Urgent Tales-a book of surreal stories that lay bare the terrors hidden under our collective beds and confront us with our own fears. Comprised of eleven supernatural and cautionary accounts of sideshow freaks, vampires, aliens, and other mythical creatures, these tales blend horror with dread-induced humor, granting us entry into the world of the inexplicable, the irrational, and the delectably bizarre. In "Astor Roth," a young entrepreneur's inner demon emerges from her subconscious past to draw her into a monstrous and debasing reality. Set in Vienna, a successful yet vulnerable woman struggles to keep her sanity before she is consumed and possessed by her demonic lover. A serial killer watches the affairs of his next victim-her nightly ablutions, her ritual of the bath. He waits in the darkness until it is time to "transform" his prey into an objet d'art and add the woman immersed in water to his oeuvre of mutilated masterpieces. A vampire stalks the streets of Rome, Barcelona, and Miami Beach in search of sustenance, only to find he is not the one on the top of the food chain but merely a part of it. In the stories "Deal," "The Magus," and "SoBe It," the ruthless yet cerebral vampire Alejandro encounters nemeses as cold-blooded and resolute as he in their quest for power and blood. Two ex-lovers' expectations run interference for their living counterparts in the story "Reunion." Unbeknownst to their human hosts, they revisit a past filled with possibilities, consequences, and circumstances not anticipated. The dreamer dreams, or is it the dream that dreams the dreamer? In the tale "Tatiana's Dream," a brilliant antiquities professor is sought out by a fantastical vision and sent forth to discover her destiny in a multidimensional universe she not only inhabits, but must somehow control.