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

by J. A. Cipriano

  “Yes,” I replied before offering him my demonic hand. “Anyone ever tell you you’re remarkably clever?”

  “About as often as they tell me I’m ruggedly handsome,” he said, taking my hand. “So quite often.”

  As he touched it, a strange coolness settled across my skin. The demonic cat who had given me my cursed arm shrieked so loudly, it drowned out everything around me. The world swayed. My vision went completely black save for the image of a shimmering mouth full of endless pointy teeth the size of mountains. The jaws curled into a grimace. She was pissed. No, not just pissed. Livid.

  “No,” she said, and the word exploded in my brain like a grenade.

  The image shattered in a spray of shrapnel, and I cowered away from it, desperately throwing my arms up as I shut my eyes against it. When I didn’t immediately die, I slowly opened my eyes and suddenly found myself lying flat on my back in the middle of the glass floor. Danton stood over me, a look of shock on his face.

  “Are you okay, mate?” he asked, reaching out to help me up as a particularly aggressive tiger shark circled in the water beneath me.

  Instead of taking his hand, I pointed my gun at him. “What did you do? And don’t give me any crap. You just royally pissed off the cat who gave me this arm.” The tattoos running along my flesh pulsed with faint angry light with every word I spoke, emphasizing my point perfectly.

  Danton held up his hands, a mostly genuine look of shock plastered across his face. “I swear, Mac. I didn’t do anything more than I said I would.” He pointed to my left, careful not to make any sudden movements.

  An honest to God sapphire-furred bunny rabbit the size of a small dog sat there twitching its nose. The rabbit was mostly ethereal except for one of its feet. That seemed solid enough. Well, he’d certainly done something. I just wasn’t sure it was helpful.

  “You did something else,” I said, getting to my feet. It was harder to do than I’d expected since I suddenly had a headache the size of Montana trying to burst out of my skull. That combined with the background noise of Ricky’s painful cries was going to make concentration difficult. Hopefully, I’d get to kill something soon, otherwise I was going to lose it. And not in a good way.

  “All I did was link the ghost bunny to Ricky’s imprint. It should be able to find her.” He shrugged in a way that made me think it was part of his normal response to life in general. “It’s less than ideal, I know, but I was sort of low on options.”

  “I don’t believe you, but I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt since I’m sure someone has to be on the way here to stop us,” I said, watching the bunny carefully. It made no sudden movements. “Make it go.”

  Danton flicked his wrist, and the bunny went. It hopped along, sort of favoring its actual leg until it reached a door set into the far wall and vanished through the white particle board. I tossed a look at Danton, and he shrugged in a way that said, “After you.”

  “Whatever,” I said, making my way toward the door, and even though I should have checked for traps or something, I pressed against the stainless steel panel on the door without bothering. Time was of the essence. Besides, I’d seen waitresses going in and out of here earlier so I doubted it was rigged with a bomb.

  The door swung open without smiting me, which was awfully nice of it. The room beyond was mostly empty save for a huge counter filled with dishes. It had concrete walls, one of which was taken up by a mammoth-sized sink, and a huge floor drain set into the concrete floor. It sort of reminded me of Jack’s bar in that whole “it’d be easy to clean blood off the walls” way.

  The rabbit sat in the center of the room, twitching its stupid bunny nose and ignoring the door into the kitchen on its left. When the creature caught sight of me, it rolled its blue eyes before loping across the room until it stood in front of the right wall. It hopped up and down a couple times and shook its ears.

  “What’s wrong boy? Did Timmy fall in the well?” Danton asked from behind me, and I turned to see him standing only a few feet behind me. He had what looked like a glowing carrot in his hand.

  The rabbit bounced again, and Danton threw the creature the nuclear carrot. The bunny opened its mouth impossibly wide, reminding me of a snake unhinging its jaw to gulp down something twice its size. Before I could blink, the rabbit leapt into the air and snatched the vegetable, swallowing it whole.

  “Seriously?” I said, my mouth agape as the bunny landed lightly on the grate and vanished through the wall with a flick of its cottontail.

  “You think Floppy works for free?” Danton asked, fishing a package of mini carrots out of his pocket. He shook the bag at me. “Everything has a price. Remember that.”

  “You just happen to have a bag of magical carrots in your pocket at all times?” I replied incredulously.

  “And here you probably thought I was just happy to see you,” he said, moving past me and holding his hand out toward the wall. As he did so, he started humming a tune that sounded remarkably like Amazing Grace but more punk rock. Golden light spilled from his fingertips, painting the room in soft, angelic glow. I wasn’t quite sure what he was doing, but I suddenly felt a lot more relaxed than I had a moment ago. Was it a side effect to his spell?

  Danton pressed his hand against the wall, and the light leapt from his fingers, snaking across the surface. There was a loud crack, and the room shook just a touch. Danton smiled and shot a glance upward and muttered something. It was a little weird because his eyes were closed. The light pulsed. The wall crumbled to dust, leaving a hole almost exactly the size and shape of a door.

  The bunny sat just beyond, glowing with eerie blue light. When it caught sight of Danton, it stamped one foot impatiently, twitched its nose in irritation, and took off bounding down the dark hallway.

  “I hate going into darkened hallways,” Danton said, annoyance filling his voice. “Even the goddamned Death Star had fluorescent lighting.”

  A grin I couldn’t stop spread across my face as Danton shoved the carrots in his hand back into his pocket and made his way into the hallway. Evidently, he was taking the lead which was good since I had no clue where the rabbit was going to lead us, and he had the magic bag of carrots. Besides, if something attacked, it’d get him. Win, win.

  Fortunately, as we made our way down the hallway, we didn’t step on any invisible floors and fall to our doom nor did we trigger a spear throwing zombie attack. We did, however, come to a set of steel stairs that led down below. The metallic scent of fresh blood filled the air as we approached, and I got the feeling they’d been recently used. As I stared at them, trying to figure out why, faint glowing footprints appeared on the stairs. Well, that settled things. Something had definitely used them.

  “Are you doing that?” I asked the demon cat, but her only response was a Cheshire grin. Well, that was really helpful.

  The rabbit either couldn’t smell the blood and see the glowing footprints or wasn’t bothered by them because it hopped down the stairs until it reached the landing below and disappeared from view.

  “Well, time to follow the bunny trail,” Danton said, one hand in his pocket, the other outstretched in front of him. It was still glowing, but not as brightly as before. Was he using the light to see? That was weird. I could see pretty well so why did he need a light? Then again, he’d made the comment about fluorescent lighting too…

  “Is it dark in here?” I asked, glancing around the room for an obvious light source and finding none.

  “Yeah, it’s pitch black in here.” He shot me a look. “Not all of us have those Riddick eyes.” He gestured toward my face with his glowing hand. “That’s one of the few perks you guys have I really would love. The ability to see in the dark is not overrated. Sure roaches scurry when you shine light on them but being able to see them before they crawl up your trousers would be nice.”

  “I didn’t realize I could see in the dark,” I said, trying to think back. I’d remembered being in darkened rooms and not being able to see well,
but then again, maybe I just hadn’t noticed I’d seen better than normal? It seemed likely. When I’d fought the other Cursed, it had been in a darkened room, but that hadn’t seemed to bother him much either.

  “You are the dark, mate,” Danton replied, gesturing at my arm.

  Before I could respond, he started down the stairs whistling his strange tune. It was a little strange because I was worried we were going to get attacked, although that may have been because of the screaming in the back of my head. To say I was edgy was an understatement. Barring the initial attack by werewolf ninjas, this had been remarkably easy. After all, we were following a magic bunny rabbit down a hole. That hadn’t exactly been all unbirthday cake for Alice.

  I let out a slow breath, glanced over my shoulder, and seeing nothing, made my way after them, fully expecting something to jump out shout, “Off with their heads!” It wasn’t that I was paranoid per se, it was more that being on a stairwell with a werewolf hadn’t been sunshine and dandelions last time, and I wasn’t keen on a repeat performance. Then again, I had two .45 caliber Glocks loaded with silver ammunition. If something jumped out of me, I was going to give it the Mac Brennan special.

  Chapter 13

  Evidently, I was overly paranoid because even though I was ready to go all sorts of zombie apocalypse on whatever monster decided to show its ugly face, nothing jumped out at us from the shadows. For fifteen entire floors. That’s right, fifteen. We walked down fifteen flights of stairs. It sucked.

  Hadn’t these people heard of elevators or at least an escalator? I mean, I probably wouldn’t have used the elevator because hello, ambush, but still. Still. And who has fifteen subterranean floors anyway? No one good, that’s for sure. On the other hand, it did explain how they’d built such a deep shark tank. An enclosure that size was nothing when you had fifteen stories to work with. For all I knew, the shark tank had only been built because they were like “What the hell do we do with all this extra space?”

  By the time I reached the last step, my legs felt like jelly, and I was cursing in my head because it was too hard to keep doing under my breath. I leaned heavily on the banister and tried to stop gulping down air like the fat guy on the treadmill at the gym. Hey, I wasn’t judging. In fact, I was all for it. At least he was trying to change. I couldn’t imagine all the awkward stares he must get from the naturally skinny jerks.

  The bunny sat in the middle of the room beside an unconscious man on the ground. I wasn’t sure how he’d gotten unconscious because Danton was leaning against the wall with a bored look on his face. What can I say, apparently, I’m way more out of shape than his cigarette smoking ass. It didn’t seem fair, but then again, maybe whatever power he had replaced the need for cardio. If I’d known that, I might have made a different deal.

  “Nice of you to join us, Mac,” Danton said, glancing up at me before making a point of looking at his nonexistent watch. He gestured at the unconscious guard in the cheap blue suit. He sort of looked like a rent-a-cop, but not the traditional kind that looks sort of like they could be real cops. No, this guy resembled a private eye or something maybe even lower class than that. “Not a lot of security. That concerns me. There should be more than one normal guy with a shotgun, especially when you consider the sirens and werewolves upstairs. It’s sort of like going to the trouble of putting in a state of the art security system in your house and hiding your cash under your mattress instead of using a safe.”

  My gaze moved from the unconscious guy to the folding chair facing the stairs I’d just come down. Even though there was a shotgun sitting next to it, there was also a tablet with multi-colored birds bouncing across its screen. It made me inclined to agree with Danton’s assessment of the situation. Something was definitely wrong.

  As I puzzled it over in my mind, another thought flickered at the edge of my consciousness. Had Danton somehow managed to sneak up on the guard from the front? It didn’t seem possible even if the guy had probably been distracted by flappy birds, but then again, maybe Danton wasn’t joking about finding and killing me in some quiet place when I least expected it. He also didn’t seem particularly worried by our current situation, which struck me as good in a bad sort of way.

  It meant he was confident he could handle anything down here, which was good. It also made me wonder why he had decided to help me. I didn’t buy for a minute it was simply his good nature. Part of the reason Danton had jumped at the chance to help me save Ricky was so he could get a crack at Jinn, but why hadn’t he just waltzed in and taken down Jinn himself?

  Another scream tore through the back of my mind, and I unconsciously rubbed at my temple with the barrel of my Glock before I realized what I was doing. Part of me couldn’t believe I’d been that stupid. I could have blown my own head off. It must have been because the scream sounded way closer than it had been when we’d been upstairs. We were getting close. I could feel it.

  Danton pushed himself off the wall, regarded the shotgun like he disdained the weapon, and took a step toward me. “Judging by how the bunny is acting, we’re close.” He nodded toward the rabbit. It was hopping from foot to foot in excitement. “He’ll want more carrots when we finish. If I don’t give them to him, he’s likely to go all Monty Python on both of us. You’ll have to take care of whatever is inside while I deal with Floppy over there, okay?”

  “Are you seriously telling me your ghost bunny will try to eat our faces if he doesn’t get a magic carrot?” I asked, finally able to breathe normally after my fifteen story hike.

  “Yeah, that is exactly what I’m telling you.” He shrugged. “It’s why a lot of people don’t use them, but hey, when you need to find a kidnapped werewolf, there’s nothing better. Werewolves are their normal prey.” He gestured at the unconscious guy. “I didn’t do that. The bunny did.”

  “I think you’re screwing with me,” I said as the rabbit slowly approached a door at the far end of the room and touched the cool steel with its nose. An emerald green spark leapt off the rusty door and turned the bunny into a pile of ectoplasm. Its real paw twitched for a second, and the bunny started pulling itself together in a way that reminded me of stop motion Claymation.

  “Think what you want, Mac.” Danton gave me a big cheesy grin. “One of us is the seasoned hunter while the other is so new, he didn’t even know he could see in the dark. Who would you trust?”

  “Not you.” I strode past him and nudged the still-reforming bunny with the toe of my loafer, which wound up entering its translucent fur. It turned and looked at me with one half-formed eye and regarded me in a way that made me snatch my foot back posthaste.

  “Is this because I think Hayden Christiansen is an amazing actor and the prequels are highly underrated?” Danton asked, watching with amusement as I tried to rub the slime off the bottom of my shoe onto the cement floor. “The special effects were particularly awesome.”

  “You know, if I was Deadpool, I’d shoot you for a comment like that,” I replied, casually pointing my Glock in his direction even though I wasn’t actually intending to shoot him. This time.

  “Is this where I’m supposed to say Jar Jar Binks is an abomination?” He grinned at me, and I got the feeling we could potentially become pals if he wasn’t on some kind of holy crusade to kill me for making a demonic bargain, but hey, you never know, maybe we’d find some kind of common ground, provided his ghostly bunny rabbit didn’t maul us to death or I shot him. The night was still young after all.

  “So what’s the plan exactly? It doesn’t seem like your rabbit can get through the door.” I gestured to the stupid bunny still pulling itself back together. It seemed like it was taking forever, and the screaming in my head wasn’t getting any less frantic. If we didn’t find Ricky soon, I was going to go insane.

  “I can open the door,” he said, moving past me and stepping up next to the door, careful to avoid the bunny rabbit as he did so. He held up his glowing hand. “I have a non-demonic hand blessed by the angel Gabriel.”

  He
grabbed the cheap brass knob and twisted. The door opened. There was no zapping, no turning into a puddle of goo. No, there was only the soft creak of the hinges as he pulled the door open. The hallway beyond was done in a sort of retro-chrome look that reminded me of a cross between a hospital and a space station out of a science fiction film.

  Lights were set into the walls on either side, along with the floor and ceiling, casting the entire place in a weird sterile light that made me loath to step inside. Evidently, something about it bugged Danton too because a look of worry crossed his face. He actually stroked his chin like he was thinking. It was worrisome because it was the first time I’d seen him look even slightly concerned.

  “What do you think, buddy?” he said, and before I could respond, he knelt down next to the rabbit and rubbed its head in a way the bunny clearly did not appreciate. “Want to take a hop inside and let me know if you explode?”

  The bunny did not respond. Instead, it gave Danton a look that said clearly, “I’m not going to set a single ectoplasm-laden foot into that room, you stupid fuck stick.” It was a little weird because I normally didn’t get the impression rabbits cursed much, but evidently, I didn’t know them very well.

  “I am not a fuck stick,” Danton said, getting to his feet. “That is no way to treat your anchor to this mortal coil.” He sighed, pulled his hand out of his pocket, and tossed something inside. It exploded in a burst of demonic-looking green flame that reminded me of Vassago. A shiver went through me as I remembered my time with the demon. I’d sooner get cavity searched by hairy armed TSA agents than meet that guy again.

  “Was whatever you threw in there supposed to do that?” I asked, hoping it might actually be the case. I mean, I didn’t have a lot of hope, but still. It’d been nice if it worked out.

  “In a manner of speaking,” Danton said dejectedly. “That smoke means this entrance leads into Vassago’s bar. I’m not sure if you heard of him, but he likes to place false entrances in places to trap people in his demonic pool hall. Unless you’re really good at some kind of bar game, I wouldn’t ever venture inside and even then…” He shuddered.