There are monsters among us. There always have been and there always will be. I’ve known that since I can remember, just like I’ve always known I was one ... Well, half of one, anyway. Welcome to New York City - a troll under the Brooklyn Bridge, a boggle in Central Park, and a beautiful vampire in a penthouse on the Upper East Side. Most humans are oblivious to the preternatural nightlife around them, but Cal Leandros is only half human. His father’s dark lineage is the stuff of nightmares – and his entire otherworldly elf race are after Cal. His half brother, Niko, gave up college to keep them on the run for four years, but now the Grendel monsters are back. And Cal is about to learn why they want him. He is the key to unleashing their hell on earth. The fate of the human world will be decided in the fight of Cal’s life...

I was born a monster. Although truthfully, I was only half monster. My mother was human; my father was something...else. Half monster or whole, in the end it didn't matter. I had my weaknesses, same as anyone else. And I was facing one of them now... After saving the world from his fiendish father's side of the family, Cal Leandros and his stalwart half-brother Niko have settled down with new digs and a new gig—bodyguard and detective work. And in New York City, where preternatural beings stalk the streets just like normal folk, business is good. Their latest case has them going undercover for the Kin—the werewolf Mafia. A low-level Kin boss thinks a rival is setting him up for a fall, and wants proof. The place to start is the back room of Moonshine—a gambling club for non-humans. Cal thinks it's a simple in-and-out job. But Cal is very, very wrong. Cal and Niko are being set up themselves—and the people behind it have a bite much worse than their barks...

Half-human Cal Leandros and his brother, Niko, aren't exactly prospering with their preternatural detective agency. Who could have guessed that business could dry up in New York City, where vampires, trolls, and other creepy crawlies are all over the place? But now there's a new arrival in the Big Apple. A malevolent evil with ancient powers is picking off humans like sheep, dead-set on making history with an orgy of blood and murder. And for Cal and Niko, this is one paycheck they're going to have to earn.

In a nightmarish New York City, life is there for the taking... Half-human Cal Leandros and his brother, Niko, are barely getting by with their preternatural detective agency when the vampire Seamus hires them. He's being followed, and he wants to know by whom. But the Leandros brothers have to do more than they had planned when Seamus turns up dead (or un-undead). Worse still is the return of Cal's nightmarish family, the Auphe. The last time Cal and Niko faced them, the Auphe were almost wiped out. Now they want revenge. Cal knows that before the Auphe get to him, they will try to destroy everything and everyone he holds dear. Because for the Auphe, Cal's pain is a pleasure. And they're feeling good.

It's time to lock, load, and hit the road... Once, while half-human Cal Leandros and his brother Niko were working on a case, an ancient gypsy queen gave them a good old-fashioned backstabbing. Now, just as their P.I. business hits a slow patch, the old crone shows up with a job. She wants them to find a stolen coffin that contains a blight that makes the Black Death seem like a fond memory. But the thief has already left town, so the Leandros brothers are going on the road. And if they're very, very lucky, there might even be a return trip...

When half-human Cal Leandros wakes up on a beach littered with the slaughtered remains if a variety of hideous creatures, he's not that concerned. In fact, he can't remember anything-including who he is. And that's just the way his deadly enemies like it...

Half-human/half-monster Cal Leandros knows that family is a pain. But now that pain belongs to his half-brother, Niko. Niko's shady father is in town, and he needs a big favor. Even worse is the reunion being held by the devious Puck race—including the Leandros' friend, Robin—featuring a lottery that no Puck wants to win. As Cal tries to keep both Niko and Robin from paying the ultimate price for their kin, a horrific reminder from Cal's own past arrives to remind him that blood is thicker than water—and that's why it's so much more fun to spill.

The story can be found on the author's website and was also published in the anthologies [Wolfsbane and Mistletoe](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2871250.WolfsbaneandMistletoe "Wolfsbane and Mistletoe") and [Silver and Salt](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22033066.SilverandSalt "Silver and Salt"). This story is set in the Cal Leandros universe. Although it does not feature any Cal Leandros characters, the main character of the story is mentioned by Goodfellow in Doubletake – mentioned for the very naughty thing that he did (as Christmas is the best time for naughty things. Who wants to be nice?)

I stopped and let them circle me, first because it was intriguing and, second, because, honestly, what could they do? Only knives, but all armed, and that made them even more interesting. Interesting. Fun. Playtime… Taking on bloodthirsty supernatural monsters is how Caliban and Niko Leandros make a living. But years ago—before they became a force to be reckoned with—the brothers were almost victims of a very human serial killer. Almost. Unfortunately for them, that particular depraved killer was working as apprentice to a creature far more malevolent—the legendary Spring-heeled Jack. He’s just hit town. He hasn’t forgotten what the Leandros brothers did to his murderous protégé. He hasn’t forgotten what they owe him. And now they are going to pay… and pay… and pay.…

I let it go—all of it. Everything I’d been saving up all my life, building and growing inside me, too much to hold in one half-human body. It pushed and fought to be free with a force that turned me into a bomb with a timer vibrating on zero. I was free. But so was everything I’d fought so hard not to be… Brothers Cal and Niko Leandros know trouble when they see it—and then proceed to wipe the floor with it. But now it seems their whole world is falling to pieces. Cal’s nightmarish monster side is growing ever stronger, changing Cal physically as well as mentally. Which is exactly what Grimm—Cal’s savage doppelgänger—wants. And when a covert supernatural organization decides that it’s time to put Cal down before he threatens pretty much everything else in existence, the brothers find themselves in a fight they actually might lose. But the dark temptations Cal has denied all his life may prove to be exactly what can save them. Even if he must fall forever…

Let’s face it—the holidays can bring out the beast in anyone. They are particularly hard if you’re a lycanthrope. Charlaine Harris and Toni L. P. Kelner have harvested the scariest, funniest, saddest werewolf tales, by an outstanding pack of authors, best heard by the light of a full moon and with a silver bullet close at hand. Whether wolfing down a holiday feast (use your imagination) or craving some hair of the dog on New Year’s morning, the werewolves in these fifteen frighteningly original stories will surprise, delight, amuse, and scare the pants off listeners who love a little wolfsbane with their mistletoe. “Fresh, interesting tales...\[that\] star some of the more famous series characters like Sookie Stackhouse.” —Alternative Worlds “A captivating collection...offers up the Christmas spirit in a wonderfully wicked way.” —Darque Reviews

People die. Everyone knows that. I knew it intimately as everyone in my life died thanks to my one seemingly harmless mistake. I'd brought down Heaven, lifted up Hell, and set the world on fire, all due to one slip of the memory. I forgot the pizzas... Caliban is a dead man. The Vigil, a group devoted to concealing the paranormal from humanity, has decided Cal has stepped out of the shadows once too often, and death is the only sentence. They plan to send a supernatural assassin into the past to take down the younger, less lethal Cal. But things change when The Vigil makes one last attempt on Caliban's life in the present—and end up destroying everyone and everything he cares about. Now, Cal has to save himself, warn those closest to him, and kill every Vigil bastard who stole his world. But if he fails, he and everyone in his life will be history…

In this dark and gritty collection—featuring short stories from Jim Butcher, Seanan McGuire, Kevin J. Anderson, and Rob Thurman—nothing is as simple as black and white, light and dark, good and evil.. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what makes it so easy to cross the line. In #1 New York Times bestselling author Jim Butcher’s Cold Case, Molly Carpenter—Harry Dresden’s apprentice-turned-Winter Lady—must collect a tribute from a remote Fae colony and discovers that even if you’re a good girl, sometimes you have to be bad... New York Times bestselling author Seanan McGuire’s Sleepover finds half-succubus Elsie Harrington kidnapped by a group of desperate teenage boys. Not for anything “weird.” They just need her to rescue a little girl from the boogeyman. No biggie. In New York Times bestselling Kevin J. Anderson’s Eye of Newt, Zombie P.I. Dan Shamble’s latest client is a panicky lizard missing an eye who thinks someone wants him dead. But the truth is that someone only wants him for a very special dinner... And New York Times bestselling author Rob Thurman’s infernally heroic Caliban Leandros takes a trip down memory lane as he deals wih some overdue—and nightmarish—vengeance involving some quite nasty Impossible Monsters . ALSO INCLUDES STORIES BY Tanya Huff \ Kat Richardson \ Jim C. Hines \ Anton Strout \ Lucy A. Snyder \ Kristine Kathryn Rusch \ Erik Scott de Bie \* From the Trade Paperback edition.