Pursuit: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Lillim Callina Chronicles Book 4)

by J. A. Cipriano

  That was not a thought I wanted to entertain because, magical whammy or not, I did not want my boyfriend kissing other people. Thanks to be-spelling fairies and unconscionable demons, I’d been doing nothing but kissing other people. I swallowed, trying to push the thought away because if I thought about it right now, I was going to feel just this side of horrible… that could wait.

  Ordain smirked at me as he stepped up to Joshua and put a friendly hand on his shoulder. Joshua’s eyes got as wide as saucers, and he fell to his knees, pain etched across his face.

  “Joshua, if you ever touch me again, I will carve the flesh from your bones and feed it to my dogs. Are we clear?” he asked, and without waiting for an answer, turned to me. “Dirge is lame,” he said with a wave of his hand. “You don’t want to be like her?”

  “I wasn’t trying to be like her,” I said, looking away from him.

  “Then why are you apologizing?” he asked before drumming a finger against his lips. His eyes got big, and he smiled conspiratorially. He leaned down toward me, covering his mouth with his hand. “Oh I see, you were fake apologizing so the emo-demon over there would leave you alone, am I right? You can tell me if I’m right.”

  “I wasn’t fake apologizing either,” I replied. “I’m just sad that my existence seems to cause so much pain.”

  “Is that so?” Ordain asked, kneeling down next to me and taking my hand in his. “You know who has caused a lot of pain? Jiroushou Manaka. That dude was a bastard.”

  “Um… okay,” I said.

  “You know who didn’t kill Jiroushou Manaka besides, well, everyone?” Ordain said with a smirk as though he found the last part of his statement particularly funny. “Dirge Meilan.”

  “She tried,” I said.

  “And failed because she was a failure. She had one job, to kill Manaka, and she couldn’t even do that.” Ordain shrugged at me. “You know who did kill Manaka?” he asked, poking me hard in the chest. “I bet you do.”

  “Of course I do,” I said. “I killed him!”

  “You’re right! You did kill Jiroushou Manaka,” Ordain said, beaming at me like I was a particularly bright five-year-old. “And you know what? My world is a better place now. You freed us from him. It’s pretty much the main reason I haven’t hunted you down and torn out your spine to use as a belt.” He grinned at me, his teeth gleaming. “Well that, and the fact that spines make horrible belts,” he added.

  “Uh… good to know,” I replied.

  “It is good to know. So stop whining and go find the pansy little human and ‘punch him in the face’ a whole bunch of times. And if you get sad, just stop and remember that Dirge sucked, and you’re way cool,” he said that last bit without making air quotes or anything. “Way cool,” he repeated.

  Chapter 9

  “Who the hell says ‘way cool?’” Joshua asked with a bite of fish taco in his mouth like a heathen.

  “Don’t be jealous. We can’t all be ‘way cool,’” I replied, taking a bite of my own fish taco.

  Joshua glared at me before reaching into the bag for another taco, which was lame because he had already eaten two of them, and there were only four. Now he was delving square into Lillim’s fish taco territory. No bueno.

  “If you’re planning on eating my taco, I will hurt you,” I said, snatching the bag from his grubby little paws. “You already ate your half of the tacos, and I had to wait a long time for these.”

  Joshua sighed and shook his head. “I eat when I’m nervous, you know that. Besides, I paid for the tacos. I even had to pay with cash. I mean who accepts cash only?”

  “Which was very nice of you, but that doesn’t give you the right to my tacos unless you want to be an Indian-giver. Do you want to be an Indian-giver, Joshua?” I asked, smiling at him with a mouthful of taco, which yes, was totally gross, I admit.

  “I’m considering it,” he said, leaning back in his black wrought-iron chair and sipping his lemonade. “They were pretty good tacos.”

  “Don’t. I’ve been known to hurt people for way less,” I replied, wrapping my arm around the bag of tacos and shielding it from him in a way that reminded me of guarding my food from the bigger kids in the mess hall. It was something I’d had to do a lot as a kid because daughter of Diana Cortez or not, I was still a freak to most of my peers.

  I shook away the thought before I could get depressed and looked up at the sky. We were at a little taco place in Huntington Beach that was a few blocks from where my hollowed out apartment was only just starting to be repaired by the lazy, no good, fairies. I saved their whole world, and there were all of three pixies at my house. I mean, okay, it’s been like two days and all, but still. Some snappy, snappy would be nice.

  “Okay, so I still don’t see why we’re at a fish taco stand that operates out of the back of a yellow liqueur store, which, to be fair, only has moderately good fish tacos,” Joshua said as I grabbed the last taco and covered it with salsa.

  “Because I’m hungry,” I said.

  “I gathered that part,” Joshua said with a wave of his hand. “But I thought after Ordain called you ‘way cool’ and gave you a pep talk, you were going to go ‘punch Masataka in the face.’”

  “I’m getting to that part,” I replied with a mouthful of taco, but it was way less heathenish when I did it. “That comes after tacos.”

  “I don’t see why—” Joshua started to say but I kicked his chair from beneath him. He tumbled to the ground in a heap. This would teach him to lean back in his chair like that. It was unsafe.

  “Did you know Dirge never ate an eggroll?” I asked.

  “No,” Joshua groaned as he scrambled to right his chair because people were looking at him now. His face turned bright red as people did that ‘glance away and don’t stare at the crazies’ thing that they did when someone did something embarrassing.

  “Of course you don’t because she never mentioned it to you. Have you eaten an eggroll?” I asked, taking a sip of my iced tea. I grimaced at my cup, the tea was old. I wasn’t sure how I could tell, but every time I drank iced tea that was more than a few hours old, I could taste it. And I didn’t like the taste.

  “Yes, I’ve had an eggroll,” he said with an exasperated sigh.

  “Don’t sigh at me!” I snapped. “I’m trying to make a point and you’re being rude.”

  “Sorry,” he said, sheepishly and stared up at the sky.

  “My point is that you got to do things Dirge never did. Dirge never ate a fish taco, here or anywhere. I bet you Masataka hasn’t either, or my mom and dad. I bet they have lived their whole life sans fish tacos. That’s a little sad.”

  “Yeah, but I wasn’t raised in Lot like all of them. I grew up down here on Earth,” he replied in a voice that made it quite clear he had no idea where I was going and didn’t really appreciate being along for the ride. “In this city, in fact. But you knew that.”

  “That’s my point, Joshua. Maybe Masataka, and my mom, and well everyone up there wouldn’t be so damn stir-crazy if they just had a vacation on a beach in Kokomo. You know, take it fast and then take it slow, maybe? I don’t know.” I finished my taco and took another sip of horrible tea. “Just by being down here with people, it makes me remember how stuffy Lot really is, how irrelevant all the infighting is. I mean do you think that the fish taco cook even knows there’s a city floating in the air filled with,” I paused searching for the right word.

  “Super heroes? Wizards? Magical demon hunters?” Joshua offered.

  “More like shut in crazies who think the world revolves around their small sliver of it.” I stood up and pushed in my chair. “We can go now,” I said, walking over to him and giving him a hug.

  “Why now?” he asked, his arms wrapping mechanically around me, sort of pushing me away and pulling me toward him at the same time. Yep… that spark was dead.

  “Because now I remember why I left, and why I keep going back to help.” I waved my hand. “I mean, I know I don’t really go back to help
, not really. But,” I said with a smirk. “I just want to experience life. I can remember a lifetime of dreary office politics and fighting monsters. That is so stale. So I came down here to get a breath of fresh air, to remind myself there’s more to life than Kung-Fu and magic.”

  “Yeah, there’s Frappuccinos,” Masataka Mawara said from behind me, his voice strangely jovial. I nearly leapt out of my skin, and I had to use everything in me to not let him know how much he had startled me.

  I glanced over my shoulder at him. He was holding a huge clear cup filled with a frozen, brown beverage. He took a mighty swig through his green straw, slurping so loud that I was sure people in North Dakota could hear him.

  “I don’t really want to fight you here,” I said, gesturing at my surroundings. But I will if you force my hand, I added in my head. Because, well, I would, if it came to the choice between these people and stopping him from hurting someone I cared about… it wasn’t even a contest. Still, I didn’t think it would come to that so I gave him my best smile and added, “there’s a lot of innocent people here. They could get hurt.”

  “I know,” he replied, walking up to me and snaking his hand out to grab a tortilla chip out of my bag. He bit into it, and the chip shattered all down the front of his blue, frat-boy polo. He licked his lips, tongue snaking out to get the last crumbs. “Not bad. What do you call those?”

  “Tortilla chips,” I replied, and had to resist the urge to take a step away from him.

  “Tortilla chips,” he repeated. “I’ve never had a tortilla chip before, but I guess that was the point of your entire tirade. Am I right?” he asked.

  “Yes, well, I mean, kind of?” I responded, my cheeks heating up. “It wasn’t really directed at you.”

  “Oh I know. I’m just a casual bystander,” he replied, glancing at Joshua for a long moment. “I promise I won’t do anything crazy if you go get me a couple of those tacos. I hear they’re awesome.”

  Joshua stared dumbly at Masataka for so long that Masataka made a shooing movement with his hand. “Hurry up, I’d like to have Lillim in chains back at Lot before dinner. We’re having gruel.”

  “There’s no gruel in Lot,” I said as Masataka slid into Joshua’s empty chair.

  “Oh I know. It was a joke. See, I can be funny too. Ha, ha,” he replied.

  I glanced at Joshua and shrugged. “Joshua, can you please go get another couple tacos for crazy boy here?”

  “Are you sure?” Joshua asked as Masataka picked up Joshua’s lemonade and took a sip. Masataka’s face scrunched up for a moment, and he stared at the beverage.

  “It’s sour. I’ve always heard of sour stuff before, but wow, this is horrible,” Masataka said.

  “Yeah, it’s an acquired taste,” I said with a shrug. “And yeah, Joshua, I’m sure.”

  Joshua nodded once and went inside the shack to get Masataka’s tacos. After he did so, I leaned across the table so that we were close enough that he could hear me whisper. “Why are you here, Masataka?”

  “So that I can find out what gives you happiness and take it from you,” he replied. “Duh.”

  “Masataka, if you try to take anything from me, I will kill you,” I growled.

  He waved me off with a flick of his wrist and threw his feet up on the table. Mud and dirt from his boots smeared across the black wrought iron as he shifted in his seat. His chair slid backward, scraping against the pavement as people turned and stared at us. I felt my eye twitch a little at the sight of it.

  “Oh, I’d like to see you try,” he said with a smirk and threw his head back so he was staring up at the red umbrella over our head. “I’m excited for the possibility, Lillim.”

  “Did you really put your feet on the table? This is a public place,” I said, aghast. “That’s incredibly rude.”

  “Yeah, I heard you hate things like this,” he replied, slurping from his Frappuccino so loudly that people turned to look at us. My cheeks started to heat up, and I covered my face with my hands for a moment. He snorted at me, and I splayed my fingers to look at him through them.

  “You really do embarrass easily. You know, nothing embarrassed Dirge. Nothing, not ever,” he said wistfully.

  “What would she have to be embarrassed about?” I asked, my voice so low that I was sure only he could hear it. “Her sense of culture was totally different from the one down here. Even if she knew she was acting like a god-damned savage, she wouldn’t care. It’s why you don’t care, why none of you care.”

  “So?” he slurped and tossed the empty drink cup over his shoulder. It hit the asphalt behind him with a wet smack and the lid popped off, spattering the remaining slime and ice across the adjacent table.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” screamed a woman as she leapt to her feet, her black pumps splattered with brown goo. She flailed, beating her leopard-print leggings with her hands in a desperate effort to, well, I don’t know, get rid of the coffee stains?

  “I was done,” Masataka said, bending his head backward to look at her over his chair. His head bobbed for a moment as he glanced her up and down. “I think it’s an improvement,” he added a moment later.

  The blonde woman screamed, a low guttural sound that made people poke their heads out of the liquor store and stare. Her pink-nailed fingers curled into fists as she took an incredulous step toward him.

  Across from her, a huge guy in a too-tight, white muscle-shirt stood and stepped around the table with one huge stride that stretched his blue jeans to the limit. “Sir,” he said, and his voice reminded me of someone trying desperately to be calm. “I think you owe my girlfriend an apology.”

  “For what?” Masataka asked, swinging his head back up so he was no longer staring at the couple. His lips spread into a grin as he watched my face. A look of rage flashed across the man’s face before disappearing completely under an emotionless mask.

  “I’m sorry, sir, ma’am,” I said, leaping to my feet and moving between them and Masataka. “My friend is from out of town and doesn’t understand that he’s acting like a total jackass.”

  “You should give them some money, Lillim,” Masataka called over his shoulder. “I hear that’s what women down here expect.”

  “Shut up!” I snapped, whirling around and grabbing his chair with both hands. I swung the chair around in a hiss of steel scratching on pavement and glared at him.

  Masataka smirked at me and ran a hand back through the mop of brown hair on his head. His teal eyes sparkled as he reached out a single finger and flicked me in the forehead. Stars flashed across my eyes, and I shook my head, trying to focus on what a horrible, murderous jerk he was, but for some reason, I couldn’t think.

  “You are in my personal space,” he said, shoving me against the table. “And I don’t have a newspaper to smack you on the nose with.” He grinned at me, his lips stretching across his face to reveal a mouthful of perfect porcelain. “Bad dog!” he added before glancing past me. “You and your lady friend should sit back down or I will throw you over that building.” He pointed at an apartment complex across the street. “You probably don’t think I can, but here’s the thing,” he leaned forward on the chair legs so the back two came off the ground, “I can.”

  Masataka extended his pinky finger into the air and smirked before driving it straight down into the concrete beneath his feet. The pavement fractured with an earsplitting crack. Very slowly, I turned my head to watch as the couple backed up a couple steps, a mixture of horror and surprise rippling across their faces.

  “I’m suddenly starting to reconsider fighting you here, Masataka,” I tried to growl but my words came out in more of a whisper.

  “She’s stronger than me, too,” Masataka said, ignoring me. His voice was so close to my ear that I knew he had to be right next to me. “Like a lot stronger. She’s some kind of freak.” He tugged off my Angels hat, and my lavender hair tumbled down around my shoulders in a heap. I whirled, scrambling to snatch my hat from him, but he danced back ou
t of the way. “That’s her natural hair color.” He shrugged his shoulders before throwing his hands up in front of himself. “Who has purple hair, honestly?”

  My skin must have burst into flames because I was suddenly so hot that it made me feel dizzy. I reached out, trying to grab onto something for support as the world started to spin out from under my feet. My shoe caught the edge of one of the wrought-iron chairs as I flailed, and I staggered forward, smacking into the man.

  He threw his arms up as if warding off an evil spirit, and I sort of slid off him collapsing to the ground. He looked down at me for a split second before grabbing his girlfriend’s hand and pulling her off toward the parking lot.

  “Thanks for helping, jackass,” Masataka called as he stepped over to me and held his hand out toward me.

  “No,” I said, rolling away from him and trying to get to my feet. The world around me was spinning by so quickly that I was pretty sure I was going to lose my fish tacos onto the ground.

  “Too bad,” Masataka said, straightening. “I was going to pull my hand away and say ‘too slow’ but you ruined it.” He shrugged. “Oh well.” He turned toward the entrance to the store and cupped one hand over his mouth. “Hey Joshua, maybe you should make it a ‘to-go’ order. I think your girlfriend needs to go home.”

  “What did you do to me?” I squawked, pushing myself to my hands and knees. My arms were shaking so hard that I was sure I was going to collapse back to the cement any second.

  “I poisoned you,” Masataka said as he knelt down close to me and patted the back of my head. “Duh.”

  Chapter 10

  The world in front of my eyes was so bleary that it took me a minute to realize where I was… and why everything was upside down. I was in the dungeons underneath Lot, I knew because as a kid I used to play hide and seek down here. The walls were made of a lime green stone that, for whatever reason, displaced magical energy so that prisoners couldn’t draw on their powers.