Demon Blade

Demon Blade

## Blurb

The Demon's In The Details

Alastair Stone is intrigued when he’s asked to look into a bizarre series of murders united by intricate and unsettling symbols carved into the victims’ bodies.

As the deaths pile up and the killer seems able both to travel and to commit his crimes without a trace, Stone learns the murders aren’t only linked—they’re parts of a malevolent, massively powerful ritual with an ancient demonic artifact at its root.

With the stakes growing ever higher, Stone needs strong allies—including an old enemy with crucial information, an old friend he hasn’t seen for years, and someone very close to him who reveals a surprising new secret.

If he can’t get to the bottom of the ritual and deal with the source before it’s too late to stop it, millions of people could perish.

But even if he does prevent the ritual, the choices he’s forced to make to ensure victory will change his life in ways he never expected.

## Plot

Alastair Stone gets a case from Ren Huxley involving four strange murders. Nothing connects the four male victims except for strange symbols carved into their chests. The symbols mean nothing to Stone, so he sends them off to Eddie and Ward to research. Then, he calls Verity, Jason and Amber together and shares the case information with them. Alastair is concerned there are other murders that haven’t come to light, or yet to happen.

## Quotes and One-liners

Nothing like a cat shamelessly licking his ass to punch holes in your serious contemplation of the fragility of life. Stone.

At home, Stone realizes Raider is nowhere to be seen. He finds the cat in the spare bedroom, sneezing. Concerned, Stone takes him to the vet, who diagnoses a simple upper respiratory infection and gives him antibiotics. The incident triggers unpleasant thoughts he shares with Verity that night over dinner. Stone is, evidently, immortal. His friends and family, though – even the longer-lived mages – are not.  His thoughts keep cycling around losing them. Verity sympathizes, but suggests he talk to Harrison or another longer-lived friend for advice on how to cope. She promises, however, to speak to Mme Broussard, to see if there’s anything they can whip up to keep Raider hale longer than the average housecat.

Agent Huxley calls; there’s been another murder, and this time it’s an active crime scene. Stone pops to Colorado, declining to tell Huxley how he arrived so quickly. When he’s given the opportunity to examine the body, Alastair is nearly overwhelmed by the evil emanating from the symbol carved into the man’s chest. Whatever killed him hadn’t been entirely human, but something fundamentally evil. As he recovers, he listens in on police interviewing a neighbor who says she saw someone leaving the house, wearing a distinctive sports jacket. Stone and Huxley conclude that the murders have to be linked by location in some way. If they can determine how, they might be able to predict and stop the next one.

The next day, Huxley reports that the sports jacket was found a couple of towns away from the murder scene, along with the melted ‘goo’ remains of the person wearing it. The knife wasn’t found. Examining the scene doesn’t give Stone much, though the same evil energy is present, if a bit weaker. He tells Huxley to have her analysts hurry their examination of the goo left behind, because it will likely dissipate to nothing. He also suggests checking to see if other piles of abandoned clothing were found following the previous murders. Huxley, meanwhile, is concerned that this guy, whose ID was found at the scene, couldn’t have done the other murders, based on what her agency turned up; the man never left town. So, if he did commit this murder, someone else committed the others.

Huxley takes Stone to the lab and gets him a sample of the goo that’s all that’s left of the suspect. They also stop at the man’s apartment, where Stone collects one of his boots. Back in Encantada, Stone calls Verity and asks her help in analyzing what he’s got. He’s hoping to connect the goo to the boot for a positive ID. Verity quashes the possibility, though, when she says the goo isn’t recognizable as organic, much less human. She’s sure Huxley’s lab won’t find DNA. Stone calls Huxley to fill her in, and tells her that he thinks someone is pulling the strings, directing the murders. The question, is why.

When Stone brings Jason and Gina up to speed, Gina points out maybe they should focus on the mundane aspects of the crimes, the witnesses and such. Stone says there aren’t any; the previous victims were homeless or drifters. Jason reminds him how the Forgotten they knew avoided authorities; perhaps as civilians with knowledge of the homeless, they’d have better luck. They arrange to leave right away for the scene of the first murder, in Massachusetts. Stone promises dinner as a reward, which quickly morphs into a family barbecue at Stone’s place, with Gina, Eddie, and Ward included.

In Lowell, MA, Stone first checks the alley where the first victim was found, detecting a hint of fading evil energy in a dumpster. Jason questions a homeless man who says they should talk to “Doggy”, a friend of the dead man. Doggy says he and his friend had fallen out over trying an abandoned library as a sleeping place. Doggy’s dog, Max, was scared of the place and refused to enter. They parted and that was the last he saw of his friend. Gina calls just then to report a set of clothes was found in Virginia, laid out like a person had been in them. When Stone describes them to Doggy, he says they belonged to a troubled veteran who was also a friend of the dead man. Stone tells Jason they need to check out the library. This seems to be where the murders first started.

The library itself shows nothing interesting, so Stone and Jason go into the basement. Alastair becomes increasingly ill as they search. He finally spots an area of strange energy on the wooden floor, and blasts the wood away to uncover whatever it is. When he goes down, he find a sub-basement with arcane symbols on the walls, a dark void space that looks charred, and a nearly crippling sense of evil. He’s about to tell Jason they have to leave before he passes out, when Jason attacks him. They battle, Jason using his adrenaline-fueled super-strength. He gets Stone down, pummeling him with blows when the walls start to rumble and bricks to fall. Desperate, Alastair calls on Jason to remember Amber, Alice and Jaden. That gets through, but the building is crumbling and Stone is losing consciousness.

Alastair comes to on the library floor, away from where the collapse happened. Jason is miserable with guilt for hurting Stone. But he did carry him out of the basement and up to relative safety. Stone tells him that he should have realized that the thing affecting him, despite his shields, would have gotten through to Jason. He’s more upset the room with the symbols is now inaccessible. But Jason got photos with his phone before whatever it was took him over. Though he’s still flat on the floor, Stone asks to see them, confirming that they are definitely related to those carved into the dead men. Both beaten and bloody, the two head back to the car to start for home.

When the barbecue rolls around on Saturday, Stone is almost completely healed. He sets wards in his yard to keep the kids from straying and Verity, an early arrival, suggests Raider might like a catio in order to experience the outdoors. Stone adjusts the wards, and leaves the back door open in case the cat decides to explore. Once folks arrive, Jason and Amber take over cooking, Gina plays with Alice and Jaden, and Stone, Verity, Eddie, and Ward put their heads together over the photos from the hidden basement.

The group identifies four symbols on the walls as matching four of the murders. They’re also the four Stone noted were inert before Jason attacked. It seems the murders are following the symbols. Verity suggests that they’re feeding the large symbol where the void in the wall was, since it’s glowing, but more weakly. Perhaps each murder feeds it to some end. But what was in the wall? The void is the size of a smallish box, perhaps the receptacle for the knife or knives being used. While Stone hopes the collapse of the building will end the cycle, but he doesn’t believe it. And he still doesn’t know who found the place to begin with, or how.

The evening draws to a close with Raider making an appearance and taking immediately to Gina and Jaden. A little put out, Alice crawls into Stone’s lap and snuggles in to sleep, surprising everyone, especially Stone. Once the others have all left, Verity tells Stone that Marie-Thérèse knew of nothing to prolong Raider’s life. The best she could offer was a health tonic. Stone thanks her, and admits he thought as much, and that he should stop trying to control everything in his life.

Ren Huxley calls the next day to report another murder, in Arkansas, and the symbol matches the second on the rear wall of the chamber. Stone suggests they return to the library and try to destroy the symbols, but Huxley says it’s too late. Someone’s already razed the library, completely burying the chamber; they couldn’t dig down to it without raising a whole lot of attention and questions.

The next day, Stone returns home from running errands and Raider is once again absent. He finally locates the cat sprawled on his bed and, concerned he’s sick again, switches to magical sight. What he sees is a black panther-like creature four times Raider’s size. The cat still looks the same to ordinary sight, and feels the same, but… He calls Verity over and she confirms what he’s seeing, after she gets over her own surprise. Raider is a Changeling, likely infected with the virus by exposure to Gina or Jaden during the barbecue. To be sure, he calls Gina over and she, too, confirms it; Raider looks like a huge, striped black panther to her. Raider, for his part, doesn’t understand the fuss. Though, his new form has a much bigger appetite than the ordinary tabby should be able to support.

Alastair introduces the new Raider to Jason and Amber and spends time observing him. He discovers that Raider can now reach high places he couldn’t before. He’s also able to get through closed doors by somehow phasing through them. Fortunately, he’s also more attuned to – and respectfully cautious of – magical energy. He can even detect intruders who haven’t tripped Stone’s wards, yet.

Ian and Gabriel meet Raider 2.0 when they come for dinner one evening. Stone asks Gabriel to look at the photos of the symbols found at the crime scenes. The dragon says they are ancient and demonic – from beings far older than Razakal or Archie. It’s not his area of expertise, so he plans to bring them to his father’s attention. Ian promises to stay in contact in case Stone needs him for this case.

Kolinsky summons Stone to an undisclosed location to discuss the murders. He’s able to read the symbols, somewhat, and confirms they are demonic in nature, far older than even the dragons’ presence on Earth. He believes that the murders are progressing, from the virtually powerless homeless man to, so far, a modestly well-off professional. Each will involve an increasingly more potent individual, going forward, up to and including one or more mages. Something in the chamber Stone discovered – Kolinsky suspects the knife used in the killings – summoned Doggy’s friend’s buddy to take it and commit the first murder. The knife itself, he says, is imbued with the spirit of a powerful demon. Each murder summons another demon, as well as powering the large symbol in the chamber. In the end, the summoning of the twelfth demon will give the knife demon enough power to summon its master, a true greater demon of enormous power, using the death energy of the summoned twelve. One person, Kolinsky says, may have information on this demon blade: Thalassa Nera.

Three weeks later, while jogging, Stone receives a call from Huxley, telling him of a new murder in Kansas. The man is well-to-do, and the symbol matches the next in the sequence. While on the phone, Stone spots furtive movement in the dark. Concerned, he jogs home to be safe behind his wards. Shortly, Raider begins growling at the window. Though his wards haven’t been triggered, Alastair goes outside to check and is attacked by three shadowy creatures. They’re resistant to magic, and powerful enough to get through his shield. He’s badly injured, losing blood and sick, possibly poisoned by the creatures when his phone rings. Despite trying to hold off the creatures he answers and tells the caller – Ren Huxley – to send help. Just before he loses consciousness, something else streaks past him from behind.

Alastair wakes five days later in a mage healing center Gabriel knew about. He’d been near death with only his particular nature keeping him alive until Verity, Gabriel and other alchemists and healers were able to neutralize the demonic poison in his system. Once they did, he began to recover. It had been *Raider* that had run off the demons and protected Stone until Verity and the others could arrive to help him. No more murders have happened, but word of them has leaked and at least two copycat murders have taken place. Cleared to leave the next day, Stone returns home to finish his recovery, as well as treat Raider for having his back.

Late that afternoon, he receives a summons from Thalassa Nera that gives him just enough time to get ready. Dressed formally, he arrives at another of Thalassa’s Manhattan properties, this one apparently a private art gallery. Thalassa leads him to an office where she has him present all the information he has on the murders, the chamber, the symbols, and even the copycat murders. When he’s finished, Thalassa orders him to strip so she can examine his wounds. Not really having a choice, he complies, standing in his shorts while Thalassa makes a thorough examination of him. He gets the sense that she’s enjoying making him uncomfortable. She finally lets him dress to continue their conversation.

She tells Stone that the knife being used in the killings is an ancient artifact containing part of the essence of a powerful demon known only as The Unspeakable. Each murder powers the main symbol in the chamber, and draws a demon onto the Earth plane. Each one is more powerful than the last. Ultimately, the twelve summoned demons will conduct a ritual to give The Unspeakable purchase on the Earthly plane. They will all die in the process, further powering the ritual. But even more power is needed to bring it fully onto Earth: the death energy of about two billion people. The Unspeakable will engineer some kind of cataclysmic event to generate the energy to open the way to Earth. Even the dragons – all of them together – would not be able to stand against The Unspeakable to stop it.

Thalassa says that the dragons haven’t acted because they have something even more dire to deal with. Plus, since the knife can’t be traced, they’d have no more chance at success than Stone, himself. The rituals to summon the Unspeakable were attempted before, in the 1700s. The dragons didn’t find out until after it was stopped, but apparently someone sent the knife to America to be hidden in the chamber in Massachusetts. Even if one of the murders was prevented and the failed murderer killed, though, the knife would simply pick another wielder to continue on.

The only two things in humanity's favor are the fact that demons are selfish by nature, and while the knife is untraceable, its wielder, possessed by demonic energy, might be located if they can be detected after a murder but before they dissolve. Each demon summoned is successively both more powerful and more intelligent, meaning if one of them is made aware that they’re going to die completing the ritual, they might think twice about continuing. At least, she says, Stone had better hope so.

Thalassa says she has information that can help, but in return she wants the knife, when and if Stone gets hands on it. He refuses at first, but she convinces him that a dragon is the best choice to keep the knife safely out of dangerous hands. He reluctantly agrees, but she demands a magical oath, as well. If Stone does get the knife and can reasonably be expected to get it to her, fine, but if he fails he will be subject to pain, increasing daily until he does deliver. It’s a dangerous oath, but he sees no alternative.

First, she says, Stone needs to get a sample of one of the demons’ energy; she has something he can use to do that. Then, he should be able to track the energy of the knife-wielder. Second, he must find someone of faith to assist him. For no reason anyone knows, people of faith are effective against demonic entities. Finally, she gives him the equations to make his shields more effective against demons, a sample of demon skin to help him locate demonic energy, and a knife made of some substance demons are vulnerable to. She assures him it will be effective against the demon spawn that attacked him, as well, and assures him that, in the meantime, the demons already summoned are left to their own devices, so he doesn’t have to worry that they’re banding together to help speed the ritual along.

It’s days before Stone can get everyone together – including Huxley via video, but minus Gabriel, who has joined the dragons in doing whatever it is they’re doing. He brings them up to speed, showing them the knife and demon skin. Eddie and Ward report that the house that became the library belonged to a hyper-religious man in the 1700’s who, toward the end of his life, became convinced demons were arriving and everyone was in imminent danger. He later disappeared after someone reported flashing lights coming from his home. The group postulates that he defeated the demons and sealed the knife in the sub-basement. If he was extremely devout, he may have been able to resist the knife long enough to seal it away.

Stone’s first thought of a person of faith to approach is Grace Ruiz, who helped him get rid of Archie. But he puts that off for the future, since they have to actually find a demon first. When they end the meeting, Ian leaves last, staying back to ask what his father intends to do with the knife if he gets it. He assures Ian that it will be safe with a dragon. Ian also reports that Aldwyn has apparently disappeared. No one’s seen or heard from him since Stone and Harrison defeated him and demanded his oath of noninterference. Alastair says he has quite enough on his plate without worrying about what Aldwyn’s up to.

The next murder happens a few days later, in a suburb of Seattle. Verity happens to be at the house, so she and Stone hurry to get there. Huxley is hours away in Chicago, but she calls ahead clearance for them to enter the scene. Once there, they encounter resistance from the police, but are allowed access. They notice that one crime scene tech is a Changeling, and go to talk to him, revealing that they can see his other form, and that they’re mages. He gives them the victim’s name, and says he was a small-tech CEO and multi-millionaire. They assure him they’re trying to stop the murders so, under one of Stone’s illusions, he gives them a hair collected from the dead man’s hand, clutched in his fingers.

Grabbing a rideshare, the pair head for a church, assuming it will be empty mid-week. They do a tracking ritual, but the tracking tendril fizzles out just as Verity shakes Stone and says something is burning. A grinning figure leers at them from a window – likely the demon that was summoned. Then they hear screams. Verity sets about clearing the ritual materials while Stone tries to find whoever is screaming. He locates an old woman and her young granddaughter in the sanctuary, which is burning with unnatural flames. Alastair manages to break a window and get the child out, then returns for the woman. Verity helps him with telekinesis as his breath is failing and first responders are arriving. They flee under an illusion to avoid questions they can’t answer.

At home, Stone is exhausted but frustrated. The murderer got away again, apparently grabbing a flight to get out of his tracking range fast. Huxley calls and he fills her in. She tells him the little girl is okay, though she’s telling everyone an angel with an accent saved her. Her grandmother, though, didn’t make it. Stone drops into exhausted sleep, only to be awakened by his phone in the morning by Huxley, reporting yet another murder.

Alastair convenes his brain trust and gives them the details of the latest murder. The man doesn’t fit the pattern, being an eccentric bookseller who often couldn’t pay his bills. Huxley calls in, though, and tells them her sources found out the victim was a wild magical talent. Stone explains that, to a demon, *any* magical talent would outweigh riches or political power. If magical might has become the power measure, any potent mage could be next. And the final victim would likely be Stone himself, as one of the most powerful mages who isn’t either a dragon or Harrison, who is currently on Calanar. Meanwhile, Stone has a brainstorm and asks Verity to get a sample of the infection he’d had. He might be able to track one of the demons with that, and convince it that it was going to die if the ritual is completed.

Stone reluctantly leaves a voice message for Thalassa, asking whether demons have methods to travel quickly, faster than a mundane. He then goes to Caventhorne to do more research of his own. Later, while having pints at the Dragon with Eddie and Ward, a woman materializes next to their table, though the other two men can’t see her. She telepathically tells Stone that demons are fairly restricted to mundane travel, but not to assume the most powerful ones can’t find other means. He quickly leaves Eddie and Ward rather bemused, and rushes home to get the skin and bacteria samples and Thalassa’s knife.

Alastair travels to Denver, assuming the demon summoned by victim #5 would be intelligent, but not too strong for him to handle, and had hopefully remained in the area. He breaks into an vacant warehouse and performs his ritual with the bacteria sample. It’s successful, and a pendant he uses as part of the ritual indicates there is a demon not far away. He takes a cab to the area, then walks to find an abandoned arcade and mini golf business called Crazy Charlie’s.

Inside the arcade, he’s quickly set upon by a spinning clown head, golf balls, and parts of the ceiling. Maintaining his shield, he shouts that the demon was only summoned to be sacrificed. He manages to use his pendant to track the demon and stab it, getting his sample. He flees, but not before warning the demon that it’s only going to remain alive long enough to summon The Unspeakable. For whatever reason, the demon doesn’t follow, and he gets away with the knife and the sample he needed, taking it to Caventhorne to hide in Desmond’s vault.

The brain trust convenes again, but Stone has to admit he’s not sure of his next steps. Gina has located Grace Ruiz – she’d moved to Mexico after her Abuelita passed away. Alastair decides to go talk to her, and Jason volunteers to go with. Stone isn’t sure what part Grace will play, whether he’s willing to ask her to face the danger, but he’ll be able to decide once he’s spoken with her. He arranges a flight to San Diego and a rental car to get them to Ensenada.

In Mexico, it takes the pair a while to locate Grace and, once they do, Stone is shocked to find her living in what seem squalid conditions, as well as very pregnant. He immediately decides this trip was a mistake – he won’t put her at risk. Grace hears their story, then invites them to her house, where Alastair finds her faith-based wards are as strong as ever. After a family meal, Grace tells Stone she may be able to help indirectly. She leaves him and Jason to rest while her husband accompanies her to church where she can pray. Before she leaves, she asks to take the knife with the demon blood with her. When she returns, she presents Stone with a box to hold the demon blade once he secures it. The box radiates strong, protective magic. She also gives him the old katana he’d used previously to deal with Archie, the one imbued with Abuelita’s faith.

On their trip back to San Diego, Huxley calls with not one, but two more murders. A mage and his apprentice were both murdered at the same place and time, leaving only one more to complete the first part of the ritual to summon The Unspeakable. Stone quickly gets word to Eddie, and has him send him ley line coordinates nearest his position, and in Baltimore. Leaving Jason to finish the trip, he pops home to stash the sword and box, then to Baltimore, where Huxley has a car and agent Angie Lester waiting for him.

The murder of the mage matches with the rest, though it appears he was killed first and left alone while the killer murdered his apprentice and carved the symbol. The killer then returned to the older man to carve the symbol and summon the eleventh demon, thus keeping the order of the power structure. The apprentice tried to run, and even fight back. In a stroke of luck Stone finds a tiny bit of the killer’s skin stuck between the young man’s teeth. Angie directs him to the mage’s basement ritual space and covers for him, so he can use the bit of flesh to track the killer.

The ritual is quick, and the result is clear: the killer is in Richmond, VA. Angie gets him back to where she picked him up, and he pops along the key line to his destination, a cemetery directly on the ley line. Almost as soon as he arrives, however, the pendant he uses to track goes limp. The killer has died, but he may still have time to get the knife. He calls Verity and has her stay on the line via video call, to monitor him in case the knife tries to influence him. If he begins to act oddly, he says, she’s to call everyone in to try to stop him.

He reaches the pile of goo and clothing that’s all that’s left of the killer. He pokes around the mess with a stick, but only the man’s wallet falls from his pockets; the knife is already gone. Stone spots someone lurking nearby and grabs him with telekinesis. It’s a goth teen who says he was just there to work on his music. Stone, pretending to be a journalist, offers him money to tell what he saw. The kid, saying he knows Stone won’t believe him, describes the man walking through the cemetery, looking suddenly sick, and then dissolving instantly into goo. A few moments later, another man he didn’t see well walked up, bent down, picked something up and…disappeared. Stone assumes he used invisibility.

Alastair is near despair. He’s missed his chance to stop the final murder. Verity talks him around to coming home while she calls in the others. There’s no time to waste and they need to put their heads together to find the final killer.

Eddie brainstorms the list of potential targets, all A-level mages including Stone. There are thirteen scattered around the country. Amber suggests that, since they can’t protect them, warn them instead. If they portal out of the country, it’ll take them out of the knife’s reach, at least temporarily. Eddie and Ward get on it, sending an email blast and promising to contact any without email directly. Ian promises to keep trying to get hold of Gabriel, and Stone plans to keep trying to reach Thalassa Nera. Everyone but Verity leaves. Stone is still fairly despondent, and even Verity is grasping at straws, wondering if he can find a way to track demon energy, maybe using the island’s power to give him a more global boost. He says that wouldn’t work, but the word ‘global’ triggers Stone, and he remembers Desmond’s globe. It tracks ley lines and rifts, but maybe he could modify it… He takes off for England, leaving Verity to coordinate the others.

Unfortunately, the globe is a bust. After hours of working with it in the basement of his Surrey house, Stone takes a break to get something to eat. Selby is there and offers to lend an ear. Alastair tells him the situation and Selby advises him to never, ever trust what a demon says, to always keep in mind that they are entirely selfish. Selby heads back to his apartment, but before Stone can go back to work his phone rings. It’s the Crazy Charlie demon. He says the final killer is only hours from the last murder, and he knows where it’s going to be. Reasoning that the demon does selfishly want to stop the ritual so it won’t die, Stone agrees to meet with him in Colorado, at a diner near Crazy Charlie’s.

Stone sends a quick email to Verity telling her he’s meeting someone dangerous, and not to try to find him until a couple of hours have passed without word. At the diner, the demon shows up in the guise of a twenty-something greaser. He tells Stone he can feel the other demons, as well as The Unspeakable. He can even feel the last killer a little bit. The final sacrifice will happen in about an hour. He shows Stone the place on a map, a wild, wooded area in northern Montana. Finally, he gives Stone a demon coin that should point to the right spot once he’s in the area. If Stone is successful, he and the other demons will be free to do whatever they like on Earth, but that’s better than a quarter of the population dying, right? The demon wishes him luck and reminds him he owes Stone for the stabbing back at the arcade.

Stone calls Verity and tells her to ignore his email. He has her give him ley line coordinates – two run right through the center of the area the demon indicated. No one else can possibly reach him in time to help, so he asks her to wish him luck. After one final attempt to reach Gabriel or Thalassa, leaving them both the coordinates, he heads to Encantada to retrieve Grace’s box and sword.

Once he pops up to Montana, out in the middle of nowhere, he orients on the ley line. Verifying his direction with the coin, he teleports forward, hoping no one senses him coming. He arrives at an abandoned lodge. Inside he finds a figure kneeling over another, fallen, man. He flings a couch at the kneeling man, who is knocked away, but destroys the couch and moves back toward the dead man. Stone stares in horror when he recognizes the killer is the dragon, Cassius, and the dead man is another dragon – Vic.

Stone hits him again, and Cassius blows him through a wall. Once more, Stone attacks, cutting into Cassius’ back with Abuelita’s sword, but Cassius slashes him with the demon blade, cutting his chest and abdomen. Nearly spent, wounded and in agony from the demon blade’s power, Stone knocks Cassius aside and plunges the sword into the symbol on Vic’s chest at the same time Cassius stabs him through the shoulder with the demon blade, right through his magical tattoo. Stone holds on though, channeling his own power and the faith in the sword into Vic’s body until it’s burned to ash. The nearly-formed demon is banished, and Cassius throws the knife away in horror.

Unable to move well, Stone orders the distraught Cassius to get his bag with the box inside. Having Cassius strip the remains of his coat off him, he uses the enchanted fabric to grab the knife and close it away in the box. The remains of the demonic energy in the room fade. Stone asks Cassius how he’d been taken over by the knife. The dragon had been tracking it and had removed it from the eleventh killer. It didn’t seem to influence him at all until he arranged to meet with his father – Vic. Then the knife had struck, taking him kver and forcing him to murder his father. Now, he says, the other dragons will kill him.

Stone is fighting to stay conscious, not wanting to chance Cassius trying to take the knife again, when Kolinsky, Morathi Ababio, and Gabriel suddenly appear. Cassius confesses he killed his father, but Stone says it was the knife, Cassius isn’t to blame. Kolinsky takes the box, with Stone babbling not to open it, never to open it. Kolinsky promises it will be kept safe and never harm anyone again. Stone remembers he’s supposed to give the blade to Thalassa, but it would just take her over, too. Weak from blood loss, the still-agonizing pain of the blade wounds, and the destruction of his tattoo, Stone finally collapses.

He wakes several days later partially healed, though his left arm is immobilized and the slash on his chest and stomach is still red. Otherwise, he feels fine. Gabriel comes in and offers him food, which Stone accepts, though it delays him getting answers to his many questions. When Gabriel returns he says Cassius is in custody, pending a conclave to decide his fate. Stone considers it unfair, but the dragons feel he should have known better than to look for the blade alone.

Gabriel says he’s in a place the dragons keep available, in Colorado. He asks what Stone remembers and he relates the story of trying to fight Cassius, but having to destroy Vic’s body to stop him. He tells him about Abuelita’s blade and Grace’s powerful faith-based magic. Stone demands to know why the dragons weren’t there, and Gabriel says he can’t say, but they were involved in something even more dire than a major demon threatening to decimate the population.

The dragons tried to heal Stone, including Madame Huan, but the injuries caused by the demon blade were resistant to magical healing. They will heal, with time, but he may always have some pain from them. But at least Mme Huan was sure no demonic energy remained. Ian and Stone’s friends had been told he was injured and recovering, and were anxious to see him when he was better. Of course, there are still eleven more demons that will have to be dealt with eventually, and Stone will have to face Thalassa Nera, without the promised blade.

Alastair fills everyone in as much as he’s allowed to, and calls Ren Huxley to tell her The Unspeakable’s been stopped. He warns her about the other demons, and says he’ll help with them, but not for a while unless it’s something world-threatening; he needs time to recover. He and Jason return Abuelita’s broken sword to Grace, and Stone leaves a generous donation to the church. Grace insists on trying to heal his wounds but when she tries, she gets the overwhelming feeling that she shouldn’t – not can’t, but *shouldn’t*. She says God doesn’t always tell her the why of things.

The last loose end to tie up is Thalassa Nera, but it is some time before she finally summons him. When he arrives, he finds her in a glittering, sexy gown instead of her usual custom business suit. She makes it clear though, that she feels he hasn’t met the terms of his oath. But she’s prepared to offer him an alternative to the pain punishment she promised him if he failed. She wants a scion of her own, with Stone as the baby daddy.