Donald Hanley

Necessary Evil Donald Hanley

In pretty much every action/adventure movie ever made, the good guy overcomes overwhelming odds to defeat the bad guy, rescue the girl, and ride off into the sunset to a stirring orchestral score. I got killed within the first two minutes, the girl rescued me, and there was no music whatsoever. We did manage to defeat the bad guy, though, so there's that. What we didn't do was finish off the evil mastermind behind all this. Daraxandriel's twin sister Lilixandriel is still out there somewhere, busily recruiting demons to kill me (again) and take the Philosopher's Stone from my mutilated corpse. I, on the other hand, have no magical powers whatsoever, so I have to hope that the motley group of women I've accumulated over the last few weeks - a succubus, a witch, and a ghost, plus my sister Susie - can somehow keep me alive until we figure out a way to eliminate Lilixandriel's threat once and for all. I'm not holding my breath on this one, frankly. We barely managed to take down Bellaxragor Stormreaper and that was mostly blind luck. The next demon Lilixandriel sends our way could easily be a hundred times worse. If we can't find a way to harness the power of the Philosopher's Stone soon, there'll be two ghosts haunting the Collins household instead of one.