Moonlight Equilibrium: Book 3.5 of the Preternatural Chronicles

by Hunter Blain

  Moving his hands again, he pressed them on the part of the metal door that was still intact while lifting his good leg up and using his knee to push. Hector could see where the panic room had crushed an entire section of his living room wall and even a love seat he had bought while in Europe.

  “Goddamn it,” he cursed as he tried to remember in which city — or even country — he had purchased the plush leather furniture. He would have to try and figure it out later. Plus, a vacation sounded pretty good right now anyway.

  With another push, Hector began to fall into the living room until his gimp leg caught on a shredded piece of the door. Hector cried out as he began simultaneously sobbing and screaming. There, hanging upside down with a piece of door puncturing his already grievous wound, Hector tasted the very definition of the word irony. His panic room had first become his prison and now a method of torture he was helpless to stop.

  Hector instinctively tried to press his hands on the ground in order to provide some sort of relief, but only his fingertips could reach. He tried to walk his hands up the door to get a firm hold so maybe he could lift himself free, but he kept slipping. As his weight kept falling, the horrific sensation of tearing whispered inside his head as if the sound itself had traveled up his bones to his ears.

  Streaming tears cleared the stinging, dirt-coated sweat from his vision, and Hector could see things more clearly; both literally and metaphorically. He knew what he had to do.

  “I am NOT going to die here like this!” Hector screamed with a face that was growing as red as a tomato ripe for the picking. Whether this was from rage or being strung upside down, Hector didn’t know. He also didn’t care.

  Hector’s emotions cleared at his decision to act, and the man set his jaw as he placed his good foot against the door. With a deep breath and a mental count of uno, dos, TRES, Hector pushed at the door with enough force to have jumped from the first story to the second.

  The debris-filled carpet rushed up to meet Hector’s face, illuminating his entire universe with a patchwork of shifting stars like a kaleidoscope.

  Something splashed against his eyelids, prompting a fluttering of spastic muscles.

  With a moan, Hector rolled onto his back and began rubbing his face with both hands. Something slick tugged at his attention, and he opened his eyes to see dark maroon covering the pads of his fingers.

  Understanding struck like a bolt of lightning in the inky blackness of night.

  Don’t panic. Don’t fucking panic. Don’t you fucking panic, Hector Acevedo. Don’t you do it, he commanded himself as his hands frenziedly began removing his belt. While keeping his eyes closed, Hector moved the leather belt to just above his throbbing knee and used only his sense of touch to cinch it closed.

  Once done, he willed his eyes to open and saw something that made his stomach lurch; nothing. His leg was gone at the knee. The .308 caliber had destroyed the joint, but the door had finished it off, stabbing right through the massive hole that had been made.

  There was a thump in the distance, followed shortly by an unmistakable explosion that sounded like a crack of lightning in the distance.

  “What the hell?” Hector drawled breathlessly as he rolled onto his stomach and began pulling himself toward the kitchen. Sharp debris littered the ground, making traveling the relatively short distance seem like a trek.

  There was another thump and Hector froze until he heard the detonation of another artillery shell somewhere in the city.

  The military, he reminded himself. This provided Hector with all the motivation he needed as he knew the Mexican government would swat at a fly with a twelve-gauge shotgun.

  Hector lifted himself on hands and remaining knee and began clamoring the rest of the way toward his kitchen. Once there, he began pulling open drawers in a frenzy, searching for something to cover his wound with.

  “Where the fuck is the Saran Wrap?” he cried out, not even feeling the throbbing in his bad leg in his panic.

  After opening up all the drawers between the edge of the kitchen and the stove, he found what he was looking for. With a hiss of success, he yanked the tube out of the cardboard box and propped his back against the oven door. With shaking hands, he began wrapping the oozing wound.

  Three more thumps sounded within seconds of each other, causing a massive fireball to erupt only a few blocks from Hector’s base of operations.

  Opening up a smaller drawer in the desk near the kitchen — even Hector thought it was weird to put a workstation in the kitchen — he grabbed a couple large rubber bands and secured his makeshift bandage in place.

  Once the bleeding had noticeably stopped, Hector let out a breath before making his way to the hole in the wall the giant monster had created.

  Scanning the horizon, Hector’s jaw dropped as a feeble whine escaped his throat. Madness began scraping at his mind like a kebab vendor on the streets shredding meat with their surgically sharp knives.

  His mouth opened and shut as if trying to form words while his eyes began to bleed crimson tears.

  In the distance, passing through the mountain range that tickled the cloud cover, was what Hector’s mind could only fathom as a demon. It was the size of the Statue of Liberty he had seen while conducting business in New York.

  It had two sets of horns, with one pair beginning at the sides of his enormous, visible skull that arched downward before jutting up. The second set came out the top of his head and also swooped, but straight upward. Its twin eyes were comprised of roiling fire, the green, red, and orange colors fighting over one another.

  “Dios mío,” Hector said while making the sign of the Catholic cross over his chest.

  Thump thump thump sounded again, this time with explosions around where the giant demon was. In answer, he roared out in indignant fury, causing Hector to slam his hands against his ears and topple to the ground, no longer having support from his arms.

  The bellow rattled Hector’s bones inside their muscular prisons, making the man scream in an agony he had never known before.

  The sound began to muffle before two pops brought blessed silence to Hector’s throbbing head. Letting his hands drop, Hector was both confused at the blood dripping from his fingers as much as at the fact that his bones were still vibrating inside him.

  “Oh Jesus, I’m deaf,” Hector said, or at least he thought he did. He felt his throat make the necessary movements, as did his lips, but nothing reached his ears, confirming his fear.

  With blood pouring out of his eyes and ears, Hector began sobbing hysterically as he looked at the monster in the distance that had stopped its auditory onslaught.

  The demon furthered the fraying of Hector’s mortal mind by extending a hand, palm out, and sending a violent tornado forward comprised of flames the same color of his eyes.

  Green, red, and orange swirled around, creating a vortex of unimaginable power that ate into the ground around the demon. Hector couldn’t see what was happening, but could correctly deduce that the military had changed targets from the relatively small monsters in the city to the literally awesome demon that was the size of the mountain range. The tornado was for them, as Hector could no longer hear the thumps of artillery shells any longer. Then again, he could no longer hear anything but a deafening silence.

  Molten metal glowed bright in the night, illuminating the giant in an ominous glow. The monster lifted its massive head in search of something before locking onto its target. Whatever it was searching for was in Hector’s general vicinity.

  Two large hands extended out, palms facing forward, as twin glowing orbs the same color as the tornado bloomed to life, turning the night into a false day.

  The spheres of flame rocketed out and smashed into something near where Hector was trembling in shock. Lava began spilling through the nearby homes like a hungry wave, melting the structures with alarming ease.

  “No. No, no, no, nonononono. NO!” Hector proclaimed as he slowly pushed himself up to his good knee and began turning ar
ound as the river of molten rock flowed toward his home. “This isn’t happening. This can’t be happening,” Hector was sure he was saying.

  Eyes flicked up to the steel prison he had just escaped from and what was left of his mind formed a new plan.

  As the light of the river of lava became brighter as it neared, Hector began using his stump to move at a faster pace, the pain so distant as to be nothing more than a slight nagging at this point.

  Once at the door, Hector began walking his hands up the door till he was standing on his good leg.

  A blast of superheated air shot through the hole in his home, nearly throwing the wounded man off-balance in surprise. He had to squint and shield his face from the intensity of the heat, like opening a preheated oven with your face too close.

  The molten river was drawing closer, melting the houses that Hector could barely see over his shielding hand. They were freaking melting!

  With a grace and strength thought impossible, Hector’s hands and remaining foot worked synergistically to hoist him back into his panic room in one powerful movement.

  This time, Hector’s hands caught him before his face smashed into the ground again, and the man began crawling away from the hole as the heat followed him in.

  Hector could feel the steel box vibrating with the violence of the multicolored wave that was eating his city. Something smashed into his home, judging from the tremors of impact.

  Once at the far end of the room, Hector turned and plopped on his ass to stare at the hole in the door. Blood marred the surface as if a painter had thrown an entire bucket on a blank canvas. Hector followed the trail and saw his leg, still in its custom loafer, sitting useless on the ground.

  A sloshing wave of molten lava smashed into the hole, spilling some inside that instantly ate the leg.

  That was it. The rest of Hector’s mind snapped as his stomach declared an emergency evacuation, spewing its contents out of his gaping mouth. The man, who was in the midst of doing a cannonball into the pool of insanity, didn’t seem to notice as vomit rocketed from between his lips. Instead, quivering, bleeding eyes focused on his home just outside the door as everything melted in violent gouts of flame. It was as if everything he owned had been soaked in gasoline before being ignited all at once in a flash fire.

  Acrid smoke began pouring into the steel box as the door began glowing first a dull red, then a bright orange. A few seconds passed, and the metal of his panic room began turning white-hot as liquid steel began spilling inward, joining what little had already seeped inside from the hole in the door.

  Hector’s skin began to bubble, and he would have incinerated his internal organs had he been able to breath in his paralysis. His bleeding eyes popped and began oozing down his cheeks as his tongue shriveled like a sponge on a rock in the middle of the Mexican summer. Flesh began sloshing off of bone as the moisture contained just beneath the surface flash-boiled.

  Hector knew only pain over every inch of his melting flesh before liquid metal and rock oozed over him, swallowing him whole. His last thought was of the likelihood that he would be going to the Hell he now knew existed, where an eternity of this very same death awaited him.

  Chapter 21

  J ose ran as fast as his four legs would take him. Between the military shooting into the city with abandon and the mountain-sized demon, Jose knew only one thing: get the fuck out.

  The darkness became as light as day, emanating from somewhere behind Jose. He dared not look behind, curious as he was. Fear kept his path true.

  Something bit into his flank, causing Jose to yelp before tripping over his own feet and tumbling for several yards. Dust wafted skyward as he came to a halt, letting out hitch-pitched moans while trying to get back to his feet. His back legs refused to work, and he craned his neck to see a silver dart sticking out of his muscular thigh.

  There was a steady tromp of casual footsteps that snatched Jose’s flicking ears like a magnet. Yellow eyes that were beginning to go unfocused landed on a man dressed entirely in camouflage that perfectly matched the environment.

  Jose’s vision began to blur, and he had to violently shake his head to try and regain his vision because, as the man approached, Jose could see it wasn’t the camouflage he was accustomed to seeing in sporting goods stores or in movies. The outline of the man shimmered as he approached, and Jose could see through the specter.

  The last thing Jose saw before closing his eyes was the ghost fading into view wearing a full body suit that looked like it belonged in a damn Japanese video game.

  Jose’s eyelids were replaced with steel doors and closed as his head hit the ground. The sound of a vehicle rumbled in the distance, growing closer. Car doors opened, followed by the rustling of boots on dirt. Something grabbed Jose’s legs and he was hoisted up. The last thing Jose heard was the click of a radio as a man said, “The target has been neutralized. Returning to base,” right as unconsciousness spread like crude oil spilling into a glass top pond.

  The End

  Epilogue

  Y es?” answered a man with a thick, German accent as he leaned back in a lush, red-leather office chair.

  “I have something you have been searching for,” said a calm, firm voice with a Spanish accent.

  There was a pregnant pause before the man responded, “A wolf.” It was a statement rather than a question. Eyes flicked to a jawbone that sat suspended in a cylindrical tank. There was a portion the size of a silver dollar that still held some pale skin, and even small tufts of a reddish beard.

  “My costs have multiplied,” the Spanish man informed him as he looked around an empty shipping dock. The early morning sun was beginning to crest the horizon, beaming rays of light into the back of a semitrailer where several bodies littered the floor. After he shut and locked the trailer door, the man placed his suppressed H&K .45 into a hidden compartment of his backpack and removed his leather gloves, which he stuffed into another pocket.

  “How much do you want?” the German man asked as he stood up from his expensive office chair and walked to an internal window. The man’s office overlooked a laboratory that looked like it belonged in a high-end, sci-fi movie. It was multiple stories tall with several employees who were loyal to the cause.

  “Five,” the Spanish contractor answered.

  “Done. Send the code,” said the man as he returned to his chair before opening up a secured laptop. Set as his computer’s wallpaper was the flag of the Fourth Reich. “Encrypted Message Received” popped up as he opened the shielded email server. The custom VPN that his tech team had developed was the wet dream of any government of the civilized world.

  The German man opened the message to reveal a 64-digit code that was unique to the contractor. He copied and pasted the number into his cryptocurrency platform and wired five million US dollars’ worth of Bitcoin into the anonymous account. No agency on planet Earth would ever be able to trace the money.

  The contractor’s phone pinged and he looked at the screen to confirm the transaction had gone through.

  “Pleasure doing business with you,” he said with complete coldness and stoicism. He clicked the red end icon and walked to the cab of the semi before tossing in his backpack and climbing in. After starting the vehicle, the contractor turned his head to watch as the container with the sedated wolf within an iron cage was hoisted into place on the ship’s deck. The contractor smiled at the irony that the men who had helped load the wolf had been paid appropriately in exchange for their silence; dead men tell no tales.

  Across the world, the German leader looked at his custom-made watch and determined that a nice, fat, blue-rare, Wagyu steak sounded perfect for a light lunch.

  Walking by the cylinder, the man appraised the jawbone that had been found in a fishing shack during WWII, and beamed a smile that, at a mere glance, would make a giggling child freeze before bursting into uncontrollable, red-faced sobs.

  Would you like to know where the giant werewolf came from, why he was hunting the ca
rtel, and what happens next? What about the mountain-sized demon? And who can forget about our poor Jose?

  Find out in the “Preternatural Chronicles,” starting with book 1, “I’m Glad You’re Dead.”

  Available on Kindle, KU, paperback, and Audible - read by Luke Daniels.