Marked: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Thrice Cursed Mage Book 2)

by J. A. Cipriano

  She started to pull away, and as she did, it felt like she was wrenching a piece of me away with her. Yet, I could feel the reluctance in her reaction. She didn’t really believe what she’d said. Somehow, that made me feel better. Not much better, mind you, but better.

  “Maybe you’re wrong,” I said, trying my best to smile at her as her fingers slipped from my own, and I was left feeling cold and empty.

  “Maybe,” she replied, setting her newly-freed hand in her lap like she had no idea what to do with it. “But I’ve been to this particular rodeo before, Mac. Getting emotionally involved with each other before we storm a madman’s castle is tantamount to suicide. We have no idea what will happen once we start gutting bad guys, but the absolute last thing I want is for either of us to do something stupid because our judgment is clouded by this.” She gestured at the two of us. “But, after this is all over, if we’re both still alive, I’d be happy to revisit this.” She licked her lips, slowly dragging her tongue across them in an arc that made some very inappropriate thoughts dance through my brain.

  It was kind of lame of her if you think about it since she’d just shut me down. I knew, just knew, she was right, that we shouldn’t be doing this right now, but watching her lips made me react in a way that would have been immediately apparent if I wasn’t wearing a trench coat.

  As our bus rolled to a stop, and the doors opened at the bus stop before ours, I opened my mouth to say something devilishly clever, only before I could, Ricky shimmied down into the tiny space between the floor and the seat in front of us and pulled me down on top of her.

  “Maybe she didn’t see us—” she said before all the lights in the bus went out like the inside of a bar after last call, enveloping us in complete, bag over your head in a basement with the lights out, darkness. Only a second ago it had been broad daylight. This wasn’t good. Not by a long shot.

  Darkness crept over my flesh like slimy bugs as I reached out, trying to grab onto the seat in front of me to get my bearings, only instead of grabbing the seat, I found myself reaching through empty air. How was that possible?

  My heart sped up in my chest, crashing against my ribs while fear tightened in my gut like a boa constrictor. I was on my feet in an instant, at least I thought I was on my feet because I suddenly realized I couldn’t feel the ground. Why couldn’t I feel the ground?

  Something grabbed me around the throat, constricting my airflow like a noose made of shrapnel and hatred. I was jerked forward off my feet and dragged forward with my legs trailing painfully over what felt like hot coals. I did have a body still, and its name was pain.

  My back smashed against something hard with a metallic clang that made me bite my tongue. The iron tang of blood filled my mouth as I stood there dazed. I tried to move, to pull myself free, but before I could move more than a few inches, lashes of pure agony wrapped around my arms and legs. A scream ripped from my throat, but as it left my lips, it was swallowed by the darkness.

  “Hello, lover,” rasped a low, hungry voice in my ear. The hair on the back of my neck stood straight up as completely irrational fear made me tear at the bindings holding me. I needed to get free right now!

  I struggled at my bonds even though all it did was tear the flesh from my bones, and strangely, that didn’t bother me even one iota.

  “Who do we have in there?” I felt a tongue scrape along my cheek. “Oh, your demon isn’t home right now. Well, let’s see if we can change that.” A flaming icepick of pain stabbed my brain, and a scream that ravaged my throat exploded from my lips.

  There was a flurry of movement in the back of my mind as the demon who had given me my powers did the equivalent of an irritated cat awakening from a dead sleep. I got the vague impression of annoyance and disdain from the being, and as her condescension flowed through me, the agony enveloping me receded enough for me to think. It took one more look around, decided my situation didn’t warrant further attention and settled back down for a nap. Well, that was really helpful.

  A growl filled my ears, only this one came from my own throat as I called upon my power. My tattoos lit up like the Times Square Jumbo Tron, pushed the darkness back just enough for me to make out what looked like a tiny middle-eastern girl with hair blacker than my damned arm and eyes that glowed with pale lavender fire.

  Her blood-red lips curled into a smug smile of satisfaction as she took me in. “I expected more from the one who took down Van,” she added, holding up one purple-nailed hand and pointing her index finger at me. “But if this is the extent of your power, you’ll barely be a snack.”

  She pushed up the sleeve on my trench coat and shirt, revealing my blazing forearm. She shot me a saccharine smile before dragging her left fingernail along my right arm, splitting my flesh open and revealing both my ulna and radius to the light of day. Thankfully, no blood or pain flowed from the wound because if it had, I’d have been in real trouble.

  Her lips curled into a pout. “No blood,” she said, her tongue flicking from between her yellowed, coffee-stained teeth as she spoke. “Pity.”

  “Sorry to disappoint,” I said, trying with all my might to do more than stand there immobile. I failed to move even a millimeter.

  “You haven’t yet begun to disappoint me, lover,” she cooed, voice husky as she leaned close to my ear, brushing her obviously fake breasts against my arm. “But we have plenty of time for that.” Her hot breath tickled my flesh as she lowered her mouth to my wound and ran her tongue along the visible bone beneath my torn flesh.

  Chapter 6

  “Mmm,” she purred, voice thick and husky as she pulled her mouth away from my wounded right arm and stared at me through half-lidded eyes. “You’ve got the good stuff.” She licked her lips as a slow grin spread across her face. “Unique too, never tasted anything like it.”

  She reached out and brushed my mop of dirty blond hair out of my face and little sparks of purple light jumped across her skin. “You’ll fetch a high price.” She trailed her ice-cold fingers down my cheek.

  “What?” I asked, confusion chasing back my fear and revulsion.

  “Your arm will fetch a high price.” She shook her head like she was trying to focus, but it didn’t seem to work. Instead, her eyes were drawn back to my black as pitch flesh. The look on her face made me think she was literally trying to decide whether or not to take a bite out of me. It was also when I noticed the roll of butcher’s paper on the ground next to a cheap Rubbermaid cooler by her feet.

  “Are you seriously saying what I think you’re saying?” I said, fear tingeing my voice even though I didn’t mean for it to do so. “You’re not really going to cut my arm off and sell it to the highest bidder are you?”

  “That’s what I’d planned to do.” She bent down close to my arm and ran her fingers over my skin, and as she did so, the tattoos blazing crimson on my flesh dimmed. Scarlet sparks danced along the edges of her fingernails as she held them up and licked the light from her fingers. A shudder racked her body and her knees went wobbly, which I could totally see because she was wearing a red-vinyl skirt that ended just above them.

  “But you’re not going to do it now?” I asked, and the relief flooding through me was a little disconcerting. I was Mac Brennan after all, and I didn’t get scared. Still, I’d be lying if I said having my arm hacked off by a psycho girl in Goth clothing wasn’t a touch terrifying.

  “Maybe.” She touched her chin with one long fingernail and looked into my eyes. “I mean don’t get me wrong, normally by this time your arm would already be on its way to a Chinese market where it’d get ground up and put into some old guy’s tea, but for you, I may just make an exception.” She sucked on her fingertip once more and her eyes closed in near ecstasy.

  “So what are you going to do?” I said, wishing I still had my Desert Eagle so I could shoot her in her overly made up raccoon face. There was no way in Hell I was going to stand here bound in darkness and let her chop my arm off and brew it into some Chinese dong tea. At leas
t, I sort of hoped not.

  She opened her eyes slowly and looked at me like a heroin addict who had just gotten her fix. “I’m thinking I might just keep you all for myself. If I do it right, you’ll last me a long time.” A knife that glinted evilly slipped from her black frilled cuff and into her right hand. She held the blade up in front of her eyes. Symbols I didn’t understand, but which sort of resembled Norse runes were etched into its obsidian surface. “What do you say? Want to come home with me? I promise it will be fun.” She licked her lips like I was a prime corn-fed ribeye, and a shudder I couldn’t help rippled down my spine. She was seriously going to eat me, and I did not want to be eaten, not even slightly.

  “You don’t have to do this,” I said while mentally begging the cat demon to do something to help me.

  Thankfully, the cat took notice of me. Unfortunately, she cast an annoyed glance at me. “Yes?” The tone of her voice reverberating in my head made me think of a girl prematurely awoken from her beauty sleep after pulling an all-nighter, and here I was all out of Starbucks.

  “Please do something,” I mentally pleaded because talking aloud might make the girl about ready to go all sorts of slap chop on my arm hurry. That was the absolute last thing I needed right now.

  “That sounds suspiciously like work, and I don’t really want to do work,” the cat purred, glancing around before settling back down for her nap. “You’ll be fine. Everything is not as it seems.” Then she winked at me and vanished, leaving me screaming into the void of my mind which was as stupid seeming as it sounds.

  The crazy drug addict girl snapped her fingers in front of my face. “Hey numb nuts, pay attention. Don’t go off into your happy place or wherever. I want you here for this. Fear makes the power stronger.” I glared at her. “Anger is fine too. Pretty much anything Dark Side works in my book.” She reached out and tugged my trench coat down off my arm and scowled at my white button up in dismay. “Buttons. Holy mother of frig, I hate buttons.” She frowned like I was the most inconsiderate person in the world.

  “Sorry,” I growled as she tried vainly to push my cuff even farther up my arm, but it didn’t make it much past my elbow. “I’ll try to be more considerate of your needs in the future.”

  “That’d be nice,” she replied totally serious. “Guess I’ll just owe you a shirt. You can put it on my tab, okay?” She put the tip of the blade to the seam of my shirt between the arm and the shoulder. “Any last words?”

  “Yeah, back off bitch. He’s mine!” Ricky cried before a giant werewolf fist crashed into the side of the little Goth girl’s head and sent her flying. I’ll be honest, I’d never been happier to see a hulking, pissed off werewolf than I was right now.

  The darkness vanished in an instant which was good because it let me see the psycho bitch smash through the windshield of the bus, hit the street outside, and bounce a couple times. It was incredibly satisfying, let me tell you.

  The floor under me was covered in oily black sand. A black candle with symbols similar to the ones on the girl’s knife blazed just a few inches from my feet. Ricky sent it toward the door with an insolent kick. The candle went out as it rolled down the stairs before bouncing out of the bus. The moment it touched the asphalt outside, whatever spell had had been binding me to the wall evaporated. I fell forward onto my hands and knees as Ricky stepped in front of me, her massive werewolf bulk blocking the Goth girl from view as she moved toward the exit.

  “We need to get out of here before she gets up,” Ricky said, glancing at me to see if I was already moving. “I have no idea what other spells the Demon Hunter has up her sleeves, but none of them will be good.”

  Her words made a little pang of terror surge up in me, but I pushed it down, trying to file the information that demon hunters were a thing and had my scent away for later. I could deal with that business tomorrow. Right now, I had to get up and follow Ricky out of the bus.

  It was easier said than done. I was only moving if you counted sucking in a great lungful of air while hunched over on the floor of a bus moving. Still, I had no desire to let the demon hunting Goth girl take another crack at removing my arm from my body. It goes without saying, but I was sort of attached to it. Ha. Ha. Yeah, that one never gets old.

  Speaking of never getting old, my arm still wasn’t bleeding. I wasn’t sure why, but I was willing to let it not bleed as long as I could. It was, however, starting to hurt. Bad. If I didn’t do something soon, I was going to be in an ass load of agony, which was reasonable given I had an eight-inch bone-deep cut in my right arm. Well, that could also be dealt with later.

  I shrugged my trench coat back on, forced myself to my feet, and followed Ricky out of the bus as quickly as I could. She was standing in the street in front of the bus, but she hadn’t reverted back to human form. That was probably bad since she didn’t strike me as someone who transformed willy nilly. Then again, she had said earlier normal people didn’t notice supernatural. Maybe this was a form of active camouflage?

  Even if that was the case, I really hoped no one saw her and freaked out. So far, the bus driver, along with all the other passengers, hadn’t put up much of a fuss, but that was probably because they were slumped over unconscious. I’d sort of wondered what had happened to them when the lights went out, but being that they appeared to still be breathing, I was pretty sure little Miss Wednesday Addams had just knocked them out. Well, good for her.

  Speaking of which, the Goth girl was getting to her feet. Blood streaked her exposed flesh from where the asphalt had given her a bad case of cheese grater skin. “It’s not nice to sucker punch people,” she said, reaching up and running one hand through her dark hair. The huge silver rings in her ears caught the light and glinted malevolently. She was definitely up to something.

  Ricky stood only a few feet away, her muscles tightening beneath her skin in a way that reminded me of a cat about to pounce. It was a little weird though. Why hadn’t she already, oh I don’t know, disemboweled the Goth chick? That’s the first thing I’d have done. No, for some reason, Ricky had given the bitch time to get back up. Why had she done that?

  “Back off, Maya,” Ricky snarled, little flecks of froth accentuating her muzzle as she spoke. “This one is my responsibility and under my protection.”

  “And if I don’t?” the Goth girl who knew Ricky and was also named Maya said in a bitchy tone. “What will you do?” Before Ricky could respond, a devilish smile broke across Maya’s lips. “Oh, that’s right. You’ll do abso-frigging-lutely nothing. Now back off, Wolfy.” She took a step forward while reaching up under the back of her shirt with one hand. “His arm is forfeit. The rest of him? Well, it’s all yours.”

  “Get down!” I cried, dive tackling the werewolf to the ground, which let me tell you, was way harder than it sounded. It was like slamming into a small car made of flesh and bone. Or a pony. Yeah, let’s go with pony. Have you ever tried to knock a pony out of the way by hurling your body at it? It’s hard to do. But I did it. Because, I’m Mac Brennan. Hell yeah!

  We crashed to the asphalt as the crazy Goth chick pulled a stockless Uzi from her blouse and unleashed a barrage of bullets that would have torn us to shreds. Even as it was, the shots passed so close to me the wind from them stung my eyes. Her gun bucked like a bronco in her hands as I leapt to my feet and threw myself at her. Let me just say this. Hitting her was quite unlike hitting Ricky. She went down like a drunk girl after prom.

  The back of her head cracked against the street, and her eyes went glassy and far off. Her weapon went skittering across the street, and pausing only to kick the bitch while she was down, I scrambled over to it. A moment later, I had the submachinegun in my left hand. I whirled, my finger already on the trigger, and pointed it at the still stunned Maya.

  “Hey, you know what’s cool? Not chopping off my arm,” I growled, approaching the crazy bitch while Ricky stood there watching me with a strange look of “oh, shit” on her face. It was weird because I felt pretty damned justified w
ith myself right now. Especially since I was about to get some answers. Like who sent her and how did she know about me when I didn’t know about me.

  “Don’t shoot her,” Ricky said way too quickly for me to think she didn’t have an ulterior motive, which was sort of reasonable given that she knew Maya. Maybe the girl had information?

  “Why?” I asked then I shot the Goth bitch because there was no reason good enough to not shoot her. The bullet smacked into the Maya’s right shoulder, damned near spinning her around in a spray of crimson. That seemed to bring the bitch around because her eyes bolted open, and she screamed in a way that horrified me. Not because it was scary, but because I liked the terror in her scream. I was starting to see why I had chosen to be a hitman. I was really messed up.

  Ricky’s toothy maw fell open in shock as Maya tried to get up, but evidently she wasn’t used to having only one usable arm because she lost her balance and fell back into the puddle of crimson slowly spreading around her body. I’d half-expected her to bleed more, but after she came out of her daze, the blood had just stopped flowing from her wound. Evidently, the girl had a few tricks up her proverbial sleeve. Well, we couldn’t have that.

  I approached Maya and shoved the submachinegun up under her chin. “If you even twitch weird I’m going to rearrange your insides with bullets. Are we clear?” I said and my voice was low and empty.

  “Yes,” she said, and her voice was defiant and angry. “But you should know—”

  “Mac, we need to get out of here!” Ricky cried, running up to me in human form and pointing furiously ahead. I turned my head to see the strobing lights of police cars coming straight toward us. I wasn’t quite sure why they were here already, or who had called them, but at the moment it didn’t seem to matter since I had a submachinegun pulled on a tiny bloody girl in the middle of the street. She was right. We needed to get out of here, right now.