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There are monsters among us. There always has 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 the Big Apple. There’s a troll under the Brooklyn Bridge, a boggle in Central Park, and a beautiful vampire in a penthouse on the Upper East Side—and that’s only the beginning. Of course, 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 he and his entire otherworldly race are after Cal. Why? Cal hasn’t exactly wanted to stick around long enough to find out.

He and his half brother, Niko, have managed to stay a step ahead for four years, but now Cal’s dad has found them again. And Cal is about to learn why they want him, why they’ve always wanted 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 onlyhalf a 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 a new apartment 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 bites much worse than their barks…

My brother had spent a lifetime-mine, at least-telling me that I was normal, that I wasn’t a monster. With his help, I’d finally realized that as long as I could remain who I was, I could survive what I was. It was only bad genes....

Half-human Cal Leandros and his brother, Niko, aren’t exactly prospering with their preternatural detective agency. Who could have guessed that business would 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, dead set on making history with an orgy of blood and murder, is picking off humans like sheep. And for Cal and Niko, this is one paycheck they’re going to have to earn... if they live long enough to collect it.

How I felt the mental stirrings of a bloodthirsty heritage when I passed through the gray light wasn't my favorite topic.... The Auphe nature wasn't mine. I wouldn't let it be. And if I said that to myself over and over and sprinkled around enough frigging fairy dust, maybe it would be true.

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 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.

Niko could have died because of her. I don’t forget things like that... not ever.

I wanted a little payback for those she’d cheated in the past. For those she’d cheat in the future. For what she’d allowed to happen to my brother.

For good old fashion revenge.

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. They barely made it out alive. Now, as their P.I. business teeters on insolvency, guess who shows up with a job?

The gypsy crone wants them to find a stolen coffin. Cal would rather help her into one, but this coffin contains an evil known as the Plague of the World–and it 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 eighth book in the Cal Leandros series that began with Nightlife, Slashback is clever, ironic and hugely entertaining urban fantasy in the vein of Jim Butcher by the New York Times bestselling author, Rob Thurman.

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.

Play-time...

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...

People die.

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...