“You forgot one thing,” I said, chest heaving. “This is all in my head, jackass!” And with that, I called upon the ancient and horrible power of the one true snake god. The one born from chaos and anger. The one destined to take on all of Egypt’s greatest gods and crush them beneath his heel.
“Rise and breathe, Apep!” I screamed at the top of my lungs. The bangles wrapped around my wrists exploded with black light as the snakes writhed across my flesh. The world shook as Apep strode forward out of the void wearing crimson armor and holding a bloody khopesh in his left hand.
He wiped away the horizon leaving us standing in the perfect blank emptiness of the void. The wound Jormungand had dealt me vanished in an instant as Apep raised one hand, peering through his splayed fingers at the rose-covered prison of burning doom and thorns wrapped around the world serpent.
The prison shattered, and Jormungand stood there looking like I hadn’t so much as smudged his armor. He turned his mottled head toward Apep and smiled in a way that scared me badly. It was a smile that said he’d planned this from the start, and I was a goddamned fool.
“Come, hatchling,” Apep said, reaching out and grabbing Jormungand by the throat. He hoisted the world serpent into the air like he weighed less than nothing. “Let this old snake teach you a thing or two.”
“Always with the hatchling business,” Jormungand hissed, “but you are bound to a girl, Apep. And this girl is mine.” His grin widened as he gripped Apep’s wrist. He squeezed, and the ancient Egyptian god’s arm evaporated into black smoke. “That makes you mine.”
Apep howled, crimson light bursting from his chest as his flesh cracked and split. Jormungand shoved him backward onto the empty expanse of white. Somehow, the white swallowed him completely, leaving us standing there alone.
“Was this your plan?” I asked in disbelief as a tiny shudder ran through me.
“I improvise well,” he replied, crossing the distance between us in an instant. He reached out, grabbing my chin in his hands and twisting my face until I was looking into his flat, empty eyes. I felt myself falling, slipping away. I tried to fight back, tried to push off the snake god’s will, but try as I might, it was impossible. Everything slipped away as he leaned down and planted his lips on mine. He exhaled into me, breathing his power into my lungs. It rushed roughshod through me, obliterating everything I was and leaving an oily residue of despair in its wake.
Chapter 14
Caleb broke our kiss, leaving me standing there, staring at him in the expanse of the yellow room. “Wow, that was better than I thought,” he said, grinning at me. “We should have done this sooner.”
“Wha-what?” I spluttered, trying to take a step backward, but he held me tightly against his body. It was a little scary because I couldn’t get away. Without thinking, I balled my hands into fists. He was going to let me go, dammit.
“What’s wrong, Lillim?” Caleb stared at me, his grin slowly fading away. “Isn’t this what you wanted?”
“Get away from me!” I squealed, shoving him backward in my haste to get away from him. I wasn’t quite sure what had happened or where I was, but the Caleb of this world sure as hell wasn’t fooling me. Fortunately, he released me. I stumbled backward and fell to the ground.
It got deathly silent in the yellow room, and I realized everyone had been staring at us. My cheeks flushed with embarrassment as I tried to figure out what was going on. I was, somehow, back in the yellow room at Mercer & Mercer. But that was impossible. Where was the void? Where was Jormungand? What had he done when he kissed me?
“Um, okay,” Caleb said, backing slowly away from me, his hands out in front of him in supplication. “I thought—”
“Lillim, is everything okay?” Kishi squeaked from a few feet to my left.
I twisted my head to look at her. She was half-hidden behind the couch, hands clasping the back of it hard enough to turn her knuckles white with effort. She looked like a mouse trying to be brave before it bolted back into its hole. I didn’t quite blame her. If I had a hidey hole, I’d be heading toward it at top speed.
“Yeah.” I shook my head as I got to my feet. My muscles ached worse than they had the day after I’d run a marathon without training. “I sort of forgot where I was.” I looked sheepishly at Caleb who was still staring at me like I was a crazy person which was a little, I don’t know, rude? He was the one trapped in here after all.
“I guess the big guy’s kisses will do that to a girl,” Masataka said from right behind me. I spun so quickly, I lost my footing and toppled to the ground like a broken top. He stood there, staring down at me. Thoughts flashed through his eyes, but none of them seemed like they involved helping me, which wasn’t altogether unsurprising.
He turned his nose up and stepped over my prone body, making his way toward the corner where all the books and magazines were stacked. “Cool, the new ones are here.”
“Masataka,” Walter the orderly who looked exactly like Warthor Ein said from the doorway. “That’s no way to behave. Help Lillim to her feet.”
Masataka stopped in mid-step, one foot suspended in the air as his gaze shifted from me to Walter and back again. The room got deathly quiet, so quiet, I could hear each and every person inside hold their respective breaths at once.
Walter took a step inside, his white scrubs gleaming in the fluorescent light of the room. “Masataka, do you need to take a time out?” He asked. “Or are you ready to be sociable with Lillim?” He gestured toward me.
Masataka opened and closed his mouth like a dying fish, probably trying to decide what he needed to do to avoid getting a shot in the rump and being sent away to his room for the rest of the day. I’ll be honest, it seemed a little unfair to me even if he was the one being a dick.
“I—” he started, eyes glancing around furtively.
“I’m okay,” I said, cutting off Masataka before he could utter anymore sounds. I got to my feet again. If this falling on my ass thing kept up, I was going to invest in butt pads. “I just got startled.” I shot a glance at Caleb who was doing his best to look inconspicuous despite his huge size. I immediately wished I hadn’t. Just looking at him was enough to make me remember the feel of his lips on mine, the touch of his skin. Even if this was some kind of fairy tale, and not real life, I knew I’d forgive him if he just tried a little. Still, after my little outburst a minute ago, that was unlikely to happen.
I shook my head, feeling my cheeks flush as I pushed the memory down into the tips of my toes. Now was not the time to think about that, if I did, I might start crying, and that wouldn’t help at all.
“Are you sure?” Walter asked, approaching me very slowly, like I might run away or freak out if he moved too quickly. Which I wouldn’t, you know, probably.
“Yes.” I nodded furiously, sucking in a slow breath to help calm my shattered nerves. This was not the place to freak out. “Is Dr. Emile ready to see me yet?”
“Yes,” he replied. The word was crisp as he stared at me, icy eyes seeming to bore into my brain and find my thoughts wanting. He nodded very slowly, each up and down movement spanning only the barest fraction of a degree in either direction.
“Awesome,” I said, bounding past him toward the door leading in and out of the yellow ward. It always struck me as odd that there was only one exit, and it was through this tiny door, especially because it was usually locked. What if there was a fire? We’d all be trapped inside to burn to death or worse.
Then again, the whole place probably wasn’t even real. Only a few minutes ago, I’d fought Jormungand, if you could call it that. I’d been routed in a heartbeat by the snake god. I was starting to suspect he’d engineered the whole thing to get me to call upon Apep. It made me wonder if it had ever been the real Caleb, or if he’d just been using the illusion to make me think the real Caleb had shown up.
The only question was why had he wanted me to call upon Apep? Did he need me to do it to gain control of the Egyptian god? If that was the case, he’d be eve
n more unstoppable. That didn’t exactly sound like buckets of sunshine, and I tried to shut out the horrible feeling swelling in my gut. It would be just my luck to empower the being using my body like a puppet. Now that it had stolen my last weapon, what was I going to do? I was on my own, trapped in my head by a Norse deity. How the hell was I supposed to fight that?
I absentmindedly rubbed at my wrists where the bangles had been, but felt nothing other than my own flesh as Walter ushered me out into the hallway and toward Dr. Emile’s office. We moved steadily in silence for several seconds, which wasn’t that odd, since Walter rarely talked. Honestly, I didn’t see what Kishi saw in him. For one thing, he was all skin and bones, and the way he looked at you was just totally creepy.
Then again, he’d looked the same way in the other world and had that same ‘I’m so much smarter than you’ look too which I guess wasn’t that surprising since everything felt circular. It was clear one set of characters was more than loosely based on the others, the only question now was, which one was the original?
“So did you miss me?” I asked, glancing over at him as we moved down the corridor. “I missed you. You’re my favorite nurse in the yellow ward.”
“I’m the only nurse in the yellow ward,” he said with a sigh. “And of course I missed you, Lillim. I miss all my kids.” He smiled at me, revealing the barest flash of teeth.
“I don’t believe you,” I said as we reached the door to the office. Something about the plain white door struck me as odd even though I didn’t quite know why. I reached out toward it, but before I touched it, Walter’s hand snaked past me to twist the knob.
“Dr. Emile,” he called, barely cracking open the door. “Lillim is here to see you.”
“Excellent,” Dr. Emile said from inside, voice muffled and distant sounding. “Send her in, please.”
Walter pushed the door the rest of the way open, and I found myself staring into the darkened office. It was more or less like I remembered it with the bookshelves still anchored to the walls, only now the couch was lime green. Dr. Emile was sitting in a blue recliner with his feet up on a small wooden table, its surface scarred and scratched from use. He didn’t even bother to put them back on the ground. Instead, he just waved for us to come inside. It struck me as rude.
“Just ring for me when you’re done,” Walter said to neither of us and both of us. “I’ll come back to escort Miss Callina to her blood draw before we release her back to her father.”
“Very good,” Dr. Emile replied, waving for me to take a seat on the couch.
“Blood draw?” I asked as I sat hesitantly on the edge of the cushion and was immediately enveloped in the crush of its overbearing softness. I tried to struggle against it, but only succeeded in being swallowed whole.
“Yes. We have to take your blood to make sure there are proper medication levels in your blood.” He smiled at me like it was totally reasonable for him to draw my blood and run tests on it when I’d done nothing wrong.
“Why? I thought I was only here for a checkup?” My heart began racing as I said the words. “Am I being checked back in?”
“Of course not, dear,” Dr. Emile said with a chuckle that seemed semi-genuine. “We need to make sure the medication isn’t interacting poorly with your body and causing nasty side effects.” He pulled his feet off the table and leaned toward me, yellow legal pad gripped in one ebony hand. “I’m not really worried about it though. The chances of that are statistically negligible and according to your parents, you haven’t been feeling any side effects.”
“Yeah, because I haven’t been taking your demon pills,” I almost said but totally didn’t because that was a sure fire way to cause trouble for myself.
His dark eyes roamed over me, taking me in as he readied a blue ballpoint pen in his other hand. His eyes left mine before I could respond as he glanced over the pad, presumably reading notes he’d left for himself earlier. What if there was something bad written on there, something that would keep me here, locked away in Mercer & Mercer forever? The thought made a chill run down my spine.
“I’m okay.” I shrugged in a way that hopefully conveyed agreement with his assessment. Besides, it wasn’t like I was about to tell him I still thought this world was totally fake. He was the one person who could rescind my limited freedom with the stroke of a pen. If there was anyone I was going to lie to, it was him. Then again, I wasn’t sure why it mattered. If this all was fake, what did it matter whether or not I lied and kept myself out of Mercer & Mercer?
Because… said the tiny, fearful voice inside me. Because this might not be fake.
“That’s good to hear, Miss Callina.” Dr. Emile tapped his pad with the back of his pen. “Your parents told me you got lost and didn’t realize how you got there. Is this true?” He raised one bushy eyebrow at me as though challenging me to disagree.
“Yeah,” I mumbled almost inaudibly. “I was waiting for my mom and got distracted by my thoughts. I must have wandered off without realizing…”
“Is that so?” he asked, staring at me with his hard eyes. “Or is it something else?”
“What else would it be?” I asked as he stood and dropped his pad onto the table. It landed with a loud thwap that made me jump. Writing was scribbled across the page, blotting out nearly the entire sheet, but as I leaned forward to try to glean information from it, I realized I couldn’t read a single word.
“I don’t know. Maybe you were hallucinating again?” he asked and although his words sounded accusing, his tone was gentle, like he was dealing with a skittish fox. “That’s not a bad thing. Sometimes it takes a while for the delusions to completely fade away, or maybe your medication isn’t working anymore. We could try a stronger dose…”
“No,” I shook my head, knowing it wasn’t the medication because I wasn’t taking it. “I’m not hallucinating.”
“Are you sure?” he asked, his dark eyes fixing on me with nearly unnatural force, and I felt myself starting to fall, to slip away down the rabbit hole to a place I’d never return from. “Are you sure?” he repeated, and the words slammed into me. I felt myself sway as he knelt down beside me and placed one hand on top of my own. His touch was like fire, and as I tried to pull my hand away, he gripped my wrist hard and tugged me toward him until we were eye to eye.
“See here’s the thing, Lillim. You are crazy. Crazy to think I can’t read your thoughts.” He smirked, and there was a flash of color in his eyes, reminding me of a comet streaking through the night sky. “You think all your little lies matter, but they don’t. Not even a little. Why, I could snap my fingers and…” He grinned at me and a shudder rippled across my flesh.
“And what?” I asked, not sure how my voice escaped my throat because I was so scared I could barely breathe let alone talk. What the hell was he talking about? Why was he being so weird? Unless… unless this was Jormungand. Maybe he was just screwing with me for kicks? But why would he do that? Hadn’t he won?
“And I could send you into a cell so dark you’ll actually go crazy. I could unleash terrors so bleak and monstrous, you would never be able to climb your way out.” He exhaled a breath that smelled like mildew and copper. “Or you could play nicely in the perfect world I’ve created for you.” He shrugged, and the meaning of the gesture was clear enough to fill my blood with ice. He’d do it in a heartbeat and not care in the slightest.
“Jormungand,” I whispered, and while he didn’t acknowledge the name, his eyes twinkled.
“Do we have an understanding, Lillim?” He released me. “Or do I unleash horrors far beyond the red room?”
I punched him as hard as I could. He must not have expected it because my fist caught him on the underside of the chin. He staggered backward under the force of the blow. The back of his knees hit the table, and he toppled to the ground. I leapt on top of him, driving my knees into his chest as my fists came down smashing his face into a smear on the carpet.
Which was pretty much exactly how the rest of the sta
ff found me. Orderlies swarmed over me, dragging me backward off the doctor. I whirled, and while I couldn’t call on my power, I lashed out with all the rage inside me. My knee connected sharply with one orderly’s crotch. He grunted in pain and fell to the floor, his eyes bugging out of his skull.
The other one raised something, presumably some kind of drug, but I ducked his initial jab. I twisted and lunged at him. We hit the ground with a crash as Dr. Emile got slowly to his feet, staring at me in disbelief through a mask of blood.
“Lillim, what are you doing?” he asked as I ripped the needle from the orderly’s grip and drove it into the man’s thigh and depressed the plunger. His hands slipped off of me as I rose to my feet.
“Escaping, Jormungand!” I snapped, and instead of attacking him, I turned and ran from his office. I wasn’t sure where I was going to go, but I barely made it three steps before the floor beneath my feet opened up and swallowed me completely.
Chapter 15
I barely had time to take a breath in the time it took me to fall through the floor and into some kind of sharp-edged hell. I hit the effervescent emerald rock hard enough to shatter everything inside me. I lay there, trying to remember how to breathe as my eyes adjusted to the low light cast by the green torches blazing from sconces attached to the walls. Shadows leapt and danced all around me as I flopped onto my side and found myself staring at a familiar face.
Zef sat cross legged on the ground next to me, staring at my broken, battered body with his one good eye. His lips quirked into a bemused smile as he reached out with one slender hand and flicked me in the center of the forehead. Everything flashed white for a split second as indescribable agony ripped through my body. Then, before I could draw a second breath through my clenched teeth, it was over, and I felt fine, better than fine actually. If there was a locomotive around, I could totally bench press it.
Mind Games: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Lillim Callina Chronicles Book 6) Page 9