Seized: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Thrice Cursed Mage Book 4) (3 page)

“I am Vitaly, and I am pleased to be meeting with you, Mac Brennan,” the big Russian said, taking my hand in his. As we shook, I kept waiting for him to shatter every bone in my fragile fleshy hand. He didn’t. His grip was firm in a way that told me he was very sure of himself. “You are the replacement, yes?”

It made sense since he was the size of a grizzly bear. His shaved head gleamed in the sunlight as he smiled at me from behind a beard that would put a hipster lumberjack to shame. Despite looking like a convict straight out of the gulag and giving off the air of someone you don’t, under any circumstances, fuck with, he was dressed in a suit that cost more than I’d have been able to spend in a lifetime.

“Yeah,” I said, not sure what else to say to that. “Care to fill me in on the job? I’m a little hazy on the details.”

The big Russian nodded at me before waving the teenager into the booth. “We have job to do. We finish. We get paid. Is simple job. Lots of killing.” He shot me and Jenna a look. “Killing is your job. Is specialty, no? Vassago assures me you are very good at it.”

Jenna smiled, showing just the barest flash of teeth. “Sugar, I’m an artist with a shotgun, and don’t even get me started on C4.”

“I bet you’re an artist with lots of things,” the doll said as the girl plopped it on the table in front of her.

“That’s kind of rude,” I said, glaring at the doll. I wasn’t sure why, but something made me feel protective of Jenna in a way that wasn’t a hundred percent normal.

“I can’t help what he says,” the girl replied, shaking her head in a flurry of pigtails. “Believe me, I wish I did.”

“Wendy doesn’t make me talk,” the doll said, giving him the stink eye with his blue button eyes. “I’m my own man.”

“How much of a man can you possibly be with her hand up your ass?” Jenna said from next to me. The way she spoke tugged at a memory I couldn’t quite grab onto. As soon as I tried, it slipped through my fingers like smoke.

“Want to find out?” Marvin the doll replied. “I’ve got nine inches of solid oak with your name on it.”

“I’m not making him talk,” Wendy said, her face flushed with embarrassment as she stepped back from the table and putting her hands up. As she did so, the doll slumped forward lifeless. “He’s possessed by my brother, who usually behaves like a jackass.”

“What do you bring to the table, exactly?” I asked, glancing from the creepy ventriloquist doll to the pigtailed cheerleader. Neither of them seemed like they belonged on this mission, but then again, I was well aware appearances could be deceiving. For all I knew, the girl was capable of tossing Vitaly through a solid brick wall with one hand.

“Sacrifice,” Wendy said as a waitress walked up with two trays heaping with food.

Before she could say more, the big Russian smacked the table with one huge hand, silencing all of us before gesturing for the woman to put the food down. “That is enough talk. Bunch of little girls you all are.” He pulled a flask from his pocket, took a huge swig, and wiped his mouth. “Now is time for eating. Afterward, we go kill many people and save Angela Prescott. It will be good day.” He grabbed a paper wrapped burger and eyed it carefully before taking a bite that engulfed half the hamburger. He chewed while eyeing each of us. “Any questions?”

“Wait,” I said, narrowing my eyes at the Russian. “Aren’t we supposed to save all the children?”

“No,” Vitaly shook his head. “Job is only for one.”

“Not fucking good enough,” I snapped, barely resisting the urge to leap to my feet. Instead I put my right hand flat on the table and called my power. As my tattoos began to glow like a red neon sign, I let all the emotion drain from my face. “I signed on to this to rescue all the children, not just one.”

“Mac, that’s not how this works,” Jenna said from next to me, and as I glanced at her, she shook her head just a touch. “We must get Angela out, the others too, if we can…”

“Well, we damn well better get them all out or I swear, you’ll see just how hot-headed I can really get,” I lifted my hand from the table. The spot I’d been touching had melted into slag. “Understand?”

“That is bridge to cross when we arrive. We will try to save all, but no point in arguing now,” Vitaly said, taking another swig from his flask. “Okay?”

Even though it wasn’t actually a question, I nodded, anyway. I wasn’t sure what else I could do at this point because he was right, it might not matter at all and would lead us to pointless arguing. After all, it didn’t seem like they were opposed to the idea. Not that it mattered. I was leaving with all the children no matter what.

“Okay,” he repeated, setting his burger down and the way he looked at me made me think he might tear off my arms and beat me to death with them.

“Okay,” I replied, snagging an onion ring. “But when we get to those kids, plan on revisiting this conversation.”

“Fair enough,” Vitaly said, and took another bite of his burger while leaning back into the booth. Beside me, Jenna visibly relaxed, and I realized she’d been pointing a Baby Eagle at the Russian from under the table. So, she would have helped me if the Russian got into it with me. That was good to know.

As she slid the gun out of view, I took a bite of my onion ring. Unfortunately, I never got to finish that onion ring because as I swallowed my first bite of greasy, fried goodness, a nun wearing a bandolier and an eyepatch blew a hole in the big window at the front of the diner with a shotgun and tossed a grenade inside.

Chapter 3

Vitaly leapt past me in a nearly unfathomable burst of speed and threw himself on top of the grenade like we were fellow soldiers and he wanted to save us all. Well, that explained how he’d gotten himself injected with Captain America’s super soldier serum.

“Get down!” he cried as things started to ripple beneath his flesh like a swarm of sub-dermal ants. Judging by the look on his face, I was betting he thought he could save us, but at the same time, I wasn’t sure how the big man could contain a freaking grenade blast. He was big, but he wasn’t that big, and for all I knew, it wasn’t a normal grenade. After all, it had been hurled at us by a nun in a bandolier. No, it was probably a Holy Hand Grenade.

“Tueri!” I cried, calling upon my magic to shield me from the coming blast because I trusted the Russian about as far as I could throw him. As a protective coating of liquid fire blazed across my flesh like I was the Human Torch, I did a very stupid thing. I sprinted past the Russian, trying to get to the nun before she could pull another grenade off her bandolier and chuck it inside.

As I landed on the other side of Vitaly, the grenade beneath him exploded, splattering me with pieces of the huge Russian. I bit my lip, ignoring the urge to turn around and look at the aftermath as the shockwave knocked me from my perfect landing. I stumbled forward and sprawled onto the tile, my ears ringing. As I struggled to keep hold of my bearings, my brain filled with cotton in a way that made me think I was on the beach of Normandy with Tom Hanks in Saving Private Ryan.

I hit the ground hard on my shoulder, and my bones shrieked in pain. Thankfully, I managed to roll through it and spare my collarbone some of the unrelenting force. As I came up on my feet, I caught a shotgun blast with my chest. The force of the buckshot was enough to knock me on my back. Fortunately, my magic shield kept the blast from perforating my delicate skin with lead. Even still, it felt like someone had tried to shatter my ribs with a baseball bat.

As I sucked a breath into my aching lungs, I crawled to my feet, trying desperately to regain my footing, another pair of bandoliered nuns burst through the front door. One grabbed the spacey hostess, who despite having been next to a grenade blast, had done little more than stare at the door in a trance. The nun shielded the girl with her body and pulled her outside. It seemed a little weird since there were other workers in here, but then again, maybe they were too far away and had already been deemed casualties?

“What, not interested in saving anyone else?” I grumbled as the other nun came straight at me. A wicked, gleaming scimitar etched with symbols I didn’t understand in one hand.

Instead of responding, she slashed at me. I hopped backward, barely dodging her attack as the nun outside racked another shell into her shotgun. What the hell were my partners doing? Probably ducking for cover because they were, you know, intelligent. Still, if they didn’t act quickly, this was going to end very badly, very quickly.

The scimitar came whirling at my head, and without thinking, I threw my right arm to block. Pain exploded through my forearm as the blade sliced through my shield and into my tender flesh. The smell of burning meat filled my nose as I grunted in pain, yanking my arm back in astonishment. I’d tanked everything from cars to massive exploding firestorms with my shield, but she’d cut through it like it was made of warm butter. How was that possible?

“How?” I muttered just as the nun snap kicked me in the stomach with enough force to throw me backward off my feet. I slammed into the Formica bar and toppled to the ground as a huge shadow fell over me. Well, that was great. Like I didn’t have enough to deal with.

“Your pitiful weapons are nothing to me,” a creature hewn from my deepest, darkest nightmares roared at the nuns, which was good because the sound damned near blew out my eardrums. If it had been aimed at me, I’m not sure what I’d have done. I mean, okay, I’d have kicked its ass, but I had no idea how I’d have gone about it since the eighteen-foot-tall creature stood just a few feet behind me. It sort of resembled the werebears I’d fought before except this werebear was large enough to make the ones I’d seen before look like cubs. “For I am Vitaly, The Widow Maker!”

The ground shook as he smacked his chest with one furry claw the color of freshly spun copper. The sound rang out like a struck gong. Holy fuck! That was Vitaly? Thank God he was on our side. With him on our side, I wasn’t sure how we could lose. As that thought flitted through my brain another one came tumbling after it. If Vassago had felt the need to recruit a guy like this, who the fuck were we going to face getting those kids back?

The nun who had floored me with ease, looked dubiously at her partner with the shotgun. Fear filled her features to the brim. I didn’t blame her one bit, and not just because the sight of Vitaly made me want to run away and hide, and he was on my side. The sight of him standing there all huge and menacing with frothy foam drippling from his toothy maw struck something primal inside me, triggering my fight or flight mechanism. It took a remarkable amount of control to keep from blasting him with Hellfire.

It was probably a good thing I didn’t because not only was he my ally, but my arm ached from where it’d been sliced open. Tiny, angry flames sprang from the wound, which was crazy because it wasn’t deep enough to concern me much. This wasn’t anything like the bone-deep slice I’d experienced at Maya’s hand a few days ago. No this was barely even something worth washing off with peroxide.

As Vitaly reached out toward the sword-wielding sister with a paw the size of a catcher’s mitt, the nun outside fired her shotgun. The buckshot smacked into Vitaly’s side, and the bear barely seemed to register the attack. There was a flare of silver light as he took another step forward. The smell of cooking flesh filled the air as Vitaly looked down at the wound and bared his huge yellow fangs. Without slowing, he waved one hand at his torn flesh. Like magic, the silver pellets pushed themselves from his skin and fell to the ground, clinking across the tile with an air of finality.

“Pathetic. Silver cannot harm me!” the Russian roared, lashing out with one huge paw in a blur of movement. He grabbed the barstool next to me and tore it free like it was attached to the tile by chewing gum and not anchored with six inch bolts. He whirled, flinging the stool through the shattered window. “For I am Vitaly, The Widow Maker!”

The barstool caught the nun with the shotgun across the chest with a wet thwap that threw her from her feet. She went skidding backward across the street, which was when I realized why they’d pulled the hostess outside and why the nun with the sword was running for the door at breakneck speed. There was another nun outside, and she was aiming a fucking bazooka at us. She quirked a smile at me, crossed her chest, and depressed the trigger on the massive weapon.

Flame exploded from the back of the bazooka as I scrambled to my feet and leapt through the window, bringing my fist around in a haymaker that caught the bazooka shell in the side. To be honest, I had no idea how I’d managed it, nor why I’d decided punching a bazooka shell was a good idea, but as I was blown across the sidewalk like a rock skidding across a lake, I almost wished I hadn’t.

I slammed into a bus stop, shattered the glass holding advertisements in place, and crashed onto the bench. As I lay there trying to remember how to breathe, the magical shield surrounding my body died away, leaving me staring at a fucking Abrams tank rolling down the empty street. Who the hell were these nuns? The armored sisters of the sixth division?

As I got slowly to my feet, glad I wasn’t fucking dead, but still sort of pissed my shield had decided to vacate the premises when I was face to face with a tank, I flipped the tank the bird. After all, I never let a little thing like insurmountable fucking odds stop me before.

The tank didn’t seem to have noticed me, despite my comet-like exit from the diner, which was good because I wasn’t sure how to go about fighting a tank with my bare hands. It rumbled toward the diner, smashing parked cars into junked ruins and churning up the cracked asphalt like it was made of mud.

As the tank’s big gun swiveled to take aim at the diner, a dozen nuns armed with what looked like oversized silver dog-catching equipment jerked Vitaly out of the diner. Behind them, a blacked out van stood with its doors opened. More nuns were spread out beside it, firing AK47s into the diner with reckless abandon.

I took a deep breath and called upon my magic so I could even the odds. Crimson light leapt from my tattoos, and as my magic flared, my vision went blurry. Before I could stop myself, I collapsed to my knees, sucking in gulps of air like I’d just run a marathon. My heart hammered in my chest, and my skin went cold and clammy. Had I already used too much magic? It seemed impossible, but then again, I’d just been blasted by a bazooka.