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

by J. A. Cipriano

  By the time I hit the landing at the bottom, every single part of my body screamed in agony. To be honest, I was surprised I wasn’t dead. I had about half a second to contemplate being alive when several hundred pounds of werewolf slammed into the landing next to me, gouging holes in the flooring with his yellowed talons. The entire structure swayed, and the strain of wood and bolts filled the air as the stairs leaned violently away from the wall. The wolf stopped, ears going flat against his gray-furred skull. Then, very slowly, it reached out, grasping the banister with one clawed-hand and took a step toward me. The landing swayed again.

  Without thinking, I raised my right hand and cried, “Ignis!” at the top of my lungs. My tattoos blazed to life as a ball of red hellfire exploded from my palm and smashed into the werewolf’s chest, sending gouts of flame streaming through the air and tossing the huge creature backward into the wall like yesterday’s garbage. The smell of burnt hair filled my nostrils as I sucked in a quick breath.

  My tattoos lost their neon light and faded back to normal as I stared at my hand, unsure of how I’d managed to do that. Unfortunately, the werewolf was already getting back to its feet even though it looked like a Christmas ham that had fallen in the fire. It glared at me from only a couple feet away with murder in its eyes. So I did the smart thing and threw my dumbass down the rest of the stairs. Yeah, that was my idea of a smart plan, but really, since it disappeared into a dark alcove, I was reasonably sure the wolf couldn’t just leap down like before. He’d need to take the stairs just like a normal wolf monster. Besides, I needed to go down anyway, why take the long way?

  Somehow I came to my feet at the bottom and managed to only smash my face into the drywall and knock what I hoped was only a print of Starry Night off the wall. The sound of it crashing to the ground echoed in my ears as I dug the Colt 45 out of the waistband of my jeans and forced my bruised, battered body to continue down the stairs as they veered down and to the left.

  The stairway above me creaked and groaned with the sound of something rushing down toward me. I spun, putting a couple bullets into the red haze behind me, hoping to at least slow the creature even though it probably wouldn’t have done any good even if they had hit the wolf. Why, oh why didn’t I bring some silver along?

  I spun on my heel, racing down the stairs three at a time because, you know, predators don’t chase things that run away. By the time, I reached the bottom, my chest heaved with effort. I didn’t see the werewolf behind me yet, but that thought wasn’t exactly comforting because I was too busy trying to figure out where to go in a room with no obvious doors. I moved into the center of the darkened room, searching for a lever or button to open a hidden passageway, but didn’t see any conveniently placed bookcases.

  The sense that something was watching me from the darkness was nearly overwhelming as I skidded to a stop at the end of the room, running my hands over the wall in one last desperate attempt to find a means of escape. If I didn’t, that wolf was going to be down here, and while I’d somehow blasted it with fire once, I wasn’t sure I could manage the trick again.

  “Been a long time,” Ricky said, sauntering out of the shadows to my left. She wore only a painted on black crop top and denim short shorts. She tapped her lips with her pinky finger and flashed me a devilish grin as she looked me up and down as her eyes melted into a shade of amber that sent a chill running down my spine. Those were the eyes of a predator eyeing a rabbit in a lone field. “How’s about we take a moment to get reacquainted?”

  I shot her, emptying the Colt into her chest as she leapt, but all that wound up doing was covering me in her scalding blood as she landed knees first on my chest and drove me into the plush carpet. The back of my head smacked the floor and everything went dim. As she leaned in close, the only thing I could see as my vision faded were the braces on her too white teeth.

  Chapter 17

  A burst of adrenaline drove the sleep from my eyes as I awoke to find myself duct taped to a chair. Both relief and horror surged through me as I struggled vainly to pull myself free. Relief because I’d partially expected not to awaken at all, horror because Ricky was sitting just a few feet away, straddling the back of a cheap brown desk chair and staring at me with a bored look on her face.

  When she saw me stir, her expression vanished into a canvas of utter emptiness, and she rose slowly and gracefully, sliding her milky white thighs from beneath the arms of the chair before stepping lightly onto the floor.

  She padded in a slow circle around me, not speaking as her bare feet slapped ominously against the cement. Her long red fingernails glinted in the moonlight streaming into the room from somewhere behind me, making her white skin seem almost ethereal in composition. Gooseflesh broke out across my arms, and the hair on the back of my neck stood up as she took slow, languid steps around me.

  Every single time she disappeared behind my back, my heart hammered obscenely, and I almost wondered if she could hear it because her grin would be just a little wider when she reappeared on my other side even though the rest of her face remained horrifically blank.

  I tried to break free of the tape holding me to the metal chair, but it was no use. I wasn’t sure how much tape she’d wound up using, but from the look of it, I was betting it was nearly four or five entire rolls. It made me wonder how strong she thought I was, and that thought sparked a sudden hope in me. Maybe I was strong enough to break free.

  “Your scent has changed,” Ricky said, her warm breath kissing the flesh behind my right ear as she spoke. “You’re starting to think you might find a way out of this. You would be incorrect.” Nails punched through my white button up and into the flesh beneath causing my blood to well up and stain the fabric. A cry of pain escaped my lips even as I tried to clamp them shut around the sound.

  Her amber eyes flashed in the near darkness as she spun me around with no more effort than it’d have taken me to rip open a stick of gum. Her face was so near to my own, the tip of her pert little nose pressed against the tip of mine. Sweat glistened on her skin like tiny diamonds as she pressed her forehead against mine while simultaneously straddling my body, her thighs sliding around my waist and locking onto me with enough force to expel the breath from my body.

  “What’s going on in that little brain, I wonder,” she mused with a faint lilt to her voice. She rocked back and forth on top of me, causing the chair to do the same and the scratch, scratch of it along the concrete made my teeth hurt.

  “Not much,” I replied, somehow managing to keep the terror out of my voice. “I’m not really known for what’s between my ears.”

  “How would you know?” she barked, and the sudden rage in her voice nearly blew out my ear drums. “You know nothing, remember nothing. That was the bargain you struck.” Something dark and sinister shifted behind her eyes, and she smiled at me sweetly before shaking her head. “I see what you’re doing. Trying to be funny or annoying, I’m not sure which, but either way…” She reached up and dragged one fingernail down my cheek. Hot, burning pain exploded down the length of my face. “After I extract my pound of flesh from you, I’ll find out who you struck your deal with, Cursed.”

  Her smile widened, revealing white fangs that glinted in the moonlight streaming through the window behind her. Unfortunately, I couldn’t make out much beyond the window because all I could see beyond the glass was the full moon hanging in the air.

  “Focus,” she whispered, and her words tugged at my left ear before she bit down on my lobe. Another roar of pain crashed through me. My hands tightened into fists as I struggled to reach up and grab her, but it was no use. There was nothing I could do to stop her as my own hot, sticky blood ran down my neck and spilled onto my shoulder.

  Ricky pulled away and looked at me. A thin rivulet of my blood dripped down from between her lips to pool on the end of her chin like a tiny ruby teardrop. She chewed slowly as agony crashed against me in waves.

  “You bit my ear,” I growled, trying to hide my panic under a laye
r of rage. “Bitch.”

  “Guilty.” Ricky smiled and rocked again, pressing her lithe body against my chest and wrapping her arms around my neck. She grabbed my hair, pulling my head back and exposing my neck to her teeth. “Among my kind, biting down on another’s neck like this.” She nipped at my throat with just enough force to let me know she could tear out my jugular with very little effort. “Is how dominants enforce their role in the pack hierarchy.” Her tongue flicked out, trailing along my throat and up onto my cheek, lapping up the blood she’d spilled earlier. “At first, I didn’t think I’d like it, but do you know what I’ve found? I actually enjoy the taste of blood.”

  “So you’re trying to show you’re dominance over to me?” I said, forcing my voice into a conversational tone as I spoke. It was a damned sight harder than I’d expected because I really didn’t want her to rip my throat out with her teeth. That would really put a damper on the whole saving Sera, or anyone else, thing. “I’m tied up. Let me loose and we can have a right good tussle.”

  Ricky met my eyes, and wry smile melted across her bloodstained lips. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” she asked, arching an eyebrow as she reached down with her other hand and ran one sharp-edged nail across my inner thigh. “Is that what you want Mr. Demon Spawn? For me to let you out so you can beat me up? Is that what you’d like?” Her expression faded back into that strange emptiness that was somehow more chilling than her mania.

  “No, I’d rather you just let me go so I could save Sera from the ass hat who took her prisoner.” As I said the words, Ricky cocked her head to the side and peered at me like I was a very strange bug. Then she took one long, slow breath that made her tiny chest strain against her crop top.

  “Why are you so interested in saving her?” Ricky’s words were careful and measured, and as she said them, I got the feeling she wasn’t really asking me the question she wanted to ask.

  While I couldn’t say why, I got the distinct impression Ricky was definitely interested in my story. Maybe there was a way to talk myself out of my current predicament. Stranger things had happened, like, oh, I don’t know, waking up in a dumpster with no memory and an arm covered in demonic tattoos.

  “It’s the proper thing to do.” I let a smile play across my lips. “I know it sounds silly since I threw Loraine out a twenty-story window, but I don’t actually like seeing women get hurt. If it’d been you in that laundromat getting the shit kicked out of you by two thugs, rest assured, I would have helped you, Princess.”

  “What the fuck is wrong with you?” she asked, abruptly standing up and turning her back to me and her shoulders shuddered once. “What kind of answer is that? You shot my pack mates and threw one out of a twenty-story building because what? You’re some kind of knight in shining armor?”

  “I’m no knight. I just can’t stand bullies,” I replied, and as I admitted it, the faintest trace of light spilled from the tattoos on my arm. I wrinkled my forehead, staring at the light peeking through lines in the tape as a sudden memory filled my brain and burst from my lips.

  “When I was really little, there was this bully who always picked on me and my friends. I tried to get teachers and my parents to stop him, but nothing worked. After every attempt, the beatings just got worse and worse until finally, my friend Lefty who was blind as a bat and not half as interesting, ‘accidentally’ got his nose broken from a thrown baseball bat during recess. But I’d seen the look in the bully’s eyes when he’d let the bat go. He’d done it on purpose. I couldn’t let that stand. Not this time.”

  “That day, I snuck into the bully’s house while people were going in and out, and I hid in a broom closet beneath the stairs. I waited until all the lights went out and the house was dark as night. Then I crept out from my hidey hole. I made my way up the stairs, quiet as a mouse, and as I approached his room, do you know what I saw, Ricky?”

  “What did you see?” she asked, the moonlight dancing through her red hair as she turned to look at me. “What did you see?” she repeated, lips quivering.

  “I saw that very same bully pinned to his bed.” I shut my eyes, and the scene filled the inside of my eyelids, bringing with it the smell of stale beer, vomit, and sweat. My mouth went onto autopilot as I stepped forward into that darkened room an eight-year-old boy once again.

  My hand clutched the knife in my hand. It had belonged to my grandfather and its ornamental silver blade was sharp enough to cut the wings off a fly without the insect even knowing. The thing pinning the bully to the sheets was huge, more like a gorilla then a person with black tufts of hair sticking out from his sweat-stained tank top. I couldn’t quite see what they were doing, but the sound of it was all squishy and sloshy. The smell was worse.

  I can’t say why I took those last few steps, nor why I drove the weapon into the monster’s back, but I did. It roared in pain and anger, but I didn’t stop. I kept stabbing until the sheets were awash in blood, until I was covered from head to toe in the stuff.

  It knocked me away, and the knife slipped from my grip as I hit the closet door and slid down to the pale gray carpet. In the darkness, it was little more than a shadowy beast shambling toward me bellowing and hollering. I knew that if it caught me, I was as good as dead. I scrambled to my feet, but instead of running, I ran straight at it, swinging my fists.

  Whether it was from the blood loss or simply because the creature didn’t expect an eight-year-old kid to charge it, the thing stepped backward just as I hit it. My weight sent it toppling backward. The back of the monster’s head struck the corner of the bedframe. A sickening crack went through the room, resounding off the walls.

  It was dead then, but I didn’t know it. So what did I do? I retrieved my knife and went back to stabbing. Who knows how long I would have kept at it if that same bully hadn’t picked me up off the ground and brought me out of the room. I still remember the look of relief on his face as he shut the door behind us.

  I don’t quite remember the details after. I must have gotten home somehow. I vaguely remember washing the blood off in the shower, but I remember how the whole school talked about the bully’s house burning down that night because his dad had dropped a cigarette in the bed. Only he and his sister survived the inferno. They wound up moving across the country to live with their aunt. I never learned her name.”

  “Do you remember a similar story?” My eyes snapped open, and I stared at Ricky’s tear-streaked face. “If you don’t, your brother might.”

  Chapter 18

  “My brother never told me what happened. Never told me who saved us.” Ricky’s voice was fractured and brittle as she helped me to my feet. “It was the best thing that ever happened to us.”

  “I always wondered if everything turned out all right for you guys,” I said, reaching out and brushing the hair out of my face with my knuckle. “But I couldn’t remember enough to ever find out.”

  “You’re not supposed to have any memories.” She touched my hand with her slender fingers and a surge of warmth traveled along my flesh. “That’s what Van told me. So how do you remember that night?”

  “Van?” I shook my head slowly as she looked up at me, and I was surprised to realize I was over a head taller than her. It was weird because she’d exuded such a presence, it had felt like she towered over me. “I’m not sure who Van is, but I don’t remember much.” My hand dropped, so my knuckle trailed down across her cheek. “Only you and that night.”

  “Is that so?” Ricky flushed hard enough to turn her neck and shoulders bright red. Her eyes flashed in the darkness, and I realized they were the color of green sea glass. All traces of amber were gone.

  Before I could respond, she stood on her tip toes and pressed her lips against mine while her other hand wrapped around my back and pulled me into the kiss. Fireworks exploded behind my eyes. Warmth spread out across my body as her fingers kneaded desperately into my flesh.

  As I reached out to touch her, she stepped backward, breaking our embrace and leaving me s
tanding there dumbstruck. The feel of her lips on mine was so fresh, I had to fight with everything in me not to cross the distance between us and kiss her again.

  “I never got the chance to thank you for saving me, Mr. Brennan.” A sly smile broke across her face as she took another step backward, allowing the moonlight to bathe her. “But if you survive, we can do even more.” She winked at me, and my breath caught in my throat and my heart hammered double time. “You’ll find I can be very thankful.”

  Then, without another word, she walked across the room and pressed one pale hand against the darkened wall. The sound of compressed air firing cylinders filled my ears. I watched in amazement as the wall to my right slid sideways, revealing a rickety stairway that led down into the deep dark. Green torches flickered within, casting ominous, sickly shadows across Ricky’s face as she smiled at me one last time.

  “Good luck,” she whispered, dropping her hand as she turned to leave.

  “Come down there with me. We can do this together,” I said, reaching out toward her, but she slid lithely away so I wound up grasping only air.

  “No. Van has bound me to him. My pack and I cannot stand directly against him. You’ll have to do this alone, but don’t worry, Sera is down there. Your princess isn’t in another castle.” With those words, she vanished in a blur of speed that sent my lapels flapping.

  I’d be lying if I said I didn’t wonder if I should go after her. I knew I could, hell, I was pretty sure she wanted me to leave Sera behind to go after her. She would wrap me in her arms and we’d frolic all the way to the nearest motel room. If I did that, Sera would be lost to Vassago’s Cursed who I assumed was named Van. The same man who had snared Ricky and her wolves in his web. He had to pay.