Showing results by narrator "David A. Smith" in All Categories

Three years ago, an archaeological expedition led by Vatican scholar Juan Vargas discovered something unusual on the shores of the Dead Sea. Early the next morning, Father Vargas, and the artifact he uncovered, disappeared without a trace. Until now. An injured and badly dehydrated Father Vargas wanders out of the New Mexican desert, telling a wild story about a secret research installation and bloodthirsty demons hunting men through its halls.

There are some things in this world that can't be stopped. Like progress, a moving train, and the American Dream. When the bigwigs in Washington decide to build a transcontinental railroad to the West Coast, they need a man who's just as unstoppable to clear a path through Mexican territory. That man is Jamie MacCallister. Jamie knows it's a tough job. The territory is overrun with Apaches. The Apaches are gunning for a fight. And the first patrol sent in by the president has already been ambushed, kidnapped, and most likely killed.

On the blood-stained battlefields of a divided nation, Dr. Samuel Knight used his surgical skills to treat wounded Confederate soldiers. In the brutal prison camps of the Union Army, he offered his healing services to fellow captives who’d given up hope. But now, with the war over and the South in ruins, the good doctor faces his hardest challenge yet: to save himself.

In the title story of Walk Between the Raindrops, a woman sits down next to a man at a bar and claims she has ESP. In “Thirteen Days,” passengers on a cruise line are quarantined, to horrifying and hilarious effect. And “Hyena” begins simply: “That was the day the hyena came for him, and never mind that there were no hyenas in the South of France, and especially not in Pont-Saint-Esprit—it was there and it came for him.”

When sworn protectors of Earth, the Justice Platoon, are all horribly killed, their former arch-enemies come crawling out of the woodwork. Outnumbered, outgunned, and out of options, the US Government has no choice but to activate the Sidekicks Initiative, dragging the Platoon's middle-aged ex-sidekicks out of retirement. Now these three reluctant, out of shape former child-wonders must work together to stop the rising tide of supervillainy, avenge their former mentors' deaths, and bring the world back from the brink of destruction.

"Stay the hell out of Fort Worth." Those were the last words uttered by a dying man who was the boomtown's most recent sheriff. Rail-thin and half starved, desperate cowpuncher Jess Casey ignores the travel advice. Instead, Jess not only enters Fort Worth, he becomes the new sheriff, inheriting the body-riddled little slice of heaven called Hell's Half Acre, the wide-open, deadliest piece of real estate on the American frontier.

Nathan Stone was a living legend in the West as a lawman, as an outlaw, as a gambler, as a wanderer through the wildest towns and terrain. He blazed a vengeance trail, giving no quarter and asking for none. Fearlessly, he played his cards and used his Colt .45s as best he could in games of chance, skill, and savagery, for stakes of life or death.

Enticed by the richest poker tournament the West has ever seen, a horde of cheating and ruthless of card players is gathering at Tombstone, Arizona. Lawman John Slaughter already has his hands full when a local Romeo takes off with a rancher’s daughter and draws the ire of her father and a blood-thirsty posse. Back in town, a murder shatters the poker tournament, where a beautiful Englishwoman is the prime suspect.

Gavin Guile is dying. He’d thought he had five years left - now he has less than one. With 50,000 refugees, a bastard son, and an ex-fiancée who may have learned his darkest secret, Gavin has problems on every side. All magic in the world is running wild and threatens to destroy the Seven Satrapies. Worst of all, the old gods are being reborn, and their army of color wights is unstoppable. The only salvation may be the brother whose freedom and life Gavin stole 16 years ago.

Vampires don't exist, do they? That is a question Private Detective Tony Mandolin finds himself pondering as the evidence piles up in a case involving a string of dead redheads and the usual dose of weirdness San Francisco has to offer. To complicate things, Mandolin has to deal with the perception that he has become the latest golden boy of the fog city's crime boss. Then there's his cross-dressing friend Frankie...just another day in San Francisco.

For Lawson, the horrors that stalked the Civil War battlefield at Shiloh were more than just those of war. After being forcibly given the gift of undeath by the mysterious vampire Queen LaRouge, Lawson chose to cling to what remained of his humanity and fought his way free of the Dark Society's clutches. In the decades since, he has roamed late 19th-century America, doing what good he can as he travels by night, combating evils mundane and supernatural, and always seeking the key to regaining a mortal life.

The alliance of humans and renegade Fhrey is fragile — and about to be tested as never before. Persephone keeps the human clans from turning on one another through her iron will and a compassionate heart. The arrogant Fhrey are barely held in check by their leader, Nyphron, who seeks to advance his own nefarious agenda through a loveless marriage that will result in the betrayal of the person Persephone loves most: Raithe, the God Killer.

In the 1870s, as the country recovered from the War Between the States, the expansion of railroads and the discovery of gold opened the American west to both civilization and savagery. Men and women on both sides of the law were drawn by the chance to make a fortune, and there was often a big difference between Law and Justice.

What’s Alistair’s next move? He's desperate to see Luna again. It might be the only thing keeping Alistair from giving up, because their situation looks grim. As he sits in the Captain’s seat, looking out at the vastness of space, he knows what is on its way. The Commonwealth comes to take back what is theirs…and to wipe out the rebels for good. How many will they bring? Alistiar was wracking his brain on how to get out of this dangerous spot, and then he got the word. The Primuses had escaped. And they took Thoreaux with them.

Will Carson is the best scout at Fort Dodge. Then he saves the life of Sarah Lawton, a lovely widow with her young daughter, both helpless under Indian fire. And by doing so, he made mortal enemies with the Cheyenne - who are now out for his blood....

Carving out a living in the Deathlands is no easy feat. To most, the only thing that matters is one more day spent above ground. To the man known as Trader, the only thing that matters is the bottom line. In a mutie-filled, irradiated wasteland, Trader and crew set out to find the scavvie Marsh Folsom. Stories going around say that Folsom has knowledge of an underground cache with a legendary bounty.

Death Magic opens with Special Agent Lily Yu in Washington, DC, with her fiancé - lupi Prince Rule Turner - to testify before a Senate subcommittee about her role in the magical collapse of a mountain last month. She is not there to tell them about the strange legacy she carries from that event - or about the arcane bond between her and Rule - or what her boss in Unit Twelve of the FBI’s Magical Crimes Division is really up to. She sure won’t tell them that the lupi are at war with an Old One who wants to remake humanity in her own image.

Two outlaw brothers have been leaving a blood-trail on their way to infamy on the western frontier. Until bounty hunter Luke Jensen catches one of the black-hearted Kroll brothers away from his gang. But while Luke is trying to get Mordecai Kroll from jail to justice, he's ambushed by the Kroll gang and taken prisoner. And that draws Luke's own brother Smoke Jensen into the fight, guns drawn....

Mick Oberon may look like just another 1930s private detective, but beneath the fedora and the overcoat, he's got pointy ears and he's packing a wand. A series of brutal murders is sweeping Chicago, baffling both the local police and the Seelie Court, who sense that an aura of corruption and death has touched Mick himself. When Mick's associates become targets, and a vampire appears in his office, Mick is drawn into his most dangerous hunt yet. A hunt that will lead him to seek answers about his mysterious past and what it could mean for those in his present.

When children go missing, and the Humans have no leads, I’m the one they call. I am their last hope in bringing home the lost ones. I salvage what they cannot. Underestimating demons is a bad idea, and it’s a mistake that may cost me not only my own life but the life of a missing child. If I can swallow my pride, and allow Agent O’Shea to help me find a way to deal with the demon, we might be able to save the child.