Wardbreaker: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Lillim Callina Chronicles)

by J. A. Cipriano

  “It’s not like that at all,” he exclaimed, pulling the sleeve of his shirt up to reveal a series of scars on his flesh. Only… only they didn’t look normal. They looked more like someone had carved designs into his skin, but that was impossible. Getting a tattoo was one thing, but carving symbols into your arm so deeply that your skin became a puckered mass of scar tissue? That was crazy!

  “What the hell did that to you?” I exclaimed, my mouth going dry as he showed me his other arm. It had more symbols written along it.

  “I did it to myself a long time ago.” He reached up and began to unbutton his shirt before pulling it open to reveal a well-muscled chest covered in even more scar tissue. It was way worse than his arms. It was a little weird because there were a couple spots that looked like they’d been done with ink originally. Had he started with tattoos? Why?

  My eyes played over the designs. They looked vaguely magical, but unlike anything I’d seen before. Still, when I saw the huge series of concentric circles on his chest, I realized what he had on his skin. Magical symbols.

  “You’re covered in magical wards, and they actually work.” I shook my head in amazement. “That shouldn’t be possible… wait, wait. You’re using vampire blood to power them?”

  He nodded at me. “We stumbled upon it a few years ago. This vampire had cut me up pretty bad, and after I killed it, I was covered with its blood. My friend tried to staunch the wound by using a healing ward even though it almost never worked.”

  “And the ward touched some of the vampire blood and blazed to life…” I finished, and he nodded at me again. “But you’d don’t understand why it worked, do you? You just got lucky and tried it a few times before deciding to carve them into your skin like a crazy person.” I let out a breath. “You don’t have to admit it. The look in your eyes tells me it’s true.” He didn’t respond as I shook my head at him. “A ward is a magical symbol that does something, usually keep bad things away. It’s mostly expulsion magic, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there are others,” I murmured, moving closer to him and running one finger over the markings on his chest. There wasn’t even a faint zing of power to it. “But most people don’t have the power to, well, power up a ward. You certainly don’t have any innate magic of your own, so how’s it work?”

  “The vampire blood makes it work,” Luc said, watching me trail my fingers over the muscles on his chest which was pretty much when I realized what I was doing. I backed away from him so quickly I stumbled and fell on my butt. I sat there, unable to look at him as my cheeks blazed from embarrassment. Had I seriously just felt him up? Seriously?

  I turned my eyes toward him. He wasn’t watching me. Instead, he was buttoning his shirt back up.

  “I know it’s a lot to take in,” he said, and the embarrassment in his voice was obvious. Had he thought I’d gotten freaked out by all the scars? Well if he did, he hadn’t seen my father. Imagine having the flesh flayed from your bones by a ravenous pack of demons, and you’d get some idea of the scars my father had. And those were just the ones on the surface. Watching him break down under the strain of fighting more and more each and every day was one of the main reasons I’d left.

  “It’s not your scars,” I said, getting slowly to my feet. “I just don’t understand why you’d do it.”

  “Tattoos didn’t work. We tried that at first, but the wards lost power for some reason. On a lark, I cut one into my skin, but that didn’t work either.” He pointed at a symbol on the underside of his wrist that looked like a winged scorpion. “During my next vamp hunt, the wound got torn open and the ward blazed to life the second vampire blood touched the open wound.”

  “Holy crap,” I said, taking a step backward because he obviously had no idea what that meant. I didn’t either, but it didn’t seem good. That was for sure. “You got vampire blood in a wound?”

  “Yeah. It’s how we realized how to make the wards work. I had to cut them into my flesh and douse the fresh wounds with vampire blood. After that, getting a little blood on any of the wards powered all of them.” He shrugged like it made perfect sense even though it didn’t. At least not to me.

  “Okay,” I said, swallowing back the desire to murder him where he stood. I wasn’t sure why, but something told me this knowledge could not get out. I wasn’t really worried about normal humans doing it, but there were things far worse than humans. Thing with access to blood way stronger than a vampire’s and with magical knowledge so scary, it made the spells needed to start the apocalypse seem like a good idea.

  “So, we’re good?” he asked, staring at me. The look in his eyes reminded me of a puppy who had just destroyed your entire house, knew that you were upset with it, but couldn’t figure out why.

  The problem was, I wasn’t sure why either. Part of it was his story, but it was something else. It was more that he shouldn’t have needed to do that. He was just some guy, some human. We were supposed to protect people like him, not make them do this to themselves. It almost made me want to go back home and start yelling at people. It wouldn’t do any good. It never did. I’d just get buried in reams of paperwork while someone took Luc back to base for study before finding him an indiscriminate unmarked grave somewhere.

  No… no, the better thing to do was to clean this place up, to ensure people didn’t have to do this. Maybe I couldn’t save the world, but I could sure as hell help with one tiny city. In the grand scheme of things, it wouldn’t be very much at all, but to the people here it would be everything. That had to be worth something, right?

  “We’re good,” I replied, glancing around the street, surprised no one had come to help or had called the cops. Another car whizzed by us on the street. It’d happened a few times now. Not super often or anything, but often enough that I’d have expected someone to stop at the scene of an accident. No one had even slowed to gawk.

  “I’ve been meaning to ask you, Lillim, how come sometimes the vampires dissolve when you kill them and sometimes they don’t?” Luc asked, staring at the body of one of the creatures.

  “They only dissolve if the death blow is struck from my swords. If they die in another way, they don’t disappear. It’s kind of lame.” I shrugged.

  “Too bad you can’t make ‘em dissolve before they die.” Luc smiled at me, and I just shrugged at him. It wasn’t like I had designed the weapons. I just used them. Still, it’d be awesome if they could do that. Monster hunting would be way easier if all I had to do was nick an opponent.

  “I’ll make sure I bring up your thoughts on my weaponry with Dioscuri management,” I replied with a smirk and Luc shook his head at me.

  “Let’s get out of here before someone sees the bodies you’ve so carelessly left behind.” Luc pulled open the door to the prison van and laughed a hearty chuckle that made me feel better. “No wonder no one’s come to help.”

  I glanced inside the door as he stood back and smirked. There was a ward drawn onto the van’s dashboard that positively glowed with purple light. It was the ward for hiding in plain sight. It was one I knew well because Dioscuri used it all the time to keep humans from finding out about monsters. It was way easier to paint a ward on a door that made everything inside seem normal and take your time killing the monsters within, than having to do it before the cops showed up.

  “Looks like lady luck is on our side,” Luc said, moving to close the back doors before sliding into the driver’s seat and pointing at the keys. “Even the keys are in the ignition.”

  “Swell,” I muttered, getting into the passenger seat and buckling my seat belt. “So what’s the plan from here?”

  “There’s a hive not too far from here. I say we go there, blow them away, and then meet up with my friend for dinner.” He shrugged as he started the van and rolled onto the street. “Unless you’d like to wait until nightfall. You know, when the vampires will be stronger.”

  “I’m starting to think you planned this from the start,” I muttered as I watched the corpses of the vampires fade into
the distance. “That does not endear me to you. In case you wondered.”

  Yet, even as I said the words, I realized it sort of did endear him to me. Okay, he’d tricked me into helping him, but it had been for the right reasons. He wanted to save his town. I could respect that.

  Chapter 7

  By the time we pulled up in front of the hive, I’d decided I was a fan of French fries and not because I’d eaten six orders of them. It was more because the combination of salt, carbs, and fat had helped me replenish my magical reserves almost as fast as some of the special concoctions we used back home. Only those tasted way worse.

  “Thanks for the fries,” I said, tossing the empty bag on the floor of the van and taking a sip of my soda. It was a little bubbly for my tastes, but it sure was yummy.

  “No problem,” Luc said, eyeing me as he backed the van into a parking space beneath a faded white, metal covering. He slipped the vehicle in park. “But I’m starting to get worried that if you keep eating like that—”

  “If you’re about to tell me I’ll get fat,” I stated, letting the emotion drain from my voice as I fixed him with the coldest stare I could muster. “I’m going to tell you this right now. I shot the last guy who said something similar in the chest with a shotgun. He was half-demon so it didn’t kill him.” I gestured at Luc with my greasy fingers. “I’m going to go out on a limb and assume you’re less than bulletproof.” I smiled at him.

  He threw himself back in his seat like he was trying to get away from me in a hurry and raised his hands in supplication. “I wasn’t going to say anything like that,” he said, and I could tell he was a little worried, like he actually thought I’d shoot him over it.

  Truthfully, the guy I’d shot had been my ex-boyfriend. Calling me fat had been one of the least horrible things he’d done. Let’s just say that by the time I’d had the nerve to walk away from that failed relationship, a shotgun blast to the chest was letting him off easy.

  I turned away from Luc and stared out the windshield toward what looked like an innocuous office building. Pine trees grew out on either side of the walkway leading to the main entrance which was sort of funny looking because the rest of the perimeter was lined with shrubbery, making it appear like someone had grown a forest green gate.

  The building itself was only a couple stories tall and had a lot fewer windows than I’d have expected. Nearly all of them were covered with those thick metal hurricane shutters even though I was reasonably sure there weren’t hurricanes in California. It was a little weird, but then again, it made sense if it was occupied by vampires.

  While sunlight didn’t bother them per se, the younger they were, the more sunlight seemed to diminish their innate vampire powers. Even though I’d killed my fair share of the undead at night, I always liked to take them on during the day if at all possible. It was just easier that way since they were weaker.

  “You ready to go?” I asked, unbuckling my seatbelt and reaching behind the seat to pull out my swords. This time I wasn’t taking any chances. I’d had Luc stop, and in addition to picking me up a snack, I’d grabbed my katana, Isis from its hiding place.

  Now, reunited with her brother, Set, I could feel the twin blades throbbing with energy. Among my people, these weapons were famous, but I never quite trusted them. In fact, the only reason I used them at all was because they had belonged to Dirge Meilan. It made using their mystical powers way easier because whatever connection they’d shared with her had, at least partially, transferred to me.

  I’d tried to find my own blade a couple times before, to forge something for myself, but so far, I hadn’t gained the level of connection with other weapons. Part of me suspected it was because I was already connected to Set and Isis. Yes, the rumors were true. This weapon was inhabited by the Set and the Isis. And no, I’d never learned how Dirge managed to get them to aid her. It was one of the memories I couldn’t access.

  “Bringing out the big guns, eh?” Luc said as he got out of the car and moved around to my door, opening it for me even though I wasn’t sure why he did it. In fact, now that I thought about it, he almost always opened the door for me. Did he think I couldn’t do it myself?

  “Yeah, this time if I find some powerful vampires, I don’t want to be at half strength,” I replied, belting their sheathes around my waist, slightly annoyed the weapons slid low on my hips like they always did. I’d tried tugging the belt tighter, but it never seemed to work. My mother said I just had one of those shapes and to go with it. She didn’t understand because with a body like hers, she had probably never worn anything that didn’t make her look like a goddess. My weapons, on the other hand, made my butt look huge.

  “Shirajirashii should do the trick then,” Luc said, gesturing at the weapons, and for a moment, I was surprised he knew the name Dirge had called them. It was mostly because of their color since, loosely translated, Shirajirashii meant pure white in Japanese and their blades were the color of freshly fallen snow. Even still, it seemed like a silly name to give weapons inhabited by Egyptian Gods so I mostly just called them Isis and Set.

  “Yeah, I don’t call them that,” I muttered, touching the pommels of the blades with my palms and feeling the familiar energy of the spirits within adding to my confidence. “They seem to like it better when I call them by their names. Besides, it tends to scare people when they know I’m wielding swords powered by Egyptian Gods.” I shrugged. Most other Dioscuri liked to hide who their spirits were, but ever since Dirge had died, everyone knew who hers were anyway. “It was a tip I picked up from my old mentor.”

  “What was his spirit called?” Luc asked, moving around the back of the van and swinging the doors open.

  “Ymir. You know, the original giant Odin slew? His body was used to create the world,” I said, but the blank look on his face told me he had no idea what I was talking about. “There’s a song…”

  “I must have missed that one. I’m more of a classic rock guy myself.” He shook his head at me and pulled a shotgun from the back of the van. While guns weren’t as effective as I’d have liked them to be on vampires, the undead still had to expend energy to heal the damage, and you know, contend with having their bodies ripped to shreds by bullets. I’d seen him load other weapons, but I wasn’t sure where they were hidden since he was wearing a dark blue leather trench coat, presumably to hide all his weaponry.

  I sighed and rubbed my temples. “I’m guessing you don’t take classes in Norse history?”

  “We call it mythology and… wait. Are you telling me all of that is real?” He paled, which was a little funny because I could see the wheels spinning behind his eyes. Evidently, I’d just thrown his world into a tailspin.

  “More or less.” I shrugged. “It’s all real, more or less.” He looked like he was going to ask more, but I held up my hand to silence him before gesturing at the sky. The sun was already getting low in the horizon. It wouldn’t be long before it started to fade completely from the sky. I didn’t want to be inside the building when that happened for obvious reasons. “Now let’s get going. We’re burning daylight.”

  Luc cocked his shotgun in response as we headed toward the building. Every step felt sort of foreboding, making the hair stand up on the back of my neck and my teeth chatter. It was always like this when I got ready for a mission. I never really got ahold of myself until I was in the thick of things. Then my training would take over, and I’d be fine, more or less, but the walking in part… well, that always sucked.

  “So why haven’t you just burned the building to the ground?” I asked as we approached the twin pine trees. Something about them was even more unnerving on foot, though I wasn’t sure why. It wasn’t like they were ents and would pull themselves from the ground and try to beat me into oblivion. I mean, that’d happened before, but they tended not to leave the black forest along the border of Germany.

  “I’d thought about it originally, but even though that looks like a pretty normal building, most of it is underground. It h
as these weird hatches inside that seal off and suck the air from rooms to smother fire in addition to a state of the art sprinkler system. That and most of the walls are solid concrete, so well, unless I have a nuclear device, I’m not going to kill much with explosives or fire. I can’t just fling a Molotov cocktail at it and tear away in my low-rider.” Luc shrugged.

  “I don’t know what half of the things you just said mean, but I’m going to assume it won’t work,” I replied, giving him a thin smile.

  Before he could respond, a branch shot out of the pine tree next to him and wrapped its wooden fingers around his throat. It hoisted him into the air like he was a toothpick. The sound of cracking wood and rustling leaves filled my ears as I threw myself backward, thankful I’d been a few steps behind Luc. A branch flew through the spot I’d just occupied as I landed hard on my shoulders, rolling across the pavement in a way that let me know I’d have bruises in the morning.

  I came to my feet and drew my weapons. The pure white blades of Shirajirashii glinted in the sunlight as the tree pulled itself free of the ground and began moving toward me. Its bark was as black as soot and yellow orbs glowed inside its green pine needles. The orbs focused on me, and the giant tree monster took a lumbering step forward, spraying soil across the concrete.

  “Why the hell are you here?” I screamed at the ent because they almost never left the forest. Its appearance here was odd to say the least. Instead of replying, the tree monster whipped its body around in a way that made me think of a willow being hit by a heavy gale. Pinecones exploded from its branches, their razor sharp edges more than enough to cut me into twain, you know, provided the poison didn’t kill me first.

  I darted to the side, but there was no way I’d get free of the deluge in time. Muttering, I held Isis out in front of me. Blue light filled the space around the katana as a wall of force slammed down in front of me and solidified into an invisible shield. The pinecones hit it with so much strength, I was forced backward along the parking lot, my shoes skidding along the surface.