Marked: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Thrice Cursed Mage Book 2) (12 page)

By the time I reached the last step, my legs felt like jelly, and I was cursing in my head because it was too hard to keep doing under my breath. I leaned heavily on the banister and tried to stop gulping down air like the fat guy on the treadmill at the gym. Hey, I wasn’t judging. In fact, I was all for it. At least he was trying to change. I couldn’t imagine all the awkward stares he must get from the naturally skinny jerks.

The bunny sat in the middle of the room beside an unconscious man on the ground. I wasn’t sure how he’d gotten unconscious because Danton was leaning against the wall with a bored look on his face. What can I say, apparently, I’m way more out of shape than his cigarette smoking ass. It didn’t seem fair, but then again, maybe whatever power he had replaced the need for cardio. If I’d known that, I might have made a different deal.

“Nice of you to join us, Mac,” Danton said, glancing up at me before making a point of looking at his nonexistent watch. He gestured at the unconscious guard in the cheap blue suit. He sort of looked like a rent-a-cop, but not the traditional kind that looks sort of like they could be real cops. No, this guy resembled a private eye or something maybe even lower class than that. “Not a lot of security. That concerns me. There should be more than one normal guy with a shotgun, especially when you consider the sirens and werewolves upstairs. It’s sort of like going to the trouble of putting in a state of the art security system in your house and hiding your cash under your mattress instead of using a safe.”

My gaze moved from the unconscious guy to the folding chair facing the stairs I’d just come down. Even though there was a shotgun sitting next to it, there was also a tablet with multi-colored birds bouncing across its screen. It made me inclined to agree with Danton’s assessment of the situation. Something was definitely wrong.

As I puzzled it over in my mind, another thought flickered at the edge of my consciousness. Had Danton somehow managed to sneak up on the guard from the front? It didn’t seem possible even if the guy had probably been distracted by flappy birds, but then again, maybe Danton wasn’t joking about finding and killing me in some quiet place when I least expected it. He also didn’t seem particularly worried by our current situation, which struck me as good in a bad sort of way.

It meant he was confident he could handle anything down here, which was good. It also made me wonder why he had decided to help me. I didn’t buy for a minute it was simply his good nature. Part of the reason Danton had jumped at the chance to help me save Ricky was so he could get a crack at Jinn, but why hadn’t he just waltzed in and taken down Jinn himself?

Another scream tore through the back of my mind, and I unconsciously rubbed at my temple with the barrel of my Glock before I realized what I was doing. Part of me couldn’t believe I’d been that stupid. I could have blown my own head off. It must have been because the scream sounded way closer than it had been when we’d been upstairs. We were getting close. I could feel it.

Danton pushed himself off the wall, regarded the shotgun like he disdained the weapon, and took a step toward me. “Judging by how the bunny is acting, we’re close.” He nodded toward the rabbit. It was hopping from foot to foot in excitement. “He’ll want more carrots when we finish. If I don’t give them to him, he’s likely to go all Monty Python on both of us. You’ll have to take care of whatever is inside while I deal with Floppy over there, okay?”

“Are you seriously telling me your ghost bunny will try to eat our faces if he doesn’t get a magic carrot?” I asked, finally able to breathe normally after my fifteen story hike.

“Yeah, that is exactly what I’m telling you.” He shrugged. “It’s why a lot of people don’t use them, but hey, when you need to find a kidnapped werewolf, there’s nothing better. Werewolves are their normal prey.” He gestured at the unconscious guy. “I didn’t do that. The bunny did.”

“I think you’re screwing with me,” I said as the rabbit slowly approached a door at the far end of the room and touched the cool steel with its nose. An emerald green spark leapt off the rusty door and turned the bunny into a pile of ectoplasm. Its real paw twitched for a second, and the bunny started pulling itself together in a way that reminded me of stop motion Claymation.

“Think what you want, Mac.” Danton gave me a big cheesy grin. “One of us is the seasoned hunter while the other is so new, he didn’t even know he could see in the dark. Who would you trust?”

“Not you.” I strode past him and nudged the still-reforming bunny with the toe of my loafer, which wound up entering its translucent fur. It turned and looked at me with one half-formed eye and regarded me in a way that made me snatch my foot back posthaste.

“Is this because I think Hayden Christiansen is an amazing actor and the prequels are highly underrated?” Danton asked, watching with amusement as I tried to rub the slime off the bottom of my shoe onto the cement floor. “The special effects were
particularly
awesome.”

“You know, if I was Deadpool, I’d shoot you for a comment like that,” I replied, casually pointing my Glock in his direction even though I wasn’t actually intending to shoot him. This time.

“Is this where I’m supposed to say Jar Jar Binks is an abomination?” He grinned at me, and I got the feeling we could potentially become pals if he wasn’t on some kind of holy crusade to kill me for making a demonic bargain, but hey, you never know, maybe we’d find some kind of common ground, provided his ghostly bunny rabbit didn’t maul us to death or I shot him. The night was still young after all.

“So what’s the plan exactly? It doesn’t seem like your rabbit can get through the door.” I gestured to the stupid bunny still pulling itself back together. It seemed like it was taking forever, and the screaming in my head wasn’t getting any less frantic. If we didn’t find Ricky soon, I was going to go insane.

“I can open the door,” he said, moving past me and stepping up next to the door, careful to avoid the bunny rabbit as he did so. He held up his glowing hand. “I have a non-demonic hand blessed by the angel Gabriel.”

He grabbed the cheap brass knob and twisted. The door opened. There was no zapping, no turning into a puddle of goo. No, there was only the soft creak of the hinges as he pulled the door open. The hallway beyond was done in a sort of retro-chrome look that reminded me of a cross between a hospital and a space station out of a science fiction film.

Lights were set into the walls on either side, along with the floor and ceiling, casting the entire place in a weird sterile light that made me loath to step inside. Evidently, something about it bugged Danton too because a look of worry crossed his face. He actually stroked his chin like he was thinking. It was worrisome because it was the first time I’d seen him look even slightly concerned.

“What do you think, buddy?” he said, and before I could respond, he knelt down next to the rabbit and rubbed its head in a way the bunny clearly did not appreciate. “Want to take a hop inside and let me know if you explode?”

The bunny did not respond. Instead, it gave Danton a look that said clearly, “I’m not going to set a single ectoplasm-laden foot into that room, you stupid fuck stick.” It was a little weird because I normally didn’t get the impression rabbits cursed much, but evidently, I didn’t know them very well.

“I am not a fuck stick,” Danton said, getting to his feet. “That is no way to treat your anchor to this mortal coil.” He sighed, pulled his hand out of his pocket, and tossed something inside. It exploded in a burst of demonic-looking green flame that reminded me of Vassago. A shiver went through me as I remembered my time with the demon. I’d sooner get cavity searched by hairy armed TSA agents than meet that guy again.

“Was whatever you threw in there supposed to do that?” I asked, hoping it might actually be the case. I mean, I didn’t have a lot of hope, but still. It’d been nice if it worked out.

“In a manner of speaking,” Danton said dejectedly. “That smoke means this entrance leads into Vassago’s bar. I’m not sure if you heard of him, but he likes to place false entrances in places to trap people in his demonic pool hall. Unless you’re really good at some kind of bar game, I wouldn’t ever venture inside and even then…” He shuddered.

“I’m pretty good at darts,” I offered even though there was no way I was going to play that guy again. I couldn’t tell you why, but letting Danton know I’d beaten the demon once didn’t seem wise on my part. So I kept my mouth shut as I walked up next to him and reached out toward the doorway with my blackened hand. A strange tingle filled my mind, pushing the screams down under a layer of cotton as the cat who had given me my arm lifted its head and looked at me. The look on its face in my mind’s eye was pretty clear. It was annoyed with Vassago’s insolence.

“Not as good as a demonic prince of Hell who rules over twenty-four realms
and
has played pretty much since the game was invented.” Danton said, the hopelessness in his voice clearly evident. It was the sort of tone that made me think he might be cutting his losses. Well, I wasn’t going to do that. I was going to save Ricky before forcing Jinn to give up Pierce Ambrose’s location. Then I’d shoot Jinn in the face.

“So you can’t angel your way through his trap?” I asked, barely listening to him as I studied the door, looking for the spot where his magical portal melded into the door. I hadn’t found it yet, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t there. I shoved my gun into the waistband of my slacks and felt for the magic I knew was there. “Guess Gabriel isn’t as bad ass as I thought.”

“I’m not sure what to do now,” Danton said, ignoring my comment. “When this happens, we have no choice but to turn back. Vassago is just too powerful to mess with. We’ll have to find another way.” He looked at his shoes. “I’m sorry for your friend. Even if we went through this door, and you beat Vassago, he’d stall us plenty long enough for her to already be dead.”

Instead of responding to his tirade, I shut my eyes and concentrated. My demon had helped me beat Vassago before and clearly didn’t like the guy. Maybe she’d help us again, if only to piss off the demon prince. I know I would in her situation, then again, I was kind of a dick, and she was a cat, so there was that.

“You want me to help you, don’t you?” the demon cat asked, and this time I got the impression I was standing in a huge open field while she watched me from the tall grass. It was disconcerting to say the least. I was going to have to work with her on the whole interaction thing.

“Help is such an ugly word,” I replied, turning in a slow circle to see if I could find her, unfortunately, the only thing I saw was miles and miles of tall green grass. Where the hell were we, the plains of Iowa? “I merely wish to present you with the opportunity to piss off Vassago.”

“Is that so?” the cat asked, and I saw a calico ear twitch in the distance. She wasn’t far off at all. Good. “That sounds like you’re trying to trick me.”

“It’s not a trick,” I said, sitting down in the grass Indian style. “Look, I’m not going to lie. I need to get through the door, and you don’t seem to care for Vassago very much.”

“He is a petulant worm so lowly, he should be scrubbing the dirt from beneath the toenails of my lowliest servant, not running twenty-four realms.” The cat appeared from the grass, eyes glowing with soft red light, and sauntered toward me with her tail raised in the air like a lazy exclamation point.

“So teach him a lesson. Tear down his doorway. Teach the world how pointless he is.” I smiled at her and reached out my hand toward her.

“I dislike you, Mac Brennan,” the cat replied, nuzzling up under my hand in the way cats do. “But you make an excellent point. I will do as you ask. Grab hold of his door, and I will shatter it.”

“Thank you,” I said, but the scene had vanished, and I was left staring at the door. I could sort of hear Danton still chattering in the background. I didn’t even try to figure out his words because they were probably something like “I’m a giant wuss too scared to go up against Vassago.” Well, I’d done it before, and my thought process was simple. Screw that guy.

The doorway glowed in front of me with eerie green light, and unlike before, now I could clearly see the seam where it was psychically tack welded to the frame. As I reached out toward it, my tattoos burst into literal flames. Hellfire leapt from between my fingers as I grabbed hold of the doorway and pulled. There was a sound like a thousand banshees screaming as the magical doorway flared and pulsed like a dying star before tearing free of the frame with an explosion of glowing emerald confetti.

The green sparks danced through the air like tiny fireflies before settling down on my arm and vanishing inside my flesh. Power surged up my arm, flowing into me and sending my senses into overdrive. Ricky’s scent filled my nostrils as I took a deep breath and stepped through the doorway. Nothing at all happened.

“Did you just do what I think you did?” Danton said, and I turned to see him standing there dumbfounded.

“You mean rip Vassago’s stupid portal off the wall like it was made of tissue paper? Yeah, I did that.” I stabbed my chest with my still glowing thumb. “Remember that when you come at me in the dark of night.”

“You don’t have any idea what that means do you?” Danton’s voice had a haunted quality to it.

“No, and while I do want you to tell me, can it wait until after we save Ricky? The absolute last thing I need right now is to have you spooking me. Capiche?” I drew my pistol, turned away from him, and strode across the hallway.

Chapter 14

By the time I reached the doorway at the end of the hallway, Danton still hadn’t stepped foot inside. Part of me wondered if this was where we’d part ways, but I sort of hoped it wasn’t. I wasn’t sure why, but I still liked having him around, and you know, there was the whole Jinn thing. While I knew nothing about Jinn, it sure seemed like Danton did. Still, I didn’t have time to wait for him to come to his senses. I had to save Ricky, stomp a mud hole in Jinn, and confront Pierce Ambrose. Yeah, it was fixing to be a long night.