Kill It With Magic: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Lillim Callina Chronicles Book 1) (3 page)

I didn’t even need his help to find Warthor. Still, I knew I could trust Joshua to be the self-centered jerk that he was. Sure, I might not want to deal with him, but I was pretty sure he cared about saving his own skin enough that he would help me if it kept him alive. Even if that meant he had to lead me through the very bowels of Hell to do so. Besides, if anyone could find Warthor quickly— and I needed to find Warthor quickly— it would be him.

“There’s another way to find Joshua, you know.” Mattoc leaned back on his heels, a smile on his face. “There is only one place he can get a candy swizzle. You could do some real detective work. You know, trace his trail back to the source.”

Joshua could only get them from the Dioscuri. We both knew that, but that didn’t mean I had to ask them for help.

I settled one of my best glares on Mattoc. “Not gonna happen. I’d rather visit every single place in the universe before I call on the Dioscuri to help find Joshua.”

“They’re pretty good at finding people.” His voice sounded a little different, almost pleading.

I stopped listening to him and grabbed a cord of rope from my desk drawer. If I could enter the nether I could have used a spell to find Warthor directly. Unfortunately, without Joshua to lead me inside Earth’s magical realms, I knew of only one other entrance, and that was in the Dioscuri base camp. Although the Dioscuri would probably let me use it, I didn’t really want to be around them.

It wasn’t just that the Dioscuri were now led by my psycho, overbearing mother. It was more that people kept comparing me to Dirge Meilan. I was not her. I would never be her. I was Lillim Callina, and for some people, that was impossible to understand.

My past life as Dirge Meilan was always there in the background, like an invisible measuring stick that I was always being held against. Dirge would have done this. Dirge wouldn’t have done that.

“I’m not Dirge!” I screamed before I realized what I was saying. Mattoc shook his head and drifted away from me. He had been attached to Dirge for a long time and had grown to respect her. He didn’t like when I spoke ill of my former self.

Hell, I had nothing against her, personally. I only hated that I was being compared to her. That was another thing Mattoc and I argued about. He felt I should be honored by the comparison. I shook my head. Maybe he should try having every single person compare him to his past life. Then again, a self-centered jerk like him would probably get a kick out of that.

I walked to my table, a tiny rosewood thing covered in deep white scratches from before I’d rescued it from a local thrift shop, and dumped everything I’d gathered onto it in a heap. I mixed the various ingredients together until, finally, a dash of monkey screams and a minor explosion later, my magic rope began to move all on its own. It would lead me into the nether.

I hung on for all I was worth as it pulled me outside my apartment. The rope jerked me to the side, as I whipped around the corner and came face to face with a brick wall a few blocks away. That’s where the rope died in my hand.

“Just not my day,” I mumbled. I reached forward. The wall rippled as though I had touched the surface of a pond. I hadn’t known there was an entrance to the nether here, which meant it was new, which meant someone else put it here.

It spelled trap, but since I didn’t really have a better plan, I took a deep breath and jumped through the wall. I found myself exhaling a chilly breath of church air. At the very front of the chapel, in the center of several bronze statues of what I think were saints, stood a freakishly thin vampire with crystalline hair and a dreary maroon robe.

Chapter 4

“I’ve been expecting you, Lillim Callina, though you arrived a little before Joshua said you would. He didn’t think you’d come to find him quite this fast.”

Power radiated off the creature like a winter’s breeze, pelting my skin with little frozen pinpricks. I had to fight the urge to shiver and hug myself. Instead I steeled myself and settled my gaze on him. My stomach clenched, revulsion welling up inside me as I tried to focus on the vampire. I gulped and tried very hard not to lose my lunch. It wouldn’t have looked very tough if I threw up in front of him after all. It’s hard enough to look tough when you’re
not
vomiting up a lung.

Ever since my mom had tied me to a tree outside a vampire den during childhood, I’d never really liked vampires. Being around this one was not making me like them any better. Aside from the fact that the blood suckers brought back memories of snarling fangs and horrific claws ripping into my flesh, spilling my blood into the rain-soaked mud as I ran screaming and flailing, they’re really quite rude about the whole disemboweling and dismemberment thing. Given the chance, most vampires would gladly spill my entrails onto the ground and frolic in my hot, wet blood.

“You’ve been expecting me? For what? What are
you
doing here?” I called and was pretty sure it didn’t sound as impressive as I’d have liked.

“Lighting candles for the dead,” he replied as though it was perfectly natural for him to be in a church. Which it might have been… I wasn’t up to date on what all the cool bloodsuckers were doing. Maybe they hung out in churches now.

“But you kill people!” I exclaimed. Behind him, an immense painting of Jesus and His Apostles caught my eye. Jesus’ gaze seemed to bear down on me, and without realizing it, I took a step back.

“Then it is even more important for me to honor the dead.” The vampire turned toward me, his lips stretching into a crooked smile as he folded his hands over a silver crucifix. “If it weren’t for them, I wouldn’t be here today.”

I tried to keep the surprise off my face and I wasn’t sure how well it worked. I could deal with a vampire in a church… it wasn’t
that
odd, but a vampire holding onto a crucifix? That was a little strange. Now, I never claimed to quite understand faith magic. We’ve all seen movies where vampires and ghosts are incapacitated by crosses. However, there are just as many films where vampires and ghosts destroy those same crosses effortlessly.

This was one of those times where I should have just listened to my mother and studied. Then I wouldn’t be relying on Hollywood’s version of the facts. If I got out of this alive I was totally going to study. Well… I was going to think about studying. Baby steps.

I shook my head and narrowed my eyes. “But you’re a vampire!”

“Voln D’Lamprey.” He bowed his head.

The chill that ran down my back was so cold that I was sure someone had dropped an ice cube down the back of my shirt. I knew
that
name. Voln D’Lamprey was very well known because he was really good at tricking people into doing his bidding. It was rumored that he had been the driving force behind the Louisiana Purchase.

“Forgive me,” I mumbled and bowed my head. He gestured above my head and said something in what I thought to be Latin.

“Don’t worry, my lady,” he said as I raised my head. “If I were still human I might have reacted just as you did. I know you were expecting to find Joshua here, but, alas, it is only I who reside in this cathedral.”

He smiled, white teeth flashing in the dim light, and my head started to swim. I couldn’t look directly at him. The hard lines that made up his features had blurred into a whitish mass of light. I shook my head and swallowed before continuing.

“I don’t know how I wound up here.” I spread my arms to indicate the surrounding room. “I was looking for Joshua and ended up here. But I haven’t quite figured out why.”

“Yes, Joshua told me you would help me with a task, a tiny trifle. In return for this small favor, I will relay to you Joshua’s exact whereabouts. How does that sound?”

I shook my head in an effort to break his gaze. I had to stop myself from taking a step back from him. I hadn’t really dealt with something as ancient as Voln before and it scared me. Even just being in his presence made me feel small, and I knew there were things even older than him… things like drakes. My god… I must be crazy. What kind of person would go after something so old, so ancient, that Voln might as well be a puppy in comparison?

I turned to leave, desperate to get out of his presence. Voln spoke again; his voice was low and musical. “You won’t be able to leave from here so easily. Even if you did get through the doors, you would just be trapped in the swirling winds of the nether.”

I hated when other people were right, especially when they came to a conclusion I had already decided to ignore. I turned back toward him, lowering my sunglasses so that my golden eyes showed.

“I don’t really have time for this. I’m trying to stop a dragon.”

“Why?”

“Why stop a dragon?” Because I didn’t want any number of bad things to happen? Because I wanted to be the important one instead of Dirge Meilan. Because, maybe, if I could stop this all by myself, people would stop comparing me to my former self.

“No,” he replied. “Why must
you
stop it? Do you not think that Warthor has long ago figured out how to deal with drakes? In the past, no Dragon Knight dared travel into the nether because all other drakes would seek to undo him. Yet Warthor has lived here for years, despite being Trius’ Dragon Knight.”

Everyone knew that the easiest way to get rid of a drake was to kill his Dragon Knight. Doing so would sever the drake’s tie to our world. Then, without a person anchoring him into our world, the drake would eventually have to retreat to the nether. That was how Warthor had defeated the last drake. He had simply killed the other dragon’s knight and claimed this world for Trius. Since that day, Warthor had a giant target painted on his chest, and he had done it on purpose.

What everyone didn’t know was that Warthor hadn’t become a Dragon Knight for the power. He had deliberately assumed the role of human target to play a game. That was why my former master was meddling in the affairs of dragons. He saw it as a great big game. To him a dragon, even Trius, the drake he had sworn to protect, was nothing more than a chess piece to move around. That was just another reason why I, along with countless others, wouldn’t want to take on Trius. No one wanted to be up against Warthor Ein. That was really saying something if you think about it. No one wanted to attack an ancient, unstoppable drake because they were scared of the human protecting him.

Unfortunately, I had grown rather fond of living, and thus I was going to have to find Warthor Ein. Not only did I want his help, I also wanted to keep him from doing something crazy. While completing ridiculously insane tasks was something my former master did for fun, that didn’t mean his methods were all kittens and sunshine. I was fairly certain Warthor had a plan. Warthor would have come up with one before he had even become a Dragon Knight. I was equally certain I wouldn’t like his plan. Not one bit.

I glanced back at Voln and swallowed. The damn vampire had a point. That was something I couldn’t ignore. I didn’t have to do this alone. I could go to my mother for help. I could go crawling back to her and… I stopped for a second and eyed Voln suspiciously.

“What would you have me do then?” I blurted out, and immediately clamped my hand over my mouth.

“Good, then we’re in agreement. You will perform this tiny, insignificant task for me, and I will lead you to Joshua.” Voln’s smile reminded me of a crocodile’s, full of wicked intentions and sharp teeth. Just like that he’d tricked me into offering my services. I could probably weasel my way out of it if I went to the Dioscuri, but dealing with my mother would be more trouble than it was worth.

Of course, the backlash from reneging on a promise to a vampire founder would probably start to chip away at my soul. Promises, after all, had to be paid, one way or another, and when they were broken, they took small parts of your soul away with them. Even though there was a drake on the loose, I couldn’t go after it now. I’d promised a caste founder a favor. I would have to at least attempt to fulfill it before I could do anything else. That drake was going to have to wait.

“Goddammit!” I cursed and wondered if I could glare the vampire to death.

“There is a clan of werewolves,” Voln said as he psychically forced the image into my head.

“I know the place,” I murmured.

“I know. I just showed you.” Voln smiled for a moment. “Go there and retrieve a box for me. If you gain possession of the object before the other vampires do, a very bloody border dispute can be avoided.”

I took a deep breath as I stared at a box in my head. It resembled a golden cradle. If what he was saying was true, and it probably was, I really should step in and help. If a bunch of vampires raided a werewolf camp and stole a prized object the consequences could be all out war. If I did it, it’d be more like the USDA raiding a small Amish farm over some bad milk. People might complain, but in the end, the repercussions were going to be minor. Going after the dragon was going to have to wait. Besides, I was all about stopping vampires if I could.

“Yeah, I suppose I can do this. However,” I said just as my stomach grumbled. “I’m going to need some monetary compensation as well.”

As long as you remembered to ask, supernatural beings tended to have no problem throwing in money. A lesson learned.

“Of course you do.” Voln made a gesture and a pouch materialized in front of me. “One does not often find a Hyas Tyee who sells herself so… easily.”

“A girl has to make a buck.” I scooped up the pouch and turned to walk out. I knew this time I’d be transported to the location he had shown me. Collect a box? How hard could it be?

Chapter 5

Apparently, getting a treasure box from a bunch of werewolves could be very hard. The snow-covered plain in front of me was filled with like a million log cabins. In the very center of the village was the building Voln had pointed out. It was the only structure that seemed to have been made from stone. Even from my perch at the top of a giant pine tree it looked enormous, as though someone had built it with the intention of rivaling the very planet.

If those cabins were filled with humans, I could hide myself with magic. Werewolves were a different story altogether. They could find pretty much anything if they put their noses to it. If they caught me stealing a precious object from them, I’d have one hell of a fight on my hands. Sure, I could take a werewolf or three, but they were fast and healed almost instantly. So unless you could kill them outright in a single blow and then say, burn them to ashes, well, they tended to not stay dead. To make matters worse, it was getting close to dark, when they would be strongest. Then again, they were mostly nocturnal so perhaps now, during the waning hours of daylight, they would be groggier than normal.