Seized: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Thrice Cursed Mage Book 4)

by J. A. Cipriano

  Still, even though I felt bad that I’d gotten her shot, I was glad it wasn’t more serious or she’d have bled out. As it stood now, the sleeve of her cardigan was drenched with blood, but we’d have time to staunch it correctly after we got out of here.

  My gun clicked empty, and as I made to run after the kids, something grabbed me by the back of the head and slammed me into the wall hard enough for the stone to crack. My shield flickered, and my vision went all sorts of blurry as I was hauled backward and flung like a ragdoll across the floor. I hit the altar, overturning it and landing on top of the desiccated, lifeless corpse of Baphomet.

  As I crawled to my feet, trying to focus on the thing coming toward me like a rampaging bear, I realized it was Vitaly, only he didn’t look like he should. For one, his eyes were completely orange, along with his beard and eyebrows. For two, the ragged hole in his chest pulsed with garish orange light. It spilled out of him like he had a literal heart of nuclear-powered gold

  “I’m not sure who you are or who you are working for,” the big Russian said in a voice completely unlike his normal one. His words rolled over me like a bulldozer and my mind screamed in protest at the sound of them. “But I assure you, there is more than enough life in this body for me to beat you within an inch of your life, Cursed.” His first shot out, cracking me in the face and breaking my nose through my shield. My head snapped backward as I crumbled to the ground. “How does that sound?”

  Then he stepped on my chest and pressed down with all his weight.

  Chapter 20

  As my rib cage started to snap, crackle, and pop under the weight of Vitaly pressing down on my chest with his foot, a hail of gunfire hit him in the back. He stumbled backward off me in a spray of crimson. His chest looked like a ragged wet wound as he shook his head and stared down at his ruined chest in disbelief.

  “Interesting,” he said, touching the bullet wounds with one finger. “What manner of sorcery is this?”

  Another burst of gunfire hit him in the face, snapping his head back and shredding the flesh on his skull. Unfortunately, that’s about where the damage stopped because with a wave of his hand, the bullets tore from his body, fell emptily to the ground, and rolled away across the stone floor.

  “Mac, come on!” Jenna said, and as I turned my gaze toward her, I saw the last of the kids leaving through the door.

  “That won’t be happening,” Beleth said, walking toward me. “Mac is staying here.”

  She flicked one hand casually at Jenna, and a blast of purple fire caught her in the chest. She flew backward through the doorway. As she hit the ground beyond it in a smoking heap, a solid stone door came crashing down, sealing them off from the room. Now it was just me, Beleth and Vitaly, and unfortunately, Vitaly was being mind-controlled by Baphomet. Fuck.

  “What is a Mac?” Vitaly asked as the gunfire stopped, and the remaining Sisters of the Black Flame fell prostrate around us.

  “That is this Cursed’s name, dear brother,” Beleth said, sidling up to Baphomet and wrapping herself around him in a way that suggested they might have a brother and sister relationship straight out of Game of Thrones.

  “Oh,” Vitaly said, shaking his head. “How did he hit me with all the bits of metal?”

  “He didn’t,” Beleth said. The demoness opened her mouth like she was about to say something, but must have thought better of it because she waved it off with one black-nailed hand. “I have much to explain to you, brother, but we will have time for that, and more, later.” She leaned in close to him and her tongue flicked out and teased his ear lobe as she spoke. “But first we must get you a proper body.”

  “Yes.” Vitaly turned toward her and his orange eyes flashed in the torchlight. “This body belongs to a were. It is not a fitting host.”

  “It’s a good thing we have a perfectly good host right here.” She gestured at me as I lay on the ground before them. The moment her eyes focused on me, a chill ran down my spine. Panic unlike any I’d ever experienced ripped through me. Was she suggesting what I think she was suggesting? I really hoped not because as much as I liked Vitaly, I was really glad it wasn’t me being infested by the demonic parasite.

  Vitaly looked down at me and his lips curled into a sneer. “This one is already marked, dear sister.”

  “So throw out the one who has marked him?” Beleth smiled, kneeling down next to me and running one fingernail along my arm. “Take him for yourself.”

  “Who owns him?” Vitaly said, obviously not convinced. “I do not recognize the markings on his arm.”

  “Neither do I,” Beleth said, smirking. “Aren’t you curious about who is in there?”

  “Wait,” I said, somewhat surprised my voice worked. “Are you going to try to take on the demon who gave me this?” I waved my arm.

  “Yes,” Beleth hissed. “It’s why I have sacrificed so much to get you here.” A cruel smile crossed her face. “Did you honestly think you could get this far into my inner sanctum if I did not wish it so? I had to hold my guardians back, had to instruct them not to kill you even though it was so, so easy. I had to let you think you beat me.” She raised her scorched hand, and as she did, the flesh healed back to normal. “Even with love at your side, I could have taken you any time I wanted.”

  “But why?” I stammered, thinking back to all the narrow escapes, all the near misses. Hell, we’d been down here with a bunch of gun-toting nuns, and I hadn’t gotten shot once until after I’d had my shield up, and even then they’d charged Wendy instead of lighting her up with gunfire. Had they been playing us the whole time?

  “Because we needed a Cursed to house the spirit of my dear brother.” She smirked. “So I made a deal with Vassago. Send in a Cursed with your team, and I will allow them to leave with Prescott’s daughter.” A self-satisfied smirk settled across her lips. “What? Don’t believe me? Ask him for yourself.”

  The truth in her words stung me because I could totally see that happening. I wasn’t sure if it was actually true, but the idea that Vassago had betrayed me to Beleth didn’t seem unlikely. He’d probably been laughing behind his expensive whiskey, knowing what was in store for me. That fucker. The next time we met, I was going to give him a piece of my mind, Mac Brennan style.

  “I do not like this plan,” Vitaly shook his head. “He is an unknown quantity. It is too big of a risk. You should have brought a Cursed who was ready to volunteer.”

  “Beggars can’t be choosers. We needed a strong host. Vassago found us one.” Beleth snorted. “Besides, you’re Baphomet. You’re a veritable king of Hell. Whoever is in there isn’t even on your level.”

  “Tell that to Baal,” I said, trying to sound tougher than I felt. “Because he is dead.”

  “He is?” Vitaly asked, quirking an orange eyebrow into the air. “How can that be?”

  “I killed him,” I said, drawing my thumb across my throat. “And I’ll kill the both of you if you try to go through with this plan. It’ll be so easy, I won’t even break a sweat.”

  Beleth slapped me so hard my teeth rattled in my mouth and my shield flickered and died. The world wobbled drunkenly in front of my eyes as she grabbed me by the chin and hoisted me into the air in front of her like I weighed no more than a child’s plaything. Silver flame danced along her flesh, but it didn’t seem to bother her much as she fixed her purple eyes on me.

  “You are just a man, and my brother is a god amongst demons.” She spun me so fast I got whiplash and held me out in front of Vitaly. “Take him, Baphomet.”

  Vitaly opened his mouth to say something, and as he did, a strangled look crossed his face. He lurched sideways, and as Beleth reached out to catch him, the big man decked her. The demoness’s head snapped backward as Vitaly’s other hand grabbed her by the hair. He swung himself around and flung her like a ragdoll across the room. She smashed into the far wall and bounced off of it.

  “Mac, you need to run.” Vitaly gasped. His voice was strained nearly to the breaking point as he took a
drunken step toward the slowly rising Beleth. “I cannot hold demon back for long. I will buy time. Run!”

  I thought about arguing with him, thought about apologizing for putting him in this position, but I didn’t. Instead, I turned on my heel and sprinted for the doorway. I wasn’t sure what I would do when I got there, but there was always the old standby. Blast it with Hellfire.

  “Stop him!” Beleth cried, and nuns began to rise all around me. I door-kicked the one in front of me, but as I stepped over her flattened form, two tackled me from behind, knocking my legs out from under me. I fell, crashing to the stone floor. My head smacked against the ground with a sickening crack, and my vision went dark and spotty.

  I tried to call on my magic anyway, and as I raised my right hand to blast some nuns, Beleth grabbed me by the wrist. The light blazing along my arm went out as she lifted me up until we were eye to eye. “There is no way out of this,” she cooed, walking me toward Vitaly as silver fire turned her flesh into a charcoal briquette.

  The big man’s chest was smashed into an unusable wreck. Blood soaked through his bone-punctured suit as he raised his gaze to us. His eyes were blazing like miniature suns. “We must hurry, sister. I don’t have a lot of strength left. This were fights me at every turn.”

  “Don’t worry,” Beleth said, dropping me in front of him like a cat presenting her human with a dead bird. “I’ll help you.” She reached out and offered him her hand.

  “Okay,” he wheezed, taking her hand.

  “So much for helping me,” I muttered, glaring at the Russian. “Couldn’t even last thirty seconds, could you?”

  “It’s not his fault,” Beleth said, leaning close to me. “No one can resist my brother for long. No one.”

  She pulled Vitaly to his feet, and the big man exhaled sharply. As he did, his ribs snapped back into place.

  “Much better,” he said, grabbing my right wrist. “Now, let’s see who gave you this.”

  His eyes met mine, and my entire world went up in flames that charred every inch of my being and filled my veins with hydrochloric acid.

  Chapter 21

  I found myself standing in the mental field where I usually found the cat demon. I didn’t immediately see her, but then again, I hadn’t expected to see her since she pretty much only showed up when she wanted something. Sometimes though, when the stars aligned, she came when I begged. Hopefully, this was one of those times.

  The chest deep grass rustled in the light breeze as I scanned my surroundings looking for her anyway, but other than the overcast sky, I found nothing of interest. Even that was only notable because it was normally sunny in my head. To be fair, I wasn’t sure how I’d gotten shoved into my mental world, but I was reasonably sure it wasn’t good.

  Why? Because, somehow, someway, Beleth and her brother, Baphomet, stood in front of me looking pleased as punch. I wasn’t sure how the two of them had gotten into my mental world, but I knew it couldn’t be good. If they could come here, I wasn’t quite sure how to defeat them, but I had to try. You always have to try.

  Beleth, for the most part, looked the same. You know, like a cross between a Victoria Secret Model and the girl next door wearing a pair of jeans and a black “Trust me, Jedi I Am” T-shirt. Her long dark hair fluttered behind her in the soft breeze as she turned in a slow circle, lips pursed in a tight line.

  Baphomet, on the other hand, looked nothing like Vitaly. For one, he was only a hair over six feet tall and had long, raven-black hair like his sister. Only instead of blowing in the breeze, his hair fell to his ankles in a heavy braid. His skin had an orangey tan to it that sort of reminded me of Hulk Hogan after a bad day at the tanning salon.

  “When’s the last time you got dressed?” I asked, allowing the disdain to flow into my voice as I pointedly looked him up and down. “You look like Prince Eric from Disney’s the Little Mermaid. That is not a compliment.” Hey, if I was about to die, I might as well talk some trash first. If not, what was the point, right?

  “This is the dress of royalty, and you’d better get used to it because you’ll be seeing a lot of it,” he said, tugging uncomfortable at his white shirt. “Call your demon, mortal. I have not seen a mental plane like this before and am anxious to find out who lives here.” His bright orange eyes glinted like stars as he settled them on me.

  “Usually it’s castles,” Beleth replied, rubbing her chin. “Sometimes it’s even a luxury suite.”

  “Or a graveyard,” Baphomet added, taking a step toward me and causing his braid to sway behind him like a pendulum.

  “Graveyards haven’t been in style for at least a century,” Beleth said, shaking her head. “When this is over, I’ll have to show you around town. We’ll catch dinner and a movie.” She paused. “A movie is like a play, but it’s not live.”

  “I’m looking forward to you showing me some other things,” he said, and the look he gave her made my cheeks flush and my stomach curdle.

  Beleth blushed, and as she did, he reached out and touched the back of her hand with one finger. “It’s too bad we don’t have more time,” she said, a husky lilt filling her voice as she spoke. “If we did, I might let him watch.” She gestured at me. “Then again, I guess after this is over, he’ll get to participate.”

  “You make an excellent point, sister. Still, it is unfortunate my current body will not last that long. Already, I can feel him start to burn up.” Baphomet’s nostrils flared as he stared at me. “I can smell the love on this one. It will delay our coupling until I can break him of the silly notion.” He sighed.

  “Yeah, well, you know what they say about counting chickens,” I said, raising my blackened fist in front of me, and as I did, I imagined myself holding a .500 Smith and Wesson Magnum. I almost did a double take when the weapon appeared in my hand, but since that might make it vanish back into the ether, I just pointed it at the pair of demons. “You forgot, you’re in my world.”

  I opened fire on Beleth, squeezing the Magnum’s trigger as fast as I could, unleashing the three-hundred-fifty grain jacketed, hollow-point bullet with over three thousand foot-pounds of energy at nearly two thousand feet per second at the demon.

  Beleth’s lip curled into a sneer as she tore her eyes from her brother and flicked of her wrist at me. A wave of solid purple flame sprang to life between us, turning the tall grass to ash and melting my bullet into super-heated steam.

  “You may think you have power here because it’s your mind,” she said, grinning at me. “But we’re way above your pay grade.” She snapped her fingers and the gun in my hand evaporated, turning into purple mist and leaving me standing there empty-handed. Fuck.

  “What an interesting weapon,” Baphomet said as the magnum appeared in his hand. He looked down the barrel, and as he did, he pulled the trigger and shot himself in the face. His head snapped backward from the impact, but it seemed to do little else. Slowly his head came back up, and as it did, he reached up and plucked the bullet from his forehead. It hadn’t even punctured his skin. “Not much stopping power, though.” He rolled the smashed bullet between his thumb and forefinger. “Care to see how durable you are?” Baphomet tossed the bullet up into the air and caught it in his palm. “Because we can do this the easy way or the hard way.”

  “Did he really just shoot himself in the face?” the cat demon said, and her voice resounded across the valley. The sky above blazed with crimson fire and blood began to rain from the sky in buckets, turning the ground beneath my feet into a bloody mess.

  “That voice,” Baphomet said, his face twisted in confusion. “I’ve heard it before, but surely…”

  “No,” Beleth said, swallowing hard. Her eyes were wide with fear as she spun in a quick circle, all traces of smug satisfaction gone. “It can’t be.”

  The fear in her voice made me suddenly hopeful. If she was scared, maybe I wouldn’t die. Sure, it worried me that a demon like Beleth would fear my demonic cat, but I was really, really down with not dying.

  “Who is
it? I can’t quite remember,” Baphomet asked, and as he said the words a bolt of scarlet lightning erupted from the bleeding sky and struck Beleth. Now, I can’t say I’d ever seen someone dashed from the earth before, but that’s what it seemed like. The ground where she’d stood was scorched black. In the space of a microsecond, Beleth’s skin melted off and her bones disintegrated into dust.

  “Whoa,” I said, shock filling me as my demon rose from the scorched earth where Beleth had stood. She sucked in a breath, and as she did, the cloud formerly known as Beleth vanished within her open mouth. She swallowed, and thunder roared in the skies above.

  “Hello, Baphomet,” she said, and as she spoke, all the color drained from Baphomet’s face. “Remember me?”

  “Y-you,” he whispered, and his voice shook as he spoke. His knees began to shake, and as he tried to back up, he stumbled and fell on his ass. He scrambled backward, trying to move as my demon regarded him with the swirling voids of her eyes like he was less than a gnat.

  “Me,” she said and her lips curled into a wry smile. “Miss me?” She waved one hand and the ground beneath Baphomet turned to liquid fire. It surged up around him, swallowing him up to his neck in a heartbeat. He screamed and the sound almost made me feel sorry for him. Almost.

  “How could you have freed her?” Baphomet cried, fixing his gaze upon me. “You have doomed us all!”

  “What?” I asked, and as I spoke, the fire engulfed Baphomet completely, rendering him into ash in the space of a heartbeat.

  “When you wake back up, I need you to burn their physical bodies,” my demon said, turning to me and flashing me a predatory smile. “If you don’t, they might recover. Admittedly, the chance is small, but I don’t like taking chances, not when we’re so close to victory.” She reached up and picked at a black speck in her teeth. “Either way, it’s a good show of force. People need to learn not to fuck with you. Taking out three demons in two days is a good start.”