The Preternatural Chronicles: Books 0-3

by Hunter Blain

  His words struck me in the forehead, and I rocked back ever so slightly as they bored into my brain.

  “Even if you were right,” I began after digesting what he had said for a full minute, “there were other ways to stop me.” I began stuttering and waving my hands in front of me as if I were grasping for the right words to convey what I felt, “She-she could have, I don’t know, freaking commanded me to stay away. I would lose my mind if I disobeyed her, and she knows it! Why go through all that bullshit trouble?”

  “Well,” Father T thought for a moment, lighting a pipe he pulled out from his breast pocket, allowing the action to provide enough time to formulate his thought, “What if she cares as much about you as you care about her?”

  “Wha…what? I don’t…”

  “Lying is a sin, my child. Even to one’s own self. It is clear as night on your face that her actions have hurt more than just your pride.” I appreciated his vampire metaphor.

  I thought about it as my throat got tighter. I was in love with Lily, and she had prevented me from saving my best friend and stopping my maker.

  Father Philseep continued, “If she were to directly command you, it would remove your free will and effectively make you her slave. As you have explained it to me, she didn’t used her full power against you until recently, when she asked you to not go looking for a fight. She still gave you free will and an intentional loophole about self-preservation. And what did you do, child? You immediately used that loophole she gifted you with to slay an angel.”

  His eyes glowed orange from the embers as he took a heavy puff of his pipe.

  “I cannot say with any certainty that I would have been as, let’s say, lenient, as she was. And because of that very act of kindness, you have found a whole new avenue for trouble.”

  “I don’t know what to do,” I said as I put my face in my hands. This was all too much for my supermodel brain to handle.

  “I am confident that you will find a solution. But know this; if you kill Ulric, you are killing every human being on this planet. You are also damning every soul that has ever existed throughout all of history to potential nonexistence. Control your emotions, John.” He looked at me a moment longer, ensuring what he had said sunk in. I raised my face to look at him and he nodded, seemingly satisfied that the impact of his words had found a home in my mind.

  Father Thomes slowly stood from the pew and began limping to his chambers. It seemed worse than before.

  “Father Thomes,” I called out. He stopped and turned his head slightly, looking at me over his shoulder. “Are you okay?” I asked, fearing the answer.

  “Don’t worry about me, my child. You have enough on your plate as it is. Now, go save your friend.” He turned and began limping away again, though this time it seemed he was focusing more on not showing how severe it had become over the years. “Oh, one more thing,” he said as he turned fully to face me. “Bring Ulric here and I will keep him safe.” As he finished, he stood looking at me without having to say another word.

  “Hopefully you’ve made some improvements. I was able to get out pretty easily,” I boasted.

  “You lost a leg getting out and lost the other against the church’s gargoyles,” he smiled. “But yes, I have made some substantial improvements. I never thought I would need to use the room before. It was built, how do the kids say it, half-assed?”

  “So you’ve rebuilt it whole-assed this time?” I said, smiling.

  “Oh yes,” he confirmed as he turned and continued his way to his chambers. “I borrowed some from you, as you seem to have plenty to share.” I could hear him stifling a chuckle as he walked. I sat, open-mouthed. That was twice I had been called fat lately!

  I used my best go-to weapon for times such as these. “Your mom!” I called back. There was no answer as I stood and made my way outside. The concrete was surprisingly cool under my bare feet. I took in a deep, contemplative breath, and started walking home. My brain raced with the realization and admission of my love for Lily. Lily, who had betrayed me and potentially doomed my were friends. Lily, who had manipulated me from the beginning. Lily. My Lily. A lone tear of frustration escaped my eye and ran down my face. I didn’t bother wiping it away.

  18

  I made my way home and noticed it was empty. Da’s room was closed, and I could see light dancing off the laminate floors under his door. The TV was on in there, and he was watching something, loudly.

  Odd, but still in the realm of normal, I suppose. I took a few steps across the living room in the direction of his room, draping my poor coat over a barstool, when I saw something out of the corner of my eye. Willing a sword into my hand, I turned toward the couch in a defensive stance and saw her. Lily was sitting on my couch, waiting for me. She was wearing modest clothing and had her hair and makeup fully done in a businesslike fashion.

  “You!” I cried through teeth that threatened to shatter. My jaw flexed and I began breathing heavily out of reflex and rage. “How dare you come here?”

  “John, I know. Please listen to me,” Lily stood, pleading.

  “No! I don’t have to listen to shit from a traitor. Ulric now has three of my friends because of you.”

  “I didn’t know you had the twins with you!” Lily cried out, frantic tears in her eyes. She was aware that my rage was legendary and how what she had done looked in my eyes. There was no way I was going to listen to what she had to say.

  “I should kill you, right here and now. Stab you through your liver and drain you dry for what you did.” I began walking forward, not in control of my actions. I realized I had let the wheel go and turned my back as PS took control—hungry for revenge. I was only a spectator in my own body, and I was scared. I loved her, and what the father’d said made sense, but my pride was overwhelming, and I wanted to hurt her for hurting me.

  “John, stop right there,” Lily commanded, her own anger rising. She thought she had done the right thing and was only trying to explain her situation.

  My body stopped…and then a foot stepped out and down. Then the other. I raised my sword arm, straining to fight against her command. Inside my head, I collapsed to the ground, wordlessly crying in immense pain. PS was driving while I was writhing on the ground clutching my skull, which threatened to cave in on itself. I could feel my mind tearing at the seams.

  Lily’s eyes widened at how easily my body kept moving forward, intent to kill her. PS looked over at me and shook his head, disgusted, before turning back to the windshield that was our eyes. I was screaming in anguish and rolling on the ground. Each step intensified the pain by a multitude that I could never have fathomed before now. My cries became high-pitched and panicked as I felt my mind begin to fray at the edges, unwinding to leave the precious core vulnerable.

  STOP! SHE’LL KILL US! I cried out to my Predatory Self, who took no heed. Oh, shit, if I died, would he take full and complete control over my body? He would have no restraints or compunctions about killing who he wanted, when he wanted. He would be a feral beast with a mind that only knew hunting prey in a body filled with aged power.

  LILY! I CAN’T STOP HIM! I cried out in my head. Just when I thought my mind was about to snap, PS screeched and grabbed his own head as he tumbled backward to the ground. The pain in my own head subsided as I threw up in my own mind, moaning loudly. The world that was boiling in rage around me began to settle, and I focused on healing my torn mind as I stood up on shaky legs. After I could see straight, I strode over to where PS was writhing and kicked him in the ribs as hard as I could. With a yelp and an audible crack, he sailed through the room of my mind and crashed into the wall, where he collapsed to the ground. Without breaking stride, I stomped over to where he was holding his head with one hand and holding the other out to stop me. I bent, grabbed the extended hand, and then threw him in an arc to the ground just behind me. There were more cracks as metaphorical bones broke. Bones that felt every bit real to PS.

  You will do as I say or I will end you. Am I unde
rstood? I said as I grabbed him by the neck and threw him against the wall at the other end of the room. Predators only understood stronger predators.

  You almost got me killed, you fool. What do you think would have happened if I’d lost my mind and died? You think you’d get control over this body full time? How long do you really think you would last with your blatant lack of self-control, dickhead? Yes, you can fight, but you can’t think worth shit. At least I can think more than five minutes in front of me. Now, are we on the same fucking page now or do I need to continue?

  PS shook his head desperately in submission. Sometimes I needed a reminder that he was akin to a wild horse that had been tamed; yes, you could trust it, but you still never walked behind it and slapped it on its ass.

  I extended my hand and PS looked at it warily, his head no longer splitting in two now that my body, our body, had stopped advancing toward Lily. PS had earned the right to co-drive this sexy sack of flesh I called John. He had saved our lives numerous times over the centuries, and I was indebted to him for putting up with my stupid mistakes.

  My hand never wavered as I gave my Predatory Self all the time he needed to decide. Come on, brother. I can’t do this without you. With that said, he nodded once and grasped my hand, allowing me to pull him up. As we stood eye to eye, I kept our grip as I placed my other hand on his shoulder. I turned to face the viewport and put one hand on the wheel. PS mirrored my actions, and I was brought back to Lily.

  “John? Is it still you?” Lily asked, taking a step back.

  “Who?” I asked in a creepy voice.

  “Shit,” Lily said as she began moving her hands in a pattern in front of her, trailing a path of sparkling energy.

  “Juuuuuust kidding!” I said. “But seriously though, fuck you. I don’t care about your reasoning. Next time, trust me.”

  “Trust you?” she exclaimed as the light faded from her hands. I wondered what she was about to do to me. “You have proven yourself untrustworthy, John,” Lily scolded.

  “Name ten times,” I said. Lily began ticking off her fingers without even a second’s pause.

  “Okay, okay! I get it! But Joey and Dawson are in trouble now, and I offered Ulric the only thing he wanted to keep them all alive.”

  “John, you can’t,” Lily said breathlessly.

  “I can and I will if it means saving my friends.”

  “You’re a fool. Can’t you see you’d be dooming them to a fate worse than death? Ulric is going to kill you; he told me as much. I couldn’t convince him otherwise.”

  “And why would you even begin to think that he would trust a Fae he’d just met?” I asked sternly.

  “Because,” Lily started hesitantly, clearly unsure if she should continue her thought, “he hadn’t just met me.” My world spun as the implications of her words whispered doubt and deception in my mind. I had to grab my recliner to steady myself, but I entrusted too much weight into it, and it unfolded into a full reclining position, allowing me to fall to the ground with grace. As I sat on my ass, I brought my legs up to my chest and wrapped my arms around my knees before compiling my next sentence.

  “You knew Ulric?”

  “I know Ulric,” she corrected.

  When she let the silence linger, not revealing more information than she had to, I pressed on, “In what fucking capacity, Lily?”

  “I knew him when he was a mortal,” she said with an intentional cessation at the end.

  “Lily, stop playing with me.” My rage was starting to blossom once again in my core like a well-maintained garden of hate. “You need to tell me everything and not hold back. You want me to trust that you have my best interests at heart? Prove it. Right now. Prove to me that I can believe anything you say, ever again.”

  As her eyes shifted to the ground momentarily, Lily nodded once in acceptance of my request. I could tell she was taking a risk and that this very moment would define our relationship for the foreseeable future—which, for all intents and purposes, could potentially be an eternity.

  “As you wish, John. I will tell you the truth and hope that you can see past your own emotional fragility and see things from my perspective,” she said before taking in a deep breath and closing her eyes. As she exhaled, opening her eyes, she continued, “I found Ulric as a man in the thirteenth century in Denmark. He was an ally of King Sverker II of Sweden, who was Danish-backed. Ulric, his brothers, and father fought at the Battle of Lena in 1208 and were subsequently crushed by Prince Eric’s army. Ulric lost his entire family in that war, having never known his mother, who died giving birth to him.” I felt a pang of familiarity and already knew where this story was going. “I found him, broken and desperate to avenge his brothers and father, whom he adored completely. I influenced a vampire who had grown tired of ruling Africa to convert Ulric and make him his companion. I instructed his maker to tell Ulric that, if he were to join him, the war that would follow would be like none he had ever seen.”

  “What was his name? Ulric’s maker, I mean. He never spoke about him.”

  “Cimeries. I can understand why; he killed him.”

  After taking all of this in, I said, “I’m beginning to notice a twisted pattern with vampires. Are we like the Sith of the supernatural world?”

  “There are those who are much worse, John,” Lily the Fae said coldly.

  “What happened after Cimeries made Ulric?” I asked, fascinated.

  “Cimeries spent the next two years teaching Ulric how to control his abilities and hone his instincts into a weapon of revenge. When he was ready, Ulric convinced King Sverker to arm peasants and farmers and attack again. It did require some special manipulation of the vampiric persuasion, but Sverker agreed. Ulric and Cimeries almost single-handedly wiped out over ten thousand soldiers in the battle that followed. To this day, history books suggest it was a mere five thousand peasants who overthrew a trained army that more than doubled their numbers,” she finished with a smile touched with pride.

  I let all of this sink in before saying, “So you helped make Ulric.”

  “I guided Cimeries to him and persuaded the change. It wasn’t the first time,” she said with eyes that locked onto mine with hesitation, “and it wasn’t the last, John.”

  “Huh?” I said, face scrunching in confusion as my brain struggled to piece together what she was implying. “What are…” It hit me in the chest like jumping into a frozen lake. The theater in my mind showed me the first time Ulric and I had met.

  “So you must be John,” the calm voice of a cultured British man said with mild entertainment.

  But he’s British! Didn’t Lily say he was from Denmark? I said as I looked at PS, who responded by slowly pointing to me. I was Irish and currently had an average American accent. Over the years, I had adopted the tongue and cadence of whatever area I resided in order to blend in. My preternatural mind made it a seamless transition, just as Ulric’s did. Hell, even Locke forged a perfect American accent even though he was the Brit, Godwin.

  “You…” I said to Lily, mouth agape and eyes wide in realization. “You led him to me.”

  “I did,” Lily said. “I felt your pain and knew I could help. Ulric was close by, asleep in the dirt, so I awoke him and did for you as I had done for him two hundred years before. He had grown bored of life after getting his revenge and killing his maker, and decided to sleep for a few decades until the world became more interesting to him. You provided the perfect excuse.”

  Something tickled at the forefront of my mind and I asked, “Do you love him?” My chest tightened at the potential answer.

  “I did,” Lily said sighing, her eyes going unfocused for a moment as if reliving her past in an instant.

  “Do…do you love m—” I was cut off by my phone, which startled both Lily and myself. The Beetlejuice theme song rang loud, demanding my attention. Both of us looked at each other, knowing precisely who was calling.

  The eggplant-surrounded Ulric popped up on the screen as I slid my finger to
accept the call. I pushed the speaker button and held the phone up so Lily could hear.

  “Salutations, John,” Ulric said in his clipped British accent. Every word was enunciated in his own special diction. He reminded me of John Malkovich mixed with Bill Nighy.

  When I didn’t respond, Ulric continued, “He was innocent—the driver, I mean—and you killed him. I thought you only killed bad guys, John. He had a baby on the way, which was why he needed the job. His wife will have to raise the child alone now—because of you.”

  I saw red. Lily stepped forward as I took in a deep breath to scream at Ulric and pressed the mute button.

  “Can’t you see what he’s doing?” she asked frantically. “He’s using your emotions against you so you’ll make mistakes. Fall for it and he will win.”

  I looked her in the eyes and said, “It’s your fault he’s dead just as much as mine. You told Ulric to use Depweg’s phone and trick me.” I was losing the battle of control. Ulric had stabbed me right in the sweet spot and I was lashing out in pride. What’s worse was that even though I could recognize what was happening, I couldn’t stop it, which only served to piss me off more. I hated being so fucking weak.

  “John, please,” Lily pleaded, letting my comment glance off her before pointing back at the phone.

  “Hello? Can you hear me?” Ulric asked. His voice grew distant, as if he’d pulled the phone away from his face, “These bars mean he can hear me, right?”

  “No. They mean you’re a dickhead,” I could barely hear Dawson saying.

  I unmuted the phone. “I’m here,” I said quickly before Ulric punished my new friend. “Where are we meeting?”

  “At my house. Just you, not that it matters,” Ulric said confidently.

  “I’m on my way. Let’s finish this,” I said as I pressed the red button.

  Lily looked at me intently as I slid the phone into my pocket. “Do you want me to prove that I trust you, John?”

  “Right now, I’m not sure what I want from you. You’ve put me on a roller-coaster ride that I can’t get off of,” I said flatly. “I don’t know if there’s anything you can do to make me trust you again.”