title: A Legacy of Daemons
author:  Camille Bacon-Smith 
description: Camille Bacon-Smith has a Ph.D. in folklore and folklife from the University of Pennsylvania. In addition to the Bradley, Ryan, and Davis series, she has written a short paranormal romance set at a vampire catering company and two books of scholarship about the science fiction and media fan fiction communities. As Curt Benjamin, she has written the Seven Brothers epic fantasy series. She can be found at camillebaconsmith.com.
zlib_text: 
  
  
  
  Some say the world will end in fire,
  
  Some say in ice.
  
  From what I've tasted of desire
  
  I hold with those who favor fire.
  
  But if it had to perish twice,
  
  I think I know enough of hate
  
  To say that for destruction ice
  
  Is also great
  
  And would suffice.
  
  
  
  -- Robert Frost
  
  
  
  
  
  Prologue
  
  
  
  They were surrounded by the Daemons; their entire group penned in by the
  monsters that were supposed to be too dull-witted to accomplish such a feat.
  But these Daemons…they were different from their predecessors. So very
  terrifyingly different. They seemed coordinated--a working unit with powers of
  strategic reasoning and logic--which was surely impossible. The beasts were
  mindless. They were vicious, evil and cruel to be sure, but mindless all the
  same, with no powers of higher reasoning. But this group, these seven
  creatures, had worked together against the three Shikar warriors, hemming them
  in back-to-back, facing outward against their foes.
  
  The Shikars were tired, beyond exhaustion. For them