“Lillim,” she said, glancing back toward the body one last time. A shudder ran down her spine, and I was really glad I didn’t know the details about what happened before I arrived.
“Yeah?” I asked.
“I want your gun,” she said, gesturing at my Beretta.
“It’s out of bullets,” I replied, wishing it wasn’t true.
“Reload the gun and give it to me,” she said, and the emptiness in her voice made me shiver. It made me think giving her a loaded gun would be a really bad idea, but then again, we were surrounded by very bad things that really disliked being shot…
I sighed, and even though it was against my better judgement, I shut my eyes and summoned my spirit pouch once again. I reached inside and pulled out the spare magazine. I swapped it for the empty one and put the empty magazine into my spirit pouch.
“Do you know how to shoot?” I asked, reaching in again.
“Point at the bad guy and pull the trigger.” Her voice was cold, glacial even.
“There’s only twenty shots. I don’t have any more ammo for it,” I said.
“You have infinite space in that pouch, and you only have two clips?” she asked and there was a thread of emotion just below the surface of her voice.
“Firstly, it is called a magazine when you use it with a pistol. Secondly, most things don’t live past forty rounds. Thirdly, even though it doesn’t seem like it, pulling ammunition out of a desk drawer is way easier than pulling them out of my spirit pouch. Those are my emergency rounds,” I said as I pulled my shotgun from the pouch and willed it away. “I almost never use them.”
“I want that gun. It’s bigger,” she said, pointing at my shotgun.
“Bigger is better,” I said with a smile and held the shotgun out to her. “You don’t really have to do a lot more than point this at the bad guy and pull the trigger, but make sure you hold it like this, or you’ll dislocate something,” I said, bracing it against my shoulder in demonstration. “It has five rounds, but you will have to pump it in between shots.”
She took it and pointed it at me. “Next time you take the lake,” she said.
I narrowed my eyes at her. “Don’t ever point your weapon at something you’re not willing to kill.”
Her eyes took on that blank look again, and I swallowed. “I should kill you.” Her voice made a shiver run down my spine, and I had to resist the urge to shoot her on principle. Usually when people looked at me like that, it never ended well.
“No. You should not do that,” I said, ignoring her misplaced rage because if I argued with her about it, the likelihood she’d go from talking crazy to acting crazy got demonstrably higher. “If you do, you won’t be able to visit revenge upon our fine fairy friends.”
She nodded once, and it made me wonder what exactly had happened to her at the hands of the fairies. Whatever it was had sliced into her carefree nature like an icy dagger. Honestly, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to know what they were.
Before she decided to turn and shoot me anyway, I spun on my heel and walked back out the door, gun held in front of me. I was reasonably sure she wouldn’t shoot me in the back and no good was going to come from arguing with her about it.
Besides, I wasn’t sure I could deal with her inevitable break down. We were in the heart of the Sidhe’s Summer Court, and I wasn’t about to do anything else that might get us both killed. Kishi may not have realized it, but she just killed a Sidhe and shot off over ten rounds. Someone was going to come find us. Especially since I left one of the guards alive.
“We need to hurry and get out of here,” I said. “I left one of the guards alive outside. That combined with all the noise… well someone's got to be coming.”
“Why did you leave one alive?” she asked, annoyance filling her voice.
“Because I’m not a soulless killer,” I said flatly. I wasn’t. I only killed things that deserved to be killed. Those guards had mostly just been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Kishi stepped past me into the hallway and back out into the entryway. The two guards were still lying there. I was pretty sure the one with the gaping chest wound was dead because there was no way he could have lived with that kind of blood loss. Kishi knelt down next to the one with the shoulder wound and pulled off his helmet. The Sidhe’s slack face fell out of it with a wet thwap on the marble.
“Both dead.” Her voice was cold, empty. “Don’t kid yourself about what you are, Lillim.”
“I was trying to save you,” I said, but my justification felt hollow and empty, even to me.
“And I appreciate it. But don’t act like we’re not horrible, vicious killers. We’re Dioscuri. We kill things. It is what we do.” Kishi stood and her face was set in a grim line that would have scared even the most hardened fairy. “Now, let’s go kill us a Fairy Queen.”
While most of what she said, had an indisputable ring of truth to them, I wanted to argue anyway. I didn’t because I wasn’t sure what to say to that, but I wanted to do so.
“Um… and why would we do that instead of, you know, escaping?” I asked, hoping that maybe we could just go back to Lot. I was done marauding around inside of Fairy. The guys at contract enforcement could take it from here, and to be perfectly frank, at this point, I was fine with that.
“Because I want to kill her and every other Sidhe in this place. I want to burn it to the ground and salt the ashes, and I’m going to do it with or without you. That is an inevitability. You are optional.”
“I don’t think that is going to make them clean my apartment better,” I said, forcing a grin in an effort to lighten the mood.
It must have worked because Kishi smiled just a little bit. “I don’t think killing a few Sidhe is going to affect your laundry pixies.”
8
“This plan is horrible,” Kishi said, standing next to me in the hallway clad in an only partially destroyed suit of fairy armor. We hadn’t made it very far when I’d stumbled upon the bright idea of stealing the dead guards’ armor and using it for camouflage.
“It’s not that bad,” I reaffirmed for the third time. “For the record, I am getting a little tired of your attitude. Thus far my plan is working splendidly.”
“I can barely move in this stupid Sidhe armor, and I’m completely naked under here. Talk about chaffing,” she said and groaned.
“You know I’m experiencing very similar levels of discomfort, right?” I snarled and glared at her through my visor even though she couldn’t see my face, which was sort of the whole point.
“You know I don’t give a rat’s ass about your chaffing, right?” Kishi responded. She’d been rather hostile since the ordeal with the Breaker.
Thanks to my brilliant plan of putting on the guards’ armor, we were nearly to the Queen’s chambers and no one even batted an eye in our directions. Of course we had to hurry and walk in such a way as to shield the bullet holes and blood, but hey we were still way less obvious than we would have been otherwise.
I wasn’t even really sure how Kishi knew where the Queen’s chambers were, but she swore up and down she did. Besides, she hadn’t left much room for argument. She just started walking, and I was forced to keep up. This was exactly the sort of half-cocked, ridiculous thing I always found myself doing. Unfortunately, bumbling around looking for the Queen wasn’t my plan and that made the whole thing seem a little… ridiculous.
Was this how my plans seemed to other people? Did I really bumble through things intent on shooting immeasurably powerful beings to death over small trifles? Surely when I did things they were more reasonable, right? Then again, why had I even come here? To yell at the fairies for not fixing my apartment in a timely manner when I could have, I don’t know, done almost anything else instead.
As that thought settled over me like a heavy coat, a chill went through me, numbing my body to the core. I whirled around, bringing the Beretta up in front of me. I didn’t see anything coming down the long corridor. Kishi stopped and put her b
ack against mine.
“What’s there?” she asked.
“Not sure,” I said, reaching out with my power and letting it flow outward. A shock of electricity burst through me, and I would have fallen to the ground if Kishi hadn’t caught me. She held me upright with her left hand. It was clenched so tightly around my golden armor that it actually bent inward under the pressure.
I swallowed, trying to remember how to breathe as an actual shadow took a step forward. It was black as coal with two giant orange eyes that smoldered like twin torches. Lightning crackled around its ethereal form as it shifted toward us, stretching across the ground as if being cast in our direction.
Kishi’s shotgun roared behind me, the sound deafening in the confined space of the hallway. She took a step forward, half-dragging me along as she moved. The smell of gunpowder mixed with the coppery scent of blood as I scrambled to my feet and glanced over my shoulder.
A Sidhe was lying face down on the floor a few feet away. There was a wash of crimson on the stone behind him. His armor was silver, rather than gold. Kishi’s blast damn near torn him in half, and I was pretty sure he died instantly because the marble floor was visible through the hole in his back.
“Be careful, they can bend light around them and turn invisible. If you think you see something, just shoot it,” Kishi said. She released my hand and pumped her shotgun.
“That’s only good advice until you run out of bullets,” I murmured, hoping that wouldn’t actually happen. If it did, we were going to be in trouble.
The shadow was getting closer. Its head cast along the ceiling like a gaping maw. Huge, bat-like wings flowed like smoke around the walls of the tunnel. Either that shadow was getting bigger, or its owner was getting closer.
I pulled off my helmet and flung it at the creature. It passed through it like a rock going through a cloud of smoke. The face smiled at me, baring a mouthful of black teeth that looked a little too real for my tastes. I swallowed and took a step backward and bumped into Kishi.
“Down!” she cried, grabbing me by the arm and tugging me to the side with her. Fire smashed into the spot we’d been occupying, splashing flame and rubble at us. It clanged uselessly off the metal armor, and I was a little surprised at how easily the flames were warded off. Then again, this was armor fashioned for the Sidhe of the Court of the Hot and Bright. It ought to shrug off a little fire.
Another fireball rushed toward us as I leapt to my feet. Without thinking, I reached out and smacked it away with my gauntlet-bound hand. It wasn’t even hot. The fire just melted away. Well… that was neat.
“The armor is fireproof,” I called to Kishi as another ball of flame hurtled toward us. I grinned and hit it again, this time purposely knocking it into the giant shadow looming behind us.
The fireball exploded like gasoline fumes. Fire whipped out in every direction as I shielded my face with my hands. The smell of burning hair and ozone filled my nostrils as I spread apart my fingers to peer back at the shadows. The looming creature was gone and a tiny, green-haired gnome was cowering in its place.
The gnome’s emerald eyes got as big as saucers as it saw me looking at. His once brilliant blue robes were spotted with char and burn marks, like someone threw a lit ashtray at him. He took a step backward, his curly white clown hair bouncing as he moved.
The roar of Kishi’s shotgun deafened the room again, and the last fireball died somewhere down the hall behind me, sputtering out before it reached us. Jeez, hadn’t these guys heard of cover?
I pointed my Beretta at the gnome and made a come here gesture with my other hand. The little gnome shook its head.
“Come here,” I said and could barely hear my voice over the ringing in my ears.
“No,” it said in a voice that was all nasal rasps. There was an explosion next to my left ear, and the gnome pitched backward in a cloud of blood and gore. Its little two-foot tall body bounced once and slid to a stop a few feet away. I dropped to the side, holding my hand to my ear, sure I was permanently deaf now. Kishi’s shotgun stood inches from my face.
“Was that totally necessary?” I screamed at the top of my lungs.
“Yes. It wasn’t dead, and it needed to be dead.” Kishi’s voice was harder than ice and twice as cold.
Her eyes were flat and empty. They reminded me of a snake or a crocodile… definitely something reptilian. I swallowed and glanced away from her as she pumped her shotgun, ejecting the spent shell onto the floor before turning back down the hallway.
“Come on. We have more things to kill,” Kishi said, opening the door at the end and stepping inside. I felt sort of bad for the stupid creature Kishi had blasted, although I wasn’t sure why since it had been attacking us. It was probably better this way. At least, I was going to tell myself that until it stuck.
I followed Kishi through the door, and my eyes widened as I took in the room. It was huge, like football stadium huge, complete with gilded bleachers surrounding the center. An immense chair sat on a dais against the far wall… and it appeared to be made from solid gold. Silver filigree decorated the walls and chairs in the stands, in a series of concentric circles that had to have taken hours to craft.
To our left a huge door slid open and the room shuddered as a twenty foot tall golden dragon statue took a step toward us from the room, cracking the marble beneath its feet with its immense bulk. Scales the size of tower-shields glistened in the flickering light. About a hundred feet above our heads, a miniature sun blazed, shrouding the entire room in alternating bouts of light and shadow as it winked in and out of existence.
“I think you picked the wrong door,” I said with a gulp and glanced over my shoulder at the smooth silver wall where the door had once been.
“It was the only door,” Kishi replied. This was true. When we reached the end of the hallway there had been a single door with a glittering amethyst knob. Kishi hadn’t even checked it for traps. Instead, she opened it and stepped through, and I, like a dumbass, followed her.
It had sealed behind us with a clang, leaving no trace that it had ever been there before. That’s when the golden dragon statue in the center of the room started to move. Smoke streamed from its nostrils as it reared back and roared. Actual swords gleamed in its mouth where teeth should have been.
“I know you’re here, Queenie. I can feel your presence like slime on my skin,” Kishi called, evidently unconcerned about the thousand tons of golden dragon statue.
The creature charged and almost without blinking Kishi threw her hand out toward it. Her eyes turned that opaque emerald color I’d seen in the vision of her fighting the porcupine. The air temperature dropped by several degrees, and my breath came out in a wisp of fog. Blue energy exploded from her hand, slamming into the golden dragon with a sound like a blizzard crashing into a car.
It stumbled backward on the ice-slicked marble, its golden tail thrashing as its spindly arms flailed in the air. Frost filled its seams, and the sound of screeching metal shrieked as the joints popped. Bits of metal broke off as the creature ground to a halt. Kishi whirled, the tattooed dagger sliding into her hand as she turned and flung it at the creature.
The blade sailed through the air, slamming into the statue, punching through it, and embedding itself in the wall. The statue throbbed, pulsing once as smoke and sparks erupted from the hole. It slumped forward, the metal of its front legs shearing off as the entire structure crashed sideways in a heap.
“Well that was impressive.” The Queen’s voice swept over my skin like caramel and hot chocolate.
“It’s a giant hunk of metal. You ever hit a frozen piece of metal with a hammer? It’s simple physics,” Kishi said with a sigh and shook her head.
Physics maybe… but I wouldn’t have been able to fast freeze a ginormous golden statue without batting an eye. To call up that kind of power in the heart of the Summer Court was really freaking hard to do. It was something I could have done, but I was a battle-hardened warrior, and to my knowledge, Kishi had neve
r really been in the field. That she did it without batting an eye was a little scary.
“Physics? I am unfamiliar with that type of magic.” The Queen’s voice had that lilting quality that made me think of Gaelic folk songs. “You Dioscuri are always so interesting. Perhaps after I peel the flesh from your bones and build a tea set from them, I will study your ‘physics.’”
Fear struck me like a knife to the face and terror tore a scream from my throat. I stumbled backward, clutching my temples as blinding panic made me look frantically around, desperate for a place to escape. The Beretta slipped from my hand and clanged to the ground at my feet. Tremors ran down my spine, and my knees shook so badly that I collapsed to the marble floor. I tried to reach toward my gun but my hand was shaking so badly that it seemed impossible.
Kishi was on the ground a few feet away, curling her body into a tiny ball. The shotgun lay on the ground beside her. The Queen of the Bright and Hot leaned close to Kishi’s fallen form wearing a thin silver cloth that left little to the imagination.
Her hair was like polished sunlight as she reached out and trailed one hand along Kishi’s cheek. The Queen’s skin gleamed like amber, glowing from within like a fire flickering just below the surface. Giant dragonfly wings that glittered like strings of opals were tucked down her back in a way that reminded me of a wasp folding up its wings.
“You killed my brother, the Breaker of Rage and Flame. He is the one I send to break my enemies, to crush their will and drive them from my lands. Now my brother is gone and all I have is you to make up for it.” The Queen turned and settled eyes of burning flame upon me.
She strode toward me and touched my chin with her hand. Burning heat exploded down the length of my body, tightening my muscles and forcing a small scream to escape my lips. I tried to swallow, but my mouth was dry, so dry. She bent her mouth toward me while effortlessly pulling me to my feet with her hand.
Her lips brushed against mine and electricity crackled in the air around us. It hit me like a crashing wave, shaking my knees so violently that I lost my balance and fell. She caught me, wrapping one of her arms around my waist and pulling my armor-clad body against her. The metal dented against her form, warping and bending in ways I didn’t know it could.
The Lillim Callina Chronicles: Volumes 1-3 Page 45