The Preternatural Chronicles: Books 0-3

by Hunter Blain

“You sure are far from home, John. Why so far?” she asked cutely.

  “I need help building my new IKEA bedroom set,” I said sarcastically. “The picture shows a frowny face if you only have one person.”

  Her smell let go of my mind, and her eyes shifted to a darker, ocean blue. “You are going to need more help than what your dog can provide,” she said with impatience seeping into her voice.

  I sat stunned. A dark lump formed in the pit of my gut. “Help? It’s…just IKEA,” I said lamely.

  “How are your dreams lately, lover? Anything unusual?” Her voice returned to normal, and she began putting on shiny clear lip gloss using the visor mirror.

  “H-How…?” I stammered, like an idiot. I felt as exposed as a teenage boy whose mom walked in and asked about all the tissues on the ground.

  “Lucky guess,” she cooed while capping her lip gloss and turning to me. “You need my help.”

  “I don’t want the help of the Fae. I know the strings that shit comes with. You could make the Eiffel Tower with those,” I said while pantomiming making shapes with invisible strings between my fingers and open hands. “What do you even care? Your plane wouldn’t be affected.”

  “I like it here, John. Plus, I have vested interests that pay dividends, giving me an advantage where needed.” She had manifested a small file and was giving her perfect nails a good once over, checking them in the visor light. “I ask nothing in return, as this would be mutually beneficial,” she placed her hand on my inner thigh, “for both of us.”

  I coughed into my hand, “Bullshit! Oh dear, excuse me. Must be the pine, from the trees.” I looked through the windshield and squinted into the darkness at the trees lining both sides of the road barely visible in the sporadic yellow streetlights.

  “Bless you. And no, there is nothing that comes attached with my help. We want the same things here, and it would behoove us to work in unison.” Her hand slid further up, a fraction of an inch away from where mini-me lay ready for action. Concentrating, I willed the blood out of my member, letting him noticeably draw back to safety.

  She pursed her lips and furrowed her brow in faux disappointment and said, “Oh, boo. You’re no fun.” She smiled, changing her eye color back to seduction and releasing her pheromones, rendering me completely in her power. Part of me was standing straight up as I sat in the driver’s seat, rushing to her hand like a puppy running to meet its owner at the door. As soon as I reached her fingers, she thumped me hard and laughed. I gasped in jolted pain. With laughter lingering in the air, she vanished into a singularity that caused a deafening sonic boom, blowing out my windows and cracking the windshield into a massive spiderweb.

  Covered in broken glass and holding my throbbing wiener dog, all I could do was mutter, “I hate blue balls.”

  With my left hand holding my crotch, I threw the gears into drive with my right and grabbed the steering wheel, pulling from the shoulder and back onto the main road.

  Still using my right hand, because I had priorities, I let go of the wheel and let my knee do the steering. I reached for my phone and Yelped a glass repair place in the vicinity. Last thing I needed was to get pulled over and have to answer stupid questions that were being recorded and uploaded to a central police station.

  After a few minutes, I found Ed’s Auto Repair and Tanning Salon. I followed the directions and arrived just after 8:00 p.m. to a worn parking lot where the painted parking spots had long since vanished. After looking at the sign for a few moments in disbelief and mouthing the words “tanning salon,” I parked and went inside to talk to an orange man with a toothpick between his teeth named, you guessed it.

  “Ed, I’m ecstatic that you escaped Wonka.” Handing the still smiling man my keys, I finished with, “Replace all the glass by dawn and I’ll double your fee.”

  He looked at my forehead for a moment, moved the toothpick around in his mouth, and asked, “Boy, the hell is on your forehead? You one of them queers from the rest stop up the way?”

  I played along and added a lisp, “Oh yes, sweetie. We decided to fool the cops and started meeting at 8:00 p.m. for our wild sex orgies rather than 3:00 a.m. Keeps them Honey Buns on their toes.”

  Still smiling, he grabbed the keys and said, “A funny guy, huh? Welp, dawn’s gonna take more than a normal fee. Might I suggest…”

  After our business was done, I walked outside and stopped when I reached the edge of the dilapidated parking lot.

  Looking down at the ground with a wrinkled brow, I asked no one in particular, “The fuck am I supposed to do with five years of prepaid premium tanning?”

  I was just lucky that the tanning part of his entrepreneurship kept him open past the usual five or six of most repair places I’d found on my phone.

  Night was fully upon us now, and the road was mostly empty, everyone having already returned home from their nine-to-five jobs. I chuckled to myself at the palpable irony of there being no traffic after I dropped my car off. With a deep breath and squinted eyes, I turned and started bounding down the highway toward Depweg’s.

  It only took a few leaps before a giant, juicy bug exploded in my face as I ran at a pace that made the few cars on the road seem like they were parked. Blinded by guts of the gargantuan insect, I missed my footing and tumbled to the ground, bouncing off a tractor trailer and rebounding into the trees, breaking several in a line before having an ancient motherfucker break my warp-speed tumble. An upside-down, me-sized imprint had been created on the beast, which I was currently stuck in.

  “Could this night get any worse?” I tried to ask of the universe. My face was now a part of the wood. In response to the question, my legs started peeling away from the tree, like one of those sticky hands children play with for five minutes before they get coated in dirt.

  As I started to reach the point of no return, I just said to myself what Bill Cosby said to his dates, “Just let it happen, Jell-O,” and fell to the ground, which was considerably farther than I’d thought.

  Landing with an “oomph” and with my face in the dirt, I mumbled, “Anything else?” At that, the tree started to crack where I had violated its virgin bark. That prompted me to quickly get to my feet and back away, yelling into the sky, “I get it! Lilith, I hate trees!”

  With a sparkle of hope, I said out loud, “Can this night get any better?” The tree snapped at the impact site and started falling in my direction.

  “That…is…it…” I jumped at the descending goliath and screamed, “Hadoken” and punched it with all my rage, causing an explosion of toothpicks to rain from above.

  For good measure, I landed on the ground next to the remaining tree stump, which still had a considerable amount of tree left on it extending up twenty feet or so, and swiped my hand right through it like a white-hot spoon through ice cream. The tree started falling over, and as it did, I whispered, “Now you might feel some pressure, so take a deep breath,” before shoving my fist up the stump. “Now cough.”

  With my arm up the ass of the insolent tree, I forced energy from my hand, through the center, and up its length in a small circle a few inches in diameter. With a snap of my focus, the tree exploded around the energy, leaving only a sliver of smooth wood in the shape of a staff about five feet in length.

  I admired my revenge/handiwork as I twirled the staff around me, kung fu style. After holding one of my supersexy poses, I noticed I was covered in tree guts in the form of toothpicks. Stabbing the staff into the ground, I started raking my hands up and down my sleeves, torso, head, and legs. Pulling the staff out of the ground, I used it to wipe at my back where I couldn’t reach. After inspecting that I was good to go, I spit in the tree’s general direction and then oriented myself back toward the road by using the path I had created.

  Back on the road, I ignored the pulled over semi whose driver was examining the damage from some unknown animal. Before he had the chance to turn around and see me emerging from the woods, I started sprinting through the night air again—this time s
pinning the staff in front of me like a propeller. It didn’t take long before I started to feel and hear the smashing of bugs. I smiled—and was immediately rewarded with a bukkake of bug limbs. I kept smiling my grim smile.

  Within a short period, I closed the rest of the distance to the dirt road turnoff that led to Depweg’s cabin in the woods. He owned a large lot that he had purchased long ago, at least two hundred acres, that he kept stocked with all kinds of wildlife, especially deer. At the front of his dirt road was a sign that read Canine Haven hanging over the iron gate. Depweg ran a shelter for hopeless dogs that were unadoptable due to a various number of reasons. It was a great tax write-off as well as a big help for his fellow canines. Though I really thought a loup-garou—or “werwolf,” the German term that Depweg preferred—was as distant from canines as humans were from primates.

  Leaping the iron fence, I started my quiet descent into the thickening woods toward his cabin, leaving the staff at the gate to await my return. No dogs had smelled or noticed me yet, which meant the game was on.

  His cabin had been handmade by him using the wood he had cleared as well as moss, mud, and other all-natural items to insulate. He’d even built his own solar panels and attached them to a battery system he had rigged. Off to the side was a rainwater collection and filtration system that he “used for the dogs,” according to his tax records. His carbon footprint was in the resounding negative when it came to treating nature with respect.

  I landed on his brick chimney and stuck my ear close to the hole, trying to hear inside. It sounded like he was in the kitchen using utensils in preparation for a meal. I couldn’t wait to see his face when I snuck up on him.

  I silently slid down to the ground level, careful not to disturb the sleeping dogs in their endless row of kennels just a handful of yards away from his back door. I could hear a few of them having dreams that leaked into reality as they whimpered and half barked between closed jaws. One of the closest kennels held a pit bull terrier that woke itself up from a dream and looked around, startled. I shrunk back into the darkness provided by the roofline and stayed still as it turned its head right at me. I couldn’t see its eyes from the distance, but I knew he was looking at me. He yawned with gleaming white fangs shining in the darkness, and laid his head down on his front paws. After a moment, his breathing became snores. I sighed in relief.

  Tiptoeing, I made my way to the open window of the kitchen, where I ever so slowly peeked in with one eye. I could smell he was close.

  If only I could have seen my face as a wooden chopstick was driven into my exposed eyeball with enough inertia to throw me on my ass with a loud, “Oomph,” grasping at the utensil. Every dog on the property immediately started to bark and howl at the intruder.

  I pulled at the chopstick but stopped when I felt my orb start to slide precariously out of its socket. I relented and asked, “How? I was so quiet this time!”

  “The wind gave you away as you moved preternaturally down my driveway. To my ears, you might as well have had bells and whistles on while operatically singing Carmen,” he said casually as he wiped my blood from his hands before continuing his meal prep. “And what’s on your forehead? Did Ben Stil—”

  “Stiller, yeah, yeah. I already made that joke,” I said.

  Standing up, I dusted my pants off and sauntered to the window. I climbed in and walked to the microwave, where I could see that the chopstick was a bull’s-eye on my pupil. As I looked back and forth, the stick moved with my gaze. Up, down, left, and right. “Neat,” I said before placing one hand over my eye with the accessory sticking out between my middle and ring finger. With my free hand, I grabbed and pulled quickly, the hand over my eye keeping it in the socket.

  Before you ask, vampires do have a reflection with modern mirrors. The only reason why this is considered canon is due to the fact that mirrors used to be made with silver, which, like iron, cancels supernatural properties.

  I placed my head on Depweg’s left shoulder to see what he was making, and as he turned his head, my right hand went over his right shoulder and dropped the chopstick over his ingredients. Without missing a beat, he caught it and tried to stab my other eye, but I was too quick for him and my head was already on his other shoulder. He stabbed air and sighed as I gave him a quick peck on the neck. He turned his head back to the right and I was already sitting in his chair rubbing my eye, which was knitting itself back together.

  “So, what’s for dinner? Kibbles and bits of people?” I jested.

  “Fresh venison. Blue rare,” he responded while turning his attention back to his prep station. He had homegrown veggies on a wok above a wood stove that filled the air with spices. “Why are you here, John?” he asked directly.

  “What? I can’t come by for a friendly visit with my best friend Deppyweg?” I asked in mock surprise.

  “Only friend,” he corrected. “You never just come by without an agenda, so spit it out.”

  “Okay, Dad.” I took in a deep breath, held it, and said while releasing, “There might be an apocalypse coming that will destroy this plane along with Heaven and/or Hell, and I’m just trying to get a few extra superspecial people together to prevent the end of days, like Arnold in…End of Days.” I dramatically sucked in another lungful of air and finished with, “So you in?”

  The question lingered in the air as Depweg added his meat to the wok.

  After he flipped the meat, searing it on both sides before sliding it onto a plate, he asked with his back still to me, “What have you done?”

  “Moi? Done something?” My voice went higher in pitch at the end of the question.

  He turned, holding his plate of ultra rare meat, and walked over to his homemade leather recliner. “With this nose comes the ability to smell bullshit,” he said while cutting into his tender deer.

  “Alright, alright. You know how I’ve been helping Father Philseep, right? Taking out cults trying to summon demons, stopping certain unsavory characters from coming into power, rescuing kittens from trees…I mean dogs. Cute little puppers.”

  “The point, please,” he casually urged while taking another bite.

  “I…” I began, but was interrupted by a tugging at my pant leg. I looked down at my favorite of Depweg’s rejects. Tiny Tim was a miniature short-haired shepherd with gimp rear legs. Depweg had manufactured a makeshift wheelchair to support his lower body, allowing his front legs to pull him around. For this reason, Depweg kept him in the house so he wouldn’t have to traverse the lush grass.

  Immediately, I picked him up and placed him on my lap, asking in the typical this-is-the-cutest-dog-in-the-whole-wide-world voice, “Oh my goodness, who’s a good boy? Who’s a good boy? It’s you! Yes, it is!”

  Timmy responded by wagging his tail as hard as he could and scrambling with his front paws to move up to my face. I helped pull him up and was met with a barrage of puppy kisses.

  “Make sure he gets your teeth,” said Depweg.

  Turning my head slowly toward where he sat, I produced my most creepy, toothy smile, full of dead bug parts. “Do you have a toothpick by chance?” I asked, still showing the graveyard.

  After picking the last remnants of what had to be an entire generation of insects, I explained the situation in detail. Tim rested in my lap, and I stroked his head and back absently. After a few hours, all was laid out. At the end, I asked Depweg directly, “Look, no bullshit, this is big, and there’s no one else I trust to have my back. Can I count on you or what, man?”

  He had finished eating and had set the plate on the coffee table in front of us. He slid forward on the edge of his chair, looked me right in the eyes, and said with full sincerity, “You know I’ve always had your back, John. Even if it wasn’t to stop the apocalypse, I’d still have your six. You are just too proud to ask.”

  “Thanks, man,” I whispered while staring at the place where Tiny Tim was asleep on my lap, too embarrassed to look up at him.

  We spent the better part of the night coming up
with a game plan, utilizing his military expertise. He even gave me a Glock .45 ACP with a spare magazine filled with hollow points that had a resin shot with silver and iron pellets at their core. This would create problems for any supe that was hit. The bullet would impact and mushroom, sending the pellets into the body to ricochet around. The wounds would not heal, and they would more than likely bleed to death. A heart or head shot meant insta-death for most supes.

  Depweg also gave me a ballistic vest infused with iron to help shield from magical attacks, both physical and energy based. I gulped at the magnitude of the situation as it started weighing on my guts. Like Martin Lawrence said in Bad Boys, “Shit just got real.”

  “The irony of a werewolf having silver bullets is palpable, you realize?” I asked.

  “No more than a mortal owning, well, any gun,” he responded matter-of-factly.

  “Point, match, Depweg.”

  “Well, it is time to feed the dogs. Might I suggest…” Depweg started.

  “Yeah, yeah. I’ll leave before you release the hounds. I know how they love supes like me.” I set Tim down on the ground and then squatted next to where my buddy was whining, “Except Tiny Tim here. He’s my bestest friend, yes he is!” My hand was attacked with puppy kisses and little nips here and there. “Okay, boy, I gotta go now. Be a good puppers for me, okay?” He yipped in agreement. I scratched him behind the ears and leaned down to kiss his head one last time before standing up.

  “Welp, time to make like a tree and get the fuck outta here,” I said.

  “Was good seeing you, John,” Depweg bid farewell.

  After slinging the backpack Depweg had given me with the armor and Glock, I made my way out the front door and back to the gate where my bug propeller awaited. Picking it up, my hand was met with bug parts that had become one with the wood. I dropped it on the ground and rolled it in the damp early morning grass before picking it back up and starting my way back to my car.