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Informationen zum Autor A native of the Delaware seashore, Kelly Meding lives in Maryland, with a neurotic cat that occasionally meows at ghosts. After discovering Freddy Krueger at a very young age, Kelly began a lifelong obsession with horror, science fiction, and fantasy, on which she blames her interest in vampires, psychic powers, superheroes, and all things paranormal. When not writing, she can be found crafting jewelry, enjoying a good cup of coffee, or scouring the Internet for gossip on her favorite television shows. Klappentext The second in a new series by popular urban fantasy author Kelly Meding, about an X-Men -like group of young people with superpowers who must find a way to work together. Five months ago, Dahlia Perkins was a struggling newspaper journalist whose biggest responsibility was paying her rent on time. After learning she has the ability to absorb and deflect massive amounts of heat and fire, Dahlia is struggling to find her place as the newest hero in an established team of former Rangers freelancing their abilities in post-Meta War Los Angeles. The team’s first major case: two discarded human skins. One is a John Doe, the other was a janitor for Weatherfield R&D, a scientific research and development firm Dahlia once investigated—and she’s itching to investigate them again. The ability to use and shed another person’s skin isn’t a power any of them have encountered before, nor something any of their former Meta enemies possess. But when a third skin appears and one of Dahlia’s teammates is nearly killed by an assassin’s bullet, it’s clear someone else besides Weatherfield is targeting the Rangers—and their killer may not be Meta at all. One Settling In Who’s got the friggin’ fire extinguisher?” Renee’s shout echoed all the way down the main staircase, punctuated by a foot stamped down on the ceiling above me. I dropped my paint-soaked roller into its pan a little too hard and splattered eggshell interior latex all over the legs of my jeans, adding to the preexisting splats of burgundy, sage, white, navy blue, and two different wood stains. I was downstairs in the foyer of the mansion we were hip deep in renovating, trying to get a second coat onto the walls of the spacious entry. Even after a primer and first coat, the garish blue-green paint job the home’s previous owners subjected themselves to—in a fit of drunken misguidance, one can only hope—continued to peek through. The home in mostly deserted Beverly Hills had been on the market for seven years before we bought it; real estate in California anywhere south of Santa Barbara was hard to sell. Everyone was moving north, just as they had been in the twenty years since the outbreak of the Meta War, which had ravaged Los Angeles, among other major cities. With the last four major film studios located in Vancouver, half of the city’s population had defected to Canada. Several million residents remained, though, including us six—the last of a defunct group of superheroes once called the Ranger Corps. The house we settled on—and after much discussion named Hill House, in memory of a fallen friend—was huge. More than twenty rooms, a perimeter fence with a built-in security system, an interior courtyard, outdoor pool and tennis court, and plastic pipes that didn’t need replacing. Everything else was superficial and could be fixed with time and patience. More foot stamping above. Renee and Ethan had gone upstairs to work on the front room, which was destined to be our common lounge. I darted toward the main staircase on my right and took the steps two at a time, past the first landing and up to the second floor. The lounge was on my immediate right. Its floor was bare, stripped of its old carpeting, and sanded smooth of ancient carpet glue. The walls were painted a pleasant lemon yellow and trimmed with walnut molding. It was...
