twice cursed mage 05 - claimed Read online

  “Ho, Ho, Ho, now I have a machinegun,” I said in my best John McClane voice as I stood and glanced down the hallway for more attackers. Seeing no one, I emptied the Heckler & Koch submachinegun into the thin wooden door they’d been guarding. As it clicked empty, I kicked the door inward. It shattered, mostly because I’d turned it into Swiss cheese. Two more guards were slumped against the far wall, both in the process of ducking for cover and pulling out their weapons. Blood flowed from the multiple bullet wounds covering their bodies.

  Ignoring them, I moved forward with my Desert Eagle at the ready. I could feel one of the signatures just ahead, but the other was moving away. I wasn’t sure which one Maya was with or if she was even with either, but I was going to check the closer one first. I grabbed the MP5 from the first of the fallen guards and peeked out into the main room. No one shot at me, so I ventured toward the closed bedroom door, careful to keep my head down.

  Since the blackout curtains were drawn, I didn’t see the need to stay out of sight. No one would be seeing me through them, especially since most of the lights were either broken or off. As my feet crunched across the debris strewn white carpet, I almost felt bad for the cleaning lady who’d eventually come up here. The suite had been nice before I’d wrecked it with dead bodies and gunfire, but part of me wished they’d have avoided the white carpet. The blood was going to be hell to get out. Oh well. That’s what insurance was for, right?

  I had half a mind to empty the Heckler & Koch into the bedroom door, but if Maya was in there, I couldn’t risk perforating her on accident. Instead, I kicked in the door, aiming my sandaled foot so it struck just beside the jam. The thin wood splintered as the door swung inward to reveal a lavishly appointed bedroom complete with imitation Van Gogh’s and fake marble tile.

  Maya was not inside. Instead, an Asian woman with raven-colored hair that fell to her waist sat at a tiny table. She was wearing a white kimono covered in crimson storm clouds and was in the process of bringing a porcelain teacup to her lips. Evidently, all the gunfire and sirens didn’t concern her.

  “Who, pray tell, are you?” she asked, raising one perfectly shaped eyebrow at me.

  “Mac Brennan,” I said and unloaded the full power of the MP5 at her. Even though the weapon was capable of firing eight hundred rounds per minute, it only held thirty rounds. Those thirty 9mm rounds crossed the distance between us near instantly, and faster than I could blink, the woman knocked them out of the air as she stood, one hand still clasping her teacup. She didn’t spill a single drop. Holy fuck. Okay, this was going to be a touch tougher than I’d expected, but that was fine. I was up for a challenge.

  “Predictable,” she said before sipping her tea. “If you’re here for my daughter, you will not get her. We are taking her home.” Her eyes narrowed into slits. “You will not stop this from happening. I am her mother, and I know what is best.”

  Her revelation shocked me. I mean, I knew Maya had a mother because biology, but I hadn’t realized the whole demon serving thing was a family business. No wonder they were desperate to get her back. Even knowing that, the idea that they would give their daughter to a fucking demon was absolutely crazy. What kind of mom did that?

  “Whatever you say, Mommie Dearest,” I replied, taking an angry step toward her.

  Her eyes narrowed and before I managed a second step, she flung her teacup at my face. As I dodged by the cup, and it shattered against the wall directly behind where my head had been, she came flying at me like someone straight out of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. A kick snapped out at me, and as I tried to dodge, she twisted in midair. Her other foot caught me in the side, driving the wind from my lungs.

  I fell forward to my knees, gasping for breath as she grabbed me by my hair and hauled my head up so I was looking up at her.

  “You do not seem terribly formidable. I do not know why Asmodai wants you.” Her face twisted into a sneer as she brought her fist toward me. I let my body start to move like I was going to try to dodge, and then, just as she was reorienting herself to hit me as I moved away, I dropped my forehead down. Her middle knuckles struck the hard bone of my skull with a horrific crack.

  Red blossomed across my vision as pain exploded through my head. She let out an earsplitting screech and staggered backward, releasing me. Confusion filled her features as she stared at her hand. Evidently, she hadn’t expected me to do that, which was sort of the whole idea.

  Before she could recover, I came to my feet, swinging the empty Desert Eagle around. I pulled the trigger while calling upon my newfound bond with the cat to boost my speed. My tattoos went nuclear as gunfire exploded from the barrel of the gun. My speed boost surprised the fuck out of her, and for the moment, I was glad I’d increased the bond between us. I’m sure I wouldn’t be so thankful later, but at the moment, I just wanted to kill the fuck out of this bitch.

  The .50 caliber bullets struck the woman as she tried to knock them away, but unlike the 9mm rounds of the MP5, these bullets were weighty motherfuckers. She staggered backward under the onslaught as the sound of metal slapping flesh filled my ears.

  A snarl erupted from her throat as she lunged at me, mouth open and teeth bared. The full force of her shoulder caught me in the chest, driving me backward. As I fell and my back slammed into the tile, I rolled while kicking at her stomach, throwing her off of me. She went flying across the room and slammed into the curtained window. She surged up while pushing off the window and wound up tangling herself in the curtains. While she struggled, I brought around the Desert Eagle and aimed at her still bound right shoulder.

  “You might be able to see the future, but you’re no match for my click, boom style,” I said and pulled the trigger. She dodged because of course she did, and as she did, the bullet hit the glass behind her, shattering the window into a rain of razor sharp shards that cascaded down around her.

  As she started coming forward, I fired again while kicking outward with my right foot. It wasn’t a solid hit thanks to recoil being what it was, but my boot caught her in the side of the jaw, snapping her head sideway and sending her stumbling toward the window. She hit the sill as her right hand closed around my pant leg. She jerked hard in an effort to keep from tumbling outside, but since I was off balance, all that did was pull me along with her.

  I scrambled for grip, but all I succeeded in doing was grabbing hold of jagged glass and slicing open my hands. Pain stabbed at me as her weight jolted me from the window twenty stories in the air. As we fell down toward the pavement, she released me and laughter burbled up from her throat and filled my ears.

  “This is where you die, Mac Brennan,” she said, and like fucking magic, she turned into an osprey. You know, those birds of prey with the pointy beaks?

  I had half a second to realize what had happened as she hovered there, wings flapping easily in the wind before I plummeted past her to my doom. Fuck.

  Chapter 16

  Since there was no way in fucking Hell Mac Brennan was going to die by being thrown out of a twenty-story building by a chick wearing a kimono, I spun in midair and aimed my free hand at the guardrail on the roof.

  “Necto!” I cried, and as the word left my lips, a scarlet tendril of energy shot from my hand like I was the goddamned Spiderman. The osprey dodged by my lifeline, evidently thinking it was an attack of some sort, which was fine with me because my tendril smacked into the building near the roof with an audible thwip. I had half a second to breathe before the line snapped taut, jerking me violently to a stop. My feet dangled over empty air as momentum being the bitch that she was, slammed me into the white stucco side of the building. Still, I wasn’t dead via a hard stop at the bottom. I mean, what was I, a werewolf?

  Cop cars screamed on the ground far below me, and it wouldn’t be long before someone looked up and saw my happy ass dangling like a crazed jumper. I wanted chaos, sure, but not if it wound up getting me shot at or locked in a jail cell. Neither of those would be particularly awesome, and let’s be fair, new
s footage of me tearing the wings off a fucking osprey probably wouldn’t go over well.

  Still, first thing was first. I needed to get the situation under control. I gritted my teeth together while my shoulder screamed in pain. Somehow, I managed to get my sandaled feet underneath me, planting them against the side of the building. I reached up, gripping my right wrist with my left hand in an effort to pull some of my weight off my shoulder and concentrated past all the craziness going on around me.

  Which, of course, was when the osprey dove at me, talons wide and glinting in the sunlight. So what did I do? I called upon my power and tried to pretend I was Batman. Because let’s be honest, if you can be anyone, you should be Batman.

  Just as the Osprey’s talons tore into my back, the tentacle attached to the building pulled me up just like Batman’s grappling cable. Pain and blood ripped across my body as I was jerked violently upward and out of the bird’s reach before she could bury that sharpened beak into my throat.

  Granted, it hurt like a sonofabitch, and I’d be lying if I didn’t let out a choice word or two, but by the time I slammed into the top of the building, most of my pain had drowned in a sea of adrenaline as I struggled to keep myself alive. My shoulder ached like I’d gone ten rounds with a world class arm-wrestling champion, but I did my best to grab ahold of the roof with my left hand. As my fingers closed around the guardrail, and I started to haul myself upward, a yellow blur caught my eye.

  I turned toward it in time to see Bruce running toward a helicopter in his stupid yellow jumpsuit with a determined expression on his face. He had one arm around Maya’s waist, and if she was conscious, it wasn’t apparent.

  “What have you done to my wife?” he asked as he caught sight of me. His words carried an edge of menace to them that made a snake of fear wriggle in my gut, especially since I’d seen him kick through solid steel before. Not that it mattered. I was barely hanging onto the building, and I had no idea what had happened to his wife, the fucking bird of prey.

  “It’s a building. What do you think happens when people fall out the penthouse window?” I asked while trying to climb up onto the roof. It was harder than I expected in flip flops because they didn’t have much in the way of grip.

  Relief flashed across his aged features. “You had me worried, but my wife can fly.” He smirked and shook his head. “Dumbass.” With that, he climbed aboard the helicopter and tossed Maya’s unconscious form into the passenger seat. Damn. That was no good. I couldn’t let him escape. If he did, who knew where he’d take Maya. Another thought struck me, and Jack had said we’d need Maya to save Ricky. No. No. No. I couldn’t let him escape. I couldn’t!

  As the big blades atop the vehicle began to spin through the air, I clambered up onto the roof as quickly as I could and wound up sheering off some skin in the process, but I didn’t care. I had to hurry. It was windier than I expected, probably due to the force coming off the helicopter, but I ignored it as I sprinted toward the whirly bird while hoping a kung fu osprey didn’t make an appearance.

  The helicopter began to lift into the air. Fuck. If he got away now, who knows where he’d take Maya? That couldn’t happen.

  I leapt toward the vehicle as it lifted and my fingers just brushed the helicopter’s footing before I began to tumble back down toward the building. As my feet touched the ground, and I stumbled forward, I let myself fall while twisting my body and reaching toward the escaping vehicle with my cursed hand.

  “Necto!” My tattoos flared as the tendril shot from my hand for the second time in as many minutes. It slammed into the underside of the helicopter with a thwip and stuck there like a blast of webbing from Spiderman’s web shooters, and as relief flooded through me, because it’d actually fucking worked, it was immediately replaced by absolute fucking horror as I was jerked over the edge of the building.

  My feet kicked frantically in the air as I dangled twenty feet beneath a helicopter as it flew through the city. My shoulder screamed in protest as I whipped through the air. Thankfully, I didn’t see the osprey anywhere, but I still had a big fucking problem. I wasn’t sure if Bruce knew I was hanging on to the helicopter’s underbelly like an unwanted spider, but either way, I was headed straight toward the side of the building. Even my rudimentary understanding of physics told me that despite my naturally hard head, it was a losing proposition.

  I sucked in a breath and willed the tentacle to retract with all the speed it could muster. I slammed into the underside of the helicopter hard enough for my teeth to rattle in my skull as the roof of a skyscraper passed harmlessly beneath me. I had half a second to suck in a relieved breath before my entire body fell backward, welded to the helicopter by my fingertips alone.

  My muscles shrieked in agony as I was carried through the city in a way that made me immediately think every Spiderman comic ever was full of shit. This hurt way too much for it to be practical. Well, it was time to stop modeling my actions after comic books. So what did I do? Made a bad situation way the fuck worse.

  I unslung my Desert Eagle, aimed at the tail rotor, and emptied to gun. Let me just say this. Shooting at the tail rotor of a helicopter you are riding is a fucking stupid idea. The first thing that happened was the rotor blew apart in an explosion of shrapnel that damned near skewered me, and then because there’s always an “and then,” the helicopter went into a death spiral.

  My body was flung sideways as we began to spin, and the Desert Eagle slipped from my grip and fell to only God knows where. As my back slammed into the hardened underbelly of the helicopter, I knew I only had one chance. I shut my eyes, hoped like hell my plan would work, and took a deep breath. Then I released my Spiderman hold on the underside of the helicopter.

  I was immediately flung sideways, and as I arced through the air like a badly hit baseball, I flung my hand toward the helicopter and called upon my power.

  “Ignis!” A ball of flame exploded from my hand and streaked through the air like an angry red comet. It smashed into the cockpit of the helicopter as Bruce fought to right the damaged aircraft. The windshield shattered in a spray of molten glass and debris as I reoriented my hand on the helicopter’s new entrance.

  “Necto!” The tendril shot from my hand, and as it did, my vision tunneled. I was running low on power, but even still, my aim was true. I threaded the tendril through the hole in the glass. My shoulder was instantly jerked out of its socket, but I ignored it, recalling the tentacle as quickly as possible.

  My body was ripped forward through the air in a modified spin, and as I slammed through the hole in the helicopter’s face, Bruce decked me in the jaw. The momentum made me black out for a second, and by the time I blinked myself awake, Bruce was wearing a parachute and had Maya strapped to him.

  Instead of saying any cool supervillain lines, he popped the pin out of a grenade, tossed it in my general direction, and leapt from the crashing helicopter. While I struggled to orient myself to my new reality, I heard his chute open, and as it did, I gritted my teeth, released my magical hold on the helicopter, and threw myself backward into the air. I angled myself, just like I had when I’d gone after Ricky when she’d been thrown from the plane, turning my body into a bullet.

  The only upside was that Bruce wasn’t far from me and I reached him a second before the helicopter exploded. The shockwave threw me forward into him, and as he drove his elbow into my chin, I somehow managed to grab onto his harness.

  He reared back to punch out my lights, but I whirled around him, clambering onto his back and wrapping my arm around his neck in a chokehold. As we careened through the air, he tried to swat at me, but even though his punches were like sledgehammer blows, I hung on until we slammed into a big plastic cow attached to a billboard telling me to eat more chicken.

  My breath shot from my lungs as I collapsed backward onto the billboard’s platform. Bruce was less lucky because his parachute snagged on the hooks at the top of the advertisement, stringing him up. It gave me enough time to get to my feet, but as I
did, my entire world swayed dizzily and the taste of blood filled my mouth.

  Bruce sucked in a gulp of air as I took a step toward him before releasing his harness and dropping lithely to the ground, Maya still strapped to his body.

  “Let her go,” I growled, and while I’d meant to sound tough, the wind carried away most of the force of my words. I settled for fixing him with an icy glare which he ignored.

  “Why do you care for my son so much?” he snarled at me while gesturing to Maya. “Are you some kind of freak too?”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” While I tried to figure out why he’d just called Maya his son, I took another step forward and nearly slipped. My hand went out, catching hold of the plastic cow, and I steadied myself. Barely. Fuck, I needed to concentrate. The ground below looked both too far away and too close for it to be good. If I fell from here, I probably wouldn’t die, I’d just be crippled for life. That didn’t exactly seem fun. “What do you mean by your son?”

  “This is my son.” He made a disgusted snort at Maya. “No matter how much surgery he gets, he’ll never be able to take my daughter’s place.”

  “Wait,” I said as a strange realization washed over me. “Maya’s a boy?”

  “His name is Tom.” Bruce unsnapped the restraints holding Maya onto him and dropped her to the platform behind him. He rolled his neck, eliciting several cracks before raising his hands in front of himself like a European boxer. “Maya died in a car accident years ago.” He glanced toward Maya. “That is not Maya.”

  I took a deep breath as I tried to wrap my head around what he was saying. The idea that Maya was a boy didn’t make any sense. I mean, she didn’t look or act like a boy. I shook my head, trying to clear away the confusion. My head was pounding way too much for this conversation, and even if it was true, part of me wasn’t even sure why he was telling me. “What do you mean, Maya’s dead?”