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Thank you for reading Demon Blade. I hope you enjoyed it.
I wish to thank Kris Verity, author of Bad Nana Unleashed, for her ability to check through the manuscript. She found and reported a lot of things for fixing – mistakes that cropped up from typing in the early hours of the morning, the only quiet time I could find.
The book's inspiration came while writing Dead Cell. The moment I introduced Inspector Myles, a man constantly mentioned but never experienced by the reader, I knew a Ripper character skulked in the background. He had to be there. And so did someone else.
Melody Kostas, the Lamia, came not long after I thought of the Jack the Ripper knife premise.
Originally Melody's character was meant to have a psychic connection to the killer. I just couldn't see how. Then one night, my muse whispered in my dreams, and I realised she was a lamia. But not any lamia. She is THE LAMIA. The original. But she wasn't evil. That would be too easy. How did she fit the tale?
So I rewrote her tale. It took some research into the Greek Gods and other tales from Babylonian and Sumerian times. And what's more the Lamia appears in so much classical literature and also in modern popular fiction.
Having said this, so many stories abound about Jack the Ripper. too. And many authors claim to know who he (or she) really was. I found at least eight different authors (including Patricia Cornwell and Australia's Amanda Howard) who claimed they had solved the killer's identity.
Who is right? I don't know. But I'm certain of one thing.
Only the true Ripper knew.