Wicked & Preternatural Read online

  Wicked & Preternatural

  Awakening

  Book 1

  DK GASTON

  Copyright © 2020 DK Gaston

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN:

  Names, characters, and incidents depicted in this book are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author or the publisher. 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 permission in writing from the author.

  DEDICATION

  I dedicate this to coffee, artificial sweeteners, and flavored creamers.

  Monster Hunter’s

  Creed

  Once wickedness bares its teeth, we shall hold our ground and never show it our backs…

  When evil strikes, we will repel it through our blood and sacrifice…

  When the storm rages forward, we shall weather its might…

  We stand braced against the dark…

  We are who monsters fear.

  .

  CHAPTER ONE

  THE CLIENT

  The wicked people are at work all the time

  -- African Proverb

  Zoë’s motorcycle came to a full stop in a driveway in front of an ordinary-looking colonial two-storied house that resided in an ordinary-looking middle-class neighborhood. She detested ordinary things, finding them dull and unstimulating.

  It was never exciting like the movies where there would be a foreboding mammoth mansion with dense vines snaking across its beaten exterior walls. In those films, there would be a spectral figure lurking in an upper floor window, who’d vanish as soon as you gave the entity your full attention. She even felt betrayed by the day, hoping the property would have dark clouds and lightning bolts, invading only the space in the sky above the house as if God cried out a warning to stay away.

  Reality never played out quite that way. The sky was cloudless, and the sun ran bright over the entire neighborhood. God offered no warning and the prospect of Zoë finding work that excited her ebbed. Feeling as if waking up before her usual noon hour and the drive across town was a waste of her precious time, she began to pull out of the driveway and back into the street. Before Zoë even made a quarter turn, she caught sight of a wizened hand drawing the blinds inside the house.

  Someone stood behind the glass of one of the windows. A face appeared, features hidden in shadows except for eyes that glowed under the scrutiny of the sun. A sudden flash lit the person’s face. A dark-skinned older woman savagely puffed a freshly lit cigarette like it offered her protection. It was an odd sight that made Zoë take note of things she had previously missed. All the windows from top to bottom were barred.

  Taking a closer inspection of nearby homes, none of them had the same level of safety. Strange, she thought, interest piqued, trying to work out why the older woman felt afraid enough to fortify her home. “I guess it’s only one way to find out,” Zoë said aloud.

  Powering down the Harley Davidson Sportster Iron 883, she removed her sleek black helmet, stuffed it into a backpack and slung the bag over a shoulder. The older woman in the window eyed her as she approached, scrutinizing her every move. Swinging her hips and swaying gracefully from side to side, Zoë decided to put on a show of confidence strutting up the pavement like a fashion show model on a catwalk.

  Upon reaching the front door, Zoë saw that the woman had vanished from the window, much like the spectral figure she had speculated about earlier.

  She waited patiently. No need to knock after that catwalk performance, she thought.

  Several locks and chains clicked and clattered from the opposite side of the door. What’s with having so many latches and hinges, Zoë wondered if the woman could escape if a fire ever broke out inside. The door creaked opened slowly.

  She waited for her host to present herself, but no one was there. Hot air gushed out with the scent of yams, and piri-piri chicken carried in the wake of the heat. Her stomach immediately growled, reminding her she hadn’t had a decent meal in nearly two weeks. She was good at what she does, but jobs came few and far apart. On top of that, she tended to turn down work if she didn’t find it stimulating.

  I might have to dial down my fondness for interesting jobs if I want to stop eating Vienna sausages from a can for the foreseeable future, she thought. Brushing the notion aside, she concluded the open door was an invitation and crossed the threshold to enter. Once inside the foyers, the heat grew to sweltering levels. Beads of sweat glistened on her forehead. Feels like I just walked into a sauna.

  As soon as she cleared the entrance, the door closed behind her with a loud bang. Zoë whirled around. The older woman, wearing a bright multicolored dashiki dress, was refastening all the locks with a swiftness born of someone more than half her age. Strange, Zoë thought, she had somehow missed the woman being there when she’d come through the door.

  There must have been at least twenty locks arranged vertically down the length of the door, all of which looked to have been forged from cast iron decades before Zoë was born. The woman’s aged fingers were careful not to grip the metal catches fully. She whacked the locking levers into place with her hand rather than manually turn them. The woman mumbled incoherently to herself as she worked.

  With the growing heat, Zoë’ wondered if the house indeed was on fire and worried the woman was bolting them both inside to be burned alive. “Ms. Olson?”

  The woman stopped her stammering but continued toiling with the locks. Ms. Olson’s response at hearing her name was a sound she produced that could’ve been clearing phlegm from her throat or an attempt to mimic a cat in the midst of being straggled.

  “Is that necessary,” Zoë asked. “Who or what exactly are you trying to keep out?”

  The woman finished with the last of the latches and swiveled around at a snail's pace. Her dark eyes conveyed confusion. “Who said anything about keeping something out?” There was a hint of an African accent, perhaps Nigerian. Her voice was like a tender kiss on the cheek, soft and heartfelt.

  Zoë took a step back, surprised by the melody of her voice after the disgusting throat-clearing noises the older woman had delivered earlier. She took in her host with her eyes trying to get a bead on who exactly she was dealing with here.

  Ms. Olson was much older than what Zoë had initially conjured up in her mind from the short observation she had of her from the window. Her dark brown, creased skin looked like crumpled paper toss aside a trash can by some author with writers' block. Her dull eyes reflected dark obsidian as though they had seen far too much over the years.

  She was stooped over as if she carried some invisible burden on her back. Her gunmetal gray hair was long but unkempt, and the strands extended down to her lower back.

  Zoë could tell the woman’s lips were once full and beautiful. Now they were covered in peeling dried flakes of skin. She expected to see yellowed, rotting teeth, but as the woman gave a weak smile, she presented a mouthful of white, vibrant teeth before sticking a cigarette between her lips.

  “I see from your expression, I’m not what you have expected,” Ms. Olson said. “Well, I can say the same about you.” The older woman eyed her from head to toe.

  Zoë unconsciously looked down and gave herself the going-over: Her waist-length black leather jacket hung open to reveal a white scoop neck tee-shirt. The head of an elephant tattoo peeked over her left breast shirt’s neckline. Cladded in ripped blue jeans and black biker boots, she radiated a badass vibe. Which was precisely the look she wanted to proje
ct. With her line of work, flaunting toughness was just as vital as displaying confidence, especially for a woman trying to make her way in a male-dominated profession.

  She glanced up at her potential client, not yet ready to jump on board of whatever work she needed doing. “You left a message for me on my cellphone to come to your home about a job. Just so we’re clear, you do know what type of work I do, correct?”

  The woman nodded her understanding. “You hunt monsters.” She blew out a cloud of smoke and then added, “I would not have called you otherwise.”

  “Great, we’re on the same page,” Zoë said, not missing the slight irritation that briefly crossed the woman’s face.

  Ms. Olson shuffled past. “Follow me so we can get comfortable.”

  Trailing behind the older woman, she surveyed statues, artworks, and furniture that had to have come from every African nation. She also could not miss the fact the high ceilings in the rooms they were passing through stretched well beyond the height of the exterior of the house. From outside in the driveway, she would have guessed the house was about eighteen hundred square feet, yet the interior was far vaster, like that of a ten-million-dollar mansion.

  “Your home… it’s incredible,” Zoë offered. She had questions but thought better of verbalizing them.

  “Thank you. That is sweet of you to say,” Ms. Olson replied. “It has taken me many years to amass what you see before you. My collections are one of a kind and very dear to me. They remind me of where I came from and better times.”

  Zoë was half-listening. It felt as if they’d already walked the length of a football field, and they were still moving onward through more substantial rooms. They crossed into yet another area where towering pillars, two stories high, were carved of marble and bronze, depicting various African deities. She had seen her share of strangeness, but this house was straight out of Tales from the Hood. She expected that bad hairdo mortician, Mr. Simms to come creeping out from the shadows to reveal he’s the devil at any moment.

  In the center of what Zoë could only imagine as a great hall sat two thickly cushioned chairs with an ornate table resting between them. A huge fine-woven hemp Abiba rug laid underneath the three pieces of furniture. The walls and floor of the room were black and blended without revealing any corners or edges. If not for the statues and the sparse furniture, she would have felt as if she entered a void. She could have sworn there was a door ahead of them, but now it was gone. She turned around, the entry into the room had disappeared as well.

  “What the devil is going on?” Zoë said, spinning to face her host’s back.

  The older woman glanced over her shoulder, the tip of her lit cigarette a glowing beacon in the obsidian room. “Please sit,” she said, proffering a hand toward one of the chairs.

  Sitting on the table rested a copper teapot that looked to have handcrafted camels engraved around its circumference and two conventional teacups that any household dining room would contain. It was the normality of those cups that grounded Zoë back to a sense of reality. The urgency she’d felt outside the house for something out of the ordinary had long since passed.

  “What are you?”

  “A bit insulted by the question,” Ms. Olson replied.

  “Are you a witch or a sorceress?” Zoë pressed, more concerned for an answer than sparing the woman’s feelings.

  “I am none of those things you’ve mentioned. There is nothing to fear from me, young lady,” the older woman explained. “Sit so that we can talk.”

  She felt vulnerable and embarrassed for coming into the house defenseless, thinking Ms. Olson was just an old and harmless lady. A rookie mistake, she hated to admit. Okay, breathe, relax, everything is okay, Zoë told herself. If the woman wanted to do me harm, she would have already done it.

  It wasn’t like she was unfamiliar with working for people with abilities. The problem she faced was that she couldn’t distinguish whether the woman possessed the magic of light or darkness. She wondered if it even mattered, just as long as her bills got paid, and there was food on the table. Reluctantly, she sat in one of the chairs, while the other woman circled the table to settle in the other.

  Ms. Olson picked up the pot. “Would you like some tea?”

  “I’d prefer you to tell me about the job you want to hire me for.”

  “In time, it’s customary to have pleasantries first,” the older woman insisted. Hot tea poured out of the pot and into the cup.

  Zoë’s stomach growled as the brew’s aroma filled her nostrils. I wonder if she heard that? The older woman raised an eyebrow, and her knowing expression said it all. She has. “Um, excuse me.”

  “No need to apologize. Here, have some cookies.” On the table, a large platter of steaming homemade oatmeal raisin cookies sat in front of Zoë. The woman suddenly had on a red apron with large polka dots and was slipping off a pair of matching cooking mitts. “I’ve baked them myself.”

  Jabbing a finger in the direction of the platter, the monster hunter said, “O-kay… that wasn’t there before. What exactly is going on here?”

  The older woman took a long pull from her cigarette, before breathing smoke out from her nostrils. “As I said before, I am neither a witch nor a sorceress. It is my home that contains magic.”

  Now it was Zoë’s turn to raise an eyebrow. “You live in an enchanted house?”

  “Not exactly...” Ms. Olson swept a hand through the air, indicating their surroundings. “The objects within are the source, not the house itself that is… as you say… enchanted.”

  Zoë glanced around. She stopped briefly at each of the statues that now appeared to her to be guarding the dark room. Guarding against what exactly? she wondered, sensing that she might be in danger. She fixed her gaze on the older woman sitting across from her. “Am I a prisoner?”

  The woman nearly coughed out her cigarette, stifling a laugh. “No, no, of course not. I need you to be able to move about freely if you’re to help me.”

  Her tension eased a bit, and Zoë picked up one of the cookies. It’s hot? she thought. The cookie came right out of the oven. She recalled the apron and mitts appearing on the woman as suddenly as the chocolate chips had materialized on the table. On a whim, she glanced at the time on the Fitbit on her wrist. The display was indecipherable as the digital numbers flew across the screen in a blur. “We’re displaced out of time, aren’t we?”

  “Time is meaningless here,” the older woman said. Then she was gone without any fanfare as if she been plucked right out of existence.

  “Ms. Olson?”

  “I’m here,” a voice said from behind Zoë.

  She jumped up from the chair and whirled around. Ms. Olson stood an impossible distance away, barely recognizable except for the polka dot apron. It was like they were a mile apart. “It’s not just time that’s wrong here . . . it’s time and space that’s off.”

  A whisper in her ear said, “Yes.” The older woman stood beside her. From her expression, it was evident that she was waiting for Zoë to freak out.

  “Cool,” she said instead, and then bit into the cookie. “Wow, this is good.”

  The older woman nodded approvingly before returning to her chair. “That was a test, by the way.”

  Zoë sat. “Did I pass?”

  “You have,” she replied, and for a moment she looked decades younger before reverting to the way she was before. “I needed to know whether or not you could be easily shocked.”

  “I would be in the wrong business if I were.”

  “Then let us dispense with the pleasantries and get down to business, shall we?” Ms. Olson said before taking another puff on her cigarette.

  The cigarette never seemed to dwindle the entire time she’d been smoking it. Zoë supposed without the effects of time-and-space, the cancer stick could likely go on forever. Whether than dwell on it, she finished what remained of the cookie and picked up her cup.

  “What exactly do you want me to track?”

  “
Not a what, but a who,” Ms. Olson corrected. She slipped a photo out of the apron’s pouch and slid it across the table.

  Zoë stared down at the picture, stunned at seeing a child with a rich chocolate complexion staring back. “Who’s this?”

  “He’s my grandson,” the older woman explained.

  Zoë guessed the child in the photograph couldn’t be more than seven or eight years old. “He’s just a boy. Has he been hurt by the monster you want me to find?”

  “Do not let his youth sway you. Wickedness comes in all ages.” The older woman leaned forward in her chair with genuine fear evident on her face. “I call him E, and if you do not bring him back to me, it will very well mean the end of all life on this planet.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  ICE CREAM, YOU SCREAM

  A spider’s cobweb isn’t only its sleeping spring but also its food trap.

  -- African proverb

  Belle Isle Aquarium, Detroit, Mi

  E stared at the aquarium tank display filled with an assortment of exotic fish of varying colors, shapes, and sizes. It wasn’t the animated creatures behind the transparent barrier that held the boy’s attention, but his reflection in the glass.

  With dark-skinned the shade of milk chocolate, brown eyes the color of maple syrup, and a neatly cut short Afro fade, he exuded a mixture of handsomeness, innocence, and intelligence. He couldn’t recall the last time he had the opportunity to have a good look at himself. Mirrors, as well as anything else with reflecting surfaces, had long since been barred from the house. Even glass in the windows did not permit a return likeness.

  Smiling, he marveled at his doppelgänger in the glass, wondering what he would do for the rest of his day now that he found his freedom at long last. A new image appeared beside his likeness, though no one stood next to him. It was a future echo. E studied it. A middle-aged man with pale pockmarked skin wearing clothes too warm for the hot weather outside the aquarium held two ice cream cones. He recalled this person walking past him three times already, pretending not to be staring at E and hoping no one would notice him.