A superstar lineup is included in this urban fantasy collection featuring short stories from New York Times bestselling authors Jim Butcher, Holly Black, Kim Harrison, Faith Hunter, and more …
Intrigued? Read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Paranormal Payback, a collection of short stories edited by Jim Butcher and Kerrie L. Hughes, which is out now!
In this short story collection, our heroes get what’s due to them—with a supernatural flair.
But the injustices that have been holding them back might cost them more than they realized. . . .
In “Mister Petty,” a brand-new Dresden Files story from #1 New York Times bestselling author Jim Butcher, a woman hires Goodman Grey to get back at her cheating husband. She’s about to find out that Grey isn’t your ordinary detective—he’s a professional monster. And he’s going to balance the scales.
From #1 New York Times bestselling author Holly Black, “Dying Isn’t Just for the Young” follows an elderly widow reckoning with family scheming to take away her independence in a world infected by a disease of vampirism.
New York Times bestselling author Faith Hunter’s “Razors and Revenge” finds the vampire bounty hunter Shiloh awaiting her judgement at the hands of the Dark Queen, fresh off a brutal werewolf attack and the loss of a dear friend. But Shiloh’s not just a vampire anymore—and the wolfish instincts growing inside her are howling for blood.
And Kim Harrison takes us to the #1 New York Times bestselling series of the Hollows in her story “Dog-eared.” The demon Algaliarept makes a bargain with the dangerously insane Newt, the last female demon, to punish an arrogant wizard for abusing his precious magical texts—but how ruthless is Al willing to be to get his petty vengeance?
ALSO INCLUDES STORIES BY Jennifer Blackstream * Maurice Broaddus * Delilah S. Dawson * Kevin Hearne * Tanya Huff * Kerrie L. Hughes * R. L. King * R.R. Virdi
EXCERPT
DYING ISN’T JUST FOR THE YOUNG by Holly Black
Excerpted from the diary of Beryl Finch. Published with the permission of Nora Lee Amin, executor of Ms. Finch’s literary estate.
March 3, 2004
I sat by Nigel’s bedside at Mount Sinai Hospital all today, his papery hand in mine. His lungs were bad for years, then got much worse overnight. When he inhaled, I could hear them crackle, as though someone were wadding up a piece of wax paper. When he exhaled, there was a sound like a dog pouncing on a squeak toy. I told him we were going home in just a few more days.
Our marriage has always been full of polite lies, but this might be the final one.
March 4, 2004
“Beryl,” Nigel wheezed tonight, awake and conscious enough to want to talk. “What would you do differently if you had a chance to live your life over again?”
A dangerous question. Before I could even begin to answer it, he cut me off, his gaze on the screen above us.
“That can’t be real, can it?”
The news anchor was desperately trying to explain some outbreak of a new disease in Springfield, Massachusetts. There’s a Springfield in every state, isn’t there? Wasn’t that some kind of joke on The Simpsons?
Going Cold, they called the illness, because chilly skin is an early symptom. Another is wanting to bite people. That’s how they think it spreads, like rabies.
The night nurse believes it has something to do with drugs. There was that whole thing with people becoming like zombies from doing something—snorting? smoking?—bath salts, so maybe she has a point.
I went and looked online and it wasn’t really bath salts, but some kind of drug nicknamed “bath salts,” which is very confusing. I feel foolish, but in my defense, in my day when people said they were sniffing glue, they were actually, for real, sniffing glue.
March 7, 2004
No new insight into Nigel’s condition, but the news is full of this Cold thing. They’re saying infected people die, but somehow don’t stay dead. The president of the United States addressed the nation using words like “undead” and “vampires” with complete seriousness.
Nigel and I watched together, then he dozed off again. Nigel was always a force of nature. It seems impossible to me that he can’t find a way to wriggle out of death when he’s managed to wriggle out of a bankruptcy, two heart attacks, and at least three scathing reviews of his plays in The New York Times.
The world is upside down and ridiculous, and I want to stomp my feet like a child until it stops.
March 23, 2004
I am left with the news as my companion most nights in the hospital.
The infection seems to be spreading. The National Guard is in Springfield, but instead of helping, they’re erecting a barricade around the outside. It’s awful. There are people inside taking video of what’s happening in there, and there is so much terror and heartbreak. And blood. There’s a lot of blood.
Although I shouldn’t admit it, the screams on the screen are still preferable to the bagpipes of Nigel’s lungs. That’s one of the terrible paradoxes of humanity. The suffering of one person can be inexpressibly painful to us, while we can feel so much less than we should about the collective suffering of thousands.
Nurses and doctors come through the hospital room and try to reassure us that the outbreak of whatever-it-really-was can be contained and will certainly never make it to New York. They prescribe new medicine for Nigel and reassure us about that too. Oh, and one of the doctors finally explained how this Cold thing works. If you’re bitten by a vampire (yes, they’re calling them that officially now), you become infected, your temperature drops, and you crave blood. Biting someone in that infected state doesn’t spread the infection—but it’s the trigger for the infected person to die and then be reborn as a vampire (again, yes, really, a vampire, like Dracula or Sesame Street’s Count). Then they can spread the Cold.
There is a growing belief that the body can shake off the infection, though, if blood is unavailable for long enough. Maybe there is a way to stem the tide of horror after all. Despite the efforts to wall off Springfield, new cases were discovered in Texas and Seattle just this week. Someone has to do something, and soon.
April 3, 2004
Alarm bells rang through the hospital tonight.
Nigel woke up disoriented, and while I was trying to quiet him down, a nurse rushed into the room and locked the door behind her.
“Get down,” she said.
I am ashamed to say that I just stared at her. It was only when she hit the floor that I understood and slowly got to my knees. At my age that’s not easy.
“What’s going on?” Nigel complained.
“One of them got loose,” the nurse said. “Shhhhh.”
“What are you talking about? What got loose?” I demanded, trying out all the possibilities running through my head. A lion. A serial killer. One of the monsters from the television.
Nigel began coughing.
I could see the tension in the nurse’s expression. She clearly wanted to tell him to stop but was enough of a professional to understand that would be useless. He couldn’t.
“One of the infected ones,” she told me, now that quiet was off the table.
“Why would one be here?” I hissed at her.
She made a gesture of exasperation. “Because some of them have money. A lot of money. They put her in a coma and—”
I heard the crash of a door opening so hard it hit the wall. Footsteps. Our doorknob turned before catching on the lock. I caught my breath. Nigel coughed harder, tears leaking out of his eyes. His hand covered his mouth, trying to muffle the sound. The nurse moved toward the attached bathroom, and I could tell that bitch was clearly planning on locking herself inside if our door opened.
From “Dying Isn’t Just for the Young” by Holly Black copyright 2026 by Holly Black from PARANORMAL PAYBACK edited by Jim Butcher and Kerry Hughes with permission of Ace, an imprint of Penguin Random House copyright 2026 by Jim Butcher and Kerry Hughes
