The Demonslayer's Handbook

In the Winter of 2004, I was working on a collection of songs; arranging them into a sort of concept album. The title was going to be The Demonslayers Handbook. I decided to write the outline of the story, in order to give some structure and direction to the album, and it turned out to be a pretty good concept for a book. So, every day at lunchtime and on some evenings, I worked on flushing out the story further...

..for over two years.

Now, the story stretches well over 400 pages, with a solid plot backed by over 200 pages of external mythos and character development. Plenty of Action/Adventure/Rock Music/Demonology the majority of which is set in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

The story involves humans possessed by demons, Demonslayers who work outside the public knowledge to slay them, and the small-time Minneapolis rock band that gets caught in the crossfire...

The Characters

I have always had problems remembering names when reading stories, so I tried to give my characters unique and memorable names, and behaviours. Below is a list of the major characters appearing in The Demonslayer's Handbook.

  • Nix - Nix is a Demonslayer extraordinaire. She lives only to track them down and slay them one at a time. Her preferred weapons are blades - throwing knives and short swords. Nix is cold and merciless, and likes to be close to her prey when they die.
  • Sebastian - Sebastian is Spiritual Demonslayer, one whose work is primarily carried out on other planes. He attempts to expel demonic spirits through the archaic, but time-honored method of Exorcism.
  • 'Miss' Angelica Sade - Beautiful. Dark. Mysterious. Demon. Owner of the hedonistic 'Club DeSade'
  • Jacob 'Jake' Dolan - Hard-Boiled and Streetwise homicide detective for the city of Minneapolis, investigating a series of occult murders.
  • Samantha Cross - Minneapolis Police Detective-in-training, and partner to Jacob Dolan
  • Flat Black - Flat Black is a local Minneapolis band:

...There’s not much to tell about Flat Black. We were a bunch of outcasts, the kind of invisible, clichless people you couldn’t remember going to school with. I wouldn’t say we chose to be musicians; it’s more like music chose us. Through some series of fortuitous accidents we found each other, and discovered that we got along. Colorful characters, but nothing interesting or disturbing enough to make VH-1’s “Behind the Music”.

Over time, Flat Black developed its set list from a series of cover songs and jams into an entire show’s worth of original material. We had no delusions that we were better or worse than anyone else. That was what I liked most about it; no egos, just some people who loved making music, and had no desire to kill each other when locked together in a practice space for an entire weekend.

J-man was the class clown. He loved attention, negative or positive, and managed to take a lot of attention away from me, which I appreciated. Not to mention he was pretty dependable; for a bass player that is. He had an afternoon gig as a DJ for a local radio station.

Kat was Kat. She was fairly immune to the effects of the world, and if she was having a good day, nothing could change it. I couldn’t ever imagine her having a bad day. I suspect she had a pretty bad past life, and could live off of the Karmic interest being paid back to her in this one. She would pretend to fight with J-man and me, and flirt with everyone else. We would pretend to be devastated. She was also a black belt in Akido, and taught classes in it. She was really fast and flexible; skills I thought were useless outside the bedroom, but it did give her some incredible dance moves.

Iain was the drummer, and the only band member who could play flawlessly, no matter how hung-over he was. Or, maybe it was that he never got hung-over, no matter how drunk he was, I forget which. Tall, dark and mysterious, with long curly hair and an English accent, Iain was the chick-magnet for the group. That’s why J-man and I stood in front of him on stage. I have no idea what Iain does for a living; probably a spy.

Sugar was the glue that held us all together, and sometimes the bouncer who kept us apart. No-nonsense, and pragmatic; she was our reference point, and probably the only one with a true sense of responsibility, not to mention a van big enough to haul all the band equipment...

The Handbook

The handbook itself is a collection of knowledge regarding Demons, and more importantly, how to slay them.

...It was old. The edges of the pages were yellowing. Some had fallen out and were taped back in. Sections were written in different colors of ink with few mistakes. The majority of the handwriting was meticulous and clean; although there were notes, corrections and definitions in the margins that appeared to have been updated or added by someone else. There were lots of drawings, and some parts were taped into the book from newspaper clippings, pictures from books, photocopies, and computer printouts from the internet.

At the end of the book was a newer section, with pictures of a detailed ritual, including four symbols equally spaced around a pentagram.

It was a quick read, and once he finished, he tossed it aside in disgust.

...then he read it again, trying to give it a more ‘charitable interpretation’.

For a long time, he simply held the book at arm's length and stared at it, as though it might suddenly attack him with fangs or a poisonous stinger, or simply explode in a giant, black fireball, destroying him along with an entire square block of Minneapolis. He wished it would...

The World, The Spirit World, and Points InBetween

We don't generally give much daily thought to where spirits existed before they were 'born' or where they go when they 'die'. Less thought is given to the places between here and there. A place nicknamed "InBetween"

“What...?” he started to ask, and stopped mid-sentence, his own voice echoing in his head.

“What is this place?” she finished for him, “Many call this place ‘In-Between’.”

“Between what?”

“Between realities, if you like, or between two levels of existence. You get aspects of both at the same time, which is why things don’t look quite right here. No doubt you have discovered that unless you focus, all things blur together.”

He looked around, and realized that she was right. He focused on his guitar which lay on the floor nearby. The headstock where the strings wrapped around the chrome-plated posts, strings he had got on sale for only a dollar and had lasted for months... As he focused, it became sharper, more detailed, the color became brighter...