The Fated

By Slate Raven and Slate R. Raven

Several people's lives are cosmically interwoven by a violent game. It brings destruction and death to anyone who crosses its path. No one is safe.  Where does destiny end and when does fate take over?

Jonas had been on the run since he was thirteen. A group pursued him, but he didn't know why. Yet, he knew that if they'd ever find him, he will die. He lived a solitary life to survive until his dreams began. Each dream revealed a new piece of an ever-widening puzzle. A mystery woman haunted his slumber, drawing him closer to the destiny he knew and feared.

Tammy's life was drastically altered by an encounter in a dark alley. She had seen what no one else in the world had lived to tell about. When it was time to act, she had faltered and feared for her life. Could she tell the world what she had witnessed, and would anyone believe her? How could she live with the knowledge that made her life a living hell?

Stacey had won the lottery, and everyone wanted a piece of it. The only person she felt she could trust was her best friend, Tammy. However, Tammy began having serious problems after the terrible night in the alley. Stacey had decided to hire a bodyguard to protect them. But, before long, she developed romantic feelings for their protector, which distracted them from their main concern... keeping Tammy safe.

What will become of these people whose lives are intertwined by destiny and fate into a fierce game? With lives on the line, and devastation on the horizon is anything or anyone safe? It's only where destiny lands that you can find The Fated.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Slate R. Raven
• Release date: Sep 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393834601

Book preview

Dedication

This book is dedicated to my Grandparents. I hope you’re looking down from heaven, and smiling; your white buffalo has begun the stampede.

Chapter One

Wicked winds of extinction blew, maintaining a silence unprecedented in the history of the world. Such an abundance of misery and anguish was passed down from parent to progeny. From their first to their last steps up the spiraling staircase of time they were always hunted, marked for death. Ever climbing, only when one reached the very summit of the staircase, did life end. The metallic taste of pain tainted the very air itself. Mother Earth converted to vampirism to accumulate enough nutrients to survive.

He’d never asked to be born into his lineage; however, he made no apologies for it, either. Only a handful of his kind remained; time and ignorance had laid waste to all the others. Jonas squirmed into his black pullover and tucked it into his black cargo pants. His movements were precise, measured, efficient, almost robotic. Oval-shaped, silver-rimmed, mirrored sunglasses effectively eclipsed his extraordinarily peculiar eyes—a contribution from his father's side of the family. Running a shaky hand over his richly tanned, bald scalp, Jonas smiled into the mirror checking for anything caught between his teeth.

The dull hum of the fluorescent tubes emitting light mixed into a chorus with the sparse traffic traveling the roads. Rings across the thin bar which hung over the bathtub were empty of their usual cargo. Instead, a series of bowls varying in size were set in a circle around the base of the porcelain tub to catch any spilled water. From floor to ceiling, the walls were covered in dingy, cracked, ceramic tiles. Despite its small size, the bathroom was dirty enough to compete with a men’s restroom at a major league football stadium. Roaches, roughly golfball-sized, flooded out across the tiny room once the pale glow ceased. So Jonas felt compelled to leave the lights on for the duration of his stay.

Jonas counted himself lucky cockroaches were the only other creatures occupying his room. His last motel was endowed with a large quantity of five-pound rats. While he’d stayed in that room, he noted on more than one occasion the floor seemed to be moving, rippling, pulsating. Since he didn't have to fight the roaches for the right to use the bed, Jonas was overjoyed to leave the light on throughout the night. Stray cockroaches still scurried across the floor from time to time, however, overall, they remained mostly concealed so long as light prevailed.

The golden coin of the sun had plopped into the parking meter of darkness, casting shadows across the affected hemisphere. The moon ascended into high orbit, casting down an ominous radiance that sent children sprinting for the unequivocal safety of their parent's bedroom. Grumpy fathers everywhere would lose even more of the limited space allocated to them by their bed-hog wives as they admitted one or more of their children into bed.

Spinning on the heel of his cross-trainers, Jonas took three strides and found himself standing at the outer edge of the room. He cast a long look around the room, ensuring he left nothing behind. Satisfied he had collected all of his belongings, he picked up his bag, turned the handle on the door, then stepped out into the growing darkness. Peering hard into the shadows, he checked to make certain nothing sinister lurked within their depths. He much preferred traveling during daylight hours, it was then that his sunglasses made the most sense.

Self-preservation taught all living things important lessons over time. Of those lessons, Jonas knew the best way to hide was to stay out in the open. Not to say he wanted to draw attention to himself, instead, he simply wouldn't try concealing himself.

Dried leaves glided over the concrete sidewalk, scraping every so often against the rough surface. Jonas decided to take a more scenic approach and cut through a forest preserve. As he approached the outer ring of trees, he noticed how filled with sorrow the trees had become. Once again, the tattoos on his hands began to itch and tingle. The tattoos covered his hands, from his fingertips to his wrist; even under his fingernails were marked. Not an easy, nor particularly painless, endeavor to undertake, but it was a time-honored tradition.

Special inks imported from South America were used in the process. Thus, the tattoos’ color resisted fading better than any others done without that particular ink. Nothing as interesting as an intoxicated cartoon, an animal, naked woman, nor the ever-popular reptilian tattoo existed on his hands. Instead, he adorned dull-looking symbols and glyptic art; each going deeper than the skin, straight to the bone . . .

Gnarled, twisted branches reached desperately toward the sky, begging for just a hint of water to sustain their arid roots. As the wind whipped through them, they made the clacking sound of skeletons dancing over a hardwood floor. So far, from the land of light pollution, the skyline was a thick blanket of black velvet with hundreds of diamonds sparkling across it. One would almost be fooled into believing that if a ladder could be built tall enough, those diamonds could be had for the taking. Perhaps that was Icarus' true motivation in flying so close to the sun: greed.

Jonas didn't feel the pangs of avarice as sharply as he believed the majority of society felt them. To him, any type of currency was a pleasant thing to have, but by no means something to spend his entire life pursuing.

His heart pounded hard against his chest; blood raced through his veins rushing adrenaline throughout his body. His eyes darted from east to west, searching for anything outside the norm, but found nothing amiss. Yet, his body was telling him he was facing the classic conflict between fight or flight. Jonas found if his body was preparing for action then his mind should always follow. Bitter sorrow had tutored him in listening to all parts of himself, mind, body, and soul.

Out of the corner of his eye, Jonas caught the faintest glimpse of movement. He whirled around to face the direction of the activity. His hand dropped to his belt where he kept a small emergency flashlight. As his finger pressed the button that would illuminate the area in question, a million wicked scenarios raced through his mind. At first, he was too fearful to see if something was crouching in the darkness waiting to pounce; however, he was more afraid not to know what face the threat wore at this encounter.

Flaring up, and totally out of place, the flashlight's beam swung from side to side in a wide arc. Like his mind had counseled earlier, nothing was out there. Behind him, he heard the sound of a foot crunching dry leaves then halting in mid-stride. Dread filled his chest like sand, making treading the waters of fear that much more treacherous. He twisted around and flashed his light toward the site of the sound. Again, no sharp-clawed, eight-eyed monster with blood-stained fangs awaited him; he was seemingly alone.

Being suspicious of everything and everyone had served Jonas well over the course of his life. It was the very reason he was still alive. So long as he deposited nothing inside the bank of trust, no thief could steal his faith through the trap door of betrayal. Jonas' body continued to shout at his mind that danger was present, perhaps drawing closer with each pounding heartbeat. The wind whistled its apprehension much too boisterously to suit him.

In that brief moment of noise, an attacker could have moved to a more strategic position, undetected. Clicking off the flashlight, so as not to make himself an even better target, he began walking again. He decided he simply had to redouble his efforts to be aware of his surroundings. If a mouse was flatulent, he wanted to know where the mouse could be found and what it had for supper.

A brief flash of light! Jonas was certain he'd seen something that time. It came from over his left shoulder. A stray moonbeam reflected off the face of a watch, or maybe a quick location check. Crouching low to the ground, he rotated to get a better look at the source of the light. Using his thumb, Jonas switched on his flashlight. He was astonished to discover there were no indications that any other living creature had passed by recently. Yet, there were none of the other usual forest preserve sounds: birds, raccoons, and other little creatures. It was a distinct possibility that since it had been so dry, those animals were forced to relocate to survive, but Jonas discarded that theory with a slight shrug. Something deep inside him was screaming that something dark was approaching.

All Jonas needed was the eerie music from a scary movie playing in the background and his mental breakdown would be complete. He spun right, one-hundred-and-eighty degrees. He brought his right arm up across his face. His palm facing outward. It clashed with a lunging wrist. The attached hand gripped a silver, double-edged knife. Jonas' hand grasped his opponent's wrist. Using his opponent's momentum, he veered the knife away. Jonas pivoted on his right leg. Savagely brought his left palm down on their elbow. Twisted the arm. Exposing the elbow. The break was swift. The accompanying snap signified advantage for Jonas.

An enormous bear of a man, clad in blue jeans, a T-shirt, and an unbuttoned flannel shirt, howled in pain as Jonas broke his arm at the elbow. His face was twisted in searing rage. The man's head and body did not match, he looked as though a mad scientist had sewn a male model's head on to a professional wrestler’s body. Before his adversary could make a counterattack, while still gripping the broken limb of his foe, he used the man's knife to sever the jugular. Jonas glanced down at the man's watch, its protective glass had been cracked and the hands read seven o'clock on the nose. With a knowing and approving nod, Jonas resumed his course as though he hadn't a care in the world.

Something still wasn't quite right though. His heart wasn't slowing, he remained at a heightened state of alert. The distorted bear-man wasn't alone. It was the only explanation Jonas could conceive of that would explain why his heart continued to pummel his chest with such energy. A mental image burned in his mind of a confrontation that took place a few weeks before. During that altercation, a series of people attacked, one after another with increasing ferocity.

Jonas was in no mood to undergo that ritual again; he almost longed for the days of angry mobs. At least with lynching parties, your enemies were all in one place. To fight endlessly, around every corner, always on alert as he did, grew monotonous. Not to mention risky. For every corpse Jonas produced, more attention found its way to him.

Subsisto! Diabolus taceo tacuitacitum hinc latum vobis pereo! shouted a tall, lanky, reedy man with piercing green eyes. Blond tufts of hair stuck out from beneath a dingy red baseball cap with a Coca Cola logo stitched in white across the front.

Jonas turned to him, his face furrowed in utter confusion. He simply had to ask, What?

Y—You, you don't speak L—Latin? It didn't work, the man stammered. He looked disappointed, his face so sorrowful Jonas almost felt pity for him. Almost.

That's not an answer to my question. What did you say? Jonas remained prepared for a sneak attack, he assumed that while the twig with blond hair was speaking in tongues, another would strike from behind. Nevertheless, he was more than a little curious to know what the man was talking about; when someone spoke with such authority, they must have something interesting to say. In addition, the man was surely speaking about him and that preyed upon Jonas’ curiosity, no matter how much willpower he possessed.

I, uh, said . . . Pale as the sheer cloud-covered moon, the skinny man stammered and stuttered, I said, halt. Demon, leave quietly from this place or be destroyed.

Jonas erupted with laughter, the harsh single syllables puffed out of his mouth like smoke from a chimney. He couldn't believe his ears. As usual, humanity had once again substantiated Jonas' theory that people, given the chance, exercise their ability to be morons; not necessarily on purpose either, sometimes their subconscious sabotaged them. In this case, an overactive imagination had laid waste to this man's common sense. Shaking his head sadly, Jonas put his hands up in surrender, he didn't want to fight if it could be avoided. When given the choice, Jonas believed most situations could be resolved without resorting to violence.

What leads you to believe I'm a demon? If I were a demon, do you really think that stupid phrase would drive me off into the abyss? Jonas inquired in earnest. He wasn't trying to mock the man.

Unfortunately, the man didn't take it in that manner. Demon! Begone! he shouted, lunging at Jonas.

I thought I told you—I am not a demon, Jonas said as he nimbly sidestepped the clumsy thrust, bringing his left foot crashing down on the side of his opponent's knee.

The man pitched forward, but in an amazing display of dexterity, he tucked into a somersault. Favoring his wounded knee, the gawky man turned and leaped into a series of weakly executed kicks. They were countered with little effort by Jonas.

Pausing, Jonas waited to see what his enemy would choose to do.

From his initial observations, Jonas was able to determine several things about his opponent. First, the man was well educated, he had spoken Latin. Second, he wasn't very smart, after all, he thought Jonas was a demon. Third, the man fought with defensive moves more heavily than offensive. His injuries notwithstanding, all of the man's attacks were both awkward and meek; yet his recovery from his fall was remarkable for someone so inept. Jonas also noted he didn't handle embarrassment well, though he’d brought the mocking laughter on himself.

The clumsy attacks continued to be dealt out at a steady pace, each time they were met with a skilled block. Though Jonas could be patient as the infinite number of rays of sunlight that travel approximately ninety-three-million miles to reach the earth, he could be provoked to violence. When Jonas felt threatened, he would summon his capacity to commit murder. So, he was required to wait until his adversary posed a legitimate threat. From what Jonas could discern, that might take quite some time to come about. He wasn't pleased about the delay, but what choice did he have? Shortly, Jonas would have to treat every obstruction as a formidable hazard to his continued survival, however, things hadn't degenerated to that extent yet.

This is growing exceedingly tedious, so either leave now or I'll be forced to kill you. Decide what you will, but you will not trouble me further tonight, Jonas stated with an indifferent expression slouching across his face.

I've pledged my soul that I would cast you back into the depths of Hell! It's where you belong, foul demon! the lanky man shouted as his weeping eyes did their best to imitate Niagara Falls.

"All right, now you're just saying that to piss me off. How many times must I explain? I am not a demon! With a deep inhale, Jonas returned to a calm and level tone, Your hatred of me is based on your fear of me; I represent what is unknown, which terrifies you to your center. Not to mention, demons are supposed to smell of perfect putrescence whereas I have wonderful personal hygiene."

From somewhere beneath his coat the man produced an iron cross and boldly held it out in front of him. Once again, he began speaking, almost mumbling, in Latin. The light breeze was loud enough to mask his words but strong enough to carry the tones and inflections. Jonas waited for several moments, then slapped the guy across the face. Using his free hand, Jonas plucked the cross from the man's lifeless grip. Jonas hadn't considered the possibility that the man could look more awkward. The bewildered expression on the man's face made him look as though his parents had robbed and burned down churches when they were young then God had taken his divine vengeance on . . . their child.

At long last, the man managed to stammer, de—dem—demons can't touch a cross!

Using the top end of the cross as a handle, Jonas rammed the long end into the man's throat. He was able to see the face plate on the man's watch shatter, and yet the digital display still read seven o'clock, zero seconds displayed. A warm, fast-flowing river gushed above five boney knuckles turning into a waterfall as it ran off Jonas' wrist. Fury twisted his face as he got spattered with the free-flowing blood. With a savage feat of strength, Jonas hoisted the man off the ground and slammed the body into a nearby tree repeatedly. Finally, after the gangly man's head had been reduced to a thick pinkish paste in a flexible dermal container, Jonas brought himself back under control.

I. Am. Not. A. Demon. Jonas repeated to no one in particular. His tone was calm and rational, spoken just above a whisper, with only the trees to bear witness. He had a voice like cannons being fired, or enormous gongs being struck fiercely. It was a timbre that shook a person to their core.

Sensing a change in the atmosphere, a calming of the air, Jonas' heart settled into a slow, rhythmic pattern. Animal noises returned to the forest preserve. Perched on its throne, high above the ground, an owl asked its chronic question. Jonas decided if he were God, he would have made owls chirp 'why' rather than 'who.’ Everyone in their darkest moments asked that question to their God.

Staring out of the darkness were two piercing green circles. An animal's eyes had caught the reflection from the flashlight Jonas had dropped during the fight. Two by two, glowing globes opened and looked in his direction. A small family of raccoons stared at Jonas with curiosity and a boldness contrary to their nature.

Lowering his sunglasses so he could look over the top of the rims, Jonas peered at the little bandits. Both adult raccoons turned and sprinted away, taking with them three of the four babies. One astonishingly courageous kit remained behind, yielding no ground to the mysterious intruder. Jonas smiled to himself and gave the raccoon one final appreciative glance then walked toward his original destination. Behind him, the animal made noises of protest which Jonas left unanswered. He pushed his sunglasses back up to cover his eyes once again.

Even though he didn't think he was in any danger, Jonas felt he was being watched, scrutinized. When he flipped his flashlight on to further investigate the phenomenon, he saw that same baby raccoon less than ten feet from him. He decided to walk backward to see what the raccoon would do. After five or six clumsy steps, Jonas could see the raccoon was maintaining a steady distance of ten feet from him at all times. For every step he took, the little critter made certain it stayed within some invisible barrier that only it could see. In order to see just how badly this raccoon wanted to follow him, Jonas sprinted forward, paused to turn around, and discovered he had not lost his masked companion.

Most animals were uncomfortable in his presence despite the great respect he’d always held for them. He theorized that people should act truer to their primal instincts because if they did, they would live in harmony with the planet. Of course, the only way humans would ever return to their roots would be after they had totally leveled the planet with their weapons of mass destruction. Contrary to most raccoon behavior, this little creature wanted to spend time with Jonas. He squatted to get closer to the ground, to seem less daunting. Though skeptical, the baby raccoon crept closer. The kit won Jonas’ admiration. When he encountered animals they often ran away.

Slowly the kit approached, silent as a tree falling in the woods with no one around to hear it. Jonas sat completely enraptured by the sight of the advancing raccoon. He was at his most vulnerable, focused on the animal. Dogs tried to bite him,