Chronicles of Zoey Grimm

My brother is taking over the family business . . . It was something I'd trained for my entire life. I was more suited for it than he was in almost every way. Except for the most important one . . . the ability he'd inherited from our father. Why wasn't I born with the same powers? I'm leaving the underworld. I don't belong there anymore. Of course, I only have one marketable skill: Kicking ass and taking names. How can I use that to start a new life for myself on Earth? Unfortunately, vigilantism doesn't pay the bills.

What happens to a vampire's soul when it dies? Hell if I know! The new vampire queen intends to lead her kind from the shadows, to dominate humanity. I'll be damned before I let that happen! I've taken down so many vampires already. You'd think we'd be making progress. Why, then, are the vampires getting stronger? I'm afraid this whole situation is about to bite me in the butt. Perhaps, even, literally.

You want to pay me to reap supernaturals? I mean, seriously? Don't get me wrong, the money is great. I love my work. But there's a funny thing about being the world's only supernatural reaper . . . You make a lot of powerful enemies. Pissing off all the world's vampires would be frightening enough. Add to that werewolves, witches, banshees, and trolls . . . How the hell am I ever going to get a good night's sleep?

The Grim Reaper has been benched. There hasn't been a soul to reap in months. What did my brother do that has the gods in such a tizzy? It isn't like people stopped dying. If the reapers aren't ushering the souls of the deceased into the afterlife, someone else . . . or something else . . . will do the job. Mercenary monsters of ancient lore have emerged to fill the void. Banshees. Hellhounds. Soul-rippers. All under the command of some other god . . . Whoever he is, he's no friend to the Olympians. These deadly beasts can't be controlled. The more souls they harvest, the more powerful their god becomes. Can I stop them before they ravage humanity? Before these monsters and their death-god take over the underworld forever?

The gods might be crazy . . . Some of them are pissed! I couldn't blame them. How was I supposed to know that all the supernatural nasties I'd reaped were going to overrun Olympus? Most of these gods hadn't been on earth for thousands of years. Some of them are enjoying themselves . . . a bit too much . . . Others are looking for revenge. They're coming for me. It's one thing to wonder whether I can possibly survive the wrath of the gods. Now that they're targeting innocent people to draw me out, I have to ask . . . Is it possible to reap a god?

Can you choose your own god? There's a power vacuum on Olympus. That's the thing about a civil war. Everyone's weaker in the end than when the war began. If the gods don't stop attacking each other, none of them will have the strength to rule. Anarchy can be worse than tyranny. You can assassinate a tyrant. You can't eliminate everyone under anarchy. Why does everyone seem to think I'm the answer to the problem? Sure, I can reap gods. I'm the only mortal the Olympians fear. All the gods have their flaws. Some of them worse than others. I have to choose between the lesser of multiple nincompoops. How can I possibly decide which poor excuse for a god to support? If I make the wrong choice, departed human souls will pay the price.

The legends didn't do Dracula justice. Bat shifting is one thing. The ability to connect his mind to any he'd sired was an ability severely understated in the stories. His horde is like a bloodsucking Borg collective. Add to that his abilities to travel the astral plane and hypnotize his victims with a glance and his butt-load of money . . . There's a creek, and a paddle, and I've lost my paddle. I've defeated a god or two in my day. I've never faced an enemy like this. It may be my biggest challenge yet, but we have one advantage. All of Dracula's victims show up on the Grim Reaper's schedule. Can we harvest the souls he's gathering before he gets to them to turn them? The more vampires he turns, the stronger he gets. If I don't take him down soon, his vampires will overrun the city. After that, the continent. Maybe even the world.