Marked: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Thrice Cursed Mage Book 2) (11 page)

Her hand shot out, and she grabbed me by the throat, simultaneously pinning me there and cutting off my air supply. As her fingers tightened against my flesh, my temples began to throb and my lungs began to burn. Man, I really hated getting choked.

“Not so tough without your gun, are you Mr. Brennan?” she asked, one perfectly shaped eyebrow arched in condescension.

I tried to say something like, “That’s why I brought two guns,” but it sort of came out like “Mmrf mmph,” before being punctuated by a gunshot to her stomach. She stumbled backward, releasing me. Her eyes were wide in shock as her hands went down toward the wound in disbelief.

I sucked down a breath of battery acid laden air and put another round in her forehead. The blast made the back of her skull evaporate into fine mist as I brought the weapon around and shot her two dumbfounded companions. See, that’s why you need to expect the unexpected. Otherwise you get caught off-guard and shot in the face by silver bullets. Judging by what it did to them, they weren’t expecting the unexpected.

A slow clap filled the space, and I turned toward it to see Danton leaning against the door, clapping. The big guard from earlier was lying unmoving at his feet. I wasn’t sure if that was good or bad since Danton appeared to be the only person left inside, and I really didn’t have time to fight him.

“Don’t shoot,” he said as I brought the Glock around and pointed it at him.

“Why not?” I asked, not lowering my gun.

“Because I’m going to help you.” He smiled at me. “It’s what I do, mate. I help the helpless.”

“But you said you were going to kill me.” I narrowed my eyes at him. The smart play would be to kill him, unless of course, he wasn’t lying. He hadn’t had to give away his position. So why had he? Especially knowing I might shoot him.

“Yeah, well, the gal who runs this place is way worse than you are at the moment. Enemy of my enemy and all that. Help me get her, and I’ll give you a pass.” With that, Danton strolled across the floor and picked up my fallen Glock. He held it out to me, grip first. “What do you say? Partners for the next few minutes?”

Chapter 12

I stared at Danton’s outstretched hand and let out a sigh. “Fine, we can pretend to be friends.” I snatched my gun from his hand and suddenly felt significantly better because I now had a gun in each hand. And people say guns can’t bring you happiness.

“Excellent,” Danton replied, looking like he never doubted me for a second. It was weird because I was pretty sure I’d never been looked at in quite that way before. I usually got more of a “please don’t shoot me in the face” reaction.

“Good then,” I said as another scream ripped through the back of my mind. I stumbled forward, nearly collapsing into Danton. Pain crawled across the back of my mind like an icy spider, and I had no doubt, whatever they were doing to Ricky was far worse. A snarl burst from my lips as the urge to tear the heads off her tormentors filled me nearly to bursting.

Danton gave me a long, hard look and gestured at my white-knuckled grip on my pistols. “I’m guessing we probably don’t have a lot of time.” He held out his right hand to me while I stood there woozily. “Give me your hand so I can take a psychic reading of you. Then I’ll use this to find Ricky.” He held out a tiny rabbit’s foot that had been dyed bright blue.

“A lucky rabbit’s foot? Are you being serious right now?” I asked incredulously. Maybe getting Danton to help me was overrated. I didn’t have time for this at all. I had to find Ricky before they hurt her worse. I’d already spent too much time up here dealing with flunkies. I did not have time to deal with Danton’s special brand of crazy too.

Then again, he had given me a fishhook charm to counteract the sirens. That had to count for something. Using a rabbit’s foot to find Ricky certainly seemed a little loopy, but what was the alternative? Writing him off as a nut job and going alone? That seemed like a really poor idea given that for all I knew, Jinn was guarded by Nazi kangaroos with Gatling guns. The thought almost made me hope those were a real thing because, awesome.

“I’m going to link it to Ricky through you. It should lead us to her. Trust me.” He winked at me. “Unless you have a better idea, in which case, I’m all ears.” He lifted one hand and pushed on his ear. “No? Well, give me your damned hand then.” A sly smile slid across his face and settled there. “See what I did there?”

“Yes,” I replied before offering him my demonic hand. “Anyone ever tell you you’re remarkably clever?”

“About as often as they tell me I’m ruggedly handsome,” he said, taking my hand. “So quite often.”

As he touched it, a strange coolness settled across my skin. The demonic cat who had given me my cursed arm shrieked so loudly, it drowned out everything around me. The world swayed. My vision went completely black save for the image of a shimmering mouth full of endless pointy teeth the size of mountains. The jaws curled into a grimace. She was pissed. No, not just pissed. Livid.

“No,” she said, and the word exploded in my brain like a grenade.

The image shattered in a spray of shrapnel, and I cowered away from it, desperately throwing my arms up as I shut my eyes against it. When I didn’t immediately die, I slowly opened my eyes and suddenly found myself lying flat on my back in the middle of the glass floor. Danton stood over me, a look of shock on his face.

“Are you okay, mate?” he asked, reaching out to help me up as a particularly aggressive tiger shark circled in the water beneath me.

Instead of taking his hand, I pointed my gun at him. “What did you do? And don’t give me any crap. You just royally pissed off the cat who gave me this arm.” The tattoos running along my flesh pulsed with faint angry light with every word I spoke, emphasizing my point perfectly.

Danton held up his hands, a mostly genuine look of shock plastered across his face. “I swear, Mac. I didn’t do anything more than I said I would.” He pointed to my left, careful not to make any sudden movements.

An honest to God sapphire-furred bunny rabbit the size of a small dog sat there twitching its nose. The rabbit was mostly ethereal except for one of its feet. That seemed solid enough. Well, he’d certainly done something. I just wasn’t sure it was helpful.

“You did something else,” I said, getting to my feet. It was harder to do than I’d expected since I suddenly had a headache the size of Montana trying to burst out of my skull. That combined with the background noise of Ricky’s painful cries was going to make concentration difficult. Hopefully, I’d get to kill something soon, otherwise I was going to lose it. And not in a good way.

“All I did was link the ghost bunny to Ricky’s imprint. It should be able to find her.” He shrugged in a way that made me think it was part of his normal response to life in general. “It’s less than ideal, I know, but I was sort of low on options.”

“I don’t believe you, but I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt since I’m sure someone has to be on the way here to stop us,” I said, watching the bunny carefully. It made no sudden movements. “Make it go.”

Danton flicked his wrist, and the bunny went. It hopped along, sort of favoring its actual leg until it reached a door set into the far wall and vanished through the white particle board. I tossed a look at Danton, and he shrugged in a way that said, “After you.”

“Whatever,” I said, making my way toward the door, and even though I should have checked for traps or something, I pressed against the stainless steel panel on the door without bothering. Time was of the essence. Besides, I’d seen waitresses going in and out of here earlier so I doubted it was rigged with a bomb.

The door swung open without smiting me, which was awfully nice of it. The room beyond was mostly empty save for a huge counter filled with dishes. It had concrete walls, one of which was taken up by a mammoth-sized sink, and a huge floor drain set into the concrete floor. It sort of reminded me of Jack’s bar in that whole “it’d be easy to clean blood off the walls” way.

The rabbit sat in the center of the room, twitching its stupid bunny nose and ignoring the door into the kitchen on its left. When the creature caught sight of me, it rolled its blue eyes before loping across the room until it stood in front of the right wall. It hopped up and down a couple times and shook its ears.

“What’s wrong boy? Did Timmy fall in the well?” Danton asked from behind me, and I turned to see him standing only a few feet behind me. He had what looked like a glowing carrot in his hand.

The rabbit bounced again, and Danton threw the creature the nuclear carrot. The bunny opened its mouth impossibly wide, reminding me of a snake unhinging its jaw to gulp down something twice its size. Before I could blink, the rabbit leapt into the air and snatched the vegetable, swallowing it whole.

“Seriously?” I said, my mouth agape as the bunny landed lightly on the grate and vanished through the wall with a flick of its cottontail.

“You think Floppy works for free?” Danton asked, fishing a package of mini carrots out of his pocket. He shook the bag at me. “Everything has a price. Remember that.”

“You just happen to have a bag of magical carrots in your pocket at all times?” I replied incredulously.

“And here you probably thought I was just happy to see you,” he said, moving past me and holding his hand out toward the wall. As he did so, he started humming a tune that sounded remarkably like Amazing Grace but more punk rock. Golden light spilled from his fingertips, painting the room in soft, angelic glow. I wasn’t quite sure what he was doing, but I suddenly felt a lot more relaxed than I had a moment ago. Was it a side effect to his spell?

Danton pressed his hand against the wall, and the light leapt from his fingers, snaking across the surface. There was a loud crack, and the room shook just a touch. Danton smiled and shot a glance upward and muttered something. It was a little weird because his eyes were closed. The light pulsed. The wall crumbled to dust, leaving a hole almost exactly the size and shape of a door.

The bunny sat just beyond, glowing with eerie blue light. When it caught sight of Danton, it stamped one foot impatiently, twitched its nose in irritation, and took off bounding down the dark hallway.

“I hate going into darkened hallways,” Danton said, annoyance filling his voice. “Even the goddamned Death Star had fluorescent lighting.”

A grin I couldn’t stop spread across my face as Danton shoved the carrots in his hand back into his pocket and made his way into the hallway. Evidently, he was taking the lead which was good since I had no clue where the rabbit was going to lead us, and he had the magic bag of carrots. Besides, if something attacked, it’d get him. Win, win.

Fortunately, as we made our way down the hallway, we didn’t step on any invisible floors and fall to our doom nor did we trigger a spear throwing zombie attack. We did, however, come to a set of steel stairs that led down below. The metallic scent of fresh blood filled the air as we approached, and I got the feeling they’d been recently used. As I stared at them, trying to figure out why, faint glowing footprints appeared on the stairs. Well, that settled things. Something had definitely used them.

“Are you doing that?” I asked the demon cat, but her only response was a Cheshire grin. Well, that was really helpful.

The rabbit either couldn’t smell the blood and see the glowing footprints or wasn’t bothered by them because it hopped down the stairs until it reached the landing below and disappeared from view.

“Well, time to follow the bunny trail,” Danton said, one hand in his pocket, the other outstretched in front of him. It was still glowing, but not as brightly as before. Was he using the light to see? That was weird. I could see pretty well so why did he need a light? Then again, he’d made the comment about fluorescent lighting too…

“Is it dark in here?” I asked, glancing around the room for an obvious light source and finding none.

“Yeah, it’s pitch black in here.” He shot me a look. “Not all of us have those Riddick eyes.” He gestured toward my face with his glowing hand. “That’s one of the few perks you guys have I really would love. The ability to see in the dark is not overrated. Sure roaches scurry when you shine light on them but being able to see them before they crawl up your trousers would be nice.”

“I didn’t realize I could see in the dark,” I said, trying to think back. I’d remembered being in darkened rooms and not being able to see well, but then again, maybe I just hadn’t noticed I’d seen better than normal? It seemed likely. When I’d fought the other Cursed, it had been in a darkened room, but that hadn’t seemed to bother him much either.

“You are the dark, mate,” Danton replied, gesturing at my arm.

Before I could respond, he started down the stairs whistling his strange tune. It was a little strange because I was worried we were going to get attacked, although that may have been because of the screaming in the back of my head. To say I was edgy was an understatement. Barring the initial attack by werewolf ninjas, this had been remarkably easy. After all, we were following a magic bunny rabbit down a hole. That hadn’t exactly been all unbirthday cake for Alice.

I let out a slow breath, glanced over my shoulder, and seeing nothing, made my way after them, fully expecting something to jump out shout, “Off with their heads!” It wasn’t that I was paranoid per se, it was more that being on a stairwell with a werewolf hadn’t been sunshine and dandelions last time, and I wasn’t keen on a repeat performance. Then again, I had two .45 caliber Glocks loaded with silver ammunition. If something jumped out of me, I was going to give it the Mac Brennan special.

Chapter 13

Evidently, I was overly paranoid because even though I was ready to go all sorts of zombie apocalypse on whatever monster decided to show its ugly face, nothing jumped out at us from the shadows. For fifteen entire floors. That’s right, fifteen. We walked down fifteen flights of stairs. It sucked.

Hadn’t these people heard of elevators or at least an escalator? I mean, I probably wouldn’t have used the elevator because hello, ambush, but still. Still. And who has fifteen subterranean floors anyway? No one good, that’s for sure. On the other hand, it did explain how they’d built such a deep shark tank. An enclosure that size was nothing when you had fifteen stories to work with. For all I knew, the shark tank had only been built because they were like “What the hell do we do with all this extra space?”