“Max! Do something!” Caleb leapt across the pool table and scrambled to pry my fingers loose from the ball. There was red everywhere, crimson and scarlet. Blood. I could taste blood.
Max smiled and that long forked tongue of his snaked out of his mouth to lick his lips. “Someone always has to pick up the ball and shake it, Caleb. That was always the price. Your foolish friend has done it totally unprepared. I bet it hurts.”
I couldn’t think as my body bucked in agony. Viscous crimson fluid poured from beneath my fingernails. The hot metallic stink of blood filled my nose as I inhaled short, quick gasps.
Caleb pulled my body close to his. The heat of his touch blazed over me, drowning the pain beneath a rush of power. The throbbing energy pulsing between our bodies as he wrapped his arms around me, made my mind go cloudy. I couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe as the feel of him pressed so close to me chased everything away.
“Stay with me, Lillim,” Caleb pleaded, looking into my eyes. He began to sob, his hands struggling in a vain attempt to rip the eight ball from my grip. “We can get through this.”
“Caleb?” My voice was soft, almost a nonexistent whisper.
“Don’t worry, it’ll be better, I can make it better.” His voice cracked as he shut his eyes, and I felt another surge of power fill me.
In the background, people were screaming. They came rushing toward me like ants to a sugar bowl. I tried to look at Caleb, but it was very difficult to keep my eyes open. He touched my face, and as he did, my hand twitched. The ball fell away, bounced once on the cement floor, and rolled toward Max. The demon picked it up and looked at it for a moment. His face was impassive, emotionless.
He dropped down to his knees and showed me the ball. Scrawled across it in fading silver ink was an address. “This is where whatever you seek will be. I hope you know what you will find when you get there.”
I couldn’t move, but that didn’t stop me from hating Max. Apparently, the eight ball was imbued with psychic power. Caleb might have mentioned that before I went and picked the damn thing up.
Caleb snarled, standing up to face the demon. A violent tremor overtook him as seething rage filled his body. The bottles behind the bar shuddered and the ceiling lights swayed. The world shook, trembling in pain as great gouts of garish red energy exploded beneath his feet, shooting high into the air like rockets seeking to break away from the earth.
“Not my fault,” Max said, a pleased smile plastered on his face. “You should have told her the cost.”
Caleb slugged him. The blow caught the demon square in the face, and he fell backward onto his butt. His nose was bleeding, but he wiped it away and began to laugh.
“There was no other way to get the information,” Caleb growled. “If you hadn’t cheated…”
“What are you going to do about it, Caleb? What? We both know you will die if you fight here.” Max got to his feet, and as he did, several of the burly bouncers closed in on us. “It is probably best if you leave, unless you plan on making your girlfriend fight all your battles for you.”
18
“Caleb, open the damn door, or I swear to god I’m going to huff and puff and blow it down,” I screamed at the door in our shoddy hotel room for the hundredth time. We’d been at the hotel for a couple hours now, and Caleb had long since locked himself in the bathroom like a little girl. He wouldn’t talk to me, and it was pissing me off.
“You know what? I’m going to go swimming. I’m going to put on the tiniest, itsiest, bitsiest bikini I can find, and I’m going to go lounge by the pool. If you remember you’re a boy, you’re more than welcome to join me.”
Silence.
I screamed and slammed my hand against the door. It cracked beneath my fist. Why was he being such a little girl? It wasn’t my fault that hearing Max talk about Caleb’s poisoning had made me antsy, and we’d had an argument about it. The last thing I wanted was to pull him into a fight that could very well get him killed. I’d die before I did that.
That said, if he wasn’t going to come out, well, I didn’t need him, anyway. I stomped over to my duffel bag and dumped it out on one of the two lumpy queen-sized beds. Their sheets practically glowed in the dark in their own bioluminescence. I blushed. Still, they could have been such nice beds.
“What are you doing?” Mattoc asked me as I pulled on the pair of iron-toed boots I’d nabbed from the Dioscuri stockroom. He’d finally come out which meant we were well enough alone. He didn’t like appearing when other people were around if he could help it.
Every time we were around people, he tended to remain out of sight. He had done it so much on this adventure, I’d nearly forgotten he was there at all. Still, I was glad to see him. I was used to him popping up from time to time, and truth be told, I wasn’t sure what I’d do if he someday stopped.
“Putting on my fairy stomping boots,” I replied, glancing up at him. “Duh.”
“So, we aren’t really going swimming?” he asked, walking over to the bed and sitting down beside me. “I’d heard rumors of an itsy bitsy polka-dot bikini.”
“Really? Polka dots?” I shook my head. “Is that why you asked about the boots? I’m wearing chainmail under my clothes and iron-knuckled gloves, too. Besides, I don’t even own a bikini. You know that.”
“You told Caleb you were going swimming, and while I know you think I go through your drawers when you’re not looking, I have no idea what’s in your wardrobe. In fact, I can’t think of anything I care less about. Besides, I hear chainmail bikinis are all the rage with you female adventurers.” He smirked. “The boots seem a little awkward though. Plus, they don’t match the beret.” Mattoc shrugged. “Maybe a knight helmet with a feather?”
“Shut up!” I growled, touching my beret unconsciously. It was one of my favorite things, and every single time I wore it, Mattoc found a way to make fun of me.
“No,” Mattoc replied, patting my chainmail with his hand, which was weird because his fingers phased through the metal. “Why all the iron? Going after fairies?”
“You can never be too prepared,” I said, smiling innocently at him.
Ever wonder why most weapons, especially really old ones, are made of iron? Forget about smelting. Iron breaks up magical energy, and for lots of things, like spirits and faeries, which are made up of magical energy, iron cuts through them like nothing else. Maybe that was why he assumed I was going after fairies. No, the reason I’d worn it was because chain mail worked really well at stopping claws and fangs. I had delicate skin to protect after all.
Frost was already strapped to my back, wrapped in a bed sheet. Initially, I had tried to put it in a guitar case, but apparently they don’t make them big enough. Finally, I put on a small silver ring with a large red gem in the center. If I looked closely I could see some strands of my hair there.
Caleb had taken it from the Dioscuri storehouse before we’d left and given it to me. If I removed it, it would instantly transport me to my home. I didn’t quite understand how the ring knew where my home was, and Caleb hadn’t really bothered to explain it, which was annoying because I’d never actually used one before, and with good reason. They didn’t always work. The chance it would malfunction upon use was “very high.”
I wasn’t exactly super excited about yanking the ring off and having it crumble to dust, leaving me with no other means of escape, or better still, fiddling with it and winding up in my apartment by accident. Neither of those ranked very highly on my bucket list. Still, Caleb had given it to me, and since I was going to leave him here, I wanted something to remind me of him.
“Should you really be leaving your backup behind when you go after the baby? Don’t you remember what happened last time?” Mattoc was irritating me. Mostly because he was talking sensibly, and I didn’t like it. He should know better.
“I don’t want him screwing it up,” I replied angrily though I could have said I didn’t feel like having Caleb die on my watch.
“How about you sit d
own and take a break?” Mattoc smiled as he sat down at the table and gestured at an empty teacup.
“I’m not making you tea you can’t even drink,” I snarled as I grabbed the phone and angrily punched in a number.
“Well, someone’s certainly got her granny panties in a bunch,” Mattoc croaked. I turned my back to him when someone picked up on the other end.
“Mach Travel,” the grainy, overly professional voice on the phone said.
“I need transport to Germany yesterday,” I said, absently hitting the eight ball against the table.
“Please type in the address. Press pound when you are finished. Please do not tell me the address. Employees of Mach Travel are not allowed to know your destination.”
There was a loud buzz, and an automated message told me to punch in the address, which seemed a little redundant. I grumbled, flipped the eight ball over, and typed the address into the phone. A monotone voice repeated the address back to me. I pressed pound again to confirm. There was another buzz, and the line went back to normal.
“Do you actually need to go back in time or is this one of those figures of speech?” the voice asked. I cringed and rubbed my eyes.
“Figure of speech.”
“So to clarify,” the voice replied, “you would like a speedy transport to said address in present time. No time travel will be required?”
“Correct,” I said while wondering if they could transport me to just before I’d gone on this adventure so I could have avoided getting out of bed.
“Do you have an account with us?” the operator asked.
“Yeah, but I think it’s inactive,” I replied, wondering if it was the case. It had been the last time I’d checked, but after I’d been in Lot, I’d told them to reopen it.
“Noted. Name?”
“Callina, Lillim.”
“Your current status is listed as suspended,” the operator replied.
I laughed a little. “The reports of my suspension have been greatly exaggerated.”
“Noted.” The voice on the other end appeared bored now. “Transport will begin momentarily. Please note that if the authorization charge bounces, you will be fined ten percent of the total bill.”
“Ten four,” I muttered as the other end clicked off. “Stupid techs.”
There was a flash of light, and I found myself standing outside. The sun sat like a discolored, over-easy egg in a sky-colored frying pan. The air smelled vaguely of cut grass and smog, and I breathed in deeply. There was something about real air that excited me.
A green-blue lake stood sparkling before me in the noontime sun. Off in the distance was an immense island shrouded in mist. A massive stone castle was barely visible beneath the fog. I’d seen pictures of it before. Bear Cathedral… it was where Bob the Vampire lived when he wasn’t inhabiting that disgusting pit of sewn together bodies in Rome. Then again, a stone cathedral probably looked a lot less suspicious than a house made of bodies no matter where you were.
I glanced at the sky and smiled at the sun. Good. Sunlight didn’t exactly hurt vampires so much as it made it a lot harder for them to use their creepy vampire powers. Holy water, garlic, silver… none of that worked either unless the vampire happened to already be affected by them in some way before being turned. Stakes, however, could either kill or paralyze, depending on how old the vampire was. Still, a good old-fashioned decapitation worked just fine. Oh, and natural fire… that works, too. Fire fixes everything. When in doubt, kill it with fire.
Still, the eight ball had said Logan was here, which meant I had to get inside if I wanted to get the baby back. I gulped and took off running toward the lake. With one great leap and a few choice magical words, I landed roughly on the island. I glanced back at the shore behind me and smirked. I really needed to try out for the Olympics.
The same doorman from before looked up at me, and as he opened his mouth, the ground to our left trembled and exploded upward. I stumbled and fell on my butt, and Frost’s massive blade dug into the ground. A gigantic volcano tore upward through the earth, flinging gobs of magma into the air. It was then that I noticed the volcano had legs, and eyes, and a hideous gaping maw.
19
The beast made a great sucking sound, and my black beret whipped off my head and flew into its charred gullet, along with the doorman and other miscellaneous debris. My feet skidded along the ground, and I was pretty sure the only thing that kept me from being eaten was Frost digging into the earth and turning it to ice. A spark of fear flared in my gut as I looked around for something to keep me from turning into lunch.
It was a Qork, a beast with a near-limitless appetite. I’d read about them in books but hadn’t ever seen one before. The creature belched, causing smoke to rise from its open mouth in thick plumes.
As I staggered away from the monster, one hand gripping Frost for support, two ten foot tentacles whipped outward from the opening. They swung lazily toward me as though they meant to draw me into its mouth, but not if they had to work too hard at it. I stood and took a small step to the side, allowing the tentacle to slap the ground next to me with a wet thud.
The creature regarded me with the same semi-intelligent gaze a cow might use. It turned its attention toward the fence posts, encircling one with its tentacles. The post seemed to shudder as supports cracked and bolts popped free from the foundation. With a wet slurp, the Qork jammed the entire thing into its massive gullet.
Another Qork burst through the front wall of the castle, then another and another, until there were now at least five such creatures, varying in size from a large dog to a small car. It was an invasion, and I was in the middle of it. Why, oh why, did I have to be in the middle?
Unfortunately, the invasion also meant I’d have to hurry. If Logan was in there, he wouldn’t be for long. Not with an old-fashioned castle siege going on. I needed to get a move on. As I approached the front door, a massive gargoyle burst through the stone above. His enormous jaws slammed into the stone where I had been as I dove to the side. His body disappeared into the rock as though he had landed in water.
An out of the way door caught my eye, so I started toward it in lieu of having any other obvious entry points into the castle that didn’t involve fighting my way through hordes of ungodly creatures. As I got closer to it, my feet began to sink into wet mud. Thick mist descended upon me, and I shivered.
I trudged forward, but the closer I got to the doorway, the less visible it became. The scent of decaying flesh filled my nostrils. I struggled to overcome the nausea that tackled my senses. My boots stuck in the reddish-brown sludge, and I tripped, falling to my hands and knees. The mud rose all the way to the tops of my elbows as visions of vultures ripping flesh from dead bodies flashed through my mind.
I began to crawl through the mud until my head was scarcely above it. Several yards away, I could just make out the door. I took a deep breath through my mouth and willed myself to my feet.
The door appeared to be made from decaying flesh. Several large vultures with crimson-stained, mottled feathers sat on perches next to the door and eyed me hungrily.
I’ll admit it, my first instinct was to give up and run as far as possible in the opposite direction. Then the handle was in my hands, and I was hauling myself out of the mud and onto the step of the decaying door. I placed my hand in the center of the door, and when I tried to push it open, it oozed around my fingers. Instead of opening, the door trembled under my touch.
A shriek exploded from my mouth as it sucked me forward. I blinked once. I don’t know what happened exactly, but the door was behind me now. Well, that was neat, and even better, I was no longer covered in mud. Score!
In front of me was a single hallway that curved to the left and behind me was the gooey door of flesh. I took the only logical course of action. I ran as far from the door as I could. A howl escaped the corridor behind me, and I knew I had only moments before one of those damn gargoyles were upon me, but at least I didn’t have to contend with mud and
creepy vultures. I turned down another corridor and slammed into a swinging baseball bat at full force. The wood splintered across my chainmail covered chest as I crashed into the floor with a thud.
My vision blurred and my ribs ached from where the bat had struck me. Luckily my armor had deflected a lot of the power from the blow or I’d be dead. I’d read somewhere that in medieval times most soldiers didn’t die from being slashed or cut, but from being bashed to death beneath their armor. Sure, hardened steel might keep claws or swords from cutting you, but that force still had to go somewhere. I did not enjoy being that somewhere.
“It has been a long time since someone has entered through the carrion door,” the vampire standing over me said. His bulging muscles, spray-tan, and little itty-bitty shorts that left little to the imagination made it immediately obvious he had watched way too many muscleman competitions.
“I like to change it up every now and then,” I said as I scrambled to my feet and tried to think of what to do. I couldn’t run back the way I’d come because I could still hear the screeches of the gargoyles coming down the hall behind me. That left me no choice but to go through this Jay Cutler wannabe and judging by the size of him, I was betting that wasn’t going to be dandelions and ponies.
“I like to change things up, too. So, perhaps I will throw you to the vultures instead of making you a snack for the fledgling vampires.” He flexed as he spoke, which seemed kind of funny in a sad, pathetic sort of way.
“I don’t suppose you would consider the possibility of just letting me pass.” I managed a weak smile. Hey, you know, it never hurts to ask, especially when faced with complete and utter bodily harm.
For the briefest of moments, he appeared to think the idea over. Then he shook his head. “I like my idea better.”
I gulped and tried to will my heart to stop trying to smash its way out of my chest as he took a step toward me. His black thigh-high boots scratched against the marble floor. I swallowed, and without realizing it, gripped Frost’s hilt. Cold rushed through me, surging through my fingertips and down the length of my arm. My next breath came out in a chilly white cloud as the vampire took another step toward me.
The Lillim Callina Chronicles: Volumes 1-3 Page 13