From Cherie Priest, the award-winning author of Maplecroft , comes a new tale of Lizzie Borden’s continuing war against the cosmic horrors threatening humanity… Birmingham, Alabama is infested with malevolence. Prejudice and hatred have consumed the minds and hearts of its populace. A murderer, unimaginatively named “Harry the Hacker” by the press, has been carving up citizens with a hatchet. And from the church known as Chapelwood, an unholy gospel is being spread by a sect that worships dark gods from beyond the heavens.   This darkness calls to Lizzie Borden. It is reminiscent of an evil she had dared hoped was extinguished. The parishioners of Chapelwood plan to sacrifice a young woman to summon beings never meant to share reality with humanity. An apocalypse will follow in their wake which will scorch the earth of all life. Unless she stops it… Praise for Chapelwood “ Chapelwood is devious, twisted and beautifully written. Cherie Priest is one of our very best authors of the fantastic. Brava!”—Jonathan Maberry, New York Times bestselling author of Ghostwalkers and Predator One Praise for Maplecroft “Cherie Priest is supremely gifted and Maplecroft is a remarkable novel, simultaneously beautiful and grotesque. It is at once a dark historical fantasy with roots buried deep in real-life horror and a supernatural thriller mixing Victorian drama and Lovecraftian myth.  You won’t be able to put it down.”—Christopher Golden, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Snowblind “ Maplecroft is dark and lyrical, haunting and brined in blood. It is as sharp as Lizzie Borden’s axe—and Borden herself is a horror heroine bar none.”—Chuck Wendig, author of Blackbirds  “One of the best Lovecraftian stories I’ve ever read.”—io9 Cherie Priest is the author of more than a dozen novels, including the award-winning Clockwork Century series ( Boneshaker , Dreadnaught , Clementine ), the Cheshire Red books ( Bloodshot , Hellbent ), and The Borden Dispatches ( Maplecroft , Chapelwood ). Leonard Kincaid, American Institute of Accountants, Certified Member Birmingham, Alabama February 9, 1920 I escaped Chapelwood under the cover of daylight, not darkness. The darkness is too close, too friendly with the terrible folk who worship there. (The darkness would give me away, if I gave it half a chance.) So I left them an hour after dawn, when the reverend and his coterie lay sleeping in the hall beneath the sanctuary. When last I looked upon them, taking one final glance from the top of the stairs—down into the dim, foul-smelling quarter lit only with old candles that were covered in dust—I saw them tangled together, limb upon limb. I would say that they writhed like a pit of vipers, but that isn’t the case at all. They were immobile, static. It was a ghastly, damp tableau. Nothing even breathed. I should have been down there with them; that’s what the reverend would’ve said if he’d seen me. If he’d caught me, he would’ve lured me into that pallid pile of flesh that lives but is not alive. He would have reminded me of the nights I’ve spent in the midst of those arms and legs, tied together like nets, for yes, it is true: I have been there with them, among the men and women lying in a heap in the cellar. I have been a square in that quilt, a knot in that rug of humanity, skin on skin with the boneless, eyeless things that are not arms, and are not legs. (I dream of it now, even when I’m not asleep.) But never again. I have regained my senses—or come back to them, having almost fled them altogether. So what sets me apart from the rest of them, enthralled by the book and the man who wields it? I cannot say. I do not know. I wanted to be with them, to be like them. I wanted to join their ranks, for I believed in their community, in their goals. Or I thought I did. I am rethinking all the things I thought. I am fashioning new goals, goals that will serve mankind better than the distant, dark hell that the reverend and his congregation seek to impose upon us all. They taught me too much, you see. They let me examine too many of their secrets too closely, and taste too much of the power they chase with their prayers and their formulas. When they chose me for an acolyte, they chose poorly. I take comfort in this, really I do. It means that they can misjudge. They can fail. So they can fail again, and indeed they must. In retrospect, I wish I had done more than leave. I wish I’d found the strength to do them some grievous damage, some righteous recompense for the things they’ve done, and the things they strive to do in the future. Even as I stood there at the top of the stairs, gazing down at that mass of minions, or parishioners, or whatever they might call themselves . . . I was imagining a kerosene lantern and a match. I could fling it into their midst, toss down the lighted match, and lock the door behind myself. I could burn the whole place down around their ears, and them with it. (And maybe also bu