Demon Blade: An Alastair Stone Urban Fantasy Novel (Alastair Stone Chronicles Book 32) by R. L. King

Author:R. L. King [King, R. L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Magespace Press
Published: 2023-02-12T16:00:00+00:00

21

Stone didn’t want to wait too long before he got all his friends together to discuss the latest developments, but trying to coordinate several busy people’s schedules, even for something this important, was a bureaucratic nightmare. The best everyone could do was five days after the meeting at Thalassa’s, so he arranged for them all to come to his place that afternoon. Ren couldn’t make it in person, but promised to call in via video chat, which Gina said she would coordinate.

In the meantime, he applied himself to trying to sort out the information Thalassa had given him. He counted on Ren to update him on any new murders, and Gina to keep him up to date on any sensationalistic news. He didn’t like that there was more of the latter than the former, but at least that meant the demons’ plan wasn’t progressing.

So far, anyway. Stone’s stress grew as each day passed, because he knew the next murder was imminent.

There had been two more copycat killings, one in Arkansas and one in Florida. The story of the “Symbol Slayer,” as the alternative press had dubbed the killer, had taken hold on the internet. With grim amusement, Gina had even pointed out there was a Reddit forum devoted to spotting the murderer. If Stone hadn’t been so stressed about the potential outcome should The Unspeakable succeed in its task, he would have found the posts to be comedy gold. Of course, nobody had any idea what was really going on, although a couple of posters inadvertently got close with their talk of apocalypses and marks of the Antichrist.

The most commonly accepted theory among the posters was that there was only one killer, traveling around the country trying to curry favor with the Devil by killing his various victims and leaving Satanic love notes carved into their torsos. To Stone’s relief, there was nothing about the goo-ified murderers, the knife, or the symbols from the library. At least so far, mundane law enforcement had been doing its job of keeping a lid on the most important details. He wondered how much Ren and her organization had to do with that.

He didn’t have any trouble tweaking his shield spell using the notes Thalassa had given him. After only a couple of days’ work, he was confident it was as effective against demonic energy as his normal one was against magical and normal mundane threats. At least he was unlikely to be carved up by demon minions if they came after him again.

Offensive capability was another matter, though. The dragon hadn’t given him anything to make his magic more effective against demons, so he was still left with indirect attacks (such as dropping heavy things on them) or using the little knife. He didn’t much care for the second option, since the thing was so small he’d have to get in the demon’s face to use it, and he wasn’t a physical fighter.

Maybe he could give it to one of his more physically impressive colleagues, like Jason or Amber, assuming they were even along at the time.

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