Cirrus@Austlit

'The City is rife with cults, covens and cabals. Broken-glass curses and occult rites in the back of bars. Magical symbols written in whisky and cigarette smoke. Ritual muggings and street-rat divination.

'Two cults have gone to war and unleashed something that doesn't belong here. Something old and wicked. Something that has found itself an apostle; a girl who spreads black magic across the city with graffiti she barely understands, unwittingly placing a curse on the entire town.

'Enter Lark.He used to police these kinds of wars for the Library, the biggest coven in town. But that was long ago, before he fell from favour.

'Now he works the fringes, selling his services for pocket-change and knowledge.

So when the new head of the Library, his ex-girlfriend Scarlet, approaches him to investigate these new conflicts, all he sees is a payday and an opportunity to prove himself to her again.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Bad times for Lark.

'Once, he used to work for the Library, the heaviest racket in a city filled with cults, magic and monstrosity.

'But a job went wrong. About as wrong as it gets and now he's alone and hunted by the freaks and sorcerers he used to police. And his old allies have turned their backs. The only one still talking to him is Bettina, the undead muscle girl who kicks heads for him and she's in her grave.

'Then a gig falls into Lark's lap. Some famous actress is getting stalked. By the Devil, she says. Easy money. 'There's no such thing as the devil'. That's what Lark thinks.

'He's wrong.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Lark messed with the Devil and paid the price.

'Exiled from The City, he’s wandering the land looking for safe haven. Without allies, friends, his old places of power, that seems real unlikely.

'So when he notices someone using his own personal sorcerous symbols, he can’t leave it be.

'Is someone looking for him? Or luring him into a trap? Or just stealing his best moves? Any which way, it’s nothing he can leave be.

'Now he’s in a small town, somewhere he’s never been before. But Crosscut is dying. Everyone is sick, nothing is well. Even the ghosts are feverish.

'And Lark is right where someone wants him. He’s made enemies his entire life, but the one who hates him most of all, he never even met.

'Lonely, desperate, Lark will have to face off with a magician who knows him well. A magician who hates him like poison. And something else, hidden down in the black earth, waiting.

'Lark’s never been this vulnerable. Which means he’s never been this desperate.

'Alone in a Ghost City.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Lark’s back in the City

'Back working as sheriff for the Library.

'The Library is destroyed.

'The worst has come to pass. The monstrous sorcereress Bernadette has revealed her final plan. Apophis, the god of chaos. destroyer of the sun, is coming. Lark’s oldest friend is dead and his allies in ruin. These are truly the end days.

'They say the cornered rat is at its most dangerous. Bettina, his muscle, now favoured by the lion deity, grows stronger and wilder every day. Scarlet has taken command of the few raged magicians and sorcerers as she can, but can Lark trust her?

'And out there somewhere, driven to madness, Jon the Hollow, in service to darkest forces, more lethal than ever. And out for Lark’s blood.

'But there’s a secret place, a City beneath the City, that holds the final answer Lark needs to defeat the ghosts of his past and the horror that’s coming.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.