Mindy

I thought I understood power. My parents taught me that magic attracts equal danger, and everything I've seen since becoming a demon contractor confirms it. I've witnessed how power twists and corrupts - and I've tasted power no human should wield. I thought I knew greed. Ambition and avarice drove my family into hiding. My parents died for someone else's greed. I've never hunted anything in my life, but now I'm hunting their killer - with my demon's help. I thought I'd seen evil. But with each step closer to my parents' murderer, I'm uncovering a different sort of evil.

I promised to avenge my parents. But their killer is still on the loose, and he's stolen more than my parents' lives. Now, as he draws closer to his mysterious goals, he's poised to destroy what little I have left. I promised to translate an ancient grimoire. But it holds the secrets of my family - and the secret history of demon summoning. I fear its answers as much as I need them. Who was the foremother of Demonica...and who am I?

I'm bound to a demon. For my entire life, I avoided magic at all costs. Now, I'm responsible for a demon who wields magic more powerful than the toughest mage or sorcerer. Demons are evil. That's what my textbooks say. That's what I see. He's ruthless, he's temperamental, he's cold. But he protects me without fail. I wonder if he's hiding a heart behind his hostility. My demon is a monster.

When I arrived at my uncle's house, I expected my relatives to be like me - outcast sorcerers who don't practice magic. I was right about the sorcery, but wrong about everything else. Rule two: Don't listen to the demon. My uncle chose a far deadlier power. He calls creatures of darkness into our world, binds them into service contracts, and sells them to the highest bidder. And I'm supposed to act like I don't know how illegal and dangerous it is. Rule three: Don't talk to the demon. All I had to do was keep my nose out of it.

In 1985, Edward Shank famously gunned down the Beacon Hill Butcher, ending the serial killer’s reign of terror over the city of Seattle. But now in his eighties, Edward’s action-packed glory days are long behind him. The decorated former Seattle police chief has given up his high-maintenance Victorian home to his grandson Matt for a quiet life at the nearby Sweetbay Village Retirement Residence, where mac-n-cheese Wednesdays have become the highlight of his week.

Dr. Sheila Tao is a professor of psychology, an expert in human behavior with her own hidden past. But she's not the only one keeping secrets. When Sheila began an affair with her sexy graduate assistant Ethan Wolfe, she knew she was playing with fire. Consumed by lust when they were together, she was riddled with guilt when they were apart. Now she's finally engaged to a good man, and it's time to end the dangerous liaison. But Ethan has something different in mind. He intends to make her pay for rejecting him.

It was supposed to be fun. A relaxing trip to a remote mountain retreat where there’s no phone reception. Three couples, friends since high school, are looking forward to a weekend of drinking, reminiscing and flirting. When someone suggests swapping partners, it doesn’t seem like such a bad idea. The lights will be switched off, for privacy. It’s not really cheating if you don’t know who you were with, right? But when the lights come back on, one of the men is dead. No-one can agree who was in which bedroom with whom.

Photographer Isla Wilson is thrilled she's landed her dream job, but the clients who hired her are getting stranger by the day. It sounded so perfect—a month's assignment at the lush Scottish Highlands property of architect Alban McGregor, and his wife, Jessica. But in the woods, there's a playhouse with a chilling history. Two years ago, the McGregors' daughter Elodie was abducted and then died in that playhouse. The townspeople insist her abductor had to be a stranger in their town. Alban refuses to knock the playhouse down, even keeping a picture of it on his wall.

Orphaned as a young child, Mirin O'Malley has been brought up by her grandparents on their isolated, rambling estate Hob's Hallow. Long ago her family prospered due to a deal struck with the mer, the terrifying creatures who live in the depths of the sea: safety for their merchant ships in return for a child of each generation. But for many years the family have been unable to keep their side of the bargain and their fortunes have suffered as a result. When Mirin's grandfather dies, her grandmother puts in train a plan to restore their glory - but at the price of Mirin's freedom.

Eva Kavinsky wakes in a dark cellar, with no memory of how she got here. Imprisoned with her, seemingly at random, are four men. The only way out is the trapdoor in the ceiling – and it's locked. The single clue about what brings them all here is a cryptic message sprayed onto one wall. Connect the dots. Repent. A camera fixed high above reach is livestreaming this whole nightmare to the world. What confessions are they meant to make to their unseen audience?