Blood and Magic

Okay, I might be seriously under-qualified for the job of Enforcer, I'll admit. The Enforcer is supposed to be a human, for starters. It's usually an ex-special forces guy with big muscles and even bigger balls, and a knack for sorting out petty squabbles between the witches and vampires and shifters in the city. And I'm just a technically-dead nail tech-an animated skeleton with a talent for illusion magic and gold gel manicures. But I've recently discovered that I can manifest some pretty big muscles of my own. I've already got the big balls, so I'm halfway there. It's the 'sorting out petty squabbles' part that I might have trouble with. I'm usually the one to start the fights, not finish them. But a girl has got to grow up sometime. My first job is finding a missing person-a half-pixie girl vanished from her home a week ago, and if she doesn't surface soon, the local Fae diplomat is going to raise Hell. Her father is blaming vampires, her boyfriend is pointing the finger at the local werewolves. The clock is ticking. I'm determined to find her alive, and prove to the supes of DC that I've got what it takes to keep this town on the straight-and-narrow.

A powerful supernatural mob boss is terrorizing my neighborhood, demanding protection money from store owners and breaking legs when it's not paid. His little gang member minions are all humans, and one of them just showed up at my new business insisting I pay him my monthly 'insurance premium', or face the boss himself. Funnily enough, this arrogant little underling has no idea what his employer is. Neither do I. He's a complete mystery, and he's been operating right under our noses for years. Every supe store owner has been paying up and, bizarrely enough, keeping quiet about it, which makes me very, very nervous. As Enforcer, it's my job to find out who this mob boss is, what he is, and take him down. But to do that, first I have to face the man who completely destroyed my reputation and ripped my little teenage heart to shreds. As if the mysterious supernatural mob boss wasn't scary enough, nooo, I've got to face the reason why I'm so goddamn angry all the time.

The Beast has awakened. Word has reached the mortal realm, sending shock waves through the supernatural community. The Beast is stirring, and gathering his dark troops towards himself with a single-minded purpose: destroy all the magical creatures on Earth. He's awake, and promising bloody, furious vengeance. Prue's mom was the witch who sent the Beast to sleep in the first place, and she's in a coma. Somehow Prue needs to decipher her riddle-filled diary to figure out how to put the Beast back to sleep again before he rampages through the realms committing genocide. As if Prue didn't have enough on her plate. Her evil sister is threatening legal action for the most mundane of reasons, and a mysterious figure from Max's past shows up with a kid in tow. Oh, and there's an ifrit on the loose, torching whole city blocks. That one just might be Prue's fault. Finally, the mighty Prince Salozar Winterborne, Fae Diplomat of DC, seems to have developed an insane schoolboy crush on her. Things are getting awkward.

My whole world has just exploded. I'm doing a jaunty quick-step on the edge of total insanity, battling shock, exhaustion, crisis fatigue, and some sort of festering dark power that threatens to erupt out of me every time I get a little stressed. At least now I know where this genocidal rage comes from. Turns out, it's hereditary. To make things worse, as Enforcer of the city, I now have to organize a Conclave of the Treaty, a sort of formal summit for the supernatural creatures of the world. We've got some serious problems to sort out, and gathering together the Shifter Kings and Queens, the High Priestesses, and the Vampire Monarchy all in one place is bound to give anyone a headache. What are the chances I can get them all to agree on a course of action when they're only worried about their own kind?

I've been burned. One of my secrets is out in the open, and it couldn't have happened at a worse time. The people of the city need a hero right now, and it can't be me. It's too risky. I could lose everything. While everything falls to chaos, I've got some hard decisions to make. There's a fine line between hero and tyrant. I need to figure out how to dance down that line so I can be the leader they need, without turning into the monster they fear.

The finale is here . . . The Beast is bringing the battle to the mortal realm, and Prue's finally ready to face him. Or is she? Maybe. Life is complicated, but that's what makes it beautiful. The war is brewing, the rogues are desperate, and a human enemy lurks in the darkness, threatening to derail Prue's hero era before it even begins. And Isobel . . . Well. Sometimes being a hero is a thankless job. There's no need to be bitter about it.