Hellbound
The Thrice Cursed Mage Book #6
J. A. Cipriano
Contents
Copyright
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Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Afterword
Copyright © 2016 by J. A. Cipriano
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1
“Well, Mac. What’s it going to be?” Mammon, the demonic Prince of Greed asked as he loomed over me, one hand holding his glowing pimp staff like he was trying to decide whether or not he wanted to brain me with it. “Are you going to kill her?”
I glanced from him to Jenna. My ex-girlfriend lay unconscious on the ground a few feet away, and as much as I wanted to kill her and make good on my promise to end her, now that I was standing here in front of Mammon, I knew I couldn’t. Even after she’d shot me in the gut a couple times and left me for dead. I just couldn’t.
I’m not sure if that made me sad and pathetic or just plain stupid, but there was no way I was going to kill my ex because deep down, I knew it was my fault she was in her situation. If I’d been a bit better, I could have kept her from getting involved in all this. I could have saved her.
So no, I couldn’t kill her. I had to make things right between us if it was the last thing I did. Killing her while she lay unconscious on the rooftop of a crappy building in Hell was just not in the cards. Yeah, that’s right, I said Hell.
When she’d fallen into Hell, I’d gone after her, and no sooner had we landed on what looked like the demonic version of Las Vegas, Mammon had reared his ugly demonic face and demanded I make good on our deal. That wasn’t going to happen, but I didn’t want him to know that just yet.
For one, I wasn’t sure if there was a way out of Hell, nor if I could actually take on Mammon while in Hell. I mean, I’d gone into Hell before when I’d faced Beleth and Baphomet, but I’d had an entire team of bad asses with me then, one of which was currently unconscious next to me. I’m sure I’d faced worse odds before, I just wasn’t quite sure when.
I was also pretty sure I wasn’t getting out of here alive without her help. Mammon might say he’d honor our deal and let me go home once I axed Asmodai, the demonic Prince of Lust and Mammon’s rival, but I was pretty sure Mammon was a lying sack of shit. No, I couldn’t off my own ally. There had to be another way.
“I need her help, Mammon. I cannot kill Asmodai without her.” I stepped closer to the demon and glared up at him. He was tall and gangly, and he towered over me like a basketball player at a midget convention, but I ignored his awe inspiring height as I curled my black as soot right hand into a fist. The demonic tattoos scrawled across my flesh began to glow with crimson energy, sparking to life like I’d called upon my power, only I hadn’t done that. Weird, definitely, but I didn’t have time to worry about it now.
“I don’t believe you.” Mammon replied, staring down at me. His face had settled into a scowl that made the blood run cold in my veins, but I ignored it. Power rose off of him in waves that fell all around me, but I wasn’t worried about that either. He might be able to incinerate me with a touch, but I had ways of dealing with psychic mojo. What I couldn’t deal with was getting my skull caved in by his stupid magically-enhanced cane.
Cotton candy pink sparks leapt from the diamond tip as he stepped back, probably to give him more room to swing his pimp staff, which was one of the reasons I’d moved closer. Call me crazy, but I wanted as much advantage as possible if we threw down.
“Why would I lie?” I asked, raising an eyebrow at the demon. “It makes sense if you think about it.”
“I am the Prince of Greed,” Mammon replied and his voice brought with it the chill that proceeded the bleak night. “You will do what I ask or you will pay the consequences. We had a deal. You were to kill Asmodai, Prince of Lust and his Council of Seven. She is the last of the Seven. ”
“Yeah, you’re right,” I said as I decked him in the face. Well, sort of. I threw an uppercut at him like I was Mike fucking Tyson. My right fist lanced upward through the air, catching him under the chin and snapping his head backward with a sickening crack.
He wobbled, his hands going out in front of him in shock as I stepped into him, grabbed his wrist and twisted. He cried out as the bones in his hands snapped and the cane toppled free of his grip. I snatched it as it fell and whirled as he started to recover. The glowing end of the staff hit him square in the side of the temple and the sound was like a cannon going off. Mammon’s head exploded in a fountain of gore as he toppled sideways under the force of the magic.
Unfortunately, the blow hadn’t killed him and that was bad. Very, very bad. It meant he could get back up and kill me. Call me crazy, but pissing off an all-powerful Prince of Hell seemed like a bad fucking idea while in Hell. I just wished I had a better option. That was part of the problem. Lately, it felt like I’d been dragged from one situation to another with no time to rest, and every time I tried to get out of it, more shit just fell on me.
Now I was literally trapped in Hell and had no idea which way to swim to even get to the surface. I mean, I was going to try, and by try, I meant kill the fuck out of everyone in my way, but at the same time, I was kind of getting over this. I mean, fuck, I had a girlfriend, and I hadn’t even taken her on a real date. Let’s just say if Lucifer himself came to me right now and offered me a chance to walk away from all of this, I’d take it in a heartbeat.
Unfortunately, I seriously doubted that was going to happen, so I was going to have to take matters into my own hands.
“Watch your step,” I said, kicking him in the center of the chest as blood dripped down from the caved in side of his head. He flew backward, the air rushing out of him with a whoosh. I knew the kick wouldn’t hurt him much, but as he stumbled backward under the force of the blow, his heel slipped off of the roof and he toppled from view. “That last one’s a doozy.”
Adrenaline pounded in my veins as I spun on my heel and raced toward Jenna. She was breathing, but wasn’t otherwise moving. I’d have to be quick. I snatched her up under the arms, and as I did, I shut my eyes, calling upon the cat demon residing in my skull. Only, instead of being able to contact her like normal, I got static. I could feel her there, sort of like I was alone in a dark closet and had the feeling something monstrous was in there with me, but no matter how I flailed mentally, I couldn’t contact her. Fuck.
“Okay…” I whispered as the sounds on the street below stopped. No one was screaming which was sort of sad even if we were in Hell. I mean, okay, for whatever reason, this part o
f Hell sort of looked like Las Vegas and there were dozens, if not hundreds, of people on the boulevard below. Surely someone would think it odd the Prince of Greed had just done a swan dive off the top of a casino.
Then again, maybe he did it for fun. How the fuck was I to know? The one thing I did know was I did not want to be here when he came back. I wasn’t sure on how good his ability to find me in Hell would be, but I wanted to at least try to evade him if I could.
“Jenna, wake up,” I growled, hauling her to her feet and throwing her over my shoulder in a fireman’s carry. I didn’t have a gun, but I had the pimp staff. Hopefully, it would be enough. Then again, I was sure that unlike the two of us, most of the people here were already dead, and I wasn’t sure how to kill them if I needed to.
Still, bridges and crossing. Or water and bridges. Who the hell knows?
I turned my attention toward the door at the far end of the roof and scrambled toward it. Jenna wasn’t exactly a swimsuit model by any stretch. She wasn’t fat, rather she was all dense muscle, and moving across the roof was harder than I expected. I was breathing hard by the time I reached the door.
Thankfully it didn’t have a handle, just a piece of rectangular silver metal with the word push stenciled vertically across it where a knob should have been. I shouldered the door open and was met with a stairwell filled with what seemed like miles of fucking stairs. Low light emitted from emergency lights set into the stairs, but it was otherwise dark. Awesome.
“Don’t say I never did anything for you,” I grumbled, hoisting the unconscious Jenna up as I began making my way down into the depths of the stairwell.
2
“Mac, what’s going on?” Jenna asked as I stepped off the final stair and found myself staring at a fire door similar to the one on the roof I’d entered twenty stories ago. My legs felt like Jell-O and I was pretty sure I’d never been this tired, like ever.
I glanced at her and tried to suck in a deep breath. It was hard because I could do little more than gasp like a dying fish. You’d think after all the stairs I’d climbed I’d be in better shape, but carrying all of Jenna’s weight had been something I’d not been ready for. My legs throbbed angrily, and I knew if I lived until tomorrow I was going to be sore as hell.
“Glad you’re awake,” I muttered, dumping her unceremoniously to the ground. Okay, that sounded worse than it was since I mostly collapsed to the ground as I put her down. “Couldn’t have managed to wake up a few stories ago?”
“Sorry, next time I’m knocked unconscious, I’ll do my best to wake up earlier,” she grumbled, rubbing her head with one hand while she sat on the step next to me. I knew we should hurry, but I needed to catch my fucking breath. “Did you get a number for that bus?”
It’d taken a while to get down here. I’d half expected to get attacked by Mammon on the way down, but for whatever reason, that hadn’t happened. It struck me as all sorts of odd, but at the moment, I was just thankful I hadn’t been crispy fried by that pink-suited jackass. Still, it wasn’t making me excited about stepping through that door. Once I did, Mammon or not, I’d be on the streets of Hell with no guide. That sounded about as awesome as flossing with barbed wire.
“At least we’re on the same page about you not pulling your weight,” I said, getting to my feet and offering her my free hand. “We’d better get a move on.”
“Okay,” she said, cautiously taking my hand. Her eyes were filled with confusion and some other emotion I couldn’t readily identify but that made me feel bad in the pit of my stomach. “Why are you helping me, Mac?”
“It’s the right thing to do?” I offered because I was still asking myself the same question. I still wasn’t sure why, really. I mean, yeah, there were logical reasons, but deep down in my gut I knew there was another one, I couldn’t suss out. See, I have only bits and pieces of memory of the things that’d happened more than a week or so ago. I’d woken up in a dumpster with no idea who I was or what I’d accomplished until then.
Jenna was from that hazy before then time, and the only memory I had of her was failing to stop a vicious warlord from taking her hostage and gang-raping her for several hours. In the end, she’d saved herself by making a deal with Asmodai and the demon had turned the warlord’s desert hideaway into fucking glass.
That should not have happened on my watch. She shouldn’t have been captured, let alone been forced to make a deal with a Prince of Hell. It was my fault, and I had to make that right. I wasn’t sure if that was possible, but getting her out of here would be a very tiny step in that direction.
“Uh huh?” she said pursing her lips as she spoke. “You forget how well I know you, Mac. I can tell you’re lying, but if that’s what you’re going with, I’ll allow it for now.” She took a deep breath through her nose, nostrils flaring wide. “Just one problem.”
“What’s that?” I asked as I hoisted her to her feet. Her hand felt really familiar in mine, and as she got herself up, I couldn’t help but wonder if there was a reason for it beyond mere friendship. I wasn’t sure if we’d been lovers per se, but it certainly felt like we had been. It was all sorts of awkward because I definitely didn’t have those feelings now. I guess that was just another straw to throw on my back. That was fine, I could bear it. I could bear anything if it would make things better for her.
She pulled her hand away from me and ran it through her blonde cornrows. “I can feel Asmodai, and he’s a lot weaker than he should be.” She tapped her temple and her ebony skin seemed to pale as she let out a sigh. “He always felt like a nuclear bomb. You knew it could go off and wreck the place, knew there was a ton of power, but it was safely contained. Now he doesn’t feel like that. He feels… diminished.”
“That’s good news,” I said, trying to ignore how the cat demon lounging around in my skull had eaten a super-sized helping of Asmodai’s power when the average-looking Prince of Lust had put in a brief appearance topside. “That should make him easier to kill.”
“You’re still not trying to do that, are you?” she asked as I pushed the door open. The hot, humid air hit me like a punch in the teeth. It felt like someone had thrown a wet blanket on me before shoving me into a fucking oven. So, you know, like Texas mostly.
“Yes, I am.” I smirked. “It’s part of the deal.” I shook the cane at her. She was also part of the deal, but well, I didn’t want to think about that. I had half a hope that if Mammon found me trying to do all sorts of ill to Asmodai, well, he’d wait until I was done at least. Hey, what can I say, I’m an optimist.
If he didn’t, well, I’d just have to kill the bastard. A sigh escaped me as I rubbed my face with my hand in an effort to wipe away the exhaustion I felt. It was always just one more demon and one more rescue. Always another bad guy. Well, I was done. Once we got out of here, I was going to find a nice place and sit there until I went Gary Busey crazy.
“And how do you expect to get out of here without Asmodai’s help? You have any friends down here?” she asked, stepping up beside me. Her mouth fell open as the wind whipped by us. “Wow, it’s hot.”
“Yeah, a real scorcher,” I muttered scanning the street in front of me. The horizon was painted with bright orange, like a permanent sunset, and what looked like pteranodons flew through the air cawing and snarling. They didn’t seem to bother the passersby on the street below, but that wasn’t exactly comforting since I didn’t know why they were here. I mean, dinosaurs in Hell? That hardly seemed fair. The asteroid wasn’t their fault.
I shook it off and glanced around, hoping I wouldn’t run into anyone down here because chances were good I’d sent them here. Call me crazy, but I was pretty sure that wouldn’t make them want to rush to my aid.
Fortunately, no one was outside trying to kill us.
“You didn’t answer the question,” Jenna said as I stepped onto the sidewalk. Heat lines wafted off the pavement as I picked a random direction and started moving. I was trying to ignore the minuscule fact that I had no fucking idea wh
ere to go, but I was still operating under the assumption Mammon wanted Jenna and me dead. If we could put some distance between this place and us, well, then we could worry about next steps.
“Say, you looking for a way out?” asked a guy with one of those hipster lumberjack beards you see in Starbucks. “Cause I know a way.” He smiled, showing perfectly white teeth. “You look like just the type who would try to escape.” He sniffed, nostrils flaring wide. “Being that you’re alive and all.”
“Who the fuck are you?” I asked, glaring at him. He was wearing a long sleeved red plaid shirt rolled up to his elbows, revealing the vibrant tattoos inked onto his snow-white flesh. I didn’t like the idea of consorting with anyone of the demonic persuasion, much less the first hipster leaning against a wall beside an alley in Hell, but for some reason, he didn’t seem all that bad. Besides, I had about as much chance of escape as a snowball right about now.
“Well, they said God made man, and the Devil made Cursed, but Samuel Colt made them all equal.” He nodded toward my black as soot arm, which caused his thick black nerd glasses to slide down his nose. He pushed them back up in a way that made me think he hadn’t even realized he’d done it. “So how’s about you call me Sam.”
I opened my mouth to say something like, “thanks but no thanks,” to the guy, but before I could, Jenna stepped in front of me.
“You don’t quite smell like a demon, Sam.” She narrowed her eyes at him and the distrust in her eyes was plain. It was a little weird because he hadn’t really come off as that bad to me, but then again, Jenna’s hunches were usually on the money. “But you definitely aren’t human.”
“How about that?” He pushed himself off the wall and crossed the distance between us with a few quick strides. His Doc Martins ate up the space between us in a few heartbeats. “Any who, I do know a way out, and I’d be happy to help you so long as you agree to take me with you.” He grinned, glancing skyward as pteranodons swooped low through the sky. “Or you can reject my fine offer and go on your way. It won’t bother me. I’m not the type to hold grudges.” When neither of us immediately replied, he held his hand out to us. “What do you say, deal?”
Hellbound_An Urban Fantasy Novel Page 1
