The Lillim Callina Chronicles: Volumes 1-3

by J. A. Cipriano

  “Half the time you never did that.” I glared at him and pointed Haijiku at his chest. “So that should be quite difficult for you.”

  I lashed out with Haijiku. I put all my rage, all my hatred into my blow. Haijiku clanged against the flat of his sword. It hadn’t even been drawn before I attacked. The force of it echoed down my arm, and Haijiku very nearly bent around his blade.

  “Not bad,” Warthor coughed. It was fake praise. “My turn.”

  Warthor Ein slashed through the air, cutting an icy path toward me. The very air split and crystallized around his sword as it swept within the barest centimeter from my nose.

  It was then that I realized I could not beat Warthor Ein. At least not toe-to-toe. It wouldn’t be long before he ignored his fear of Haijiku, before he stopped toying with me. My only chance was to keep him off balance and since he was smarter than me that was going to be pretty difficult. I took a deep breath. Warthor was a big fish. I wasn’t going to catch him if I was angry. I would have to be calm.

  “I could say the same thing, except you’re pretty bad.” I leaned my sword against my shoulder and smiled.

  He waved his hand and wind whipped by me. It was cold, filled with a chill that made me tremble deep in my bones. I shivered and gripped the hilt of Haijiku hard enough for my knuckles to turn white. I took a deep breath and reached out with my power toward The Emissary. There was a great rustle of flitting wings in the back of my mind and an attack popped into my head.

  “Sangeki no Shisha,” I said, which was Japanese for the Emissary of Tragedy. I wasn’t sure why calling upon the Emissary in Japanese worked, but it was probably because its former owner had been Japanese. Either way, as the words left my mouth, Haijiku’s blade exploded into a cloud of iridescent, black butterflies. Glowing green-gold spots filled the wings of the creatures as they swarmed about me. Beyond knowing that Haijiku was inhabited by The Emissary of Tragedy, I didn’t know what to expect from the blade by way of sheer attack power. Still, this was pretty pleasing.

  Perhaps Warthor knew its power or who the spirit really was. Perhaps that was why he was so frightened of it. Either way, as the butterflies flitted through the air, a thick, bloodcurdling howl ripped from his throat. He rushed forward, grabbing me by my hair and slamming me face first into the floor.

  “Do you really think I do not have your best interests in mind? Did I not bring you back from the dead? And you repay me like this?” Warthor screamed and the insanity in his voice struck me as odd. It made me think he might not have planned for this, but that was impossible. Warthor planned for everything.

  He bashed my face against the icy floor again. I don’t know if I blacked out, but all of a sudden I was standing back from the scene, watching with a strange sense of detachment. A shadowy form stood next to me. I’m not sure what else to call it because it was cloaked in darkness, like it had wrapped a black hole around itself.

  It gazed on me with eyes that changed color so fast it made my head spin. It reached out with one hand, more black smoke than corporeal form, and without thinking, I did the same. It seemed to nod.

  The butterflies swarmed at Warthor, slamming into him from every direction and pitching him to and fro before disappearing within his body.

  The Emissary looked at me, and it was pleased. I felt a tug, like a great rubber band whipping me back into my body. I lay there, struggling to breathe through blood-caked lips as Warthor staggered toward me. I shut my eyes and tried to focus my will on the butterflies. Warthor kicked me, and blood spurted from my mouth.

  I rolled, and the next blow caught me in the center of the chest. Pain shot through me and my ribs cracked. No matter how many times that has happened, I’m always surprised how much it hurts. He grabbed me roughly by the hair and held me aloft. I smiled, revealing a set of crimson teeth, and spat a gob of blood in his eyes. An eerie smile crossed his lips as my spittle dripped down his face.

  “Master,” I croaked, and he regarded me with a smile.

  “Yes, student?” he asked, one eyebrow quirked in amusement.

  “Please return Mattoc.”

  “If that is your final wish,” Warthor grinned at me and made a weird motion with his hand, “then it is so.”

  For whatever reason, I knew that he wasn’t lying. It really wasn’t in his nature to lie. I didn’t know how exactly, but I was sure he had fixed Mattoc’s link to me.

  “I knew you couldn’t be a complete bastard.” I smiled at him. He laughed and slammed me against the wall. The back of my head smacked against the icy surface and stars shot past my eyes. He released me, and I slid to the floor.

  “You do realize,” he told me in a tone that suggested I was a very small child, “that you never had even the tiniest chance of beating me.”

  34

  Anger surged through me, tinting my vision with a pulsing red haze. I put my burned hand on the ground, and for whatever reason, felt no pain as I hoisted myself to my feet. Haijiku throbbed in my hand like a beating heart. I pointed it at Warthor and snarled.

  There was a loud pop, almost like an exploding balloon as Haijiku’s summoned butterflies exploded. A spray of warmth hit me in the face. I sucked in a breath through my teeth as the haze died away.

  Warthor stared back at me. Bitter hatred filled his narrowed eyes. Gore dripped from his left shoulder, dribbling down an arm that was more skeletal than not. Huge chunks of flesh had been torn from his body, revealing the bone and sinew beneath. If it had been anyone other than him, I’d have assumed he would have been as good as dead. Warthor, unfortunately, was like a damned cockroach.

  Anger and hatred drained from his eyes, and his entire face went empty. There was no emotion, no bitter hatred, just a profound emptiness.

  “Come forth from the darkest frost. Spread Ymir’s wings and soar high into the air. Douse the world in eternal winter. Crash into the world and drown the earth in blood.” Warthor’s words came out in a burst of white fog as he drove his sword into the ground.

  Geysers of crystalline ice exploded from the ground, covering the floor in thick pools of freezing liquid and raining storms of razor-sharp icicles down upon us, though they never touched him. His sword seemed longer, an icy sheen covering its edge. I shivered and tried to keep my teeth from chattering as the newfound cold threatened to overwhelm me.

  “You fired too soon.” He smiled and blood dripped from between his teeth. “You could have killed me if the butterflies had gotten to my lungs or my heart, but you failed. I have won already.”

  He charged. I tried to step to the side, but I couldn’t. My feet had frozen to the floor. I muttered a few words and threw up my hand. His blow smashed into my impromptu magic shield with enough force to tear me free from the ice and fling me backward into a flurry of sleet and snow.

  Icicles struck my magical shield one after another, wearing it down with each deflected blow. What little energy I had left was already ebbing away, and Warthor had just gotten started. I wanted to cry, but instead, I dug down, reaching for the last vestiges of power within me. If I was going down, I was going to make sure he remembered it. Funny, I’d had that thought a couple times during this mission. Guess, I was more like Dirge than I cared to admit.

  As I gathered my power, the Invincible Warthor Ein held out a single hand toward me. “It is fitting that you die at my hand, Lillim. After all, I was the one who gave you life.”

  Why that arrogant son of a bitch! How dare he take credit for me being alive? I mean, okay, he was instrumental to the whole thing, but in the end Dirge had made the decision to come back.

  The rain of ice subsided for a moment, and I rolled to the side, pulled out my shotgun, and fired. The blast caught him full on, and for a moment, he seemed to stand there immovable. Then he was flung backward into an icy wall. His body hit it with a sort of squelchy slap that made me think of raw meat smacking against a counter. I stood as quickly as I could while firing the other barrel into him before tossing the spent gun away.

 
“It seems you’ve underestimated my abilities, Bunny.” Warthor rose and his eyes turned into alabaster orbs. He moved so fast that in a moment the tip of his sword was pressed against my throat. “You barely even scratched me.” Warthor laughed, his skin discolored from the blasts. “My bones will never break. No matter how hard you try, my bones will never be broken.”

  I tried to edge backward, but he pressed the blade harder against my throat as if daring me to move. I had known Warthor was resilient, but a couple shotgun blasts ought to have put him down… right?

  Snow began to fall, little flecks of frozen ice drifting listlessly through the air. Warthor smiled, blood dribbling from the corners of his mouth and down his chin. Flesh stretched down from his shoulder, covering the bone of his skeletal arm like modeling clay. He held it up before me and curled his fingers as the flesh settled into shape. All over his body wounds vanished as his skin knit itself back together before my eyes.

  I swallowed and took several steps backward, hoping he wouldn’t run me through. I knew deep down that he didn’t want to kill me. He wanted to own me. Without realizing it, I lowered Haijiku and the tip of the blade trailed along the surface of the floor, scratching away the ice.

  The weapon throbbed in my hand, angry and impatient. I glanced down at it, taking my eyes off Warthor for a split second. I knew I shouldn’t have. The moment my eyes settled on Haijiku, time seemed to stop. It spoke in a voice that was sounds and colors and pictures. It showed me what it wanted. How it could be more, how it could destroy. All I had to do was let The Emissary be free. How bad could that be?

  “What’s it like, Bunny? To know what death is like?” Warthor’s voice dashed away everything as I turned my eyes back to him.

  “You can find out.” I held up my hand and drew a circle in the air and said the word the Emissary had told me. “Hitobanurei.”

  Hitobanurei was Japanese for dreadful night, but I hadn’t known that until he’d told me. I must have said it correctly because when the Emissary heard it, he seemed to squeal in delight. Power surged up out of the blade and into the air. The entire room came alive with millions of butterflies. They thrust upward into the air like a swarm of locusts, all flitting wings and fairy dust.

  “There’s no way you could use that spell!” Warthor screamed and began to back away. For a second, he lost control of his power and the ice around us flickered. Not wanting to lose my advantage, I sent the butterflies at him as a single, impenetrable force. They hit him in the center of the chest like a swirling whirlwind, diving through his flesh and disappearing inside him. He screamed, his eyes wide in horror as his weapon slipped from his hand. He staggered backward, falling to the floor.

  “I think,” I sputtered, my eyes starting to grow heavy from exhaustion, “it is you who underestimated me.”

  Warthor looked up at me with eyes full of white fire, and just when I thought he might actually, I dunno, do something other than be arrogant and crazy, he began to laugh.

  “Fool, you have already lost,” he spat at me. He placed one hand on the ground, hoisted himself to his feet, and took a step toward me.

  A single shot rang out through the air, and something hit me in the center of the back like an annoying gnat. Haijiku slipped from my hand and clattered to the floor, lifeless. I turned my head to see Joshua standing there, pointing a tranquilizer gun at me. He shot me twice more and my chest exploded in pain as my knees turned to jelly and I hit the ground.

  “If you’re wondering why,” Joshua croaked as tears streamed down his face. “Don’t.”

  35

  I woke to find myself curled up in a ball, alone and broken on the icy ground of a prison cell. Thick steel manacles encircled my wrists and ankles, looping through a massive metal ring in the center of the floor. I swallowed and tried to ignore the fact that no one had come to find me. That annoyed me, almost more than how many times I’d been completely laid out during this little adventure.

  I closed my eyes and pushed some of my will into my muscles. Sparks exploded from the metal, and I tried to scream in pain as molten lead surged through my veins, but the only sound that came out of my mouth was a hoarse, choked whisper. I struggled to pull in a deep breath and calm down. Freaking out was not going to help me.

  “I hate when you’re wrong.” Caleb’s voice assaulted me like a bag of hammers as he walked over to the cell door. “Then again, it happens so often, you’d think I’d be used to it by now.”

  “You don’t have to yell,” I murmured, slightly annoyed I hadn’t seen him before. If he’d been there, why didn’t he wake me? How long had he been watching me? He placed one hand against the bars and they burst inward in a shower of spattered metal.

  “I’m barely whispering, you dolt,” he said with a shake of his head as he put a key into the shackles and turned it. They snapped open, releasing me in an instant.

  “Where’d you get a key? How did you find me?” I asked, practically collapsing against him.

  “The key is from the pegboard on the wall. And finding you? Well apparently, Hisen Mattoc’s ghost is still around. He came to find me and told me you’d gone after Warthor, which was stupid, by the way.” Caleb shook his head and sighed. “And before you ask, yes, I could have unlocked the door, but I was showing off.”

  “You came to rescue me,” I said, looking into his eyes and running my hand over his cheek. “Again.”

  “It’s part of the job,” Caleb said as he blushed. “Rumor is you almost took out Warthor Ein single-handedly.” Caleb helped me to my feet, which was good because I don’t think I could have stood on my own just yet.

  “My hand isn’t burned is it?” I asked, glancing down at the bandage and realizing it didn’t hurt at all.

  Almost casually, he flicked my hand. It didn’t hurt. I curled my right hand into a fist, mostly to make sure I could, and swallowed the lump in my throat. Apparently I hadn’t really burned my hand in the fight with Wyrm, which made sense because none of that had been real. Man, I was an idiot sometimes. No wonder everyone had been making fun of me for it.

  I looked over at Caleb and frowned. “You shouldn’t be here. You could get killed.”

  “Yeah, you seem to be doing a good job of getting yourself killed. Why shouldn’t I join the fun?” Caleb grinned, but all I could see were the dark circles under his eyes and the lethargic movements he made since blowing open the cell doors.

  “Because,” I turned toward him and grabbed his shoulder, “you’re already dying. I’m not worth you throwing away what little time you have left.”

  He opened his mouth to say something, but I reached out and grabbed hold of his hand. I placed the eight ball we’d gotten from Max in it. “But if you really want to help, just take me wherever that ball says we should go and that will be enough.”

  “You promise you’ll call me if there is real trouble?” It was clear in his eyes he did not believe I would.

  I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. I’m not sure why, but he touched my face lightly. His coarse hands trailed along my cheek, and I knew that if he kept this up, I wouldn’t be able to tell him to stop. I took a step backward and shook his hand away.

  “Yeah.” I smiled at him. “I promise I’ll call if I get into real trouble.”

  Caleb glanced at the eight ball and handed it back to me. “Alakazam,” he said and everything blurred into an indistinguishable band of color. Then, just like that, I was standing in front of the Bear Castle. Aside from the bodies of werewolves hanging on spikes in front of the doors, not much had changed since I was last here.

  Apparently, Bob was making a show of how dastardly he could be to unwelcome intruders. Why that didn’t attract mortal authorities, probably had more to do with people thinking it was a prank than anything else. I mean what was the likelihood real werewolves would be hung outside a medieval castle? Zero.

  “Why are you here?” Logan’s voice startled me. My heart leapt into my throat as I whirled around to face him. The left side of Lo
gan’s body had turned black, and he smelled so strongly of sulfur that it made me want to gag. Without thinking, I took a step back from him.

  “The magic eight ball sent me here,” I replied, holding it out so he could see it. He stared at it for a long time, his hand drifting down to touch the hilt of the Demonslayer, casually rubbing it with the tips of his blackened fingers.

  “And it brought you here why?” His hand tightened around the handle of his weapon.

  That was an excellent question. I had asked the eight ball to help me find the answer to all my questions. Literally, that’s what I had told it, and it had sent me to a castle filled with vampires. I took a deep breath and stared at Logan.

  “Probably so I could kill you.” My eyes narrowed. I hadn’t known what exactly was happening, but if Caleb thought I had beaten down Warthor, others would think that, too. Warthor was the source of Trius’ power. Trius was the resident drake of this world. If his knight was killed or incapacitated, Trius would be forced to retreat.

  Even though I knew Warthor was probably fine, no one else did, which was probably Warthor’s plan. Why? Because Valen would naturally try to take advantage of the situation. He would be moving toward his end game. I wasn’t sure what it was, but I did know one thing, if I’d just killed Logan initially, it would have solved a lot of problems. Instead, I’d given nearly everyone the benefit of the doubt when I should have been lopping off heads. Well, it was time to start making amends.

  Logan’s face spread into a sadistic grin, revealing a mouth full of blackened fangs as he unsheathed the Demonslayer and held it in front of himself. “He sensed you. He told me you were out here. He remembers the taste of your flesh and begged me to give him more.”

  Before Logan could move, I drove Haijiku through his chest and pinned him to the concrete floor like one enormous butterfly. My left foot came down hard on his wrist, and I felt the bones snap beneath my heel. His weapon clattered uselessly to the ground, and with an almost casual indifference, I reached down and picked it up.