This one seemed like a short story, but I don’t think it would qualify as that short. It seemed to go really fast. I guess the reason it did is that you should already be familiar with most of the characters by now, having read the fist two books, right? Well, if you didn’t read the first two books first, then you’re kind of strange and probably lost and sick. Yeah, these stories, if you’re not familiar with the Stone Soldier series, could easily make you sick.
This is a continuation of all the blood and guts spilling we had in the other two books. Without going into the whole background of the story, we have a giant shapeshifter who was created some where around the time before Noah and the flood. He survived some how in a tomb that was uncovered by modern day man and promptly opened which brought this creature to life. Now he lives by consuming the hearts of humans! Yes, he just walks up to you, sticks his huge six-fingered hand under your sternum and up your rib cage until he has he hand around your beating heart. Then he just rips it out! Of course you’re sill alive while this is all going on and even after he stands in front of you with your beating heart in his hand, you kind of notice that he starts eating it, and then you fall over dead.
The creature in this book is called Tezcahtlip. I’ll let you figure out how to pronounce that. Anyway, he’s the surviving brother of two giants that were in the last book, one of which was thankfully killed by Colonel Mark Kenslir. Col. Kenslir, as you recall, is the Commander of Section 1039, Special Operation cell, a.k.a. Black Sabers. His group has become a mixture of survivors. Josie is a young kid, about 18, who’s there because she was a kidnap victim and well, kind of special to Col. Kenslir. Then her boy friend, Jimmy, who is, or was a scrawny kid Josie knew back in neighborhood who also got kidnapped. Jimmy is dead, but also alive sometimes. There are three other Stone Soldiers which I won’t go into detail on since you can read about them yourself. Let’s just say, they need to help Col. Kenslir fight this giant shapeshifter or everyone’s going to die a slow and painful death, again.
Tezcahtlip goes to Alcatraz where the US has consolidated all the parahumans that have been caught doing something illegal. Here they are drugged into oblivion without anyone caring much about how long they stay that way. Tezchatlip also inherits the abilities and memories of any who he eats. So he stops off at Alcatraz and begins to eat. Then he see a lovely female doctor who he decides must have a delicious heart so he rips it from her and consumes it right in front of her. She dies and then later jumps on Tezcahtlip’s back and starts ripping his body apart! Ok, yes, I said she died, but since she’s a vampire, she can’t really die just by losing her heart. So, Tezcahtlip decides he eaten everyone in Alcatraz and is really getting annoyed with this crazy lady on his back, he changes into his usual form of a monstrous red dragon and flies off for Mexico.
OK, now is where the rest of the story starts. Col. Kenslir comes to Alcatraz to see all the damage and he recruits the young vampire doctor making sure she promises not to eat anyone, suck their blood out or suck their life-force from them. Then the entire team heads for Mexico. Read the bloody book to find out what happens from here on.
Ok, if you don’t like blood and guts, then it would be best you stayed away from this series. After three books of the stuff, I’m getting kind of acclimated to the messy parts, but there sure is a lot of it. If it’s not someones heart being ripped out, then it’s bones breaking and brains getting dissolved or whatever unpleasant thing you can imagine. I like the writing although this would be best presented in a comic book than just a normal ebook. I think I might read some more stories of the Stone Soldiers, but for now, I think I’ll read a Winnie-the-Poo book so I can calm down.