Kill It With Magic: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Lillim Callina Chronicles Book 1)

by J. A. Cipriano

  Chapter 9

  I peeled my face from the wall as the loudest footsteps I’d ever heard echoed in the hallway. I had, under no circumstances, expected to see a gigantic fire demon seething with rage when I staggered through the door to identify the new threat. As it stretched its clawed hand toward a fallen vampire, flames licked up and down its reddish form, making it appear solid and translucent at the same time. Oranges and blues danced across its vaguely humanoid body like delicate ballerinas as its eyes settled on me.

  A sound like screeching metal and breaking glass erupted from its blast furnace of a maw. Its beady, flame-filled eyes glinted. I don’t know how I knew it was smiling, but I did.

  Swell.

  The demon moved like smoke, scooping fire out of the very air itself and flinging it in my… no, in our direction, like a softball. Christ! I could probably dodge the fireball, but Danae was standing right behind me. Part of me wanted to let the demon destroy them all, but if these vampires died, whatever information they might have would, literally, go up in flames.

  A spell I hoped would keep me from being charred into very tiny bits burst from my lips as I slammed my katana into the ground in front of us. I grabbed Danae with my other arm and whirled my back to the blaze. Fire hit my katana and exploded around us. Searing heat rushed by me, and even through my spell, the edges of my overcoat yellowed. This was not good. If my overcoat got destroyed, it’d lose the ability to magically hold tons of stuff. Then again, if the overcoat kept me from dying, I could live with the loss.

  I dropped Danae, who stared at me wide-eyed with fright. “Do something, Lil,” she cried as she tried to scurry backward away from the demon.

  “I’m thinking!” If I had a nickel for every time someone asked me to save them I’d be… well, poor. I’d probably have like thirty-five cents. Still, I was technically a Dioscuri, and it was our job to stop supernatural bad guys.

  I pulled my wakazashi from its sheath with my left hand and flung it straight at the chest of the demon in one fluid motion. Just as the blade left my hand I was charging forward, a spell on my lips. The blade slammed into the creature with a whoosh, and I screamed wordlessly. A flare of light exploded from my weapon and the demon staggered. Its eyes narrowed as it let out a howl that shook the floor beneath my feet.

  That’s when I saw Logan. He was standing just behind the creature; blood streamed down his face. He had planned this. Had he brought this demon here to stop me? Either way, it didn’t seem like he could control it. Otherwise he wouldn’t have lost vampires in the chaos.

  “I have him right where I want him,” Logan screamed at me.

  “Clearly,” I muttered as fire licked up the walls of his home, engulfing priceless artwork and kitten calendars alike.

  The demon ripped my wakazashi from its chest and tossed it away. It took an ominous step toward me as flame spread around its feet, sweeping across the floor like rolling waves. Fire rose up like a wall, and the heat engulfed me. Blisters rose like goosebumps on my bare flesh, making me cry out. Scalding air filled my lungs as I fell to my knees. Coughs wracked my body and tears welled in my eyes. I reached out and put my hands on the hilt of my katana still stuck in the floorboards.

  I forced everything away, focusing on the cold touch of Isis’ steel. I stood, tearing the blade from the floor in a flurry of splinters and ash. Danae was nowhere to be found. Great, the vampire was safe. Yippie!

  The demon was nearly upon me. The heat radiating off of it was more suffocating than a turtleneck sweater in the middle of July. The creature’s fist came at me, and I flung Isis up to block. My blade wobbled under the creature’s power, but it did not break.

  I took a step forward, forcing more of my will toward the demon. It skidded backward, but the flames did not move. They rushed forward, sweeping around me until I was surrounded by fire. The creature reared back with its other fist, but it was all I could do to hold off the blaze as it seethed around me, violent and hungry. The demon’s giant fist struck me, and my feet left the floor.

  Breath whooshed out of me as I slammed sideways into the giant window that lined the hallway. There was a shrieking sound, and the glass behind me shattered. I fell out onto the charred remains of the roof and slid on the rain-slicked surface.

  My hands shot out as I clawed for purchase on the soaked wood. I gripped something and my body jerked to a stop. My arm screamed in pain; it felt like it had been torn from its socket. I swallowed and shut my eyes. Water was pouring from the sky in buckets. Now that I’d stopped moving, I was good with the rain.

  I lunged forward, driving Isis into the roof and grabbed onto it with both hands. I lay like that on the rain-soaked rooftop until the wood beneath my blade crumbled to ash. I slid backward, the wood flaking away beneath my fingernails as I carved gouges into the roof. Then I was falling.

  Thud!

  It hurt so much that I couldn’t breathe. I struggled for air that would not come. Glass and flaming bits of wood rained down on me as my body finally remembered how to work. I threw my arms up, trying to ward off shards that gouged my flesh.

  Gib stood over me with his arms crossed, staring down into my face with rage-filled eyes.

  “That’s okay. I really didn’t need you to catch me anyway.”

  Before he could respond, the demon exploded through what remained of the wrecked window, moving brazenly in the hellish storm. I was glad Gib was outside because when he saw the demon, he dove forward. His claws reached defiantly into the heat and raked into the ashy flesh beneath. I slipped once in the dark mud as I tried to get to my feet and fell down hard on my knees. Pain flashed through my legs, and I bit my lip to keep from crying out.

  The once lavish peaks of the building had been totally consumed by flames, making it resemble an enormous funeral pyre. Thankfully, the rain was starting to beat the blaze down. Every time flames pushed up through the crackling wood, storm clouds seemed to concentrate on it, so that the fire was sent scurrying down into the house. Was it Gib’s doing? He must have seen the blaze from outside and summoned the rain to help with the fire. Elemental magic would likely be his thing after all. Or it could be coincidence.

  Gib circled the demon like the predator he was. His wolfish features glinted in the firelight, making him seem more like a bronze god and less like a creature of flesh and blood. He darted forward, raking the demon’s flesh and tearing away gobs of a sickly yellowish substance. Even as I watched, I knew it couldn’t last forever. Each attack was melting Gib’s flesh nearly to the bone, and he wasn’t allowing his body time to heal. If he kept it up, even he wouldn’t be able to heal the injuries.

  The rain was coming down so hard that it was like standing in a monsoon. The trees to my left were swaying so violently that they nearly bent in half. The Owl’s gardener was not going to be happy when this was all said and done. My hair was plastered to my face, and I was soaked with muddy water. I wiped my hair from my eyes and crawled to my feet. I reached my hand out and called my katana to me. The blade flew through the air and into my hand, but even that tiny effort caused stars to shoot from behind my eyes. I wasn’t going to be doing much more magic tonight.

  I froze when I noticed that the demon caught Gib by the throat. Fire licked down Gib’s skin, but the werewolf kept attacking, kept slashing. Deep wounds continued to open on the fire demon as it stood there, allowing its flame to blaze down Gib’s body. The smell of burning flesh and melted hair filled the air and my gag reflex started to kick in.

  Danae screamed from a frost-covered balcony high above. She threw her hands outward and large shards of ice tore through the sky. They sliced into the burning monster, ripping holes that gushed foul yellow ichor where they struck. The demon snarled and dropped Gib. He struggled there, steam curling off him in tendrils.

  The demon’s eyes settled on Danae, and it tried to take a step toward the vampire. The ice held it pinned in place, but I could tell that wouldn’t hold it for much longer. Already the ice was melting away.
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br />   My stomach clenched in horror. Even though this was a vampire who would have gladly ripped out my intestines and played jump rope with them, I still needed information from her.

  I threw my battered hand out toward the creature. “No!” I screamed. There was a ripping sound as power leapt from my fingertips. The magic struck the demon full on and tossed it to the ground. Yellow blood burst from the thing like a geyser. There was so much blood that I could scarcely believe it all came from the creature. Was there truly flesh beneath that exterior?

  White stars danced across my vision as I pulled a bag of salt from one of my overcoat pockets and hobbled toward the creature. If there was one thing that could stop a demon it would be salt. One angry eye focused on the bag of salt in my hand. Already I could see its skin starting to sew itself back together. A ring of flames exploded from the demon and barreled toward me as it struggled to right its broken body. I took a deep breath and charged forward, dumping energy into my injuries to numb them, before I leapt over the flames. When I dropped, I rolled and crashed into the creature.

  It burned me even with magic shielding me. I shoved the bag of salt deep into the creature. The demon’s scream ripped through my thoughts as an explosion threw me backward. I hit the ground with a wet thud, sliding in the mud until I was covered in its soothing coolness. The burns brought me back to campfires I’d had when I was six. My marshmallow dropped from the stick, and without thinking, I grabbed the flaming bit of sugar. It had burned my hand so badly that I could still remember the feel of the sticky burning candy.

  Ash from the explosion fell from the sky with the rain. I coughed and tried to wipe my face with my hands. My limbs flopped uselessly in the air before falling limply onto my chest. I was so tired that I could barely keep my eyes open. Even the giant, blackened handprint that had been left on my coat didn’t scare me as much as it ought to have. That was going to sting tomorrow; I’d worry about it then.

  The shaman was standing now, despite the fact that the vast majority of his skin was blistered and oozing. He looked like a roast that had fallen into the fire. When Gib spotted Logan hiding behind a giant elm tree, he marched up to him and grabbed him by the throat.

  “A fire demon?” Gib yelled in Logan’s face. His voice was loud and ferocious. “Did you think it would be so easy to have it do your bidding?”

  “I was trying to contain it in a cold iron sword when you arrived,” Logan managed to squeeze out through his restricted airway while avoiding direct eye contact.

  He hadn’t answered the question directly. Since he couldn’t lie, that made me think of only one thing.

  “Why did you need the sword?” I asked.

  Gib snarled and that’s when I saw him glaring at me. “Did you know the vampire was trying to contain that demon in a cold iron sword?”

  I tried to narrow my eyes but found that it took a little too much effort. “Is it dead then?”

  It was Danae that I heard next. “No. The demon is trapped in a pillar of salt for the time being.”

  “Expect a bill,” I murmured. I then rolled over onto my knees and retched violently. I wiped my mouth on my sleeve as a thought struck me. “So I just made things easier for you, Logan? Didn’t I? The demon is still alive, but it’s contained now.”

  “I’m not sending it back. As long as it’s contained, we can continue the binding. I can finish the weapon,” Logan said before Gib slammed him into the tree.

  “That is forbidden! The creation of demon weapons has been outlawed for so long that even your precious founder will not remember a time when it was legal,” Gib growled. His eyes flashed as he hoisted Logan into the air leaving flecks of his charred skin on the vampire’s clothing. “Enough of this nonsense. Now, where is my son, leech?”

  Logan licked his lips and smiled, which seemed a bit odd given his precarious position. “Rome.”

  The worst of the sudden exhaustion was forgotten with those words. Hopefully Gib didn’t go into full on werewolf-killing-frenzy mode because, at this point, even the smallest spell would probably put me into a good eighteen hour coma. My body had used up pretty much all of its energy keeping me from becoming a human piece of toast. Good job, body. You can have a cupcake when this is all over. Except that cupcakes go straight to your hips, so maybe some celery instead. Congratulations body, you get celery. It was so sad a thought that it almost made me cry.

  “Why Rome?” I said.

  “The Bear founder lives in Rome. So, that’s where the baby was taken,” Logan replied, his eyes darting from the werewolf to me and back again.

  “What do the Bears want with him?” I asked as I crawled to my feet.

  Gib snarled; his hand had almost completely healed. I hadn’t actually seen him heal. It was like trying to watch darkness fall or a flower bloom. You were sure it happened, but you couldn’t pinpoint the exact where and when of it all. He flung the vampire aside before turning toward me with hatred-filled his eyes. “I don’t care why! We need to go get him, Lillim. Now!”

  I winced and staggered toward Logan. As I opened my mouth to say something I realized Gib was still glaring at me. His entire being contained rage so intense that his presence scared me.

  “We will go and bring back my son. Both of us. You will come without complaint and without backtalk. You will do this because, at this moment, I am very close to killing you.”

  “I can’t do this with you breathing down my neck. Aside from you being an emotional basket case, Rome is filled with silver dust. Even you can’t survive there.” Gib’s eyes raged, and a wave of emotion washed over me like a desert wind. Still, he didn’t argue.

  “Still,” I added with a sigh, “there’s no way I’m getting there without a passport and parental approval.”

  “Well, it’s your lucky day then, because it just so happens that I have a way of transporting us to Rome,” Logan replied in weasily sort of way, as though this was a way out of his predicament.

  “Yeah… It’d be quite fortunate for you if you had a private plane handy,” I muttered with the same feeling that a rat would have aboard a sinking ship.

  “It just so happens that I do. I just need Dioscuri authorization to bring my plane out of the country.” Logan’s lips curled up in a slight smile. “One little signature, and I’ll take you to Rome.”

  Chapter 10

  Rome was, in short, a hell hole. As I surveyed the wreckage that littered the landscape, I realized that this mission was beginning to be a bit more difficult than I had imagined. That said something about the state of my imagination. I had wanted to find my old mentor, Warthor, and have him help me resolve the issue with Sharkface. I had not meant to get myself caught up in a plot to kidnap a werewolf’s kid. Sooner or later, I was going to have to track down that damned drake.

  I shook my head and glanced at the debris-strewn countryside. I remembered hearing about the explosion that had left the once-holy city in shambles. Now Rome was home to little more than biker gangs and street rats, a stunningly permanent reminder of the horrors of war. And to think, it was supposed to be a lot better than the ruins of Jerusalem.

  Swirling gouts of smoke leapt into the air until they melded seamlessly with the ashen sky. I hated places like this. Places where war had rendered the land unlivable. Part of it was the generic that’s-so-terrible feeling everyone gets in the pit of their stomach when they see something horrible. The other part of it was a bit tougher for me to explain.

  I’d seen so many battles over the course of eight lives. Hell, seven of them had claimed my life. I had died fighting for one reason or another over and over. No matter how hard I fought and bled and struggled, stuff like this kept occurring.

  Places like this made me question the very thing that had been drilled into me since I was a baby. Since the first time my mother had left me in a werewolf den in the middle of the night on a full moon, I had been taught that everything we did was for the greater good, that we had to save humanity. All of my blood, sweat, and tears
were for the betterment of mankind.

  Well… the monsters that hide under the beds of five-year-olds hadn’t been the ones to drop a nuke on Rome or Jerusalem. We had good old fashioned humanity to thank for that one. I swallowed and glanced at the vampire.

  “Looks like someone struck out at God himself,” Logan said with a chuckle, plodding forward in a carefree sort of way.

  I glowered at him and followed toward what I hoped would be the location of the founder. I knew I couldn’t count on Logan for much. I knew I couldn’t count on the Dioscuri, either. I was on my own… again.

  With all the silver dust in the air, even Gib couldn’t help me. Though, I had to admit, filling the air with silver dust was a good way of keeping werewolves out of the place.

  “Seems like a strange place to bring a were-cub,” I said as we passed a blackened building. Eyes from within the structure focused restlessly on us. I wondered if we’d get attacked but pushed thoughts of that away. Chances are, whoever or whatever lived here wanted to be left alone much more than it wanted to eat us.

  Logan shrugged. “They say the baby was immune to silver. So, all things equal, it is the ideal place to hide him. The werewolves can’t come here to get him.”

  I gulped. It was rumored that Dar Silver-tongue, the first Dragon Knight, had control over silver. The chances that this baby was that Dragon Knight reborn were getting better and better. Dammit. Now the real question was why was a really powerful vampire trying to get a hold of this particular baby? I didn’t know the answer yet, but it probably didn’t involve puppies, balloons, and birthday cake.

  Logan looked at me before continuing. “That mean something in particular to you?” His eyes narrowed a little more than I’d have liked. I waved him off.

  “Guess that happens sometimes?” I was smooth, real smooth.

  “Bout one in ten, but much more common among the royals. Gib is sort of an anomaly that way. He’s the first king in a long time to be hurt by silver.”