The Hatter is Mad: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Lillim Callina Chronicles Book 2) Read online

  Grollshanks cocked his head to the side and studied me. He stood back, waiting for me to stand. The ringing in my ears hadn’t stopped, but I pushed myself to my feet and unsheathed Haijiku. The black metal of the blade glittered in the sunlight like purple gemstones.

  “So, you wish to face Haijiku?” I murmured more to myself than to anyone else. The blade was inhabited by a being known only as the Emissary of Tragedy. It was the only thing that kept me alive when fighting a dragon last year. “You wish to face the Emissary of Tragedy?” I emptied my face of emotion as I said the words. I’ve been told it was my killing face.

  “I would like that very much,” Grollshanks said with a smile that turned his entire face into a mask of teeth. He unsheathed an enormous sword from his back. The damn thing must have been ten feet long. Despite its ridiculous size, he held it easily in front of him. I’ve fought big guys before. Dudes who could bench press a tractor weren’t exactly uncommon in my neck of the woods, but this gold-armored orc gave me the shivers.

  “I have traveled far and wide fighting legendary warriors and none could defeat me. I do not look down on those who cannot. Know that while I relish the thought of your death, I also wish I could convey the honor I have for you. The glory your death will bring at my hands cannot be spoken of, it can only be earned.” Grollshanks’ voice was a little stilted, a little clipped. It almost sounded like he was… nervous?

  I smiled and tightened my grip on Haijiku. I did feel pretty honored. After all, here was ‘the greatest orcish swordsman of all time’ and he wanted to fight me because I was, to put it bluntly, awesometastic. That was a welcome change from the guys I usually ran into. Usually, I’d be regarded as less than an amoeba beneath the toenails of an ant.

  “Tell you what,” Grollshanks said with a smile, his green eyes flashing like lightning bugs. “I shall let you have the first blow.”

  Without another word, he slammed his blade downward until half its length was buried in the concrete. I swallowed and took an unconscious step back as he shrugged off his gilded breastplate. The armor struck the ground so hard it actually cracked the pavement behind him. Beneath the breastplate, he wore a torn leather tunic. In one lithe motion he pulled it over his head and dropped it to the ground so that he stood before me bare-chested.

  Thick gnarled lines crisscrossed his silvery flesh, highlighting the heavy muscle beneath. It looked like he had been flayed. That must have happened before he got the Death’s Edge, otherwise it would have healed.

  I swallowed and counted to three. “Sangeki no Shisha.”

  Haijiku burst into a cloud of forest green butterflies that flew forward and slammed into Grollshanks like crazed kamikazes. As they touched his flesh, it began to dissolve. Still, the butterflies pounded at him, flying up inside his body. That was when they began to explode. Grollshanks did not move. It was the scariest thing I’ve ever seen because no one ever stood there and took the full force of it like that.

  Sinew and blood burst out of him. It was like watching firecrackers explode in someone’s closed hand. The smell of sizzling flesh filled my nostrils, and my stomach balled up. I was going to throw up from the smell of my own attack.

  Grollshanks took a single step backward and fell to his knees, blood dripping from his lips. Very slowly, he stood back up and smiled, a small trail of blood seeping from his tongue as it hung lifelessly over his lower lip like a piece of overcooked meat. Ribbons of shredded flesh dangled from his chest in gory strips.

  “Excellent execution, stopping power, and accuracy. Definitely more than what I was expecting, but definitely not close to what I hoped for either. Have dragons really fallen so far in recent years? Is this all the force required to defeat them?” Grollshanks asked, eyes flashing with amusement.

  He stood, and to my horror, his flesh began to heal over. Nothing remained of the area I obliterated with my free strike. The bare rib cage was exposed, and behind it, Grollshanks’ lungs and the corner of his beating heart. Everything, from his skinned legs to his mauled hands and to his now gaping chest, ceased to bleed as his flesh knit itself back together. It was like watching someone smooth clay over a basket, filling in the crevices layer by layer until there was no trace of damage.

  Grollshanks must have noticed the way my jaw dropped because he quirked his head to the side in amusement. “Neat trick, eh? I always thought living forever was a curse, but in situations like this, it's what you call a keeper.”

  In mere moments, it was as though I hadn’t hurt him at all. He just shrugged off being exploded from the inside. He tapped the skin on his chest with one long finger and smiled. I took a step back and shuddered. This was unreal. A gleam filled his eye as he pulled his blade from the ground in a spray of dirt and rock.

  “My turn.”

  I screamed, and I’ll be honest, tried to run away as one powerful hand clamped around my entire face and slammed me backward through what remained of the outer wall of my apartment. There was a whoosh as Grollshanks’ other fist drove the air from my lungs with one decisive blow. The huge orc took a step backward as I fell to my knees like a broken puppet.

  Haijiku tumbled from my hands, disappearing in a flash of color and energy. He hit me so hard, the spirit inhabiting Haijiku actually vacated the blade. The Emissary of Tragedy left me. The feeling tore at my soul, a pain far beyond the physical. Vaguely, I wondered how that could even happen… vaguely, because in that very moment, it was like part of me died.

  It hurt in the way that ice burns because it’s so cold it sears the skin. It was a confusing sort of pain since I was one with it, completely and perfectly. Agony swirled around me, sucking me into an endless whirlpool of white oblivion.

  Through the white came a hand. I watched it as my body slid toward the ground in what was a truly tragic display of powerlessness. The hand reached out and grabbed me by the collar of my overcoat, arresting my fall in its leathery grip, pulling me away from the sucking desolation of unconsciousness.

  My eyes moved upward, tracking the hand to its source. A blurry form appeared above me. I looked up through the murk, seeing only shadows.

  “Get up,” Grollshanks called, but I couldn’t focus on the face behind the words. I wasn’t even really sure there was a face to attach the words to. “You may not take this seriously, but I do.”

  Chapter 4

  Grollshanks leaned in close to me. I was hauled to attention by my collar. It should have hurt more, but I think my brain just decided to turn that part of my nervous system off. That didn’t bode well for me.

  “You should have showed me the courtesy of trying your hardest. That you would die by my hand while using a weapon that flees at the first sign of danger is insulting.” The orc’s piggish face, so complete in its anger, filled my vision until I could see nothing else. The hand dropped me into a crumpled heap on the floor and pain shot through me. “I cannot believe you would face me with a weapon you’ve failed to master. Killing you like this would make me dishonorable.” With a look of disgust, the giant silver-haired orc turned and walked away. “I cannot believe you are the great Lillim Callina.”

  I tried to get to my feet but found I could do little more than struggle to my knees. Now that the shock of losing Haijiku had faded, the pain of Grollshanks’ blow was starting to ebb away. In another few moments, I’d be able to stand… which was good because behind me, my home was on fire. Since that was staring to become a thing, I was slightly glad I lived in a standalone unit.

  Sirens split the air, and I was thankful the police would find no incriminating weapons on me this time. No swords. No machine guns. Even with the concealed carry permit, cops didn’t exactly like seventeen-year-old girls sporting guns in this neck of Southern California, especially since I’d used a fake ID to get them. Then again, I came from a magical city in the clouds. Real IDs weren’t something I readily had available.

  My neighbors were starting to spill out onto the street to watch the commotion. One of them must have called the fir
e department. Had any of them seen my ass getting handed to me by the giant orc? I shook my head and sighed, imagining the stories they would tell themselves. Humans have the remarkable ability to ignore the supernatural even when it was beating down a teenage girl in front of their faces.

  “Lillim, are you okay?” one of my neighbors asked, putting a hand on my shoulder and pulling his dog behind him. The dog was a small black thing that sort of resembled a pint-sized Doberman.

  “Yeah, I’m fine, but all my stuff is going up in flames…” I sighed.

  “Did you manage to save your hedgehog?” he asked, glancing around me, looking for the creature.

  My hedgehog! My hedgehog Georgie was still in there, still in the burning building. I had forgotten all about him. I shook off the last of the effects from losing Haijiku and stumbled toward what remained of my door jamb. I concentrated, pulling what remained of my power around me like a shield. Red hot flames danced inside, destroying all the possessions, magical and otherwise, I’d accumulated since I first came here. Thousands of hours of work were just gone. You would think that after the first fire last year, I’d have prepared for this to happen again. I always meant to, I’d just never quite gotten around to it.

  Georgie’s cage was nearly smashed flat by chunks of flaming debris, and the fire wards I spent hours etching into the plastic base of his cage pulsed like starlight. As flames licked toward me, I pushed toward the cage. I screamed and a wave of force ripped outward from my body, blasting the fire away from me.

  “Oh, please…” I whispered into the empty air. Stinging tears filled my eyes as I rushed toward Georgie. I began throwing off charred wreckage, cursing loudly as my skin blistered and sizzled. Finally I saw him, wrapped tightly into a ball beneath his favorite red felt tent. A cry of horror ripped loose from my throat. I grabbed him and turning to run back out of the flaming hellhole was my home, I saw firefighters. I moved past them, even though they tried to talk to me, making it to the curb before I collapsed. The little ball in my hands was not moving. I couldn’t feel his tiny hedgehog heart beating.

  “Ma’am” said an EMT wearing a scruffy old Yankees cap. I ignored the EMT, and as I looked at Georgie’s lifeless body, a shudder tore violently though me. Someone green was going to pay for this… with blood.

  The EMT put his hand on my shoulder, and I glanced at him. Two large silver hoop earrings were stuck in his ear, and they flashed in the firelight. “I’m sure he was an excellent pet, but we need to check you out. Your friend is over there, too,” he added hopefully.

  He smiled at me, his eyes beaming. As we walked, very slowly, toward the ambulance, I noticed how very blue his eyes were, blue like ocean water, and for a moment, I lost track of everything I was doing.

  Melanie Stone sat on the curb with a blanket wrapped around her. A large blood-stained bandage covered part of her face. Her hair was streaked with blood and soot. Antonio was loaded into one of the ambulances. The paramedics slammed the doors shut and drove off.

  I glanced from the speeding ambulance to Melanie. Why didn’t she go with him? Was she waiting for me? Part of me hoped that wasn’t the case because I wasn’t sad anymore. I was angry, very, very angry. Melanie was staring at me, looking as if she wanted to say something. I held up my hand to silence her and asked one, very simple question.

  “Melanie, do you have any idea why that thing threw your car through my door?”

  Chapter 5

  “Antonio is unconscious, probably in a coma because I brought him with me to your stupid house.” Melanie blinked back tears, balled her hands into fists, and stood. My skin began to crawl. My vision blurred with rage as I looked from her to my hedgehog. I turned and glared at the firefighters spraying water into my home. If they would just leave, I could put the flames out myself without destroying everything inside.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. The words rang false even to me. Even though it probably wasn’t her fault the orc decided to attack when she was here, something made me think it couldn’t be coincidence. Not when she handed me an envelope containing pictures of the Blue Prince.

  “You don’t sound sorry,” she snarled, putting a hand on my shoulder and spinning me to face her. “You are the one who got into a fight with a giant whatever-it-was that hurt an actual person. He was an actual human being, Lillim, not some kind of spiny weasel. Perhaps you have forgotten you belong to the human race.” She took a step forward, letting her blanket drop and poking me in the chest.

  I looked from her to Georgie’s tiny body, wondering what to think. I felt bad on a visceral level for Antonio. He was hurt, and it was probably my fault. Magical creatures that live eons do not exactly see human lives as important. It certainly looked like a case of wrong place wrong time, but that didn’t jive with me.

  “Beings thought to be extinct for over a thousand years don’t coincidentally show up at the same time you give me pictures of the Blue Prince.” My voice was cold and empty. “It isn’t like the Blue Prince would have trouble reaching back in time to bring Grollshanks here. Why would the Blue Prince do that, Melanie? What have you found?”

  Melanie was my friend… sort of. She didn’t deserve this sort of crap. She always tried to turn a blind eye to the supernatural. She knew it was there and had decided firmly it was my problem. That plan worked… until now.

  Still though, I cared enough about Georgie that I was going to kill Grollshanks for this. I was going to rip off his stupid orc head. Greatest orc swordsman or not, I would see to it he didn’t have the Death’s Edge much longer. Then I would be able to kill him. All I needed to do was figure out where on his person he kept it. But, for all I knew, he could have hollowed out one of his bones and stashed it there.

  “I unloaded an entire magazine from my .40 S&W into that thing at point blank range and it did nothing! You said guns work pretty well on supernatural creatures,” Melanie snarled at me. Great, she was still angry. This was going swimmingly.

  “Melanie, I blew him in half and it didn’t stop him from nearly killing me. Things like that are scary. Really scary because you can’t fight them, and you can’t run from them. All you can do is try not to die.”

  She shook her head and sighed. “Why do bad things always happen around you, Lil’?”

  “I don’t know.” I shrugged, and she raised an eyebrow.

  “Maybe if you dressed more… not like you do, things would take you more seriously.” She waved her hand at me. Yeah, I’ll be the first to admit that my pajamas didn’t exactly make me look like the most threatening thing on the planet.

  “Well, my chainmail bikini was in the wash. Now tell me everything you know about the photo so I can track that bastard down and make myself some orc slippers.” The words barely left my mouth when the EMT stepped between us and put his hand on Melanie’s shoulder. There was a huge smile on his face, but his blue eyes were as cold as ice. It was almost like one of those mix and match pictures where someone put the happy mouth on the same face as the angry eyes.

  “Miss, I think you should come with me.” The EMT held out his hand to help her up.

  Melanie started to say something, but when she didn’t begin to move, he grabbed her by the arm and pulled her roughly to her feet.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” she gasped and tried to throw him off.

  “I’m taking you to get some help. You’ve been through a lot and require rest.” He glanced at me, and a tremor ran down my spine. There was definitely something very suspicious about this guy.

  “Sir,” I said, stepping forward to try and put myself between Melanie and him. Even as I did, he moved to keep me away.

  “Miss, I am going to have to ask you to wait here.” He put a single finger against my forehead. His strange behavior unnerved me, and in only a second, he wrapped his arm around Melanie’s struggling form and moved very far away, impossibly far away.

  I shook my head. Something wasn’t working. I tried to take a step forward, but felt like I was moving through
gelatin. Before I could move even a few steps, the EMT pulled Melanie into the back of the ambulance and shut the door.

  A flash of blue light exploded from the windows as I charged to the spot and stumbled to a stop, wind-milling my arms for balance. I swung the ambulance doors open, and a pile of ash spilled out onto the pavement. Inside, a charred body stared at me with burned out eye sockets. Was it Melanie?

  “Melanie!” I screamed, my heart racing as I leapt into the vehicle, searching fanatically for Melanie, but finding nothing but ash and blackened bones as a sickly horror filled my gut. What if the corpse was her?

  “Matto!” I yelled. “Is that Melanie?” I pointed to the body.

  “Doubt it. This body is definitely male.” Mattoc was leaning halfway through the wall of the ambulance, and I was instantly glad no one without supernatural gifts could see him. Then again, anyone watching would think I was talking to myself. I wasn’t sure that was better. “Unless she has a secret we don’t know about, but even still, I’d put the guy’s height at around six-footish?”

  “Well, where did she go then? I just saw a guy take Melanie into that ambulance and now she’s gone and there’s a pile of ash!” I snapped, fear gripping me as a horrible realization filled my brain. What if Melanie had been taken by the Blue Prince? What if the EMT had been another host and he had body jumped again?

  “I can think of a hundred things that could do something like that without even trying.” Mattoc held out his hand as though he was going to start counting them off.

  I pushed down my fear and slowly stepped out of the ambulance, somewhat surprised no one had come over to see what was going on. If that really was the Blue Prince, there was no way I was going to let him steal my friend’s body.

  “Grollshanks should have set off some alarms back at the Dioscuri base. There should be like forty Dioscuri staring at a screen looking for just this sort of activity.” I snapped, suddenly annoyed with the supernatural task force I used to belong to. “Even if they didn’t actually notice the Blue Prince stealing my friend back at the base, Grollshanks should have sent them crawling out of the woodwork. There should be men here with swords and guns and gun-swords,” I snarled. “Where the hell is my backup?”