JIMMY KANE

For April, Stone Soldiers.info is celebrating the A to Z Blog Challenge with daily letter-themed entries. A separate page with a list of all these entries, plus Character Profiles and Book Synopses will appear on the right hand side of the page in coming weeks, detailing the people, places and things of the Stone Soldiers universe.

Character Profile: Jimmy Kane

(A Stone Soldiers Encyclopedia Entry)

Code-named HADES, Jimmy Kane is one of the youngest members of Detachment 1039, and also one of the most dangerous.

In 2013, James Kane and several of his classmates where enjoying one last summer in the Arizona desert, riding their motorbikes and camping, before they would go their separate ways for college and their future careers. But the fun weekend soon turned mysterious when the teens discovered the resurrected Mark Kenslir, suffering from partial amnesia and wandering far from civilization (Mythical).

Encouraged by his lifelong best friend, and the object of his greatest affections, Josie Winters, Jimmy Kane reluctantly agreed to help Kenslir return to civilization and find out how he had come to be in the desert. But when Kenslir did remember his recent past, he revealed a terrible secret: monsters are among us. 

Colonel Mark Kenslir was a near-immortal soldier, fighting the forces of darkness since the 1950s. He had come to Arizona weeks before to track down a shapeshifter who stole the memories, lifeforce and form of victims--by devouring their hearts. Kenslir and a team of super soldiers were all killed by the monster, which the Colonel now believed had its sights set on a bigger target: the Vice President, vacationing in the state. 

Realizing the future of the very world could be at stake, Jimmy joined Josie in helping the Colonel find and kill the shapeshifter, but at a terrible price. Jimmy Kane was killed.

Death is not normally a barrier the Stone Soldiers worry about, and Jimmy soon found himself resurrected in Miami, Florida by the Fountain of Youth-hidden in the bowels of a classified Government research site. Jimmy soon accepted an offer he couldn't refuse and became the first in a new generation of Stone Soldiers: men turned to living stone, resistant to most physical harm, created to fight the forces of darkness in a new Century.

Jimmy stayed with the team for several months, earning the nickname HADES when deployed, due to his long time in a sort of suspended animation trying to decide whether he would become petrified. Jimmy's friend Josie also joined the team, when her latent paranormal abilities were unlocked and it was revealed she was related to Colonel Kenslir--the granddaughter he never knew he had (Brothers in Stone).

But things became ever more violent. In September 2013, Jimmy died again--after having his stone powers drained from him by a resurrected enemy from the Colonel's past (Shades of War). This time Jimmy was brought back to life by the team's resident vampire MD, Laura Olson, but without his petrification. 

Jimmy's respite from being a man of stone was short lived, as he soon learned that without petrification, the curse of the werewolf that had granted him superhuman strength when he was turned to stone was now very much active. With the aid of a special device, Jimmy was able to suppress the transformation, and accompanied the Colonel on one more mission--an unauthorized reconnaissance of a crashed extraterrestrial object in Oklahoma (Black Knight Down). The fallen, prehistoric artificial satellite the Black Knight had been felled by a coven of witches, who attacked the Colonel, Josie and Jimmy. Kane soon found himself possessed by a witch who's body had been killed. And while cursed, he watched as the witch controlled his werewolf curse, transforming him without a full moon. Once freed of the witch's disembodied spirit, Jimmy then found he too could transform at will, and secured a new place for himself in Detachment 1039.

Jimmy Kane is a highly intelligent, albeit shy young man, with exceptional mechanical skills. He is of average height and weight, with straw-colored hair and sad brown eyes. Carrying the curse of the werewolf, he can transform his human body into that of a beast's at will--or even only partially.

As a werewolf, Jimmy is allergic to silver. In human form, he possesses greater-than-normal olfactory and auditory senses. He is able to heal even mortal wounds by transforming into his werewolf form then back. Jimmy also possesses a kind of second sight, enabling him to see what ordinary mortals cannot, such as ghosts or other supernatural beings. Jimmy's body chemistry has been changed by his transformation, like all werewolves, he has a completely different scent than an ordinary human, which can be detected by animals, or beings with enhanced senses.

As of Seven Deadly Sons, Jimmy and Josie Winters are engaged, with plans to one day get married, sometime in the near future.