Fatal Ties: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Lillim Callina Chronicles Book 7)

by J. A. Cipriano

  “No!” Thes cried, suddenly looming over me with one huge fist rearing up to crush my skull like a casaba melon. I hadn’t even seen him move, but I was hoping that was because I’d been distracted by the whole “nearly having my chest caved in” thing.

  Sure, Thes was quicker than I remembered, but I was faster. Not by a lot, but by enough. I stopped his attack with a knee to the groin. His eyes bugged out of his head as I called upon my power. Red and blue sparks danced across my skin as I grabbed him by his high and mighty werewolf throat and flung him through the Vikings like a bowling ball.

  As he cleaved through a line of Norse undead, the sound of snapping bones and road rash made my stomach twist. Still, I ignored it. Thes would be up in a second, and now he’d be angrier, which would be totally awesome. It was time to put a dent in him before he got uppity. If I didn’t prove who was the alpha dog here and now, Thes would keep coming.

  I shut my eyes in concentration and pulled on the power of Shirajirashii. Energy crackled along my skin as I held Set up toward the sky and let loose a wordless cry. Then I did the one thing only really powerful Dioscuri ever did. I summoned a god. Actually, I lied. I summoned two gods.

  A bolt of crimson lightning exploded from the cloudless sky, slamming into the empty space between Thes and I. He was already on his feet and racing toward me when the ground between us turned to molten glass that congealed into two figures, a man and a woman.

  “It’s been a while, Thes.” Isis took a step forward and narrowed her cold eyes at Thes, her pale flesh practically blinding in the light of the sun.

  “You!” Thes cried, and before I realized what was happening, he’d leapt upon the goddess and wrapped his hands around her throat.

  Set ignored his sister’s plight and turned to look at me. His black as coal skin darkened as he surveyed the battlefield and snorted. “What would you have me do, Lillim?” His eyes blazing like flaming rubies.

  “Kill them.” I pointed at the horde pressing into the Dioscuri line. Set nodded as crimson flames swept outward from his outstretched hands and incinerated a block of soldiers. As he did, I felt my vision go ten kinds of blurry. I didn’t have the power to keep them both manifested for long.

  “I said I was sorry,” Isis, said, grabbing Thes by the back of his neck and tossing him toward the sinkhole like a naughty puppy. He hit the ground and as he did, Isis appeared in front of him and pinned him to the asphalt with her knee. Blue flame erupted all around her and I realized she was trying to buy me time without actually hurting Thes.

  That meant I had to get Connor to do something before Thes came back over me and tried to feed me my own teeth. If I didn’t, well, I had one last trick up my sleeve. I really didn’t want to use it, if I didn’t have to, but even though it’d make me relive the worst memories of every person on this battlefield, I would.

  “Connor, if you don’t do something now, I will never forgive you.” I turned and glared at him, doing my best to give him the same look my mother gave me when I used to say stuff was too hard or too unfair. “Understand?”

  “Yeah,” he replied, and there was a lot of responsibility in that single word. Way more than there should have been, and I wondered if maybe he and Thes had maybe had this fight before, maybe more than once. Only, now I was giving him permission. “I understand.”

  “Good,” I said, nodding to him as Thes threw off the dozen Vikings dogpiled on top of him and got slowly to his feet. The look in his eyes told me I’d crossed a line, and there’d be no coming back. That was fine, I was all about lines and the crossing thereof.

  “Leave and I won’t unmake you.” Connor’s voice boomed across the battlefield as darkness rose up around him like a rising serpent. My heart hammered in my chest, and the hair on the back of my neck stood straight up. Vikings, Dioscuri, and werewolves alike stopped everything to turn and look at him as he raised one hand in front of himself and pulled every last speck of power from the air. It pulsated in front of him like a damned spirit bomb. “You have twenty seconds to comply.”

  No one moved, and it got so quiet I could have heard a pin drop. Time seemed to stretch out in front of us as the darkness in Connor’s hand began to throb. Little tentacles of oily black power reached outward, swatting at the air, and as they did, they seemed to draw the color from the surroundings, leaving every just a little washed out.

  “Five, four, three.” Connor shut his eyes, and the tentacles grew until it was like Connor held a kraken in his bare hand. Those tentacles writhed and multiplied ten, no, a hundred fold. They leapt out across the length of the battlefield and swatted at the air just above the horde. “Two, one.”

  As the tentacles lashed out, I nearly lost my lunch. The only reason I didn’t was because there was nothing inside me to come out. As it stood, I fell to my knees dry heaving. The tentacles didn’t crush the Vikings, nor did it tear them to shreds. No, instead tentacles ripped the Vikings into bits of indistinguishable gore while others knit the pieces of rent Vikings back together into a hideous tapestry of blood and slimy bits. Then those were unmade.

  It all happened in an eye blink. That was how long it took to reduce the thousands of Vikings into an ankle deep pool of sludge that glimmered in the sun high overhead, and yet, somehow, Connor had managed not to hurt a single werewolf or Dioscuri. It was amazing. And frightening as hell. I knew in that moment I’d kill him. Nothing could make me feel that way and be allowed to live. I also knew Thes had been wrong. Connor couldn’t be saved. He was too dangerous to even try and save.

  “It’s done.” Connor turned toward me as the darkness in his hand dissipated, and the ichor covering the street began to flow back into the sinkhole. “How’d you like my whole Robocop thing?” He gave me a smile that was brittle at the edges.

  “It was clever.” I shrugged, hoping I kept my discomfort off my face as I took a step toward him. The battlefield was a mess, and Connor had done it without even breaking a sweat. The fact he could do this made everything inside me want to just give up and die. There was no dealing with power like this because the moment it turned on you, well, I didn’t need to finish that thought.

  My boots squished in the muck as I reached out and touched him. The feel of him beneath his shirt made my stomach turn, but I had to try. After all, I’d asked him to do this. The least I could do was try. After all, that would make it easier to pull him close and stick a blade in his back later. “I’ve never actually seen Robocop though.”

  “You haven’t?” He shook his head. “Well, I’ll have to fix that.” He touched my hand, and the feel of his skin on mine made my gut twist in revulsion.

  “Sounds like a plan.” I smiled and patted his hand just before Thes slammed into the ground next to us and grabbed me by my hair. He whirled me around, which let me tell you, hurt like a son of a bitch. My only saving grace was that he was back in human form and couldn’t throw me that far. As it stood, his muscles rippled from effort, and his eyes were wild with rage.

  “Thes, what are you doing?” Connor asked, glancing from me to him. As he took in Thes’s face, his eyes went cold. “Stop.”

  “No,” Thes snarled and turned so his back was to Connor. The movement made my hair nearly tear from my scalp, and I bit down a cry of pain as I tried to decide what to do. I couldn’t stab him while he wasn’t in werewolf form because it’d kill him. Hell, he probably knew that which was why he was human right now. The bastard.

  “Let go of my hair,” I said, gripping my swords so tightly my hands hurt from the effort. “If you don’t, I will stab you.”

  He let go, but his look was no less severe. Very slowly, he dropped his hand to his side and wisps of my hair fluttered in the air beside his fingers.

  “Now you see what he is.” He shifted one shoulder toward Connor, causing his well-defined muscles to strain at the confines of his skin. “Now you will try to kill him. I know you.”

  “I won’t,” I lied, but before I could say more, he leaned in to whisper something into
my ear. It was no mean feat because he was six and a half feet tall, and I was five foot nothing.

  “You’re lying. I can smell it.” He bared his teeth, and it seemed incredibly menacing for someone who wasn’t in rage-beast form. “Do not try.”

  “I’m not having this conversation with you.” I took a step backward, sheathing my swords as I did so. I might not be able to stab him, but I could punch him in his stupid face. I bet it’d be incredibly satisfying.

  “Fine.” He stood up and crossed his arms over his broad chest, causing his long black ponytail to swing behind his back like a pendulum. “So what’s your plan?”

  “My plan?” I asked, suddenly caught off guard. How was I supposed to be the one with the plan? Hadn’t he been here for a while now?

  “Those computers said we had to hold the line until you arrived.” He sighed. “You’re supposed to know what to do.”

  “I don’t even know what the hell that thing was,” I cried, gesturing toward the sinkhole. “How am I supposed to know what to do? I mean, Jesus, all my plans are pretty much ‘go hit the thing in the face until its dead.’”

  “I can deal with that,” Connor replied, stepping up between us and throwing his arms around our shoulders. I’d never seen a werewolf visibly cringe, nor one recover so quickly, but Thes did both. “Let’s go kick some ass.”

  “Lillim,” Thes said, sucking in a breath as he shut his eyes. It looked like he was trying to stay calm. “That thing is Nidhogg. The dragon caught in the roots of Yggdrasil. I don’t know if punching him in the face will work.”

  I instantly agreed with him because going after something like Nidhogg without a definite way of killing him was practically suicide, but I wasn’t about to say that. Besides, everyone, Dioscuri and werewolf alike, was looking at us. I couldn’t back down. Even if the thought of going after Nidhogg was pretty much the dumbest thing I’d ever do. I had a reputation to uphold. Damn, sometimes I hated being me.

  “Well, we won’t know until we try,” I said, pulling my swords free and pointing them at the sinkhole like I was Johnny Rico. “Come on you apes, you wanna live forever?”

  10

  No one followed me as I walked toward the sinkhole which was simultaneously completely reasonable and completely disheartening. Here I was marching toward certain death like a badass and not one of them followed me. Instead, they looked at each other with shades of horror, fear, anger, and pretty much every emotion but bravery plastered across their faces. And this was from people who had faced down who knew how many hordes of the undead.

  I tightened my grip on my swords as the gravel-strewn streets crunched beneath my boots. I wouldn’t stop. No. Each step I took was a promise, and if I backed down, I’d lose them forever. Sure, I might die, but hey, my most prized possession was my pride. If I lost that, well, I might as well die for real.

  “Lillim, wait,” Connor called, but he sounded like he hadn’t taken a single step toward me. Besides, it wasn’t like I could stop. If I did, I’d lose my nerve. If I lost my nerve, I wouldn’t go confront an ancient Nordic dragon. If I didn’t confront the dragon, I couldn’t punch him in the face, and I really wanted to punch him in the face. Ipso facto, I wasn’t stopping. Not even for Connor. Not even for all the Connors in the whole world.

  “No,” I replied, though I wasn’t sure he could hear me because I hadn’t spoken very loudly, and I was several feet away and facing the opposite direction. “I’m going there with or without you all, and when I come back and toss Nidhogg’s head at your feet, well, know I did it without the lot of you.” I almost called them a derogatory word for female genitalia then, but since I possessed said genitalia, I refrained.

  “Lillim, don’t be like that,” Connor said, and I could hear the sigh in his words. The grin in his teeth. The thing was, well, he wasn’t scared. At least not of following me down there. Maybe of something else, but not of following me.

  If that was the case, he could come. Having the destroyer in my back pocket would be a hell of a thing, even if just being near him was about as appealing as having a glass-knuckled fist fight with Jean Claude Van Damme. Still, sacrifices had to be made because despite common belief, I didn’t actually want to die. Been there, done that, and I didn’t even want the crappy T-shirt.

  “Connor, come with me.” I cocked my head toward him as I spoke. Not enough so I could see him. I didn’t want to see him because then I might see Thes, and from the way I could feel his gaze boring into me, I did not want to see it. “Don’t tell me you haven’t played a game just like this before.” A smile crossed my lips. “What would you do if you were playing a video game?”

  “This isn’t a game, Lillim,” Thes said, and his words were angry and hard. They were worn around the edges from too much fighting and too much loss. I wasn’t sure what had happened to him while I was asleep, but it hadn’t been kind. I’d heard voices like that from newbies back from their first day in the field, and just like then, I wanted to tell him it’d be okay. It wouldn’t be okay of course, but I wanted to lie to him and make it better at least for a little while.

  “Thes, when I want your opinion, I’ll bark like the yellow-bellied dog you are.” I knew as soon as I said it, I shouldn’t have. Thes was the freaking alpha out here, and I’d just insulted his cojones. That never ends well with wolves, were or otherwise.

  And this time was no exception.

  Thes landed in front of me with enough force to crack the cement. He wasn’t in werewolf form so I had no idea how the hell he’d managed it, but it was impressive as hell. His muscles tensed with barely suppressed rage as he narrowed his eyes at me.

  I’ll be honest, for a second, I wanted to apologize and beg him not to hurt me. Only, at the same time, I almost wanted him to try. I wasn’t sure how strong he was, and evidently, my summoning two deities to fight along my side meant little. If he wasn’t scared of them, what else could he do? I’m not sure why, but it made me want to take him on in an intrinsically “Am I better than him?” way.

  “What are you doing, Lillim?” He didn’t move as I approached. I didn’t think he would, but I’d sort of hoped for it, you know, in the way I always hoped having a root canal wouldn’t hurt.

  “Saving you,” I replied and tried to push past him. It was like trying to shoulder-check a brick wall. To say he didn’t move was an understatement. “If you want to stay up here and die, that’s cool. If I’m going to die, I want it to be down there.” I nodded toward the hole behind him. “I want to die on my feet, running toward the horde while giving the Devil the finger. I don’t want to stay up here and let the horde devour me bit by bit.”

  “You have no idea what it’s like to be devoured bit by bit,” he replied with a far off look in his eyes that almost made me think he might know what that felt like. I mean, okay it was possible because he could heal and shit, but still. Still. He wouldn’t be standing here if that had happened.

  “Come with me, Thes,” I said, sheathing my wakazashi and holding one hand out to him. “Let’s do this together.”

  He shut his eyes and sucked in a breath that made my bangs flutter around my face, and I knew he was going to refuse. Goddamn him.

  “Psst.” The voice of Isis, whispered in my ear like an annoying imp. “Tell him if he doesn’t go down there, I’ll stab Sekhmet in the face again.”

  I almost asked her why. Almost asked her why it would matter, or if it was true, or any of a million questions, but I didn’t. If there was one thing Isis knew how to be, it was manipulative. If Thes came with me, the others might follow.

  “Lillim,” Thes started, and as he spoke, his voice betrayed a weight on his shoulders that must have weighed more than the planet on which we stood. “I—”

  “Isis says if you don’t come, she’ll stab Sekhmet in the face. Evidently, she knows where Sekhmet is and has a very sharp knife.” I said nothing else because my words hit him like a slap across the face. Seriously. He reeled backward and everything. It almost made me feel
bad.

  “What?” he asked, eyes wide, and I saw pain, fear, and rage flash across his features in a wild frenzy, and for a moment, I worried that he was going to try to kill me. He didn’t, but let me just say, pissing off a werewolf while in arm’s reach was scary as heck. There was no way I was ever doing it again. Well, I was going to think about never doing it again.

  Thes hadn’t wanted to help me. Hell, he probably knew Isis was lying about the whole Sekhmet thing, but he wanted to believe he could save her. He was Fox Mulder, and I just had to give him something. If I did, he’d come. I mean, sure, I’d feel like the worst sort of scum, but that was fine, I could carry that burden. I could carry everything if it meant saving my people, his people, and the whole world. I’d pay for it all and whistle freaking Dixie while I did it.

  “You heard me,” I replied and held my hand out to him. “Come.”

  A strangled cry left his throat as he looked past me toward the ragtag group of Dioscuri and werewolves. “You’re lying.”

  “Maybe.” I cocked a grin at him. “But what if I’m not? Is it worth the risk?”

  Thes broke, and as he did, a wave of guilt rushed through me. I mean, okay, I had no idea who Sekhmet was. Actually, that’s not true. I knew she was a bad ass Egyptian goddess who could scorch the Earth with fire, but surely he couldn’t mean that Sekhmet.

  “What will happen if I leave?” he replied, turning his gaze back to me. There it was. He was coming. He just needed that last little push. Just needed one last excuse to shirk his duty to whatever the hell this was out here.

  I spun on my heel and faced the crowd. They were watching like any of this mattered, like we could win. Those poor sons of bitches.