Kill It With Magic: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Lillim Callina Chronicles Book 1) (25 page)

My knees weakened, and I flopped to the floor. I hadn’t realized how hard my heart was pounding or how much air I was sucking in until now. My entire body felt thick and heavy. I swallowed, but my throat stayed dry.

The immense dragon shook its head, and as it did so, I climbed to my feet. A haze filled my vision. From the corner of my eye I saw Valen’s massive tail coming toward me. I must have missed the actual impact because the next thing I knew, I was lying flat on my back several yards away. The coppery taste of blood filled my mouth.

I rolled over onto my hands and knees and tried to breathe. My arms shook with the effort needed to hold my body up. Valen reached out with one enormous clawed hand and lifted me into the air. His massive fingers wrapped around me as though I was nothing more than a party-favor. I was going to die… and I wouldn’t be coming back this time. I’d be six feet under, no more chocolate donuts, dead.

“It’s over, Dioscuri. There is nothing left for you to do but face the inevitable.” Valen’s voice raked over my senses.

“I agree.” Warthor’s voice cut through the room like an arrow.

Valen turned toward him, and an explosion of sound rocked the room. The drake staggered back as gore burst from a cannonball-sized hole between its eyes. Valen’s grip on me loosened, and I fell to the ground, landing hard on my hip. Pain tore through my entire body.

My mentor stood there with a gun in his hand. My gun. The one Joshua had stolen from me. The one that could kill anything, even a drake.

“To think,” Warthor said as he crossed the floor and kicked the fallen drake contemptuously, “a giant talking lizard thought he could defeat The Invincible Warthor Ein.”

I gave him a speculative glance as he tossed an obolus on the creature’s snout. “Can I have my gun back?”

“Are you going to shoot me with it, Bunny?” he asked as the coin spun around in a dance of alabaster flame that soon engulfed the entire drake. When it was finished, he bent down to pick up the coin.

“I wasn’t planning on it. I wouldn’t wanna waste the last bullet. It’s worth considerably more to me than you are.”

He threw his head back and laughed before shoving the coin in his pocket. Then, he pushed the gun into my hand. I glared at him, but the effort made me cringe. I reached out and grabbed his arm for stability as he hauled me to my feet. My original conclusion was correct. He had wanted to steal my gun. He had wanted to kill Valen, and he knew I had a way to do it.

“If you ever try anything like this again, I will blow you into a thousand bits,” I said, anger leaking into my voice.

“Oh?” he asked with a bemused smile.

“Then I’ll blow the thousand bits into a thousand more.”

“So a million bits then?” He shook his head and an odd sort of expression settled on his face. “Why don’t you go home, Bunny?” He patted my shoulder. “Take a nice bath or something. You seem a bit tired.”

“I will just as soon as I get what’s-his-name to return the baby,” I muttered.

“I wouldn’t worry about it. I’m sure Trius has returned him home by now. He tends to keep his promises.” Warthor shrugged. “Or he’s still making the kid listen to Led Zeppelin over and over. Either way, the kid is in good hands.” He regarded me very carefully. “You did know it was Trius who took the baby from you, right? I convinced him that he had best step in before you lost Prince Dar again. You are a terrible babysitter.”

Chapter 37

I wanted to slug my former master. I wanted to hit him so hard that it would cause his future progeny lifelong pain. Warthor Ein had sacrificed everything to win, and because of that, he had lost nothing. I took a deep breath, pleased that I hadn’t hit him, though I still wanted to do it. I turned away from him and began limping toward the exit.

“I think you should know, Bunny,” Warthor’s words carried a strange sort of edge to them. “Joshua didn’t want to help me. He begged and pleaded with me to find another way. I could not.” He put a hand on my shoulder. It was sticky with sweat. I wanted to shrug it off, but for some reason, I didn’t. “You should blame me for what happened. I forced him to steal the gun from you. I knew you would not bring yourself to use the gun. Not with only two bullets left.” He turned me until I was facing him and stared at me with his icy-blue eyes.

“Joshua could have refused,” I said so harshly that he took a step away from me. I took a wobbly step forward and pushed him. “You could have come to see me initially. You could have asked for the weapon. You… you…” I sank to my knees, tears blurring my eyes.

“If I would have gotten you involved, you could have been killed. That’s the only reason Joshua didn’t refuse. We know you too well. We
knew
you would go up against Valen alone, and here you are. Do you have a death wish, Lillim?”

“Maybe I do. Maybe I never wanted to come back in the first place.”

Warthor closed his eyes. “I’m sorry, Bunny.” He vanished in that instantaneous way that he did. I was alone. I was all by myself in the middle of a half-wrecked stone castle. I wiped the tears from my eyes and crawled back to my feet. I wished I could make him feel what I did. I hated him because I knew that I would forgive him. I mean, how angry can you be at a scorpion for stinging you? It’s a god-damned scorpion. That’s what they do.

“I wouldn’t have helped if I’d thought there was another way.” Joshua’s voice startled me, and I whirled around, looking for him. He was standing by the entrance, the moonlight from outside cast over him in such a way that he glowed.

“I know.” I wobbled toward him. “I knew there had to be a good reason.” He took a step toward me and tried to put his arms around me. I shrugged them off and poked him hard in the chest. “I knew that you wouldn’t purposely make me hate you… again.”

“I wasn’t trying to make you hate me. I was trying to save your life. I wanted to keep you from getting yourself killed.” He shook his head. “And yet you came anyway.”

I understood why he had done it. I even felt bad for him. He had helped Warthor steal my gun knowing I would hate him. He had willingly become Judas to save me, and in doing so, had saved me from myself. That’s what made it all the worse. I knew he had a good reason, and yet, if I could have, I would have thrown him off a building.

“If I hadn’t gone along with Warthor’s plans you’d be dead.” Tears were forming in his eyes, and he wiped them away with his sleeve. “You just came back to me. I couldn’t lose you again. I couldn’t let you die, not for good. I love you, Lillim.”

This was why I could never take him seriously. Imagine waking up and having all these memories. I remember how much I loved him. I remember the way he ran his hand through his hair made butterflies dance in my stomach. I remember kissing him and crying with him and holding his hand as we stared at the moon. But I never actually did any of those things, and I know I didn’t actually do them. Dirge had.

When Joshua said he loved me, I always thought that maybe… maybe he wished I was Dirge. It was something I could never get past… it was something I shouldn’t have to get past.

He took my chin in his hand and leaned down to kiss me. I turned my head so his lips touched my cheek. “No, Joshua. You don’t. The woman you love is dead.”

I pushed past him out into the night air knowing he would not follow me. The brisk breath of the wind made me shiver. I stood in the moonlight, and for the first time, noticed how beautiful this castle truly was. I was standing next to a quiet stream looking at the lilacs, awakened from their winter’s slumber. It was a strange to find them outside a castle owned by a vampire who regularly used human flesh like a potter might use clay.

Still, the water behind me gave rise to a pleasant sort of sound. The accompanying wind carried the scent of blooming flowers, and it filled me with a sort of calm happiness. It was something I was unused to, so much beauty without any blood.

I turned my head, hearing someone approach. Had Joshua followed me after all? I looked up and nearly choked. Caleb was standing there with a look on his face that I had never seen before.

“And what brings you to this neck of the flowers?” I asked as he plucked one of the little blossoms from its stem. It was a queer little thing and he held it to his nose, looking as though he would consume it with his eyes. He turned it once in his hands before holding it out to me.

“You won.” His voice was strained in a way I didn’t expect, and I didn’t quite know how to respond. An awkward silence pressed down on us, and he cleared his throat. His cheeks reddened, and he looked away from me.

“You kept your word. You didn’t help me.” I blushed, and he waved my response away.

“That isn’t why I didn’t help. I thought that if I saved you now, you would never forgive me. I could have helped you. Together we might have easily disposed of Valen, but you chose to fight him alone. You chose to forsake my help and had I forced it upon you anyway…” He shook his head and knelt beside me among the flowers. “It would be the same as killing you myself.” Caleb’s hands were balled so tightly that they trembled. “But I stood back and watched. I stood back and had to endure watching you suffer. I promised myself that when it was over, I would walk over to you. I’d tell you how much better you make me just by existing.”

The moonlight melted on us, fragments of starlight attempted to pierce both the smog and the harsh glare of the city surrounding the castle. It was under this muted sky that he took my hand and we walked, very close to one another, through the garden.

I wanted to say something, anything that would make him understand how I felt. In all my memories we had never been anything more than friends. Dirge had never felt anything for him. Dealing with my feelings for him was something that none of my past lives had prepared me for. I shivered at the thought. This one experience was mine, all mine.

“So you’re really not coming back to the Dioscuri then?” Caleb smiled half-heartedly and shook his mop of sandy hair.

I didn’t bother looking at him. This was what we were doing now? Fine, I could play this game.

“How’s your chest?” I asked.

He moved to rub it. “It was still just magic, once most of the initial damage from the spell was healed…” He trailed off for a second and smiled. “It’ll be healed completely in a few more days.”

“You know, you’re really an idiot.” I regarded him carefully. “You could have died if you’d gotten into a fight with that kind of injury.”

“It wasn’t so bad.” He waved his arm.

“You’re just lucky that I decided to leave you behind. The fight with the drake, the storming of the castle… that could have hurt you a lot.”

“But it all wound up okay in the end.” He placed his hand on my shoulder. “You shouldn’t focus so much on past mistakes. If you do, you’re likely to be swallowed up by them. I’d know.”

I nodded and put my head against his chest. “I was just so concerned that you’d die because of me. I didn’t even think about the consequences. Because I was foolish everyone here almost died. At least, if you’d been there, I wouldn’t have fallen under that spell. I wouldn’t have had to deal with Wyrm.”

Caleb wrapped his arms around me just then and pulled me close to him. I trembled under his embrace but didn’t fight him off. “If you hadn’t left me, I would have never survived.” He smiled, leaning down close to me. “But you’ve got it all wrong. I’m the lucky one. I’m the one lucky enough to have a friend who was willing to risk her own life just so that I wouldn’t get hurt. I was able to fight beside someone that didn’t give up when her body was broken and beaten, but still stood, through the sheer force of her willpower, and fought onward to victory.”

“Don’t be silly.” I placed a finger to his lips. “Those are all qualities you possess.”

Caleb leaned down close to me until our faces were almost touching, my finger still at his lips. “But I’m not the one who is planning on taking a stand for what I believe is right and saying to hell with the consequences. Everyone that fights by your side stands up and does things they never thought they could otherwise. You make the world a better place just by existing.”

“Caleb?” I was looking into his green eyes now, trembling.

“Yeah?”

“Shut up.” I slid my fingers out from between us. Our lips met and he pulled me into him, holding my body against his own.

“I don’t want you to die,” I said, my voice shaky as he rested his forehead against mine.

“Just for tonight let’s forget about that.”

Thank you for reading
Kill It With Magic.
 If you wouldn't mind, please leave a review. If you are wondering what happens to Lillim next, check out 
The Hatter is Mad
. As a special bonus, the first chapter is included on the next page.

If you are curious about what happened to Rome, you may also want to check out my other book,
May Contain Spies
. If you want to know more about Caleb, you can check out his short adventure, 
Halcyon Days
.

Want to know when my next book is available? Sign up for my new release e-mail list
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. If you do, I'll send you my short story, 
Alone in the Dark
, for
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Chapter 1

I fell forward, arms flailing wildly as I tried to right myself before face-planting into the cement. I jerked to a stop mere inches from the ground and let out a short cry of pain.

“You should have been watching that last step. That one’s a doozy.” Melanie Stone grinned, holding me with both hands by the scruff of my overcoat as she stood just outside my door.

I grunted as she helped me regain my balance. I wriggled my toes in the pink footpads of my pajamas and sighed. I thought about changing, but I didn’t have time if I wanted to answer the door in any respectable amount of time. So there I was, standing there in my navy blue overcoat and a pink onesie with sparkly ponies on it. I’d probably looked more ridiculous at some point in time, but I had a hard time remembering when.