In Which I Say, “Hey, Paranormal Three-Way(ish)…That’s New!” Hunter of Demons by Jordan L. Hawk

I am right here, behind your prejudices – Loesje

Caleb Jansen didn’t mean to become possessed by a Non-Human Entity. After all, it’s not as if he purposely bargained his spiritual or moral integrity away for the allure of the power that comes with being possessed by a spook of the dangerous variety. In fact, when it comes right down to it, it’s the last thing he’d have ever wanted because Caleb himself is a bit of a paranormal entity; some might even go so far as to call him an aberration or abomination or any other manner of cruel labels humans have come up with to assign to those who are different. If, that is, anyone outside of his immediate family knew of his telekinetic abilities, limited as they may be. Caleb, you see, is an unregistered mal—a human with paranormal powers—and to be so, to be different in this world, means to become a target of those who’ve appointed themselves the ultimate authority that sits at the right hand of God and metes out their own form of vigilante judgment in His name to those who threaten their fundamentalist, self-righteous beliefs. Sounds rather topical, doesn’t it? Well, it is.

Caleb is led directly into battle to rescue the body of his dead brother from a parasitic being who hops from host to host in search of a vehicle to use in its hunt for a demon that really, really needs killing. The problem, however, is two-fold: 1.) Everyone seems to think it’s Caleb’s possessor that needs killing, and 2.) when it comes to sides here, there’s a definite line between who is good and who is evil, and the side I fell on in that estimation was certainly not the one trying to hoist “Gray” with his own petard, nor was it the side that eventually wants to see Caleb done in for something for which he isn’t guilty.

The Gray in this equation, by the way, is a centuries old drakul, a vampire, if you will, who isn’t really evil, he’s just misunderstood. Or that’s the way I liked to think of him because really, he wasn’t a malevolent creature…maybe just opportunistic, and Caleb just so happened to be the one in the way at the moment opportunity knocked. Trust me when I say Caleb is not happy about it either, not by any stretch of the imagination, so that’s where Special Agent John Starkweather enters this complex equation, as resident exorcist for SPECTR—the Strategic Paranormal Entity ConTRol—being the one man who’s powerful enough to rid Caleb of his uninvited guest. Or at least that’s how it’s supposed to work in a perfect Urban Fantasy world. But perfect is overrated because if things worked out the way they were supposed to, there wouldn’t be much of a story, now, would there?

Albert Einstein once defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results. Well, color me cuckoo because here we are again, with another great Jordan L. Hawk creation, and though I can’t say I necessarily expected different results going into it, I guess I didn’t expect it to be yet another variation on ways to make me feel like the dumb girl in the horror movies who keeps walking into those dark rooms that everyone but her seems to know means, at best, a life-long case of the screaming heebie-jeebies. More dead people, more activity of the extreme paranormal variety, and more intrigue only makes for more of the happy that the sequel to Hunter of Demons isn’t too far off.

There’s a lot more to come of what’s been introduced in this installment of the series. This is a threesome unlike any I’ve ever read before, what with two of those three inhabiting a single body. But make no mistake; Gray is a force in this relationship, not as a parasite feeding off of Caleb’s thoughts and emotions, but as a symbiotic entity that may very well be leading Caleb down an unexpected career path. Whether these three—Caleb/Gray and John can learn to adapt is a question I can’t wait to have answered!

Buy Hunters of Demons here: