Fatal Ties: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Lillim Callina Chronicles Book 7) (9 page)

I
didn’t fall
for very long, maybe a second or two, before the darkness ripped away from the horizon like a blanket torn off a sleeping toddler to reveal a maze of green hedges. I couldn’t tell how tall the wall of shrubbery was exactly, but if I had to guess, I was going with the size of a skyscraper. The sun above glared bright and hard at my back, scorching my flesh in a way I knew would leave a wicked bad sunburn, but I ignored it as I drew in my power. Still, I would have killed for some sunscreen, or you know, to know where the heck we were because our sun back home wasn’t green.

Monsters swarmed the ground beneath me, crawling atop the dead bodies of their brethren as they tried to reach Thes and Connor who stood atop the heap of corpses like something out of Alien versus Predator. Thes seemed like he was going all out, but from the way Connor was yawning, I didn’t think he was trying terribly hard. Still, it seemed like a bad position to be in, especially since I knew Thes wouldn’t let Connor go balls out. When was he going to learn? In a fight, you do what you need to do to win, and if you happen to survive, well, then you can feel guilty.

I crashed down atop an eighteen-foot-tall giant with skin like coal and hair like writhing blue flame so hard my boots punched his teeth into his feet. Thes spun toward me because he’d evidently missed the giant coming toward him, which seemed crazy because well, giant, but whatever.

When he saw me, his amber wolf eyes went wide with shock. “Lillim?” he asked while backhanding a Viking across the face like Rafiki taking out a hyena in the Lion King. The Viking tumbled backward off the hill, crashing into his brethren and taking them down in a heap that sort of made me think of an avalanche.

“Yeah, I heard you needed a hero, so I came to rescue you,” I said, whirling around and soccer kicking another giant as its head popped into view. My toe caught it under the chin, snapping its head back with a sharp crack. The creature’s eyes glazed over as it fell backward into the horde. There were so many more where it had come from, my taking out it and the two giants behind it was like squishing a couple ants in a swarm.

“Thank God, you’re okay,” Connor said. He was next to me in a flash, a look of relief painted across his features. “I tried to follow you, but you disappeared before I could blink.” He ground his teeth in a snarl as I glanced down at his hands to see him holding the twin blades of Shirajirashii. “I even tried to use your swords to find you, but they wouldn’t talk to me.” His face darkened. “Actually, that’s not true. The snake one stuck his tongue out at me.”

Before I could respond, he lashed out with blinding speed, slashing through several Vikings and kicking their remains into a gaggle of giants. He’d done the whole thing in the time it took me to blink. He was fast as hell, and yet, Ratatoskr was faster. It almost didn’t seem possible. I gulped. Man, we needed to get on this before that squirrel came back to finish the job.

“Yeah, Apep is kind of a dick that way,” I said, reaching out to take my swords. “It’s cool though. I can take care of myself. I’m a big girl.” Sure, maybe I almost got squirreled away real good and proper, but in the end, I’d gotten out of it thanks to my old standby. Always kick the bad guy in the groin. It hadn’t failed me yet, and somehow, I didn’t think it ever really would. “And I got to use a cool one liner.”

Connor pushed the bloody swords into my hands, and as he touched my fingers, a zip of oily power arced over my skin. I ignored it as I closed my hands around the hilts of Isis and Set because a familiar rush of godly energy rippled through me. Holding the weapons was like coming home. It was sort of like finding something you never knew you’d been missing. Man, I must have really been cut off from them.

“So what’s the plan?” I asked, whirling away from Connor and blasting a particularly enterprising frost giant in the face with a bolt of lightning. The sizzling smell of burning meat that filled my nose as he toppled backward and crushed a fire giant beneath his massive bulk was particularly satisfying.

“We get to the door to Nastrond at the end of the maze,” Thes said, glancing at us with a stupid gleam in his eye. Then before I could tell him how dumb it was to enter a door to the corpse beach where the worst of the worst Norse villains of all time resided, the freakin’ werewolf leapt off our mound of bodies, clearing a good twenty feet in a single bound.

Thes landed just on the other side of the horde, smirked at me, and bounded off into the distance ahead. I followed the path with my eyes and saw it did, in fact, lead to a door of oozing slime and rotting meat. Had they stayed here to wait for me? It didn’t seem likely, but why else would they still be here if they’d already made their way through the maze?

I pushed that thought out of my head as I watched Thes approach the door. It was framed with old, yellowed bones cracked with age and covered by fungus. Nothing about that door seemed like a good idea, but then again, staying here likely wasn’t either. Sure, it seemed like we had the Vikings outclassed right now, but I’d seen way too many battles where Goliath gets roflstomped by an enterprising David.

“So why haven’t you done your destroyer thing and sludged these guys?” I asked as I pulled power from Shirajirashii and forced it into my legs. If Thes could do that jump, I could too.

“Thes doesn’t like it.” Connor shrugged. “I like having him as friend so…”

“So you’re not using your powers, got it.” I smirked at him even though the memory of him on the battlefield turned my stomach. “I like it though. It makes me all tingly.” Then, before he could so much as blink dumbly at me, I leapt from the mound of bodies. I landed twenty-one feet away even though doing so strained everything in me, but screw that golden werewolf. Altered Beast was lame anyway.

A moment later, I found myself standing next to Thes. Connor hadn’t joined us, but it was mostly because he was too busy cutting a lazy swath of destruction through the people behind us as he sauntered through them.

It was a little crazy because it was obvious everyone here, Thes and I included, was nothing to him. If he wanted everyone here dead, everyone would just be dead. Well, more dead, since we were in the realms of the Nordic dead, but you get my point. He had the power to turn them into pools of ectoplasm. And he didn’t. Why? Because of Thes? That’s what he’d told me, but I almost didn’t believe him.

I would have done it in a second. I’d have walked down here like big Billy bad ass, found the biggest, baddest monster and unmade him before everyone. I’d have grabbed Nidhogg by that stupid claw the second he’d shown himself and torn him from the sinkhole before throwing him into the sun. Yeah, that kind of power would suit me ill. Maybe it was better Connor had it?

“Once I open the door, someone will have to stay behind to shut it from this side. We won’t be able to do it from the other side.” Thes glanced at me and took a deep breath. “I’ll do it, just make sure you get through and finish the job.”

“Wait, what?” I asked as Thes grabbed the bone handle with both hands and pulled. The muscles beneath his golden fur corded with effort as a screech like nails on a chalkboard filled my ears, and from the way the handle strained in his grip, I almost thought it would shatter long before the door opened. Evidently, this door hadn’t been oiled, well, ever.

“Someone has to close the door behind us or those inside might escape.” Thes’s chest heaved with exertion as he threw his whole body into the effort. It slid open inch by inch, and as it did, the sound of wailing grew louder. Too loud for it to be a fun place to visit.

“If you stay out here, you’ll die.” I shook my head as I reached out and put a hand on his shoulder. The door was plenty wide enough for us to get through, anyway. “We all have to go.”

“Lillim, it’s just not possible. Someone has to stay.” Thes turned and looked at me. He was covered in blood, mostly not his, and sweat, definitely his. Still, even though I could feel power rippling off of him, I knew it wouldn’t be enough. “Take it from someone who died facing a horde. It always wins.”

If he honestly thought I was going to let him be all noble and sacrifice himself, he was out of his damned mind. I’d seen too many people sacrifice themselves to allow it, and there was no way I was going to let Thes join that particular group. No, there had to be another way.

“I agree with Lillim, Thes,” Connor said. He walked toward us dragging a struggling giant by the ankle. It kicked and trashed as it left a bloody snail trail of viscous blood on the earthen ground. Connor had cut a swath of destruction through the Vikings, and instead of pressing their attack, they were staggering around like bombing victims in war movies.

“Someone has to stay, Connor.” Thes bared his teeth. “My wolf was pretty damned clear.”

“I agree. I thought that’s what I said.” Connor tossed the thirty-foot giant over his shoulder like the creature was a Frisbee. It whipped through the Vikings with so much force it just gibbed them. My lunch rose up into my throat, and I forced myself to turn away so I wouldn’t be sick.

“Well, then what—”

Connor cut Thes off with a hand on the shoulder. “Thes. Let’s be real here.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “If I stay, I’ll be fine. You two
will not
be fine if you stay. It doesn’t take a genius to know who needs to guard your back.” He quirked a smile, and as he said it, I knew he was right. Out of all of us, Connor stood the best chance.

“You are not staying here.” Thes narrowed his eyes, and as he reached out to grab ahold of Connor, presumably to shake some sense into him, Connor shook his head.

“Someone always has to be the Lich King, Thes.” Connor pushed him. Thes toppled backward through the doorway, and as he did, Connor sighed. “He’ll be mad about that. Hurry up before he does something stupid like come back.”

“All right,” I said because I sort of agreed with Connor. Of the three of us, he could stay and survive, but and this was a Sir Mixalot-sized “but,” I sort of wanted him with me, anyway. He could probably knock the piss out of Nidhogg. I wasn’t sure if Thes and I could do that. Not if Ratatoskr was able to resist my magic so easily. I mean, I was tough and I’d try, but magic was like my thing. To not have it work on the squirrel didn’t give me high hopes for Nidhogg.

“Good.” Connor spun on his heel and marched toward the horde, and it backed up. I don’t even know how to properly describe it. A horde of monsters and Vikings backed away from one person. Jesus.

A howl from behind me caught my ears as I turned toward the door. Thes was trying to pull himself free of a giant squid monster. I could just barely make him out through the purple mist floating from the door. Looks like that was my cue.

“Have fun, Connor,” I called and leapt through the doorway to Nastrond. It was time to meet some strange, exotic people and kill them.

B
y the time
I landed on the muddy banks of Nastrond, Thes was standing amid a pile of broken snakes. They twitched and hissed and flailed, while spitting frothy gunk from their mouths that caused the muddy water to boil, so that was neat, if a bit disgusting.

“Looks like I missed all the fun,” I said, walking over to him. I reached out with my magic in an effort to scout out any unseen enemies but found nothing. That was interesting. Wasn’t this place supposed to be crawling with miscreants?

“Yeah, fun.” Thes shrugged and looked at me. He had raw patches of flesh that were already covered in new skin and sprouting fur. Probably where he’d been acid-fried by said twitching snakes. He shook himself like the great dog he was. “You always seem to miss all the fun.”

The way he said it pissed me off. It was like he thought I’d wanted to get put into a coma by Jormungand. Newsflash, jackass, that sucked, and if I could have traded places and gone to Egypt instead, I would have.

“Dude, what’s your deal? The Thes I remembered was cool.” He snorted at me by way of response which was a pretty dick move. “Seriously?”

“Lillim,” he sighed like saying my name physically hurt him. “While I was in Egypt, I fought a lot of gods, one of which tried to suck me into the void and threw me off the pyramid, and I sort of like him.” He took two steps closer to me and flicked one claw at Isis. “The one in that sword stabbed my girlfriend in the face and threw me off of Heaven. Do you know what it feels like to fall off Heaven?”

“I’m guessing it doesn’t feel very good,” I hedged as Isis pulsed in my hand. The blade suddenly felt uncomfortable. Like it wanted to run away and hide under its blanket. It made me wonder what exactly had transpired between the two of them. Nothing good judging by how their interactions had been thus far. Still, I found it hard to believe Isis had thrown Thes off of Heaven, let alone stabbed Thes’s girlfriend in the face. For one thing, I was pretty sure he didn’t have a girlfriend.

“Not really very good at all. No.” Thes heaved the words at me like boulders. “But that’s fine. I can get over that. I mean, I went there. I didn’t know the risks per se, but it’s cool. I should have known them, been warned maybe.” His hand snaked past my ear as he pointed to the now closed door sealing us inside the Nordic version of Hell. “But the whole reason I endured all that was to rescue him. Look at him… he’s…”

“He’s evil incarnate.” I nodded because it was true. Connor was the destroyer, and he was bad news in every sense of the word. As much as I hated the idea, I had little doubt that if we got through this whole Ragnarok business, Connor’s inner darkness would step up to the plate for round two. “I know.”

“So basically, I screwed everything up.” He shook his head, and for the barest second his armor seemed to crack and emotion spilled out of him in a raging torrent. It was something I was wholly unprepared for, the whole comforting thing. “Maybe if you’d been there instead of me, it wouldn’t have happened. I keep going back over it and thinking, what if
you
had been there instead of me? Would things have turned out differently?”

I finally did as Isis wanted and sheathed her. The sigh of relief I felt from the blade was nearly audible in my ears. I ignored it and put a hand on Thes’s shoulder in an effort to comfort him. It was hard since he was way taller than me, but I made it work anyway. It made me wonder how Belle felt around the beast. Cause like wow. Even a WNBA player would feel short next to Thes when he was all wolfy.

“Sometimes shit gets messed up.” I gave him my best smile, the one I only reserved for puppies, kittens, and the rare baby. Yes, rare because let’s face it, most babies suck. Not yours, of course, but other babies. “But in the end, he is
still
Connor, and from what I can tell, he’s doing all right.”

“For now.” Thes shook his head. “My wolf doesn’t think he has much longer before something bad happens, and the destroyer comes out to really play. I’ve seen when that happens. Some no name jockstrap took down the whole Egyptian pantheon, Apep included. And it wasn’t even hard for him.” Thes swallowed. “It was so easy for him it was like a joke.”

“Well…” I said, trying to think of some way to answer that because I believed him. The problem with people like that is the world really did turn based upon their whims, and if they fell to the dark side, well, I wasn’t sure we’d be able to stop him. “That is a good point, but…”

“You have no idea what to say,” Thes answered for me as he turned away and began trudging through the mud like a sullen four-year-old who had just learned about the nonexistence of Santa Claus. “I didn’t expect you to have an answer. No offense, Lillim, but it isn’t a problem you can punch until it goes away.” There was almost a hint of a smirk in his voice as he spoke. “That sort of negates your area of expertise.”

What the hell was that supposed to mean? Sure, I tended to just beat stuff up, but only because it tended to be easier. I was also smart, and had outsmarted my fair share of bad guys who had underestimated me, and more than a few who hadn’t. If there was a way to stop Connor, I’d be the one to find it. Not him. Because let’s be real, when it came down to it, of the two of us, only I would be willing to look Connor in the eye and drive a blade into his heart.

“I can do other things,” I replied, moving next to him. With every step, the ground clung to my boots like chewing gum and the squelch, squelch, squelch sound didn’t help either. It sort of reminded me of my underwear-clad trek through fairy. Thankfully, this time there were no bugs, which was a positive, and I got to keep my clothes on. Man, I almost wanted to yell Yahtzee. How sad am I?

“I’m sure you can.” He snorted in a way that made me think he didn’t believe that was true either. “Let’s just stick to what you’re good at. We find Hel, have her open the door to Nidhogg’s root cellar, and you go all ‘I’m a big independent woman’ on him.”

“Are you making fun of me?” I asked, fixing him with a glare I reserved only for people I wanted dead. It was a good thing he wasn’t looking at me. If he was, he’d have probably burst into flames.

“Yes,” he replied as he moved to push away a vine that rattled suspiciously. As he touched it, the whole ceiling exploded into a mass of writhing snakes that lashed out, sinking their fangs into him and hoisting him up like a bloody marionette.

“Thes!” I cried, leaping forward as I slashed at the snakes with my wakazashi. The cold steel edge passed through the snakes suspending him in the air with ease mostly because they evaporated into smoke upon contact with Set, which was kind of cool if a bit weird.

Thes crashed back to the mud in front of me, blood pouring from the wounds as the smell of rotting flesh hit my nose. I wasn’t sure what was in that venom, but the smell of it was almost enough to make me want to gag. Still, if being pumped full of necrotizing poison pained him, Thes didn’t show it.

“I dislike this place.” Thes slammed his fist into the mud. “I dislike the mud, the river of tears, the endless snakes. It’s bullshit.” He got to his feet and took an unsteady step toward me. “Don’t you have a way to just alakazam us to Hel, or summon her or something?”

Thes seemed to be cracking, which was altogether odd since he seemed so stalwart. It made me concerned on a visceral level and not just because I’d been counting on him. Sure he’d been under stress, but still. Still. Now was not the time to lose it. Not when we were so close.

Still, I could tell if I didn’t do something to assuage his mental state, things were going to get really bad, really fast. Call me crazy, but I had no desire to deal with him having a psychotic episode here and now.

“Um, maybe,” I said, eyeing him. The smell of wet wolf was almost overpowering as I racked my brain trying to think of a way to find Hel quickly. I didn’t exactly want to be around if Thes lost it. I mean, okay werewolf frenzy wasn’t exactly appealing under the best circumstances, but Thes was normally calm. When calm people lose it, well, let’s just say, it isn’t usually rainbows and dandelions.

“I think you’re lying,” he said, nostrils flaring in a way that made me think he was smelling me. Ugh. All things considered, I probably smelled disgusting…

“Look, Thes. You’ve seen me transform the essence of fiery Tartarus into an ice bridge. Give me a second to think, okay?” I glared at him hard enough to melt steel. He didn’t even have the decency to flinch. The jerk.

“My wolf doesn’t think you can help us.” Thes shrugged like that ended the discussion. “You don’t have to convince me. You have to convince him.”

“Why do you keep talking about your wolf? You are the wolf.” I narrowed my eyes at him. “And I don’t have to convince anyone of anything.” I smacked my chest. “I’m secure in my abilities, jackass.”

“My wolf has awakened.” He touched his own chest with his thumb. “He dwells within me. We talk.” His cheeks flushed which was altogether a weird sight on the face of a golden-furred werewolf. “And before you judge, remember you, ‘claim,’” The jackass actually made air quotes because he was a jackass. “To talk to gods inhabiting your swords.”

Still, that was an excellent point, so I did the mature thing. I nodded at him. “Fair enough.” Yes, it hurt something inside me, but I’d like to think I gained an assload of grownup points. Maybe I could spend them on nifty grownup things like arguments about politics and paying taxes. Yippee.

I sheathed my wakazashi and shut my eyes, trying to remember a way to summon a Nordic deity. I had probably studied something like this back at the Dioscuri academy, but at the same time, I’d studied lots of things like organic chemistry. I couldn’t remember a thing about organic chemistry, but I could still draw one hell of a hexagon. So, yeah, my summoning of Nordic deities was a little rusty.

Still, there was one way, even though I didn’t like it. I could go with the shotgun approach. So that’s what I did. I reached out with my magic, turning it into threads of power I threw outward in all directions.

Magic surged out from me like probing tentacles of purple light looking for anything vaguely interesting. Unfortunately, they found something I’d felt before. It was close. Way too damned close for it to be good. I tried to pull back, but before I could, the thing noticed me. Damn.

“Oh, Hell,” I said as said something grabbed ahold of my power and pulled. I flew from my feet and hit the mud hard. I tried to claw at the ground, but only succeeded in carving furrows into the muck and mire as I rocketed forward like a fish being dragged behind a speedboat.

“Lillim!” Thes cried, leaping after me. His werewolf hands wrapped around my shoulders, and for half a second I stopped. My limbs screamed, and I thought Thes was going to tear my legs from their sockets because whatever had ahold of me wasn’t letting go. Then Thes’s feet went out from under him too.

He landed hard in the mud, but didn’t lose his grip on my ankles as we shot forward. Water and slime hit me in the face at what felt like sixty miles an hour, and I was instantly glad my Dioscuri fighting suit kept me from getting road rash, otherwise, I’d probably have been turned into a piece of grated cheese.

“What’d you do!?” Thes called, pain rippling up from his throat as he struggled to hang on. He’d long since given up on trying to stop me, which was probably for the best. All that would have done was seriously hurt one or both of us.

“You ever heard of fishing?” I said right before we hit a mud puddle. My head went under and the rest of my words came out in a sputtering air bubble.

I coughed, trying to exhale muddy water as I broke the surface, but before I could, I slammed into a wall of ice. A tall, rather handsome man who looked remarkably like Tom Hiddleston clad in an orange jumpsuit and a racing helmet smirked at me from atop said wall as he shook the cord of magic I’d extended in the air between us.

“Yo,” he said and pulled once more, jerking me off the ground so my feet kicked in the air. “How are things?”

“Good,” I offered, casually reaching for my swords.

“Stop,” he said even though I didn’t see his lips move. I just kept hanging there as his body split apart, multiplying until ten of him stood on the wall, all looking down at me. I knew they weren’t all real, but it sure felt and looked real.

“Lillim, who is that?” Thes asked, taking a step closer. He must have lost his grip on my ankles when I’d been hoisted into the air because he was about a meter behind me, standing in thigh high muddy water.

“My bad,” the guy said as one of him leapt from the wall. He landed lightly atop the water and sauntered toward Thes. He extended his hand. “I’m Loki. Pleased to meet you.”