Hardboiled: Not Your Average Detective Story (The Lillim Callina Chronicles Book 5) (6 page)

“Um…” he said, his eyes going as wide as dinner plates as he stared at me, mouth threatening to twitch into a grin. “Okay…”

“Okay,” I repeated, shutting my eyes and allowing my magic to flow around me, spinning it into a web of sticky spidersilk-like thread that shunted away the brute force of the power coming from the school.

A loud explosion from the center building shattered my concentration, and without thinking, I sprinted toward it. Connor, that liar, was right behind me as we raced through the parking lot toward the building. A thick plume of black smoke rose from the building, though it was still shielded by what looked like a coffee shop. Why a high school had its own coffee shop was beyond me.

I reached down to grab my magical swords, the twin blades of Shirajirashii, and realized much to my horror, that I didn’t have them with me. They were still sitting at home, tucked away under my bed. I hadn’t bothered to grab them because, well, I wasn’t sure why…

“Dammit!” I cursed as I rounded the corner, my chest heaving from the effort.

Connor was still a few yards away, which was good because what was getting to its feet just outside a pair of twisted metal doors was a freaking cyclops. I’ll admit, I was a little worried about regular humans seeing the monster, but usually, people tended to rationalize away what they saw. If I got rid of this guy quickly enough, I was sure the damage control wouldn’t be that difficult.

The cyclops stood nearly twelve feet tall and had skin like tarnished bronze. Glinting golden armor hung about his frame in such a way as to suggest it was more for show than for actual usage. At least, I was pretty sure that’s what it was for because cyclopean flesh was harder than steel.

The cyclops took a step back toward the door, one massive three fingered hand reaching back to grab an enormous hammer from a sling on his back. The weapon glittered like a huge sapphire as he pulled it free. His steps were so loud on the concrete, I couldn’t figure out why no one else had shown up yet. Then again, lots of monsters had a way of distorting reality so that no one noticed them. It was why they could pick off normal people without anyone noticing.

“Hey jackass!” I called, stepping around the corner, my hands clenched into fists. “What the hell do you think you’re doing on
my
turf?”

The creature’s massive head swiveled toward me. His huge neck muscles corded as he regarded me with an insolent glance.

“Who are you?” the cyclops thundered in a voice that made me think of rumbling volcanoes. His giant blue eye roamed over my body, taking me in. The creature inhaled once, nostrils flaring, and I was pretty sure the creature was smelling me. A grin spread across his face, revealing a mouthful of huge teeth, each one as big as my thumb. “A Dioscuri…” he said, taking a lumbering step toward me. “It’s been ages since I’ve eaten a Dioscuri.”

“Well, I’m not on the menu,” I said, calling upon my magic to enhance my strength and speed, but instead of finding it… I found nothing. It was less like a huge wall had fallen down around me. There was no magic to be found… anywhere, like there was a great thing inhaling it just behind the cyclops. That seemed bad. If tall, bronze, and ugly was just a minion, I was going to be screwed without Shirajirashii.

The cyclops chuckled, a huge belly laugh that made his jowls jiggle as he hefted his hammer in front of me so that it caught the light from the sun. A thousand sapphire sparkles flitted across the concrete between us. I just stood there. I was about to do something, really I was, when Connor rounded the corner and came to a stop with a choked squeal.

“W-what is that?” he stammered, eyes wide in fright. He began to back away, but tripped over his shoes and collapsed onto his butt. “Lillim… what are you doing? We have to run.”

The cyclops cocked his head at Connor and thoughts swam beneath the surface of his huge eye. He glanced over his shoulder, and a shiver warbled down his body as he turned back to me. “The Dragonslayer…” he said, swallowing so hard that I could see the lump in his throat. The cyclops shook his huge head once. “Between you and
him,
this is too much. Too much…” His face broke into a grin. “I’ll just let the two of you deal with each other.”

He waved the hammer at the air in front of him, turning it into a gelatinous pink pustule of space that vaguely reminded me of my spirit pouch. The creature stepped into the portal and vanished in a flare of pink light.

“What?” I asked the air since the cyclops was gone. “Who are you talking about?” I took a step forward, starting toward the blown out door to find the ‘him’ the cyclops had mentioned when Connor grabbed me roughly by the arm.

“Lillim, we need to get out of here,” he said, and as I glanced at him, his eyes were huge and pleading. I swallowed and shook my head, my lavender hair cascading around my face as I did so.

“He’s gone, Connor. We have to see who is in there. The school’s still smoking, they might need help,” I said, tugging my arm free. Connor followed me with short, jerky steps that made me think he didn’t think this was a good idea. Unfortunately, I agreed with him.

“Lillim… that was a… was a…” he said, as I reached the doors.

“A cyclops, I know.” I turned to shrug at him, to reassure him it was no big deal, but I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. I spun back around as an Asian girl with long black hair staggered into me. Blood flowed down her face from a gash above her right eye. It collected at her chin and spilled onto her pink blouse.

“Are you okay?” I called, grabbing her by the arm and steadying her. The wet tinny scent of blood filled my nose as I tried to see past her. Toward whatever was still inside.

“No…” she whispered, turning to point behind her as I pulled her outside. “Something is wrong with Mal. You need to help him.”

Was Mal the guy the cyclops was talking about? The guy he wanted to pit me against? I was about to ask when the school bell rang, reverberating in my ears like a gong. Great, just great. If this ‘Mal’ was some high-powered badass, or worse yet, the guy who had destroyed the shambler, I had to get to him before he made this attack impossible to cover up.

I turned, shoving the bloody girl at Connor. Without waiting to see what he did, I burst inside. It was empty. I spun, trying to find ‘Mal’ but there were so many people flooding into the hallway. A girl screamed, a short staccato blast of sound that ripped down the small space and reverberated off the walls. More people started yelling and pointing. Still, ‘Mal’ was nowhere to be found. Why wasn’t he wearing a giant neon sign or something?

I glanced back at the wreckage and made, what I’ll admit, a highly selfish decision. I turned and sprinted back outside, hightailing it away from the wrecked hallway. Connor sprinted after me, dragging the still bleeding girl along behind him, leaving spattered drops of blood behind them like a macabre breadcrumb trail.

He caught me a moment later as I stopped and leaned against a stone bench for support. My breath was coming out in quick bursts. People began to circle the wrecked hallway, looking around for who could have done such a thing. Chunks of rock were strewn about the ground, and cracks covered the entire side of the building, filling the stone like angry spider webs.

“Be very quiet, Connor,” I wheezed. “I don’t want people to think I had anything to do with that,” I added, waving my hand at the hallway door lodged partway into the brick of the adjacent building.

“Why would people think that?” he asked, voice higher pitched than normal. He looked like he was about to say more when his eyes glazed over. A second later, he shook himself. It reminded me of someone who had been nodding off and suddenly jerked himself awake.

“Okay,” he said. Not even mentioning what had just happened. Evidently, he had gotten over the cyclops really quickly. That was a little odd, right? Shouldn’t he still be terrified? Instead, he seemed calm, and as I stared at him, I realized that there was no more screaming. I looked up, staring past him at the spot that had been blown to smithereens… only… only it was totally normal.

There wasn’t a single trace that something had happened, and for a moment, I thought I must be going crazy. There had been a cyclops there a second ago, right? He had just blown apart the school… so how could there be no damage?

“What do we do about her?” he asked, pointing at the girl like she couldn’t hear exactly what he’d said. It was something I always hated when people did because I was usually the person being talked about like I wasn’t standing right, freaking there. “She hit her head and still needs medical attention.”

I looked at the girl, she was rubbing her head, but it looked like the wound had stopped bleeding, which seemed a little odd. Hadn’t it been worse?

“Are you okay?” I asked before shaking my head. “Sorry, you already said you weren’t okay, my bad. I didn’t see Mal there… too many people…” My cheeks heated up as the words left my lips. Yup, I was that girl. The one who instead of helping, ran away.

Connor gave me a sidelong glance as the girl nodded, a bit too stunned from everything to say much. “I’ll take her to the nurse,” he said, glancing at me. “You get to class. Dr. Matthers won’t like it if you’re late.”

“You really think we should be going to class right now?” I asked, my jaw dropping. “Are you being serious? And why do you think they would even have class after what happened?”

“After a girl tripped in the hallway and bumped her head? Yes, I think that they will still have classes. So yes, I think you should go to class. You’re new, you probably can’t afford to miss any more of your second day. If you come with me to the nurse’s office, you’ll be stuck there all day. Just go to class and meet me after.” He smirked at me. “I’ll take this one for the team.”

I was about to say something about the cyclops, but as I stared around it looked like nothing had happened, which was impossible, right? I was about to press the issue, but instead, I just shrugged. I’d get to the bottom of this after class and thank my lucky stars that I didn’t have to figure out damage control.

“Okay, I’ll go to class this one time, but I still don’t understand why the physics teacher also teaches economics. Those are totally different fields of study,” I said.

“Budget cuts?” Connor offered over his shoulder as he dragged the long-haired Asian girl away, her steps wooden with shock.

“Budget cuts,” I repeated, walking toward the classroom as my own mind-fog settled over me. Whatever had brought a goddamned cyclops here was not good, and while it didn’t seem like it was the same guy who had summoned the shambler, I almost hoped it was. If we had two warlocks trying to one-up each other, I was going to be screwed, especially since my dad had decided to skip out of town. Maybe Caleb could… I swallowed as I opened the door to my Economics class. I’d forgotten all about Caleb. What kind of girlfriend did that make me? Not a very good one, I suspect.

“Lillim, are you planning on staying?” Matthers asked as I turned, intending to head back out of the room and find my now stuck in a magic hat boyfriend.

“Um… pass?” I asked, giving him my best hopeful grin.

He glared at me, and pointed at my seat with his laser pointer. My heart sank as I debated ditching right in front of a teacher. Somehow, I figured that would end up bad, especially considering I’d already missed the first few classes. Besides, the chances someone would pin the new explosion downstairs on the mysterious new girl was, well, probably not very high, but I really didn’t want to increase the possibility. All I had to do was get through this class, then I’d have all of lunch to figure out what was going on.

Besides, Caleb was a god now. He was probably fine
.
That’s what I told myself as I slid into my seat a moment before the tardy bell rang. I know, I know. Caleb was a god. A freaking god, but I had a nagging suspicion he needed my help, and as I stared up at Matthers, the urge to flee increased. Something about the way he looked at me was a little too unsettling.

I was a Dioscuri dammit, and more than that, I was Lillim Callina. It was my job to stop supernatural bad guys, and I was sitting in an economics class where the teacher was prattling on about something called a derivative, and how it crashed markets because we had a fiat currency or something. I don’t even know.

What I did know was that a freaking cyclops had accosted a girl just downstairs, and instead of tracking that guy down, I was here, pretending to be a goddamn high school student. That was crazy, right?

“Miss Callina,” Matthers said, shocking me out of my reverie.

“Uh, yes?” I murmured, realizing the entire class was staring at me, most of them with expressions between amusement and horror.

“Would you like to answer the question?” he asked, glaring at me from beneath his busy orange eyebrows.

“Sure, what is it?” I asked, smiling sweetly at him. You might say I’d been caught unaware in class before, and at least back at the Dioscuri Academy, playing cool always seemed to work best. Never surrender, never admit defeat!

Matthers sighed, letting out a single exasperated breath. “I’d like you to explain how a lead, lag market works.”

“Oh that’s easy,” I replied, smiling because I actually knew the answer. “That’s when you have foreign transactions that expect the price of the currency in the contract to fluctuate. Say I have one euro, and I agree to buy a candy bar from you next week for a dollar. Now, a dollar costs one euro, but for some reason, I expect the dollar to be worth half a euro next week. What I’d do is wait until next week to buy the dollar for half a euro. Then I’d use my dollar to buy the candy bar. That way, I’d have ‘saved’ half a euro.”

The rest of the class stared at me like I had sprouted some sort of talking growth. I swallowed, looking around nervously as the teacher’s gaze softened. “That’s actually… a really good explanation of what I was talking about.”

I felt my cheeks start to burn as I dropped my head against the desk to avoid the stares from the other students. I wanted to tell them that there was a really good explanation why I knew that. It was because since the Dioscuri operated all over the world, they often switched their funds from one kind of currency to another. Ipso, facto we all took classes on ‘Earth Currencies’ back at the academy.