Kill It With Magic: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Lillim Callina Chronicles Book 1) (20 page)

I would… I would…

I broke then. I’m not proud to say it, but I did. I fell to my knees in the middle of the street pawing, gasping for breath. I screamed and cried and howled. Gut wrenching pain tore me up and left me raw. The only reason he’d wanted to find me was to use me for his own agenda. That was why Warthor had kidnapped Mattoc. If Mattoc had been with me, he would have seen through the illusion…

Hell, if Warthor hadn’t locked down my ethereal sight, I’d have seen through the illusion. Had that been the start of everything? Had Joshua merely been playing along to Warthor’s tune? If he was… did that make it okay? No, no it didn’t.

I knew Joshua didn’t want
me
, but deep down inside there was always hope… My heart broke, and it crushed me down until I was nothing but a raw nub of hurt. But I had to stand. I had to draw the hot sticky pain into myself and push it down to the depths of my toes.

Later it would hit me far harder than I could prepare for, but right now I had to stop some meteors and slay a dragon. Fortunately, I was pretty sure I knew who had summoned the meteors. Joshua’s theft had made it only too obvious. It was a situation designed to make me pull out the gun that I’d used to end the Dioscuri civil war and only one person knew me well enough to have planned it: Warthor Ein.

Chapter 29

Rain came down in shimmering sheets that painted the hills into a dreary, gloomy scrawl. At the end of the street stood a tall house with a whitewashed sign that, at some point, might have contained vibrant lettering. Now, however, it was reduced to faded, unreadable calligraphy.

For many years the house on the hill had been a stopping point for wayward travelers. It existed in between all realms. This house was a crossroads. From here, any place could be reached, even those hidden deep within the nether.

The house on the hill was governed by a simple rule. Any creature, regardless of origin, was unable to commit violence within. Those that tried would answer to the one man who ran the house on the hill. He was a man who was said to see into a person’s very soul, and sometimes, even into the past lives of that soul.

As I approached the black, wrought iron gate in the center of the crumbling, sixteen-foot high brick fence that surrounded the house, I shuddered. Instead of protecting the home, it seemed as though the gate was waiting for the perfect time to reach out and swallow the entire place, chimney and all. A man in an ankle-length yellow raincoat sat next to the gate. He furrowed his gray brow when he saw me and fidgeted with a dirty, black key.

“Are you coming to see the master?” the man yelled over the howling wind.

“Yes, I have urgent business with him.” My voice was surprisingly colder than I’d meant it to be. It betrayed no emotion, but instead acted more as a dam holding back a frightening crescendo.

“Yes, yes… we get many people like yourself, anxious for a place to stay and all, but please, won’t you oblige me with some information? It won’t take but a moment of your time,” the man asked with consideration in his dull gray eyes.

I tilted my head while placing my good hand against one of the bars and shaking. “Open the door. Please.”

“Oh… if you insist, but do be careful, the master is entertaining some guests.”

The massive gate creaked open on its rusty hinges, allowing me to pass into the depths of the yard. Dirty crags of crabgrass shot up between cracks in the dark stone that made up the pathway to the house.

Two shimmering obsidian statues stood with poised bayonets on either side of the granite doorframe. In the center of the door was the head of an enormous lion and in the very center of its roaring mouth was a knocker. I reached up and took hold of the lion’s tongue, slick with the night’s rain. I slammed it against its base.

There was a loud creak, a sort of odd shuffle, and the door opened, scratching its bottom against the ground and screeching loudly as it did so. Two old men with time-ravaged bodies stared at me blankly from inside.

“The master is not expecting you,” they said in unison. I ignored them and walked past them into the hallway. The door screeched shut behind me as I followed the long hallway forward.

Jovial sounds filled my ears as I progressed down the picture-lined hallway. Faces of old men stared down on me ominously, clashing with the merry nature of the party I headed toward.

The room was filled to the brim with tables ablaze with lavish lamps. The windows were hung with gaudy purple curtains on top of even gaudier golden poles. Several crude animal heads and ominous porcelain statues decorated the walls. The most peculiar things, however, were the brightly-colored plastic bouquets that sat fixed in the center of the tables, as though intended to perk up the morose decor of the room.

Seated by a fireplace was a lone man with his back to the rest of the guests. From the way that he gripped the chair’s creaking wooden frame it seemed as though he would be much happier once everyone left. The rest of the crowd was almost faceless, moving in between and through each other as they helped themselves to the different dishes that sat on each table.

I stepped into the room and made my way through the crowd, parting them like the Red Sea. When I reached the fireplace I caught sight of the man. He had long silver hair that fell to the middle of his back in a wave while the front was spiked into a large hook that curled over his left eye, shielding most of it from view. The entire left side of his face was mottled and burned as though someone had doused him in acid. The rest of his body was concealed from view beneath a silver cloak with shiny obsidian buttons. He turned toward me, and a shiver wracked my body. His eye was like a burning torch as he looked up and pointed one twitching finger at my chest.

“How dare you bring The Emissary here!” His voice was like cold granite, hard and immovable.

He stood, grabbing me by the wrist, and I muffled a cry of pain as his fingernails bit into my flesh. The air compressed into a morose gloom around him as he pulled my face close to his. “You have shown great disrespect to me and every single guest with your actions. You are nothing but a disgrace to my house and everyone who stands in it.” His words cut through me like an axe, striking deep into my heart.

I smiled at the man and took a deep breath in order to stop my heart from exploding out of my chest. I placed my burned hand on his. “My dear Zef, is that any way at all to greet an old friend?”

The crowd turned to look at us. Their eyes shimmered with dark curiosity even as palpable waves of fear began to move through the room. A short, squat man with a mane of green hair and short stubby arms peeking from his glossy red bodysuit passed through the crowd of gaping onlookers. He stepped between us, placing a calming hand upon both of our arms.

“My dear friends, such a fine feast I have prepared on such a day as this, a day of returns.” He nodded stiffly to Zef before continuing to speak. “Let’s not let things that we let bother us bother us today. Come, come, instead let us eat. Such a glorious dish of fried mushrooms and tomatoes have I cooked for us. Such a fine dish it is.”

Zef tensed marginally at the man’s words and brought his left hand up to shield his eyes as though he didn’t dare look at me any longer. And really, why should he? I hadn’t even thought about how he might react to the presence of The Emissary. Dioscuri weapons were conduits that allowed supernatural beings to reside in the physical world. Usually no one but the weapon’s wielder knows anything about the spirit inside. The fact that everyone seemed to know a lot more about The Emissary than I did was irksome to say the least.

Zef laughed. “Oh how quaint you have become, my Lillim, how quaint indeed.” He looked amused with himself as he poked me hard in the chest. I staggered backward. He had knocked the breath right out of my lungs with just a poke.

“You’re a bit more rounded than I remember,” Zef continued, “but your insides are still the same. You of all people should know better than anyone what was said all those years ago, and yet you come here like this. With bloodshot eyes, bags underneath so thick that one can hardly see your face anymore.”

“A bond of blood once made,” Zef began reciting the pact, and my insides squirmed.

“C-can never be broken,” I stammered.

“Until all the blood has been spilt.”

“From the last living body,” I finished, trembling.

I could almost feel the blood still leaking from my wrists, as the horrible memory slammed into me. I remembered the ritual Dirge had used in the bowels of this house. It had torn my soul asunder until I was left ragged and raw.

Dirge had undergone the ritual to gain strength, to commune with Shirajirashii and gain understanding of the weapon and the spirits within. She had sought Zef’s help in doing so because he was the Black Prince of the nether. He was one of those great beings who could control the ebb and flow of the natural and spiritual worlds.

In the end, Dirge had succeeded in communing with death and had become bound to Zef, but the price had been her freedom. She had been bound to Zef body and soul. There was a dark place in her memory, a realm unto itself that I dared not visit. It was where she fought battle after bloody battle at his side and slaked his bloodlust with steel and flesh. Sometimes, when I dreamed, I could almost see the door to those memories, throbbing and pulsating with black light.

That was how Warthor had defied the gods. After Dirge had died, but before I was born, Warthor went down into the depths of this house. There he underwent the very same ritual Dirge had undergone many years before. By undergoing the ritual, my old master had fused our souls together, twisting our fates into an indistinguishable mess.

Zef turned and waved to his other guests. “Please continue in the parlor room. We have urgent business here.”

“Why have you come back here after so many years?” Zef said a few moments later. His voice had changed. It now burned with a previously unknown ferocity as though some change had occurred. “And why is your hand bandaged?”

I cringed. “I hurt it in a fight.”

“Do you know why the moth seeks the flame, young one?” he said, ignoring my response.

“No.” This was how it always was with Zef. The questions would start and they would not end until he pinpointed exactly what it was he wanted to make known.

“The moth journeys to the flame because the moth has to be a moth despite unfavorable circumstances. The moth must make his own existence real to himself at every single moment. This simple fact is something man has to conquer, hour after hour, until the day he dies. Man must earn his life. Man must earn the right to walk through this world. That is why the moth continually tries to burn itself in the flames, simply to exist.” Zef shook his head. “How could you not know what you were meant to do?”

“I’m not trying to burn myself or take some kinda leap of faith,” I said, spinning on my heel and making my way to the backroom.

Zef laughed as though this was precisely the reaction he had expected to get from me. He was out of the chair in an instant, standing in front of me with his long black katana drawn. The blade was almost eight-feet long and the very tip of it pressed against my throat. A small pinprick of blood welled like a tiny teardrop on my neck, and I straightened just a bit.

“Have I taught you nothing? Have I taught you so little?” Zef said, shaking his head. “It is not you who is seeking the flame. It is your master, truth be told, even I can see that clearly. He has taken Mattoc from you and in doing so he has left you all alone.” Zef flung his free hand outward with blinding speed, striking me hard across the face. I crashed into the hard rock wall and crumbled to my knees. I tried to look in his direction but my vision was marred by a reddish haze.

“Why did you not come to me sooner? Is asking for help so horrible? Are there not worse things in the world?” he continued.

I could scarcely move, but knew better than to complain. I lifted my shaking body off the floor and leaned against the wall. Blood welled in my mouth, the acrid coppery taste washing over my tongue and down my throat. I wanted to spit, but I couldn’t. Not now. Not in front of him.

“There are more ways to beat someone than by force. You could take someone hostage and defeat them that way. You could crush their will to fight and defeat them that way. Not everything is as blatant as raw power. Dirge spent an entire lifetime to learn that one simple fact and yet still it escapes you? Can your soul truly be so stubborn?”

I pushed myself toward him. “I know you can send me right to Warthor. You are the keeper of all the gateways to all the worlds. I need to find him, and I don’t care what his game is. I’m going to stop those damned meteors even if I need to kill Warthor Ein and every last drake out there to do it.”

Zef turned and waved his hand absently as if to disregard me. “I remember a long time ago I got an electric shaver. It wasn’t a very good shaver and if I let my beard grow for more than one day it wouldn’t cut at all. I had to use it like…” he counted on his fingers for a moment, “every twelve hours for it to work. Yet, for some reason, I kept it around because it was self-cleaning.”

Without so much as an explanation to his story he walked back to his chair and took a seat before the fire. He waved his hand casually. “What have I told you? Answer and I will consider allowing you passage.”

“Erm,” I started.

Zef turned to look at me, one large, sad eye staring blankly at me as though it expected very little and wanted to see even less.

“I think that you are referring to the weak link in a chain.” Zef looked back at the fire.

“However,” I continued, “I don’t know if that’s necessarily true. When you want to do something specific and the way you are going about it is flawed, then the fruits gained from it will be flawed.”

There was a small commotion as Zef rocked himself in a chair incapable of rocking. “This is why you should have come to me at the beginning. Perhaps then you would understand the one truth about the situation Warthor has set upon you like a pack of wild dogs. If you destroy him you will stop the meteors.” He laughed to himself as though the whole thing was a joke. “You will also destroy the anchor that holds his drake, Trius, to our plane. Without his Dragon Knight, Trius will not be able to remain here any longer. In short, if you disrupt his seat of power, Valen will win.” He rose and waved off his train of thought. “There are others you will need to defeat who are much more dangerous than your former master, despite what he thinks.”