Dire Symbols

Yesterday, I just wanted my phone charger back. Fired from my dead-end job, I decided that my jerk boss certainly didn’t need anything else from me, especially since he’d just died. While rummaging through his desk to reclaim my property, I didn’t expect to find an ancient artifact, and that the strange gem would forever change my life A Core Stone. Shifters, demigods, and the paranormal are actually real and some are living right here in Nashville. The damn stone bonded to me, connecting me to another plane of existence, and making me host to a being named Lily who can’t seem to decide if she’d rather make bad jokes or help me out—although it’s hard to always hear her over all the things trying to take my head off. I’m a demigod now, but I’m not a very good one. In one day I managed to piss off an ancient cult, get my apartment ransacked, and have the police called on me when I came across my first astral creature. In my defense, she had a freaky black aura and it creeped me out, even though it was just a little kid. I found out that not all demigods are benevolent, and they want what I have—they want my Core Stone. There are a limited number of stones in existence and if they get mine, they’ll unlock an ancient power that’ll blast the paranormal world wide open. Humanity won’t stand a chance. I have a new alliance now, though. Bast and her enclave of demis in their underground bunker have my back, even Cindy who takes paranoid to a new level but in a cool “save the world” kind of way. For the first time in my life, I have a real purpose and a place to call home. No one is going to take that from me or hurt my friends. Bastards want my Core Stone? Bring it on. My name is Liam Douglass, and yesterday I just wanted to find my phone charger...