Will Hunter's had a rough few months. He just survived the battle of his life. He learned the devil was his father. And his newly demonic best friend Rudy is trapped under glass until Will can find a way to bring him back from the dark side. All Will wants is to lay low for a while with Natalie, the girl he loves, and focus on saving his friend. But Will never seems to get what he wants. In Seattle, Will encounters a dangerous new breed of female demon, faster and more deadly than anything he's ever faced, and a mysterious, striking girl who arrives just in time to save his life. Natalie doesn't trust her, but Will is drawn to her in a way he doesn't fully understand. Is she a powerful new ally? Or will her secrets destroy him and everything he cares about? As the devil's minions work to reassemble their leader's body piece by piece, Will must once again become the New Kid to prevent the Dark Lord from rising—this time for good. Screenwriter/filmmaker Temple Mathews , a graduate of the University of Washington and a producer at the American Film Institute, has written dozens of half-hour animation TV episodes and several animated and live action features and direct-to-DVD and video films. Mathews has sold scripts and/or worked for hire at every major studio in Hollywood. His credits include the Walt Disney animated feature films Return to Neverland and The Little Mermaid 2 and the MGM feature film Picture This! Additionally, Mathews wrote and produced the feature film Off the Mark . He lives in Santa Monica with his daughter. Cruel winds lashed the forest, whipping the pine trees into a savage dance. The sky above roiled in thunder-cracking anger. Sheets of rain began to hammer down. Will had already been on the move for over an hour, and even though he had—on account of his lineage—über-human strength and endurance, he was starting to tire. One of his boots caught a root and he went down hard. He jumped back up and was running again in a flash, but the two seconds had cost him: he saw an ugly blur to his left, another to his right. And he heard snarling. Angry, deep growling. Whatever manner of demon beasts these were, they were intent on malice. He sensed what was about to happen and whipped his wrist. A Flareblade snapped up into his palm. His instinct had been right; the creature on the left pin-balled off a fir tree and sprang right at Will, knocking him sideways. His head slammed into a boulder. The creature had drawn blood and Will was down, seeing double. As the creature swooped down, Will slashed upward with the Flareblade. The moment it made contact with the demon’s chest, the Flareblade shot out a dual-directional red-hot burst of flame. The creature howled, doubled over, and jawed down, trying to take a death bite out of Will’s forehead. But Will crouched out of harm’s way as the demon particle-vaporized. Will retracted the Flareblade and took off running again. Thunderbolts began to rip down out of the clouds, one striking a treetop. The ensuing howl made Will smile; one of the creatures waiting to ambush him had been hit by lightning. Well, that’ll teach you, he thought. But there was no time to gloat. He could feel them gaining on him as he scrabbled up a rocky incline toward a plateau. He made the mistake of looking back. What he saw caused his blood to curdle. Eyes. Evil yellow eyes like molten lamps, at least two dozen pairs, maybe more. He was ridiculously out-numbered. If he stopped now and tried to fight them hand to hand without his Power Rod, he’d be dead in under a minute. He had to reach the plateau. Bam! He was hit from behind and rolled through a tangle of blackberry bushes, the unruly northwest variety, Mother Nature’s mutants, vines thick with brutal thorns that tore into his face. The attacking demon, a teen male, wielded a rusty scabbard and he swung it at Will with all his might while howling for backup. Will rolled left—wham! Then right—wham! He was barely avoiding getting chopped in half. Not fun. Will popped a Flareblade up into each of his hands, and with a cross-swipe he beheaded the creature, taking care to step quickly away from the geyser of toxic blood that gushed out of the beast’s neck. Now that was fun. He knew the others would smell the kill and come swarming after him, so he hauled himself up the hill and then kicked it up a notch, running as fast as he possibly could—right toward the edge of a sheer cliff with a six-hundred-foot drop. And they were right behind him, their nostrils flaring as they smelled his blood. Will glanced back. There were even more of the monstrous demons than he’d thought—at least four dozen. No way was he going to let them catch him and tear him apart, because he knew that they wouldn’t be in a big hurry. No, they’d flay him slowly to cause the maximum amount of pain possible, probably keeping him alive for days in the process. The cliff ahead seemed a much better option. He only hoped all his hard techno-design work