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

by J. A. Cipriano

  “Ricky called me to take a look at you on account of your arm,” Sera said, injecting her voice into the conversation like a calm wind buffeting against the fury of Ricky’s annoyance. She was back on her feet, medical bag clasped in one hand. “But if you don’t want me to examine you, I can show myself out.” Her eyes roamed over my body as she spoke, and I realized I was stark naked in front of her for the second time in as many days. The last time had ended with her pulling a gun on me. This time wasn’t looking like it was going to end much better.

  “No, it’s okay. I’m all done freaking out,” I replied, noting the blush settling on her cheeks as she looked away from me. “But you are officially the least fun female to be naked around.”

  Ricky smacked me upside the back of the head and flung me back into the tub way more violently than was necessary. The ice beneath me began to melt as I sank into the depths of the tub. Almost immediately I felt a lot better, you know baring the whole duct tape and stapled arm thing. Maybe I had really been about to combust. Apparently that was a thing. Good to know.

  “Sadly, you are not the least fun naked man I’ve been around,” Sera deadpanned as she stepped into the room and set her bag on the small counter.

  “Do you need me to hold him down?” Ricky asked, tossing a predatory glance at Sera that made me think she might enjoy drowning me in ice cubes. “Because I’m totally up for that.”

  “Mac, do you need Ricky to hold you down, or are you man enough for me to stitch up your arm without freaking out?” Sera asked me and there was only a faint trace of humor in her voice.

  “I think I can manage,” I said, looking away from the two women as they exchanged a mental conversation I couldn’t follow.

  “I’ll be in the other room then. Try not to scream too much, Mac. Kung Fu Panda just doesn’t sound the same when there’s screaming in the background,” Ricky said before walking out of the room. A moment later, I heard the television come on, but before I could determine what was actually playing, Sera shut the door.

  “Hey, Mac. How are things?” she asked, moving over to the counter and rummaging around inside her bag. “Seems like you’ve been busy. I heard you blew up a helicopter with your fist.”

  “Yeah, well, bullets are overrated.” I tried to smile at her, but it hurt too much, and her back was to me so it wouldn’t have mattered.

  She laughed, and the sound could have summoned small woodland creatures to her aid. She turned back around and came toward me with a large syringe filled with yellowish fluid. “Well, next time, try to do it when your arm isn’t sliced open to the bone. When you’re like that, your magic can short circuit and fry you from the inside out.”

  “Like a puppy in a microwave?” I asked and immediately wished I hadn’t because the look on her face made me feel pretty horrible. Still, what she said worried me. I didn’t know my magic could pop me like a fuse. I’d have to be a lot more careful in the future to avoid slicing open my demon arm. While the amount I knew about my demonic arm could have filled a shot glass, it would be nice to know the things that would cause it to kill me. Where was an owner’s manual when you needed one?

  “Yeah… you need to work on the filter between your brain and your mouth,” she said and sat down on the toilet seat. She put the still capped syringe down on the top of the toilet’s tank and looked at me for a moment. “Can you put your arm up on the side here?” She patted the side of the tub.

  I complied even though doing so felt slightly less pleasant than flossing my teeth with barbed wire. Apparently, she wasn’t super thrilled with Ricky’s first aid job because she clucked in annoyance. “Seriously, Staples and duct tape? That girl needs to get away from the other werewolves for a bit.”

  “I’m just glad she didn’t pee on the wound,” I said, smiling at her as best I could.

  Sera didn’t reply which was disconcerting. Had Ricky peed on my arm? I half-leaned in to check before deciding against it. If she had peed on my arm, I didn’t want to know.

  A moment later, Sera had the duct tape cut away and had injected my arm with what felt like concentrated snake venom mixed with a dash of harpy fury in several places along the length of the cut. It sort of reminded me of going to the dentist, although I could talk because Sera’s hands weren’t all up in my grill.

  “Let’s give it a minute to numb up, tough guy,” she said, pulling a pair of what looked like needle-nose pliers out of her black bag. “Then I’ll pull out the staples and sew you up.” She put her hands in her pink scrub clad lap. “Okay?”

  “Why did you come to help me?” I asked before I could stop myself. “You should be staying as far away from me as humanly possible.”

  “I’m a nurse. My job is putting Humpty Dumptys back together, although I haven’t sewn anyone up inside the bathroom of a cheap motel room in a while.” She grinned at me. “Besides, Mac, I owe you for saving my son and me from Van. There aren’t many people who could have pulled that off.”

  “You know,” I said, weighing my words carefully. “I’ve been thinking about that.”

  “Oh?” she asked, raising an eyebrow at me. “What have you been thinking?”

  “Why did Van want you?” I paused to gesture at her, but as soon as I tried to move my arm, I thought better of it and decided to let it lay on the cool tub. “You seem pretty normal, but he was draining your blood, and you know a lot about, well, everything.”

  “And that makes you think I’m somehow not normal?” she asked with a hint of laughter in her voice. “Maybe he’s just some crazy douchebag.”

  “Maybe,” I replied. “But in my experience, limited as it is, he didn’t strike me as insane. Well, not in the foaming at the mouth insane sort of way. He struck me as more Bond villain insane, like a guy who was too wrapped up in what he was doing to realize he’d skipped past the line to crazy town a long time ago.”

  “Seems like you have him pegged,” Sera replied, leaning down and plucking one of the staples out of my arm with her pliers. It didn’t hurt, thank God, but it didn’t exactly feel awesome. “When did you get so smart?”

  “About the time I punched a helicopter in the face,” I said, looking away as she kept plucking away at the staples because it was starting to make me feel like a Foster Farms chicken. “But you haven’t answered my question.”

  “Can’t I just say it’s because he’s a dick?” she asked in a way that made it clear she wasn’t expecting me to respond. She bit her lip, chewing on it in thought. “Van was trying to find my husband and was using my blood in some demonic ritual to try to find him. Van and his demon Vassago think my husband might still be alive somewhere, but that’s impossible. He died a few years ago. If he wasn’t dead, there’s no way he would just walk away from John and me. He would have come back to us.”

  Tears started to fill her eyes, and as she blinked them back, I felt like the world’s worst kind of asshole. Why had I gone and asked about her dead husband? A nice guy wouldn’t do that, but then again, I wasn’t really a nice guy. I was the kind of guy who would smash a dude’s skull with a sledgehammer and throw a werewolf out a twenty-story window. That was why I’d been able to save her from a demon prince. I wasn’t sure who her husband was, but he’d left her alone with his enemies still looking to settle a score. What a fool.

  I swallowed hard. Was I really any different? My sister was in trouble because of what I’d done and what enemies I’d made. Actually, it was different because I was going to get my sister back. No matter what. Not only that, I’d put my enemy’s head on a goddamned pike and salt the earth with his remains. When I was finished, everyone would learn one thing. Do not fuck with my family. Sera’s husband had not done that, and now she and her son were paying the price.

  “And I’m guessing you did this for your husband from time to time?” I asked, nodding toward my arm in an effort to try to change the subject to a slightly less dreary one while still prying information out of her because yeah, I was that kind of douchebag.

&n
bsp; “Yeah, he was a demon hunter.” I must have given her a weird look because she shook her head and sighed. “Not like Maya. In reality she’s just a witch with a little bit of talent hopped up on stolen demon juju. He was an actual demon hunter who worked with Capital-A Angels to bring down the agents of Hell.” She gestured at my arm in an “Oh, you know,” sort of way. And I did. Her husband had hunted down Cursed. Not to chop off their parts and sell them on the black market, but to actually rid the world of bad guys.

  He sounded like a hero, and while I’m sure he had acted nobly, it hadn’t ended well for him Fortunately, I was as far from a hero as you could be. Maybe that was a good thing.

  Chapter 9

  “My favorite part of the day is always when I’m hopped up on painkillers,” I said before tossing back the handful of Vicodin Sera had pressed into my hand. We were still in the bathroom, but I was dressed in black slacks and a bright pink button up with a black tie because that was apparently the only thing Ricky had on hand. Yeah, I was being played for a fool.

  “You need to be careful with those.” She narrowed her eyes at me as I swallowed the drugs. “Everyone thinks Batman is this badass because he takes a licking and keeps on kicking, but in real life, guys like that would pop painkillers like candy. Do you know what happens to guys who pop painkillers like candy?”

  “Yeah, it leads to giving hand jobs in an alley in exchange for one more hit.” I smiled at her, but the look she gave me in response made it die on my lips.

  “I’m serious, Mac!” She grabbed hold of my left arm and dragged me forward with more strength than I’d expected. “I’ve been down this path before. Trust me when I say this. Fighting the good fight is great and all, but if you find yourself struggling to get out of bed without the drugs, you need to back off. Fast. Otherwise, you’ll start telling yourself it’s just one more pill, or it’s okay because you fought some kind of mutant spider and need to take the edge off.” Anger spilled into her words as she dragged me down until we were eye to eye. “You never want to be in that position because you know what sucks when you’re in that position?”

  “What?” I asked in a half-stunned, half-concerned sort of way. Nearly everything inside me wanted to pull her close and hug her until she felt better, to whisper any kind of comforting lies I could. Only… only I didn’t want to lie to her. The road she was laying out before me was crystal clear, and I could see how easy it would be to excuse the drugs given those circumstances. Well, I was stronger than that. At least, I hoped I was.

  “The people you love have to watch you fall. We have to listen to your lies, and we have to lie to ourselves.” She let me go, spun on her heel, and walked out of the bathroom clutching her medical bag. “I can’t listen to more lies, Mac. I just can’t.” The door to the hotel room opened. “Not again.” The door closed.

  “Let me guess, you made a wisecrack about the painkillers, huh,” Ricky said as I stepped out of the bathroom and stared dumbly at the door. I could hardly believe Sera had left just like that.

  “Yeah,” I replied, looking at Ricky like a puppy that had just made a mess on the floor and couldn’t figure out why you were mad at it. “Apparently it was a bridge too far.”

  “I’m not going to say she doesn’t have a point because she does.” Ricky waved away her train of thought. “I had to beg her to give you those pills. I had to vouch for you, Mac. While I never met her husband, I‘ve heard things. He was a true blue hero, no doubt, but the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, and there’s nothing worse than watching a good man fall. Nothing.”

  “Well,” I said, wishing I’d never even learned about Sera’s husband. “I’m not a good man, so even if I fall, it won’t be that spectacular.” I shrugged. “And as far as the Vicodin go, I promise to only take them when they are prescribed by someone smarter than me, or you know, if I win them in those quarter machines with the claws.”

  “No one ever wins those,” Ricky said, putting her hand on my shoulder and letting it linger there for a moment before trailing her fingers along the bandages on my arm.

  “I win them all the time.” I grinned at her. “It’s all in the wrists. After this is over, I’ll have to show you.”

  “Why Mac Brennan, are you asking me out on a date?” She smiled back at me, and her braces flashed in the sunlight spilling in through the window.

  I was about to make a cocky response, but I stopped myself because Ricky was staring at me in a way that was anything but casual. No, she was doing it in a way that begged for more, and honestly, I wasn’t sure if I was in a place where I could step into something like that. Because let’s be real here, I was about to go kill a lot of people so I could kill one very specific person. I might have been amped up due to my own Devil’s bargain, but I’d have to pay for that, and right now, the absolute last thing I wanted to do was turn Ricky into Sera.

  “How about we put a pin in this conversation until tomorrow because we might both be dead in the next fifteen minutes?” I smiled at her, and she returned it with a look I couldn’t read.

  “Okay, Mac. We can do that.” Her words were slow and careful. “So, fifteen minutes? What do you have planned, exactly?”

  “We take the fight to Pierce before shit gets worse. I have no idea who else is coming for me. Hell, for all I know, Maya and those NWO goons might not even be with Pierce. There are forces at play here I don’t understand, and right now, I just don’t have time to deal with them. I need to take down Pierce before I run out of time.” As I spoke, Ricky’s face twisted in confusion, and she took a step backward.

  “What do you mean by ‘run out of time’ exactly?” Ricky’s voice had gained an edge of a snarl. “Is there something you’re not telling me? Something I should know?”

  “Okay,” I said, holding up my hands in the universal sign for please don’t turn into a giant rage beast and tear out my throat. “You already know Pierce is after me, you just don’t know why. The reason Pierce is after me is because I tried to kill him and failed.”

  “Uh, huh.” Ricky raised an eyebrow at me. An angry eyebrow. She was like one second from full on “hands on the hips” bitch mode. That would probably not end well even if she wasn’t a werewolf.

  “And because I failed to kill him originally, some other guys kidnapped my sister and her son to use as collateral so I’ll finish the job.” I let out a sigh. “This is my last day to make good on my end of the deal before they kill my family, Ricky.” I tried to smile at her. “You might say, no matter what, this ends tonight.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Ricky cried. Her hands tightened into fists as she glared at me hard enough to make me want to hide under the bed. “This whole time I’ve been feeling like a total bitch because I dragged you into this. When I saw you being chased by his goons, I thought, hey, it’s probably Pierce trying to extend his territory by killing you because you killed Van, but it was way, way, not that.” She stepped close to me, and the smell of wolf hit me full on as amber-coloring started to melt into her eyes. She was dangerously close to changing, and there was no way that would end well for me. “It turns out you’ve been using me this whole time, and you weren’t even honest about it.” She shook her head. “Did you think I wouldn’t help if I knew the truth?”

  “No, I didn’t think that, Ricky. I know you’ll help me.” I let out a breath I hadn’t known I was holding. “I can’t say why I know, but I do.” I swallowed hard. “I trust you in a way I can’t explain.”

  “If you trust me so much, why didn’t you tell me, Mac?” she asked, looking up at me.

  “It’s complicated,” I said, reaching out and brushing the hair from her face. The moment I touched her, it felt like an electric shock short-circuited my brain. She must have felt it too because she stopped and stared into my eyes, lips half-parted. She swallowed hard.

  “Uncomplicate it for me,” she replied, stepping in closer so we were nearly pressed together. “Please.”

  “Ricky,” I said, but my word came
out breathless. “I don’t want to tell you.” I put my forehead against hers before I realized I was doing it.

  “Mac, I want you to tell me. It’s important.” Her arms snaked up around my shoulders and she pulled me down close. “Please,” she added, her warm breath caressing my lips.

  “You’ll think less of me,” I replied. Her lips were so close to mine, I almost couldn’t think straight. “And I don’t want you to think less of me.”

  She kissed me, pressing her lips against mine. My walls came down, crashing to the ground around me before I could stop them. The only thing in me was the sudden need to kiss her. I pulled her close, crushing her body against mine. She broke away, pulling us apart.

  “Tell me, Mac.” She took a step back and swallowed hard. Her cheeks were flushed and the way she looked at me, made my heart nearly stop. “Please.”

  I turned away from her because there was no way I could do this with her looking at me. “He has your brother, Ricky. When we get to Pierce, unless he’s the dumbest motherfucker on Earth, he is going to play us against each other. He may not be dangling your brother over a shark tank, but he’ll use your brother against us. He will try to turn you against me. It will happen. I wanted you to think I was just helping you out of the goodness of my heart so we wouldn’t wind up in a prisoner’s dilemma.” I hit the wall with my fist. “At first I was using you, it’s true, but at some point it changed. I also didn’t want you to think I was such a horrible person.”

  “Mac, I was using you too. I’m an Alpha. It’s what we do,” Ricky said, and I felt her fingers wrap around my hand. She was so close to me, I could feel heat radiating off of her in waves. “But I don’t understand how not knowing about your family changes things?”

  “Because I can’t walk away, Ricky. You can. He can offer you a deal. Maybe he’ll say something like ‘you and your friend leave right now and I’ll give you your brother.’ You can take said deal. I cannot. If you didn’t know, you wouldn’t try to stop me from ending him. Now, you will know I can’t take that deal since the only way this ends well for me is with Pierce dead.” I took a deep breath and turned around to look at her. She was biting her lip, but at the same time, she hadn’t let go of my hand. “And don’t try to tell me I mean more to you than your brother does. I wouldn’t believe you even if I hadn’t thrown your friend out of a twenty-story window.”