As the House leaders discuss the fate of “the Last Butcher”, Aaron and Jace escape the watchful eye of Helen and the White Masks and sneak into the forbidden outreaches of Chicago. Then, in the present-day, Aaron finally comes face-to-face with the monster that he’s been tracking...which is much more powerful than expected.

Bait is burdened with the unbearable truth of Nannette’s condition and what it could mean if she learns of her connection to the monsters. To save her and the children, Bait will have to make an impossible choice... But with new revelations about his true origins, will what he has to do truly be the worst of his actions?

Wayne K. Patterson served more than 30 years in the Colorado Correctional System. He was warden of both of the original penal institutions in the state at Buena Vista and Canon City. He was Executive Director of the first Department of Parole in Colorado, was later Chairman of the Parole Board and Director of Corrections for the City and County of Denver. Patterson held national offices in professional associations and was a past president of the American Correctional Association, the American Association of Wardens and Superintendents and of the West Central Wardens' Association. Patterson began his career in law enforcement with the Colorado State Patrol, was selected to be both driver and body guard for Colorado governors, Ralph Carr and John Vivian, and served in the Navy from 1944-1946. Betty L. Alt is author or co-author of fourteen books, including Uncle Sam's Brides; Campfollowing; Weeping Violins: The Gypsy Tragedy in Europe; Black Soldiers/White Wars; Keeper of the Keys: A Warden's Notebook; Wicked Women; Fleecing Grandma & Grandpa; Policewomen: Life With the Badge; The Proteus Agenda; Following the Flag; Mountain Mafia: Organized Crime in the Rockies; Mountain Murders: Homicide in the Rockies; When Caregivers Kill. She has a B.A. in sociology from Colorado College, an M.A. in history from Northeast Missouri State University, and currently is an instructor in sociology at Colorado State University - Pueblo in Pueblo, Colorado.

Erica Slaughter isn’t the only member of the House of Slaughter to have made sacrifices in order to become the monster hunter she is today. As a teenager, her handler and rival Aaron finds himself with a new roommate, the mysterious “transfer student” Jace Boucher. To initiate his training, Jace must prove his loyalty to the House of Slaughter through a binding ritual... a ritual that few survive.

Jace’s past and present collide, with new revelations from his youth shedding light on his current mission. No longer the monster hunter he once was and unaware of Aaron’s fate, Jace must protect the orphans under his care. Can he save them from not just the monsters, but a rage and guilt more terrifying than the children have ever witnessed? Jace will have to make a difficult choice between vengeance, loyalty, and rescue from certain death! Meanwhile Sunny has to deal with monsters within and without, while caught between the White Masks and a cruel pair of eyes watching from between the trees... Series artist Antonio Fuso (Lost Falls, GI Joe: Cobra) joins returning writer Tate Brombal (Behold, Behemoth) in the next chapter of Jace Boucher’s story! Collects House of Slaughter #11-15.

What secrets do the mysterious scribes of the Order of St. George, the Scarlet Masks, record within the shadows of the House of Slaughter? Enamored with stories of ancient hunters, as well as those in his midst, Edwin Slaughter only gets to write the stories... never live them. That is, until a legendary Oscuratype that’s taken the lives of countless children brings Edwin into the field. Will he live to survive long enough to document his experience, or perish with his story left untold? Collects House of Slaughter #6-10.

Kurt Vonnegut’s masterpiece, Slaughterhouse-Five is “a desperate, painfully honest attempt to confront the monstrous crimes of the twentieth century” (Time). Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of all time Slaughterhouse-Five, an American classic, is one of the world’s great antiwar books. Centering on the infamous World War II firebombing of Dresden, the novel is the result of what Kurt Vonnegut described as a twenty-three-year struggle to write a book about what he had witnessed as an American prisoner of war. It combines historical fiction, science fiction, autobiography, and satire in an account of the life of Billy Pilgrim, a barber’s son turned draftee turned optometrist turned alien abductee. As Vonnegut had, Billy experiences the destruction of Dresden as a POW. Unlike Vonnegut, he experiences time travel, or coming “unstuck in time.” An instant bestseller, Slaughterhouse-Five made Kurt Vonnegut a cult hero in American literature, a reputation that only strengthened over time, despite his being banned and censored by some libraries and schools for content and language. But it was precisely those elements of Vonnegut’s writing—the political edginess, the genre-bending inventiveness, the frank violence, the transgressive wit—that have inspired generations of readers not just to look differently at the world around them but to find the confidence to say something about it. Authors as wide-ranging as Norman Mailer, John Irving, Michael Crichton, Tim O’Brien, Margaret Atwood, Elizabeth Strout, David Sedaris, Jennifer Egan, and J. K. Rowling have all found inspiration in Vonnegut’s words. Jonathan Safran Foer has described Vonnegut as “the kind of writer who made people—young people especially—want to write.” George Saunders has declared Vonnegut to be “the great, urgent, passionate American writer of our century, who offers us . . . a model of the kind of compassionate thinking that might yet save us from ourselves.” More than fifty years after its initial publication at the height of the Vietnam War, Vonnegut’s portrayal of political disillusionment, PTSD, and postwar anxiety feels as relevant, darkly humorous, and profoundly affecting as ever, an enduring beacon through our own era’s uncertainties.