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

by J. A. Cipriano

  “Die,” I said, releasing all my pent up rage and frustration inside her in the form of fire straight from the forges of Hell. The smell of burned lobster filled my nostrils as her shell turned white hot and steam began to pour from her joints. Fire shot from her mouth and eyes as the creature cooked from the inside.

  Without bothering to check Jinn’s overall doneness, I leapt off her glowing, lobster-red back and scrambled over to Ricky. I gathered her up in my arms and much to my surprise, felt her heart beating in her chest.

  “Come on, you can heal this,” I said, tears spilling from my eyes and peppering her slack face. “It’s barely a flesh wound,” I lied.

  One of her eyes fluttered open, and I got the feeling she was seeing me for the first time. Really seeing me. In that moment, she took stock of everything I was and somehow didn’t find me wanting. Instead, a small smile crossed her mashed up lips.

  “Okay,” she whispered even though I didn’t know how since her throat was a gaping maw of carnage and horror. Her heartbeat strengthened just a touch, and a strange look came over her face. She struggled, trying to move, and as I opened my mouth to ask her what was wrong, someone brained me from behind with a steel chair.

  Chapter 17

  I awoke with a splitting headache in the back of a Volkswagen bug, which let me tell you, was not really expected nor very comfortable. The smell of greasy cheeseburgers and French fries filled my nostrils as I tried to sit up. Even that tiny movement made nausea surge up my throat, and I had to stop myself before I threw up all over myself.

  There was a flash of movement from the front seat, and Ricky’s face appeared over the top of the gray seat. She looked like she’d never been in a fight at all which was good because the last time I’d seen her, she’d been roadkill. Relief came flooding through me. She was alive and moving. Thank God.

  “Want a French fry?” she asked around a mouthful of cheeseburger while offering me a stained paper bag.

  “Did you get the number of that bus?” I asked, rubbing the back of my head. There was a knot big enough to qualify for its own zip code protruding from the back of my skull.

  “That was your friend the demon hunter. After he tried to cave in your head with a steel folding chair like some kind of WWE wrestler, he took Jinn’s body and left us there.” She shrugged, evidently unconcerned by the fact Danton had given me a goddamned concussion for no good reason. Well, that was the last straw. He could consider his invitation to my birthday party rescinded.

  “You seem rather chipper about the whole thing,” I muttered, finally managing to sit up despite my double vision. It was harder than I’d have expected since there were fewer places less roomy than the back of a Volkswagen.

  “I am happy, and you should be too. He didn’t kill us both. That’s what normally happens with guys like that, and well, you know, after I recovered, ate a werebear, and carried you out of there, I stole this car and went to McDonalds.” She shook the bag at me. “I’m lovin’ it.”

  “You couldn’t have found a bigger vehicle?” I asked, wondering what she meant by “ate a werebear.” Something told me she meant exactly what I thought it meant, but no, that couldn’t be. Surely, she hadn’t actually eaten one of the guys from before, had she? “And why McDonalds?”

  “When you’re the one who emerges from an evil lair half-starved, bleeding, and carrying a guy twice your size, you can pick the car, okay?” She smiled. “I had a car just like this in high school, so I felt sentimental toward it I guess. As to your second question, I’ll have you know I actually like McDonalds quite a bit. Their cheeseburgers are like candy, and the fries are pretty good too once you dump a ton of salt on them.” She shrugged. “I’m not sure what the deal is with people not salting things nowadays. Knowing how much salt to put on food is one of the most basic parts of cooking. It’s right up there with boiling water.” She shoved another handful of fries into her mouth and chewed.

  As she swallowed, her body visibly started to fill out. It was weird, because while I wouldn’t quite say she looked emaciated, I got the impression her body had cannibalized part of her structure to heal itself, and now that she was eating, it was trying its best to revert back to its normal form.

  She caught me staring and blushed slightly. “Werewolves require a lot of calories to heal. I remember one time I went to one of those ‘All you can eat’ Chinese buffets after a fight with some vampires. Man, I thought they were going to throw me out after I ate the sixteenth plate of crab legs and all the egg rolls. They didn’t, but they started serving things so slowly, I left because the only thing left at the buffet was the broccoli from the broccoli beef. Not a lot of protein in broccoli.” She stuck a finger down her throat and made a gagging gesture.

  “How many cheeseburgers have you eaten?” I asked, taking the bag from her and pulling a yellow-wrapped sandwich free. It was the only one in the bag.

  “I bought about a hundred. There’s still some in there, right?” She raised a questioning eyebrow at me. “I tried to save you some because there’s no more McNuggets.”

  “Yeah, plenty,” I said not having the heart to tell her it was the last one. Something told me if I did, she might snatch it away, and near as I could tell, it would be the first thing I’d eaten in over twenty-four hours.

  I bit into the sandwich, surprised at how good it tasted. Sudden ravenous hunger overtook me, and before I could stop myself, I’d taken another bite and tried to swallow the whole mass without chewing. Everything inside me revolted, but not because it tasted bad. No, it was because as I tried to choke down the burger, my mouth got so dry I nearly gagged. I was never really good at eating things without copious amounts of water, let alone half a barely chewed cheeseburger. I swallowed as best I could and looked around for a drink while trying to work up some spit.

  “Good. I’d have felt bad if I ate two hundred chicken nuggets, twenty bags of fries, six shakes, and a hundred cheeseburgers by myself,” she said, and like she was reading my mind, offered me a ginormous cup.

  I snatched it from her and took several swallows of the cold liquid. When I was done, I shook my head. “Iced tea? I’d have thought little miss ‘calories don’t go straight to my hips’ would be drinking Coke.”

  “Did you know there is enough acid in a can of Coke to dissolve a mouse in a month?” She shook her head, sticking her tongue out in disgust. “I once watched a video where they put a mouse in a can of Mountain Dew and checked it a month later. The only thing left of the creature was some hair, teeth, and a bit of tail.” She made a gaging noise. “I haven’t touched the stuff since.”

  “You’re aware the acid in your stomach can chew through steel, right?” I asked before taking another bite of my burger. It went down much easier since I chased it with several gulps of tea.

  “Yeah, but that doesn’t mean I want to go swallow a license plate either.” She grinned mischievously at me. “I mean I did it once on a dare, but we all do crazy things in college. Those days are long behind me.” She shoved an entire box of French fries in her mouth. “My body is a temple,” she added around a mouthful of chewed up potato.

  I grinned. I couldn’t help it. She was being silly in a way I really appreciated, especially since we needed to go attack the strongest werewolf in the state and our last encounter with a supernatural bad guy had gotten me brained by a steel chair and her disemboweled. As that thought came ripping through my brain, horror filled me.

  “What time is it?” I asked, glancing around for a clock, but all that succeeded in doing was making the room spin. I needed to get over this whole concussion thing if I wanted to save my sister. For all I knew, I’d been out for days, but I didn’t think so. For one, my body didn’t hurt in the way it would have if I’d been unconscious for a while. No, my muscles were still reasonably loose. For two, I was sure Ricky wouldn’t have let that happen, although I couldn’t have told you why.

  “We have time, Mac,” she said, spinning in her seat. I heard her rustle around
in a bag before turning back around. She tossed a pair of pill bottles and a five-hour energy drink at me. They landed in my lap. “Take the Ibuprofen and the Tylenol. It will help with the massive headache. The calories will help you heal too. You might not have my awesome metabolism, but you aren’t quite human anymore either. Give your body fuel, and it’ll fix all that ails you.”

  “And the energy drink?” I asked, popping the top off the pill bottles and shoving a handful of each into my mouth. I wasn’t quite sure how many to take. I knew four pills of Ibuprofen was a prescription dose, but that didn’t account for the whole demonic arm thing. Maybe I needed more or maybe less? I went with four and two Tylenol because I hated my liver and kidneys. Then I washed the whole thing down with the five-hour energy drink because my heart could go jump off a bridge.

  “Yeah, it’s probably overkill since we’ll probably be dead before the five hours is up.” She handed me a can of Red Bull. “But then again, if not, maybe we can put some of that extra energy to use.” She grinned mischievously at me, and I had the sudden urge to leap over the seat and pull her into my arms.

  “It’s a promise,” I said, taking the can from her and downing it in about half a second. I couldn’t tell you why, but I absolutely loved Red Bull. I’d never really been a fan of Monster or other energy drinks, but I could drink the heck out of Red Bull.

  Still, I didn’t normally use it as a chaser for a five-hour, Ibuprofen, and Tylenol. That was brand new territory. I sighed. Maybe Sera was right. I ought to be a bit more careful. Then again, if I wound up getting addicted to Red Bull and Tylenol, I was probably doing okay, all things considered. After all, Danton had smoked like a chimney and had scaled fifteen flights of stairs like some kind of Olympic runner.

  “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t thinking of climbing back there now in case there isn’t a next time,” Ricky said, spinning back around in her chair and starting the car. “But I want to give you something else to live for. Besides, I’d much rather our first time be somewhere more comfortable than the back of a Volkswagen. I’m sorry, but that’s a bit too high school for me. So just sit back and relax while I hit up the Burger King across the way because we’ll be at Pierce’s hideout about thirty minutes from now.”

  “How did you find out where Pierce was? I killed Jinn,” I said as relief flooded me. I’d sort of hoped she’d managed to figure it out otherwise I was screwed. Thankfully she had. I just wasn’t sure how she’d managed to do it since when I’d found her she hadn’t been flayed open.

  “I told you, I ate a werebear. Well, there was some time between the first and last bite where he spilled his figurative and literal guts to me.” She pumped her eyebrows a couple times at me in the rearview mirror and grinned, revealing her braces clad teeth. Somehow, I didn’t think she was joking.

  I took a deep breath and tried to concentrate on what we had to do next and not on what she just said because we would be storming a castle in a half hour. Only I couldn’t, and not for the reason you might be thinking. No, her words made me think of what Danton had said when I tore apart Jinn’s restaurant to find her. He’d said she’d imprinted on me. While I wasn’t sure what that meant exactly, I was starting to wonder if maybe her need to jump by bones might be based on that and not me at all.

  “Hey, Ricky,” I asked, already dreading the words about to come out of my mouth. “What’s imprinting?”

  The car jerked to a stop almost before it started, and I saw her spin around in her seat and look at me. I couldn’t read the expression on her face because it held way too many emotions. There was some sadness, some confusion, but mostly? Mostly there was panic. Gut-shaking, knees collapsing panic.

  “Why do you ask?” she said, and the words came out in a squeak.

  “Danton said he thought you might have imprinted on me?” I tried to smile at her. “He told me to tell you how I feel.”

  “Mac,” she swallowed hard and looked away from me as tears filled her eyes. “Imprinting happens when a werewolf really likes someone. It causes our emotions and thoughts to push into the person we like. It distorts our emotions, makes us irrational. If that’s true, if I’ve imprinted on you, what you feel for me might not be real at all. It could all just be me projecting on top of you.” She dropped down behind the seat so I couldn’t see her.

  “Ricky, I don’t think you have to worry about that—”

  “How would you know, Mac?” She shouted, opening the door and leaping from the car. She was already walking away. “You don’t even have a memory. Jesus Christ, how could I have been so stupid?”

  I scrambled out of the car after her, suddenly frantic with the need to comfort her, to assure her it wasn’t true. Except… except what if it was? I stopped before I reached her, trying to puzzle out how I felt about that? What if it was all fake, except, except I didn’t think it was. I wasn’t sure when Ricky had imprinted on me, for all I knew it could have been in the moment where she let me go, but I didn’t think it was. No, I was sure it had happened after Sera had left us alone in the hotel room.

  “Ricky, stop!” I called as she made her way through the parking lot in front of the big box store. “I don’t want you to go.”

  She stopped and turned to look at me. “Mac, I can’t have imprinted on you. It takes away free will. It’s… it’s not a good thing.”

  “Danton didn’t seem to think so,” I walked slowly toward her, hoping she wouldn’t bolt. “And hear me when I say this. You wouldn’t need mind control to make me like you.” As I got close to her, I realized she was trembling. Tears streaked down her cheeks. “I’d like you anyway.”

  “You don’t know that, Mac,” she said, and her voice was quiet. She wouldn’t even look at me. No, she just kept staring at my bare, muck-covered feet.

  “You’re going to have to trust me,” I said, pulling her close to me, and surprisingly, she let me do it. Holding her against me felt like finding a missing puzzle piece. “Okay?”

  “Okay,” she said, burying her face into my chest. “But after this is done, I’m going to talk with Duane. He can mix up a potion to see if your feelings are real.” She looked up at me, and even though I wanted to tell her it wasn’t necessary, I knew it would make her feel better if I agreed.

  “Fair enough,” I said, and even though I wasn’t sure why the universe would thrust something so potentially destructive onto the two of us, I kissed her like it might be the last time I ever got to do it.

  Chapter 18

  When we pulled up outside Pierce’s hideout, I was suddenly glad it was nighttime. Otherwise the prospect of sneaking into an amusement park remarkably similar to Sea World with guns would be dicey. Fortunately, it was dark, so beyond a few security lights, and the obvious rent-a-cop at the entrance to the parking lot, there wasn’t much standing between us and the chain-link fence around said parking lot.

  I’d reloaded both my Glocks with more silver ammunition and was super thankful I hadn’t thrown them at Jinn because Ricky hadn’t gotten new pistols. No, she’d just snagged a couple boxes of .45 caliber silver bullets which were now nestled safely in my trench coat pocket. In addition to that, I had a pair of silver-bladed hunting knives strapped to my thighs, and another smaller blade slid into the work boots I was now wearing. I even had a grenade. It was pretty awesome, and would be more awesome when I used it to explode some bad guys, which I guess said something about my state of mind. Man, I really needed some therapy.

  Ricky had kindly gotten me a change of clothing in addition to the weapons, food, and car. I was now clad in blue jeans, Timberland work boots, which while not Red Wings, were still pretty comfortable, and a Rage Against the Machine T-shirt.

  “What’s with the shirt?” I asked, hoping the whole alternative metal band and trench coat thing wasn’t a recipe for getting my shot by the first upstanding and gun-toting citizen who saw me.

  “It’s so you can go all bulls on parade with your pocket full of shells.” She patted the pocket on my trench coat
where my bullets were stored.

  “You’re just jealous of my guns,” I said, barely resisting the urge to flex in her general direction.

  Unlike me, who was loaded for werebear, Ricky didn’t have so much as a butter knife on her person. Then again, she was a werewolf who had successfully eaten something like sixteen pounds of food in the last twenty minutes and still seemed ravenous. If she’d really eaten a werebear like she’d claimed, I certainly wouldn’t want to be standing in front of her in a threatening way.

  We stood just on the other side of the fence leading to the parking lot. I had half a mind to scale it, but there was razor wire at the top, and that would probably be hell for my complexion. Besides, while I was ready to go all guns blazing, I was happy taking a moment to not have people shoot at me or try to eat my liver, call me old fashioned. Once we entered the park, it was anything goes.

  “So what’s the plan?” I asked, glancing at Ricky. She’d switched out her bloody rags for jeans and an overly large black T-shirt that said, “Ask me about my Ninja Costume” in navy blue block letters. “You get in your ninja costume and take them out Snake Eyes style?”

  With one quick movement, Ricky had the hem of her over-sized T-shirt pulled up over her face, revealing the caricature of a growling ninja. “Yes,” she said before breaking into giggles and dropping the shirt.

  I snickered and shook my head. “Stop being cool and answer the question. I’m not sure how to go about invading Sea World.”

  She touched her chest with one stubby finger. “Why, Mac Brennan, you think I’m cool? Really?” She batted her eyes at me, and something about it made me want to kiss her. I didn’t, but I wanted to really badly. Instead, I shoved the feeling down beneath a layer of professional badassery. Kissing her right now would be stupid. I needed to focus. After this was over and Pierce was spending the rest of his days in Hell, I could entertain those kinds of thoughts. Right now, they were a distraction that could get both of us killed.