Kill It With Magic: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Lillim Callina Chronicles Book 1) (8 page)

The demon’s eyes settled on Danae, and it tried to take a step toward the vampire. The ice held it pinned in place, but I could tell that wouldn’t hold it for much longer. Already the ice was melting away.

My stomach clenched in horror. Even though this was a vampire who would have gladly ripped out my intestines and played jump rope with them, I still needed information from her.

I threw my battered hand out toward the creature. “No!” I screamed. There was a ripping sound as power leapt from my fingertips. The magic struck the demon full on and tossed it to the ground. Yellow blood burst from the thing like a geyser. There was so much blood that I could scarcely believe it all came from the creature. Was there truly flesh beneath that exterior?

White stars danced across my vision as I pulled a bag of salt from one of my overcoat pockets and hobbled toward the creature. If there was one thing that could stop a demon it would be salt. One angry eye focused on the bag of salt in my hand. Already I could see its skin starting to sew itself back together. A ring of flames exploded from the demon and barreled toward me as it struggled to right its broken body. I took a deep breath and charged forward, dumping energy into my injuries to numb them, before I leapt over the flames. When I dropped, I rolled and crashed into the creature.

It burned me even with magic shielding me. I shoved the bag of salt deep into the creature. The demon’s scream ripped through my thoughts as an explosion threw me backward. I hit the ground with a wet thud, sliding in the mud until I was covered in its soothing coolness. The burns brought me back to campfires I’d had when I was six. My marshmallow dropped from the stick, and without thinking, I grabbed the flaming bit of sugar. It had burned my hand so badly that I could still remember the feel of the sticky burning candy.

Ash from the explosion fell from the sky with the rain. I coughed and tried to wipe my face with my hands. My limbs flopped uselessly in the air before falling limply onto my chest. I was so tired that I could barely keep my eyes open. Even the giant, blackened handprint that had been left on my coat didn’t scare me as much as it ought to have. That was going to sting tomorrow; I’d worry about it then.

The shaman was standing now, despite the fact that the vast majority of his skin was blistered and oozing. He looked like a roast that had fallen into the fire. When Gib spotted Logan hiding behind a giant elm tree, he marched up to him and grabbed him by the throat.

“A fire demon?” Gib yelled in Logan’s face. His voice was loud and ferocious. “Did you think it would be so easy to have it do your bidding?”

“I was trying to contain it in a cold iron sword when you arrived,” Logan managed to squeeze out through his restricted airway while avoiding direct eye contact.

He hadn’t answered the question directly. Since he couldn’t lie, that made me think of only one thing.

“Why did you need the sword?” I asked.

Gib snarled and that’s when I saw him glaring at me. “Did you know the vampire was trying to contain that demon in a cold iron sword?”

I tried to narrow my eyes but found that it took a little too much effort. “Is it dead then?”

It was Danae that I heard next. “No. The demon is trapped in a pillar of salt for the time being.”

“Expect a bill,” I murmured. I then rolled over onto my knees and retched violently. I wiped my mouth on my sleeve as a thought struck me. “So I just made things easier for you, Logan? Didn’t I? The demon is still alive, but it’s contained now.”

“I’m not sending it back. As long as it’s contained, we can continue the binding. I can finish the weapon,” Logan said before Gib slammed him into the tree.

“That is forbidden! The creation of demon weapons has been outlawed for so long that even your precious founder will not remember a time when it was legal,” Gib growled. His eyes flashed as he hoisted Logan into the air leaving flecks of his charred skin on the vampire’s clothing. “Enough of this nonsense. Now, where is my son, leech?”

Logan licked his lips and smiled, which seemed a bit odd given his precarious position. “Rome.”

The worst of the sudden exhaustion was forgotten with those words. Hopefully Gib didn’t go into full on werewolf-killing-frenzy mode because, at this point, even the smallest spell would probably put me into a good eighteen hour coma. My body had used up pretty much all of its energy keeping me from becoming a human piece of toast. Good job, body. You can have a cupcake when this is all over. Except that cupcakes go straight to your hips, so maybe some celery instead. Congratulations body, you get celery. It was so sad a thought that it almost made me cry.

“Why Rome?” I said.

“The Bear founder lives in Rome. So, that’s where the baby was taken,” Logan replied, his eyes darting from the werewolf to me and back again.

“What do the Bears want with him?” I asked as I crawled to my feet.

Gib snarled; his hand had almost completely healed. I hadn’t actually seen him heal. It was like trying to watch darkness fall or a flower bloom. You were sure it happened, but you couldn’t pinpoint the exact where and when of it all. He flung the vampire aside before turning toward me with hatred-filled his eyes. “I don’t care why! We need to go get him, Lillim. Now!”

I winced and staggered toward Logan. As I opened my mouth to say something I realized Gib was still glaring at me. His entire being contained rage so intense that his presence scared me.

“We will go and bring back my son. Both of us. You will come without complaint and without backtalk. You will do this because, at this moment, I am very close to killing you.”

“I can’t do this with you breathing down my neck. Aside from you being an emotional basket case, Rome is filled with silver dust. Even
you
can’t survive there.” Gib’s eyes raged, and a wave of emotion washed over me like a desert wind. Still, he didn’t argue.

“Still,” I added with a sigh, “there’s no way I’m getting there without a passport and parental approval.”

“Well, it’s your lucky day then, because it just so happens that I have a way of transporting us to Rome,” Logan replied in weasily sort of way, as though this was a way out of his predicament.

“Yeah… It’d be quite fortunate for you if you had a private plane handy,” I muttered with the same feeling that a rat would have aboard a sinking ship.

“It just so happens that I do. I just need Dioscuri authorization to bring my plane out of the country.” Logan’s lips curled up in a slight smile. “One little signature, and I’ll take you to Rome.”

Chapter 10

Rome was, in short, a hell hole. As I surveyed the wreckage that littered the landscape, I realized that this mission was beginning to be a bit more difficult than I had imagined. That said something about the state of my imagination. I had wanted to find my old mentor, Warthor, and have him help me resolve the issue with Sharkface. I had not meant to get myself caught up in a plot to kidnap a werewolf’s kid. Sooner or later, I was going to have to track down that damned drake.

I shook my head and glanced at the debris-strewn countryside. I remembered hearing about the explosion that had left the once-holy city in shambles. Now Rome was home to little more than biker gangs and street rats, a stunningly permanent reminder of the horrors of war. And to think, it was supposed to be a lot better than the ruins of Jerusalem.

Swirling gouts of smoke leapt into the air until they melded seamlessly with the ashen sky. I hated places like this. Places where war had rendered the land unlivable. Part of it was the generic
that’s-so-terrible
feeling everyone gets in the pit of their stomach when they see something horrible. The other part of it was a bit tougher for me to explain.

I’d seen so many battles over the course of eight lives. Hell, seven of them had claimed my life. I had died fighting for one reason or another over and over. No matter how hard I fought and bled and struggled, stuff like this kept occurring.

Places like this made me question the very thing that had been drilled into me since I was a baby. Since the first time my mother had left me in a werewolf den in the middle of the night on a full moon, I had been taught that everything we did was for the greater good, that we had to save humanity. All of my blood, sweat, and tears were for the betterment of mankind.

Well… the monsters that hide under the beds of five-year-olds hadn’t been the ones to drop a nuke on Rome or Jerusalem. We had good old fashioned humanity to thank for that one. I swallowed and glanced at the vampire.

“Looks like someone struck out at God himself,” Logan said with a chuckle, plodding forward in a carefree sort of way.

I glowered at him and followed toward what I hoped would be the location of the founder. I knew I couldn’t count on Logan for much. I knew I couldn’t count on the Dioscuri, either. I was on my own… again.

With all the silver dust in the air, even Gib couldn’t help me. Though, I had to admit, filling the air with silver dust was a good way of keeping werewolves out of the place.

“Seems like a strange place to bring a were-cub,” I said as we passed a blackened building. Eyes from within the structure focused restlessly on us. I wondered if we’d get attacked but pushed thoughts of that away. Chances are, whoever or whatever lived here wanted to be left alone much more than it wanted to eat us.

Logan shrugged. “They say the baby was immune to silver. So, all things equal, it is the ideal place to hide him. The werewolves can’t come here to get him.”

I gulped. It was rumored that Dar Silver-tongue, the first Dragon Knight, had control over silver. The chances that this baby was that Dragon Knight reborn were getting better and better. Dammit. Now the real question was why was a really powerful vampire trying to get a hold of this particular baby? I didn’t know the answer yet, but it probably didn’t involve puppies, balloons, and birthday cake.

Logan looked at me before continuing. “That mean something in particular to you?” His eyes narrowed a little more than I’d have liked. I waved him off.

“Guess that happens sometimes?” I was smooth, real smooth.

“Bout one in ten, but much more common among the royals. Gib is sort of an anomaly that way. He’s the first king in a long time to be hurt by silver.”

“So why do you think the founder wants the pup so badly?” I asked.

“Don’t know,” Logan replied and changed course. We were nearing what used to be a giant cathedral. The very essence of the ground beneath our feet changed and Logan took a quick step back. The ground was still hallowed after all these years. That shouldn’t have affected Logan much. I mean Voln was a vampire, too, and he lived in a church. So why did it concern Logan?

In the distance, an ominous building jutted out of the ground like an enormous pustule. Giant, pink tendrils waved around it like cilia. Thick purple veins crisscrossed the entire structure, as though the giant mass had taken on a life of its own. Logan’s lips curled into a creepy smile. “Them Bears sure have a sick sort of way with things.”

I swallowed and pushed the scream back down my throat as we reached the structure. The very walls writhed. Screaming faces poked outward. The place was hewn from people… who were still alive. I shivered.

I’d heard that the Bears had the ability to rework flesh as though it was clay. That’s why so many of them had such huge muscles. Still, to actually go and collect people and meld them together into an actual flesh and blood structure was a real sick sort of deranged. I couldn’t imagine spending my entire life sewn into a living building. I shivered again.

I took a deep breath and glanced at the door. It resembled one of those medieval castle doors, the kind with giant bands of steel and a winch to open and close it. All around it flesh oozed and pulsed. Standing next to it stood a doorman dressed from head to toe in bright orange. He seemed entirely unconcerned by the wriggling tentacles that reached out toward him from the walls. I tried to smile at him, but he just looked at me in the sort of way that indicated I ought to leave.

“I’m here to see the founder, the wonderful founder of Oz.” I waved my hands about in a wide gesture as I bounced in an annoying sort of way.

He didn’t smile and neither did Logan. As I moved past him toward the door, he made no movement to stop me though he didn’t allow me entry, either. The handle glistened in front of me, slick with some kind of fluid that I didn’t really want to touch. My stomach turned and tried to run up my throat at the thought.

“We can’t get in unless you open the door, can we?” Logan asked.

The doorman nodded, and I glared at him. “What if I threaten to burn this place to the ground?”

The distinctive sound of several automatic weapons positioned at various points around the perimeter filled my ears. I took a deep breath and shut my eyes for a second.

“So how does one get inside?” I asked.

“Invitation only.”

There are times when I’m pretty calm. Normally, not being let into a creepy place wouldn’t bother me. This, unfortunately, was not one of those times. This place was basically a jigsaw puzzle made from people. This was exactly the type of thing the Dioscuri should be preventing. Instead it sat here taunting me with its hideousness, daring me to ignore what it was.

No… when this was all over I was going to come back here and burn it to the ground… or maybe nuke it. That would damn sure get rid of it.

“I want my baby back,” I said, grabbing the doorman by the shoulder. The guard’s hand clamped down on my wrist in a way that suggested he was used to overpowering people. Gross hideout or not, no damn vampire was going to refuse me access when he was the one who stole the baby I had kidnapped fair and square.

“Miss, I think you had best leave,” he said, still not realizing what was about to happen to him. Inside my rage was already building. It was the only way I could keep myself in control. If I didn’t focus on my anger, didn’t use my hatred as a shield, I was going to break down.

Behind me Logan was backing away. Pissing off a founder was a good way to get dead, and beating up one of his guards was very likely to piss the Bear founder off. Under normal circumstances, I would not have purposely done so. Most vampire founders were ridiculously powerful, and Bob, the Bears’ founder, was no exception. While he didn’t do some of the melt-your-brain-with-his-eyes stuff that the other founders did, he was more than capable of adding me to his meat structure. The thought sobered me.