Moonlight Equilibrium: Book 3.5 of the Preternatural Chronicles Read online

  © 2020, Hunter Blain. All rights reserved. The contents of this publication, or any part thereof, may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, storing in an information retrieval system, or otherwise, without the prior written approval of Hunter Blain.

  “The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear . . .”

  —H.P. Lovecraft

  “You’ll feel the pull of the moonlight equilibrium. Pitch black transmission of the soul. Instincts from within rise. We’re all but beasts that hunger from inside . . .”

  —The Black Dahlia Murder

  Other books in the Preternatural Chronicles

  Deliverance - A Preternatural Chronicles Novella

  I’m Glad You’re Dead

  Dawn and Quartered

  Shadow of a Doubt

  Moonlight Equilibrium – Book 3.5

  Mouth of Madness

  What the Hell

  Books 6-13 coming soon enough

  Audiobooks available on Amazon, Audible, and iTunes - Narrated by Luke Daniels

  Deliverance - A Preternatural Chronicles Novella

  I’m Glad You’re Dead

  Dawn and Quartered

  Shadow of a Doubt (available May 2020)

  Words from the Author

  Hello there, reader! What you are about to read is a stand-alone novel that takes place within the “Preternatural Chronicles” universe, which is an urban fantasy series. If you are into horror/suspense, this can be read by itself. If you enjoy it, I would suggest picking up the series to get more backstory.

  How is this novel different? Well, in the series, when John and his friends of supernatural origins take out bad guys left and right, it is meant to be funny and action packed, akin to Deadpool. I remember laughing in the theater as Deadpool cut someone in half in an unforeseen, creative way. The series is from the POV of John Cook, an antihero vampire who punishes naughty bad guys, and has a lot of fun doing it! However, in this novel, the point of view is mostly from that of the poor mortal, Jose, and it isn’t as funny to watch those around you get mauled, maimed, and murdered by a twelve-foot-tall, bipedal wolf.

  Moonlight Equilibrium takes place simultaneously alongside book 4 in the series, Mouth of Madness, but at the same time, it does not give away any spoilers.

  So please, feel the pull of the Moonlight Equilibrium, and enjoy.

  Prologue

  T hought you could steal from Hector?” casually questioned Jorge, an enforcer with one milky eye and a straight scar running from his hairline to his jaw. A single eye peered with disgust at the man cowering on his hands and knees before him.

  “I-I-I didn’t! Please! You have to believe me, Jorge!” Efren cried out. Silence stole his tongue as the cold metal of Jorge’s machete touched the underside of his jaw, lifting his head further. He could smell the sharp metallic aroma of dried blood, reminding Efren of old pocket change in a sweaty palm.

  Efren had seen the look Jorge was giving him countless times before, but he had never been on the receiving end of it. His guts disintegrated into a black mass of bubbling tar as something as simple as an expression suggested the end of his life.

  Jorge lifted the machete, poised to strike, causing Efren to squeak out a single, formless word consisting completely of vowels.

  In the dim light of the garage, the dried blood that coated the blade gave it an ominous appearance, like it was consumed by rust. Efren knew Jorge intentionally didn’t clean his executioner’s weapon to instill as much dread as possible in his victims. He had always considered the practice more of a nauseating lack of cleanliness, since the recipients of the machete’s kiss wouldn’t know the difference at the time of the execution. Feeling the visceral fear cascade down his body forever changed Efren’s opinion.

  Jorge lowered the blade before speaking to the goons surrounding him; the men that Efren had, until recently, called friends. “Tie him to the chair.”

  Without a word, two men grabbed Efren by the shoulders and elbows before throwing him into a chair that was bolted to the ground. The unforgiving metal declared a game of chicken with his spine, daring to see who would break first.

  The air blasted out of Efren’s lungs as the butt of a shotgun was forcibly jabbed into his solar plexus. The pain in his aching back disappeared as he struggled to gasp for breath, frantic hands clutching the empty air.

  The two men grabbed his trembling hands with viselike strength before latching Efren onto the arms of the chair. Padless leather cuffs cut into his skin, ensuring that any hope of escape would burst like a soap bubble in a hurricane. Efren could feel his hands immediately beginning to swell as if he were spinning in a centrifuge .

  “Jorge, yo-you know me. You know I wouldn’t steal from jefe!”

  “Just once,” Jorge began with a sigh and a slow shake of his head, “I’d like someone to just come right out and admit what they did. It would save them a lot of undue pain.” A finger lightly glided over the blade. Efren had always made fun of bad guys who did that in the movies because of how stupid the action was. Now, it made his balls try and retreat into his pelvic cavity.

  “I didn’t take nothing, man! Nothing!” Efren cried out, losing the loose control he had over his roiling emotions.

  Jorge snapped his fingers and one of the men that Efren didn’t recognize approached with a cell phone held sideways. Breath caught in Efren’s throat as he saw a paused scene with the dual dashes in the middle. The man tapped the screen, and Efren saw himself in a dim corner with a key of coke and a small pile of dime bags.

  “Hector had some hidden cameras installed; only a few know about them. Looks like it was for a good reason, huh, Efren?”

  The color drained from Efren’s face as if someone had punched a hole in the bottom of a soda bottle.

  “I thought as much,” Jorge said with another sigh, disappointment dripping off his words.

  “I . . . I got a problem, man. I wasn’t selling it,” Efren pleaded lamely, knowing the chase was up.

  Jorge responded by slamming the hilt of the machete wrapped within a tight fist into the top of Efren’s hand, causing him to inhale more air into his lungs than he had ever breathed in his entire life. Pain exploded up the restrained addict’s arm, and for the briefest of moments, he was glad that the circulation was being cut off; the pain would have been much more intense otherwise, though it still fucking hurt.

  Efren, with his lungs at just over a hundred percent capacity, screamed with wide-eyed surprise as warm blood trickled down his fingers. He could hear the drops lightly pattering onto the concrete between heaving gasps and pain-filled screams.

  A train blared a diminished harmony for several breaths somewhere in the distance, sending a shudder up the spines of the three men who stood by as observers to the execution. Weight was shifted on unsure feet as eyes glanced around to one another, seeking an explanation.

  “What is it?” Jorge asked tersely, noticing the shift in his henchmen’s mood.

  “There isn’t a train that runs through here, Jorge,” one of the men stated. Efren thought his name was Mario or something close to that.

  Jorge lifted his gaze to the fancy glass windows that adorned the top of the garage doors and attempted to peer out of the distorted panes. The area around the complex — his general, Miguel, called it a complex, but it was just a large house at the edge of a small town — was well illuminated with spotlights. Even with the ample lights, Jorge wasn’t able to see anything of note outside.

  A scowl etched on his face at having
his time wasted, and he took his frustrations out on the man sitting before him, accused of theft and condemned to death.

  The edge of the rust-colored blade swiped through the air and lodged into Efren’s kneecap, splitting it in two like a kitchen knife slamming into a head of lettuce.

  Efren’s eyes bulged to the point where his capillaries began to rupture while an earsplitting shriek pierced the night, bouncing off the concrete floor.

  The train blared again, closer now. Jorge took notice this time and stepped forward to place a large hand over Efren’s screaming mouth, who continued to howl while his warm tears fell to Jorge’s hand.

  Jorge, sensing a greater threat, yanked the machete from Efren’s knee with a sickening pop and placed the glistening tip against the man’s throat. Still looking out the windows and with a clear indifference, Jorge slid the machete all the way through the side of the thief’s neck. A torrent of life spewed out of Efren’s flapping mouth and around the blade. Screams escaped in the form of gurgles where the machete blocked the airway, allowing air to only pass around the blade and directly out of the throat. Panicked eyes flew around the room before slowly becoming unfocused as the gaping mouth stopped moving and hung loose. Jorge removed the blade wetly from its flesh sheath and looked at his victim as a small crimson bubble grew and popped from one of Efren’s nostrils as his last breath was squeezed out, his addiction no longer a concern.

  One corner of Jorge’s mouth tugged up in a smile at the symbolism of the blood bubble coming from Efren’s nose; the same nose that had gotten him into this trouble in the first place.

  A howl cut the string holding the smile up, and Jorge’s face fell into a frown as four sets of eyes scanned the area just past the glass.

  “That was a howl, man. A freaking howl!” one of the henchmen squeaked.

  “Quiet,” Jorge demanded. He let the machete hang by his side as he slowly stepped toward the garage door, blood sloshing off the tip of the blade with every step, leaving behind a gruesome trail.

  One of the henchmen grew a pair of testicles large enough to orbit Jupiter and rushed to the garage door with his shotgun held firmly. Jorge stopped, curious to watch the events unfold as they may.

  Jorge crouched lower as Mario reached the door’s windows and peered from side to side.

  “What do you see?” Jorge asked just above a whisper.

  Mario squinted as two yellow orbs around three or four yards off the ground came into view. Mario turned to Jorge and shook his head with a perspiring, furrowed brow. As he returned his gaze back outside, his expression flattened and mouth fell open as a, “Huh?” was exhaled right as something crashed through the garage door. The metal door was shredded like tissue paper as Mario disappeared in a pink mist and an arm flopped to the ground, fingers moving erratically as if attached to a stun gun.

  Jorge’s two remaining henchmen sharply sucked in a surprised gasp as one of them lifted a trembling finger to point behind a large SUV out of Jorge’s view. The front of the soldier’s pants began to stain before clear liquid pooled at his feet. For some reason Jorge couldn’t put a finger on, he was proud that his man was well hydrated.

  The unmistakable sound of meat being torn from bone brought Jorge back to reality and caused him to steadily, and slowly, back up toward the door that led outside. He had heard that sound plenty of times when the dogs were given the scraps of his victims.

  Fingers danced in the air blindly behind Jorge until he felt the wooden door. His hand slid against the grain, making him wince with the sound, until the cool metal of the handle greeted him. With a powerful degree of control, Jorge deliberately began turning the knob with the intent of making as little noise as possible.

  The door latch clicked, causing Jorge’s breath to catch in his breath as his muscles froze.

  The sound of animalistic ingestion ceased, only to be replaced by a growl that sounded like a large commercial diesel engine designed for moving mountains. The ground rumbled under Jorge’s feet, tickling his toes with the vibration of his alligator-skin boots on the pavement.

  Something impossibly huge rose on the other side of the full-size SUV, making the vehicle look — in comparison — like one of those Smart cars instead. A head, or maybe it was the shoulders, pressed into the ceiling of the ten-foot-tall garage and burst the lights in heart-skipping pops that prompted Jorge to turn and burst through the door.

  “WAIT!” Jorge heard one of his men cry out, along with the squealing of tires and crunch of metal. Jorge dared a look behind him as he sprinted at full speed and saw the blacked-out Tahoe smash through the remaining garage door as if it were made of aluminum foil. The SUV tumbled over and over, showing Jorge all he needed to know.

  The man’s head returned to the forward position right as a cry of terror climbed to a falsetto of pure madness before being cut off.

  The unmistakable pop of a handgun rang out before being silenced after only three squeezes of the trigger. Jorge instinctively knew why it had ceased before the magazine had been even half empty.

  The only sounds in the universe were Jorge’s boots dancing a staccato on the dirt, heaving breaths that sounded like a tornado, and a heart that thudded like a jackhammer in his ears.

  Jorge felt the splash of something warm on his face and was relieved to see he still had his trusty machete in his hands, flinging blood on him as he ran. His brain sent a signal to his hand to double down on the grip no matter what.

  An explosion of screaming metal and crashing brick tapped on the shoulder of Jorge’s fraying sanity, giving him a previously thought impossible burst of speed. He tasted blood, and he didn’t know if it was from the blade he still wielded or from the exertion of his lungs. Jorge had always hated cardio for this very reason.

  Breaths came out as uncontrollable whines as the feeling of being chased tickled the back of his neck.

  Thump thump thump. Thump thump thump. Thump thump thump.

  “No, no, no,” Jorge barked with each step, as if the more he repeated the word, the more likely it would be for it to become true and halt his pursuer.

  Thump thump thump. Thump thump thump. Thump thump thump.

  “AAAAAHHHHH!” Jorge yelled as he skidded to a halt and turned to face his attacker head-on. If tonight was his night to die, it would be like a ma—

  Two yellow orbs appeared at about Jorge’s chest height. Clouds were thick under the moon, preventing a clear picture of what was only a handful of paces in front of the executioner.

  He smelled musky fur, reminding him of the dogs back on the ranch that were always kept outside, no matter how much Jorge begged his father to let them in.

  Twin orbs with black slits down the centers began to rise in the air as another deep growl filled Jorge’s heart with dread. It was like the rolling of thunder in the distance, signifying a particularly nasty storm was on its way and not to be denied passage.

  “COME ON!” Jorge barked with a quivering lip as spittle flew from his mouth. Each breath in and out became a pulsing scream, like a cavalcade of ambulances passing by one right after the other, the sound growing and fading before growing again.

  The cloud cover thinned, allowing pale moonlight to steadily illuminate the landscape. Jorge saw the house in the distance and was vaguely impressed with how far he had run in such a short time.

  Thick, slimy drool roped from a muzzle that stood over twice the height of Jorge.

  “Dios mío,” Jorge breathed as the blackness lunged.

  His scream polluted the otherwise serene desert for miles before a gaping maw completely enveloped Jorge’s skull. Upper and lower jaws connected, and silence swallowed the night like ink spilled on the last page of Jorge’s autobiography.

  Chapter 1

  I love you so, so much,” Jose breathed into his wife’s flowery hair as he wrapped his arms around her shoulders.

  “Mmm, you better,” Isabel cooed as she rested her hand on Jose’s forearms.

  The faucet was still running from wher
e the dishes were being scraped clean. Jose appreciated that Isabel wanted sparkling dishes before they went into their brand-new dishwasher.

  “You know there is supposed to be a little food left when you put them in, right? The sales guy said that otherwise the soap will eat into the dishes instead.”

  “Force of habit, I guess,” Isabel said as she continued to scrub the plates and glasses to a pristine shine before placing them on the racks.

  Her posture straightened ever so slightly while her gaze went out the window, staring unfocused at the empty walnut fields in the back. With a tone that was tense but with a forced soft edge to it, Isabel asked, “When will you be home?”

  “I think Martin said we would be relieved at dawn. I’ll have to double-check. Want me to text you?” Jose asked gingerly, knowing he was tiptoeing on eggshells decorating a layer of thin ice.

  Isabel thought for a moment before answering, “No. I don’t want to wake Ana.”

  Jose turned his head to lovingly regard the infant girl who sat happily in her high chair with a bottle of formula being knocked around her personal table. She had just learned to blow raspberries and was creating a foaming frenzy of milk bubbles in between giggle fits.

  Letting his arms slip from around his wife, Jose tore a sheet from the paper towel holder and marveled at such a luxury. Disposable towels. Jose used to think of them as the eccentricities of the wealthy who had more money than sense; now, he purchased them in bulk at the Costco, along with those fancy butt wipes that really left you feeling fresh. He could buy them after having had modern plumbing put in, complete with a septic system.

  Jose took the section of paper towel and wiped his daughter’s mouth as she continued to blow raspberries and bang on her little plastic table like a theatrical drummer.

  Once clean, he held up the used rectangle, effectively blocking the view of his beautiful baby.

  “Where’d papa go? Huh? Where’d papa go?” he asked in a singsong before dropping the towel and excitingly saying, “Here he is! Yes, here he is!” much to the delight and clumsy applause of baby Ana. Her little giggles filled his heart with such love and joy that it could barely be contained within the walls of his chest.