Mind Games: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Lillim Callina Chronicles Book 6) (21 page)
Read Mind Games: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Lillim Callina Chronicles Book 6) Online
Authors: J.A. Cipriano
Tags: #Fantasy
“No.” I shook my head as every part of my heart ached with a pain I couldn’t quite describe. “I can’t live a lie.” I clenched my fists together. “But it was fun while it lasted.”
Isis looked me up and down, her lips set in a hard line. “If this is your idea of fun, I’d sort of like to know what you do otherwise.”
I smirked at that and sat down on the white ground that wasn’t really ground. “You make a fair point.”
“Oh, I know.” She nodded and sat down next to me. “But don’t feel sad. Seeing your pain makes me sad, and I don’t quite enjoy it as much as you seem to.”
I swallowed back my tears and wiped my eyes with the back of my sleeve and forced myself to smile. “Sorry.”
“No problem.” Isis smiled at me stupidly, and my sadness thawed just a touch. “Now are you ready to see your still living parent? I’m pretty sure he hasn’t slept since they brought you back.”
“I know,” I replied, and my cheeks burned at the thought of seeing my father. See, there’s something I left out. I didn’t exactly tell the whole story because in the end I died. And do you know what happened when I died in my dream world? I almost woke up.
I should have woken up. Only, at the last second, I reached out to Isis and asked her for one stupidly selfish favor. To give me one more day with my mom. One last perfect day. I know. I know it was silly of me, but well, I did it anyway because when I opened my eyes again, she was going to be a corpse once again.
“I’m ready,” I said, wiping my eyes one last time. “I have work to do.”
“Like finding my brother?” Isis asked, the distaste evident in her voice. “It’s bad enough I have to share your head with snake boy, but Set too?” She stared up at the sky. “Ra, why do you mock me so?”
“I don’t think Apep would appreciate you calling him snake boy,” I said, smirking as I rubbed the serpentine bangles wrapped around my wrists. My katana was strapped to my leg, its gleaming white blade as good as new in my mind’s eye.
“Perhaps,” Isis mused, tapping her lips with one corpselike finger. “I’ll trust your judgment on this one. But my brother, really? He always drones on and on about chaos and how nothing can be predicted. He’s like the guy in the movie about the dinosaurs who thinks he’s so smart for predicting the dinosaurs escape. Newsflash dumbass, the dinosaurs have to escape or there would be no movie.” She shook her head in disgust. “It’s like they don’t realize they’re made up. It’s sad.”
I smirked and shook my head. “I have no idea what the point you’re trying to make is, but we’re finding Set. We have to find him. Fenris is still out there.”
Isis waved her hands in annoyance. “I suppose you’re right about that, but I am starting to think you’ll have a bigger problem to deal with first.”
“Why do you say that?” I asked, staring at her ‘I’m obviously not going to tell you everything’ face and fighting the urge to smack her.
“Oh, I just have a feeling.” She shrugged. “But enough stalling, Lillim. Time to wake up and face the music.”
I huffed out a little breath that would have made my dad feel bad if he’d seen it. I know, I should have been excited to awaken and see him but waking up carried a whole host of problems for me to deal with. There was finding Set, fighting Fenris, saving the world. It was a lot of pressure. Not to mention, my mom would go back to being dead.
“Fine,” I said, shaking my head.
“Okay,” Isis said, magic flowing out of her words and enveloping me in a cocoon of sapphire light. “Just wake up.”
“Just wake up.” The words reverberated in my mind, threatening to overwhelm me. My awareness spun and broke as the scenery morphed into a black mass of darkness. I blinked or rather tried to blink because it hurt too much to move. My eyes fluttered open anyway, and the sudden brightness of the room scalded my brain.
“Please, I can’t lose you too,” my dad said, his face buried in my stomach as he clasped my hands in his rough, scarred paws. “Just wake up, Lillim.”
“If you insist,” I croaked, my mouth dry and scratchy as I said the words.
He sat up with a start, staring at me with wide, tear-filled eyes. I wasn’t sure how long he’d been crying, but it had to have been a while because his cheeks were filled with wet streaks. It struck me as odd because I wasn’t sure I’d really ever seen him cry. His arms wrapped around me, pulling me against his body and practically smothering me in a hug.
I was sitting in a scratchy hospital bed in a room I knew very well because it was part of the Dioscuri hospital. I’d expected to be in far more pain when I awoke, but evidently, my father had broken into headquarters and used Dioscuri technology to heal me back to perfect health. It made me wonder how he’d gotten the key to the main gate since the last I’d seen of it was when he’d swallowed it whole. Thinking back on the event now sort of made me wish he’d made some kind of snappy remark at the time like, “I needed more iron in my diet.”
“My Lillim,” he squawked, peppering my face with kisses and ruffling my hair. “You’re back.”
“Yeah, Dad,” I replied, wrapping my arms around him and kissing him on the cheek. “I’m back.” I smiled up at him. “Sorry for taking so long to wake up.”
“It’s okay.” He swallowed and kissed me again. “The important thing is you came back to me.”
“Even the hounds of the wild hunt couldn’t keep me away,” I replied, hoping for levity, but instead of smiling, he just nodded solemnly at me.
“Of that, I am certain, my daughter.” He smirked and grabbed a plain white box off the small metal table next to us and held it out to me. “I wasn’t quite sure why Jormungand decided to take you over, of all people. You’re much too stubborn.” He pressed the box into my hands and stepped back before I could reply. “I got you something.”
He watched me, trying his best not to shower me in gushy emotion even though I knew he wanted to do so with every fiber of his being. But if there was one thing us Dioscuri were, it was stoic and stalwart.
I opened the box. Inside was a single chocolate-covered doughnut. And it was the best gift ever.
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Mind Games,
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Chapter 1
Hot.
Burning. My skin was burning.
I opened my eyes.
Bright. Too bright.
I tried to turn, to roll away, but I couldn’t move. Not well. Not quickly.
I swallowed… tried to swallow.
Throat too dry.
I raised one hand, trying to blot out the sun. Pain shot through me, gnawing at my flesh like a thousand fire ants.
It was bright… so bright.
I stared at the sky through my splayed fingers, eyes squinted nearly shut.
My mouth was dry… so dry. I tried to lick my lips, but my tongue stuck to them. The taste of blood filled my mouth. Sour and metallic like dirty nickels.
My stomach sloshed, twisted, turned, revolted.
Bile rumbled upward, raging up my throat like a river. I rolled, somehow, someway.
Vomit splattered across the sand. The hot, burning sand.
My stomach hurt, muscles clenching so hard it choked off the breath from my body.
Sand. So much sand. I put my forehead against the white sand and lay there unmoving.
The sun beat at my back, scorching and relentless. I could feel it scalding my flesh. I shut my eyes, trying to figure out where I was.
I was an Orange County guy. I was used to the sun, to the heat, to the sand. But not like this, not the relentless burning of this sun, this sand. So hot I could feel my skin baking.
I opened my eyes and stared down at the sand. Where was I? I looked around, but there was nothing but sand. I shut my eyes.
I opened them again.
Nothing but sand. Endless sand.
I shut my eyes and concentrated. Was I dreaming? Was I dead?
No… No it hurt too much to be dead, to be dreaming. So where was I?
The last thing I remembered…
What was the last thing I remembered?
Flashes of light? The flaring in my brain like a lens on a badly taken photograph. Hot and distilled down to a pinprick.
I remembered… I remembered pain. I’d been hurt, been bleeding.
I sat up on my knees and ran my hand over the spot on the right side of my chest. It was fine, good as new. The skin puckered a raw pink color. Had it healed? How had it healed?
I reached down, feeling my body for injury, but the only pain was a strange stiffness, a tense ache, like a cramp all over my body.
I was naked. Where were my clothes? What had happened to my clothes?
I looked around.
Sand. Only sand.
I stood up. Naked in the unrelenting sun and stared at the sky.
I remembered. I remembered the mummy. The mummy, Khufu. He had risen, had attacked us.
An explosion throwing me backward. Statues crumbling. The tomb caving in.
I stared at my hand. I remembered breaking it. Could feel the rocks falling on top of me, crushing my bones.
Was I dead?
I took a step forward, my bare feet padding on the super-heated sand.
I needed to find someone. Needed to find out where I was.
I gripped my head.
Think.
Think, think, think.
Visions of a fictional bear crossed my brain, sparking something. Blonde.
There had been a girl. Not blonde. Dark-haired.
Dark-haired like my sister.
I swallowed with my dry throat and licked my cracked lips. They tasted like blood.
My sister. My sister would be worried.
She didn’t know I’d been trapped in the Egyptian tomb.
I needed to find her, needed to find my way home.
Why had I been in that tomb? I remember…
To find something important.
The mummy had risen. Khufu. Khufu the evil pharaoh. The one who built the pyramid of Giza.
He had wanted something. I had wanted something.
He had wanted… he had wanted to go back.
I had wanted… I had wanted to go back…
Why? Why had I awakened the mummy? Why did I want to come back to the time Giza was built? Why did I want to come back four thousand years?
Was that where I was? Was I in Egypt? Was I four thousand years in the past?
I took another step. My legs gave out. Too weak.
Thirsty. I was so thirsty.
I got to my feet.
I stumbled.
I fell.
Sand.
So much sand.
Why was I here? What had I come for?
A soul.
That’s right.
That’s right. I had come for a soul.
My friend Connor’s soul had come here.
It had been sent back. Trapped. Lost in time.
I needed to find his soul.
I needed to find it and bring it back.
Back to my time.
Only Khufu knew where it was. Khufu the mummy.
The one who had sent us back.
It made sense.
I had wanted to be sent back.
I had wanted… I had wanted to find Connor’s soul.
I stood again and took a few steps.
I swallowed.
My mouth was dry. So very dry.
I stumbled.
I fell.
The sand was hot.
The sun was burning me.
I crawled.
The heat beat at my back.
I collapsed.
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