Hardboiled: Not Your Average Detective Story (The Lillim Callina Chronicles Book 5) by J.A. Cipriano

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.