twice cursed mage 05 - claimed

by J. A. Cipriano

  With one last glance at the still-moving corpses, I made my way forward, and as I did, I saw a group of soldiers coming toward me. They stopped when they spotted me, but instead of shooting me on sight, the leader moved past me to look at the corpse of his friend. It made me instantly grateful the former soldier turned zombie had no face because otherwise maybe they’d have recognized him.

  “I fucking hate zombies. I told Rodney not to release them, but he never fucking listens,” the leader said, shaking his head. “Did this one go rogue too?” He glanced at me, and I nodded. He shook his head again. “Figures.” He moved past me, Tavor at the ready. “Let’s get out of here. We’ve got a perp to kill and then we get paid.”

  “This is the last time I take a job with a fucking necromancer,” another soldier grumbled as he stepped up beside me. “Shit gives me the creeps.”

  I followed along doing my best to stay in formation with them. As I moved, I realized something. All these guys were acting like trained professionals, sure, but not like they’d actually worked together before. I mean, it made sense sort of. Depending on how many mercenaries you needed, sometimes you got them piecemeal instead of all at once. Besides, if what the leader had said about the zombies was true, and I had no reason to think it wasn’t, I was betting turnover was quite high, and not just because working with zombies was creepy as fuck, if you catch my drift.

  It didn’t take long for us to sweep the compound, but we didn’t find the devious intruder anywhere. Much to my lack of surprise, the hole Martha had blown in the barrier had closed over, leaving me trapped inside. No, scratch that. They were locked in here with me, and I was ready to go all sorts of Rorschach on them.

  A grin spread across my lips as we moved back toward a huge tan canvas tent that screamed base of operations. It was set up between a couple of military grade hummers, and as I looked around for where they might be holding Ricky, my smile faded away. Beside the hummers and ammo crates was a huge pit lined with broken cars that blocked my view of what was happening below.

  My blood turned to ice as a cry of pain hit my ears. Ricky’s cry. She was down there, and judging by the sounds coming from the makeshift arena, it wasn’t going well. As much as I wanted to make a make dash for the arena while shooting wildly, I couldn’t. In addition to the four soldiers with me, there were at least a dozen more milling about and at least half as many sitting up on the cars watching the spectacle below. If I made any kind of scene, my cover would be blown and I’d be as good as dead.

  Well, maybe I could play that to my advantage. I casually broke formation and headed toward the wall of cars like I was interested in watching. The leader started to say something, but I waved him off.

  “Fucker,” he called and turned away, evidently not wanting to deal with me as he headed toward a water cooler perched beneath the shade of the tarp. It was better that way because I’d have hated to have to shoot him and get into a firefight with over twenty guys right about now. I mean, I’d do it, but I didn’t want to do it. At least not yet.

  Instead, I gritted my teeth and made my way over to the barricade like the sounds of the scuffle below didn’t bother me. It was one of the hardest things I’d ever done because every single yelp made me want to burst into a panicked run. I just kept telling myself Ricky could handle herself while grinding my teeth together.

  As I hopped onto the back end of an old Ford pickup beside another soldier, I saw her. Ricky stood in the center of the arena with what looked like a guy’s spine in one hand. Her dark fur was matted with blood, which wasn’t surprising since the ground of the arena had turned into frothy, crimson mud. As relief flooded through me because she wasn’t dead, I wondered how many people she’d killed.

  Several dismembered bodies writhed on the ground around her, making me think she’d been dealing with zombies, both human and canine alike for a while. Hell, there was even a still twitching silverback gorilla off to one side.

  Still, while she appeared to still be on her feet, and relatively unscathed, probably due to her awesome werewolf healing, it didn’t take a brain surgeon to see she was wearing down. Her movements were sluggish and slower than they should have been as she spun on her heel and smacked the spine into the jaws of a leaping Doberman.

  As the spine shattered into fragments of bone, the force of blow was more than enough to split the zombie pup in half. Ricky turned to regard the crowd as it collapsed into a bloody heap at her feet. Her eyes searched the soldiers for a second in a way that told me she’d done it several times now. After what felt like forever, she fixated on a guy to my right. He sat in a lawn chair beneath a yellow umbrella sipping a drink with a tiny umbrella from a straw. He was wearing camouflage pants, a navy blue tank top, a wide brim hat, and mirrored sunglasses so he sort of looked like Sgt. Slaughter.

  “Is that all you’ve got, Junkyard?” Ricky called, and her voice echoed across the arena. “Or are the zombie hounds with the zombie bees in their mouths so when they bark they shoot zombie bees at me the best you can do?”

  “Cute,” Junkyard replied, leaning over the edge and staring down at her. “But if I really wanted you dead, you’d be well… dead.”

  “You know, you’re going to be a lot less cute when I tear off your balls and force you to eat them,” Ricky replied, baring her teeth at him. “You want ketchup or hot sauce because it’s going to be a lot like sex with Brock Turner. It’s going to happen whether or not you want it to happen.”

  “Well, this kitten’s certainly got claws.” Boredom leaked into his voice as he wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. “If that’s how you really feel about it, I suppose we can move to the main event.” A smile crossed his lips. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” He turned and glanced in my general direction as he spoke. As his gaze lingered on me, my stomach dropped into my toes. Had I been spotted? My fingers tightened on the freshly-loaded TAR, but before I could sling it off my shoulder and empty the thing at him, his gaze slid off me and continued on.

  “It’s about time,” the guy next to me said, shaking his head. “I’ve been watching this all day. I mean, at first it was cool because she was a hot chick, but as soon as she turned into that thing, it was a lot less fun, if you know what I mean.”

  “Time for what?” I asked, glancing at him as he took a swig from a water bottle.

  “First time at one of Junkyard’s battle arenas?” he asked, glancing at me.

  “You might say that,” I replied, watching him carefully.

  Before he could reply, Junkyard raised his hand into the air and made a violent tearing motion. The air in front of him split apart, spilling purple light across the arena. A violent howl that reminded me of a very specific white werewolf ripped across the horizon.

  “Oh fuck,” I said as the Harbinger leapt from the tear and landed in front of Ricky. The Harbinger was a werewolf unlike any I’d ever seen before. I’d fought him once before, right after I’d killed Pierce, and at the time, the only way we’d survived the encounter was because Danton had teleported us to Heaven. I’d watched him ward off bullets to the brainpan like they were gnats. Ricky might be as tough as a two-dollar steak, but if she had to face him one on one, she was going to be in trouble. No wonder Junkyard took down Alphas with ease. He had the Harbinger to do the heavy lifting.

  “Been a long time, Ricky,” Harbinger said, his white fur glistening in the warm sun as he turned his pink eyes upon Ricky. “Heard you became Alpha of the state. Good job. Pierce was an asshole.”

  “Harbinger,” Ricky growled, narrowing her amber eyes at him. “What the fuck are you doing here? I thought we had an agreement.”

  “We did,” he said, kneeling down in the mud and running the claw of his index finger across the surface. “But it turns out he made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.” He looked up and grinned at her. “It was money.” He stood. “You know how I am when it comes to money.”

  “Yeah. You’d suck the blood from your mother’s still-beating heart for o
ne more dime,” she said, glaring at him, and I got the feeling she’d sort of expected the double-cross, which was worrying and incredibly douche on his part, but it sort of made me feel better. If Ricky had expected it, well, that meant she had a plan, right?

  “Guilty.” Harbinger touched his thumb to his chest. “But we hafta be who we are, eh?”

  “Can I counter offer?” she asked, raising an eyebrow at him. It was a little weird because I still wasn’t quite used to seeing human facial expressions on werewolves, but there it was.

  “Unless you can top the pair of Saudi oil fields Junkyard is offering me, I’m afraid I’ll have to pass.” He shrugged. “You understand.”

  “Guess I’ll be keeping my signed photo of ‘Shoeless’ Joe Jackson,” Ricky said before leaping at him. Her claws flashed through the air with blinding speed, and he fucking caught her wrists. Both of them. With one hand. Oh fuck. There was no way this was going according to plan, which meant I needed to do something, and fast.

  Harbinger jerked her upward off her feet with ease, and as she dangled in front of him like a child’s plaything, he buried his other fist in her stomach with enough force for me to see the muscles in her abdomen deform around the blow. Air, saliva, and blood burst from her mouth, and as it did, my vision turned red with rage.

  The white werewolf dropped her to the ground, and she rolled into a ball at his feet, clutching her stomach.

  “I expected more,” he said, but I’ll be honest, I barely heard the words because I was too busy trying to keep myself from leaping down there and attacking the werewolf with my bare hands. Fortunately, I wasn’t completely overcome by rage and acted as though I had a brain in my skull. For once. Hey, I learn things.

  Instead, I lashed out at the guy next to me, grabbing ahold of the grenades on his bandolier and pulling the pins before he realized what had happened.

  “What the fuck—” I cut off his cry by throwing him into the pit. He smacked into the ground beside Harbinger, and as the werewolf turned curiously toward him, the soldier exploded, spraying dirt and body parts in every direction. I wasn’t sure if it’d hurt Harbinger since he could heal most anything, but I was willing to bet it’d hurt. Besides, distraction. I didn’t know if Ricky could take advantage of what happened, but from the sensations riding across my brain, I could tell she was up to something.

  I was already moving as the dust cloud billowed into the air. I had my Tavor out and was firing at Junkyard. Just like the others, he somehow managed to knock away the bullets like he was Wonder Woman. He didn’t even spill his drink.

  “Tueri,” I cried, while sprinting toward Junkyard. The flaming shield came rippling out across my flesh, only this time, I could tell it was weaker than before. As fire flickered around me, my stomach churned with hunger, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to ward off gunfire for long. Well, that was fine. I had more than one trick up my sleeve.

  Bullets hit my shield from every direction, causing me a bunch of pain I ignored by spending almost all my man points. I raised my free hand and ignored the little voice in my head telling me to conserve my magic and went for it because I was Mac Brennan and I always gave a hundred and ten percent.

  “Ignis!” A ball of Hellfire exploded from my hand and slammed into the cars stacked behind Junkyard. He’d dropped in an attempt to avoid my attack, but he needn’t have bothered since I wasn’t aiming at him. My Hellfire melted through the roof of a partially crushed soccer mom van supporting a particularly unsteady looking jeep.

  There was a loud bang, followed by the shriek of tortured steel as the roof of the van collapsed inward in a spray of molten metal. The jeep came tumbling down, and as it did, I turned in time to see Harbinger drive a fucking jousting lance through Ricky’s torso and pin her to the wall of the compound.

  Her scream cut through me like a sword, galvanizing me into action. I couldn’t let him hurt her, couldn’t let him do anything to her. No, one way or another the Harbinger had to pay!

  Before I realized what I was doing, I’d leapt off the edge of the arena. My flaming body slammed into the white werewolf’s back, driving him to the mud. He whirled before I could react and grabbed me by the collar of my stolen uniform. Hellfire licked at his hand, melting away his fur and causing the flesh on his hand to bubble and burn, but he didn’t seem to care much.

  “You,” he said, inhaling so hard his huge nostrils threatened to suck me in. I grabbed onto his wrist. The moment I did, he released me.

  I dropped to my feet, and as his huge frame towered over me, I drove my hand into his torso. It was like smacking granite and about as effective. Still, hurting him via force hadn’t been my plan.

  “Sorbeo!” I said, and nothing happened. The Harbinger looked down at me, a grin curling across his lips.

  “Here, maybe you need a better grip,” he said, grabbing hold of my hand and pressing it against his rock-hard abdomen. “Try again. It sort of tickled last time.”

  Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I did as he asked. “Sorbeo!”

  Again, nothing happened. Actually, that’s not true. Something happened. As the stacks of cars around the arena began to collapse like overturned dominos, the Harbinger backhanded me across the face.

  The blow snapped my head so violently, I almost wanted to ask who’d gotten the number of the bus that had hit me. My bones creaked in my face, and if I hadn’t actually felt them get broken before, I’d have sworn something inside me had snapped. I flew backward and slammed into the wall ten feet away and the impact drove the breath from my lungs.

  Stars flashed across my vision as I slumped forward into the mud. As my face crashed into the crimson sludge, the flame surrounding me winked out, making me wonder what would have happened if I hadn’t been using a magical protection spell.

  “Your spells won’t work on me,” the Harbinger said, sauntering toward me without a care in the world, and as he did, I realized the shooting had stopped. Instead, everyone was just watching the arena in fascination, Junkyard included. It was sort of annoying because he still had his drink in hand. “Too bad.”

  “Why not,” I growled in rage, and to be honest, I was as much yelling at him as I was at my demonic cat.

  “I’d tell you, but then I’d have to kill you,” His lips quirked into a grin. “Then again, I’m going to kill you, anyway.”

  Chapter 24

  Harbinger stepped closer as I got to my feet, but before he could do anything, the tip of a lance burst through his chest and drove him to the ground, pinning him into the bloody mud like a giant butterfly. He flailed, trying to grab onto the lance and yank it out of him as Ricky released her hold on the weapon and landed on top of him with both feet. A bone-crunching snap filled my ears as his head went under the mud. As his hands fell limply into the mud, I wasn’t sure if he was dead, but even if he wasn’t, he had to stay down for a while. Even a werewolf needed time to heal, and I was pretty sure the Harbinger was no exception.

  I wasn’t quite sure how Ricky had managed to pole vault through him with the lance, but judging by the raw wound in her torso slowly healing over, I was betting she’d torn herself free of the lance and used it to impale the bastard while he’d been distracted by my antics. See, I’d just been buying her time. That was my plan all along. Honest.

  “If you’re done dicking around, I think it’s time to go,” Ricky said, holding her hand out to me. It felt good to see her standing there because not only had she saved me, but she wasn’t bloody and broken. Thank God. As I grabbed ahold of her hand and was hoisted to my feet, she pulled me close.

  “What’s the plan?” I asked, glancing around to see several soldiers sighting us through their TARs. I wasn’t sure why they weren’t shooting, but something told me it was only a matter of time.

  “We get the fuck out of here before they fill us full of silver.” She shot a look at the Harbinger. He was already starting to move. “They won’t shoot at us while the Harbinger is down here because if they do, he’ll fucki
ng kill them for taking his kill, but as soon as we get out of the arena, they’ll unload so I hope you, the rescuer, have a plan because that lance won’t hold him for long.”

  Already, I could see Harbinger’s body pulling itself back together. From the look of things we had a couple minutes at most. That was not enough time. Not by a fucking long shot.

  “Oh, I’ve got a plan,” I said while frantically trying to think of one. I was low on magic and bullets, both things I constantly relied upon. Still, there had to be a way.

  “You’re making your ‘lying about having a plan’ face,” Ricky said, shaking her big shaggy head at me. “And yes, it’s sort of sad that you even have that face, and even sadder I recognize it.”

  “It appears we’re at an impasse,” Junkyard said, and his voice seemed to fill the arena. “The moment you exit the arena, we’ll shoot you, but as long as you’re down there, I can’t.” He stepped up on the hood of a burning jeep. I wasn’t sure how it was burning since it was mostly a rusted shell of a vehicle. He didn’t have so much as a hair out of place. “But waiting you out is dreadfully boring, so I have a new plan.” He whipped his hand out to the left. “Cue the music.”

  “The End” by the Doors filled the air as Junkyard ripped his hand outward, slashing through the fabric of reality. Pink light pulsated from the gash in the air above us, and as I watched something dark and monstrous begin to come toward the opening, I realized I had a plan, albeit a very bad one.

  “Do you trust me?” I asked, glancing at Ricky.

  “Um… no,” she replied, but I ignored her as I grabbed her wrist. I mean, it wasn’t like I could make her come if she didn’t want to come. She did. Thankfully. I’d have looked really silly if she didn’t.

  “Release the kraken!” Junkyard called, and as he did, I called upon my power and pointed at the dark shape clambering toward the pink rip in the sky.