Fatal Ties: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Lillim Callina Chronicles Book 7) Read online

  “I don’t care why you took the darkness, Connor.” I swallowed hard. “I want to know how you plan to get rid of it before it crushes you into a mud puddle beneath its heel. I want you to give it up, Connor.”

  “No.” He shook his head. “I cannot do that if we want to stop Ragnarok.”

  “Connor—”

  “Lillim, I know how stupid this is. It’s fighting darkness with darkness, fighting fire with fire. I know it doesn’t work.” His grip tightened around me, and I felt the strength within him, the inner core of goodness that was Connor, and it was cracking under the weight of the destroyer’s mantle. He didn’t have long. “But if I give this up, we’ll lose. That’s what your dad’s crazy computers told me.”

  “My dad knows about this, and he let you live?” I almost couldn’t believe it.

  “He was a hard sell.” He shot me a lopsided grin. “Look, I’ll fly myself into the sun before I let this power take me over. I’ve got this, Lillim. Maybe not for long, but for a while. Trust me.”

  “I’d trust you a lot more if I had a bomb buried in your skull.” Connor laughed as I said the words, which seemed like the entirely wrong reaction because I was totally serious. I wanted to trust him, but I just couldn’t. Not with how strong he was.

  “Trust me. I wish it were that easy. Only I wouldn’t let you have the trigger. Thes, maybe, but not you.” He shook his head.

  “Why not me?” I asked, suddenly hurt although I didn’t know why. I mean, him and Thes were childhood friends. Hell, Thes had gone to Ancient Egypt to save him. Of course he’d trust Thes more than me. After all, I was the type of girl who would totally go back in time and shoot five-year-old Hitler in the face while he sucked on a lollypop.

  “The same reason Superman didn’t give Batman the power to kill him in Injustice and instead trusted the rest of the Justice League with his kill switch. Because Batman would use it.” He looked like he was about to say more but stopped himself, which was good because I wasn’t sure if I could handle him elaborating on me being the Hitler-baby killing girl. I mean, it was one thing for me to think it and quite another for him to think it. “Anyway, we’re here.”

  The bubble of darkness around us peeled back like a tin can, which was weird as hell. Sunlight burst through, nearly blinding bright, even though it hadn’t exactly been dark inside the sphere, which was also weird now that I thought about it. Man, everything about Connor was alien.

  As I blinked in an effort to orient myself to the sunlit landscape, I found myself staring at a charred battlefield. I had no idea where it was, given that I hadn’t known where we were going. Definitely some nameless city. Shattered, burned husks of building dotted the torn-up streets. A half-flattened, overturned tank lay on its back beside a building that looked like it had been caved in by Godzilla.

  One of those F-16 fighter jets was actually jammed into a blown out sky scraper as though King Kong himself had grabbed it while high up and shoved it through the windows.

  Worse still were the bodies. So much blood had been spilled from their mangled forms, the streets ran red with it. I wasn’t sure how much there actually was, since we were several hundred feet in the air, but I was guessing it had to be a whole hell of a lot for me to be able to see it flowing into storm drains.

  Werewolves clad in full battle dress stalked through the streets. Every once in a while one of the bodies moved, but before it could do more than twitch, a werewolf was on it. A head would fly, followed swiftly by a match and a gallon of lighter fluid. Whoever was dispatching these things was not taking chances.

  Farther forward stood a wall of Dioscuri in a near impenetrable line, and my blood ran cold at the sight of them. They were doing that Spartan 300 thing. Three lines of over a hundred men and women stood shoulder to shoulder, blocking off what looked like a tiny command center. I hadn’t seen it done, well, ever, but I’d certainly been trained for. Those lines wouldn’t break, and if they did, the next would step up to fill in the gaps.

  I wasn’t sure what was going on exactly, but one thing was clear, they were fighting an enemy they couldn’t beat. Why did I know that? Because the corpses of fallen Dioscuri and werewolves littered the battlefield, and there were far, far more of them on their backs than on their feet.

  “Oh my God,” I whispered right before we dropped from the sky, plummeting straight down like a stone.

  “It wasn’t this bad when I left to get you,” Connor replied, his voice a pulse of shadow on my neck. An eye-blink later we landed behind the lines, and while I’d expected Connor to shatter the asphalt, we landed so lightly, I almost hadn’t realized we were standing on the ground.

  “Connor, thank God you’re back!” Thes’s voice struck me like a kick in the teeth, although I didn’t know why. Something about the sound of it had changed. It sounded, well… seasoned. It held power, sure, but it held something else too. It held loss. So much loss, my heart wrenched for him. That was my fault.

  I should have gone to Egypt after Connor. It was my job to save people from monsters and the only reason he’d even got sent back was because he’d been escorting me to a party I shouldn’t have attended.

  I’d been trying to ignore that non-insignificant face the whole time I’d been with Connor, but hearing Thes’s voice cemented it. By abdicating my duty to Thes, I’d let this happen to him. Worse still, I’d spent extra time in dreamland. If I hadn’t, maybe, just maybe I could have stopped what was very clearly a last stand.

  Well, I wouldn’t make that mistake again. I would step upon this battlefield and use it as a stepping stone to victory. There wasn’t time for a pity party. No, I could kick myself, and brood, and go all sorts of Joss Whedon hero, later. For now, well, I had to take charge. So I put my big girl pants on, sucked in a breath, and spun to face Thes Mercer.

  The sight of him striding toward us took my breath away. It wasn’t that he looked different, per se. He was still every inch the tall, long-haired football player. Sure, he’d somehow managed to pack even more muscle onto his dense frame, and it flexed and moved beneath his sun-kissed flesh as he strode toward us clad in only a pair of gym shorts.

  A blush crept across my features. I knew he was dressed that way so he could transform into his hulking man-wolf form without tearing his clothing to shreds, but still, it made me want to reach out and touch him in the same way I wanted to run my hands across statues of ancient Greek Gods. Only Thes wasn’t Greek. He was Native American. I should have been able to come up with a comparison to a Native American deity or hero, but I couldn’t.

  “Lillim,” he said, dark brown eyes flashing with anger before his gaze turned toward Connor so he wasn’t looking at me when he continued. “You’re awake. I’d heard it was true.” The rage in his voice snapped at me like a whip, and I probably would have taken a step away from him if Connor hadn’t stopped me by putting his hands on my shoulders.

  “Thes, be nice,” Connor said. He let go of me as he spoke and took a step in front of me. He had one hand out, like he was ready to push Thes backward. I was about to tell him to get out of my way because if Thes wanted to throw a punch, well, he damned well could, but I realized he had one hand up toward me too. No, he wanted to keep us both apart. Interesting.

  “I told you I didn’t want you bringing her here,” Thes snorted and looked away from Connor. “I don’t want her here.”

  The way he said it made me wish I hadn’t come. Sure, the entire universe seemed to want me here, but at the same time, I respected Thes. He’d gone to Egypt to save Connor in my place. He’d done everything the right way, and now he seemed to hate me for it. I wasn’t sure how or why he did, but the absolute last thing I wanted to do was cause him pain.

  “I told you, you’re a jackass, and I don’t care what you think.” Connor glanced at me, and his face softened. “Lillim is a badass, and we need all the badasses we can get.”

  “The fates say she’ll fold at the end and kill us all.” Thes gestured at the battlefield. “We’v
e advanced today. Not just held the enemy back but advanced. I do not want to throw all the lives we’ve lost today on the chance she won’t fold.”

  I wasn’t sure what to make of that statement. The computers back at base thought I’d fail? The ones inhabited by the fates? It seemed crazy, and if that was true, why hadn’t my dad mentioned that? You’d have thought it would have come up when he was trying to get me to run off and stop Ragnarok. Only, what good would that have done besides make me second guess myself?

  No, I was going to stop Ragnarok if it was the last thing I ever did. I would not go down in history as the girl who folded under pressure. If Dirge could give her life to save the Dioscuri, then I could sacrifice mine to save the world. At least, I thought I could. I had to believe I could.

  “Only two of them think she’ll fold.” Connor crossed his arms and the glance he gave me chilled me. He believed in me, but the Dioscuri super computers that predicted everything, didn’t. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. “The other thinks she’ll seal the deal. Isn’t it worth that chance?”

  “I’m done taking chances.” Thes turned and began moving back toward the command tent. “The last time I took a chance, you became the darkness that killed all of Heaven.”

  I opened my mouth to say something in my defense, even though I wasn’t sure what it was because I was too busy being torn between wanting to punch Thes in his smug face and wanting to run away and hide in case he was right. Fortunately for me, the world decided to screech to a bloody stop on its axis right then and take the focus entirely off our petty human problems.

  The ground beneath my feet lurched, throwing me and everyone else off our collective feet. As I smacked painfully into the pavement, the buildings to my left collapsed into a sinkhole the size of Madagascar, and a single serpentine claw burst from the earth and came crashing down with enough force to drop an entire city block into the sewer.

  9

  “Holy mother of frig!” I cried for the second time today. I scrambled to my feet as deafening roar erupted from the gaping sinkhole in the earth. My eardrums popped, and a blast of warm air hit me like a fetid breath. The smell of rotten eggs and dead fish twisted my insides as I unslung my swords and bit down the rising panic inside me. I could freak out later. For now, I had to confront whatever the heck that was.

  All around me werewolves and Dioscuri were clambering back into position with a sort of serious determination that made me think this had happened many times before.

  Maybe it had. Maybe it was old hat. I mean, I’d just gotten here, but still. Still!

  An unnatural chill crawled over my skin as the serpentine claw raked furrows through the asphalt before disappearing back into the depths of the earth. I wasn’t sure why it was retreating, but as the sound of a billion footsteps rushing forward, loud even over the ringing in my ears, I almost wished we were facing whatever that had been. Sure it was big, but it was still just one creature, and I would almost always rather face one monster than many of them. Unfortunately, as a horde of undead charged forth from the hole the serpent had left in its wake, I knew today wishes were not horses.

  Vikings outfitted in rotting furs and carrying chipped axes and dented shields surged forward, making me think the incoming army had been raiding the armory of the dead for a while. Then again, if these were just grunts to throw at us, what did it matter what they were armed with? After all, enough ants could bring down a raging buffalo.

  Before I could blink, werewolves leapt the line of Dioscuri, bursting into the fray and tearing into the overwhelming ranks of the undead Vikings. Even though the werewolves were massive, they were ground underfoot almost immediately. There were just too many of the undead, and worse still, they didn’t even have to stop and fight the werewolves. If their goal was to overrun us with numbers, and it certainly seemed like it was, they just had to run by and ignore the werewolves. After all, what did it matter if the wolves took down a couple dozen Vikings if there were thousands of them?

  By the time Thes got to his feet, he’d already shifted into werewolf form, and it was truly a sight to behold. His golden fur gleamed like spun sunlight, and he was so ripped, I almost expected his abs to have abs of their own.

  A trumpet blast filled my ears, drawing my gaze back toward the battlefield in time to see a twenty-five foot tall giant lope up from behind the line of Vikings. It paused, surveying the surroundings before leaping into the air. It landed beside a werewolf with enough force to crack the street. Before the werewolf could whirl on the giant, the massive creature punted him hard enough to turn him into jelly.

  As it happened, Thes roared loud enough for my fight-or-flight reflex to go absolutely berserk. His golden fur rippled in the sunlight as he leapt like a molten god. He cleared the couple hundred feet between us and the giant in a single bound and slammed into the giant’s chest with enough force to send the massive creature crashing backward into the Vikings rallying behind it.

  The wet smack of the giant’s flesh on stone turned my stomach in a purely visceral way as the blood of those behind him squelched out across the battlefield like a smashed ketchup packet.

  Werewolves united behind Thes as he tore the throat out of the giant, his eyes already fixed on another target. Blood fountained into the air as he raised his head and howled.

  The sound shattered what little of my hearing remained and that was before a hundred other werewolves joined in. There was power in that cry. I could feel it throbbing in the air, and if I wanted to, I knew I could grab hold of it.

  As that thought occurred to me, the line of Dioscuri stepped forward and harnessed that power. They flung it into the oncoming horde. Bolts of lightning, fireballs, and every other manner of magical projectile struck the rushing wave, and as it did, I realized the truth.

  It didn’t matter.

  Not even a little.

  As Vikings went down under the hail of magic, their brethren charged over them, grinding them underfoot. They slammed into the line of Dioscuri, driving them backward across the street under the overwhelming weight of their numbers. Before I could stop myself, I charged forward and leapt over the Dioscuri’s heads.

  I slammed down onto a Viking, knocking him to the ground as I called upon my power and went to work. My swords danced in my hands, cutting down Vikings with every swing. Only they didn’t seem to care. For the most part, they ignored me, concentrating on breaking the line of Dioscuri behind me. Which made sense. They were still pouring from the hole in a nearly endless supply of fresh soldiers.

  Casualties didn’t matter for them, and I wasn’t sure when it would stop, or if it would stop, but for every enemy I killed, ten more joined the fight. Besides, they were already dead. For all I knew, they were just getting back out of the respawn-o-meter down below. No wonder they didn’t care. This wasn’t going to work. There were way too many Vikings to hold back with traditional methods. No, we needed something big and game changing. I took a deep breath. I knew how to get something big and game changing.

  “Connor,” I cried, swinging my gaze toward him while driving my wakazashi through the throat of a particularly hairy Viking. “Do something destroyer!” As I said the words, hot sticky blood splattered across my face.

  “No!” Thes cried, his voice a booming crescendo across the battlefield. Blood stained his fur as he threw off the Viking clinging to his back and bounded toward me, savagery in his eyes. “Don’t do it, Connor!” Thes tossed a Viking who got in his way aside like the guy weighed as much as a bag of potato chips before leaping into the air and crashing down on the woman in front of me just as she swung her axe in my direction.

  The bone splitting crack of her skull turning to paste on the concrete shocked me enough I that wasn’t able to do anything other than stare at Thes open mouthed. It was a poor decision because Thes reached out and grabbed me around the throat in an overwhelming display of werewolf badassery. Dammit, didn’t he know we were on the same side?

  “Connor cannot succumb to t
he darkness even a little. If he does, he could be lost forever,” Thes snarled, spittle spraying from his thousand-toothed maw as he hoisted me off my feet by my neck and pulled my face close to his muzzle. His warm breath danced along my skin as he eyed me carefully. “Do you understand, Lillim?”

  “Screw that noise!” I said, driving the twin blades of Shirajirashii into his stomach and tearing them out of him in a spray of blood and thicker bits. His eyes opened wide in shock as his hand spasmed around my throat. So what did I do? As I landed on my feet, I kicked him in the chest and sent him sprawling onto his back.

  “Connor!” I called, turning to face him as Thes started to tuck his insides back into his belly. I wouldn’t have long, he was already practically healed thanks to his innate werewolfness. “Do as I say! The darkness only wins if you let it, and I believe in you!”

  Connor was next to me so quickly it was like he’d materialized there. Hell, maybe he had. “You do?” His question seemed to weigh on my conscience like a thousand pounds as I met his gaze. His power hit me square in the soul with enough force to nearly drive me to my knees. It was bad. Worse than anything I’d ever felt, and I actually controlled the Egyptian deification of darkness. Still, I knew one thing. Anyone could be redeemed in the right circumstances. After all, even the villain is the hero of his own story.

  “Yes,” I said as Thes lunged for me. His shoulder slammed into my chest like a runaway train. Breath exploded from my lungs as my feet left the ground and I flew backward into the wall of Vikings surrounding us in a giant circle.

  I wasn’t sure why they’d cleared a space around Thes and I. Maybe it was because they were too busy killing our friends or maybe it was because they just wanted Thes and I to kill each other. Either way, I guess it was for the best. If I had to fight them and Thes, I’d have been pissed, and when I got pissed, I did stupid things. No one on this battlefield would survive with their sanity if I did that.