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

by J. A. Cipriano

  The old guy glanced at her like he was seeing her there for the first time. “Sera, how nice of you to drop by. Didn’t see you there.” His gaze flicked from her to me and back again. “Is the dumbass with you?”

  “Unfortunately, yes.” Sera let out an exasperated breath. “That’s why I’m here. I was attacked Duane. The werewolves are getting more serious about their advances. The Cursed saved me, but he doesn’t remember anything before this morning. I thought you might be able to help him.”

  The old bartender glanced back at me and gestured toward my drink. “Guess that one’s on the house. Thanks for saving my girl.” His girl? What the hell did he mean by that? Was he seriously implying he was dating the brunette even though their age disparity could be counted in half-centuries?

  “Just give the wolves what they want and call it a day,” the Indian from the back called before a thunderous break sent billiard balls flying across the table in front of him. “It’s not like you won’t enjoy it.”

  The brunette, who I was assuming was named Sera, puckered her lips like she’d just sucked on a lemon. “Can it, vampire. When I want your opinion, I’ll pull out your tongue and smack it against the bar.” She slapped the oak with one hand for emphasis. “Whatever sound it makes will doubtless be smarter than the shit you’re spewing now.”

  Laughter filled the back of the room, and I suddenly got the feeling I was standing in the middle of a family squabble. That was a little crazy because she’d called the Indian a vampire. The sad thing was, I didn’t know if she was joking or not. I mean, I’d just fought werewolves, why couldn’t vampires be real?

  “So what do you want me to do? Make a tea? That might help him with his memories,” the old guy, Duane said, turning his back to me and moving toward Sera with quick, purposeful steps. Without warning, he reached across the bar and snatched up her hand. “I could go talk to Ricky. We go back a ways. Could have a talk about how the pups are acting. They might back off.”

  “We both know they wouldn’t be bugging me without their alpha’s express permission.” Sera let out another sigh, and I was starting to think she might be able to medal in sighing if it were an Olympic sport. “No, Ricky is definitely putting them up to this. I just don’t understand why the wolves are working with the Stars and Moons. Ricky’s never been one to involve the pack in human business before.”

  “Whoa, let’s all hold up a second and tell me what’s going on. Maybe I can help. As it stands, I’m barely following your conversation, and that’s no good for me,” I said, sliding onto a red stool with the name Biff written on it. To be honest, I wasn’t sure why I’d offered to help. Everything inside of me was screaming at me to get them back on track with the whole magic memory tea thing. That was the selfish part of me though, and something told me if I started listening to that part of myself, I wouldn’t last long in a world I was woefully unprepared to face.

  I snatched my whiskey off the bar as their eyes turned to me. I ignored the heat of their stares and tossed back the liquor in one quick swallow. The liquid burned the back of my throat in a way that was both familiar and comfortable despite the drink being three parts paint thinner and one part horse piss. Whatever this stuff was, it had been set here as a test. I wasn’t sure if I passed or not, but since I didn’t wind up spitting it across the bar, I was giving myself seventy-thirty odds.

  “You don’t even have a memory,” Sera replied, giving me a long, appraising look. “You might think you’re tough because you beat up some wolves, but Ricky, the alpha, is another story. Werewolves aren’t the sort of things you piss off unless you’re packing serious heat and have a death wish.”

  She had a valid point, but I never let little things like being sensible stop me. At least, I didn’t think I did. The werewolf I’d fought before had been scary, so much so, that I wasn’t sure how I’d won. That said, I had the distinct feeling I could beat them. I wasn’t sure why, but I knew, just knew, if I put my mind to it, I could stop the werewolves from attacking her.

  I tilted the bottle to my glass and refilled it, making sure I doubled what Duane had poured for me. Then, like I was a badass who didn’t actually like to taste things, I swallowed the contents in one gulp. It made me a little sad because I would have liked to sip the whiskey, but this stuff was probably used to fuel jets. It didn’t want to be tasted, and besides, that was hardly the point. It must have worked because Duane nodded approvingly.

  “You see these marks?” I pulled up my right sleeve, revealing my black, tattooed arm. “They mean I’m a bad ass. So why don’t you let me in on why the wolves are really after you.”

  “You don’t know that for sure. For all you know, the demon you talked to is some low level imp. Besides, we’re not here so you can be El Macho and save me from an evil monster. We’re here so Duane can make you one of his special teas—” The rest of her words were cut off in an explosion of sound and debris as one of those big silver tanker trucks people use to haul dangerous liquids burst through the front door in an explosion of glass and debris. Flames poured from the cab like someone had lit a bonfire inside. It ripped open as it jackknifed, spilling a metric ton of its contents across the floor.

  The horrible smell of gasoline filled my nose as I flung myself over the bar. My shoulder crashed into Duane, knocking both of us to the cement as black smoke billowed up against the ceiling in a way that let me know the second that gasoline caught fire I was as good as dead.

  Chapter 9

  I threw my arm up to ward off the impending blast of fiery death from the tanker truck’s inevitable explosion while Duane clung to me. His wiry hands gripped my trench coat like it’d somehow save him from certain doom. Clearly, he knew something I didn’t. Before I had a chance to untangle myself from the old man, the room erupted into a fireball of debris that deafened my ears and reduced the world to a high-pitched fuzzy ring.

  We were pitched backward under the force of the concussion as shrapnel punched into the shelves above us. I smacked into the wall beneath the shelves with enough force to drive the breath from my body. The bottles above us exploded, raining down bits of burning glass and flaming liquor onto our bodies. I struggled to draw in a breath as I scrambled to my hands and knees, but all I succeeded in doing was scalding my lungs.

  Flame was everywhere. The ceiling and walls all around me were rippling with sheets of golden blue fire. The air was a wash of heat and death, burning my chest from the inside with each superheated breath I took. Blinding crimson light burst from my outstretched right arm as I tried to shield my face from the din. The arm of my trench coat glowed gold then silver, then bright “eyes of the Devil himself” red as a wave of force rippled out from my forearm. A tornado of hellish energy sucked the flames out of the room itself while flinging the remains of the tanker truck, along with most of the shattered room, back from whence it came.

  The truck’s crash outside sounded far away and distant, like my ears and brain were shrouded in cotton. Sweat covered my body in an instant as the room went dark and hazy. I tried to push myself to my feet anyway, but just that tiny effort made spots dance across my vision. Duane struggled under me as my trench coat faded back to its normal sooty black color and my tattoos winked out like someone had unplugged a string of Christmas lights on a dark night.

  The room swam again as I gripped the edge of the charred bar and used all my strength to hoist myself onto my feet. I’d been wrong. It only seemed like the fire had gone out. Half the damned bar was still on fire. It just looked like someone had sliced a pie piece shaped hole in it. Sunlight streamed in through the front wall as the fire on either side of the slice tried to retake the room. Fortunately, there seemed to be some unexplained line in the sand that kept the flames from crossing. Had I done that when I’d thrown the tanker truck out of the bar?

  Before I could find an answer to that question, a horrible thought made my guts twist in horror. I swung my gaze toward where Sera and the vampire had been. I didn’t see them behind the b
ar. Duane was on his feet now, sprinting in that direction as a veritable firestorm of heat and death swept across the rest of the room. I wasn’t sure what the old man was going to do when he reached the fire, but if my arm had saved me once, it could damned well do it again.

  I leaned heavily on the bar with my left forearm and reached toward the fire with my right hand. My fingers splayed outward as I tried to will my arm to put out the rest of the fire. Something shifted across the back of my mind, reminding me of a lazy cat opening one eye to blink at me before going back to sleep.

  Another wave of exhaustion hit me like a baseball bat to the skull, and I collapsed against the bar struggling for breath. I sucked in a gulp of air that was mostly smoke and my lungs revolted in a fit of coughing. Through my teary eyes, I could see Duane was nearly to the fire now, and I half thought he was going to leap into the din to look for Sera. Whatever the old man’s relationship to the girl was, it went well beyond simple friendship.

  Even if I could remember my past, I had a hard time thinking I’d leap into a fireball to save someone. Then again, I’d supposedly traded my memories to a devil for enough power to magically throw a tanker truck several feet. Hopefully, I’d had a good reason for doing so and not just because I was a power hungry schmuck. Not that it mattered right now. Moral high ground wasn’t a lot of use to the dead.

  I forced myself to take a step toward the fire as a black form began to take shape within the raging inferno. It wasn’t that tall, standing only six feet or so, but it had enormous bat wings jutting from its back and a couple of horns that would make any stag proud. The creature had one wing wrapped around something slung under one of its arms as it walked purposely toward us through the fire. I wasn’t sure what it was, but it sure as hell seemed like a demon.

  Despite the heat, cold sweat ran down my spine. Was this the demon I’d made a deal with? Was he coming to collect now? Oh God, did that mean I’d died? I didn’t feel dead. I couldn’t be dead.

  Instead of running away, Duane fell to his knees sobbing. “Thank God!” he cried, clasping his hands in front of himself as if thanking the Almighty which was altogether crazy given the circumstances. I struggled toward him, hoping I could reach the old man in time to save him from the beast when it reared back and threw something through the flames.

  Sera burst through the wall of fire and hit the bar with a wet sounding smack. Steam curled from her clothing, but from what I could see of her skin, her burns were little worse than a bad sunburn. As I stood there like an idiot, she rolled into a fetal position. Whatever that thing in the fire was, it had saved Sera. Maybe it was on our side?

  That thought had barely coalesced in my mind when bullets exploded through the blown out front of the bar. I fell, mostly because my knees gave out on me as I tried to whirl around. Hot lead tore into the shelves, the walls, everywhere. Whatever bottles had avoided being turned into slag, shattered under the onslaught. Duane pulled Sera off the bar, and they landed on the cement in a heap. Black smoke poured from a few random spots on his body, but the look on his face told me the wounds didn’t much bother him. It was a little surprising since normally bullets bothered people, but like the werewolves, Duane seemed to just shrug them off.

  The thing in the fire jerked under the hail of bullets but didn’t fall. A howl of rage that made the hair on the back of my neck stand straight up exploded from the fire, and just like that, the flames around us died.

  The vampire stood there in full on “creature of the night” mode. Huge black bat wings were extended to their full wingspan, making him seem like some kind of demonic archangel. Horns the color of blood jutted from his forehead, making his cowboy hat slide backward on his head. His white chamois shirt was perforated with bullet holes, but instead of bleeding, golden ichor dripped from the wounds. The damage didn’t seem to bother him at all, or if it did, he kept it from his face because his lips were curled into a bemused smile.

  I barely had time to let that sink in when a couple dozen slack-faced guys wearing midnight blue robes emblazoned with yellow stars and orange moons stepped through the blown out entrance of the bar like they were being controlled by one single entity. Their eyes were far off and distant as they pointed their machine guns at the vampire in unison. I stared at the wall of MP5s and AK47s in horror. Vampire or not, how was he going to survive enough bullets to cut a building in half?

  Instead of fleeing, the vampire calmly looked down at the wounds perforating his otherwise flawless form. He flicked his wrist disdainfully. Bullets tore out of his flesh in a cascade of golden fluid and flew outward at the men. Cultists dropped without a word, not bothering to scream or cry out as their own bullets cut them down.

  The vampire smiled, his white fangs flashing in the dim light filtering into the building. The wounds on his body were gone. In the time it took me to blink, there was no trace he’d been hurt at all. I wasn’t sure how he had managed either of those tricks, but the sight of them made my blood run cold. A horrible feeling filled me from the tips of my toes to the top of my head as I watched him saunter toward the cultists without a care in the world. If he was so powerful, why the hell was he playing pool in a back alley bar?

  Heedless of the vampire’s previous attack, the remaining cultists opened fire, filling the room with hot lead. Fortunately for us, the bullets never made it more than a couple of feet from their guns. The creature of the night waved his hand dismissively. The bullets stopped, hanging there in midair like they’d been caught in invisible gelatin.

  “You dare defy the sanctity of Jack’s?” the vampire asked, and as his voice shook the room, I got the distinct feeling he wasn’t actually talking to the cultists, but someone else entirely. He took an angry step toward the cultists, purple light spilling off his skin like rainwater. “That is against the accords and shall be punished accordingly.”

  The bullets flew back en masse and slammed into the men before ripping themselves out of the men so they could bury themselves back into the cultist’s flesh over and over again. His onslaught continued until the Stars and Moons were nothing more than a mishmash of flesh, bones, and blood.

  My stomach lurched from the sight, and the whiskey I’d consumed earlier threatened to come back up as I turned toward Sera and Duane, my mouth agape.

  “What the hell?” I whispered, unsure if my words could even be heard over the ringing in my ears.

  Sera glanced at me and cocked one delicate eyebrow into the air. “He’s teaching their master a lesson. If he tries to take me in here, the vampire will defend me.”

  “Your condition is acceptable,” said a voice that summoned images of erupting volcanoes and brimstone. The room dropped fifty degrees in temperature, and my next breath came out in mist as a horrified look flashed across Sera’s face.

  She tried to say something, but as her mouth opened, her words were drowned out by the sound of something striking the vampire. The center of his chest ripped open, exposing his ribcage to the fresh air in a shower of golden blood. The vampire collapsed forward onto the cement, his weird demonic form melting away like it had been made of ice.

  Duane sprinted toward him, but by the time he reached the fallen vampire, the creature was back to normal. A slow, methodical clap filled the air as Duane pulled the vamp from the pool of gilded slime.

  An Asian man dressed in a several thousand dollar suit stepped up to the entrance of Jack’s, his right, black as pitch hand smacking against his tanned left one. Sickly green light spilled from the edges of his right cuff as he surveyed the bar with eyes the color of storm clouds. His scarred lips curled into an amused smile that filled his eyes like he was in the happiest place on earth sans crowds when he saw me.

  “So Sera has recruited one of us to her cause,” he said, nodding to me. “I beg you, brother, for your own sake, stay out of this one. Whatever she has promised you, my master can make it seem insignificant in comparison.” He licked his lips and something dark swam behind his eyes. A momentary sense of fear flash
ed through me, but in the time it took for me to suck in a breath, profound rage exploded through me, reaching out and filling me up like I had been an empty glove suddenly occupied by a hand willing to wield it.

  “You dare take something from me?” I said, only my voice wasn’t quite my own. It sounded deeper, darker. “You should know better.”

  The light in the man’s eyes faded, reduced to the color of dirty nickels in the span of a second. Fear filled his features as he shook his head, desperate to hide the reaction. When he looked back at me, his momentary hysteria was gone, but I could still smell the stink of panic on him. It was just below the surface begging to come out.

  “You may have a powerful master, brother. But I sense you are still a pup. Do not test me. I have been at this since before Columbus tried to find a secret trade route to India and landed upon this continent’s shores,” he said, staring at my arm intently. It gave me the feeling he wasn’t talking to me alone. Evidently, he wasn’t expecting an answer because he nodded to himself. A surge of confidence seemed to melt across his features, reminding me of a junkie getting his first fix. “You do not scare us.” He licked his lips.

  In the time it took for me to blink, the guy had crossed the room. He stood over Duane, who in contrast, lay flat on his back with his eyes far off and distant. With catlike grace, the man leapt over the bar and swept Sera into his arms, nodded once to me, and vanished. I don’t mean he sprinted out or anything. I mean one moment he was there, and the next he was just gone, leaving only a faint hint of sulfur in the air.

  “Fuck,” the vampire said, and as I craned my head toward him, I saw him kneeling next to Duane, steam still curling off his body. I opened my mouth to reply, but was cut off by the screech of sirens in the distance. Fuck was right.