The Hatter is Mad: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Lillim Callina Chronicles Book 2)

The Hatter is Mad

The Lillim Callina Chronicles Book #2

J.A. Cipriano

Copyright © 2014 J.A. Cipriano

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Chapter 1

Something crashed against my eardrums, snapping my eyes open and making me glance around my tiny bedroom as I leapt to my feet, heart racing and pulse pounding.

A loud bang rattled off my front door so loud I could hear it all the way back here. I swallowed, taking a deep breath and forcing my heart to slow down as I crept forward toward the bedroom, adrenaline whisking the sleep from my addled brain. I wasn’t quite sure what time it was, but the sunlight streaming through the windows told me it had to be well into the morning.

I tried desperately to figure out who could be at my door as the banging continued, growing more and more insistent by the second. From the sound of it, if I didn’t hurry, someone was going to kick in my door, again. I grabbed my overcoat off the back of a chair and slung it around my body and the feel of the revolver in my pocket made me settle down a little.

Why did I grab my overcoat as I headed to the door? It was enchanted with spells that made it bullet proof, stab proof, and fire proof. Besides, there was near limitless space inside to hide my own personal armory.

As I reached out to turn the knob, another loud bang outside rattled the inside of my brain. I stepped backward unconsciously, and my heels tangled in a jacket on the floor. I stumbled as the door flew wide open. My hand slipped off the knob, and I fell backwards. I lunged for it while fighting for my balance and tumbled forward, arms flailing wildly. I was jerked to a stop by the scruff of my neck mere inches from the ground. The fabric of my overcoat cinched around my neck, turning my cry of pain into a sort of gurgling rasp.

“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.

She helped me regain my balance as I silently cursed the fairy cleaning-service. It had really slacked off lately on the whole picking up after me thing. If this kept up, I might actually have to start cleaning up after myself. I shook my head in disgust. That was so not happening. If there’s one thing Lillim Callina does not do, it’s clean.

“So how are things?” Melanie asked, a strange smile on her face as her eyes ran up and down my outfit. I wriggled my toes in the pink footpads of my pajamas and sighed. That was when I realized I was standing in front of my friend wearing 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.

“I’m good,” I mumbled, making a point of looking down at her as I leaned against my doorframe as nonchalantly as I could. I was Lillim Callina, supernatural badass after all. If I wanted to open the door in my pajamas, who was she to make fun of me for it? After all, Melanie stood even shorter than my five foot nothing with curly, golden locks that made her face look pixie-like. It also made her black combat boots and matching trench coat and hat look almost cute, like a five year old who had gotten into her father’s clothes.

She tipped her hat toward me like she was some kind of detective in a fifties movie, took the cigar from her lips and blew a small cloud of smoke from the corner of her mouth. Behind her, I could see her latest fling, Antonio scowling at me. He was over six feet tall and wore on each pinky finger a diamond ring that looked more like some lucky girl’s engagement ring than something a man would wear.

Hey, I wasn’t judging. It was just that where I came from men dressed like men. My father wouldn’t have been caught dead wearing a dainty band like that on his pinkie. Then again, he could also chew coal and spit out diamonds, so he probably could have made anything look manly.

Antonio stood motionless between the open door of his Beamer and the car itself. Apparently, he was in some kind of major hurry, which begged the question of why he came along at all. He looked like he was probably up to no good, and not because most people dressed in custom suits gave me that vibe. No, it was because he was tagging along with Melanie Stone, the resident trouble causing private detective in these parts. Guilty by association and all that.

“My dearest Melanie, to what do I owe this lovely visit?” I asked as I stepped back to shut the door in her face as kindly as possible.

“I’m well. Thanks for asking,” she replied, leaning against the door frame so I couldn’t close it without hitting her. “How are you? Still posing as vamp bait?”

I glared at her as the heat rose on my cheeks. “No. I’m over it,” I growled.

“So Caleb finally called you back?” she asked in that annoying way she did when she already knew the answer.

We’d met six months ago while I was posing as a teenage runaway at a vampire owned half-way house. Why was I doing that? Because Caleb left me in the middle of the night without so much as a goodbye, and I was angry. I bounced around vampire boarding houses, busting heads for a while after that.

If Melanie didn’t find me, ignore the fact that I was only seventeen, and teach me some tricks of the trade, I’d probably still be luring vampire johns to their doom.

“No. I still haven’t heard a word from him.” I sighed and stared at my feet. “Why do you ask?”

“Lillim, I do actually care about you. You’re like the little sister I never wanted,” Melanie said, smiling sweetly. “And there have been some weird occurrences over the last few days. If I trust my gut at all, it tells me your ‘things’ have something to do with it.”

I shrugged my shoulders. “As far as I know, there’s nothing abnormal going on in the supernatural world.”

She put her hand against her face and rubbed her temples before letting out a long sigh. It was her dealing with me gesture. I saw it nearly every time I irritated her. Melanie blew out a slow breath that reeked of tobacco, and my stomach tried to crawl out my throat.

“I was never really good at asking for help. You know that.” She stopped talking and stared at the floor as if looking for the right words. “I know you’re good at finding things, specifically strange things.” She waggled her fingers like she was casting a spell. “Things others aren’t so good at finding, if ya catch my drift. Antonio might have found something, and I want you to look into it.”

“I have been known to find a bauble or two upon occasion. What do you need found?” I smiled and leaned against the door. As much as I disliked Antonio without actually meeting him in person, I was sure he was a millionaire and could totally pay me. I liked that a lot. In fact, it moved him to nearly the top of my list of people I tried not to hate without a good reason.

She pulled a sealed envelope from her coat and thrust it into my hands. “Let me know when you find out what’s going on. Your usual rate is in there with a little bonus. You know, for ice cream.”

Melanie was one of the few people who knew I could do magic and that I could be bought. Especially if I was being paid to do something I was already interested in. This though, this seemed a bit off. She referred jobs to me before but…

“Trust me. This is right up your alley.” She turned and moved down my walk toward Antonio and the Beamer. He seemed even more agitated. Briefly, I wondered why he was in such a rush. “And next time, try not to answer the door in your pajamas. It’s really unprofessional, though the ponies
are
cute.”

I fought the urge to yell at her as I shut the door. Instead, I leaned my back against the doorframe and tore the top off the manila envelope. A smile crossed my face as I dropped its remains to the floor. A while back, Melanie told me how she liked to save manila envelopes for use at a later time, to save both money and hassle. I smirked as a glossy photo slid out of the mangled envelope and into my hand.

If Melanie hadn’t given it to me, I wouldn’t have spared it a second glance. It was of the most completely average looking man I’ve ever seen walking down a street carrying a briefcase. He was wearing a royal blue suit with a navy fedora. Even his shoes were blue. On his wrist was an oversized watch that seemed blurry in the otherwise clear photo. It was circled in red marker with
There it is
written next to it.

I turned the picture over. Written on the back were several completely incomprehensible symbols. I set it on the pile of candy wrappers covering every square inch of my desk, and I looked inside the envelope. There was a neon blue post-it note that said, “He's murdering the time.”

Chapter 2

“Damn!” I cursed, crumpling the edge of the photograph in my hand.

“What?”

I glanced over my shoulder to see the ethereal form of my soulbound ghost, Hisen Mattoc, sauntering toward me. His presence was still a little irksome, since I hadn’t intended on acquiring him per se. He’d come along as a sort of package deal when I’d gotten reincarnated. Since then, I was, for lack of a better term, stuck with him.

Though Mattoc could make his clothing look like anything he wanted, this time he had settled on wearing jeans and a white sleeveless t-shirt. His short black hair was spiked outward so that it framed his high cheek bones. A pair of wrap-around sunglasses hid his eyes from sight. He glanced at the mess on my desk and before I could say anything, cut me off with a wave of his hand.

“You know, Lil, if you keep eating all the Halloween candy, not only will the young’uns not have any treats to go with their tricks, but you’ll get fat.” I glowered at the ghost, but he continued. “And don’t give me any of that rubbish about how snacks go into a separate stomach. The only place they go into is that soon to be gigantic ass of yours. Keep it up and there’s nothing but bright purple spandex in your future.”

“I love you too, Matto.” I felt heat spread across my cheeks. My clothes
did
feel a little tighter than they were a year ago when I was sixteen.

I glanced at Mattoc. He was standing with his back to me, staring at the photo on my desk. He turned toward me a moment later, the color washed out of his ghostly form. Had something spooked him?

“That is the Blue Prince. You know who that is?” he asked, eyeing me carefully. I nodded my affirmation. I knew who the Blue Prince was, but I hadn’t known he was the guy in the photograph. “Then you know he is one of the Lords of Death.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Good!” he snapped. “Now, please tell me you’re not going after one of the Lords of Death.”

I shrugged at him. “I just got that photo like thirty seconds ago. I didn’t even know it was of the Blue Prince until you told me.”

“Lil, whatever this is, you don’t want to be a part of it. You’d have to be really stupid to go after
Blue
. Pissing off Zef or Rhapsody, that’s one thing. Those two don’t hold grudges. Blue… Blue jumps into peoples’ bodies to inhabit like he’s playing musical chairs. Piss him off and he might take your meat suit out for a ride.” Mattoc gave me a pleading look. “You do not want that.”

“I know,” I snapped. “Unlike the other three Lords of Death who have had the same hosts forever, Blue has the unfortunate habit of burning his hosts to ashes.”

“Yeah, so unless you want to be turned into an ashtray, I suggest you pack a bag and hightail it to ‘Not Here’s Ville.’ If he
is
here and
is
running out of time, he could be searching for a new host. You do
not
want that new host to be you.”

“Look, I have no reason to think he would be here looking for me.” I sighed, letting out the breath slowly and carefully as I tried to ignore the bad feeling settling into my stomach. Something told me this hadn’t shown up on my doorstep by accident, but still… It didn’t make any sense. “Besides, I don’t even know what he looks like, Mattoc. If he’s here for me I’ll never see him coming.”