The Hatter is Mad: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Lillim Callina Chronicles Book 2) (8 page)

“Talked? You just left. You said all those nice things to me and you left,” I said, looking away from him and at the off-white walls of the hallway.

“You make it too hard for me, Lillim. When I’m around you, I do stupid things. I’ve never thought about other girls the way I do about you. I act reckless when I’m around you. It—”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I screamed and grabbed him by the shoulders. I wanted to shake him. Shake him until I felt better, shake my feelings away. I really don’t know what I wanted to be honest, but it wasn’t this. I didn’t want to even be around him. I never felt anything like this before and…

“I fought a giant-snake demon, and it poisoned me. Every time I use my powers I get weaker thanks to that bastard. If I stayed with you, my feelings would get in the way—”

“What do you mean your feelings would get in the way?” I interrupted as a million thoughts ran through my brain. “What do you mean?”

He blushed and looked away, staring at the floor like it was the most interesting thing in the world. “I care about you, Lillim.” He swallowed and looked up at me. The emotion in his eyes was enough to thaw my heart and almost make me forgive him. Almost.

“People who care don’t leave in the middle of the night…” I said though the words had lost some of their harshness. That wasn’t fair. He needed to stop looking at me like he was. If he kept doing that, I was going to forget I was supposed to be mad at him…

“I wanted to stay.” He reached out and traced my cheek with his knuckle. The heat of his touch was enough to make my knees go a little weak. “More than anything in the world, Lillim. I want to be with you.”

“Stop. Please,” I whispered, my voice partially catching in my throat as I reached up to pull his hand away, but the moment my fingers wrapped around his, I could do little more than squeeze. This wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair for him to act sweet while saying he couldn’t be with me. It just wasn’t. He was supposed to be a jerk, not act like I was kicking his puppy. Not when he was at fault.

“I’m sorry,” Caleb whispered, moving closer so our bodies were nearly pressed together. He reached down with his free hand and slowly moved my chin up so I was looking up into his eyes. They were so blue it felt like I was staring into the ocean. “You don’t realize how much.”

“If you were sorry, you would be with me, Caleb. You wouldn’t make excuses about it,” I muttered, and the hurt in my voice surprised even me. It was in that moment I knew I’d still be with him if he asked. The thought chilled me because I wasn’t sure I was ready to admit it to myself, let alone him.

“Do you know why I left?” he asked, leaning into me, but the only thing I could focus on were his lips as he spoke.

“Because you didn’t like me? Because you were just following orders? Because—” he cut me off by pressing his mouth against mine. The movement was so sudden, I couldn’t even think as an electric shock rippled down my spine, turning me into jelly. His hands roamed over my back, pulling me into him as I stood there unable to even think.

“I’d try to protect you,” he said, pulling away and brushing the hair out of my face with one hand. “Which is stupid because the last time I checked, you’re the most powerful Dioscuri on the planet. You know it. I know it. Diana knows it. Hell, even Warthor Ein is scared of you,” Caleb said before leaning down until we were eye to eye. “Even the monsters know that. Why else would the Death’s Edge come after you? You think Grollshanks wants to kill you? What a damned laugh. You’d already be dead if that was the case. What he wants, what Grollshanks really wants, is for you to kill him. He only fights people he thinks can kill him. That’s why he left after he beat you.”

I stumbled away from him partially because of what had just happened and partially because of what he had just said. I mean, he’d just kissed me… and what did I do? I’d let him. I’d have let him do anything. I swallowed, taking a deep breath and trying to still my racing heart as he stared at me, patiently waiting for a response to what he’d said.

“What does that have to do with anything?” I asked him cautiously. “There is hardly any supernatural activity in my sector. If you stayed there, no one would bother you. You’d be safe.” I left the “with me” part of my statement unsaid.

“And why the hell do you think that is? You killed a dragon and defeated a master vampire. You think creatures like Ajax,” Caleb said as he grabbed me by the hand and dragged me back into the office. He was suddenly more upset than I’d seen him in a long time. He pointed at Ajax, one finger shaking. “You think
they
don’t take notice?”

“It’s true. We take notice when powers like yours claim a territory. I pulled all my people out of your area,” Ajax said, but he wasn’t smiling anymore. “You are the boogieman. The Dioscuri have been saying that if we don’t behave, you’re coming for us. You are on a whole different kind of radar.”

“The Dioscuri have been doing what?” I asked incredulously. There was no way that was true. Aside from the fact they were touting me like I was some kind of supernatural bad ass, it was a rude thing to do. Sure, the Dioscuri used Warthor Ein like a goddamn boogeyman, but I was a far cry from Warthor ‘I kill dragons for fun’ Ein.

Caleb shook his head and rubbed his eyes with one hand. “It’s true, Lillim. They are talking about you like you’re vengeance personified.”

I wanted to laugh, but for some reason, I suddenly felt angry. I’d never once been told I was good enough. Even if I was, there was no way my mother would condone people talking about me like that. She’d put them in their place, wouldn’t she? “Unlikely. That’s not like them. My mother is firmly in the camp of ‘Lillim can’t do anything right.’”

“The only thing your mother wants to do is keep you safe, Lillim. You think we’re here by accident?” Even as Caleb said the words, horror filled me.

“Safe from what? Something back home in Lot?” I asked, and with one deft movement I pulled out my shotgun and pointed it at his face. “Are you meaning to tell me we’re here as a distraction? For me?”

Chapter 13

Lot was a smoking ruin. Again. The great spires of the central library were on fire. They managed to survive a demon invasion, a civil war, and countless other atrocities, but now the spires were burning, filling the sky with so much smoke, it was nearly a thick black blanket in the air.

Huge gaping holes were punched in the stone barracks surrounding the central hub of the city. Had someone been firing a cannon or something? Many of the thatched roofs were on fire as the wind carried the blaze toward the center of Lot.

Lot was built like a fortress of successive rings, each meant to keep the outsiders away from the center of the city. It was where the civilians lived. If they were already able to burn the central library, the Dioscuri were in trouble. It meant the invaders had already breached the civilian quarters.

All around us, Dioscuri were locked in combat with orcs, hundreds and hundreds of orcs. A giant blue and green portal swirling in the sky above us explained how they could. A magical barrier that prevented entry didn’t really work if you could open a gateway inside it. I couldn’t even tell how big the portal was because legions of the green-skinned, brown-tusked monstrosities were charging out of the portal’s gaping maw.

“Orcs have been extinct for millennia,” I screamed at Caleb, trying to be heard over the din of combat.

“We found out that wasn’t true a few weeks ago. Their dimension was only sealed away,” Caleb said, reaching back and pulling out his sword, Incinerator. “And before you ask, no, we didn’t open that portal.”

“I can’t believe you knew this was coming for weeks and didn’t tell me. I could have—”

“Done absolutely nothing to stop it,” Caleb interrupted. “That’s why your mother told me to distract you. She doesn’t want you here because you could get killed… like Dirge.”

“What?” I asked, suddenly confused. “She thinks I’ll blow myself up?”

“She thinks you might sacrifice yourself to save us all, yes,” Caleb responded. “That’s why I was told to take you after the Blue Prince.”

“Well I’ve found him now,” I said.

In the distance, I could see something that vaguely resembled a swirling blue-black tornado sweeping up everything.

I sprinted into the melee. I still couldn’t believe what Caleb told me. Was it really possible my mother purposely tried to keep me out of this fight? Caleb said it was because my mother thought I might die. Still though, why wouldn’t she want me here to help defend the city… unless this was their last stand? Did my mother think we could lose? On our home turf?

If that was true, and only Caleb and I were left alive, what would be the point? To repopulate? Bullocks to that. It didn’t matter at that moment, the Blue Prince was going down because at least for now, I knew right where he was.

He was the only real threat anyway. Realistically, the only thing the orcs had on us was numbers. There was a metric ton of them and only a few of us. Sure, we’d get tired before they were all dead, but here on our home turf, Dioscuri could call on tremendous power because the runes set into the city’s streets were designed enhance the power of Dioscuri within its walls. Someone like Caleb or my mother would be like a Greek god of old stomping through armies of mortals. Apparently such things actually happened before. Still there were so many orcs that it seemed unreal.

An orc as huge as he was disgusting smashed a giant axe down in front of me, splintering the cobblestone road and sending shards of debris flying in every direction. Without even thinking, I poked him in his piggish face and said, “Boom!” Magical energy exploded from my fingertips, slamming into his face and tearing his head from his shoulder in a spray of green blood. I was already past him before his body fell to the ground with a thud.

I twisted, narrowly avoiding a two-handed sword as it cleaved through the air. I lashed out with the twin blades of Shirajirashii, disemboweling the huge, sword-wielding orc before diving sideways to avoid another brute’s war-hammer. It smashed into the ground, and without even really focusing, I pointed my wakazashi at the behemoth. A jet of red lightning leapt from the tip of my blade and slammed into the orc.

It howled in pain, reeling back as I took two steps toward it and drove my knee into its crotch. Its eyes bugged out, and it sank slowly to its knees in time to meet my elbow with its face. The orc lifted upward off the ground and flew backward as I whipped around, sheathing my katana, and grabbed hold of the its fallen war-hammer.

I whirled in an arc and released the massive weapon into the chest of another of the beasts. It stood there dumbfounded for a second as the heavy head of the war-hammer punched through its body and crashed into the creature behind it. The orc took one of those slow-motion moments to feel the hole in its chest before it was swept aside by one of its brethern riding what I could only describe as a winged tyrannosaurus rex. Orcs with dinosaurs… that seemed reasonable.

“So you’ve decided to make it interesting. Okay. Let’s go!” I yelled at the dinosaur as it charged toward me. It narrowed cold, emotionless eyes at me that reminded me of a shark circling its prey. I sheathed my wakazashi and pulled my Beretta from beneath my overcoat. I dove to the side, roiling over the cobblestone-lined streets of Lot as the beast charged past me. I came to my feet, dropped into a shooting stance, and emptied my gun into the back of the orc riding the behemoth.

The orcish rider slumped to the side as I sprinted forward and leapt, throwing energy into my legs as I did so. I landed on the saddle of the T-rex and kicked the orc off the side of the behemoth. It hit the ground with a wet thud. I grabbed the tyrannosaur’s reins and swung it around in a wild arc, letting the beast’s massive tail clear the orcs circling me like a pack of wolves.

“I have a dinosaur! Yee haw!” I cried.

To my right, Caleb swept through the air firing blasts of flame from the back of some kind of pterodactyl-esque creature. Score two for the good guys.

In front of us, the tornado stopped as something slammed into it like a speeding train. When the debris cleared, two figures hovered in the air about fifteen feet from each other. I expected one to be the Blue Prince but he was… in Melanie’s body? Melanie was clad in an obscenely blue suit with a sort of cape thing a king or a pimp might wear slung around her neck. In her left hand, she held a jeweled scepter and in her right, she held a blade so black it absorbed light.

The Blue Prince had taken over Melanie’s body. He
was
Melanie now. Had he done this so that I’d have to kill my friend to stop him? Could I do that? The thought chilled me partially because I was even thinking the question, but that wasn’t really the reason why I almost ran away then and there. It was because I knew I could do it. I
could
kill her if it meant saving my family. Still, there had to be another way, right? There
just
had to be. Even though I could deal with the nightmares that would follow, I wanted to save her!

I gulped and kicked my mount to speed it toward the Prince. I didn’t have a plan exactly, but I’d think of something.

As I watched her zoom through the air, I realized Melanie was holding Haijiku. She was holding my weapon. The one I’d claimed from the fallen body of Jiroushou Manaka. How could the Prince have possibly gotten it? What claim over the Emissary of Darkness could the Blue Prince have?

That’s when I realized who was facing down the Blue Prince. My mother. Immense boney wings protruded from her back so she looked like a demonic angel. She hovered there with a whip that looked to be made of raw lightning in one hand and a boney javelin in the other. The vicious Diana Cortez just stepped up to challenge the Blue Prince.

This was not good. My mother would only stop fighting when she was dead, and something deep in the pit of my stomach told me she was going to lose.

They met in a horrific charge, and my mother was flung back by a one-handed swipe of Haijiku that she caught on her javelin. Her whip flashed out, wrapping around the Blue Prince’s hand. My mother screamed, and the clouds ripped apart, lightning flashed and the skies roared.