The ground shook as he smacked his chest with one furry claw the color of freshly spun copper. The sound rang out like a struck gong. Holy fuck! That was Vitaly? Thank God he was on our side. With him on our side, I wasn’t sure how we could lose. As that thought flitted through my brain another one came tumbling after it. If Vassago had felt the need to recruit a guy like this, who the fuck were we going to face getting those kids back?
The nun who had floored me with ease, looked dubiously at her partner with the shotgun. Fear filled her features to the brim. I didn’t blame her one bit, and not just because the sight of Vitaly made me want to run away and hide, and he was on my side. The sight of him standing there all huge and menacing with frothy foam drippling from his toothy maw struck something primal inside me, triggering my fight or flight mechanism. It took a remarkable amount of control to keep from blasting him with Hellfire.
It was probably a good thing I didn’t because not only was he my ally, but my arm ached from where it’d been sliced open. Tiny, angry flames sprang from the wound, which was crazy because it wasn’t deep enough to concern me much. This wasn’t anything like the bone-deep slice I’d experienced at Maya’s hand a few days ago. No this was barely even something worth washing off with peroxide.
As Vitaly reached out toward the sword-wielding sister with a paw the size of a catcher’s mitt, the nun outside fired her shotgun. The buckshot smacked into Vitaly’s side, and the bear barely seemed to register the attack. There was a flare of silver light as he took another step forward. The smell of cooking flesh filled the air as Vitaly looked down at the wound and bared his huge yellow fangs. Without slowing, he waved one hand at his torn flesh. Like magic, the silver pellets pushed themselves from his skin and fell to the ground, clinking across the tile with an air of finality.
“Pathetic. Silver cannot harm me!” the Russian roared, lashing out with one huge paw in a blur of movement. He grabbed the barstool next to me and tore it free like it was attached to the tile by chewing gum and not anchored with six inch bolts. He whirled, flinging the stool through the shattered window. “For I am Vitaly, The Widow Maker!”
The barstool caught the nun with the shotgun across the chest with a wet thwap that threw her from her feet. She went skidding backward across the street, which was when I realized why they’d pulled the hostess outside and why the nun with the sword was running for the door at breakneck speed. There was another nun outside, and she was aiming a fucking bazooka at us. She quirked a smile at me, crossed her chest, and depressed the trigger on the massive weapon.
Flame exploded from the back of the bazooka as I scrambled to my feet and leapt through the window, bringing my fist around in a haymaker that caught the bazooka shell in the side. To be honest, I had no idea how I’d managed it, nor why I’d decided punching a bazooka shell was a good idea, but as I was blown across the sidewalk like a rock skidding across a lake, I almost wished I hadn’t.
I slammed into a bus stop, shattered the glass holding advertisements in place, and crashed onto the bench. As I lay there trying to remember how to breathe, the magical shield surrounding my body died away, leaving me staring at a fucking Abrams tank rolling down the empty street. Who the hell were these nuns? The armored sisters of the sixth division?
As I got slowly to my feet, glad I wasn’t fucking dead, but still sort of pissed my shield had decided to vacate the premises when I was face to face with a tank, I flipped the tank the bird. After all, I never let a little thing like insurmountable fucking odds stop me before.
The tank didn’t seem to have noticed me, despite my comet-like exit from the diner, which was good because I wasn’t sure how to go about fighting a tank with my bare hands. It rumbled toward the diner, smashing parked cars into junked ruins and churning up the cracked asphalt like it was made of mud.
As the tank’s big gun swiveled to take aim at the diner, a dozen nuns armed with what looked like oversized silver dog-catching equipment jerked Vitaly out of the diner. Behind them, a blacked out van stood with its doors opened. More nuns were spread out beside it, firing AK47s into the diner with reckless abandon.
I took a deep breath and called upon my magic so I could even the odds. Crimson light leapt from my tattoos, and as my magic flared, my vision went blurry. Before I could stop myself, I collapsed to my knees, sucking in gulps of air like I’d just run a marathon. My heart hammered in my chest, and my skin went cold and clammy. Had I already used too much magic? It seemed impossible, but then again, I’d just been blasted by a bazooka.
“Fuck it,” I growled, gritting my teeth. I thrust my palm toward the tank, intent on blasting it anyway. I wasn’t sure what my Hellfire would do to its thick armor, but I was damned sure going to find out. As the fireball formed in my hand, a half-dozen Molotov cocktails flew out of the diner’s bullet-riddle window and smashed into the tank’s air vents, filling them with fire.
The screams were loud even over the ringing in my ears. The top of the tank burst open in a cloud of smoke and flame, and as a nun came climbing out, a trio of Molotov cocktails hit her square in the chest. The sound she made as she burst into flame and tumbled back inside the tank was unlike anything I’d ever heard. Seriously. Words can’t do it justice.
A second later, Jenna dove through the window, firing a .40 caliber Baby Eagle with one hand while clutching a lit Molotov in her other hand. Before she even hit the ground, she put three precision shots into three different nuns trying desperately to wrangle in Vitaly. As she touched down, she hurled the Molotov at the cluster by the van.
The nuns scattered, and as they did, she dropped them with steely precision. I wasn’t sure what we’d done together in the past, but judging by her cold, ruthless proficiency, it hadn’t been cotton candy and daydreams.
Vitaly roared and flung himself to his feet in a surge of strength and mass that sent nuns flying through the air. He spun on his heel, jerking on one of the dog-catchers around his neck. The nun holding it stumbling forward, and as she did, Vitaly grabbed her by the throat and sent her hurtling into the building across the street. The force of the impact was enough to reduce the bandolier-wearing nun into raspberry jam.
Before I could finish calling up my magic, Jenna took down several more nuns with precision shots, and those she didn’t, well, let’s just say I’d rather have Jenna shoot me than experience Vitaly at close range.
As I stared at the carnage, I was certain of one thing. I was not on the side of the good guys. Sure, the nuns had snuck up on us and tried to blow us away without caring about most of the workers in the diner, but at the same time, we’d just murdered over a dozen people, who were nuns. Even if they were sisters of the blackened denarius and worshiped Judas, I wasn’t sure it was something a hero would do, you know, unless it was in a Zack Snyder movie.
“Who sent you?” Jenna demanded, grinding the toe of her tennis shoe into the bloody, ragged shoulder of the only nun who appeared to still be breathing. “Tell me before Mr. Eagle starts singing.” She pointed the gun at the nun’s other shoulder.
Instead of replying, the nun began cackling with insane glee, and I realized she had no tongue. Well, that was one way to keep your people from talking. A slow, horrible grimace spread across Jenna’s face as something dark and monstrous swam through her irises. “If you think being unable to speak will keep you from talking, you are sorely mistaken.”
As Jenna reached down to grab the tongue-less sister by her chin, the nun’s eyes rolled back in her head and black, acrid-smelling goo burst from her mouth like projectile vomit. As Jenna leapt back in disgust, her jeans and sweater covered in smoking sludge, the nun shuddered violently and burst into black flame.
The smell turned my stomach, and the crackling, popping sound reminded me of a pork roast dropped in a fire. I turned away, trying to find anywhere else to look as the sound of Jenna retching onto the pavement filled my ears. It was sort of sad because instead of wanting to comfort her, the only thing I thought was, thank God I’m not
the only one sickened by the sight of the burning nun.
“We need to get out of here,” Wendy said, walking out of the diner with her weird doll under one arm and the head of a nun dangling from her free hand. The cheerleader was covered from head to toe in blood in a way that made me think a bunch of mean girls might have dumped blood on her at prom. Only, I was pretty sure that wasn’t the case because who would have done that? No, the more likely scenario was that she’d torn someone apart and bathed in the aftermath. What the fuck had I gotten myself into?
“Yeah, from the sound of those sirens, the cops will be here soon,” Marvin the doll added, gesturing with one wooden hand toward the distance.
“Screw the cops,” Wendy said, glaring at the doll before tossing the head on the ground at our feet. “The Sisters of the Black Flame are like ants. These were just scouts. More will come.” She sniffed the air. “Soon.”
While she had a point, my last dealing with the police had been nothing to sneeze at. I was with Marvin. We needed to get out of here before any law enforcement showed up, shifter or otherwise.
I was sort of surprised the cops hadn’t already shown up. The place looked like a fucking warzone. Stranger still, where the hell were we that not even a single person was on the street? It was possible they were all hiding, but it didn’t seem likely. No, it was more like the street we were on was abandoned.
“Get to the van,” Vitaly said, lumbering toward the nuns’ blacked out van. As he moved, he reverted back into his human form in a sort of seamless display unlike anything I’d seen before. When I’d seen shifters change in the past, it’d always been violent. Their bones had cracked and squirmed beneath their flesh. This was more like watching darkness fall. I couldn’t quite pinpoint the where and when of it all, but by the time he reached the van, Vitaly was back to his giant Russian self. Interesting.
As Vitaly leapt behind the driver’s seat, Jenna sidled up next to me and put one hand casually on my blackened arm.
“Are you okay? That was quite a display back there,” Jenna asked, a touch of concern just below the surface of her voice as she ran her fingers along my arm. “I’ve never seen you do something like that before.” The radioactive glow had faded from my tattoos, but in the bright sunlight they looked vivid and raw. “Seems you’ve gotten some upgrades since the last time we were together.”
“I’m fine,” I said, pulling my arm away from her even though I really wanted to ask her about what she meant by upgrades. She hadn’t seemed shocked about my arm being black back at the diner, which made me wonder just what she knew about me?
The sirens sounded so close. I was pretty sure there was no way we’d get out of here before the cops showed up, but then again, there was a burning tank behind us. Maybe they’d stop to inspect that? I would.
“Good. I’m glad you’re fine,” she said, giving me a strange look of annoyance before jogging past me and hopping into the shotgun seat of the van as it roared to life.
“Guess you’re in back with us,” Marvin said as Wendy reached out to help me into the back of the van with one bloody hand.
“Guess so,” I muttered, wondering not for the first time if I should just run away. I couldn’t of course. If I did, who knew what Vassago would do? Still, there was no way this would end well. For one thing, I knew nothing about the weird nuns who had attacked us, and worse still, my party members seemed several donuts shy of a dozen.
“Guess so,” Marvin muttered in a mocking tone as I took Wendy’s hand and let her help me inside. As soon as I had cleared the threshold, Wendy slammed the door shut behind me, and Vitaly took off in a screech of rubber. I wasn’t sure if stealing the nuns’ van was a good idea, but then again, staying here to wait for the cops to find us seemed like a way worse one.
Chapter 4
“So who were those guys?” I asked, glancing at the bloody cheerleader sitting cross-legged on the floor of the blacked out van. I wasn’t sure why she wasn’t in one of the chairs since there was more than enough room for all of us, but then again, she hadn’t even wiped the blood off her face.
“They were girls,” Marvin said, flashing me a lascivious grin. “I’m sort of sad we couldn’t bring some of the bodies with us, if you know what I mean.”
“I don’t, actually,” I said, staring at the doll blank-faced. I wasn’t sure what he was going to say, but I’d long since learned that the best way to shut up a jackass was by forcing them into a corner. “What would you do with them?”
“He’d do nothing because he’s as well hung as a ken doll,” Wendy said, looking up from the ground and making eye contact with me. I wasn’t sure what it was in her eyes, but something about them made me feel cold. I’d seen eyes like that before. They were the kind of eyes that looked right through you because they found you so inconsequential you didn’t matter one iota.
“That won’t always be the case, sis,” Marvin said right before Wendy shoved him under the seat next to her.
“That should keep him quiet,” she said, turning her empty gaze back on me.
“One can only hope,” I said, staring at her as she scratched at her cheek with one bloody fingernail. “What’s his deal, anyway?”
“His deal is that he’s a stupid doll,” Wendy said, shrugging her shoulders. “He’s really quite nice in person.”
“I guess, I’ll take your word for it,” I said, shaking my head. Part of me wanted to delve into what she really meant by the statement, but I ignored that part of me. It wasn’t terribly important to the here and now. I had bigger questions if I wanted to get out of this alive. “Who were those nuns? You called them the Sisters of the Black Flame?”
“Yeah,” Wendy said, leaning back and putting her palms on the floor of the car so her tiny breasts pressed out against her tight uniform. “They’re an unholy order who serve the demon running this state. Why do you think so many bad things happen in New York?” She sighed through her teeth. “Beleth isn’t like the other demons. She doesn’t pick Cursed like you to do her bidding. Instead she uses nuns to enforce her position. She’s done it ever since the late eighteen-hundreds.”
“So the nuns work for her?” I asked, raising an eyebrow at her. I wasn’t sure who Beleth was. I guess I really needed to read up on my demon lore, but something about the idea twisted up my stomach. The idea of researching demons seemed a bit too scary for my tastes, and I had actually sold my soul to a demon.
“In a manner of speaking.” Wendy shrugged. “They’re not actually associated with Beleth. They’re more like adoring fans.”
“So this demon’s got groupies?” I asked, shaking my head. I could get behind the idea of selling out to a demon in exchange for money, power, or whatever, but doing it to the point where you’d cut out your tongue and be burned alive by black flame because you were fangirling? That was a whole different level of crazy.
“Yeah, and if you see one, just shoot her in the face.” She looked away from me and stared at the wall of the van like it was the most interesting thing in the world. “They can’t be saved. So if you’re the kind of guy who has a pathological need to rescue people, just know you can’t.”
I watched her for a moment, trying to decide whether or not I wanted to argue with her about whether or not people who had made deals with demons could be saved. After all, I had done the same thing and there was still a small part of me that hoped I might be able to get out of a bath in the proverbial lake of fire. Still, I wasn’t sure what good it would do because in the end I’d be arguing with myself.
“What if we killed Beleth?” I asked, scratching my chin. After all, I’d killed a demon before. Maybe doing it again would make the sisters wake up and smell the roses? Then again, maybe that wouldn’t shake their faith even the slightest.
“I doubt we’d be able to kill Beleth. You need a weapon blessed by an archangel to do that,” Wendy said, her gaze drifting back to me. “Besides, that’s not the job. The job is to rescue those kids before Beleth does whatever she does
with them.” She dropped her hands into her lap. “I’m just here to do the job.”
“I can deal with that,” I said, staring up at the roof of the van. There was no point in trying to figure out how to save the demonic nuns because I was probably going to have to kill a shitload of them to save the children. There was no reason to go and make things complicated. Right now my job was simple. Rescue the kids and get back home to my family. If I had the chance to take out the demon, I’d take it, but otherwise, New York was on its own.
That said, I was glad to at least know where I was for once. Vassago hadn’t mentioned where this job was. Then again, it wasn’t like it mattered. I had no idea where my family actually lived. Even if I caught a bus and tried to run, where was I going to go?
I must have been wrong about how close the cops had been because when the van stopped a few minutes later, I’d long since stopped hearing sirens. It was probably for the best. The last time I’d encountered police, they’d kicked the shit out of me so they could use me for ransom. I’d hate to have to go through that again. Then again, judging by the way my crew had taken out the nuns, I probably didn’t have much to worry about. Wow, I never expected to think that sentence either.
The back door opened, flooding the interior of the van with too bright light. Vitaly stood outside a solemn Russian grimace on his face as he adjusted his tattered red tie with one huge hand. Even though shifting into a huge hulking rage monster never seemed to destroy a person’s clothing, and I’d still not figured out why, apparently it couldn’t save his suit from being shredded by a grenade.
It wasn’t like I was much better. I was still wearing the same clothes I’d been wearing when I’d fought my way through zombies two days ago, and to say I was as fresh as a petunia would be a ginormous understatement. I longed for a shower, shave, and fresh deodorant, but something told me those things were a ways away. Then again, maybe not since I’d been trapped back here with a girl covered head to toe in blood and was now staring at a werebear wearing a tattered suit. Perhaps new clothes would be on the list.
Seized: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Thrice Cursed Mage Book 4) Page 3