Fire Cursed Trilogy Box Set

by J. E. Taylor

When I went to throw my backpack in, he shook his head.

  “You’re going to need that,” he said and closed the trunk. When he pocketed his keys and started down the ramp on foot, I stared after him. “I’m leaving the car here,” he said over his shoulder, and led me outside to the sidewalk.

  He raised his hand to hail a cab. A cab pulled up almost immediately. He opened the door and waved for me to get in.

  “Whitehall terminal,” CJ said after he settled in the back with me.

  A cab ride in the city was about as harrowing as walking on the subway tracks had been. I gripped the door handle so hard I thought CJ would have to pry my hand off by the time we stopped. My fingers ached, and it had only been five minutes.

  CJ laughed under his breath.

  I sent him a scalding glare.

  “I thought you liked adventure?”

  “Pft. This isn’t an adventure. It’s just terrifying.”

  The cab swerved through traffic and honked too many times to count, and when he pulled up to the terminal, I nearly launched myself out of the vehicle. Instead, I pried my fingers from the handle and picked up my bag and coat. Stepping on solid ground gave me a fleeting sense of relief.

  CJ ushered me into the terminal and paid for two round-trip tickets, then handed me one as we went to stand in line for the ferry. I pocketed the ticket and put my backpack on the floor in front of me while we waited. It didn’t take long to shuffle onto the next ferry.

  We went to the top deck and outside as far forward as we could get. CJ leaned on the railing and stared out at the water.

  I put on my jacket and hoisted the pack over my shoulder. “Why did we bring this?” I nodded at the heavy pack.

  CJ glanced at me. “There are only a few left on the list. It might behoove us to suit up.”

  I cocked my head. I already had heaven’s blade tucked away in my boot.

  “You don’t want to tip our hand by using that on anything we come in contact with. That should only be used on Lucifer.”

  “What’s in the bag?”

  “Proper outfitting for a battle, at least in Kylee’s mind.”

  Now I really wanted to open the bag and inspect the contents. If she had packed this backpack, I’d bet it was loaded with her special weapons. Of course, I had no real clue of how to wield them, but at least I’d have more than just my fire to protect myself. And in an enclosed space, that seemed to be the more prudent option.

  “Bathroom’s in there,” he said and nodded towards the weather-protected area.

  I didn’t need him to tell me twice. I headed inside and found a single restroom with a lock instead of a line of stalls. I dropped the bag on the counter and unzipped it. My leather kick-ass outfit sat on top of the pile, and below it was a note in Kylee’s handwriting.

  Be badass and take him down. I also have a couple of potion bombs in here for you that will stun anyone, including you and CJ if you don’t throw it far enough, so be careful with those. I am told it should work on Lucifer, too. Suit up, Nephilim. I’ll see you when you get back. Kylee.

  I glanced in the mirror at my ratty T-shirt and jeans. I hand combed my unruly locks and then braided them in a tight single braid, which made the black leather outfit I’d changed into much more intimidating. I pulled the boots back on, clipped the leg sheaths to my thighs, and slid the knives from the bag into them. Kylee also had a belt studded with Chinese stars. I tucked the potions in my coat pockets and stared at the last thing in the bag. I was not sure whether I wanted to take that out or not. I didn’t have a license, and getting caught with a firearm was not an offense to take lightly.

  I did know how to use a gun, though, so I took it out and inspected the pistol. It was small enough to tuck into the holster at the back of the star-studded belt, so I ensured the safety was on and tucked it in place before stuffing my clothing in the bag. I slipped the leather jacket over the ensemble and stared at myself in the mirror.

  I looked like a cross between Lara Croft and The Road Warrior. Satisfied, I opened the door and ignored the stares as I walked back onto the deck to where CJ stood.

  He smiled. “That’s the best cosplay outfit I have ever seen,” he said loud enough for the people staring at me to hear. The minute he uttered the word cosplay, people stopped staring as if cosplay was a norm in the city.

  I’d have to remember that.

  I dropped the bag and leaned on the railing as the ferry started its trek across the Hudson River. We passed the Statue of Liberty, and I gawked at it like a tourist. Someday I’d like to come back to the city and explore, just as long as I didn’t have to go into those god-awful subways. But then again, the taxi was just as terrifying.

  CJ leaned on the railing as well, but his mind was closed, transmitting only static. If I stopped concentrating on the quiet he projected, the noise of the crowd on the boat overwhelmed me. I turned back towards the magnificent cityscape behind us, wondering if this would be the last time I would ever see this view.

  “Don’t be so melodramatic,” CJ muttered.

  “I’m a teenager. I have the right to be melodramatic,” I said, still staring at the skyline of downtown Manhattan, now with the Statue of Liberty in the foreground. I reached into my pocket and pulled out Alex’s phone and snapped a picture before I pocketed it again.

  CJ seemed to go into himself as he stared ahead. The crease of concentration between his eyebrows was the only indication I had that he was deep in thought.

  I studied his profile, noting the similarities between Alex and his father. They both had dark hair and the bluest eyes. Eyes that you could fall into for days. The strong jawline was definitely the same, but Alex’s cheekbones were less pronounced than CJ’s. In that manner, Alex looked more like his grandfather than his father. CJ looked a little more aristocratic than Alex, but they both were fine-looking men.

  CJ’s cheeks reddened, and I realized he had picked up on my internal study of him.

  “My son is not a man yet,” he said and slid his gaze to mine.

  “I beg to differ,” I said and then pressed my lips together and looked away.

  “He’s a teenager, just like you are.”

  I glanced at him. “In your world, when does one become a man? Or a woman in my case?”

  “When you turn eighteen.” He stared ahead. “Until then, you are children who need guidance and protection.”

  I started to laugh. “I don’t think I need protection.”

  He slowly raised his eyebrow and looked at me in a silent challenge.

  “I don’t need protection, but I do agree. I need your guidance with my gifts,” I conceded. Until I had the same level of refined control that he had, I couldn’t claim I didn’t need help.

  Those dimples I was getting used to appeared just before his smile. It reminded me so much of Alex that I locked my knees in place to keep me steady.

  The ferry docked, and we waited our turn to get off. I let the thoughts of the crowd assault me, blocking out any of my own thoughts as we slowly moved toward our destination. The auras distracted me as much as their thoughts, and those kept me occupied until CJ hailed a cab.

  “Greenbelt Recreation Center,” he said and pocketed his phone.

  I refocused on him, and silence layered over the din. My nerves prickled. Something hung in the air that caused my hands to itch, and I stared at the driver. When he glanced in the rearview mirror at me, I sensed more than saw an animosity that I didn’t understand.

  I looked away and pushed into his mind like Valerie had taught me. Our driver disliked Americans, especially strong American women. In his culture, if I went out of the home dressed like I was, I would have been stoned to death in the street.

  I pulled out of his hateful thoughts and glanced at CJ. His tight jaw and hard gaze were enough to convey he’d heard the man’s judgements as well. While he was harmless to us, the darkness in me wanted to shoot him into oblivion.

  “So, Uncle,” I said loud enough to be heard over the obnoxi
ous music the driver had playing on the radio.

  CJ glanced at me and raised an eyebrow.

  “I’ve decided I want to go to Harvard,” I said.

  “You’re smart enough,” he said and smiled. He knew I was trying to get under the driver’s skin, and from the smile on his face, he approved. “And what exactly do you want to do?”

  I thought about everything I had read and tossed up so many different powerful careers. “I want to be a sex therapist.” I smiled demurely.

  I think if CJ had liquid in his mouth, he would have spit it all over the cab. The driver nearly choked in the front seat. And I’d accomplished my goal of shocking the bastard. I’d shocked them both.

  “Either that or a scientist for NASA,” I added.

  “You can be whatever you want to be,” CJ said, trying not to crack a smile, but the dimples etched into his cheeks told me he was barely containing it.

  The driver pulled over after another ten minutes of fuming in the front seat. He let us out at an empty baseball diamond. CJ paid him and gave him a small tip. Much smaller than customary, and then the driver sped away.

  “You really do latch onto anything that will provide levity,” CJ said, letting his laughter finally surface.

  I shrugged and refitted the backpack, clipping it like Kylee had taught me. With a Kevlar backing, I knew my back was covered.

  His smile faded as we both looked down the hill. There were several people cheering on a soccer game. CJ pointed to the woods on the other side of the baseball field away from the crowd.

  “Farm Colony is through those woods,” he said.

  That dark ominous feeling that had preceded all the portals brushed against my skin and I shivered. The hair on CJ’s arms raised, and we glanced at each other.

  “Something’s here,” I said.

  “A whole lot of somethings,” he agreed as we stepped into the woods away from the families cheering on their kids.

  Each step closer to the hidden buildings left my skin crawling as if a thousand spiders had taken root just under the surface. The itch left behind made me want to scratch every exposed piece of skin until it bled and I got rid of this festering feeling. Hell, I wanted to burn it out. My fingers sparked. I closed my fists, dousing the flames.

  The air hummed around us, and my gaze snapped to CJ.

  “Just in case,” he said. “Just don’t bolt after anything, okay?”

  I nodded and inspected the shimmering air that moved a foot ahead of wherever we walked. The power in CJ’s shield flickered occasionally. I wondered what would happen if someone ran into it.

  “They would turn to dust,” CJ said as we continued to make our way through the thick trees.

  The afternoon sun broke though the canopy sporadically, leaving walls of light dotted through the darkening woods. It was like stepping into a fairy tale land or stepping through time.

  The first building we came upon was half gone. The blackened brick crumbled, and what little glass remained were jagged, shattered pieces that didn’t want to let go of the windowpane. With a clear line of sight right down into the earth and every area open to the elements, neither of us believed Lucifer inhabited the ruins. We didn’t bother to try to navigate the precarious floors that were rotting and sagging with mold. Besides, it didn’t radiate anything other than decay.

  We stepped around the ruins and moved on towards the other buildings farther into the woods.

  My senses heightened. Every snap of a twig made me jump, and that familiar tingle between my shoulders told me we were being watched. When we entered a grand courtyard with multiple buildings surrounding us, my steps faltered, and I stopped.

  CJ stopped when he noticed I was no longer beside him. The shimmer in front of us disappeared as he spun around to stare at me, his wide eyes addressing the sudden panic radiating off him.

  For a second, I didn’t understand, and then it slammed into me. I nearly got toasted by CJ’s force field. If he hadn’t noticed I wasn’t walking with him so quickly, our bid to take out the devil would have ended with my spontaneous combustion.

  The buildings loomed around us, and I stared at the one right behind CJ. My mouth suddenly went dry at the host of spirits milling inside. They weren’t kindly either. A cancerous malignance rolled from the building, and my breath caught in my throat.

  A blur caught my attention, but before either us could turn, it slammed into CJ, knocking him clean off his feet. The thump of his skull hitting the broken pavement echoed like a melon smashing.

  The snap of bone followed. CJ didn’t react.

  I ripped the gloves off my hands, but before I could raise my palm to shoot whatever it was that was mauling CJ, arms wrapped around me, pinning mine to my sides. Teeth sank into my shoulder, and I screamed at the flare of pain.

  I twisted my hand and let the fire go.

  The beast attacking CJ spun towards the pain-filled cry that left my ears ringing. It only took me a second to realize I was free. The monster in front of me charged. I blasted the thing back to hell, but not before I got a good look at our attacker.

  The thing looked worse than the Kapua that Kylee and I had run into in American Samoa. This was some type of cross between a man, and a buck, with claws like the Kapua and teeth like a shark. I shivered and ran to CJ’s crumpled form.

  Blood flowed from his head, and his arm was bent at an odd angle. The thing had taken a chunk of flesh out of his forearm after snapping it. I peeled my backpack off, grabbed my shirt out of it, and quickly wrapped it tight around where the thing had bitten him.

  I straightened his arm and ripped a patch of denim from my jeans to help splint the break. A broken branch lay on the ground within reach, and I grabbed it to use as a splint. I closed my eyes, gripped his arm above and below the break, and took a couple deep breaths before I snapped it back in place. My stomach rolled, but I swallowed the bile and ripped a second strip of denim from my discarded jeans to tie the splint in place.

  After I finished, I leaned forward and put my ear to his chest. His heart remained beating, and I closed my eyes, saying a small prayer of thanks. Next, I tore a bigger strip of denim and inspected CJ’s head wound.

  I needed to stop the bleeding. I concentrated, making my finger into a cauterizer. A controlled jet of blue flame leapt from my fingertip. I pushed his hair back, staring at the deep cut.

  “Sorry, Mr. Ryan,” I whispered, and then ran my fire-laced finger across the cut, pulling it away just as quickly. The bleeding stopped instantly as the scent of scalded human flesh drifted on the air.

  I closed my fist, dousing the flame, and wrapped the burn with the larger patch of denim. The hair on my arms stood on end. The whir of a blade sliced through the air. I threw myself on top of CJ. My protective instinct flared, and I spun in time to see a blade pierce a large demon that had snuck up behind me.

  More than one demon surrounded me. I shivered at the half dozen that stopped when their leader fell to the ground as dead as CJ appeared to be. I snapped my head in the direction that the knife had come from, and my brain stalled.

  The woman standing twenty yards away looked so familiar. I blinked at her long dark hair and her nearly golden eyes that reflected amber when the light hit just right. I blinked as her origin bloomed in my brain. She was the demon that got away in the subway system. The one Kylee couldn’t find.

  Another knife sailed past me, taking down another advancing demon. I made a decision that I hoped wouldn’t burn me. I turned towards the demon horde and opened my palms. A combination of angel fire and regular fire shot out, annihilating the demons and leaving only dust hanging in the air along with a few scalded trees.

  I closed my hands and turned back to the woman. She had closed half the distance, and I put my closed fist up. She halted and put her empty hands in the air where I could see them.

  “I’m not here to hurt you,” she said.

  “You’re a demon,” I growled, tempted to let my fire send her back to hell. I hovered
over CJ protectively. Demons could easily possess the unconscious, and I wasn’t about to make that mistake.

  She nodded and inspected me closer. Her eyes widened after a moment. “You’re the one from the subway.” She gasped and covered her mouth. “The one who freed us.” Awe filled her voice, like I was the second coming or something equally as ridiculous.

  I climbed to my feet, ready to let loose on the next thing that moved, including her. “And you’re the one who got away.”

  Her cheeks bloomed red, and she nodded, averting her eyes. “And I am thankful.”

  The darkness inside me demanded that I end her, and I recognized where the order was coming from. Lucifer’s grace commanded the sacrifice. I clenched my fists tight against the urge.

  “Why?” I asked and waved at the two dead demons behind me still bearing her knives.

  “I was actually hunting the wendigos,” she said and nodded towards my wounded shoulder. “But they attacked before I had a chance to intercept them.”

  “And you knew they would be here how?” I still didn’t trust her. Gabriel’s words about traps kept coming to the forefront of my mind.

  “Fate sent me. She said it was imperative that I stop the wendigos.” She glanced at CJ still unconscious on the ground. “Apparently I did not get here fast enough.”

  “Fate?” I cocked my head. I forced my mind into the woman’s and sure enough, she was telling the truth. Either that or she was very good at manipulating her mind into making me see what she wanted me to. Doubt still tainted my intuition.

  She nodded. “As hard as it is to believe, yes.”

  “What does she look like?”

  “Blonde little thing with chestnut eyes. No older than you.” She nodded at me.

  I lowered my hand and then glanced at CJ as what he’d said in the car resounded in my head. Demons could read me as easily as he had. When I looked back at her, I lifted my hand again.

  She put her hands up in front of her. “Fate said I needed to help whoever I ran into here.” Her voice shook with fear. “Please,” she whispered, begging me with eyes as wide as saucers.

  “You want to help? Get these bodies out of here while I call for an ambulance.” I pointed at the two remaining demons.