The Stone Initiation

CONTENTS Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Chapter 32 Chapter 33 Chapter 34 Chapter 35 Chapter 36 Chapter 37 Chapter 38 Chapter 39 Chapter 40 Chapter 41 Chapter 42 Chapter 43 Chapter 44 Chapter 45 Chapter 46 Chapter 47 Chapter 48 Chapter 49 Chapter 50 Chapter 51 Chapter 52 Chapter 53 Chapter 54 Chapter 55 Chapter 56 Chapter 57 Other Books by Debbie Cassidy About the Author Copyright © 2023, Debbie Cassidy All Rights Reserved This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, duplicated, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. Cover by Covers by Juan CHAPTER 1 There was a boogeyman in my closet. Again. It was the third time this month, and I was losing my patience. I yanked open the door and stared at the mournful-eyed creature huddled in the corner of the dark cupboard. “Seriously, Derek? Again?” He moaned softly and hung his head. “What happened now?” “Eeee, oooow arghhh uuuuh.” He sighed. “Grrrrr.” The sounds he made, although incoherent and downright frightening to anyone else, made sense to me. “Those bastards. I swear, if I get my hands on them, I’ll extinguish the lot of them.” He looked up sharply. “Ungghh” “I know. I know you want to be friends with them, but they’re no good, Derek. You’re better than them.” He was. He was sweet and kind and totally not boogeyman material. But then he was mine. I’d created him after all. He’d come from the mind of a lonely child in need of a companion, and now he didn’t fit in with all the other monsters under the bed and it was my fault. I held out my hand. “Hey, you want some hot chocolate?” “Ummm, urrrgh…” “Yes, you can have marshmallows.” He took my hand and squeezed gently, his smile revealing rows of razor teeth. Gosh, he was the sweetest. “Brrrgggh,” he said softly. “Yeah, I love you too buddy.” * * * Boogeymen; the thing in the lake; monsters under the bed and shadow men, they were all real, all the same thing—tulpas. A human’s imagination could produce magic, and collectively…well, the evidence was all around us. Killing the creatures however was a little harder. It involved imagining a weakness into being, and then having the masses believe it. Back in the day, before the Gray messed up our world, the guardians had used the internet to keep these creatures under control. Feeding information to the masses that helped our stone protectors to take down these shadowy threats. There was still internet, but now it was called the Vine. It was spotty and unpredictable and frustrating as heck. Cell service was also unreliable. But we were alive and that’s what mattered. The details of the Gray threat that changed our world were spotty, but that was probably deliberate. The less humans knew, the less chance that they would somehow imagine something similar into existence. I led Derek into the kitchen where the sun was making an arch through the sky, getting ready to sleep for the day. He had never quite caught on to the come-out-only-at-night part. The huge kitchen clock showed it to be a minute after five. I had a date across town in a couple of hours. A small hunt organized by the locals that involved a nest of vampires that needed clearing out. Tulpa’s weren’t the only threat in our world. Vampires, werewolves, and other demonic things existed, but most of those inhabited the city beyond the rim lands, a place warded by powerful mageri magic. It was a safe place, filled with order and rules, but it was no longer taking admissions. We were on our own out here in Old Town, and it worked just fine. Derek made a sound of enquiry. “Almost done buddy.” I shot him a smile. Yep, I had plenty of time to give him a pep talk. He was my responsibility, and I adored him. He waited patiently while I made his milky drink and popped it in front of him. “Wnnngh argggh,” he said. “You’re welcome.” “Bbbbrrf grunge beck.” “Yeah, buddy, it sucks. But that’s what they’re made to do. You can’t change that. You can’t make the others stop scaring kids.” He sighed and plucked a marshmallow from his mug before popping it into his mouth. I could have extinguished him a long time ago. Being half gargoyle afforded me some abilities and extinguishing tulpas was one of them, but aside from the fact that I loved the moany freak, using my abilities would expose what I was to the people of Old Town, and to my friends, and then it would only be a matter of time before the pure blood gargoyles found me. I was sure they kept tabs on spikes of power like extinguishing. I made sure, that when I hunted I did it the old-fashioned way. It wasn’t easy keeping my abilities in check when people around me needed help. But I’d learned to use the tried and tested methods to take down the monsters. They seemed to work on the creatures roaming the Rim, although I’d heard the variants that occupied