Kill It With Magic: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Lillim Callina Chronicles Book 1) Read Online Free

“There is only one place he can get a candy swizzle. You could do some real detective work. You know, trace his trail back to the source.”
    Joshua could only get them from the Dioscuri. We both knew that, but that didn’t mean I had to ask them for help.
    I settled one of my best glares on Mattoc. “Not gonna happen. I’d rather visit every single place in the universe before I call on the Dioscuri to help find Joshua.”
    “They’re pretty good at finding people.” His voice sounded a little different, almost pleading.
    I stopped listening to him and grabbed a cord of rope from my desk drawer. If I could enter the nether I could have used a spell to find Warthor directly. Unfortunately, without Joshua to lead me inside Earth’s magical realms, I knew of only one other entrance, and that was in the Dioscuri base camp. Although the Dioscuri would probably let me use it, I didn’t really want to be around them.
    It wasn’t just that the Dioscuri were now led by my psycho, overbearing mother. It was more that people kept comparing me to Dirge Meilan. I was not her. I would never be her. I was Lillim Callina, and for some people, that was impossible to understand.
    My past life as Dirge Meilan was always there in the background, like an invisible measuring stick that I was always being held against. Dirge would have done this. Dirge wouldn’t have done that.
    “I’m not Dirge!” I screamed before I realized what I was saying. Mattoc shook his head and drifted away from me. He had been attached to Dirge for a long time and had grown to respect her. He didn’t like when I spoke ill of my former self.
    Hell, I had nothing against her, personally. I only hated that I was being compared to her. That was another thing Mattoc and I argued about. He felt I should be honored by the comparison. I shook my head. Maybe he should try having every single person compare him to his past life. Then again, a self-centered jerk like him would probably get a kick out of that.
    I walked to my table, a tiny rosewood thing covered in deep white scratches from before I’d rescued it from a local thrift shop, and dumped everything I’d gathered onto it in a heap. I mixed the various ingredients together until, finally, a dash of monkey screams and a minor explosion later, my magic rope began to move all on its own. It would lead me into the nether.
    I hung on for all I was worth as it pulled me outside my apartment. The rope jerked me to the side, as I whipped around the corner and came face to face with a brick wall a few blocks away. That’s where the rope died in my hand.
    “Just not my day,” I mumbled. I reached forward. The wall rippled as though I had touched the surface of a pond. I hadn’t known there was an entrance to the nether here, which meant it was new, which meant someone else put it here.
    It spelled trap, but since I didn’t really have a better plan, I took a deep breath and jumped through the wall. I found myself exhaling a chilly breath of church air. At the very front of the chapel, in the center of several bronze statues of what I think were saints, stood a freakishly thin vampire with crystalline hair and a dreary maroon robe.

Chapter 4
    “I’ve been expecting you, Lillim Callina, though you arrived a little before Joshua said you would. He didn’t think you’d come to find him quite this fast.”
    Power radiated off the creature like a winter’s breeze, pelting my skin with little frozen pinpricks. I had to fight the urge to shiver and hug myself. Instead I steeled myself and settled my gaze on him. My stomach clenched, revulsion welling up inside me as I tried to focus on the vampire. I gulped and tried very hard not to lose my lunch. It wouldn’t have looked very tough if I threw up in front of him after all. It’s hard enough to look tough when you’re not vomiting up a lung.
    Ever since my mom had tied me to a tree outside a vampire den during childhood, I’d never really liked vampires.