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

by J. A. Cipriano

  “Well, not in the ‘cool kids downtown no one has actually ever met’ sort of way. More in the guy who buys you beer in high school sort of way.” I shot a wry grin in her direction.

  “Thanks. You just compared me to the twenty-one-year-old stoner who tries to get with high school chicks.” She let out a slow breath, grabbed hold of the chain link, and tore it apart like it was made of tissue paper and not metal. She held the rent fence open for me and gestured for me to go inside. “After you, Princess.”

  “I don’t think you’re like a twenty-one-year-old stoner,” I said, ducking into the parking lot and waiting for her in the totally walking off kind of way. “He’s way cooler than you. He always gave me weed for inviting him to parties. Not that I’d ever admit to inhaling.”

  She slugged me in the shoulder. It hurt. A lot. I didn’t show it. Much.

  “Like you’d remember. You have no memory,” she said, walking up beside me and scanning the horizon while her nostrils flared. It made me wonder how good her sense of smell really was. Actually, I didn’t want to know since I’d recently been in a sewer and covered in rabbit slime. I probably needed like six showers just to get back to how I’d smelled when I’d crawled out of the dumpster the other day.

  “It’s actually better this way because I can just make up stuff, and as far as I know, it’s true.” I pulled one of my Glocks free, not because I saw anyone but because holding the gun made me feel better. When in doubt, grab a gun. I could be a spokesperson for the NRA.

  “Is that so?” she asked, glancing at me sidelong.

  “Yup. For instance, this one time when I made out with the Prom Queen under the bleachers.” Even with the weapon in hand, every step we took toward the entrance made unease creep over my skin. There was no way this was going to end well.

  “That probably did happen,” she said with a shrug. “You know, after she got overweight and wound up working at Home Depot.”

  “That is a stereotype I will not condone,” I replied, glaring at her. “I’m quite fond of the Home Depot girl. She’s very nice, very helpful, and knows a ton about baseboards.”

  “Do you even know any true things?” Ricky asked and I could have sworn there was a hint of jealousy in her voice.

  “I know you’re the cutest girl I’ve ever met.” I flashed a cheesy grin at her as we reached the sidewalk leading to the entrance. She stared at me for a long time before looking away.

  “I’m going to allow that one,” she said before grabbing me around the waist like I was a damsel in distress and leaping over the wall. We landed on the other side of the wall, and she put me down like jumping over a twenty-foot-tall wall in a single bound was no big deal. “Now, let’s get serious. I can smell at least three guards up here slinking around. They’re not werewolves, but I don’t want to chance heading down wind. If we do, and there is one up here with them, the whole place will know we’re here. I’d like to avoid that since I don’t know how many guards are in his hidden base below the whale tank.”

  “Whale tank. Guards. Got it,” I said, reaching out and grabbing her hand with my own before she could walk away. “Hey, Ricky, can I ask you something?”

  “Yeah?” she asked, turning to look at me with one eyebrow raised.

  “If I don’t make it, I need you to call and tell them Pierce is dead, okay?” I said, letting go of her and pulling a frayed post it note from my pocket. I held it out toward her. “I wrote the number down for you.”

  “Mac, you’re going to be fine,” she said, glancing at the note like it was a live snake coated in dung.

  “I know, but I also believe in contingency plans. Pierce is going down, but I’m a lot less,” I waved my hand in her general direction, “than you are. You’re more likely to survive, in which case I need you to call and get them to let my sister and her son go. As long as Pierce is dead, they should honor the deal.”

  Ricky stared at me for a long time before snatching the note and shoving it into the pocket of her jeans. “I’m taking this because I think it will make you feel better, but when this is all over you can call yourself.”

  I nodded. “Thanks, Ricky.”

  “Don’t thank me,” she said, turning away and moving forward in a half-crouch. “Just don’t die.”

  I pulled my second Glock free and smiled. “Don’t worry. I have no plans to meet Death astride his pale horse anytime soon.”

  “You know that’s just alliteration right?” she scoffed, glancing around the corner of a game booth. She held out one hand so I’d stop. I did.

  “Yeah, what with the vampires, werewolves, and demon hunters, it’d be silly if that was real too,” I agreed, a smirk crossing my lips.

  Chapter 19

  A hand burst out from the booth, grabbed Ricky by her hair, and yanked her into the depths of the game. The sound of a steak getting slapped against a meat counter filled my ears as I rushed forward. Before I reached her, two dudes in Army-style buzz cuts stepped out from their hiding places behind the booths a few meters away and pointed their M16s at me.

  Thankfully, I was already firing my Glocks, which I’ll admit, had me feeling a little outgunned. I threw myself to the side as they unloaded their weapons at me. Bullets tore up the asphalt where I’d been as I put one silver bullet in the forehead of the left one. His faceplate shattered and his head jerked violently backward in a spray of brain and bone. As he slumped to the ground, his finger must have seized upon the trigger because his gun went wild, spraying bullets every which way.

  His partner ducked back behind the booth nearest him as the jerking of the gun spun the dead man’s body around, creating a vortex of cover fire. I took the opportunity to sprint forward, and as the M16’s STANAG magazine emptied, I lined up my shot and put three bullets into the booth at chest, abdomen, and knee height, hoping I’d catch him even if he was ducking behind the cheap particle board.

  A muffled thump filled my ears as I crept sideways, guns at the ready. What I saw when I stepped past the edge made my heart sing with joy, which only proves I am really messed up in the head. The guy had been crouching there, but now there was no way he’d ever have an open casket funeral unless he knew a guy who could fix a missing face. It was a little strange because I felt absolutely nothing for the guy, nor for his partner. Actually, that wasn’t true. I felt really happy they were dead, and I wasn’t. It was weird because I knew I should have felt bad, I just didn’t.

  “Thanks,” I told the dead man as I shoved one of my Glocks into the waistband of my jeans and snagged his assault rifle. I had half a mind to shoot it off into the air and yell something like “Ho Ho Ho, now I have a machinegun!” but I didn’t because I was pretty sure more guards were on their way, and for all I knew, Ricky was bleeding out in the booth behind me while her assailant snuck up on me with a bazooka.

  I sprinted back toward the booth, careful to make sure no one shot me in the back, but as I leapt over the counter designed to keep kids from getting too close to the fishes in the bowls while they threw balls, Ricky popped her head up. She had blood dripping from her mouth and had been crouching over a body of a guy who was missing his throat. I was thinking it was probably connected.

  Ricky wiped her mouth off with the back of her hand and stood. “What took you so long?” she asked, and as she said the words, her fangs visibly shrank back to normal-sized incisors. “I’ve been back here for thirty whole seconds.”

  As I opened my mouth to reply, a spray of bullets smacked into the wood next to my head. I dropped, hitting the asphalt floor hard enough for pain to shoot up my forearms. Ricky was less lucky since she took three rounds to the back. They burst through her chest, leaving massive exit wounds that only seemed to anger her.

  She turned, a snarl of rage exploding from her lips, and leapt in a way that made me wonder why she wasn’t in the goddamned Olympics. I didn’t see what happened, but the sounds I heard reminded me of those videos of lion attacks.

  By the time I got to my feet, Ricky was standi
ng over the body of a man who appeared to have been beaten to death with his own arms. Her ninja T-shirt was sporting three gaping, gore-drenched holes, but the flesh beneath was pristine. With one quick movement, she tore off the guy’s blood-stained flak jacket and threw it on, probably so she wouldn’t flash me every time she moved. The prude.

  “Well, this is going well,” she said, kneeling down and swiping the guy’s radio off his belt as it chirped something about an Alpha team. Ricky keyed the mic. “Alpha team can’t hear you because I ate them.” She burped into the radio. “But I’m up for dessert. You game to be my huckleberry?”

  The voice on the other end said something I didn’t catch, mostly because it was cut off when Ricky crushed the radio into chunks of plastic and metal with her bare hand. I was suddenly very glad I had brought her along, but that thought was almost immediately replaced by a horrific realization.

  Pierce was supposed to be more powerful than Ricky. I wasn’t sure if it was an inches or miles sort of thing, but the idea of going after someone stronger than a girl who had just leapt twenty feet and torn off a guy’s arms so she could beat him to death with them lacked a certain appeal. Then again, I had guns loaded with silver bullets, and I was really good at shooting things in the face. I guess we all had our strengths.

  Ricky sniffed the air, her nostrils flaring wide. She grimaced. “There’re more coming, and now that they know I’m the one here, they’ll likely be using silver ammunition, assuming they can afford it.” She sighed. “Let’s get a move on. Shamu is over there.”

  “Why did you let them know you were here then?” I asked, jogging behind her. I’ll admit, it really wasn’t a bad angle to follow her from.

  “Would you be scared if a werewolf just tore apart your entire team of highly-trained professionals in the span of a minute?” she asked, glancing at me over her shoulder before leaping over a rope leading to the section of the park that housed large aquatic mammals. “And then said she was going to eat you?”

  “Okay, well, that’s an excellent point,” I replied because really it was. She was on my side and it’d scared me. I couldn’t imagine what it was doing to a bunch of guys who were being paid to hunt her. Probably rethinking their life choices. Still, it bugged me. Why were guys like that in here at all, and why were they normal humans instead of werewolves? If Pierce was this big bad ass werewolf, why weren’t his henchmen werewolves too?

  Chapter 20

  As Ricky pushed on the door labeled employees only, it opened with a screech of tortured steel. So far, we hadn’t seen any other bad guys even though I’d been on the lookout for them. Maybe Ricky’s whole “I’m a big scary werewolf” shtick had worked? It was either that or they were lying in wait to ambush us. Call me crazy, but I was pretty sure it was the second reason.

  Ricky sniffed the air and evidently satisfied no one was going to shoot us, stepped in ahead of me, presumably because since bullets didn’t seem to do much more than anger her. That was fine. If she wanted to be all “I’m a modern woman” and make herself into my human/werewolf shield so I could avoid getting perforated by bullets, I was fine with that. Besides, she was wearing the flak jacket. See, I’m all about equal opportunities.

  There must have been a motion sensor inside because as soon as she stepped inside, the light came on, revealing a plethora of wetsuits and assorted scuba equipment. Ricky mostly ignored it as she walked across the room toward a red steel door with the words “Danger High Voltage” written on it in black two inch letters. Without even bothering to try the knob to see if it was unlocked, she kicked it so hard the steel door folded inward like an accordion before tearing off the hinges and flying backward into the darkness. It clanged against the floor. As silence descended through the tiny room, a bunch of red dots lit Ricky up like a Christmas tree.

  “Oh no,” Ricky said, before bullets came flying out of the doorway she’d just assaulted. They hit her high in the chest and sent her pitching backward across the ground toward me. I didn’t have time to see if any had penetrated her jacket as I opened up with my stolen M16, emptying the remaining magazine into the doorway while scrambling forward. I grabbed Ricky under the arms and pulled her out of the line of fire as cursory cover fire started to streak back through the doorway, taking chunks out of the surrounding walls.

  The moment my gun clicked empty, more gunfire erupted from the hallway beyond. The cement pinged with the sound of ricochets as I dropped Ricky behind a huge steel table and fished out my grenade. I popped the top and flung it into the darkened room before leaping on top of the werewolf because, you know, she wouldn’t totally heal way quicker than I would. And people say chivalry is dead.

  A deafening boom that reduced my hearing to a high-pitched whine shook the room, but the shooting also stopped which was good. I threw a quick glance at Ricky as I lifted myself up off of her. The few bullets that had struck her were already starting to push themselves out of her flesh, and while it didn’t seem like they were silver, there were a lot of them. I guess emptying fifty rounds into someone, werewolf or not, was effective. Good to know.

  I sprinted toward the doorway, careful to keep mostly out of the line of fire even though no one was shooting. Once I reached the cinderblock wall, I crouched and glanced around the corner. It was dark, but I could still make out what looked like pieces of assailants strewn about the hallway in bloody chunks. I gripped my pistol tightly, tried to push down the strange sense of satisfaction I felt at killing them, and made my way inside.

  When no one immediately put a round in my chest, I breathed a sigh of relief… quietly. It looked like a massacre. Near as I could tell, there had been four guys in here, but then again, they were mostly splotches so it was hard to be sure. Still, the other team had been four guys, so that made sense.

  Even still, I crept forward, keeping close to the left wall so I could shoot anyone who popped out with my right hand. I’d had half a mind to go along the right wall, and shoot left handed so I could keep my demonic hand free, but that might open me up to a heart shot. It wound up not mattering either way because no one shot me in the time it took me to reach the door at the end of the hallway.

  No one had survived the grenade. They were all dead. I probably should have felt bad about it, but I didn’t. I didn’t feel good about it either. I mostly felt nothing but satisfaction for killing them before they’d killed me. Hey, at least I wasn’t reveling in their deaths. Baby steps.

  At the sound of footsteps behind me, I whirled, gun at the ready, to see Ricky limping toward me. There were more holes in her shirt, but otherwise, she just looked pissed off.

  “Next time, you can go first,” she said through gritted teeth, leaning one hand on the wall for support.

  “Done and done,” I replied, turning back toward the door and gripping the handle. It twisted without much effort, and I held my breath as I pushed it open a crack. No one shot me, but the smell of the room beyond turned my stomach. It sort of reminded me of rotting corpses left out in the sun.

  Ricky must have smelled it too because she started gagging. I twisted my head toward her, about to ask her if she was okay, when the door jerked inward while I was still gripping the handle. It pulled me off balance, and I tumbled forward into an honest to God rotting corpse. It opened its decaying mouth and lunged at me.

  “Brains!” it groaned as I brought my Glock up and put two bullets into its brainpan. Goop that smelled even worse than the corpse splattered across the ceiling as the thing fell against me and slid twitching to the floor.

  “Is that a zombie?” I cried, but before Ricky could respond, more lumbering corpses came shambling toward me. They weren’t fast, but there were a ton of them, and with each step they took, they grew more and more agitated. Even worse, I would run out of bullets long before they all went down. I was going to have to improvise then.

  I dropped the two closest ones, with two quick shots, and like I hoped, their companions stumbled over them as I leapt back, slamming the door shu
t. The sound of them smashing into the metal a second later didn’t exactly give me high hopes for our escape. I grabbed the lever, trying to use it to hold the door closed when it started to twist in my hand. I grunted, my muscles cording with effort as I tried to keep it from turning further, but the zombies must have been stronger than they looked because it began edging downward like the second hand of a clock.

  “Don’t let them bite you unless you want to become one of the living dead,” Ricky said rather unhelpfully.

  “I’ll do my best to keep the zombies from eating me,” I cried, half-hysterical as the handle continued to slide open. There was no way I was going to hold it much longer.

  Ricky reached past me and grabbed the handle. It helped, but not much. It was still inching open. Not good. Not good at all.

  “Calm down, Mac,” Ricky said, but the expression on her face didn’t make me any calmer. She was clearly terrified. Awesome. The badass werewolf was scared.

  “This is my calm face,” I cried as the handle snapped off in our hands. The door jerked inward, and the ravenous horde of undead came swarming out. Ricky wrapped one arm around my waist and threw us backward across the fifteen-foot hallway. It gave us a bit of breathing room, but not enough, not even close to enough. Why, oh why, didn’t I save my grenade?

  “Use your magic, Mac,” Ricky said, pulling me through the door she’d kicked off earlier. Guess that probably didn’t seem like a good idea now either.

  Heart racing, pulse pounding, I put my right hand up as the closest of the zombies started sprinting toward us on rotting legs while the rest of them screamed like a deranged cheerleading squad.

  “Brains!”

  “Undead girls don’t catch diseases!”