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Uncanny Kingdom: An Eleven Book Urban Fantasy Collection (Uncanny Kingdom Omnibus 1)
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The Uncanny Kingdom Collection
An Eleven Book Urban Fantasy Collection
David Bussell
M.V. Stott
Copyright © 2018 by Genre Reader
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Contents
Become an Insider
London Coven
Underground Magic
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Familiar Magic
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Nightmare Realm
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Deadly Portent
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Ghosted
Deathday
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Fresh Hell
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Something Rotten
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Twice Damned
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Dark Lakes
Magic Eater
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Blood Stones
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Past Sins
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Become an Insider
Become an Insider
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London Coven
Underground Magic
Familiar Magic
Nightmare Realm
Deadly Portent
Underground Magic
1
London, February, 1957
I pulled my leather jacket closed; London was cold and prickled my skin.
My name is Stella Familiar and I was tracking something very, very bad through the streets of Hammersmith, West London.
I looked down; there were spots of red on the paving stones before me. It took the tip of one black boot and poked at it. The crimson smeared.
Fresh blood.
The creature couldn’t be far ahead.
I brushed past Londoners; noisy, breaths fogging, going about their days. Hurrying home, or perhaps heading to the pub to get one last drink before the bell rang. None of them saw the city as I did. Saw the streets as I did. They all thought they understood what the world was. Understood their place in it and the dangers that lived there. Prided themselves on being the top dogs. Top of the food chain.
If they knew the truth, they’d never leave their homes.
There’s an underbelly to the city that people like me call the ‘Uncanny.’ A hidden world that overlaps the everyday, unseen by most. Unseen until it makes itself seen, and pray you never see that day. Chances are you’ll be dead.
London is full of the Uncanny, in fact, the whole of the United Kingdom is. But a place like London… for some reason it’s a hub for the Uncanny. We’re drawn to it. Every stripe of strange finds themselves here eventually. Drawn to the noise and the chaos and the concentration of magic like flies to a corpse.
I turned the corner and scanned the street, looking for any sign of my monster.
My job for today.
Bodies had been turning up across this part of the city. Homeless people, mostly, found with their chests ripped open. The police thought they were dealing with a serial killer, and they were sort of right. But this wasn’t the kind of killer they’d be able to hunt, arrest, take to trial, and put behind bars. This was a killer from a horror story. A thing that didn’t exist outside of a child’s worst nightmare. At least, that’s what they would think. I, and those like me, knew better.
Monsters are real.
Not that all monsters are killers; some live hidden and are no threat at all. But some… some live to feed. To stalk, to kill, to devour. To use their abilities to sow damage, destruction and death. To see your face twitch in fear at the moment you realise your little life is about to end in a bloody full stop.
At this point, I knew these things without ever actually experiencing any of them first hand. But it was all there, in my head. A giant file I could flick through, like I’d had decades of experience. Centuries, even. It was February 16th, 1957. It was my birthday, and I mean that literally. I didn’t exist the day before, and then, on this day, I did. Not that I was born exactly. No, I was created. Conjured.
More blood on the ground. I was moving in the right direction. Head down, fists clenched, I strode forwards, after the trail.
I’m a Familiar to a trio of witches; the witches of the London Coven. They’ve lived for centuries, always with a Familiar by their side. I hadn’t asked what had happened to their last Familiar, why they’d needed to create me as a replacement. I had a feeling I didn’t want to know.
My masters keep an eye on the Uncanny activity in London, sort of like a magical police force of three. Their job is to keep us all in line, make sure things don’t get out of hand, and punish those that transgress.
The punishment is where I come in.
I’m the blunt tool, sent out into the streets of London while they remain safe inside their heavily protected coven. I investigate, deliver warnings, unleash punishment, make judgement. End lives, if necessary. Whatever it takes to keep these streets safe.
In other jobs, I suppose they’d break you in easy, but here I am, first day at work, first day alive, first day breathing in and out, and I’m on the tail of a shape-shifting murderous monster. A monster that, if I wasn’t careful, would make this my last day on the job.
I should have been scared, I was dimly aware of that. No experience, barely hours old, chasing a murderer. But I wasn’t scared. I was excited. Eager to face up to death and take it down. To beat the thing senseless until my knuckles were red raw.
I realised I’d begun whistling to myself, and wondered what the tune was. I’d never heard it before. Well, I’d never heard any music before. Everything was a first for me. I was so caught up in my thoughts that I didn’t notice the obstruction in front of me. My right boot hit something and almost sent me tumbling to the ground. I whirled back, steadying myself, fists already glowing defensively with power—
—I looked down, feeling foolish… and that’s when I saw the blood… the entrails… the dead body.
I’d been slow, and someone had paid the price.
2
Magic is all around you.
Every street, every rock, every blade of grass emits trace amounts of it. It’s like a constant hum of background radiation that we all swim through every day of our lives. Some places only emit a weak level of magical energy, some practically scream with it. The London Coven, for example, burns explosively with magic. If you could see in the spectrum I do, the London Coven would look like a raging, white-hot fire in the blackest night.
I feed on magic, all of the Uncanny do. We draw it in so we can use it. It sustains us. Without it we’d fall to the ground, helpless wrecks. Junkies going cold turkey, screaming for a fix.