Crack the Sky: Preternatural Chronicles Book 8 (The Preternatural Chronicles)

by Hunter Blain

  Not having a choice but to press on, I returned us to the earthen plane. My eyes rapidly glided over everything I turned my face toward, starting with the shadows.

  As expected, Lolth was nowhere to be seen in the midday sun.

  To test my theory, I willed Mjolnir into my grasp and held it to the sky, focusing on the clouds overhead.

  Nothing happened.

  With a scowl and bared teeth, I intensely concentrated on the clouds condensing to blot out the sun, wanting to see if I could coax her forward and reveal more of her hand. She had made a mistake when she told me about finding Depweg, meaning there was clearly evidence of a powerful outside influence.

  To my chagrin, the sky remained unaffected by my efforts.

  “Shit,” I barked, letting Mjolnir fly back to my hip and vanish.

  “What?” Jose asked, growing annoyed at being left in the dark.

  “Can’t use it here,” I said for not only his benefit but my own as well. One of my most important tools had been rendered useless.

  Gabriel’s words came to mind, about attuning me to our river of time for fear of me being lost forever and not closing the dangerous stream.

  Lolth—and probably Depweg—could interact in this divergent stream of time, while Jose and I were tied to our original river; him with his crystal and me with my armor.

  “We have to be careful,” I quietly told Jose, wary of any potential ears in the area. “She has the advantage here.”

  As the words crossed my lips, they somehow became a reality that made me feel extremely vulnerable at that moment. To emphasize my thought, the leg that the dog had nearly disintegrated began to tingle.

  “Even in her cat form, Lolth can probably kill us both with a single swipe of her paw.”

  In response, Jose started a string of rapid words in Spanish that I won’t bother translating. Heck, there were even some naughty words that I hadn’t even heard before.

  Without another word, I shifted us back to the In-Between and turned to face Jose.

  “Here’s the plan,” I said, my brain figuratively laying the tracks down just as the train was barreling at full speed, threatening to run off course and crash. “We only come out during the day and at different locations so she can’t set up a trap.”

  “What if she really is after Depweg?” Jose asked, a little more calmly than I would have liked. Then again, Depweg was my bestest-good friend, so anything other than panicked screaming seemed underwhelming for the situation.

  “Then we’ll just have to find him first,” I declared. “Which means we can’t just jump ahead several years at a time.”

  “Right,” Jose agreed. “’Cause the cat will have more time to find him.”

  “Lilith damn it,” I groaned as a hand aggressively rubbed down my face, pulling my skin with it.

  “I figured you already knew that.”

  “No…I mean yes, I did. But hearing it out loud just hits different, ya know?”

  Jose shrugged in response.

  “This is going to take a long, long time,” I said with a sigh, the echo of the In-Between reassuring me for a reason I couldn’t put my finger on. Maybe it was the familiarity of something consistent in a new world of inconsistencies?

  Summoning the Time Sphere, I moved my right hand, and counted seven orbits of the sun.

  The funny thing about traveling through and manipulating time, you have no idea how long you’ve been searching. Has it been minutes? Hours even? Perhaps it has been days since we started searching with one-week intervals.

  After each jump through time, Jose would check to see if the preternatural connection between him and his maker was present. After he shook his head, I would fly us somewhere different—and random—before shifting back to the In-Between and trying again.

  We focused on open fields with as little shadows as possible, at least within eyeshot.

  More than a few times, Jose fell victim to his undeniable need to feed, which gave some semblance of a reliable passage of time.

  How does a being that cannot affect the world around him eat, you ask? Well, let me show you.

  “I’m hungry.”

  “Again?!” I blurted out, more frustrated at the slow game we were engaged in than the weakness most supes were subject to: eating. “I think you just like the taste of my ass.”

  I could hear Jose’s fists pop as he clenched them.

  I had convinced him that I could feed him my flesh, which had worked in the past, but couldn’t cut myself without taking off my armor. And I couldn’t take off my armor without losing the attunement to our universe (probably). So to solve the situation, I had to cut an area of my body where the celestial armor didn’t overlap, i.e. my ass.

  See, the armor covered my entire body, except where it needed to bend and rotate, with the only exception being my shoulders, which was solved by creating sweeping pauldrons my arms could swivel inside of. My butt, on the other hand, had no such coverage.

  Butt there’s a fun part (did you catch that?); I didn’t know if the armor would let me cut into my own flesh if I sensed I wasn’t in danger. I mean, I had probably done it in the past at some point, but I didn’t care enough to go through my memories and find out. Not only this, but having only one item on the menu meant Jose probably held off longer than if I was offering, say, my calf muscle or something. Plus, it was really funny to watch him reluctantly eat my ass.

  Undoing my belt, I lowered my Fae-made jeans and moved my trench coat out of the way.

  While making direct eye contact with Jose, I slowly rubbed my perky butt cheek before giving it a little spank.

  “Who’s a hungry boy? Is it you? I bet it’s you!” I said in a voice reserved for puppies, which was apropos if you thought about it.

  “Stop foolin’ around. We don’t have the luxury of wasting time,” Jose said in a surprisingly calm tone, letting his eyes scan the area around us. “I don’t know why we don’t do this while in that echo place.”

  “The In-Between,” I corrected. “Gotta use capital letters, like with John On.”

  “That doesn’t sound correct.”

  “Look,” I said, dismissing his unwarranted grammatical advice. “After you eat my butt, I have to heal, right? Then I need the sun to recharge my batteries. Gotta make sure I keep them bad boys at full charge, just in case we have some sort of epic, climatic battle when we find Depweg.”

  “How can you utilize the sun if this isn’t our world?”

  “Time,” I interjected while manifesting a carving knife and sawing at my right cheek. “This is our world, but not our time.”

  “Does the semantics matter?” Jose countered. “You can’t make changes to this world, but you can use its sun? How does that make sense?”

  Handing him my fillet-o-John, I healed my gaping wound before pulling my pants back up and letting the manifested knife vanish.

  “That’s…actually a good question,” I mused, glancing up at the sun as I fastened my belt and smoothed my coat back into position.

  Looking down at the ground, I moved the dirt and a few blades of grass with the toe of my boot. They bent to my will. Then I remembered Gabriel mentioning it was only living things I couldn’t interact with.

  From the corner of my eye, I could barely make out as the last of my rump disappeared into Jose’s chomping mouth.

  “How’s that ass taste?”

  “The same as the last four times you asked,” Jose replied with a full mouth and roll of his eyes.

  “Please make sure to leave five stars on Yelp.”

  “Why? You want more people eating your flesh?”

  “I…” My wit faltered at Jose winning the round. “Whatever. Let’s keep going.”

  As the sun topped off my tanks again, I shifted us to the In-Between and moved forward another week.

  24

  Depweg - Grand Island, Nebraska, 1989

  “Ugh,” Depweg hissed out as an energetic wolf cub jumped on his stomach, aggressively waking
him from a deep slumber.

  As a hand went up to shield his eyes from the morning light peering through the blinds, the wolf with the tail and ears of a bobcat leaped off him to land at the foot of the bed, where he proceeded to run in tight circles all while panting with excitement.

  “Dad! Dad! Dad! Daddy! Dad! Come on, Dad!” the cub called out with limitless energy.

  Depweg lifted his head to see the time before letting it plop back on the pillow.

  “It’s my day off!” he moaned while lifting the blankets above his face.

  “But it’s my birthday!” JD exclaimed while grabbing the bottom of the comforter with his mouth and yanking the covers off the bed. Depweg wanted to be annoyed, but it was just too damn adorable.

  Turning to his mate, Depweg greeted her with a kiss to Meli’s forehead and said, “Morning, beautiful.”

  “Ew. Go brush your teeth before you point your mouth in my direction,” Meli mumbled while pretending to push her mate away.

  Instead, Depweg lifted himself up on one elbow and leaned toward her face while hissing out a lungful of hot air.

  “EW! NO-HO-HOOOOO!” Meli cried out, laughing while trying to squirm away.

  After a moment, the pair stopped, looked each other in the eyes while smiling, and gave a closed-mouth kiss.

  Kicking his feet out of bed, Depweg scooted to the edge and rubbed his face with both hands, feeling the five-o’clock shadow rustle beneath his palms. It had been more than a year since he had decided to go back to his clean-shaven look.

  “DAD!” JD cried out, planting his front paws on the ground while propping his butt up in the air as if he were about to pounce.

  “I’m up, I’m up!”

  Getting to a standing position, Depweg abruptly turned to his son while throwing his hands out to the sides.

  JD leaped through the air, transforming to his human form in an instant, before being caught in a welcoming embrace by his father.

  “What do you want for breakfast, birthday boy?” Meli asked while pushing herself up to a seated position.

  “Bacon! Sausage! And ham!”

  “I’ll have what he’s having.” Depweg smirked as he leaned his head down and kissed the top of his son’s head. He took in a lungful of his child’s scent and felt a warmth in his heart he had never known before his birth, or even thought was possible.

  “Quit it!” JD protested, squirming in an attempt to slip from his father’s tight embrace. When he realized he couldn’t overpower his dad, JD brought his legs up to Depweg’s torso and kicked out right as his dad let go.

  A blur of brown, spotted fur streaked out of the bedroom, slipping on the hardwood floors as it landed. The distinct sound of claws on wood made Depweg cringe before hearing the unmistakable thud of drywall caving in.

  “I hate these floors!” JD cried out. “Can’t we go back to carpet?”

  “You tore it all up, kiddo,” Depweg called back as he shook his head and made his way into the bathroom.

  After brushing his teeth and putting on a shirt, Depweg shuffled toward the kitchen, the ends of his gray sweats catching on fresh grooves in the wood floor.

  “I think we’re going to have to lay down some sort of stone tile next,” Depweg moaned to himself as he stepped into the kitchen.

  JD sat in his chair, naked as the day he was born.

  “Boy, go put on some clothes.”

  “Why?”

  “The humans find it weird if we run around naked all the time,” Depweg explained.

  “Not all do,” Meli called from the hallway, having finished her own morning routine in the bathroom.

  “Well, we don’t live in France, now do we?” Depweg countered with a sly smile that always gave away when he was being sarcastic.

  “You’re lucky you’re handsome,” Meli retorted while pulling several packages of various breakfast meats from the fridge.

  “We aren’t human, right, Dad?”

  “Right, buddy. But we look human, and we need to blend in with them.”

  “But why?”

  “That’s a…that’s a conversation for when you’re older.”

  “I am older! I’m this many!” JD announced, holding up his hand while mouthing as he counted the right number of fingers. Once he realized it was his whole hand, his eyes went wide with excitement, and he shook his arm in victory. “See, Dad? See?”

  “I know, buddy. Just trust me when I say we need to look like the humans, okay?”

  “I guess,” JD lamented, turning from sheer excitement to pouting in an instant, like children do.

  “Go get dressed so we can have bacon!” Depweg playfully reminded his son.

  JD gasped in happiness before shifting and hauling ass down the hallway, tearing up more of the new wood they had just installed.

  “He gets those claws from you,” Depweg mumbled playfully while intentionally not making eye contact with Meli.

  “Excuse me? What about those dinosaur claws at the ends of your fingers? Hmm?” Meli crossed her arms, but was smiling while proving her point.

  Depweg’s face went slack as he realized she might be right. The thought of his son losing control and going feral inserted a nauseating fog in his mind, choking all other thought.

  Meli, sensing the abrupt change and knowing the entire story of Depweg’s descent into the mouth of madness, glided over to where her mate sat staring blankly toward the hallway. Running fingers through his hair in long strokes, Meli gently grabbed Depweg’s chin with her free hand and guided his face toward hers. She kissed him deeply, and after a moment, the fog in his brain dissipated, and Depweg returned the kiss, gaining passion with each passing second.

  “Gross!” JD called out while making gagging sounds.

  Meli kissed the tip of Depweg’s nose as she pulled away, gave him a lasting smile, and returned to the stove.

  Depweg’s heart could have burst from the sheer volume of joy that was born from the center of his chest. A hand absentmindedly wiped away a tear before it could fully form.

  Turning toward his son as he plopped down in his chair once more, Depweg could see he was wearing his outside play shorts and a polo reserved for formal occasions.

  “Looking sharp, kiddo,” Depweg said, simultaneously smiling at how silly his child looked and how his son didn’t care about how others might perceive him.

  JD ignored him as the birthday boy stared toward the stove where sizzling bacon could be heard, followed closely by the powerful aroma of cooking meats.

  Leaning over to peer past his mate, Depweg could see the ham and sausage cooking in the grease from the bacon, making his mouth salivate to a degree that a very eager Pavlov would have loved the chance to study.

  “How do you want your bacon?” Meli asked JD over her shoulder.

  “Oooh! Oooh! Crispy please, Mommy!”

  Shifting her head to look over her other shoulder, Meli wordlessly asked Depweg the same question.

  “I’ll have what he’s having, beautiful.”

  Meli smiled before flipping the various meats with a metal fork while resting her free hand on her hip. In a gesture Depweg found nearly irresistible, Meli lifted her right foot to rest on her left knee, creating a triangle with her right leg. Depweg thought it to be some sort of yoga pose, but when asked, Meli simply said it was a comfortable position to stand for long periods. She had once asked him why he always stared whenever she stood that way, to which Depweg couldn’t answer short of admitting that he just liked it for some reason. It wasn’t a sexual pose; rather, it was just…cute.

  “Would you grab the plates, handsome?”

  “You bet, beautiful,” Depweg answered with a grin as he stood to retrieve three large plates from one of the cabinets.

  Touching the cold glass of the plates made Depweg freeze as he realized his face was sore from smiling so much. The glass sang out of his tense fingers when he pulled back, letting the plates fall back into place as Depweg drank in the moment.

  “What is it?�
�� Meli asked from somewhere far away.

  A single tear slipped from his eye, his nose hiding the escape from Meli.

  “Huh?” Depweg returned to the present, blinking his eyes and turning his face away from his mate, quickly wiping the tear from his cheek.

  Returning his smiling gaze to her, he said, “Sorry ’bout that. Was…was lost in thought.”

  “About what?” Meli asked, gesturing her chin toward the plates.

  “Oh, right!” Depweg blurted out, grabbing the three plates and setting them on the counter between them.

  Meli’s foot left the knee upon which it rested and was placed gently on the floor, a step closer to her mate. Shifting her body, Meli gingerly grabbed Depweg’s forearm and gave him a pleading look.

  “It’s nothing. I’m…I’m just so happy.” His voice cracked with the last word, and he brought a fist up to his mouth. “Why am I crying?” he asked softly in an attempt to not worry JD, whose attention was exclusively locked on the sizzling meats.

  Meli picked up why Depweg was whispering, and quickly scooped several crackling pieces of bacon, ham, and sausage onto a plate before turning and walking to the table.

  “Happy birthday, JD,” Meli said in a singsong voice as she slid the meal in front of her wide-eyed son.

  JD immediately dug in, lowering his face to the plate and shoveling in the flavorful meats with his bare hands, uncaring of the heat.

  Returning to Depweg, Meli looked into his brown eyes and patiently waited for him to continue.

  “Jesus…he eats as much as we do.”

  Meli arched an eyebrow at the statement.

  “It’s probably because he’s a growing were. I wasn’t made until I was already a man, so never, um, went through this stage.”

  Meli continued to stare, knowing Depweg was going to realize what he was doing sooner or later.

  With a sigh, Depweg lowered his head while lifting his hands to rest on his mate’s shoulders.