Stephen Dedman
Bio: Stephen Dedman grew up (though many would dispute this) on the outer limits of Perth's metropolitan area, far enough from a good library that he had to make up his own sf and horror stories. He continued to do this when he should have been studying, and after false starts at two other universities, received a B.A. in Creative Writing and Film in 1984. Since then, he's held too many boring jobs and a few interesting ones, including actor, tutor, experimental subject, editorial assistant for Australian Physicist magazine, education officer and used dinosaur salesman for the WA Museum, and the manager of a science fiction bookshop. He's been writing for fun for more than thirty years, and for money for twenty; he sold his first short story in 1977, and his first novel in 1995. He quit yet another boring job in 1996 to write full time, and is currently working on two novels and writing one new story a month. Stephen is the author of the novels The Art of Arrow Cutting (Tor, 1997) and Foreign Bodies (Tor, 1999), and the non-fiction book Bone Hunters: On the Trail of the Dinosaurs (Omnibus, 1998). His short stories have appeared in an eclectic range of magazines and anthologies, including The Year's Best Fantasy & Horror, Little Deaths, Asimov's, F&SF, Science Fiction Age, Interzone, Weird Tales, and Realms of Fantasy. His work has won the Aurealis Award and Australian Science Fiction Achievement Award, and been shortlisted for the Bram Stoker Award, the British Science Fiction Association Award, and the Sidewise Award for Alternate History. Stephen lives in Western Australia, and enjoys reading, travel, movies, complicated relationships, talking to cats, and startling people.
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Something's amiss in Los Angeles! Bodies vanish. Demons are unleashed. Vampires appear at a local cafe, the Crypt. Seeking a magic key that unlocks enormous power, a yakuza boss puts out a contract on stuntman Charlie Takumo's friend Michelangelo "Mage" Magistrale. Takumo and Mage are caught between esoteric ancient legends and ... plain old assassins! (Published: 2002)
It started simple enough. A tempting woman with a trifle of a problem needed a bus ticket. Luckily, sometime photographer Michelangelo "Mage" Magistrale is there to help her out. In exchange for his kindness, she gives him the key to her apartment. However this key is about to unlock an adventure of a different kind. It is no ordinary key; it unlocks any door and leads those who seek it out of greed directly to Mage. The thought of power like that can drive mortals to extremes but the mortal wor... 
