The Lillim Callina Chronicles: Volumes 1-3

by J. A. Cipriano

  A wordless battle cry tore itself from my throat as I threw up my shield. Not in an attempt to block the charging beast. That would have been impossible. Instead, I threw a slanted wall of force in such a way that when Valen struck it he was driven straight into the ground. The shockwave from the impact threw me backward a few steps.

  My knees weakened, and I flopped to the floor. I hadn’t realized how hard my heart was pounding or how much air I was sucking in until now. My entire body felt thick and heavy. I swallowed, but my throat stayed dry.

  The immense dragon shook its head, and as it did so, I climbed to my feet. A haze filled my vision. From the corner of my eye I saw Valen’s massive tail coming toward me. I must have missed the actual impact because the next thing I knew, I was lying flat on my back several yards away with the coppery taste of blood filling my mouth.

  I rolled over onto my hands and knees and tried to breathe. My arms shook with the effort needed to hold my body up. Valen reached out with one enormous clawed hand and lifted me into the air. His massive fingers wrapped around me as though I was nothing more than a party-favor. I was going to die, and I wouldn’t be coming back this time. I’d be six feet under, no more chocolate donuts, dead.

  “It’s over, Dioscuri. There is nothing left for you to do but face the inevitable.” Valen’s voice raked over my senses.

  “I agree.” Warthor’s voice cut through the room like an arrow, and as soon as I heard it, I knew everything was going according to his plan. Everything would be okay. I wasn’t going to die. Thank the gods.

  Valen turned toward him, and an explosion of sound rocked the room. The dragon staggered back as gore burst from a cannonball-sized hole between its eyes. Valen’s grip on me loosened, and I fell to the ground, landing hard on my hip. Pain tore through my entire body, but I ignored it.

  My mentor stood there with a gun in his hand. My gun. The one Joshua had stolen from me. The one that could kill anything, even a dragon. Part of me was angry he’d stolen it, but right now, I almost didn’t care because I was just happy I wasn’t dead. Funny how getting saved from certain death at the hands of an enraged dragon could almost make me forget he’d stolen my weapon, kidnapped Mattoc, and beaten me to a pulp.

  “To think,” Warthor said as he crossed the floor and kicked the fallen drake contemptuously, “a giant talking lizard thought he could defeat The Invincible Warthor Ein.”

  I gave Warthor a speculative glance as he tossed an obolus on the creature’s snout. “Can I have my gun back?”

  “Are you going to shoot me with it, Bunny?” he asked as the coin spun around in a dance of alabaster flame that soon engulfed the entire drake. When it was finished, he bent down to pick up the coin. It glowed with neon pink light as he pocketed it.

  “I wasn’t planning on it. I wouldn’t wanna waste the last bullet. It’s worth considerably more to me than you are.” That was actually true. There weren’t many bullets left, and if I wasted one on Warthor right now, it would be, well, a waste. Besides, for all I knew, Warthor had a way to bring himself back from the dead.

  He threw his head back and laughed. Then, he pushed the gun into my hand. I glared at him, but the effort made my brain hurt. I reached out and grabbed his arm for stability as he hauled me to my feet. My original conclusion was correct. He had wanted to steal my gun. He had wanted to kill Valen, and he knew I had a way to do it.

  “If you ever try anything like this again, I will blow you into a thousand bits,” I said, anger leaking into my voice.

  “Oh?” he asked with a bemused smile.

  “Then I’ll blow the thousand bits into a thousand more.”

  “So a million bits then?” He shook his head and an odd sort of expression settled on his face. “Why don’t you go home, Bunny?” He patted my shoulder. “Take a nice bath or something. You seem a bit tired.”

  “I will just as soon as I get what’s-his-name to return the baby,” I muttered, wondering how I was going to call up that Led Zeppelin shirt wearing freak to tell him the dragon was dead.

  “I wouldn’t worry about it. I’m sure Trius has returned the First Son by now. He tends to keep his promises.” Warthor shrugged. “Or he’s still making the kid listen to Led Zeppelin over and over. Either way, the kid is in good hands.” He regarded me very carefully. “You did know it was Trius who took the baby from you, right? I convinced him that he had best step in before you lost Prince Dar again. You are a terrible babysitter.”

  37

  I wanted to slug my former master. I wanted to hit him so hard it would cause his future progeny lifelong pain. Warthor Ein had sacrificed everything to win, and because of that, he had lost nothing. It didn’t seem fair. It seemed like he should have lost something, anything. Still, this was Warthor we were talking about. It was almost always easier to take the high road when dealing with him.

  I took a deep breath, pleased I hadn’t hit him, though I still wanted to do it. Instead, I turned away from him and began limping toward the exit.

  “I think you should know, Bunny,” Warthor’s words carried a strange sort of edge to them. “Joshua didn’t want to help me. He begged and pleaded with me to find another way. I could not.” He put a hand on my shoulder. It was sticky with sweat. I wanted to shrug it off, but for some reason, I didn’t. “You should blame me for what happened. I forced him to steal the gun from you. I knew you would not bring yourself to use the gun. Not with only two bullets left.” He turned me until I was facing him and stared at me with his icy-blue eyes.

  “Joshua could have refused,” I said so harshly he took a step away from me. I took a wobbly step forward and pushed him. “You could have come to see me initially. You could have asked for the weapon. You… you…” I sank to my knees, tears blurring my eyes.

  “Let’s be real here, Lillim. Without my help, you could have been killed. That’s the only reason Joshua didn’t refuse to help me. We know you too well. We knew you would go up against Valen alone, and here you are.” He let out a slow breath, his eyes bristling with anger. “Do you have a death wish, Lillim?”

  “Maybe I do. Maybe I never wanted to come back in the first place.” I knew it was a bratty thing to say the moment I said it, but once the words were out, I found I couldn’t take them back no matter how much I wanted to. In truth, I was happy to be alive, and what’s more we had won. I wasn’t sure if Dirge would be standing right now, but at the same time, I almost didn’t care.

  Warthor closed his eyes. “I’m sorry, Bunny.” He vanished in the instantaneous way he did, leaving me all by myself in the middle of a half-wrecked stone castle. I wiped the tears from my eyes and crawled back to my feet. I wished I could make him feel what I did. I hated him because I knew I would forgive him. I mean, how angry can you be at a scorpion for stinging you? It’s a god-damned scorpion. That’s what they do.

  “I wouldn’t have helped if I’d thought there was another way.” Joshua’s voice startled me, and I whirled around, looking for him. He stood by the entrance, the moonlight from outside cast over him in such a way that he glowed.

  “I know.” I wobbled toward him. “I knew there had to be a good reason.” He took a step toward me and tried to put his arms around me. I shrugged them off and poked him hard in the chest. “I knew you wouldn’t purposely make me hate you again.”

  “I wasn’t trying to make you hate me. I was trying to save your life. I wanted to keep you from getting yourself killed.” He shook his head. “I still can’t believe you came to take on Valen alone. Warthor told me you would, but I thought surely… surely you couldn’t be this dumb.” He took a deep breath. “That isn’t what I mean. No…”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, strangely curious.

  “Do you really want to be dead, Lillim? That’s what it seems like.” He took another breath. “That’s why I had to help Warthor. I thought you might really be trying to kill yourself. Not by suicide or anything, but like Dirge did. I thought you might martyr yourself.”

  Now,
I understood why he had done it. I even felt bad for him. He had helped Warthor steal my gun knowing I would hate him. He had willingly become Judas to save me, and in doing so, had saved me from myself. I probably would have gone down swinging. Hell, I knew I would have. That’s what made it all the worse. I knew he had a good reason, and yet, if I could have, I would have thrown him off a goddamned building.

  “If I hadn’t gone along with Warthor’s plans, you’d be dead.” Tears were forming in his eyes, and he wiped them away with his sleeve. “You just came back to me. I couldn’t lose you again. I couldn’t let you die, not for good. I love you, Lillim.”

  This was why I could never take Joshua seriously. I remember the way he ran his hand through his hair made butterflies dance in my stomach. I remember kissing him and holding his hand as we stared at the moon. But I never actually did any of those things. Dirge had, and for some reason, that was incredibly important to me.

  When Joshua said he loved me, I always thought maybe he wished I was Dirge. It was something I could never get past. It was something I shouldn’t have to get past.

  He took my chin in his hand and leaned down to kiss me. I turned my head so his lips touched my cheek. Why? Because it wasn’t me he really wanted, and that much had been obvious for a long, long time. I’d just been too weak to deal with it.

  “No, Joshua. You don’t. The woman you love is dead.” I pushed past him and stepped out into the night air knowing he would not follow me.

  The brisk breath of the wind made me shiver. I stood in the moonlight, and for the first time, noticed how beautiful this castle truly was. I was standing next to a quiet stream looking at the lilacs, awakened from their winter’s slumber. It was a strange to find them outside a castle owned by a vampire who regularly used human flesh like a potter might use clay.

  Still, the water behind me gave rise to a pleasant sort of sound. The accompanying wind carried the scent of blooming flowers, filling me with a sort of calm happiness. It was something I was unused to, so much beauty without any blood.

  I turned my head, hearing someone approach. Had Joshua followed me after all? I looked up and nearly choked. Caleb stood there with a look on his face I had never seen before.

  “And what brings you to this neck of the flowers?” I asked as he plucked one of the little blossoms from its stem. It was a queer little thing, and he held it to his nose and inhaled. He turned it once in his hands before holding it out to me.

  “You won.” His voice was strained in a way I didn’t expect, and I didn’t quite know how to respond. An awkward silence pressed down on us, and he cleared his throat. His cheeks reddened, and he looked away from me.

  “You kept your word. You didn’t help me.” I blushed, and he waved my response away.

  “That isn’t why I didn’t help. I thought that if I saved you now, you would never forgive me. I could have helped you. Together, we might have beaten Valen, but I don’t think that was the point of this. Yeah, you chose to fight him alone. You chose to forsake my help, and that’s fine.” He shook his head and knelt beside me among the flowers. “Helping you after you asked me not to help would be killing you in a different way. At least, it would be if I was in your shoes.” Caleb’s hands were balled so tightly they trembled. “So I stood back and watched. I stood back and had to endure watching you suffer. I promised myself that when it was over, I would walk over to you. I’d tell you how much better you make me just by existing.”

  Dynamite would have been fairer to my heart because in that moment, it nearly burst from happiness. Caleb wanted me. Me! Lillim Callina. How was that possible? And oh-my-god, how shallow am I?

  The moonlight melted on us, fragments of starlight attempted to pierce both the smog and the harsh glare of the city surrounding the castle. It was under this muted sky that he took my hand and we walked, very close to one another through the garden. And you know what, I was okay with being shallow because for this moment, he was with me. Me.

  I wanted to say something, anything that would make him understand how I felt. In all my memories we had never been anything more than friends. Dirge had never felt anything for him. Dealing with my feelings for him was something my past life hadn’t prepared me for. I shivered at the thought. This one experience was mine, all mine.

  “Are you going to come back home?” Caleb smiled half-heartedly and shook his mop of sandy hair. “To the Dioscuri I mean?”

  I didn’t bother looking at him. Mostly because I really didn’t want to go home. Even if it meant I could have him, I couldn’t go back, not when monsters like Valen kept playing out their plans for world domination right under the Dioscuri’s nose. I opted to change the subject.

  “How’s your chest?” I asked, filling my voice with concern.

  He moved to rub it. “It was still just magic, once most of the initial damage from the spell was healed...” He trailed off for a second and smiled. “It’ll be healed completely in a few more days.”

  “You know, you’re really an idiot.” I regarded him carefully. “You could have died if you’d gotten into a fight with that kind of injury.”

  “It wasn’t so bad.” He waved his arm. “I’m tougher than I look.”

  “You’re just lucky I decided to leave you behind. The fight with the dragon, the storming of the castle… that could have hurt you a lot.”

  “But it all wound up okay in the end.” He placed his hand on my shoulder. “You shouldn’t focus so much on past mistakes. If you do, you’re likely to be swallowed up by them. I’d know.”

  I nodded and put my head against his chest. “I was just so concerned you’d die because of me. I didn’t even think about the consequences. Because I was foolish, everyone here almost died. At least, if you’d been there, I wouldn’t have fallen under that spell. I wouldn’t have had to deal with Wyrm.”

  Caleb wrapped his arms around me and pulled me close to him. I trembled under his embrace but didn’t fight him off. “If you hadn’t left me, I would have never survived.” He smiled, leaning down close to me. “But you’ve got it all wrong. I’m the lucky one. I’m the one lucky enough to have a friend who was willing to risk her own life just so I wouldn’t get hurt. I was able to fight beside someone that didn’t give up when her body was broken and beaten, but still stood, through the sheer force of her willpower, and fought onward to victory.”

  “Don’t be silly.” I placed a finger to his lips. “Those are all qualities you possess.”

  Caleb leaned down close to me until our faces were almost touching, my finger still at his lips. “I’m not the one who is planning on taking a stand for what I believe is right and saying to hell with the consequences. Everyone that fights by your side stands up and does things they never thought they could otherwise. You make the world a better place just by existing.”

  “Caleb?” I was looking into his green eyes now, trembling, and what I felt for him couldn’t rightly be translated into words. I wanted him with everything in me.

  “Yeah?” he asked.

  “Shut up.” I slid my fingers out from between us. Our lips met, and he pulled me into him, holding my body against his own.

  As we broke apart a few moments later, and he put his forehead against mine, an icy dagger of fear stabbed into my heart. Caleb was dying from the poison running through his veins, and I really, really didn’t want him to die.

  The Hatter is Mad

  1

  A loud bang rattled off my front door so loud my eyes snapped open and I leapt from my bed, heart racing and pulse pounding. I swallowed, taking a deep breath and forcing my heart to slow down as I crept forward toward the bedroom door, adrenaline whisking the sleep from my addled brain. I wasn’t quite sure what time it was, but the sunlight streaming through the windows told me it had to be well into the morning. I’d overslept. Damn.

  I tried desperately to figure out who could be at my door as the banging continued, growing more and more insistent by the second. From the sound of it, if I didn’t h
urry, someone was going to kick in my door, again. I grabbed my overcoat off the back of a chair and slung it around my body and the feel of the revolver in my pocket made me settle down a little.

  Why did I grab my overcoat as I headed to the door? It was enchanted with spells that made it bullet proof, stab proof, and fire proof. Besides, there was near limitless space inside to hide my own personal armory. Also, I’m paranoid, and I had no idea who was on the other side of my door. For all I knew it could be a dragon, or worse, my mother.

  I slid the deadbolt out of place and as I unlocked the lock on the knob, another loud bang rattled the inside of my brain. I stepped backward unconsciously, one hand coming up defensively as I instinctively gathered my power and dropped into a fighting stance. My heels tangled in a jacket on the floor as my hand turned the knob, and I fell backwards. I lunged for it while fighting for my balance and tumbled forward, arms flailing wildly.

  MY porch came racing up to greet me with a sloppy tongue-kiss, but before it could consummate the act, I was jerked to a stop by the scruff of my neck. The fabric of my overcoat cinched around my throat, turning my pained cry of surprise into a sort of gurgling rasp.

  “You should have been watching that last step. That one’s a doozy.” Melanie Stone grinned, holding me with both hands by the scruff of my overcoat as she stood just outside my door.

  She helped me regain my balance as I silently cursed the fairy cleaning-service. It had really slacked off lately on the whole picking up after me thing. If this kept up, I might actually have to start cleaning up after myself. I shook my head in disgust. That was so not happening. If there’s one thing Lillim Callina does not do, it’s clean.

  “So how are things?” Melanie asked, a strange smile on her face as her eyes ran up and down my outfit. I wriggled my toes in the pink footpads of my pajamas and sighed. That was when I realized I was standing in front of my friend wearing my navy blue overcoat and a pink onesie with sparkly ponies on it. I’d probably looked more ridiculous at some point in time, but I had a hard time remembering when.