The Lillim Callina Chronicles: Volumes 1-3

by J. A. Cipriano

  My magical shield shattered, energy flaking off of me like ash from burned wood. My skin lost its abnormal shade of alabaster as I crashed backward into the dirt. Frost fell from my hand and lay next to me, almost throbbing with power.

  Bob smiled at me and licked his lips. He swung again, and I rolled to the side, praying I was faster than his tremendous speed. Melt gouged a great cleft in the dirt beside me, and I silently mumbled a prayer of thanks to any and all deities. I don’t know how I’d managed to avoid the blow, but I was glad I had.

  I grabbed Frost and pushed the last of my power into my shaking arms as I flung the colossal ice blade at him. It slammed into his chest and burst out his back in a cloud of frozen blood.

  Bob staggered back, leaving Melt buried to the hilt in the ground. Ice filled the wound, slowly freezing him from the inside out as he dropped to his knees in front of me. I grabbed hold of Frost’s hilt and kicked him off the ice blade in an explosion of gore that sent him skidding across the ground. Surely that would put him down for a while. Even he couldn’t shake off a gaping chest wound, right?

  I staggered toward Logan, dragging the tip of Frost along in the dirt behind me and leaving a thin trail of ice in its wake. Logan glanced at me and his eyes were alight with… joy?

  A twisted smile filled his face and his chanting stopped. It was suddenly so quiet only the sound of my own ragged breathing filled my ears. Oh no. Was I too late? I couldn’t be too late! I was Lillim Callina dammit and Lillim Callina didn’t fail! Not when it mattered! Not ever!

  “That’s how I put boot to ass, Logan. Don’t make me do it again,” I snarled, trying to sound like I had more left than I did.

  Logan didn’t respond. Instead, he drove his cold iron sword through the salted demon and into the hallowed earth below. He stepped back as the demon shattered in an explosion of salt and flame. A shrill scream filled the air, so loud I almost dropped Frost and covered my ears.

  Lava burst from the hilt of the sword like a fountain as Logan lifted the baby into the air and drew one of his fangs along its arm. Blood oozed from the wound, and Logan dripped it over the metal blade. There was a loud whoosh as the blood touched the weapon.

  A single arc of electricity tore the sky asunder and slammed into the sword’s pommel. A blaze several stories high burst out of the weapon as the soul of the screaming, thrashing demon was absorbed into the sword.

  “Guess, you’re too late, Lillim,” Logan said, grabbing hold of the sword and jerking it from the ground. “Pity.”

  Flame leapt from his weapon, turning the dirt between us to slag as it surged toward me. I turned and ran as flames raged after me like a vicious serpent. Logan’s shrill laughter chilled me to the bone as he flaming wings sprouted from his back and he leapt upward into the air, one hand clutching the baby’s unmoving form and the other the vicious blade of red-black fire at me. He threw one last fireball at me, igniting the ground like it was made of gasoline before jetting off like a comet into the distance on wings hewn from flame.

  Stupid Bob had successfully bought enough time for Logan to make his new weapon, and he still had the baby. If I was keeping score, which I totally wasn’t, I’d say Logan was ahead of me. Just a tad… but still ahead. The fire behind me was like a bonus round, and I was awesome at bonus rounds.

  My legs pumped harder as the flames licked closer and closer. The scenery around me seemed to lose focus bit by bit as I struggled to dodge around them, but it seemed like they had a mind of their own.

  “I’m so tired…” I mumbled as fire nipped at my back, hot even through my spell-hardened overcoat.

  “Turn, raise Frost, and fight,” Mattoc’s voice cooed in my ear. “If you concentrate, you should be able to overpower the fire with ice!”

  I’d completely forgotten Mattoc had been with me the entire time. Sometimes, I wished he wouldn’t hide when other people showed up, but even still, it wasn’t a bad plan, especially since I couldn’t run for much longer.

  I turned, and although I couldn’t feel him, I knew Mattoc was guiding my hand. As I drew Frost up and struck outward at the onrushing flame, calling upon what was left of my magic and channeling it through the ancient sword.

  A wave of cold exploded from the tip of Frost, sheathing the landscape in ice, and swallowing the flames. As the last of the raging fire died beneath a sheet of snow, Frost’s frozen hilt slip from my hands. As I tried to grab it, everything faded into inky darkness, and I collapsed to the ground unconscious.

  13

  When I awoke, water was falling from the sky in buckets. I was soaked from head to toe, and as I crawled to my feet, huddling within my sodden overcoat even though it was plastered to my body, I shivered.

  I shook my head and glanced around for cover. Thankfully, there was a boarded up building a few meters away. It would be enough to provide cover from the rain. Something might have lived there before, but as of right now, the place looked empty. Even if it wasn’t, they could share. Still, I was hoping it was empty. It would be easier that way.

  The mud squelched under my boots, threatening to suck me under as I approached. I hated the smell of rain and mud. I didn’t know why, but it always brought to mind the image of worms as they lay squirming on the pavement.

  “Lillim, why are you so afraid?” The voice shook me, and as I turned toward it, I stumbled and fell on my butt. The mud surged up between my fingers, dirty and disgusting. “Are you not a Dioscuri? Are you not Lillim Cortez Callina, daughter of the vicious Diana Cortez?”

  My eyes widened in horror and disbelief as I stared at the woman standing in front of me. No. No, it couldn’t be. How could she be here? How could she have found me? It seemed impossible, but as I saw her, terror unlike I’d felt in a long, long time welled up in me.

  “Mother?” My voice was low and shaky. “What are you doing here?”

  “What do you think?” she asked, and the look on her face made my heart leapt up in my throat and tried to beat its way out of my body.

  Diana Cortez stood over me, eyes surveying me like a prowling lioness as my hands clawed for purchase in the thick, reddish mud. There was mud in my hair, under my fingernails, crawling up my skin as though it was alive. Somehow, despite all my struggles, I had not managed to move even one inch.

  Rain cascaded over her as she watched me struggle so she almost shimmered in her delicate white and pink kimono. Surely this could not be her. Surely I had to be dreaming.

  Dream or not, she took a step toward me and shook her head with a look of disapproval plastered on her pursed ruby-red lips. I tried to calm myself, but the more I tried, the closer I got to hyperventilating. I’d failed to save the baby and now she was here. It couldn’t be a coincidence.

  She bent down so close I could feel her breath on my face. Her kimono slipped off her shoulders to reveal flesh marred with scars and burn marks. When I was little, she used to trail her fingers along them, regaling me with tales of each hideous disfigurement like they were badges of honor. I suppose they were because they meant one thing. She’d survived.

  “Why are you lying in the mud, my dear, sweet daughter?” Her eyes tore me asunder, leaving me raw and naked before her as she spoke. “Are you digging for more excuses?”

  That was hardly fair. In the eyes of my mother I was never good enough, never strong enough. No matter how much I fought, and trained, and bled, it was never enough. I’d beaten Bob, one of the most powerful vampires in the planet, didn’t that count for something? Only I knew it didn’t because in the end, it hadn’t even mattered— oh my God I was thinking in Linkin Park.

  “It isn’t hard to dig them up when you shove my face in the dirt. Is that why you’ve come, mother? Have you come to taunt me? To kick me further into the mud?” I regretted it before I’d said it. A tremor climbed down my spine, and I fought to breathe normally as the rain dripped down her kimono to pool at her feet.

  “No.” My mother fished a cigarette out of her pocket and stuck it between her lips. She
placed a hand over her silver lighter to cover the flame as she lit it and sucked in a lungful. Water poured down her skin, her hair, her clothing, but she ignored it. With a single gesture she could will away the rain. She could call off the lightning and dominate the thunder. So why was she letting the rain touch her? She’d never done that before…

  “Then why?” I asked, my hands balling into fists as I looked from her to the mud covering my bare legs.

  “I'm going to be straight with you, my dear, sweet Lillim.” Her voice was hard as granite, cold as a glacial iceberg, and angry as the western winds. “You are a piece of self-loathing work. If my stomach was weaker, it would empty its contents in revulsion.”

  I glared at her, anger billowing up inside me, so blistering it should have frightened me. I tried to stand, tried to push myself from the mud so I could throttle her. The more I struggled, the more the mud pulled me backward.

  “How can you say those things to me? After all I’ve gone through… how?” I’m not proud of it, but my voice cracked part way through, and I started to cry. Tears ran down my cheeks, so hot and they seemed to sear my flesh. I wiped at them frantically, desperately trying to hide my shame, but I succeeded only in smearing mud across my face.

  My mother leaned closer to me, a smug smile on her blood-red lips. Slowly, she extended her left hand and touched my cheek. Her fingers trailed down to my neck and rested on my shoulder as she took a drag on the cigarette, exhaling the smoke through her nose.

  “Do I need a reason to taunt you? Take a look at yourself, my daughter. You are lying in the mud.” For the first time, warmth seemed to gather in her cheeks. “I know you are tougher than this, for you are my daughter.”

  Was that her idea of comforting me? Seriously? What a load of crap! I pushed her hand away. Her face turned stern, her lips a tight line against her almond-colored skin. She tapped the ash off her cigarette and held it between two knuckles. She sighed and took one last drag before dropping her cigarette into the mud. The rain put it out before it even touched the ground. My mother squatted down in front of me, her elbows on her knees.

  “Even if the whole world was against you, my daughter, you should not give up. Instead you should rage against it.” She looked up to the sky and lightning flashed, thunder boomed, and wind howled. My mother waved her hand at the sky, and the clouds melted away as the rain stopped, letting the sun break through.

  I took a deep breath as a fear I’d kept bottled up for a long time surfaced. Dirge had died trying to protect the Dioscuri from an attack, but in the end, she’d died and left everyone defenseless. Our enemies had come back. I couldn’t let that happen again. If I died fighting, I had to make certain no one ever came back to harm my friends and family.

  “What if those that count on me die because I’m too weak? I tried to stop them. I tried to save the baby. What if I keep trying my best and they still win?” I asked, hoping she had some kind of answer for me.

  “My dear sweet daughter,” she cooed and pulled me from the mud. “All we can do is our best. Sometimes our best is not enough, and you will feel the sting of defeat. The important part is to keep getting up. It is to keep standing when you fall.”

  I gulped and looked her in the eyes. They weren’t as hard as I expected them to be. If I didn’t know better, I’d have said she looked almost proud.

  She shrugged her shoulders. “You have started down a path, and you are welcome to leave it. You are welcome to ask for help, and you are welcome to give up. But if you give up now, if you walk away and leave this trouble in someone else’s hands, then you will have made a poor choice.”

  Her words almost brought a smile to my face. She wanted me to press forward, even if I failed because doing the right thing was more important than surviving. Well, right now, I knew what the right thing was. I had to stop Logan and recover the baby before things got even worse. I couldn’t run away from that. If I did, who else would step in and help? No one.

  She put a hand on my shoulder and smiled. “Besides, you have all the help you need. All you need to do is open your eyes to it. That’s all you must do, my Lillim. Just open your eyes.”

  14

  “Lillim, just open your eyes.”

  Mattoc stood over me with a relieved look on his face. Had that whole thing been a dream? I blushed, somewhat embarrassed. I had argued with my mother in a dream… sane people totally did that.

  I had the worst headache ever. I wasn’t sure how, but someone had stuck my brain in a blender, and then bashed the blended bits with a comically oversized mallet. I groaned and tried to rub my head. I couldn’t move.

  A tremor went through me as I struggled. My limbs would not respond. A numbing chill swept over me. The great weapon Frost was embedded into the ground beside me. Of all the elements, ice was the one I had never quite mastered. If you wanted me to burn something, no problem… but I had never really gotten the hang of ice… and now? Now I was encased in a solid block of ice.

  This was really kind of ironic in a way when you consider I was trained by Warthor Ein, and his element of choice was ice. Maybe it was a type of subconscious rebellion that kept me from gaining more than a fundamental grasp of the art. That’s what he’d always told me, anyway.

  “On the upside, you beat Bob, and you still have all of your limbs. That’s pretty tough.” Mattoc’s voice interrupted my thoughts.

  “I got pretty lucky,” I mumbled as I concentrated on thawing the ice encasing my legs and arms. It didn’t work. I didn’t have the magical reserves. Man, what I wouldn’t give for a double burger, fries, and a milkshake. Or a protein bar. That’d work too.

  “Can’t you go get help?” I screamed in frustration.

  “Already done. You think I’d just sit here and wait for you to wake up?” Mattoc shook his head as he wandered around me in an amused sort of way. “That’d be boring.”

  “Point taken, so who is coming?” I asked, wondering who would come to Rome to save me. I didn’t even have a short list.

  “About that… you have to promise not to get mad.” Mattoc looked at me sheepishly.

  “They’re coming anyway so why should I promise?” I asked, raising an eyebrow at him.

  “Oh?” Mattoc sneered. He licked his finger and poked me in the ear.

  I screamed even though I couldn’t feel it and finally snorted at him. “I promise.”

  “I went back to the Owl house and told Danae what happened, but as soon as I did, Gib, did I mention Gib was still there? Apparently he was holding them all hostage until you returned with his son. He took off.”

  “So is Danae coming then?” I shook my head as much as I could. I guess it could have been worse.

  “No…” Mattoc sighed and the look on his face made me almost feel bad for him. Then I realized he felt bad because of who was coming to save me. I was so screwed.

  “Dear lady,” said Voln D’Lamprey, his high and mighty voice shattering my train of thought. “I heard you have need of some assistance.” His fingers were crossed into a steeple in front of his chest. He tapped them together restlessly, and I could tell he wanted to leave as quickly as possible.

  “It’d be nice,” I replied, wondering for the first time why I could even talk. After all, I was encased in ice, but strangely, it wasn’t as cold as I thought it’d be.

  “Very well.” Voln waved his hand over me, and the ice started to melt. He kept talking, but I ignored him, mostly because I was too busy rolling into a ball. Now that the air hit me, I was absolutely freezing.

  After what felt like hours but was probably only a couple seconds, I took a deep breath and crawled to my feet. My clothes were soaked, and I shivered as I placed a hand on Frost’s hilt and swung it over my shoulder. I still wasn’t used to the weight, and I wobbled. The blade slipped from my hands and hit the ground with a clang.

  “Did you steal that from Bob?” Voln asked, a strange mix of apprehension and pleasure on his face.

  “Yeah.” I sighed and maneuvered the
massive ice blade into something of a walking stick. So far, this was going great. Logan had a Demonslayer, a weapon powered by a fire demon. He was with Bob, the Bear founder, and they were probably in some lair plotting something crazy. Like helping an ancient dragon named Sharkface take over the world from another ancient dragon named Trius. The vampires still had the werewolf baby, and if that wasn't bad enough, I had broken Isis!

  That was just perfect because I obviously had more than enough time to spend countless hours reforging the weapon. Then again, I had Frost now. It was a little heavy for me, especially when I wasn’t fueling my strength with magic, but it’d have to do.

  “So why did you come help me, Voln?” The words came out nastier than I meant them to be.

  “Your job is to keep that child safe and the best way I know of keeping said child safe is to send you after it.” Voln followed his statement with a shrug.

  “And why is that?” I asked, peering at him closely.

  “Because, you will not let the child come to harm and we, as vampires,” he pointed to his chest, “will do the baby harm. So, therefore, you will rescue said baby from us.”

  I shook my head. “Well, he is with Logan now and Logan has a Demonslayer. No one can withstand a battle with a Demonslayer. It destroys anything it touches, so unless Logan is going to do him harm, he’s probably safest with the vampires.” Even as I said it, I knew it wasn’t true. No one is safe in the company of vampires. Goddamned bloodsuckers.

  “You must rescue the baby. It is imperative that the vampires do not retain possession of him. You don’t understand how important that baby is to their plan.” Voln started to say something else, but he was flung backward. His body didn’t so much hit the ground as it sunk beneath the dirt. I watched in horror as the earth swallowed him whole.

  Thwap!

  My body was thrown sideways at an awkward angle across the pavement. Sharkface smiled and walked toward me. Where had he come from? He still wore the expensive suit from the last time I’d seen him, except for his sunglasses. His face curled into an eerie display of cheer, despite him missing one eye.