Hardboiled: Not Your Average Detective Story (The Lillim Callina Chronicles Book 5) (16 page)

I spun to see Thes slam into Khufu, all fangs and snapping jaws. They tumbled to the floor, rolling around for a moment before the ancient pharaoh drove his fist through Thes’ chest. It burst out the werewolf’s back with a spray of gore, but instead of screaming, or even acting like it hurt, Thes drove himself forward along the arm, claws struggling to find purchase on the mummy’s still wrapped flesh.

Behind them, Aziza was on her feet, hobbling toward the dais, and when I moved to get up, she shook her head at me and pointed to Connor. My eyes went wide. My mouth went dry. His unconscious body was still lying on the bench… directly beneath a thousand ton coffin straining the bindings that had lashed it to its perch high above.

I sprinted forward, calling on my magic to increase my speed as more cracks spread out across the stone. The smell of wild roses filled the air as I pumped my legs. The last time I’d been racing to save someone, I’d failed. I was not going to fail.
I was not!
With a horrific shriek, the sarcophagus broke free, and I dove forward, calling upon everything I had.

As I crashed into the ground next to Connor, and pain exploded through me, I threw myself on top of him, shielding his body with my own. Lavender energy burst from my body. The air became so heavy with the scent of wild roses that I could taste the springtime in the air. The huge coffin hit my magic and stopped, holding itself in midair as I leapt backward, the muscles in my legs straining to the limit. We slammed to the ground a few meters back as my magic gave way, and the end of the sarcophagus hit the ground with a sound like crackling thunder.

I rolled, pulling Connor’s limp body along with me as the huge coffin wobbled dangerously before toppling over like a felled tree. I barely threw my arms up in time, calling upon my magic one more time to shield us from the flying debris.

“Thes, we need to get out of here!” I cried, glancing around the now imploding room, as I hoisted Connor over my shoulder. My muscles shuddered as I met Thes’ eyes. He turned away from me as a huge stone broke free of the ceiling and crashed onto the dais, shattering it into a thousand pieces.

I leapt backward, crashing to the ground in front of the only door in the room as the Pharaoh, Khufu, grabbed Aziza by the throat and slammed her into the wall. Amethyst light exploded from her body as Thes leapt at them both. Behind me, the huge black door opened with a screech that reminded me of ancient castle gates.

“Thes, hurry,” was all I managed to say before I was sucked backward out of the ancient Egyptian prison.

Chapter 15

The door slammed shut as I hit the ground on the other side. Pain shot through me as breath whooshed from my lungs. My head snapped back violently as I tried to tuck myself into a roll. Unfortunately, I wound up getting tangled in Connor’s limp body and succeeded only in banging my hip hard on the marble floor. I cried out, biting my lip to stifle the pain as a thousand tons of rock broke free from the ceiling and crashed into the doorway.

The supports around the massive door buckled, pulling inward under a landslide of pale white stone that left it all but buried.

An explosion echoed from within the room. Soft pink smoke began to pour through the cracks around the door as I scrambled to my feet and moved toward the door. I grabbed the first chunk of rock and flung it over my shoulder as I called upon my power. A sinking dread filled my stomach as it hit the ground behind me with an empty thunk of finality.

“Thes, I’ll get you out!” I cried even though I knew it was impossible. There was no way that I was getting him out of there without some heavy duty construction equipment and about a billion tons of dynamite.

I grabbed onto a piece of rock that was bigger than I was and tugged. My muscles strained as the scent of roses filled the air before evaporating like the last tendrils of a dream. The huge stone fell back into place, sliding against the door like the last piece of a horrific puzzle as tears began to tug at the corners of my eyes. “Thes…” I swallowed, biting back my panic. “Thes… I’ll figure this out.”

“Or you won’t,” Hades said from behind me. The sound of his voice made me nearly leap from my skin.

I whirled around, my face a mixture of horror and shock because my heart was still trying to slow itself down from its sprint around the world. My look must have confused him because the death god shrugged, his floppy surfer hair falling over his eyes.

“That room is gone. Whatever you people did in there actually forced the entirety of the room back to Ancient Egypt.” Hades put his thumbs in the waistband of his board shorts and shook his head. “So that’s pretty interesting.”

“So Thes is gone? To Ancient Egypt?” I asked, glancing from him to Connor’s unconscious body. I’d known he wanted to go back, and I wasn’t quite sure if I was going to even let him do it. I wasn’t even sure I wasn’t going to go with him. Either way, this was not how I envisioned his journey beginning. To be honest, I wasn’t sure what I had expected. Maybe a giant portal powered by technology found in the sands of Ancient Egypt or something? Maybe we’d hug, and I’d tell him to be careful. He’d smile his stupid werewolf grin and say he’d be fine…

A tear slipped down my cheek, and as I raised my hand to wipe it away, another fell. Hades put his arms around me, pulling me against his body as I convulsed like a little girl. “I’m sorry,” I blubbered as he rubbed my back. I buried my face against his chest, and the smell of forest fires and sea salt filled my nose as I sucked in a huge shuddering breath. That seemed like odd things for a god of death to smell like.

“It’ll be okay,” Hades said. His words were underpinned with assurance as he put his chin on the top of my head. “I can’t tell you how or why I know, but Thes will be okay.”

“But he’s trapped in Ancient Egypt by himself with an angry mummy,” I whined, pulling myself free of his embrace. “I should have been the one to go.”

“It’s not your place to battle all those mummies and restore balance to Ancient Egypt. That’s the thing you aren’t understanding, Lillim. This was his destiny. From the moment Thes Mercer was born, he was destined to go to Ancient Egypt.” A strange smile spread across Hades face then. “Why do you think you have such an affinity for Egyptian Deities?”

“What?” I asked, swallowing a million thoughts that exploded through my brain at once.

“Let us postulate for a moment. Perhaps, just perhaps, your friend went back in time and did something amazing, all the while talking about how he had to get back here to rescue you. Perhaps a couple gods took notice of it and decided, solely based on Thes Mercer’s actions, they’d keep an eye on you?” Hades shook his head. “Of course, that’s just an old Greek god talking.”

My jaw must have dropped and hit the floor because Hades chuckled at me. If what Hades said was even remotely true, I wasn’t sure I should rescue Thes from being stuck in time. Even worse, I didn’t even want to contemplate Hades’ theory about why I was powered by major Egyptian deities instead of some one-off giant or lesser god or whatever else like most Dioscuri.

“Okay,” I said because I didn’t have anything else to say.

“Okay,” Hades replied, glancing from me to Connor and back again. A sad look spread across his face.

“What?” I asked, looking over at Connor who didn’t seem to have changed at all. I knelt down next to him and put my hand on his forehead. He still felt ice cold.

“Nothing, Lillim.” Hades shook his head.

“Nothing or something?” I asked, not looking at him.

“Nothing I’m going to tell you,” Hades replied, squatting down next to me and peering at Connor a little too intently.

“Is he dead?” I asked, swallowing back another horrible thought. Kronos had told us that in order to wake Connor up his soul had to be rescued from Ancient Egypt. That meant Thes had to succeed in rescuing Connor’s soul. There was literally nothing I could do in the meantime.

“Not yet,” Hades replied stretching out his hand and trailing his fingers over Connor’s face. “Not yet.”

“I don’t suppose you can fix him?” I asked even though I knew it was Thes’ mission. Emotions played across Hades’ face. You’d think that as an ancient Greek Deity, he’d be better able to control his emotions, but I could clearly read the distress etched in his features.

“No. I think fixing him is beyond my power.” He glanced at me, dark eyes shining. “At least until your friend returns.” He stood and waved a hand at me. “Look, Lillim, I… um don’t normally do this, but if you’d like, I could send you back. I’ll even offer to watch Connor’s body for a while.” He had a pleading look in his eyes as he spoke. It unnerved me.

“Um… why?” I asked, and as I spoke the words, the distinct sound of thunder filled my ears, and the room shook just a touch.

Hades glanced up annoyed. “Leave this one be, brother. Just this one time, let it be.”

Thunder boomed louder than before, and a ball of blue lightning zipped across the room. It slowed to a stop between us, pulsing with light that made me throw my hands up to block out the glare.

“No,” the ball said in a voice like thunder and crashing rain. It was gone as quickly as it had come so that the only things left in its wake were the fading of spots in my eyes.

Hades sighed and shook his head. “I’m sorry, Lillim. But I cannot assist you after all.” He shrugged, glancing up once more and inclining his head toward the wall. “You see that staircase?” he asked, a sly smile spreading across his face.

I looked to the spot, and where there had been no staircase before, one gleamed like polished silver. It spiraled up so far into the sky that I couldn’t see the end of it. “Uh… yeah, that old thing?” I asked. “What about it?”

“That, my dear, is what I like to call the stairway to heaven, although it doesn’t go to heaven, just to the surface of earth.” He grinned his surfer boy grin and vanished.

I glanced at the staircase and back to Connor. “Well, it seems like we have a long climb ahead of us.” I hoisted him up, throwing him over my shoulder and wobbling as I got him into a fireman’s carry. Okay, maybe this was going to be harder than I thought. I mean, I was pretty sure I could do it, but I was going to use a lot of my power to make it up all those stairs.

“It’s too bad Thes isn’t here,” I murmured as I took the first step. “You know, to carry you.” Connor didn’t respond as I began climbing the stairs.

I wish someone would have told me it would take six hours of steady climbing to exit Hades via mystical staircase. If someone had, I’d have packed a lunch and an energy drink. In the end, I’d done it, but those last few flights had me seriously questioning my will to live and my fondness for Connor. My legs felt like lead and my back hurt so much I could barely see straight.

Still, as I stared at the veritable doors of death, a profound relief overtook me. I was there, just a few feet from the exit and all I had to show for my escape from Hades were a pair of wobbly legs that were seconds from collapse. It seemed like a deal.

“We made it, chum,” I told Connor even though I knew he couldn’t hear me. Truthfully, ever since I’d been born, I’d always had someone to talk to because Mattoc had always been around. Now that he was gone, I still hadn’t kicked the habit, but I was seriously considering picking up a Bluetooth headset so I wouldn’t seem quite so crazy.

Then again, covering up talking to myself by using a Bluetooth with no one on the other end seemed a little… extreme. If the girls at school found out about that, I was pretty sure I wouldn’t get to sit at the popular table. I smirked. I could go back to school, could ignore Connor’s problem and go back to class because, well, Thes was going to handle it. Hades had said so himself. Sure, there was the magician, the cyclops, and my kidnapped boyfriend to deal with, but I was about to escape Hades. How many people had done that… ever?

The doors themselves were pretty unremarkable. They were about twelve feet tall and just as wide and made of cheap looking fiberboard. They were painted black, but not very well because in some spots I could still see the primer. It reminded me of a home project that had been undertaken reluctantly and given up on at the earliest possible moment.

“You’d think he would have a carpenter or something down there,” I said as I hoisted Connor into a better position and approached the doors of death. “Then again, I’ve heard carpenters have a way of defying death.” Light spilled in around the doors, illuminating the small silver landing and making the metal gleam. My footsteps echoed as I reached out and grabbed the knob. When it turned easily in my hand, a gasp of relief escaped me.

“I know, I didn’t expect it to work either,” I said, pulling the doorway open to reveal a green field with trees and wildflowers. In the distance, a sparkling lake filled with ducks gleamed under a pale blue sky. All around me, children frolicked in various states of delight as old people fed pigeons bits of bread from stone respective benches.

The resistance of Hades’ realm was like a soap bubble against my skin as I stepped forward. My foot touched the grass, and I don’t know how to describe it exactly, but it was like suddenly being alive. Colors and smells threatened to overwhelm me as a smile spread across my face.

“I need to put you down for a moment, Connor. My legs are about to explode,” I told the unconscious boy as I dropped him onto the soft grass and collapsed next to him, my chest heaving. I lay there for a moment, before I patted him on the forehead and grinned. “Now we just have to wait for Thes to get back with your soul. You can wait a little longer, right?”

I stood and turned toward the door. It was set into the wall of a utility closet of a public bathroom. From out here, I couldn’t see even an inch into Hades. The darkness was so overwhelming, it made a little chill run down my spine. Still, I needed to close the door. I didn’t want some janitor to accidently find himself in the land of the dead, or worse, for something in there to come out here.

I grabbed hold of the door and swung it closed. Instead of clicking shut, the door stopped just a few inches shy, skidding to a stop on the cement floor. I sighed and pushed harder on it, but it didn’t budge. I let go, and it slid back, just a centimeter or two, but enough for my body to fill with an irrational fear that made my hair stand on end.