twice cursed mage 05 - claimed (16 page)

“You’d have a lot more friends if you weren’t such a cock all the time,” Jack replied with a sigh.

“Firstly, I charged into a dark cave to save your buddy Duane, so I think I’m a pretty good fucking friend. Secondly, I’m still not forgiving you for the whole ‘tracking app on my phone’ thing.” I glared at him, glad to have something to distract me from the futility of trying to figure out how to infiltrate a place I’d never seen. “That’s some NSA bullshit right there.” I arched an eyebrow at him. “Besides, you’re an Indian. I doubt you’ve met Da Vinci.”

“Yeah, I’ll just have to console myself with the small fact I don’t give a handful of warm shit about what you think.” Jack let out a slow breath. “So as I said, ‘good news and bad news.’ Which do you want first?”

“Is the good news that you came to pick me up?” I asked, hoping he had some kind of plan to siege the place sans Maya.

When he didn’t respond, I opened my eyes and looked over at him.

“No. It’s that I got you some clothes so you aren’t running around like the hero in a romance novel.” He gestured to the backseat as he spoke. Which was also when I realized I was still shirtless. No wonder those teenagers had been gawking at me while I waited on the bus stop. It seemed like something I should have noticed, but honestly, I was still sort of recovering from the whole “I’d grown demonic wings of ash” thing. Trust me. It fucks with a guy’s head.

“What’s the bad news?” I asked, turning to see a duffel bag sitting in the back of the extended cab along with a pump action Mossberg shotgun. Well, at least he was prepared this time. I reached back and grabbed the duffel bag.

I pulled it into my lap and unzipped it to see a pair of blue jeans, a white chamois shirt, and a belt buckle the size of fucking Texas. Never mind. I changed my mind. Jack was a fucking idiot. I mean, I was going to wear the clothes, but I wasn’t super excited about looking like Jack’s fucking clone. The only upside to having a belt buckle like this was that I could probably beat someone’s skull in with it.

“There’s a barrier around the junkyard. I can’t get in. You might be able to get in, but I sincerely fucking doubt it. As it stands, no one is getting in there.” He let out a slow breath. “Duane might be able to help, but I doubt he’ll even wake up for another day or two.”

“What about bullets, do those get through?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. “Or a truck. We could just drive a gasoline tanker into the place and blow it up. Ricky will survive. She’s a werewolf.”

“Nah. When I said barrier I meant it. Think force field.” He fumbled in the air for a bit. “I can’t think of an example, but yeah, you ain’t getting through it.”

“Well, that sucks,” I said, trying to keep the despair out of my voice. “Guess I’ll have to figure something out when I see it.” Admittedly, I wasn’t super confident about it, but if push came to shove, maybe I could get my cat to do some heavy lifting. I was willing to bet she could tear that barrier to shreds if she put her mind to it.

“Guess so,” Jack said, squinting in the rearview mirror. “Better do it quick too.”

“Why?” I asked, pulling on the shirt. It fit perfectly, which was kind of nice for once. Then because I had nowhere else to do it, I slipped off my scrub pants.

“Do you have to do that here?” Jack asked, pointedly looking away and scowling. “The glare off your pasty ass is going to make me go blind.”

“Well, if you want to pull over, I’ll be happy to change elsewhere,” I replied, pulling on the jeans. There were no underwear, so commando it was. Well, you can’t win ‘em all.

“No can do. We’re being followed by a huge fucking osprey, and if I had to guess, I’m pretty sure that means Maya’s mom is watching us.” He made a tsking noise. “Not so good at killing folk are you?”

“I’m plenty good at killing folk,” I replied, glancing at the rearview mirror. I couldn’t see the bird because of the angle, but I believed Jack anyway. “But I’m even better at drinking beer.”

“Yeah, okay,” Jack said and flipped on the radio. Van Halen’s Running with the Devil came on, and as it did, I saw a smirk flash across Jack’s lips.

“Fucker,” I said while pulling on a pair of wool socks. “I swear you’re trolling me with the radio.” I slipped my feet into a pair of Wolverines and immediately felt better because I wasn’t wearing sandals. It was nice to be dressed for ass kicking for once, and I’ll be damned if I didn’t look like a fucking Texas marshal ready to kick some ass while smoking a cigar.

“Don’t tell me you don’t like Van Halen,” Jack said, grinning at me as I buckled the huge belt buckle. “If you don’t, I don’t think we can be friends anymore.”

“We’re friends?” I asked, eying the last thing in the duffel. Another silver Desert Eagle. The damned things were harder to get than a nun’s panties so where had he managed to find two of them? Still, I wasn’t complaining.

“Well, I’m more of a well-wisher in that I don’t wish you any specific harm.” He shrugged, not taking his eyes from the road.

“Whatever you say, Moe Szyslak.” I smiled at him and pulled out the Desert Eagle. I weighed it in my hand before tossing it back in the duffel. It wouldn’t be good for what I had planned. “Now pull, over. It’s osprey season.”

Before he could do anything, I’d grabbed the Mossberg from the backseat and rolled down the window. The osprey loomed large in the air behind us, and near as I could tell, it was close enough to take a face full of buckshot.

“Are you out of your goddamned mind?” Jack cried, reaching for me as I sighted the osprey with the shotgun.

“Do you even have to ask?” I asked right before I pulled the trigger. The sound shattered my hearing as the blast caught the osprey center mass and reduced her to a cloud of blood and feathers that fell out of the sky like a stone. I pumped another shell into place and fired again as she fell because, you know what, fuck her.

The driver in the car behind us, a black Camry, slammed on his brakes. While he didn’t hit us, the car behind him was significantly less lucky and slammed into his rear end with a crunch of steel. I ignored it as Jack succeeded in pulling me back inside the car.

“I repeat,” he said as the cars in front of him came to a stop and the sound of car alarms, horns, and shouting filled my ears. “Are you out of your goddamned mind?”

“Yes,” I said, throwing open the door and leaping outside, shotgun in hand. It was time to finish that shapeshifting bitch once and for all.

I wasn’t sure what people thought as I cocked another shell into place, but either way, no one tried to stop me. Despite recent statistics, guess none of them were concealed carriers after all, which was good. I’d hate to have to take down an innocent guy just trying to do what he thought was the right thing.

The osprey lay battered and bloody atop a parked car. Because she was so huge, she had fallen with enough force to shatter the windshield. She didn’t appear to be breathing, but I’d learned the council members could take a fantastic amount of damage.

“This is for Maya,” I said before putting the shotgun to her beak and pulling the trigger. The blast damned near evaporated her birdie skull, which made the whole lack of biting insects, frogs, and inexplicable darkness strange. “Odd…”

I waited for a hair’s breadth before emptying the rest of the shots into her just so I could be sure she was dead. By the time I was done, there was nothing left of her birdie carcass, but there was still no weird event. That didn’t make sense unless… unless this wasn’t her.

Before I could investigate further, Jack grabbed me by the scruff of my neck like I was an errant kitten and dragged me back kicking and screaming toward the truck. I’d forgotten how strong he was, and unless I wanted to try beating him with an empty shotgun, I had no choice but to let him carry me back.

“That’s not Martha, dumbass.” He shook his head as he tossed me into the passenger seat. Already people were staring at us like I was the crazy one. Okay, I mean, I’d just gunned down a mutant osprey in the middle of the day on a crowded street, but fuck them, I don’t need to explain myself.

“Who is it then?” I asked as Jack jumped into the driver’s side, twisted the wheel, and gunned the engine. The truck zoomed forward up onto the sidewalk and around the people gawking at us.

“You’re real fucking lucky I don’t have license plates yet,” Jack fumed as we pulled onto a side street and raced away as the sound of sirens approached. “Otherwise, I’d have to ditch this, and it’s literally an hour old.”

“Jack, who did I just wax?” I asked, ignoring his outburst as Just a Girl by No Doubt came blaring over the radio. It seemed odd considering the circumstances.

“Who the fuck knows, but that wasn’t Martha, otherwise fire would have rained from the sky. Did you see fire rain from the fucking sky?” I shook my head, and he continued. “How about next time you go and do some stupid shit, you clear it with me first.” He gave me his best cowboy Indian glare, and I almost flinched. Almost.

“How about you take me to Ricky before I get annoyed?” I growled back even though it wasn’t his fault. I was sort of angry at myself because I thought I’d been avenging Maya’s death, but apparent-fucking-ly, I’d been mistaken. I took my impotent rage out on the shells as I shoved them violently into the Mossberg.

“Look, Mac. The last thing we need is to get arrested. I’m not sure how you feel about killing your way out of a police station, but I don’t want to do it.” He shook his heads. “In this day and age, they’ll have your happy ass plastered from here to DC by the time we hit the fucking street outside the door. I do not need that kind of heat especially since I don’t fucking age.” He touched his chin with one finger. “I’ll always look this good.”

He was right, but I didn’t want to admit that aloud. So instead, I just busied myself looking out the window and trying to focus on what was to come. We had to siege an impenetrable barrier, and for some reason, I didn’t think it was inappropriately named. Well, I’d have to find a way. If not, Ricky would be trapped inside, and that couldn’t stand. Not by a fucking long shot.

Chapter 21

“So by impenetrable fucking barrier you meant a wall of solid fucking gold,” I said as I stared at the glittering, gilded dome surrounding the junkyard. It was almost too bright to look at in the noonday sun, but that’s why I’d stolen Jack’s sunglasses. “I mean, how do people not see that?”

“Magic.” Jack glanced at me, shielding his eyes with one hand. “And it only looks like gold. It isn’t actually gold. You’d see that if you took off the shades.”

“You’re just mad because I make these look good,” I said as I walked back and forth in front of the massive structure looking for any kind of vulnerability. “And you’re missing the point.”

The dome didn’t seem guarded, which irked me considerably, but then again, why guard outside the barrier. The only way to hurt the people inside was to get inside with them, and at the moment, that seemed impossible. Even without touching the golden surface, I could feel the hum of energy coming off of it in a way that reminded me of those big electric substations with the fat power cables. You could feel the electricity in the pit of your stomach.

“What’s the point?” Jack asked as he followed behind me, and for once he seemed genuinely interested in what I had to say. I’ll be honest, I was so shocked by it, I took a bit longer to respond than I should have.

“The point is this dome seems pretty obvious, and not just because it encompasses the whole dump. Shouldn’t people have noticed the dump is, well, not open?” I glanced at him, and he shrugged.

“I’m not sure what you want from me. It isn’t like I regularly come here. Maybe it’s always empty?” he replied as I squatted down beside a random patch of dome and dug my fingers into the soil beside its base. As I pried some of the dirt away, I saw the golden surface extended beneath the soil line. Great. Just what I needed. “Well, I guess tunneling is out.”

“Was that seriously an option?” Jack asked as he reached up and scratched the patch of forehead beneath the brim of the Stetson he’d stolen from Sargent. Speaking of which, where the hell was that guy? Actually, I didn’t want to know. The longer that bastard stayed gone, the better. I mean, okay, I’d gotten better at killing those council fucks, but at the same time, Sargent seemed to be a lot better than any of them.

I was both intrigued by the possibility of killing the fuck out of him once and for all and frightened at what would happen if I lost. To be fair though, I didn’t really think I’d lose. I mean, okay he was a supernaturally charged cowboy straight out of Hell, but I was Mac Fucking Brennan, and my demon ate guys like his boss for breakfast.

“Who knows? Maybe you’re friends with a mole man,” I said, reaching out and touching the dome with my left hand. I’d thought about using my demonic hand, but I didn’t want to set off some kind of booby trap attuned to Cursed like me. Chances were that even if this dome could blow normal people up, it wouldn’t because that would be messy.

Even though my left hand wasn’t disintegrated, I almost wished I hadn’t touched the dome since it sort of felt like rubbing a wet toad covered in grape jelly. The gold seemed to ooze between my splayed fingers, and in moments, my hand was filled with the biting sensation of pins and needles. When I couldn’t stand it any longer, I pulled my hand back and stared at it in amazement. The blood had completely fled from my left hand, leaving it pale and white. I mean, it was always pale and white, but now it was more pale and white.

“Nah, molemen are dicks,” Jack said, staring up at the sky in a way that made me think molemen might actually be real. Then again, why wouldn’t they be. Everything else was.

For a second, Jack looked like he was about to say more, but as he opened his mouth, a shadow crossed his face. I craned my head up to follow his line of sight and found myself staring at enough ospreys to blot out the goddamned sky. Black mist wafted off their wing tips, filling the air with a darkening blanket of fog that quickly descended toward us.

“Fuck,” Jack said as the birds turned toward us in one massive arc and dove.

“That’s a lot of birds,” I said, grabbing the Mossberg from the strap and pointing it skyward. It felt about as effective as pointing a squirt gun at a sandy beach, but if I had a choice, I’d rather fight ninety-nine birds instead of a hundred birds.