“Joshua wouldn’t come to you, of all people, if it wasn’t important.” Mattoc crossed his arms over his leather-clad chest and smiled. “I know I wouldn’t.”
The problem with what Mattoc said was he was right. Sure, I could lie and tell myself Joshua cared for me, that he’d have come to rescue me, but the truth was, he didn’t care about me that much. He said he did, but I knew the truth, and knowing that, made me scared. Joshua had come to me, and if he had, it was because he didn’t want my people to know about it. Damn. This was going to be bad.
“That’s what worries me. A guy who spews toxic gas from his wounds needs my help?” I turned away from my desk and moved into my cramped kitchenette. My stomach rumbled as I opened my fridge and found an empty pickle jar and a can of off-brand soda. Well, that wasn’t going to do.
“Maybe he’s just mad because you started dyeing your hair again,” Mattoc sneered, lowering his dark glasses to give me full view of his pale gray eyes.
Joshua hated when I dyed my hair. I had soft lavender hair so pale, it was nearly white. I’d taken to dyeing it black to cut down on the stares from random people. I had to do this pretty often because my magic would cause it to start to lighten after a couple days, and that was when I didn’t do any spells. After blasting that zombie, I’d no doubt be dyeing my hair again tomorrow.
“Not likely,” I said, walking back to my desk.
I grabbed the swizzle and, even though just touching it sent shivers marching down my spine like a parade of ice cold ants, shoved it in my mouth. Flashes of flavor kicked me in the teeth. That wasn’t even the scary thing. The real kicker was the images that came with them. They were so jumbled and frantic, they nearly drowned out the flavors. It was absolutely insane. Imagine biting into a lemon and being so distracted you didn’t even taste the lemon. It was like that… times a billion.
Pain exploded behind my eyes as all of Joshua’s anguish flooded into me. I reached out, blindly searching for something to grab onto as all his torment and sadness spilled into me, dragging me down into a sea of sorrow like a boat anchor. Without thinking, I spit the offending snack onto the floor where it shattered into a zillion goo-covered pieces.
I grabbed the corner of my desk in an effort to support my shaking knees while sucking in air as quickly as I could. My legs were trembling so badly, I was pretty sure I’d topple to the ground if I let go. Even though the worst of the experience had passed the moment I’d spit the swizzle out, Joshua’s pain clung to my skin like a grimy film.
“To clarify, whatever that is… I want no part of it,” I gasped, attempting to catch my breath.
Mattoc was by my side in an instant, one ghostly hand on my shoulder, the other moving as though he wanted to comfort me. I was looking right at him, and I could see his mouth moving, but I couldn’t make out the words. I shook my head and looked at the floor.
Something was wrong with Joshua. I didn’t know what was wrong. The candy hadn’t made that clear, but something clearly was not all puppies and roses in Joshua land. Still, since he’d come to me, I knew I was going to have to help him. Why? Because he had asked the girl who had blasted him point blank with a shotgun for help. No one does that unless it’s important. Trust me.
“Knowing Joshua, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s known where you were hiding for a while now. If that’s true, whatever he wants is likely to be bad.” Mattoc’s voice made me jump, and I briefly wondered how long I’d been tuning him out. “I think you should sit this one out, or better yet, grab your bug-out bag and head to a cabin in the woods.”
I looked up at him and was surprised to see concern in his eyes. Hadn’t he just been encouraging me to eat the doom candy?
“So you think this is a bad idea, too?” I asked, pleased I kept the fear out of my voice, which wasn’t that hard. I wasn’t scared of Joshua per se. No, I was scared of what he represented. Joshua, for all his intentions, was going to drag me back into a world of supernatural horror. I’d known this life in this borrowed apartment couldn’t last. I’d known since the day I’d fled my people and come to Earth.
Still, some naïve part of me had hoped maybe, just maybe, I could live out the rest of my life in this warded apartment without seeing my people ever again. That part of me had just died, and it hurt way more than I’d expected it would.
“Lillim, you don’t know what’s going on in the supernatural world. You’ve been hiding for the last year, remember?” Mattoc ran a hand through his short black hair and pushed it out of his face. “You really need to think about it if you’re going to get involved. There’s still time to run.”
I swallowed, shoving down the dread welling up like a geyser in my stomach. “If you’re right—” was all I managed to say before my front door exploded in a shower of wooden fragments and bits of metal. Supernatural beings can’t enter a person’s home without permission. Men with machine guns do not have this problem.
2
I dove for my desk, slamming hard onto the cheap carpet behind it. Pain shot through me as I curled myself into a tiny ball. Bullets tore into the wall above where I’d just been standing, surprisingly off target for men who had both machine guns and the drop on me. Had they missed on purpose? Actually, maybe I didn’t want to know.
As bits of plaster and drywall rained down on top of me, I swallowed and immediately changed my mind. I now hoped they had intended to miss because I seriously doubted my little fiberboard desk was going to be stopping bullets if they unleashed another volley of gunfire.
Part of me wanted to stop the bullets with magic or used my power to move faster than them, but I didn’t. It was taboo to use magic around normal people, even if they tended not to remember it, and the habit stuck with me. Yeah, it was silly, I know. Still, if they were actually going to try to kill me, who was going to punish me for using my powers? My mom? Ha.
“Come out, Lillim, or I will light the building on fire and smoke you out like the treacherous rat you are.” I didn’t like the voice. It had a throatiness to it that made me feel weak, powerless, and small. I shook my head and gritted my teeth. I didn’t like being ordered around, but at the same time, I definitely did not my apartment to go up in flames.
“If I poke my head up, you’re going to start shooting again,” I yelled back, fighting to sound more confident than I felt. I figured I was about fifty percent successful.
“I’d rather talk. That is why I have come here. To talk.” The words were articulated slowly, like the speaker was used to dealing with people who weren’t the sharpest crayons in the box.
“You know, you could have just made an appointment.” They were shooting at me and I was making jokes? That probably wasn’t one of my best decisions.
“I wanted to make sure I had your full attention. Besides, I can tell from your wards, no outsider will be able to see or hear anything that happens within this area. It will always look peaceful and serene.” Was there a hint of satisfaction in his voice?
He was right after all. The place was warded to make it appear normal to everyday people. No one would have heard the gunshots and called 911, that’s for sure. I shook my head and sighed. I was over being surprised by creatures with intentions that did not match their actions.
“I’m all yours.” I slowly raised my head above the desk. Behind me, I heard Georgie scurrying about in his cage. They couldn’t see it, but my right hand was on the trigger of the shotgun under my desk.
Thanks to the guy who had lent me the place, guns were hidden throughout my apartment. After he had walked out on me, leaving the keys on the table beside a note, I’d decided to stay. After all, it wasn’t like I had anywhere else to go. It wasn’t long after that I found guns hidden in every nook and cranny of the place.
Five men stood just beyond my desk. Sunlight streamed in through the remnants of my broken door making them seem to glow, despite the natural gloom of my apartment. Four of the men were dressed in suits that cost more money than I’d ever seen. Seeing their weapo
ns sent a tremor ricocheting up and down my spine. They had that big, ugly look of something that held a lot of firepower.
The fifth man stood in front with a briefcase in his hands. The cut of his suit was so fine it made the others look like they shopped at thrift stores. Dark glasses hid his eyes, but I could make out a tattoo of a Chinese dragon coiling around his bald head. His skin was so dark, it had that bluish tint you find in really pure obsidian.
Still, I could tell he wasn’t quite as human as the rest of the goons. So how had he gotten inside? He would have to be really powerful to just walk into my apartment when my wards should have kept him outside. That was probably not good.
“I’ve heard you’re good at tracking down and killing mystical things,” the man with the briefcase said.
This was true. I was pretty good at dealing with supernatural baddies thanks to my crazy-ass mom. No one else would have taught me to swim by throwing me into a lake filled with sea monsters. I was four at the time, and our relationship has been pretty much downhill from there.
I glanced at the man once more and fixed him with a glare. This could get bad, but if I could bluff my way out of this, that would be, well, awesome. If they started shooting, I didn’t really have anywhere to go. Plus, if they were serious about torching my apartment, I couldn’t exactly wait them out.
“I’ve heard that rumor before,” I said in my best tough-girl voice as I stood and smoothed my skirt in an effort to put on a brave face. I wasn’t sure what he wanted, but he obviously knew something about me. If I didn’t act like I could take him down by blinking, he might think he could kill me. Things never end well when the person on the bad side of the guns think they can kill you. “But I don’t find cats. I’m allergic.”
“Fortunately, I have no need of a cat.” He flashed a mouthful of teeth that looked more like they belonged to a shark than to a human. “What I need you to find is considerably bigger.” He paused for a moment before raising one of his hands. “I need you to track down a particular person and destroy him.” He paused again as if mulling over his words. “I’m sure you have heard of Trius. He has been on your world for quite some time.”
My eyebrows twitched in a combination of curiosity and sheer terror. As far as supernatural creatures went, few were as far up the food chain as Trius was. Why? Because Trius was a scaly, fire-breathing, treasure-hording dragon. Literally.
“You want me to go after Trius? An ancient, immortal, and unstoppable dragon?” I said it slowly, enunciating each syllable. If I didn’t, I might start hyperventilating. I’d taken on my fair share of bad guys over the years. Hell, I’d gone toe to toe with an ancient vampire and walked away with all my limbs still attached. Well, okay, I didn’t walk away so much as I was carried away half-dead, but still. A dragon was on a whole different level. It was a teeny-tiny step before going after a Greek God.
The man snorted. “My younger brother is hardly a dragon. He is still a drake, still a baby.” The man lowered his glasses, and I saw the slight twinkle of a glass eye. A series of thin, white scars that almost resembled claw marks radiated outward from the flesh around the eye. It made a stark contrast to his otherwise ebony skin. “And the immortal part… well, that is just a myth.” His lips curled into an almost sinister smile. “We can be killed. We just don’t want you to know it.”
I gulped, took a step backward, and bumped into my desk chair. It clattered to the ground, and the noise nearly made my heart jump out of my chest. I took a deep breath and tried to calm myself. Then, in my best gumshoe voice, said, “My fee for something like this will be quite… substantial.” I paused, waving my hands for effect. “In the way that a planet is substantial.”
“With my help, there is no doubt in my mind you could crush Trius beneath your heel. I would even let you keep his heart, and as we both know, a person who consumes a drake’s heart will gain immortality. Should you succeed, and I have no reason to doubt that Dirge Meilan reborn would succeed, that alone would be enough of a bonus.” His eye glittered for a moment. “If it is not, I can always sweeten the pot. Tell me what you desire and I shall make it so.”
He kept talking, but I’d stopped listening. Of course, he had come here because of Dirge Meilan. Everyone always comes to me because of Dirge Meilan. Why? Well, it was simple. She was a true blue dyed in wool hero, and well, in my past life, I was her.
Now, I don’t mean to say my previous life before I changed my identity and ran away. No, I mean an actual previous life. Dirge Meilan died stopping a pack of demons from breaking into my hometown. So how was I her, you ask?
Well, Dirge was such a goody two-shoes that her friends went and had her reincarnated. Okay, they didn’t mean to have her reincarnated. They were going for good old-fashioned resurrection. You know, the whole die and rise again three days later kind of resurrection.
Yeah, that didn’t happen. Instead, the best they could do was to get her reincarnated into me and because my age had been magically accelerated, most of the people who knew her, and tried to resurrect her, were still around. To say they were displeased by what they’d gotten would be like saying the girl you picked up in a bar at 3 AM was prettier the next morning. It happens, but not in my case.
Worse still because of the whole “accelerated aging” thing, the only thing more annoying than trying to explain how I was nearly the same age as my predecessor was being compared to her. It was like having an older sister I could never hope to live up to and that was one of the reasons I’d run away from my home. Not a major one, mind you, but definitely on the list.
If this shark-toothed freak had come here expecting Dirge Meilan, there was no way in hell I was going to help him out of principle. Call me petty. It would fit. I don’t really care.
“Get out!” My voice was hard and full of fury.
He stopped speaking mid-sentence and stared at me open-mouthed. Evidently, he wasn’t used to being interrupted. Very slowly, he regained his composure and settled his icy gaze upon me. Another chill went down my spine, and I tightened the grip on my shotgun.
“You Dioscuri get more arrogant by the day.” His words carried the edge of a raging inferno bubbling just beneath the surface. “Most people would be honored by the chance to help me take this realm back from Trius.”
Pause. Hold it right there. Obviously he knew who I was and because of that, it wasn’t surprising he knew about my people, the Dioscuri. After all, us Dioscuri made it our mission to police the creatures who went bump in the night.
I’m going to go out on a limb and assume you’ve never seen a vampire, werewolf, or sasquatch. Well, the Dioscuri are why and we take our job very seriously. Typically, if supernatural hijinks were afoot, the Dioscuri would be the ones to step in and stop it. This was just the sort of thing I’d be trying to stop if I was still with them.
Why? Because the worst wars in history were largely due to the power struggles of dragons mostly because they are territorial to the point of insanity. That’s why Sharkface was here now. He wanted to take over for himself, and he wanted my help. Yeah, that wasn’t happening. I had no desire to meddle in the affairs of dragons, especially because I probably tasted good with ketchup. Besides, while I might not have been all truth, justice, and the American way, I also wasn’t going to help start World War III.
“I’m not most people. I’m well aware of my mortality, and the idea of going after a drake weighs heavily against this ‘living’ I’ve become accustomed to,” I said, shaking my head while hoping against hope he’d just leave.
“You shouldn’t end a sentence with a preposition,” he muttered under his breath while turning toward the gunmen behind him. Time seemed to slow as their muscles tightened and their fingers slid toward the triggers on their machineguns.
“Hello!” Mattoc’s voice boomed from the corner.
As the men turned toward him, I squeezed the trigger on the shotgun as quickly as I could. While the gunfire seemed to bend around Sharkface and miss him completely, his men w
eren’t so lucky. The five shotgun blasts tore into the thugs, painting the wall behind them with blood and gore.
Ignoring my ringing ears, I grabbed my katana from where it lay behind my desk and flung myself over the desk toward them while calling upon my magic. Blue light rippled along the blade’s edge as I prepared to take down the dragon before he could try any more recruitment techniques on me.
Admittedly, I wasn’t sure what sort of tricks he had up his sleeve, but I was hoping I could get in a killing blow before he could recover. As my feet touched down on the blood-slicked ground, Sharkface’s good eye narrowed on the glowing katana in my hand.
“You will regret this, Lillim Callina,” he said before vanishing in a puff of black smoke.
“Maybe,” I said as my katana slashed through the smoke. Damn.
Beside me, one of the fallen gunmen reached for his weapon. Without thinking, I sliced my way through him before moving onto the rest of the thugs and ensuring they wouldn’t get back up and try to fill me full of holes. I promised myself they would be going to a better place as I did it, but it didn’t make killing them any easier. Which was good. The day it did would be a dark day indeed. I knew people who could kill without it bothering them, and those people scared me.
By the time I was done, nausea welled up inside me and tears gathered in the corners of my eyes. I took a deep breath, turning away from their corpses while trying not to think about how some of the hired muscle might have an autistic son or an Alzheimers’s-stricken mother back home. Instead, I tried to be thankful they weren’t wearing full body armor because I was sure they’d been about to kill me.
Their blood was everywhere, sticky and wet. I took a deep breath and tried to calm down as most of it slowly turned into red steam. The metallic scent filled my lungs, and I coughed and fell to my knees as the steam drifted away. I watched, struggling to hold onto my lunch as the bodies melted into nothingness. In a matter of seconds, no sight or smell remained. They were nothing but a distant memory.
The Lillim Callina Chronicles: Volumes 1-3 Page 2
