. I'm also considering swearing off the magic again. Maybe.

The zombie venom entered my bloodstream, the Council HQ was ready to blow, and I was tapped out of magic.With the hunger already on me, wyrmlings closing in, and my body shutting down, I was almost defeated. But where there's life, there's hope. I had a family, I had friends, and I had the chance at a future.All I had to do was find a cure before I became one of the undead, destroy the maniacs after me and my boss, and life would be peachy, right?Wrong.The need to feed becomes irresistible, family get dragged into my mess, and then a new set of problems present themselves that test me to my limits, and beyond.I gotta admit, I'm this close to just jacking it all in and letting this infection win.At least then there will be peace. No pain. No hurt. No disappointment.Hi, I'm Faz Pound, and I'm having a bad life.

Guess what? I got married One dark magic enforcer and his hot vampire wife are swapping the madness of this Hidden life for a week's honeymoon in Paris.Here's the plan: Lots of sexy times, some fine dining, and a little sightseeing. No beasties, no wizards, no witches, no zombies, no work. Just us.What could possibly go wrong?

Okay, so an elf blasted his way into my kitchen and it resulted in me killing a man in the nastiest of ways, but that's an occupational hazard. Good news? I had a job, and it was a doozy.It was time to go steal a magical belt, the infamous R th N g. That wasn't the best part, though.Yeah, that's right, I got to wear my ninja slippers .But nothing was as it seemed, and elves were not to be trusted. Plus, there was the small issue of the million dollars. Oh, and the Hounds, and Vicky, who was doing my head in, and the vampires, and... You'll just have to read the damn book to find out the rest.Hi, I'm Arthur "The Hat" Salzman. Gangster. Wizard. Screwed (again).

I'd killed four men in the morning, and by the afternoon things had become seriously out of hand. But the portal was moved and I could rest easy. Or so I thought.Time for a family dinner and a nice smoke. Alas, it was not to be. Enter one very powerful vampire, gangster supremo, and unhappy camper.He had a job for me, but I told him I didn't do missing persons. I stole things for a living, not detective work. Ivan wouldn't take no for an answer though, and that's when the real trouble started.Still saddled with a neurotic soccer mom who seemed immune to the danger, and with issues way beyond my ability to deal with, we enter the dark, seedy underbelly of the criminal world. What we discover will change our lives forever, and not in a good way.Is there no end to the wickedness of man? Apparently not.Yeah, The Hat's screwed (yet again).

A wizard on a break is like having your dangly bits whacked repeatedly by a maniacal tennis fanatic with a lot of balls (which happens quite a lot). It sucks.Unsurprisingly, entering the magical fray once more came with the usual problems, and they kept on multiplying.Faces from the past began to surface. Some welcome, some not so much. It was like they were all trying to tell me something, and that something wouldn't be nice.Cerberus upped their game, people were dying all around me, and I had this horrible feeling this was all heading towards a dreadful conclusion.I should have seen it coming, but where would the fun be in that?Hi, I'm Arthur "The Hat" Salzman. Gangster. Wizard. Fighting the good fight until the end.

A wizards worst nightmare had come to pass-my computer beeped at me. The night degenerated as we discovered all our hard-earned, some would say ill-gotten, gains had been hijacked. Then it turned hellish as witches entered the scene.Soon I'm trying to ignore the smell of patchouli and stop myself getting involved in business I have no right, or desire, to become involved in. But what's a poor wizard to do when a sexy witch in too little leather and too much jewelry asks nicely? Yeah, I said no, fat lot of good it did me.Now I'm stuck in the middle of warring factions, and if I don't pull a rabbit from the magic hat soon, friends, family, and even enemies will die.Little did I realize, my misplaced loyalty and heroics would get me killed. It's an occupational hazard, but even wizards run out of luck eventually.Oh, and there's the small matter of the Kinky Bones, but that comes later.Hi, I'm Arthur 'The Hat' Salzman. A bit overwhelmed, to be honest.

All I wanted was to raise something demonic from the Nolands to test my wizardly mettle, but I got a lot more than I bargained for. Not from the beastie, that was kind of a dud, but from my unwanted guest.Vamps from the east are in town, and they have strange peccadilloes. They aren't here to sample the local delicacies though, they have an altogether more sinister purpose.Before my visitor had chance to get nasty, we were kidnapped, and torture of the very painful kind was on the menu. Served him right, me not so much.But us magical misfits stick together, and soon there's a war raging that will tear our world apart. Vampires are pitted against vampires, wizards and witches unite against a common enemy-mainly because there are goodies in it for them-and I try to stop getting all my important bits chopped off in nasty ways.Just another day in the life of a poor wizard.Hi, I'm Arthur "The Hat" Salzman. Gangster. Wizard. A bit hurty.

Never make a deal with a faery, especially a deal you're made to forget. Apparently I did, and I know for sure I regret it.Just because I got a little bit killed (again), seems that meant I had to step into the big guy's shoes for a while. No, not that big guy, but the Grim Reaper himself.But I didn't wanna, and nobody was gonna make me, so things got, shall we say, a little awkward.Hi, I'm Arthur, "The Hat" Salzman. Gangster. Wizard. Death. Although I'm working on it.

Vicky, my annoying sidekick, had gone slightly deranged, my daughter was off with the faeries, literally, and I was frazzled as my insomnia worsened.But who could turn down a job when the payout was so great? Not this wizard.The job was easy, some might say too easy, and that made me nervous. For good reason. Something was out there, and it really wanted what I'd taken.The Hat lives by a Code though, and once he does a job he always delivers. As secret organizations do their best to thwart me, vampires use me as their plaything, and I stress about my life and my future, or lack of, I wonder whether I should call it a day and just go do some gardening.Who am I kidding? I love this stuff, and I will not back down, even if God himself gets involved. Which he very well might.

Without honor, a wizard's nothing but a scruffy man with a stick in his pocket. But honor comes at a price, and I sure as hell paid it.What started as a favor for a vampire-the kind of favor you can't refuse-quickly turned into something epic and life-changing. A team was organized, and we set about performing the largest heist in magical history. Unsurprisingly, things didn't go swimmingly.Even as plans unraveled, and the death count rose, I was unprepared for the depths of treachery and the repercussions for what I'd done.If that wasn't enough, Death was acting weird, I was having a very bad hair day, and my sex life, or usual lack of, got very complicated, very quickly.Still, my honor remained intact, just not a lot else.Hi, I'm Arthur "The Hat" Salzman. Gangster. Wizard. Not amused.