Heaven. Hell. Angels. Demons. Light. Dark. Enter a world where the truth shall set more than you free....

A Summoning that goes wrong, a Demon Lord stranded, Lucifer and his minions trying to break through the far-too-thin veil into our world ...

All that stands between Mankind and Hell on Earth are a smart-mouthed Mortal woman, a juvenile hellhound who would rather watch Judge Judy than do anything else, a vampire stuck in the Age of Chivalry and a former Demon Lord struggling with his own free will.

Heaven help us.

A completely normal day for artist Cate Donovan usually involves avoiding her landlord who wants the overdue rent, painting, being late to work (with profuse apologies to her very indulgent boss), forgetting to eat breakfast, (lunch too, actually) and coaxing her twenty-year-old car to live another day. Cate is used to handling crises, albeit those stemming from her own actions. She's used to people just showing up at her doorstep unannounced, or being called into work at a moment's notice. Cate is accustomed to her own little world spontaneously rearranging itself. So when Andronicus, the Lord General of the Army of Shadows, appears in her apartment with a small bundle of black wriggly fuzz under his arm, one would think Cate would be able to handle that just fine.

Her best friend Matt thought she would be. After all, what are friends for, if not to dump problems on?

A demon lord calling her "Mistress" and a dirty hellhound puppy are slightly more (and a bit bigger) than the usual "problems" Matt dumps on her. For someone who doesn't believe in God, finding out that you are now the holder of a Key to Hell is, to say the least, interesting.

For a demon lord who doesn't believe he's anything but a servant, finding out the one you're supposed to be serving doesn't want your service is, to say the least, frustrating.

For a hellhound puppy who is supposed to do whatever his bonded master says, finding yourself bonded to someone you didn't expect is, to say the least - oh, wow ... Judge Judy!

"Key to Hell": the published short stories:

While the short stories feature some of the same characters as the novels, they take the reader into a slightly different part of the Key to Hell world; that of the vampire Clan Destrati.

Though not the largest of the vampire clans, Clan Destrati is the oldest and most powerful, thanks in part to an alliance they made ages ago in the War Between The Sides, and in part to some indefinable - and extremely tenuous - relationship with the ex-demon lord and lost soul, Kailkiril'ron (or Kyle as he's known this century).

Lost soul? Isn't Kyle a vampire?

Don't call him one to his face. Kyle abhors the term "vampire". He prefers the more accurate term "lost soul". Though once a demon, Kyle is now a lost soul who must maintain his existence by taking the blood of mortals or, to quote his "father", "forced to live off the blood of those he betrayed him for".

Clan Destrati is unique in that the whole of its members have turned away from the one they traded their soul to in order to gain immortality. Destrati feel that the parasitical cost of their unnaturally long existence is too high, and have sworn to redeem themselves for their sin through their actions, in the hope that the soul they traded for immortality might be redeemed. Destrati work to keep others from being coerced into trading their own souls, alone or with the guidance of others.

This is seen as interference by the other vampire clans, and most clans are at perpetual war with one another over various differences in philosophies. Clan Destrati members are among the most hated, for they, too, are seen as betrayers. Whether that label is justified depends upon your own alliance.

The UnAllied - those who have not declared ownership of their soul to either side in the War Between The Sides - are not without involvement, though by rights are technically neutral and to be treated as such. They are supposed to be, for the most part, left to their own fate. However, Nikolai Pietyr, Sovereign of Clan Destrati took his bride Katrina from among the UnAllied, and she copes as best she can with the new and much more dangerous world she's now a part of.

Marcos Aquinos de los Santos is lost to Clan Destrati. Though he was searched for at great length, no Destrati can locate Marcos through any means. Cursed for a wrong he committed, Marcos is forced to wander, a half-mad animal, until he found that which can bring him back to himself. Learn more about him in The Mammoth Book of Vampire Romance 2: Love Bites, coming September 22, 2009.