Cursed: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Thrice Cursed Mage Book 1)

by J. A. Cipriano

  Cursed

  The Thrice Cursed Mage Book #1

  J.A. Cipriano

  Copyright © 2016 J.A. Cipriano

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  Chapter 1

  The sound of punishing hydraulics snapped me from sleep. My eyes shot open, but I couldn’t see much of anything through the closed lids of the dumpster. The stink of rotten eggs and festering meat filled my nostrils, turning my stomach as I struggled to find my bearings but succeeded only in burying myself further beneath gobs of slimy debris. I reached out, trying to claw my way through the plastic trash bags piled on top of me as the whole world shuddered up and to the left, covering me in dirty diapers, rotten tuna fish, and moldy cheese.

  My right hand lashed out with a mind of its own, trying to grip on the inside of the steel dumpster as it began to tilt, dousing the back of my neck in warm, sticky fluid that smelled of rancid beer. Bile rose up in my throat as my fingers scrapped against the paint-chipped metal, desperate for purchase that would not come.

  The sound of a garbage truck’s crushing hydraulics filled my ears, reverberating deep down in my gut as a snake of fear twisted inside. I tried to scream, to cry out for them to stop as gravity, the bitch that she is, began pulling me toward my inevitable demise.

  The lids beneath me fell open then, smacking against the metal side with a sound like a gunshot. The sudden glare of sunlight was nearly blinding, but it was the flash of a trash-filled pit that threw me into a panic. I scrambled to grab onto something, anything that could arrest my fall before I tumbled into the gaping maw of the trash truck.

  As my feet cleared the edge of the dumpster and my fingers slid off the metal, a wave of rancid, curdled milk crashed against my face, filling my nostrils with fetid goo and cutting off my air supply. Without thinking, I opened my mouth to suck in a breath before my lungs exploded. Milk spilled down my throat, and while I tried to curse in rage and horror, the only sound that came out was a hoarse, bubbling gag that would never be heard over the noise.

  Even if I could have managed to cry out, there was no way for someone to hear me scream over the roar of the punishing hydraulics destined to compact me into pulp. Not that it mattered. If I survived the fall into the metal jaws below, I was going to be pretty damned dead about a second later when the automated press punched my teeth through my brain.

  If the driver saw me now, it would probably be too late for him to stop his truck from killing me. As the dumpster upended itself, I fell backward, scrabbling against the metal like a pathetic lizard as the lower part of my body cleared the edge. My heart hammered in my chest like a goddamned bass drum as I tumbled ass over elbows. My right hand shot up, reaching for one last desperate handhold. A stream of crimson light, so bright it was blinding even over the sunlight streaming into the alley from above, burst from the tattoos emblazoned on my arm.

  With that last desperate lunge, my fingertips brushed at the edge of the heavy plastic dumpster lid, and I jerked to a stop that damned near dislocated my shoulder. A howl of pain ripped from my throat as I hung there, trash cascading down around me from the dumpster like rain from a hideous, disgusting storm cloud.

  As I hung there, watching the metal jaws of the compactor crush the trash into the back of the truck, part of me marveled the driver hadn’t seen me. The other part of me was thanking any and all gods for letting me live, even though I wasn’t sure how that was possible. I ought to be dead.

  I craned my head upward, shielding my eyes from the still falling trash as best I could. My right arm was as black as pitch. Scarlet symbols I didn’t recognize glowed with feverish light across its entire length, but what was even weirder was how my fingers clung to the heavy plastic lid like I was Spiderman. I mean, hey, I’m not complaining because I was pretty sure I’d been about to die in a hail of old beer bottles and half-eaten sandwiches, but still, it was a little weird, especially because the rest of my skin was so pale I could have blended in with a milk display.

  Before I could begin to figure out what the hell was going on, the dumpster began to tilt back the other direction. Momentum and gravity took turns slamming me into the metal belly of the dumpster before the lids fell back into place, leaving me shrouded in darkness. My hand released its grip on the lid, and I fell against the steel bottom hard enough to make my teeth rattle in my skull. Agony shot through my back as a sickening crack of my spine against metal filled my ears. I lay there, struggling to breathe until well after the dumpster was back on the ground.

  I was tempted to lay there and rest for a while, to try and figure out what the hell had happened, but what if I passed out? Sure, I’d somehow survived this time, but I might not survive the next time. Besides, the idea of being covered in garbage wasn’t exactly appealing. In the unlikely event people who regularly dumped trash in here decided to glance inside first, they would probably notice me taking a nap inside and call the cops. I was pretty sure I wasn’t exactly friendly with the police. Call it a hunch, but I don’t think cops looked kindly upon people who slept in dumpsters.

  With all the willpower I could muster, I crawled to my feet and pushed the heavy black lid open. The sunlight greeted me like a punch to the face, and I was forced to look away and cover my eyes with my black hand. Thankfully, the tattoos along my arm weren’t glowing like they were radioactive anymore. I gave myself a moment to get used to the brightness before pulled myself over the metal lip. Even though I tried to land gracefully, I wound up collapsing onto the cracked asphalt. It hurt, but at least I was out of the dumpster.

  I pushed myself to my feet, intending to walk off my recent debacle like a badass. Then I was going to go home and get myself a nice warm shower. I stopped mid-step. There was just one problem. I didn’t remember where I lived. Hell, I didn’t remember anything other than my name. Mac Brennan.

  Chapter 2

  My hands flew to the pockets of my black slacks only to find them empty. I pulled them inside out and stared at the white fabric in disbelief for a lot longer than I cared to admit before I managed to summon the will to push them back inside. My hip pocket revealed even less since it was a pocket in decoration only. Why the hell was I wearing pants with decorative pockets? I glared at it in disgust until I began to feel ridiculous for staring at my own ass.

  A sigh escaped me as I ran my left hand through my dirty blond hair and nearly had a heart attack when it came away wet. I pulled it back down and stared at the scarlet goo running down my fingers. My clothes were plastered to my body with too much blood for it to be good. Panic raced through me as I began patting myself down, looking to make sure all my parts were in the proper places.

  A couple seconds later, I was relieved to find all my bits were where they should be. While I was covered in blood, among other things, it wasn’t mine. That didn’t bode well, and that was ignoring how this bit of knowledge didn’t terrify me as much as it should have. Was I used to this sort of thing? I hoped not.

  I searched my mind, trying to figure out the reason for my current state but found myself finding only fog. Man, I was worse than Jon Snow. I really did know nothing.

  In the end, it didn’t really matter. I needed to find a change of clothes and a shower because if someone saw me like this, I was going to be facing a lot of uncomfortable questions I couldn’t answer. I was pretty sure the whole amnesia defense didn’t work very well when you were found covered in blood.

  Unfortunately, I had no fun
ds, and I needed to figure out why my damned arm was blacker than the hair on Lucifer’s ass. I stopped, my breath catching in my throat as I slowly raised my right hand and stared at it. In all the excitement, I’d sort of dismissed my blackened flesh, but now that I wasn’t about to be crushed to death in a trash compactor, I found myself wondering about it.

  I wasn’t sure how much of my flesh was covered in the strange inky darkness, but as I unbuttoned the cuff of my shirt and pulled it up to check, all the flesh I could see was black. My heart began to hammer in my chest as a wave of panic swept over me. I reached out, trying to steady myself against the side of the dumpster. I took a deep breath in a mostly failed attempt to calm down. How had my arm had gotten this way? Had I done this to myself? Even if I had, that didn’t explain the strange red symbols tattooed in startling relief over my blackened flesh.

  Earlier, when I’d been about to fall to my doom in the dumpster, I could have sworn my tattoos had glowed, but they weren’t now. I trailed my fingers over the symbols. My skin felt normal enough. Maybe I’d just been hallucinating due to adrenaline and circumstance? That had to be the case, and if it wasn’t, surely there was some other explanation. Maybe they’d been painted with glow in the dark ink or something. Hell, for all I knew I was an actor and the black arm and tattoos were just some temporary thing done by the makeup department so I could to play a part. It wasn’t like I could remember getting them, or even what had happened to me last night.

  That in itself was really unsettling. Why couldn’t I remember anything and why did I have no ID or wallet? Had I gotten mugged and dumped in a dumpster, or worse? I needed to find out what happened, but I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to like the answer to that question. I took another deep breath and this time it helped me calm down a little. I needed a plan, something to focus on so I wouldn’t go bat shit insane trying to remember what happened. Finding clothing and money seemed like an easier thing to deal with than my weirdly-colored arm, and right now, I needed to focus on things I could accomplish.

  I looked down at myself, trying to decide if walking out of my tiny alleyway would gather too much attention from passersby. It was probably going to be a coin flip since I was wearing a black trench coat over a bloodstained white button up and black pants. I looked like the type of guy who had walked into an office building and opened fire screaming about water cooler injustices. This fact was punctuated by the red tie hanging limply around my neck. Still, if I buttoned up the trench coat, I’d no doubt be able to cover the blood making my shirt stick to my body. As far as plans went, well, it was a plan.

  A moment later, I was out in the sunlight and sweating from the heat. I smelled like days old garbage and blood. Not the world’s best combination, especially when combined with my sweat. It made the need for a change of clothes and a shower leap several more levels of importance. Every second I walked around like this increased the likelihood someone would call the police to report a guy splattered with blood was walking around in a trench coat. They’d probably shoot first, shoot second to make sure, and then ask questions third in that given scenario. I knew I would. Hell, I probably had.

  Thankfully, just across the street was a strip mall with a laundromat. I glanced around, noted the cars speeding down the street and made a mad dash across the four-lane street. I hit the center divider just as a blue Civic sped by, missing me by inches. Evidently, the driver had decided I’d either get out of the way or get under the tires. For drivers to be that sociopathic, I must be in a major city like Miami or Los Angeles. Why couldn’t I have woken up in Oregon? While I had no recollection of driving in any of those places, I was pretty sure the Oregonian drivers were awesome in comparison to the one who’d tried to turn me into a road pancake.

  I flashed the Civic the bird only to see the driver throwing his own one fingered salute in my direction. Jackass. I shook it off and studied the two lanes in front of me for a second. Satisfied all the cars were too far away to run me over unless they tried really, really hard at it, I sprinted across the remaining stretch of street like I was the roadrunner fleeing Wile E. Coyote. Meep, meep, bitches.

  The gods must have been on my side because I reached the curb without becoming roadkill. My chest heaved from the effort. With my hands on my knees, I sucked in a breath or seven. I wasn’t sure why I was so tired since I appeared to be in relatively decent shape, but then again, I’d just ran all out for fifteen feet. I needed to get my ass on a treadmill stat.

  A smirk crossed my lips. I’d have to put cardio on my list. You know, right after finding out why I woke up in a dumpster covered in blood. Still, I probably had a gym membership I never used like every other person I didn’t remember knowing. Did I have friends? A girlfriend? Children? Was there someone wondering why I didn’t come home last night?

  I needed to stop thinking. It was bringing up too many questions I didn’t have answers for. The only thing I had was fog where memories should have been. It wasn’t nearly enough, and I could already feel frustration starting to set in. If I kept it up, I was going to go into a tailspin fast. That wouldn’t help.

  No, what I needed was to follow my two-step plan. Get clothes and a shower. It was simple. I felt like I could handle that. I made my way across the sidewalk with purpose and stepped through the yellow flowers marking the divide between the parking lot and the outside world. A moment later, I was passing the only two cars in the strip mall, a red convertible and one of those black kidnapper vans. Hopefully neither of their drivers would be inside the laundromat.

  With that happy thought, I pushed open the heavy black framed glass door and found myself staring at exactly no one inside. It made me wonder briefly how places like this even stayed in business. It wasn’t like it was attached to an apartment complex where expenses were mostly covered by rent and the change collected was like extra profit. No, this place was off on its own. That meant people used it a lot. People who couldn’t afford things like washers and dryers.

  Great. I was in the poor section of town. I didn’t have a problem with poor people or anything and wasn’t exactly worried about getting mugged. If someone tried something, I was going to go with the whole “beware my demonic hand” thing while making scary faces. No, my sense of unease came more from distaste. As I stared at the spinning, rumbling dryers, I knew I was going to steal myself some new clothes provided I found anything even remotely my size. I was robbing poor people. I might as well have been a banker.

  With that ugly thought, I began pulling open dryers, looking for stuff I thought would fit me. It didn’t take long for me to find a navy blue polo that had clearly been washed one too many times, a pair of tan khaki pants, black socks, and even though it hurt me deep in my soul, a pair of red boxer briefs. Yeah, that’s right, I was going to steal another man’s underwear. For all I knew, this wasn’t a new low point in my life, but it sure as hell felt like one.

  I stuffed the pilfered clothing under my arm and moved toward the bathroom in the back. When I’d stepped in here, I wasn’t sure if they’d even have a lavatory, but hey, apparently today wishes were horses. Once inside the restroom, I locked the door so no one would bother me while I changed. Since there wasn’t any good place to hang up my stolen clothes and I was loath to put them on the floor of a public bathroom, I stuffed them on top of the faucet and prayed they wouldn’t fall in the sink. I turned on the hot water and much to my surprise, nothing came out.

  “Swell,” I muttered in a voice that had smoked one too many cigarettes and chased it with one too many shots of cheap whiskey. “Double or nothing the cold works.”

  It did. Cold water splashed out of the faucet and struck the cheap ceramic bowl in a torrent. So they’d shut off the hot water, probably to keep people from bathing in here. Cheap bastards. Well, I’d show them. I stripped off my clothes and flung them next to the pathetic black trashcan in the corner. Yes, it was a little gross taking them off since they were stuck to my skin with sticky blood. It was even worse because they le
ft slimy streaks of crimson across my body.

  Once I was naked, I stared at myself in the scratched mirror above the sink. I had one of those douchebag faces you’d see on a tennis court at an expensive country club attached to a guy named Chet. It was the kind of face that begged to be punched. Someone else must have thought so too because my right eye looked like it’d been on the wrong side of a fist, and my nose was crooked just enough for me to know it’d been broken at least once. My cheeks were covered in at least a day’s worth of stubble and my blond goatee was streaked with dried blood and curdled milk.

  The rest of me wasn’t much better what with the cuts, scratches and bruises. My ribs were an ugly shade of yellowish purple, and as I touched them with my index finger, a stab of pain nearly made me cry out. As far as I knew, I wasn’t a doctor nor had I played one on TV, but nothing seemed to be broken. Maybe the bruising was my body’s way of telling me not to go getting my ass kicked. I instantly agreed with its sentiment.

  Whoever had put me in the dumpster hadn’t been kind, and not being able to remember why it happened was really starting to piss me off. Why had someone left me in a dumpster with no form of identification and no memory?

  Still, I had to admit it was possible those two things weren’t connected. Maybe it was a simple mugging that had no connection to me having no memories. It wasn’t like I’d searched the alley well. Maybe if I went back, I’d find my wallet, sans money and credit cards, on the ground somewhere? I needed to check as soon as I cleaned myself off. A surge of confidence shot through me.

  “All I need to do is go back to the alley and find my wallet,” I told myself, trying to ignore the possibility that my wallet had been in the dumpster along with me and was now in the belly of the garbage truck that had tried to eat me.