Those Wonderful Toys: Preternatural Chronicles Book 7 (The Preternatural Chronicles) Read online

  Those Wonderful Toys

  Preternatural Chronicles Book 7

  Hunter Blain

  Contents

  A message from Hunter Blain

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Epilogue

  Epilogue Part Two

  MAKE A DIFFERENCE

  ABOUT HUNTER BLAIN

  BOOKS BY HUNTER BLAIN

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Hunter Blain

  Those Wonderful Toys

  Preternatural Chronicles Book 7

  © 2021, Hunter Blain / Argento Publishing, LLC

  [email protected]

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author / publisher.

  A message from Hunter Blain

  My name is Hunter, and I’m a wordaholic. I’m also about to break the fourth wall…of your mindhole. Because there is a true story behind this…well…story.

  It begins with two best friends who grew up together, breaking rules and raising hell as they shaped each other’s personalities into the shameless assholes they are today. Well, at least for one of them, but I’ll get to that in a moment. These two boys—let’s call them Hunter and John—were all but inseparable. John excelled at creating music powerful enough to make angels weep and being the funniest asshole in Texas while Hunter dabbled—poorly, I might add—in his humble writings. Because they were self-declared brothers from other mothers, John respected Hunter’s humble writings as much as I—I mean Hunter (stupid third person perspective)—respected John’s musical magic. John’s tunes could have changed the world, one day…

  One evening, after reading one of Hunter’s horrifically detailed short stories about a serial killer, John asked Hunter to write a story about him.

  “Hell yeah, dude! What do you want to be?” Hunter asked, brimming with honor and biting back a very manly squee.

  “A vampire,” John responded with a mischievous gleam in his eye. “But not one of those sparkly ones. A true bad ass!”

  “Done!” Hunter crowed with a smile and an accompanying high five.

  “No, dude. Promise. Promise you’ll write and finish a book about me. You are the most prolific writer of our generation!” John said. (Something like that. I might be paraphrasing a little, but you get the gist of it). “I would consider it an honor to live on for eternity with your words as my life’s blood.”

  Hunter agreed, never to realize the weight of that promise until one Sunday morning when his mother called, crying incoherently.

  John…had died.

  Hunter was left in a cold world without his best friend and doppelgänger, and still thinks about that phone call to this day. How the morning light crept through the bedroom window while Hunter stared at the ceiling, noticing how the popcorn texture created cruel, jagged shadows. How everything started to blur as his chest was crushed beneath the weight of what he was hearing, each word stacking heavily upon the other until only fitful, ragged gasps of air could escape his throat. Only fiery tears existed, especially after the horrific realization that Hunter now had to make some of the hardest phone calls of his life to the circle of friends who orbited around John’s solar pull.

  Their bright star was no more, extinguished in an instant, leaving their universe a colder and darker place.

  John not only left Hunter, but a friend named Valenta as well. There was also Nathanial and Depweg. The friends were each stricken numb with the loss of such a beloved flare of life. But…

  When the three found out that Hunter was keeping his promise to write the greatest story ever told—starring their dear friend, John—they demanded to be a part of the adventure. Each of them immediately knew what type of supernatural character they wanted to play in this urban fantasy eulogy. It would be a funeral pyre of words, and their fictional personas would be John’s pallbearers.

  So please, as you read the following pages, feel free to laugh. Laugh at the situations John is placed in and his dickish dialogue to those around him, because John is 100% in this story without alteration (albeit he is a vampire). Laugh and let his memory live on inside the theater of your mind. Like he does in ours.

  Thank you, sincerely, from the bottom of my beating heart, for giving my best friend the chance to live again. You are part of this magical ritual, and that would make him the happiest man in the…well, wherever the hell he is.

  Cheers,

  ~Hunter

  Epigraph

  “He must have been King of the Wicker People.”

  —Alexander Knox

  * * *

  “...does he get those wonderful toys?”

  —Jack Nicholson as the Joker

  Seal of the Council

  Prologue

  “I knew you’d come,” Tezcatlipoca announced in a surprisingly calm tone. He lowered the amulet he had been holding, letting it dangle around his neck while laying heavy eyes upon he who would end the Aztec god’s long journey. “The amulet foretold this day.”

  “I’m quite sure that it did,” the man in white articulated with the accompanying grin of an apex predator casually chatting with its helpless prey. “I am inevitable. My will...be done.”

  “John without the K will stop you, oh fallen one.”

  “Oh? Is that what your pretty necklace says, old friend?”

  “I do not need to read the future to understand that the poison you call confidence will be the rock that trips your ascent, sending you tumbling back down the mountain...and to your own demise.”

  “Well, save me a seat in oblivion, won’t you?” Samael growled as his smile faded to a vicious snarl. An obsidian staff started growing in his hands, tipped on either side with gladius that dripped hellfire. Near the top was a jagged double-sided axe with swooping blades. The manifestation had been specifically created in direct contrast to the ivory and golden weapon that the Archan
gel Michael wielded; a final slap in the face, as it were.

  The Aztec god sprung to his feet, his own obsidian sword lined with what looked like teeth forming in his grip.

  With a wave of his hand, Tezcatlipoca sent a thick wall of fire toward the man in white. He knew it wouldn’t hurt the creature of Hell, but used it as a distraction as a black raven landed on his outstretched hand.

  The Aztec god quickly whispered to the raven that once belonged to Odin and opened a portal which the bird flew through right as the flame wall passed harmlessly over the Lord of Hell.

  Sensing the attack had been for show, Samael’s beautiful face morphed into a hideous scowl, hellfire pouring from his sockets.

  “What...have you done...?” Lucifer asked with a rumbling voice that sounded like thunder. The walls shook with its bravado.

  “I have bested you, cursed one. You may take my life, but you’ll nev—” was all the god proclaimed as the axe imbedded in the obsidian throne, ancient blood streaking down to pool in the seat.

  The orange-faced head hit the stone steps with a wet plop before bouncing toward Mephistopheles. The man in white stopped the roll with the bottom of his foot before his face returned to neutrality. Now that there was no one around, Samael relaxed to his businesslike demeanor and bent to lift the decapitated head by its black hair, bringing it up to eye level.

  The Aztec god’s eyes were already glazed over as the jaw hung open.

  “I find no pleasure in what must be done,” Samael admitted to the lifeless head. “But nothing will stop me from saving all of the creation that I helped form in my image.”

  Lowering the head, Samael turned and raised his free hand out to his side. The obsidian axe spun like a saw blade through the air, landing perfectly in his grasp before fading in a puff of black smoke.

  As the man in white vanished, the steady sound of dripping could be heard as the dead god’s blood trickled down the steps.

  1

  Two Years Later

  I just loved the smell of spinal fluid in the morning. It’s like when you first peel back the skin of a fresh orange and just inhale the citrusy goodness with an “ahhhhh.”

  The warlock gurgled his final thoughts on the pros and cons of trying to fight the abomination that was John the Vampire. I took note of his findings and concurred, wholeheartedly, on the futility of such a foolish notion.

  Eyes went glassy as the jaw hung agape and slightly to the side. Being me, I tilted my head in wonderment and brought my blood-soaked hand up and to his chin.

  “Well, hey there, Mr. Warlock. How’s it hanging?” I asked jovially.

  “Bad,” the warlock responded. Well, he didn’t actually speak; I simply did a terrible impression of him while wiggling his jaw up and down with my fingers like a ventriloquist’s dummy.

  “Why bad, Mr. Warlock, sir?”

  “’Cause this dipshit is, like, making it seem like I’m talking when I’m, in fact, very dead. It’s actually quite embarrassing, and I do not appreciate it one bit.”

  “Ah, very understandable, Mr. Warlock,” I sympathized while nodding my head and looking to the floor. Lifting my gaze back to him, I was determined to make things right. “So, ah, is there anything I can do for you, Mr. Warlock?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “You can, like, at least stick your hand up my ass like a Muppet if you’re gonna pretend to make me talk; it would at least give me the added benefit of hitting my prostate. You should have bought me a drink first with how hard you are fucking me right now.”

  “Oh, I do say, Mr. Warlock! That is vulgar indeed!” I proclaimed loudly for all to hear. Then I leaned in closely and whispered, “But I get it. The ol’ P-spot does give sexy time a, um, Genesis-say-kwah, or whatever that French phrase is.” I gave the very dead warlock a tiny kiss on the cheek before finishing with, “But no butt stuff on the first date.”

  Dropping the snarky corpse, I started skipping toward a bunker that led underground while slur-singing the Genesis song, “There’s too many men, too many hmm-hmm making too many hmm-blems, and not much hmm to go rou-ou-ound.” I couldn’t remember all of the words and didn’t feel like diving into my information city to find the lyrics from a nearly fifty-year-old song.

  There was a scream from somewhere in the distance as Warden Broadway or her paladin-mage Swedish meatball showed another warlock the error of their ways.

  “Can’t you see hmm hmm hmm land of confusion,” I continued the song while eyeing the steel door, reaching out to graze the material with my fingers. “Iron, huh? Crafty bastards.”

  My eyes undressed the scantily clad bunker, and an idea came to me.

  Jumping up to the concrete portion that housed the iron-infused steel door, I sang, “This is the hmm, hmm, live, in (oh oooooh oh!), and these hmm hmm hands we’re giv-en (oh oh!).” As the lyrics began to ironically make sense to the task at hand, I willed a giant ivory mallet etched in gold into my grip. “Time to make this a world worth living in,” I said as I lifted the comically sized hammer above my head with both fists, then I asked, “Why do I have Genesis on the mind?” before shrugging and slamming the manifestation through the concrete.

  Now, I feel like I should have seen this coming, but the concrete coated a metal box that was comprised of, you guessed it, steel and iron. But what I did not see coming was the fact that it didn’t hurt my manifestation.

  The mallet clanged off the metal but remained in one piece, prompting a, “Huh?” and an accompanying eyebrow to arch.

  I turned my hammer over and over in my grip, alternating my gaze between the magic-canceling metal and my still-in-one-piece manifestation...that was OF CELESTIAL ORIGINS! HOLY SHIT! I realized the irony of using the word holy in the expletive, but this was freaking cool.

  This revelation was akin to a man who had been terrified of water his whole life learning to swim and conquering said fear.

  “Hayley! Ludvig!” I called out into the early morning air. “Iron doesn’t affect me anymore!”

  “No one cares, cuck-cake!” Hayley yelled back from somewhere nearby. I could hear in her voice that she was in the middle of some sort of epic battle that would probably be super awesome to watch. Then I could, like, give a play-by-play in my own mind of the events unfolding as they happened, kind of like in a book or something.

  Nah, I got my own warlocks to murder.

  Hopping down from the top of the bunker, I kept whistling that stupid, catchy Genesis song while lightly rapping my knuckles on the door.

  “Hello? Anyone home? It’s, um, Amazon! Yeah! I’m from Amazon and have a package for a Mr....” I pretended to look at a clipboard, “Dead Warlock. Are there any Dead Warlocks in the building?”

  I heard feet slapping against a concrete floor from somewhere inside, and decided to test out the extent of my newly learned ability.

  Clapping my hands together and rubbing my palms over one another, I shrugged my sleeves over my wrists, popped my neck from side to side, and did a single squat with my hands extended in front of me while letting out a breath.

  Warm up complete, I willed an acetylene torch in my right hand while forcing heavenflame to shoot through the tip. Placing just the tip against the target (am I right, fellas?), I focused on the flames of literal Heaven to start lashing at the metal which I knew off the top of my head had a melting point of 2,800 degrees Fahrenheit. (That’s around 1,540 degrees Celsius for those of you who haven’t landed on the moon.)

  With an effort that I couldn’t quite label as conscious, I focused on the flame reaching a degree that was almost double the requirement to melt both steel and iron.

  A hole was punched through, and I focused on the flames filling the entrance of the bunker by morphing the concentrated fire into a geyser that poured into the room. After several seconds of me whistling, I was gently reminded why welding masks were worn while in the workplace.

  “What’s that smell?” I asked, willing the torch to stop while lifting my face, nostrils flaring. “Smells like...b
urning hair...”

  “Surprise!” the flames seemed to say as they lanced up my face from the ample fuel that was my glorious beard and reached for my perfectly proportioned eyebrows.

  “No!” I barked as I began pounding at my face and neck with an open palm. Dropping my manifestation to the ground, I increased the barrage of strikes with both hands alternating, like a drummer trying to set the record for most snare drum strikes in under a minute. Despite what Hayley or Ludvig might say to the contrary, I most certainly did not jump up and down on my feet while shrieking at a pitch that I was sure Depweg could hear all the way from Faerie.

  “EEEEEEEE!” I roared in a manly death metal vocalists growl as the last of the flames was beat out.

  Exploratory fingers probed the damage to what was left of my crispy, crunchy facial hair. Then the hair that spilled from underneath my gray beanie tapped on my shoulder and politely informed me that it, too, was on fire.

  “WHAT THE FANTASTIC FOUR!” I screamed while yanking off my beanie and batting at my engulfing shoulder-length black hair with it. “FUCKING FLAME OFF! FLAME OFF, MAN!” I cried out before realizing that keeping the beanie made in Heaven on had probably—maybe—arguably kept the bulk of my hair from conflagrating.