Lovely Violent Things

LOVELY VIOLENT THINGS HOLLOW’S ROW SERIES TRISHA WOLFE LOCK KEY PRESS Copyright © 2023 by Trisha Wolfe All rights reserved. Lock Key Press, LLC Cover by Najla Qamber Designs No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. CONTENTS Quote Playlist Letter from the Harbinger Killer 1. Alchemy of Gods 2. Apollonian & Dionysian Dichotomy 3. Hunting Grounds 4. Daemon 5. In The Flicker 6. Storm in his Eyes 7. The Chasm Between 8. Philosopher’s Stone 9. Ekstasis 10. Conjunction 11. Violence of the Stars Interlude 12. Overman 13. Creative Genius 14. Gerarai Priestess 15. Harbinger of Doom 16. Chaoist 17. Sorcery of the Soul 18. Hermetic Seal Epilouge FREE Novella Marrow Darkly, Madly Duet Also by Trisha Wolfe About the Author Faith consists in believing what reason cannot. VOLTAIRE, THE WORKS Lovely Violent Things Playlist Listen to the playlist on Spotify here After Dark by Mr. Kitty In the Air Tonight by Natalie Taylor Jungle by Emma Louise Set Fire to the Rain by Adele Trampoline by SHAED Uninvited by Alanis Morissette Something in the Way by Geek Music Animal by Chase Holfelder Desire by Meg Myers Rabbit Hole by AViVA Fade Into You by Mazzy Star Death of Peace of Mind by Bad Omens Bitter Sweet Symphony by The Verve LETTER FROM THE HARBINGER KILLER The Overman cannot be allowed to ascend. The Overman is not a gift to humanity but a death knell, tolling the end of days. The Overman will not bring enlightenment or peace. The Overman’s rising will commence the doomsday that will befall every civilization and plunge humanity into an abyss. This message is to the Overman: I see you. I have uncovered you. I will eradicate your higher men one-by-one until you are fearless enough to face me. —The Harbinger 1 ALCHEMY OF GODS KALLUM: TWO YEARS AGO “We are our own god.” I open my arms wide and pan the fifteen ascending rows of college students and alumni. I even spot two professors in the far back. “Or,” I say, running my hand down my black cashmere tie as I leisurely circle the lectern, “we are gods. Is there a difference?” Hands of eager students shoot up. I don’t call on anyone to answer; it’s a rhetorical question, and one that’s been posited over since the dawn of conscious humanity. If the great thinkers of antiquity didn’t have an empirical, definitive answer, then none of these ass-kissing nitwits will either. There’s no way any one person in the course of a forty-five-minute class, or a whole textbook, or even a fucking lifetime, can summarize over three thousand years of belief systems and schools of thought, and how our modern interpretation of it was formed. So as I stand here, looking out over the sea of lost students, knowing they’ll likely glean nothing significant from my class, I cherry-pick the details of history in halfhearted hope they’ll form a semblance of their own opinion. Maybe that’s almost worth my time. A series of blackboards line the wall behind me. A projection screen is mounted between two glass block windows that have been blacked out to keep the interior of the lecture hall dim for slides. I drift in front of the large desk and nod to Ryder, my assistant professor, to change the slide on my laptop. The image on the screen flips to a diagram of Jung’s analysis on esoteric Hermetic Tradition. I loathe having to fall back on Jungian doctrines for discussions, but his analysis is more sound in comparison to Nietzsche—but only because Jung didn’t have the balls to actually practice what he preached. Philosophy is a discipline in study. Questioning. Thought. Theory. Metaphysics. Morality. And more thought and study and questioning until the end of fucking time itself. It’s a rare breed of philosophy scholar who gets off the regurgitating merry-go-round and actually jumps into the abyss of the psyche. Becoming stark raving mad. Should Nietzsche be respected for his self-sacrifice, or pitied? That’s an existential question for another lecture. But what it does leave behind is a trail of greedy scholarly leeches ready to make names for themselves off that sacrifice. One such bloodsucker: “Carl Jung,” I say, pointing to the screen, “was considerate enough to provide a diagram for his interpreted process of self-deification into the Higher Self.” I move to stand in front of the lectern. “Or really, the very root of which is shamanism. As so many of the modernist fail to attribute their acclaim, we can do that for them.” A collective laugh travels around the hall. I’m not intentionally funny. Snide and mocking, yes. Smug and egotistical? Oh, fucking absolutely. I’ve earned my notorious reputation. Unlike my peers, all striving, quite pathetically, to immortalize themselves by reinventing the philosophy wheel, I’ve already established myself in academia. Reaching one’s zenith too soon, however, leaves a long, boring trek back down the mountain. “Jung coined his path to ascension into the Higher Self, that which has been labeled many things over the centuries—Aion, hen to pan, all is one, self-deification, Mind of God—as ‘Individuation’.” I point to the top level of the diagram on the screen. “Every great thinker has to have their own terminology to stand apart,” I continue, “but the destination remains the same: the path to the intellectual enlightened plane of existence, the coveted philosopher’s stone where our crude base thought process is transmuted into creative genius.” I prop my elbow on the lectern. “In essence, where we get the answer to our question; we are god, an enlightened consciousness which possesses the cosmic understanding of all things to create our will within the universe.” I pause to allow some of my speech to seep in past late-night parties and alcohol fueled one-night stands. “Jung’s psychological process of dividing the