Showing results by author "Craig Schaefer" in All Categories

Nobody knows the seedy underbelly of Las Vegas like Daniel Faust, a sorcerer for hire and ex-gangster who uses black magic and bullets to solve his clients' problems. When an old man comes seeking vengeance for his murdered granddaughter, what looks like a simple job quickly spirals out of control. Soon Daniel stands in the crossfire between a murderous porn director; a corrupt cop with a quick trigger finger; and his own former employer, a racket boss who isn't entirely human.

When NYPD detective Marie Reinhart met Nessa Roth, a Manhattan socialite and dabbler in the occult, sparks flew. Then came the gunfire. Nessa and Marie are the Witch and her Knight, characters from a fairy tale brought to life and trapped in an endless curse: to meet, fall in love, and be torn from each other’s arms by violent death, again and again for all eternity. Now they have one slim chance to escape their doom. It lies in Wisdom's Grave, the resting-place of the first witch who ever lived, and the wellspring of magic.

Harmony Black is much more than your average FBI special agent. In addition to being a practicing witch, she's also an operative for Vigilant Lock, an off-the-books program created to battle occult threats - by any means necessary. Despite her dedication to fighting the monsters threatening society, Harmony has become deeply conflicted about her job. Her last investigation resulted in a pile of dead bodies, and she suspects the wrong people are being punished for it.

Faust has been caged, buried, cut off from his allies and his magic. His enemies think they've won. They're about to learn, the hard way, that this is one sorcerer who always has a trick up his sleeve. Nobody has ever escaped from the Iceberg. But the Iceberg has never had a prisoner like Daniel Faust.

As the FBI closes in on the Las Vegas underworld, Daniel Faust - grifter, thief, and sorcerer - isn't the only one feeling the heat. Half-demon racket boss Nicky Agnelli is fighting to hang on to his empire, leaving a trail of dead informants in his wake, while Daniel's ex-girlfriend, Jennifer, rallies her forces on the street and aims her sights at Nicky's crown. May the best villain win.

When Sergeant Charlie McCabe returns from fighting in Afghanistan, she hopes to leave the war behind. Instead, she comes home to a father whose gambling has put him in deep trouble with a violent loan shark. She finds work as a professional bodyguard, but to save her father, she needs to get serious cash together fast. However, her father isn’t the only one who needs saving. When Charlie’s first client - a wealthy executive with a shady past - narrowly escapes a bomb plot, Charlie’s investigation leads her into the heart of Boston’s criminal underworld.

Daniel Faust, Las Vegas sorcerer and career criminal, has never pulled the trigger on an innocent man. When the infernal Prince Sitri challenges him to do just that, though, he can't walk away. His lover, Caitlin, is Sitri's right hand... and if Daniel refuses the job, he'll never see her again. While Daniel works to unravel Sitri's twisted game, putting his principles and his life on the line, Caitlin has problems of her own.

FBI agent Harmony Black and her team, Vigilant Lock, face a new type of threat: one from beyond the stars. They'd always heard the Red Knight was an urban legend: in 1954, three years before Sputnik launched, a mysterious satellite was sighted circling Earth, though no power on the planet had such technology.

The first story ever told left a scar on the skin of the universe, with its characters doomed to an endless cycle of reincarnation and death. Trapped by his enemies, Daniel Faust - magician, mobster, and newly-minted knight of hell - has been cast in the role of the eternal Thief. Now, the story is dead-set on writing his final chapter, the one that ends with a knife in his back. The curse can’t be broken without tracking down the original Thief. The truth is buried beneath the legacy of a long-dead stage magician and a cache of occult relics from the 1940s.

It's hard to make a dishonest buck in Sin City, especially when a rogue FBI agent is gunning for your head. Flat broke and one step ahead of the law, Daniel Faust flees Vegas and lands in Chicago, where a risky heist promises to fill his pockets with cash.

It's a bad time for unfinished business to come back and haunt him, forcing Daniel Faust to confront his tortured history and the family he left behind. It's an even worse time for his surviving foes to join forces and take deadly aim at Faust's throne. Toss in a syndicate operative from a parallel world, a deranged, half-demon assassin hungry for a duel, and the shadowy machinations of the King of Worms, and the stage is set for a showdown under the neon lights of Vegas.

Daniel Faust - sorcerer, thief, and newly-minted Las Vegas crime boss - has debts to pay. One of those debts has just come due, an IOU to be paid in the form of a high-risk heist, and it's a job he can't refuse. The mark? Daniel's arch-nemesis, a man with a Cheshire smile and the powers of a living god. The score? A sacrificial dagger buried under layers of electronic, occult, and human security, snug on the far side of a custom-built deathtrap.

Out of prison and back on the streets, Daniel Faust returns home to a city on fire. The Chicago mob is making their play for control of Las Vegas, with an army of gunmen and a lethal shapeshifter on their side, while Daniel's friend Jennifer marshals the forces of the Vegas underworld. Staying on the sidelines isn't an option, especially when a Metro detective orders him to get the war under control - and if he can't, he'll expose Daniel's secrets to the FBI.

When a high roller dies in his Vegas penthouse suite, that's a problem. When his ghost refuses to leave, that's a bigger problem. Daniel Faust is the solution. Called in to clean up the casino's mess, the modern-day sorcerer soon learns that the restless spirit isn't going down without a fight. To set things right, he'll have to delve someplace even seedier, even more treacherous, than the Vegas Strip: the Los Angeles music industry.

Hard-bitten bodyguard Charlie McCabe is lucky to be alive after her recent foray into Boston’s criminal underworld. So she’s taking no chances with this next job: protecting Hayden Cobb, key witness in the trial against a trio of murderous cops known as the East Boston Three. If Cobb drops dead, the Three walk. After an attempt on Cobb’s life, Charlie suspects the Three have somehow put a hit on him from behind bars, and the assassin’s still at large.

Believing her lover has been killed, Nessa - the living archetype of the wicked witch and a fairy tale brought to murderous life - flies across the Mojave Desert on a mission of vengeance. Meanwhile, Marie is stranded on a dystopian, parallel Earth, forced to confront her own dark side as she comes face-to-face with the architect of an insidious plot.

Las Vegas, Nevada. For some, a neon drenched playground. For Harmony Black, a graveyard of bad memories. But when your job is protecting humanity from the horrors of the occult underworld, you go where the mission sends you. The annual TechTopia conference draws Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, big thinkers, startup investors - and the Basilisk, a former German military intelligence officer turned freelance assassin. He’s in town to make a killing, and his target could be any of a thousand potential victims.

Marie Reinhart is an NYPD detective on the trail of a serial killer. When she sleeps, though, she dreams of other lives; she dreams of being a knight, in strange wars and strange worlds. On the other side of the city, Nessa Roth is a college professor trapped in a loveless marriage, an unwilling prop in a political dynasty. She's also a fledgling witch, weaving poppets and tiny spells behind closed doors. When Marie's case draws her into Nessa's path, sparks fly. What comes next is more than a furtive whirlwind affair; it's the first pebbles of an avalanche.

When two operatives go dark in Tampa, chasing the trail of an oligarch with ties to the demonic underworld, Vigilant Lock - the nation’s first and last line of defense against occult attack - sends their best to the rescue: Harmony Black, a troubled investigator and an elemental witch with a keen but tangled mind; and her partner Jessie Temple, the daughter of a supernatural slasher and the inheritor of her father’s powers.

For Harmony Black, practicing witch and government agent, defeating criminal masterminds and eliminating supernatural threats are all in a day's work. She's ready to fight, as long as she can count on her partner, Jessie Temple; her team at off-the-books special FBI unit Vigilant Lock; and her magic. But her latest case threatens it all.