Fatal Ties: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Lillim Callina Chronicles Book 7) (14 page)

C
limbing
down Yggdrasil’s roots was less eventful than I’d expected in that we didn’t run into any gods. That was good. Gods were dicks. Still, when we landed lightly on an asteroid closer to Nidhogg’s head than was probably absolutely necessary, I was a little dumbfounded by what I saw.

Connor lay on his back in front of the dragon, darkness undulating off of him like the wavy heat lines on asphalt. Nidhogg’s immense maw loomed over him, eyes shut in ecstasy as it inhaled said darkness. Black pulsing veins crisscrossed the dragon’s immense bulk as it continued to suck power from Connor. I wasn’t quite sure how it was doing that, but one thing was certain, the last thing anyone needed was for Nidhogg to get itself all hopped up on Connor’s destroyer juju.

“What do we do?” Thes asked, but instead of responding, I pushed a surge of magic into my legs and leapt. I landed hard on the dragon’s back and took off running. My boots smacked against his black scales so loudly, I was sure they could hear me on the surface. Part of me had wanted to creep up on the dragon, but most of me wanted him to hear me.

When the dragon continued to ignore me, I pulled the twin blades of Shirajirashii from their sheathes and pushed power into them. The sigils emblazoned across Set and Isis lit up like the neon signs outside a liquor store. It was time to do some damage.

“Are you ready?” I whispered to them as I raised my arms.

“Yes,” the voices of three Egyptian gods called in unison, and with their battle cry echoing in my ears, I plunged them into Nidhogg’s back as I ran across his spine. It was hard to do because his scales were slick and he was moving, but I really wanted it. My swords sliced through the thick scales like a warm knife through even warmer butter, cleaving a great swath of destruction through the dragon’s flesh as I continued to run.

I probably wasn’t doing much actual damage to the dragon. After all, he was immense, and even though I was putting a pair of foot deep slices into his back as I ran, I doubted it did more than annoy him. Fortunately, that’s what I wanted. Well, not to annoy him, but to draw his attention from Connor.

It worked, which was both good and bad. Nidhogg’s good eye shot open, and he focused it on me. As he did, his massive body twisted, nearly tearing free of the roots of Yggdrasil. He must have been as surprised by it as I was because his gaze shifted from my impertinent form to the world tree and back again.

Then laughter unlike I’d ever heard before erupted from the dragon’s throat. It hit me like a full on sonic boom, knocking me from my feet as Nidhogg shifted his immense bulk.

My feet went out from under me, and as I tried to drive my swords into his flesh in an effort to anchor myself, Thes seized me around the waist with one arm and leapt into the air. He grabbed ahold of one of Nidhogg’s spines with his other hand. His muscles corded with effort as he glanced at me and shook his head.

“So now that he’s pissed off, what’s the plan?” he asked, strain evident in his voice. Behind him, I could see a whole army of dragoons coming toward us. There were way too many to fight. We needed to get Connor.

As I opened my mouth to tell him just that, Nidhogg roared. The rock overhead cracked as a burst of crimson flame exploded from the dragon’s massive jaws and struck the world tree like a flamethrower on steroids. For a moment, it almost seemed like Nidhogg’s flames would slide off Yggdrasil’s ashen bark, like its immense roots would succeed in rebinding him, but then that same writhing darkness that pulsed in thick veins across the dragon’s body flared like starlight on a dark night.

The dragon’s flames turned black as coal, and the smell of sulfur hit my nose as the blackened fire ate into Yggdrasil. Ash rained from the sky as the world tree began to burn, and as it did, Nidhogg finally tore himself loose. The roots of the world tree snapped, and the sound reverberated through the immense cavern like crushed dreams. It was the snap, crackle, pop of the world ending, and this time it wouldn’t be with a whimper. No, this time the world would end in ash and flame.

As the world came tumbling down, and the nine worlds started to shatter, blasts of ice mixed with molten spray filled the air. Jotunheim and Muspelheim, the worlds of fire and frost, converged above. Next would come the other worlds until at the end, even our world was consumed in fire and ice.

That couldn’t happen. Yggdrasil wasn’t dead. Off balance, sure. Hurt, definitely. But not dead. We could still stop this.

“Thes, get me closer,” I cried and even though we were right next to each other, my words were nearly lost in the arctic gale raging around us.

“Okay,” he said and flung us forward. I’ll say this. The werewolf was surprisingly agile. He moved through the air with a liquid grace I could never have matched, and as he did, I sheathed Set and Isis and poured magic into him. I wasn’t sure if it would work, but as I forced power into his body, urging him to move faster, leap farther, his golden fur took on the color of destiny. I’m not sure how else to explain it. It was like he had been made from the golden gates outside of Heaven rather than just plain old gold.

Still, it wouldn’t be enough. I could tell that now. Nidhogg’s head was too far away, and while I could chance a shot into the dragon from here, I really wanted to shoot him in something that wasn’t covered by foot thick scales. For one, I didn’t want my bullet to bounce off. I mean, it wasn’t like I had a second shot, and two, I didn’t want to tempt fate. No, if I shot him, it’d be a kill shot. I was going to shoot him in the eye and put the bullet into his brain.

“Move faster, wolf!” I called, pulling the revolver from its holster. We were running out of time, and I’d be damned if we’d die now. I had to speed this up! “We haven’t got all day.”

“You found your gun?” he asked, surprise filling his voice as he landed hard on the serpentine back of Nidhogg. The dragon roared again, and the surge of blackened flame coming from its gullet grew ten times hotter. Only as it did, the blackness started to fade. It was like he’d spent all of Connor’s energy and now he was turning back into plain old Nidhogg. Yippee.

The dragon must have realized this too because as the last of the darkness ebbed from his fiery breath, he cut it off and turned to look at us. That look told me everything I needed to know. Nidhogg thought he’d won.

His immense arm, now free of Yggdrasil, came flying at us. Thes leapt and hurled me into the air like a goddamned meteor. The clawed hand of the dragon hit him a half a second later, flinging him off into God knows where like he was no more than an annoying fly. Still, I was pretty sure he wasn’t dead being that he had come back from the future and all, but then again, he’d screwed up the timeline. Maybe he was dead. Either way, I didn’t have time to think about it now.

I tucked my body into an aerodynamic missile and careened through the air. I landed hard on the dragon’s shoulder and called upon my power. Electricity danced across my skin as I shut my eyes and pulled everything I had up. It hurt. It tore at my insides in a way that almost made me think I’d downed a fifth of Fireball, and as it did, I knew, I might not survive. That was okay though.

“From Hell’s heart I shoot at thee!” I cried, springing toward the dragon. Magic exploded from my feet with enough force to melt the scales beneath my boots into slag. The dragon howled in pain and instead of trying to swat me out of the air, brought his immense claw down on the spot where I’d stood. The force of the blow was enough to bring him just a bit closer, just into range.

As I neared the apex of my leap, I aimed my revolver at his big serpentine eye. Now, I was a pretty good shot, and Nidhogg had an eye the size of a barn. So when I pulled that trigger, my aim was true. Even with lightning crackling above and ice falling from the sky.

My bullet hit him square in the pupil. It tore into the soft, fleshy tissue of his eye with a thunderclap of sound and force that threw the dragon completely to the side. Gore exploded from the dragon’s ruined eyeball as white flame rippled outward in a geyser.

Nidhogg’s face fell into a sort of blank expressionless void as the sound of a volcano erupting filled my ears. The dragon squealed, rearing back and driving its own hand into its eye with enough force to cleave off half of its skull in a single blow.

Brain, bone, and blood flew everywhere as the putrid smell of burning flesh filled my nose. The dragon dropped the burning half of its skull into the void below and smiled, which was altogether insane being that it only had half a head. I wasn’t even sure how the hell this was possible. He should have been dead. Why wasn’t he dead?

I had half a second to contemplate that, to curse the gods for not helping me appropriately. To scream my rage and let my frustration fly before Nidhogg opened what remained of his face hole and unleashed a torrent of fire at my falling form.

I
threw all
the power I had left in front of me in a vain attempt at a shield as Nidhogg’s glowing orange flames slammed into me. My power buffeted his dragon fire with all the strength of a soap bubble beneath a deluge of bathwater. Fire hot enough to turn my skin lobster red slid around me, but it wouldn’t last. It couldn’t last. I could feel the last vestiges of my strength ebbing away. If I didn’t do something soon, I was done for.

“Please, if you have anything left,” I whispered as I holstered my revolver and grabbed onto the twin blades of Shirajirashii. “I’d really appreciate your help.”

As I pulled my swords free, their white blades seemed to warp under a sudden strain. I felt Isis grab ahold of me, felt Set steady my hand, and felt Apep reach out from the void. Their power spread out around me, spilling over the ruins of Nidhogg’s lair like a white blanket. The dragon’s flames surged, pouring past me into the void. I can’t quite explain how it felt to be a conduit drawing dragon fire into the void, but it was burning me up from the inside in all the wrong ways.

To be totally honest, I was not made to be a conduit for this much power. I could feel my insides shrieking in agony. My blood felt like it was boiling in my veins and the smell of burning hair and flesh hit me so hard I’d have gagged if my stomach hadn’t turned to molten lava. It felt like I was burning up from the inside, the outside, and everywhere in between.

I gritted my teeth and forced myself to ignore not just the agony, but the fact I wouldn’t live through this. I was taking too much damage. That was fine though. I didn’t need to live through this. I just needed to make sure my sacrifice counted. Well, at least I’d live up to Dirge’s namesake. Besides, college was way too expensive, anyway.

As dragon fire flowed into me through my weapons, the symbols etched along their lengths began to pop like Christmas lights under a power surge. Then the swords began to melt. Fan-freaking-tastic.

“No!” I cried, grabbing onto the dragon fire flowing into the void with my metaphysical fingers. I reached out into it with spiritual hands that were turning to ash. I gathered it up anyway and threw it back at Nidhogg. What remained of the dragon’s head snapped backward as everything he’d thrown at me hit him like an uppercut to the chin, and for a second, I wondered if it had been enough.

Steam curled off my body as I hung there, suspended by the strength of Apep. His massive black body curled around me and held me aloft.

It wasn’t enough. Nidhogg swung his huge claw through the immense snake like the Egyptian God was made of tissue paper. It wasn’t surprising in retrospect. Apep wasn’t actually here. He was manifesting here, sure, but this wasn’t his physical body per se.

No, this form was more a matrix of magical energy than flesh and blood. Summoning a god, at least for most, was impossible. Hell, doing what I’d done, causing the god to manifest a spiritual construct was hard. Too hard for me to have expected him to withstand an attack from a creature like Nidhogg.

A shriek of pain sprang from Apep’s mouth, and the strain of keeping the gods grounded into our plane of existence fell upon me as the demon snake’s construct began to dissolve. The weight of it hit me like a sledgehammer to the temple.

As I listed sideways, the spot on my chest where Mattoc had burned Apep’s sigil into me began to burn. Pain erupted inside me, and instead of pushing it down, I let my agony, my anguish, my fear rise up and clear my head. I grabbed it just like I had grabbed Nidhogg’s dragon flame.

“Die!” I said, launching myself from Apep’s body as the snake gave way to the inevitable and slipped back into his ethereal void. I moved through the air like a comet with a red and blue tail. My melting blades turned black as coal as Set and Isis lent me their strength for one last attack. “Kuroman’etsu!”

I slashed, unleashing everything I had at the dragon. Twin blades of pure blue and red energy arced out of me and hit the dragon full in the face. The immense creature was flung backward. I wasn’t sure if I had knocked it off its feet since I couldn’t see that far down, but as it started to fall, its tail came arcing out of nowhere. I twisted, trying in vain to dodge something bigger than a giant redwood while in midair. It was no use. The hard scales of Nidhogg’s tail crashed into me.

The world went dark. It spun. It exploded with agony as my left arm shattered. My ribs broke. Blood spurted from my mouth. My hands slipped off the hilt of my melting swords, and I started to fall.

As I tumbled toward oblivion, the dragon turned from me, one giant claw reaching upward toward the sky like it was trying to escape. It burst through the rock above us, spilling sunlight down upon us. It threw its other arm up through the rock and hoisted itself up on its elbows. As it lifted its head into the light, its many legs kicked at the burning trunk of Yggdrasil, reminding me of a dog trying to chase a squirrel up a tree.

The hole above grew larger and people, cars, and the odd building or two started to fall down into the abyss. Once Nidhogg got up there, it’d decimate the remaining Dioscuri. I’d only done this well because it had been trapped by Yggdrasil. My trump card hadn’t worked, although I wasn’t quite sure why. My bullet should have killed him. It hadn’t. My ace in the hole had failed spectacularly, and I was running out of ideas. I knew there had to be a way to stop him, only I didn’t have any idea what it could possibly be.

My vision darkened around the edges, and the taste of blood filled my mouth, but I ignored it, reached into my pocket, and pulled out Idun’s apple. I’d only taken a single bite before. I could take another. I could eat the whole damned thing. I raised it to my mouth determined to do just that. I wasn’t sure what that kind of power would do to me, but I was about to find out. My fingers were so weak as I tumbled into the abyss, that it took all my concentration to hold onto the slick golden fruit. I brought it to my lips.

Connor caught me.

The jerk of impact nearly threw the fruit from my hands. As he surged upward, one hand holding both blades of Shirajirashii, the other around my waist, his power wrapped around me, enveloping me in a shield of dark magic. Thes lay across his other shoulder, alive but barely.

“We’re leaving,” he said. His voice brokered no argument, which of course meant absolutely nothing to me.

“To where?” I asked, and my words came out in a bloody rasp that seared my throat. It probably shouldn’t have hurt that much to talk, but then again, I was pretty sure my lifespan could be mentioned in minutes. It was a sobering thought. “To where, Connor?”

“Somewhere safe,” he replied, not looking at me. His eyes were fixed on the dragon, now halfway out of the hole. Its huge tail swung to and fro, cleaving gouts into the burning world tree. The tree would fall soon, and when it did…

“You need to go full destroyer and stop it, Connor.” I sucked in a breath that made my ribs grind painfully in my chest.

“I can’t. I’m not strong enough. I can feel the Horsemen’s power, and because of that, I know
I’m
not strong enough to stop them,” he said, turning to look at me as I shoved Idun’s apple toward his mouth.

“You can do this Connor. Let me give you my power. If that’s the issue, well, that one I can solve.” I gave him my best smile, the one I only used on my boyfriend when we were alone together. “Just go full destroyer and wreck their shit.”

His eyes opened wide as I touched his cheek with my other hand. I could barely feel him, barely see his face through the haze threatening to overtake me. Part of me wanted to eat some of the apple anyway, but I couldn’t. I wanted him to have every last scrap of power I could give him because if I didn’t give it all to him and he failed, I’d have no one to blame but myself.

“Help me Obi-wan Kenobi. You’re my only hope,” I said as he reflexively bit into the apple.

A jolt of energy exploded through him with such force I felt it just by proximity. It pushed the darkness clouding my vision enough for me to see his throat convulse as he swallowed.

“What the hell is that?” he asked, but instead of telling him, I pushed the apple back toward him.

“Eat it all. Then take Shirajirashii. Kill the dragon, Connor.” My other hand dropped toward his hand, and I wrapped my fingers around his, pressing them into the hilts of Shirajirashii. If it was power he needed, then I’d give him all I could, even if it meant giving up my most prized possessions. My swords. “Listen to him,” I pleaded in my mind. “Just help him save us. Please.”

Connor finished the bite of apple and shook his head. Little arcs of electricity danced in his green hair as he turned eyes blacker than the Devil’s soul upon me. My own soul recoiled, but I ignored it as I pulled my hand away from Shirajirashii. It hurt unlike anything I could have expected, like I was giving away my child and letting him float down the Nile toward a better life.

“This time they’ll listen,” I wheezed, and the taste of blood was way too strong on my tongue.

“I have to get you two to safety first,” he said as Nidhogg scrambled upward. I could see the last of his legs now. We didn’t have long.

“No,” I said, grabbing Thes, and as I did, I reached out with everything I had left in my poor, battered body. It wasn’t a lot, and even that tiny effort made stars shoot across my vision and my teeth clench in pain. I threw the lasso of force outward, anyway. It struck the wall several meters away, and as Connor kept flying upward, we jerked out of his grip.

“Lillim!” he cried, spinning toward me as Thes and I careened toward the ashen bark of Yggdrasil.

“Go, Connor. Stop the dragon. I’ll get Thes out of here. I promise!” I lied, but since I had to make it look like we’d survive, I pulled us into a split in the tree. “I’ve got this. Trust me.”

I wasn’t sure if he heard me, but either way, he turned away and rocketed toward the dragon. I watched in amazement as Shirajirashii blazed to life in his hands unlike anything I’d ever seen. He hit the dragon straight on, punching through the creature’s ribs in a spray of gore.

Nidhogg bellowed, and the world felt like it was ending. The dragon reached down toward the wound, and as it did, the white of the void poured out of the hole in its ragged flesh. Then, like Connor had opened a black hole inside the creature, it began to pull inward on itself.

I had a last moment to smile, to know we’d stopped the dragon when all of reality shattered and the world tree burst into white flame all around me. Guess Thes was wrong because I’d seen this ending before and it sucked.