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

by J. A. Cipriano

  “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.

  For a second, it looked like the very heavens came alive with electricity as bolts of blue-white death arced across the sky and struck the Prince. He staggered backward under the onslaught. I watched in horror as he wrapped his hand around the electrified whip and yanked.

  My mother, the vicious Diana Cortez, careened toward the Blue Prince and Haijiku. My mother screamed as her adversary jammed the blade through her abdomen.

  Diana’s eyes opened wide in shock as I screamed. She stared down at her impaled torso, mouth opening and closing wordlessly. Haijiku was jammed through her to the hilt, and blood poured from the wound in an undignified fountain. My world felt like it ended. Had he just hurt my mother? No. That was not allowed!

  With a nonchalance that horrified me, the Blue Prince placed his boot on my mother’s chest and pushed her backward. She slid off the weapon, hands reaching down to staunch the bleeding. The Blue Prince grinned, that twisted smirk flashing across his face as he reared back and backhanded her. Her head snapped backward, and I watched helplessly as she fell from the sky. Her boney wings flapped once, twice, before they disintegrated as my mother’s power faded.

  Another scream tore from my throat, and I leapt from the back of the tyrannosaur, charging toward my mother’s falling body, putting all my strength into my legs. If I could have willed myself to go faster, I would have. I’ve never moved with such speed, never felt such urgency. I was going to catch her. I was going to catch her…

  Thwack!

  Her body struck the ground. I was still several feet away when it happened, and the shockwave beneath my feet made me stumble. She threw out her arm to try and absorb the impact, and it broke under the force of trying to stop her fall. Even Dioscuri couldn’t fight the full force of gravity.

  I reached her a moment later. Tears streamed down my face as I lifted her head. She was still breathing, still conscious as I pulled her close to my body. I’ve never been close to my mom, but I was starting to understand her. Now that I knew how Diana felt when I was born, how she ordered Caleb to keep me away, to keep me safe… well… it changed everything. “You can’t die, Mom. You can’t.”

  “Lillim.” She coughed. Her eyes were glassy, and I wasn’t sure if she really saw me or not. “I told that bastard to keep you away, to keep you safe.” She coughed again, blood seeping from her lips as she choked out the words. “He never does anything I tell him.”

  “Don’t talk, Mom. You’re going to be okay,” I said, running my hand over her face, brushing her hair away. There was so much blood, I didn’t know what to do.

  “I told Caleb to keep you safe, and he brought you here,” she said with a grimace, and her teeth were a bloody canvas. “I’m going to kick his ass for that.” Her breathing steadied a little. Her limbs were turned at all sorts of wrong angles. Even still, her bones writhed within her, visibly moving beneath her skin like thousands of tiny ants. Given long enough, her demon body would knit itself back together. She could live through this.

  The Blue Prince’s feet slammed into the ground next to us and the concrete beneath him cracked. I barely had time to glance up. The only thing I saw was the head of the jeweled scepter before it smacked me on the side of the head. I tumbled to the side as the blow rocked my body. Stars shot past my eyes and nausea swelled in my stomach. I took a deep breath and willed my unresponsive body to move. Blood, warm and slick, trickled down the side of my face. My hair was matted against my scalp.

  “My, my, Diana. How you’ve grown. I remember when you were just a wee sprat. Do you remember?” the Prince said as he turned to look at me, perhaps really seeing me for the first time. His smile twisted, and he took a step toward me, stepping on my mother’s hip as he did so. It cracked beneath his boot. He took another step and fractured Diana’s femur with his other foot.

  “I know you tried to save her, Diana, tried to send her away. In the end, it won’t matter. Your Dioscuri cannot protect anyone from me,” he said, glancing down at my mom. He kicked her in the stomach so hard, her body lifted off the ground and flew backward until a brick wall stopped her.

  Shock turned to anger and I screamed. I was so angry I could hardly see straight. A reddish tinge surrounded everything. This person wasn’t Melanie to me anymore. It was just the Blue Prince, and I was going to kill him. I leapt at him and smashed my fist into his throat. He stared down at me, unmoving. He grabbed my wrist and pulled it away as though I was a cobweb.

  “You know, sprat, Grollshanks was disappointed with you,” he said as he waggled Haijiku next to me. “He said you didn’t master this blade, but that’s not your true power, is it? You were always meant to wield Shirajirashii. Like Dirge.” He tossed me to the dirt, and I scrambled backward, pulling out my shotgun and pointing it at him.

  “Just don’t,” he said calmly, and my gun actually disassembled itself in my hands. He shook his head. “I still can’t believe you destroyed Mana
ka. Of all the Dioscuri, he was the one I treasured most. I even toyed with making him my next host.” He pointed Haijiku at me. “He was mine, and you took him from me.”

  That was pretty much when a javelin burst through the Blue Prince’s chest. His mouth opened and closed like a deranged fish, and he staggered forward. Behind him, my mother stood like a broken mannequin. She wasn’t actually standing up. The very wind itself was holding her up and allowing her to move.

  “Bitch!” the Blue Prince snarled. He grabbed the weapon from behind and yanked it out of his body. He focused on it for a second, and it dissolved.

  Just like that, the wind died away. He destroyed my mother’s weapon, well half of it, and in her state, there was no way she could draw on her power without it. I realized in horror that she was still using her mastery over the wind to move her body. She collapsed into a heap on the ground.

  “This,” he said, gesturing at the gaping wound in his chest. “Is nothing to me, but I think it will be the end of your friend. There’s no way she will survive now. I was going to let her go.” He turned toward my mother and made a grabbing motion. The wall above her came crashing down on top of her, burying her beneath hundreds of pounds of stone.

  “Oh, but you don’t understand,” I said, rising to my feet, the twin blades of Shirajirashii in my hands. “I’m still going to kill you.”

  A queer sort of smirk crossed his lips as he looked at me. It looked very strange coming from the face of my friend. “So now you’ve gotten serious, sprat? Well, have a care. I won’t go as easy on you as I did on your mother. Us gods have a bone to pick with you.” He leaned casually on his scepter and smiled. “You’re not even supposed to be alive. I’m just cleaning up the mess.” He sneered and pointed at me. “Do you remember what it felt like to die? Your pain, your last words, your very last thought?”

  His voice took a strange edge to it. I want to say it sounded crazy, but at the same time there was a tremor of sadness to it. He reached out and grabbed me by the chin, twisting it so he could stare into my eyes. “Do you?” he asked.

  I sucked in a deep breath and tried to focus on something other than his voice. It bashed into me, wormed into my brain until I couldn’t concentrate on anything else. All around us, the world started to distort in on itself. I don’t know why I didn’t try and stab him. I know I should have, but I couldn’t do anything but stare into his eyes like a mouse caught in the gaze of a serpent.

  “After all,” he cooed, “it’s no fun if you can’t remember what it feels like to die.”

  Chapter 14

  Blue light enveloped my body, and I screamed, flailing against the Blue Prince. His face leaned in close to mine, and he grinned, mouth stretching so wide it nearly split at the seams. “I can make you remember her death in exquisite detail. I can make you feel the agony of defeat.”

  “No,” I squeaked, kicking out at him with my legs.

  “No? Or yes!” He blew in my face, breath warm, wet, and strangely fruity. I felt myself falling, slipping away as the last looming traces of his smile disappeared from my sight, fading away like a Cheshire cat grin.

  I shook my head, suddenly disoriented. I was standing on the gates high above Lot looking out into the distance. The outskirts of the city surged with so many demons that it was like the ground had come alive… I’d never seen anything like it. It reminded me of stories about those ants that left nothing but bones behind.

  I swallowed, whirling around in horror. Behind me the city was in flames, but it looked… different. Where there should have been rubble and half-destroyed buildings, there were trees and streets and… shops? Granted they were mostly deserted, but I could still see smoke coming from chimneys, still see walkways partially swept.

  “Dirge, are you okay?” Joshua’s voice startled me, and I must have jumped fifteen feet in the air because when I turned to look at him he was staring at me, a worried look on his face.

  “Joshua?” I asked, my voice filled with confusion. He was clad in the standard Dioscuri skin tight black fighting suit. I didn’t think I’d ever seen him wear one. Dirge’s symbol, a purple lily, was wrapped around his left arm with the number two superimposed behind it. So… he was Dirge’s second in command? He’d never mentioned that before.

  “What’s going on, Joshua?” I asked, and my voice sounded off kilter. “And why do you keep calling me Dirge?”

  “Because that’s your name?” he asked, face concerned. That concern made a tremor run down my spine. His hand was moving toward me, and knew that if I didn’t stop him, he would reach out to comfort me. I swallowed and turned away from him, looking out at the throng of oncoming demons.

  They were running over the buildings and shanties of the outskirts, destroying everything beneath an endless tide of churning claws. I swallowed. “There’s so many…” I murmured.

  “Why didn’t we see this many demons marching toward us? The fates should have picked this up. We shouldn’t have had to find out about this by accident. If Sabastin hadn’t stumble into them at the pass that led between Earth and Lot…” Joshua’s voice trailed off.

  “Christ…” I said from my perch on the defensive wall.

  “I don’t think he has much say in it, Dirge,” Joshua said behind me.

  “Stop calling me Dirge!” I yelled. Here I was looking at certain death and the only thing I could think was I wanted him to stop calling me Dirge. I sighed and shook my head. I wasn’t quite sure what was going on, but for whatever reason, I seemed to be able to interact with Joshua. If I didn’t focus up something bad was going to happen to both of us.

  I pointed toward the coming onslaught of death. “I’ve never seen so many of the creatures in one place. Not ever,” I said. “That can’t be normal.”

  He reached out and his arms wormed around me, pulling my back against his chest. His breath was warm in my ear as he spoke. “I don’t know what’s going on with you right now. I’ll fix it if you let me, but only if you want me to.” His right hand snaked past my ear and aimed at the horde. “We need to deal with that though.”

  “Deal with that?” I screamed. “You can’t deal with that! That’s a million, billion demons that will eat us alive and spit us out.”

  “Dirge, I won’t let that happen.” His voice was low and confident as he spoke, but I’d heard him use that voice before. It was his lying voice. Joshua was lying. He didn’t think we had a chance either. Was he trying to be strong for me?

  “I don’t think you have much choice in the matter,” I replied as I reached down and gripped the hilts of Shirajirashii. They felt strangely different in my hands. I glanced down at them and my eyes went wide. Those… those weren’t my hands.

  I threw Joshua off of me and took a step forward, whirling my body around. This wasn’t me… this wasn’t my body. This was… this was Dirge’s body. How in the hell was I trapped in Dirge’s body?

  Joshua moved toward me, and without thinking, I smacked him away. He teetered, losing his balance and tumbling off the wall. I lunged toward the edge to try and grab him. I seized him by the wrist, and he glanced down. The first of the creatures reached the walls, and they looked up at him, all slavering jaws and gnashing teeth.

  “I’m good,” Joshua said, voice strained. “Let me go, I’ll be fine.” With those words, he flung himself backward, leaving my hand clutching empty air.

  “No!” I screamed as his form mutated and grew. First one head, then two, then four, then so many heads burst from his body I lost count. So many mouths, all screaming, all furious. The grotesque monstrosity that was Joshua grew to the size of a brontosaurus. Claws and limbs and heads slammed into the mass of oncoming demons, swallowing them whole before they could even move. Many more were ripped to pieces by the thousands of arms that manifested on his gigantic bulk. A single female head that resembled mine a little too closely turned to face me, and I took a step back.

  “Well?” it asked in my voice. “Aren’t you coming?”

  I took a deep
breath and tried not to panic. Tried to ignore how my stomach swelled up with nausea. I was Lillim Callina, damn it. Below, Joshua devoured one of the creatures… whole. Its legs kicked as he sucked it into one of his huge gaping maws.

  “Come on, Dirge, you’ll miss all the fun,” Joshua called in a voice that was multiplied a thousand fold. It reverberated in my ears like a bass guitar, and I took a hesitant step backward.

  I tried to move my mouth but nothing happened. What Joshua turned into sickened me... Was I supposed to be proud of what he’d become? I’d never seen him truly embrace his demonic side before, and that he willingly did so scared the bejesus out of me. Still, I suppose he could have picked a worse time to unleash it. Right now he was focused on the horde… and amazingly, it was starting to slow.

  I looked down at my hands, still clutching my weapons so tightly my knuckles had turned white with the strain. I didn’t remember drawing them, but they gleamed brightly as I lifted them into the air. The face that flashed at me from the glittering blades was not mine, and I resisted the urge to throw them down in horror. Staring back at me was the face of Dirge Meilan, lavender hair in a pageboy cut that framed her face. Her eyes were sunken and dark, reminding me of a boxer the day after a prize fight.

  “I don’t know how you’ve put me here, Blue Prince,” I said to the empty air, “but I’m not playing your game.” I sat down on the cold stone of the walls. The thrum of power rippled up the gate wall and through my fighting suit. It strummed along my back, filling me with energy.

  “Do whatever you want, love,” the Blue Prince’s voice whispered in my ear. “But if you let Joshua die… he will actually be dead. This isn’t some illusion. This is really happening… right now.”