twice cursed mage 05 - claimed Read online

  “So, if I am hearing you correctly, the next time we make a deal, I shall offer you brightly-colored objects instead of unlimited power,” the cat mused, brushing her head against my left knee, totally marking me like I was her prison bitch. “Good to know.”

  “To be fair, you can get most humans to do pretty much anything for shiny objects and chocolate.” I smirked. “It’s why they wrap Hershey’s kisses in silver foil.”

  “You are an idiot, Mac Brennan, but I will help you find Ivy because you are my idiot. As for braining her with your shiny stick, that’s up to you,” she purred before flopping down next to me and licking herself. Her body practically vibrated as she dragged her tongue across her black, white, and orange fur. “But when you confront the Consort, I would like to take him for myself. Make it so.”

  With those words, the scene shattered, and I found myself staring into Jack’s face. He was only about two inches away from me, and it damned near shocked the hell out of me, though not nearly as much as what the cat had told me.

  Was she planning on eating Asmodai too? It didn’t bother me that much, to be honest because I’d been planning to kill the demon anyway, but something about the way she said it chilled me. I wasn’t sure what the ramifications were for her to keep eating demons, but I was pretty sure it wouldn’t be puppies and kittens playing in the sunshine. Still, it wasn’t like I had much of a choice in the matter. I’d made a deal with her, and I’d have to follow through, especially if I wanted her help.

  “What are you doing?” I asked, glaring at Jack as he continued to loom in front of me like some kind of cheesy B-movie villain.

  “You got all cross-eyed. I thought you might have had a stroke or something.” He shrugged and scratched his forehead with one stubby finger. “You about ready, or do you need to dance with the Devil some more? If you do, I’m pretty good with a fiddle.”

  “I’m good,” I replied, pushing past him and stepping into the cave. It was lit up with crimson light, reminding me of those old movies where the bad guy’s night vision was always red and evil. Of course this was my vision, and while I wasn’t sure if I was a bad guy or evil I was reasoning I was way better than Ivy because fuck her, this was my show.

  Off in the distance, I could sense something dark and powerful, and though I couldn’t say for certain who or what it was, I was pretty sure it belonged to Ivy. If it didn’t, well, we were going to be in trouble because the idea of tangling with whatever that was and someone as formidable as Sargent didn’t seem like a winning bet. Still, I had my gun and my pimp staff, and best of all, I was Mac Brennan. It was time to terminate some bitches, Chuck Norris style.

  “So why aren’t you moving yet?” Jack asked right before I stepped into the cave, gun at the ready.

  “Is she really called Ivy?” I whispered because the only thing I could picture in my head was the cartoon version of Poison Ivy from the Batman cartoon. “Or is that just a nickname?”

  “I don’t have any idea. I just used the name because you did,” he said, shrugging as we cleared a set of stalagmites and turned down a darkened corridor.

  “I didn’t realize I was on nickname duty.” I couldn’t say why, but despite the winding maze of tunnels stretching out ahead of us, I felt like I knew where to go. Jack obviously agreed or didn’t care because he didn’t comment. Instead, he followed behind me, holding his Mossberg like he expected something to jump out and yell “Boo!” To be fair, it was likely only a matter of time.

  As we moved closer, I didn’t get the sense anyone else was in these caverns. Sure, I sensed a few people up by where I suspected Ivy was but not anyone else. Either my cat wasn’t bothering to show them to me or Ivy was overconfident. Judging by the others I’d dealt with, I was almost inclined to go with overconfident, but you don’t stay alive for very long with thinking like that, and I very much wanted to stay alive.

  As we crept closer to the malevolent power source ahead, Jack heaved out a sigh and muttered something under his breath.

  “What?” I asked, glancing at him over my shoulder.

  “Why are you going so slowly?” he asked, pointing past me with one hand. “They’re way up ahead. There’s no one here.”

  “We don’t know that and besides, there could be traps.” I shook my head at him. “I don’t want to get caught by either of those things unprepared.”

  “There’s no one there,” he replied, sucking in a huge lungful of air through his nostrils. It almost seemed like he was counting to ten in his head before he exhaled. “I can literally smell the blood in your veins as well as the blood of those up ahead. Trust me, nothing is going to jump out and go boo.” He thumbed his nose at me. “I’ll smell anyone long before he gets anywhere near us.”

  “There could still be traps,” I said, unable to keep the dissatisfaction out of my voice. I couldn’t tell you why, but I suddenly felt kind of stupid, which was dumb. There should have been guards. I mean seriously, who was running this amateur hour. Then again, I’d seen Bruce Lee kick through metal and Sargent swat bullets out of the air.

  “In all seriousness, would you even know what a magical trap looked like?” Jack asked, raising an eyebrow at me. It was weird because he was outlined in scarlet so for a moment it made me think he was the Devil. “I mean, I expect you’d see a bear trap or something, but a magical one?”

  “Well, no,” I said, unable to keep the sheepishness from my voice. “But…”

  “No buts. Stop being a whiner.” He smirked at me. “You’re Mac Brennan. You’re supposed to be like the Terminator and Chuck Norris combined. Why don’t you go in there and roundhouse kick them to death after demanding they give you their clothes.”

  I stared at him for a long while, unsure of what to make of that. I mean, okay, I was Mac Brennan, but I still did things smart. I mean, okay there was the time I drove a hotwired Ferrari into Van’s secret hideout with only a cursory idea of what to do before storming the place and killing the bad guy, but I’d met some pretty crazy characters since then and gotten smarter.

  “You don’t understand,” I said, shaking my head. “This isn’t like the time I grabbed a parachute and jumped out of a plane with no plan. We have time. We should use it.”

  “If this is where you reveal to me you’re scared, I’m going to smack you like a little bitch.” Jack moved past me and tromped through the darkness like he didn’t have anything to fear, even fear itself. “Just pretend you’re John Fuckin’ Wayne and go kill some Injuns.” He shot me a grin. “Present company excluded of course.”

  “Yeah, fuck communism,” I replied, gripping my Desert Eagle tighter and following behind him. I wasn’t scared per se, but I’d seen things, and the idea of going off half-cocked when I didn’t have to seemed insane. Unfortunately, Jack was also right. I should be moving a bit faster. After all, I had to save Duane and Ricky and kill a whole bunch of fuckers. So far the only one I’d managed to take down was the one I’d ambushed. Fuck that. I was Mac Brennan. Chuck Norris had nothing on me.

  “Is that some kind of joke?” Jack asked as I shouldered past him, marching down the cavern. If a trap came at me, well, I’d punch it in the fucking face. “The communism thing?”

  “Yeah, it’s from Preacher.” I shrugged, sweeping my gaze around the cave in an effort to avoid a trip wire. “It’s a comic where a demon fucks an angel and they have a kid. The main character is a preacher who has a lighter his dad got from John Wayne in ‘Nam.”

  “You’re a fuckin’ nerd,” Jack replied, watching me in the darkness. “And not the good kind of nerd who makes a billion dollars.”

  “Fuck off, Redskin. Don’t make me go all White Devil on your ass,” I replied, unable to keep the annoyance from my voice. “Because I’m so not above giving you a smallpox infected blanket.”

  “Yeah, I’m not sure I’m comfortable with you saying things like that,” Jack said, and I couldn’t tell if he was being serious. I decided to ignore him. If he couldn’t take a joke after calling me a
nerd, well, fuck him.

  Instead, I turned my attention back toward the cavern. The pulse of darkness was so close I could feel it on my skin like a grimy film. I wasn’t sure what Ivy had in store, but as I stepped around the corner and found myself staring out into a basin lit with effervescent blue algae, I sucked in a breath. Water dripped from the ceiling, and as I stepped forward, the air hit me like a wet breath.

  A blonde woman about seven feet tall with a short military buzz-cut and a tattoo of an eagle riding a swastika emblazoned on her back stood in the center of the room wearing black leather chaps and a pair of black suspenders. I couldn’t see her face from here, mostly because she had her back to me, nor make out quite what she was doing, but I was guessing from the way Duane was squealing on all fours in front of her, he wasn’t enjoying whatever it was.

  Still, he wasn’t naked, so I was relatively sure she wasn’t going all deliverance on him. Duane screamed again, and his horrific cry told me one thing. He’d screamed enough to nearly lose his voice. Well, that was fine. I’d make her pay for that too.

  I wasn’t sure if this Nazi bitch was Ivy or not, but since I didn’t see anyone else in here, I decided to play it safe and let her catch a bullet with the back of her skull. I lined up the Desert Eagle on the back of her blonde head and pulled the trigger.

  I’d barely pulled the trigger when she’d spun, snatching the bullet out of the air. The sound of the shot was still ringing in my ears as she eyed me like a disgusting bug. Her face was as plain Jane as they came, but she made up for that by having knockers the size of basketballs. As she stood there glaring at me, she sucked in a breath that made her suspenders try very hard to keep her covered. I’ll be honest, the sight of her made some very weird thoughts flicker across my brain.

  “You dare shoot at me from the shadows?” she said, rolling the .50 caliber round between her thumb and forefinger as though the heat in the metal meant nothing to her. “You are a pussy.” She dropped the bullet and raised the leather riding crop in her left hand. “You must be punished.”

  Which was pretty much when I shot at her again, squeezing off three quick bursts that she deflected with her stupid crop. She surged forward, moving with too much speed for me to quite comprehend. One moment she had been across the room, the next she was all up in my grill, her suspender bound breasts practically pressed against my chest as she wrapped her left arm around my head. As she locked me in the headlock, she raised her right fist and drove it into my skull, grinding her knuckles into my scalp.

  “Let me show you how we treat little boys,” she said, leaning in close so her breath was warm on my ear as she spoke.

  “Are you giving me a fucking noogie? Seriously?” I cried, driving my elbow into her side as hard as I could. “Not cool.”

  She released me and wobbled sideways, and as she did, I popped the top on my pimp cane. Pink light exploded from its surface as I brought it around to brain the Nazi bitch. She must have made her reflex save because she stepped sideways, narrowly avoiding my attack. My cane smashed into the cavern floor with a thunderous crack that split the rock like it was made of eggshell.

  Her eyebrows went up in shock, but before I could pop the top to try again, her left hand lashed out. The riding crop struck my cheek with so much force, my head felt like it spun around on my shoulders. As I stumbled backward, and the Nazi came closer to me, her teeth bared in an animalistic snarl, Jack lunged from the shadows and sprinted past us without even a passing glance in my direction.

  Chapter 13

  Because I wasn’t about to lay back and wait for a vampire to decide to come back and save me, I spent all my man points on ignoring the pain cascading through my cheek and focused on the Nazi bitch. Wherever Jack was going, he clearly wasn’t getting involved. That was fine. It’d been a while since I’d gone hand to hand with someone, and to be honest, it was high time I made people remember why I wasn’t to be fucked with. So yeah, maybe I had to hit a bitch, but come on, she was like the head cheerleader for the Hitler squad.

  “The safe word is ‘mama’s boy,’” she said, smacking the crop against her right hand with a heavy thwap. “When you say it, I will stop beating you and put you in chains to bring before Asmodai.” She licked her lips, dragging her tongue across the bright pink flesh in a gesture that was somehow intriguing and revolting at the same time. “I don’t know what he has in store for you, but I promise I will be there to watch.”

  “Yeah, yeah, you’re real scary,” I said, calling upon my power. A sheen a flame exploded from the tattoos painted across my right arm, and as it did, I felt a surge of strength move through me. “Ignis!”

  Fire shot from my hand at the woman. I wasn’t quite sure how, but she dodged, stepping lithely by my attack and closing the already small distance between us. Unfortunately for her, I’d counted on that. As she stepped into my guard, riding crop raised, instead of following through with another fireball like I’d planned, I dropped my elbow onto the top of her left knee.

  The resounding crack of the tendons snapping was loud even over her cry of pain, and as she started to fall forward, I surged upward, using my legs to give me added oomph. I cracked her hard under the chin with my pimp staff, and even though I’d neglected to make it roll twenty, her head still snapped backward in a spray of blood. She collapsed backward onto the stone floor as I pulled out Mr. Eagle and pointed it at her face.

  “Let me sing you the song of Mac Brennan,” I said, calling more Hellfire into my palm. As her eyes flicked to it, I pulled the trigger. She moved, but she was a hair too slow. The bullet caught her in the right forearm as she tried to bat it away. She mostly succeeded in that my shot hadn’t blown her fucking head off, but the round still buried itself into her arm so I was counting it as a win.

  She let out a howl of pain as though she couldn’t believe I’d shot her. I wasn’t sure how long I had left before she recovered or turned into mecha-Hitler or something, so I did what any grown man would do in this position. I popped the top on my pimp staff and prepared to go upside a bitch’s head.

  “Stop,” she cried, and the urgency in her voice made tiny chills of pleasure I tried to ignore run down my spine.

  “Why the hell would I do that?” I asked, and as she opened her mouth to reply, I brought the cane down on her skull. She tried to block it, but she couldn’t hold off the full force of my blow. The cane knocked her bleeding arm out of the way as the diamond head smashed into her face.

  Pink light lit up the room like a flashbang as her skull exploded in a spray of blood and bone that totally wrecked my nice sandals as well as most of the stone around her. As she slumped headless to the ground, the distinct sound of frogs filled my ears. I smirked. See, the seven weren’t so tough. Two down, five to go.

  “Good job, you killed a Nazi,” Jack said, and as I turned toward his voice, I saw him standing by Duane in the center of the room. Duane was free of the chains that had bound him. Well, sort of. He was still wearing the cuffs and manacles, but the chain looked like it had been torn in half. I wasn’t sure how Jack had done that since I hadn’t ever seen him use superhuman strength, but in the absence of other evidence, I decided to never arm wrestle the vampire.

  “Well, you know me. I’m all about killing Nazis,” I said, looking Duane over. The old druid looked like he’d been on the wrong end of a pissed off Dominatrix. Welts and cuts covered his body, and already dark bruising covered most of his exposed flesh. His white button up was splotched over with blood and most of the buttons on the front were torn off to reveal deep gouges in his chest.

  As he looked up at me with one blackened, swollen eye, he grinned. “Thanks, Mac.” His voice was a wheeze that made me feel bad in the “I’m human too and having a voice like that would totally suck” sort of way, but I decided to ignore it. I figured he wouldn’t want my pity.

  “So what’s the plan now?” I asked as Jack bit his wrist with a sound like someone biting into an apple and offered it to the old man. Duane took o
ne look at the blood and shook his head.

  “That shit will play hell with my digestion. All I need is a couple hours of rest in a forest, which coincidentally is right outside.” He smirked. “Now carry me out.” He clapped his hands together. “Chop, chop.”

  Jack dropped him as he rightly should have, but Duane managed to keep his balance. The old Druid shook his head. “This is the last time I let you rescue me,” he said, glancing at Jack before shuffling toward me, leaving the Indian standing there with a bemused look on his face. Then he fucking decked me in the mouth. I stumbled back in disbelief as Duane wrung out his hand.

  “What the fuck?” I cried, grabbing my jaw as the metallic taste of blood filled my mouth. “I just saved you.”

  “From the jackasses you brought to town,” Duane said, kicking at the headless Nazi with one boot. “I mean, Jesus, Mac. You are like a walking talking bad fucking idea. Every time, you come around, my shit gets all fucked up.” He held out his hand, offering it to me. “Thanks for saving me, but I’ve got to get my happy ass to Alaska.”

  “What the fuck is in Alaska?” I asked, eyeing his hand like it was a sack full of garbage.

  “Not you,” Duane replied dropping his hand to his side. “Danton might be a lying, conniving, piece of shit, but at least he didn’t bring down an entire demonic fucking army on the city.”

  “So you’re leaving?” I asked, and the surprise in my voice stunned me. “I thought you guys would help me…”

  “I am going to help you,” Jack said, coming up and putting a hand on Duane’s shoulder. “Duane’s just got smacked around a bit. He’ll feel better once he frolics in the forest like the nymph he is.”

  “Alright,” I said, turning away from the two of them so I could make my way out of this stupid cave. The sound of frogs was nearly overwhelming. Guess that was Ivy’s thing. A smirk crossed my lips. So she was a toad after all. “Because I’d hate to think you were going to renege on our deal.” I glanced over my shoulder and narrowed my eyes at Jack. “People tend to regret breaking their promises to me.”