I whirled around, but the Blue Prince was nowhere to be found. Could he be right? Did he really send me back to the exact moment of Dirge’s final battle? No… that didn’t make sense… he had to be lying, right? Even as I had the thought, I felt dumb. He was the master of time, after all.
Joshua screamed below me. The throng of demons overtook him, dragging him to the ground beneath an unending sea of monsters. Black smoke poured from the ground as Joshua fought and thrashed.
It was then that I felt the tiniest glimmer of consciousness in the back of my skull. Like an ice-cold pinprick in the back of my mind, it forced me to look down at Joshua. “Please,” the voice in my head said. “Please save him.”
I swallowed again. “Dirge?” I asked, but the tremor of consciousness died away, melting like a snowflake on my tongue. I shook my head and resisted the urge to scream in frustration.
“Fine,” I whispered to the empty air. “I’ll play your little game, Prince.”
Joshua threw off the demons and stood once again, his enormous bulk thrashing and mauling them. It was like watching a sandcastle trying to resist the ocean. There was no way he was going to win.
“I… I’m coming, Joshua,” I finally called back as I dove off of the wall. I slid lithely through the air and slammed onto the top of a demon, shattering its body beneath my black combat boots in a spray of green ichor. I stood on its corpse as the horde took notice of me. I whirled around with wild abandon, plunging the twin blades of Shirajirashii into the mass of gnawing flesh that came at me.
The sky ripped open above me, revealing a pathway to the nether. Purple light spilled over us as something burst forth from the rift. It was stupidly fast, moving so quickly I couldn’t make out what it was. It hit Joshua, and his immense bulk slumped to the side. Joshua’s massive form began to dissolve, flaking away like burned paper as his normal body tumbled back to Earth.
He looked so frail lying on the ground struggling to stand. I had to resist the urge to run to him. It was moments like this that made him seem way more human than demon. Damn him.
“Dirge,” Joshua croaked as the blur smashed into me and slammed me into the very walls of Lot. It was like being hit by a truck. My breath whooshed from my lungs, and my eyes went blurry. I swung my wakazashi at the creature, and the blade found purchase in the metallic mask it wore. It was painted with red and blue sigils that I didn’t understand. The shriek of steel echoed through the air as my sword cracked, webbing outward from the point of impact like a broken windshield. The creature flung me to the ground as the mask fell away.
“Manaka…” I whispered.
Chapter 15
Jiroushou Manaka, the former leader of the Dioscuri, smiled. His lips curled back into that eerie grin that chilled me to the core as I lay on my back staring up at him. Deep bags filled the space beneath his wild, bloodshot gray eyes. His long black hair was pulled into a ponytail and tied with a simple black ribbon. I wanted to hate him, but looking at him, he just seemed crazy.
It was a little strange to see him like this because it had been during the battle that the Dioscuri had learned Manaka had betrayed them. I’d always known him as a traitor, but I couldn’t imagine what it would have been like for Dirge to see him. He had been her leader, and now, now he was here to kill her and all her friends.
“It’s my pleasure, Miss Meilan,” he said, bowing before me in a flourish. “Unfortunately, I’m going to have to put an end to your little rampage. Those demons must enter the city.” He shrugged.
“You know,” I said, getting to my feet and pointing Shirajirashii at him, “I’m the one who kills you.”
“Dirge!” Joshua screamed, and I glanced at him as he crawled toward me. The creatures were upon Joshua as he got to his feet, still a bit wobbly, and took a few steps toward us. He spun and his fists lashed outward at the oncoming demons as they tore into his body. Smoke began to stream from his wounds, and I knew in that moment he would never get to me in time to help. Even if he did, he wouldn’t be able to take Manaka. The best thing he could do now would be to run.
As I glanced toward back him, Manaka grinned his feverish smile that revealed far too many teeth to be pleasant, and drove Haijiku into my stomach.
“I don’t see how that’s possible, Dirge,” he said as I looked down at my abdomen. Blood leaked from my flesh, staining my overcoat scarlet. Instead of pain, a strange numbness radiated from the wound as I stared at it. My mouth opened and closed like a dying fish as I struggled to comprehend what just happened.
“You’re as good as dead,” Manaka added, driving me backward, pinning me to the wall like a butterfly. My head smacked against the stone, and I screamed.
“Hang on dammit! I’m coming, Dirge! Just hang on!” Joshua yelled, but he sounded so very far away. It was like he was in a whole other world.
“Do you enjoy the kiss of my steel, Dirge?” Manaka asked with a smile, and his eyes revealed a sick sort of amusement as he twisted his blade in my stomach. Pain exploded through me, white hot and so real it made my vision go hazy.
“I can’t breathe.” The words tumbled from my mouth before I could stop them.
“You rabble never did learn to breathe in my presence,” Manaka sneered and yanked Haijiku violently to the side, spilling my entrails to the ground. I slumped to my knees in the dirt. I shut my eyes, the pain was so blinding that I could barely focus on anything else. My insides were strewn about the ground in front of me. I gritted my teeth together and reached for Shirajirashii. I could only find Set.
He placed his white-booted foot on my chest and kicked me onto my back. He knelt down next to me and drove his hand into my wound. I screamed again.
“So this is what your insides feel like. How does it feel, Miss Meilan?” he asked, pulling his hand free and showing it to me. It was covered in gooey crimson chunks.
I reached down and tried to cover my wound with my hand. I’m not sure why really. My limbs were sluggish. I was nearing the end, and I didn’t like it. I shut my eyes and forced myself to try and take a real breath. A sharp slap jolted my eyes back open. Manaka was looking into my eyes from only an inch away. His breath was hot on my cheeks as he ran one gore-stained finger down my cheek.
“They said you were strong. Maybe you are among other ants. We are as dissimilar in strength as a fly to a tyrannosaurus,” he said as he leaned forward and kissed me on the forehead. His lips felt strangely warm on my flesh. “If only I had taken over Lot sooner. Maybe I wouldn’t have had to kill you. Maybe we could have been friends.”
Manaka turned his head toward the sky and laughed. The piercing sound of it made me shiver. It was so very different from the ravenous cries of the demon army, and so much scarier.
I swung Set as hard as I could, catching him solidly in the side. Blood exploded from the wound, and his eyes opened wide in shock as I seized his wrist and rolled my body over.
Snap!
Manaka’s arm shattered. He collapsed to the ground on top of my weapon. Even still, it would only be a couple moments before he recovered enough to finish me off for good. I felt my body slowing, felt it giving up as I slumped to the ground.
“I don’t know who you are,” the voice that pleaded with me to help Joshua said. It was strained and hollow. “But somehow, you’re making it so I can’t control my body. I don’t have a lot left… Even I can’t survive being disemboweled. But I want to take him with me. I could draw on Shirajirashii. I could drain my power, and I would be able to stand for a little while… maybe…”
The words reverberated in my head like the shockwave from a grenade. Was I the cause of Dirge’s death? If the Blue Prince really sent me back in time, was she defeated because I was in control? If that was the case…
“Okay,” I whispered. “Do what you need to do.”
“Joshua… get out of here!” my voice screamed as thousands and thousands of demons poured through the rift. It was like every demon in the universe was coming to kill us. “Get on the other s
ide of the wall. I’ll be right behind you!”
Joshua leapt backward. I’m not sure if he actually saw me. He listened though. As he moved past the walls, I felt my face twist into a smile. I looked up as Manaka tore his hand free from my grip, and even though it hurt like nothing I’ve ever felt before, my body reached out and touched the walls with one blood-soaked hand. My fingers slid down the stone, covering it with blood. “Shirajirashii, I release you… Hankyouran Shinibana.”
Using my blood as a conduit, power ripped out of me and slammed into the wall. Shirajirashii’s power exploded through the stone, strengthening the magical barrier that surrounded the city. The barrier shot out of the wall, sealing the entire area in the shell of the force field, leaving Joshua, Lot, and all the Dioscuri on one side and me and the demon horde on the other side of the wall. The entirety of the scene was shrouded in white as Shirajirashii’s power flowed out of me and into the city’s gates.
“Kongounonikutai,” my body murmured. The white focused itself on my body, turning the entirety of my form solid white save a bloody smear on my forehead. Joshua screamed, but I could barely hear his voice. He pounded on the walls, but there was no way he could get through.
“No, Dirge! Don’t do this! Don’t…” he cried.
I gulped. I tasted blood in my mouth as Manaka slumped backward with hatred in his eyes. Realization was dawning across his face like a sunrise. With the last of my strength, my body raised Shirajirashii high into the air and with one single effort, pointed it at Manaka. “Kuroman’etsu.”
The change was instantaneous. My wrists and ankles began to leak blood. It flowed down my limbs like burning magma. My body turned toward Joshua and smiled.
“It’s okay, Joshua,” I felt myself say, and in that moment, I realized why she had done it. She had sacrificed herself to save him. “It’s okay.”
My flesh smoldered and charred as light began to shine out of my body. The walls of Lot trembled with power as I met Manaka’s eyes, blood dripping between my teeth. Steam curled off my body as it stood slowly, one arm trying to hold my entrails inside as I took a step toward him.
My hand reached out and seized his wrist. Where my blood touched his body, it sizzled and burned like a corrosive acid. An ear splitting crack of energy surged out of my body in a wave, throwing us both to the ground. I landed on top of him, and my blood gushed outward, spilling over him and dissolving his flesh as he screamed and thrashed like a wounded deer in the jaws of a wolf.
My power rebounded off of the city’s supercharged walls and flung itself backward toward the demons, compounding the damage and power of the blast which splintered the demon army like flung toothpicks and ripped through everything.
Chapter 16
The whole world fell away into the abyss. For a moment, there was no sound. There was just silence. Then I was back on the battlefield with the Blue Prince’s face looming in front of me, still grinning like a deranged Cheshire cat as he shook me like a ragdoll.
“Don’t you see, Lillim? Dirge was always meant to be dead,” the Blue Prince said with a frantic glee in his eyes. He pulled me close until we were nearly eye to eye. “Dirge’s death was simply… inevitable. She was always going to die so you could live, go back in time, and make her lose that battle.” He smiled, although I didn’t know why. “And now you’re asking yourself why I showed you this, aren’t you? Well, it’s so you can realize something—”
I thrust my hand forward, and Isis punched through his chest all the way to the hilt. I jerked the blade violently down and to the side, spilling his insides to the ground as he released me. His hand clenched and unclenched as shock registered in his eyes.
“Do you remember that, jackass?” I said as I fell into a crouch and crossed my swords in front of me, both with blades of the whitest snow and hilts of the blackest obsidian. I whipped the blades outward through his neck in a clean sweep. He stood there for a moment as recognition finally dawned in his eyes before his body toppled forward, head flopping down on the ground at my feet.
I moved past the fallen body of my friend and toward the rubble that buried my mother. I was not going to think about Melanie, about the fact I had just murdered her. If I thought about it, I’d stop moving. If I stopped moving, I’d start to cry. If I started crying, there’d be no one to dig my mother out from beneath a thousand pounds of stone.
There was so much rock I didn’t know how she could have survived. Deep inside, I hoped her demonic resilience was enough to keep her alive. I scrabbled through the debris, tossing chunks of rock across the ground as I searched frantically for her.
I hadn’t begun to process what the Blue Prince showed me either. The last vision of my former life echoed in my mind. I knew that later, when this was over, I’d have to think about it a little more clearly. I couldn’t do that right now because… well, what if the Blue Prince was right? What if I was the real reason she was dead? Thoughts like that would be my undoing right now, in the middle of a battle.
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “Dirge was always going to die. Maybe she died differently because I was in control of her body, but I wouldn’t even be here if she hadn’t died in that fight.” That’s pretty much when I realized I was justifying myself to a corpse. I let out a deep breath and pushed the thoughts down as I far inside myself as I could as shrieks filled the air.
Lightning flashed through the sky. My father, Sabastin Callina, streaked through the sky above Lot like an avenging god. Bolts of energy flew off him like a Tesla coil, striking down orcs in droves. He streaked toward the portal, storms following in his wake. He held his hands out and grabbed the air on either side of the breach. He yanked his hands forward, and the very fabric of reality bent together in a flash of light and energy until the rift was sealed.
I turned toward the rubble. This fight was over. It was more a matter of mopping up. This didn’t make any sense. Why would they have kept me from this battle? We won, right? I wiped my eyes on my sleeve and kept digging until I found the broken body of my mother. Maybe… maybe we didn’t really win.
She was still breathing. As long as she was breathing, she would live. Thank God for demonic healing. I pulled her free of the rubble and held her close to me.
“I know I don’t say this often enough, Mom, but I love you. So don’t die.” The words barely left my mouth when my father slammed into the ground next to me. He took one look at the woman in my arms and rushed over to me. He took her from me so unceremoniously it felt like he didn’t quite trust me with her.
“What have you done?” His words were cool, and for a moment, I thought they were aimed at me. I realized he was talking to the Blue Prince’s corpse.
“What was necessary?” the corpse answered, which, let me tell you shocked the hell out of me. I hadn’t even come to terms with the fact that I decapitated Melanie and now her decapitated head was speaking to us. I was going to need major therapy.
My father, Storm Eye Sabastin Callina, turned his body to the wreckage. “This was completely and utterly unnecessary. You have destroyed my home. You have injured my wife. You have hurt my daughter and slaughtered my friends. What possible reason could you have for this, Prince?”
The Blue Prince’s laughter filled the air, and I wondered how he managed to laugh without a body. I shook my head and took a step closer until I was standing next to my father. Blue blood pooled around Melanie’s corpse. Her eyes were opaque and lifeless. A bluish silhouette drifted listlessly just above her form. Ah… that was how he was talking. Ghostly resilience be damned.
“I needed a new host,” the Blue Prince said, gesturing toward the body on the ground. “That one was not powerful enough to contain me. She was starting to dissolve.” He grinned, an eerie smile that made a parade of icy bugs run down my spine. “You see, I’ve never been able to find someone with quite the right power level to be my host. That was why I wanted to use Manaka— which thanks to you— is no longer an option.” He rubbed his chin and his eyes opened in s
udden realization. “Since you took the host I wanted, you must take his place, Lillim Callina.” Horror filled me, rising up inside my stomach like a serpent and strangling me from the inside. I did not want to have my body taken over by a crazy god. I had so much I still wanted to do, so many people I cared about…
“No!” my father said, stepping between us. “You cannot have her, Blue Prince.”
“I must have a host, Sabastin. You know this,” the Blue Prince said. “If I have no home, well… you know what happens when you rip the leg off a chair.” He leaned in close to us, covering his mouth with his hand conspiratorially. “Here’s a hint. It falls down.” The callousness of which the Blue Prince spoke about it chilled me to my core. It made me realize he was way beyond thinking about silly things like life and death. He was alien, and because of that, trying to relate to him was nearly impossible.
“I am aware of your status, Prince,” Sabastin Callina said with a shake of his head. “You still cannot have my daughter.”
“Then again,” the Prince rubbed his hands together as he spoke, “you could always volunteer to take her place. I suspect you will do nicely.”
“Hey!” I took a step forward to do… what? I wasn’t sure. How do you kill something you already decapitated?
My father shut his eyes and shook his head. He turned and handed my mother to me. “Take care of her,” he said in a voice so cold it very nearly stopped my heart.
“No! Dad! What are you doing?” I said as my mother’s body fell into my arms.
“The Blue Prince must have a host, you know that. If not, the rules of death will no longer apply,” he said as he leaned his scarred face toward me and kissed me on the forehead. His lips were rough and warm on my skin. “It cannot be you, my daughter.”
“But why does it have to be you?” I asked. “It could be anyone. He could pick anyone.”
“Get on with it!” the Prince said, snapping his fingers a couple times. “I haven’t got all day, Sabastin.”
The Hatter is Mad: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Lillim Callina Chronicles Book 2) Page 8