Free twice cursed mage 05 - claimed by j a cipriano Page B

get to my feet. As I did, he kicked me in the shoulder and a solar flare of pain exploded behind my temples. I crashed to the ground, barely biting back a scream as my left hand gripped my bleeding shoulder.
    “Now, Mac, while I don’t mind hurting you. It is terribly time consuming.” He pressed the toe of his cowboy boot into my wounded shoulder and ground down. My vision went spotty with pain, and this time I couldn’t bite down my cry of agony. “I don’t really like hunting people down. Again, time consuming. I’ve got me a nice place back home. I want to get back to it.”
    “So why don’t you just kill me and be done with it?” I asked before he kicked me roughly in the side. I felt my ribs give way with a startling crack. I tried to suck in a breath but found I couldn’t as another fresh bout of pain wracked my body.
    “Boss changed his mind after you killed Rachel.” Sargent shrugged. “Wants you alive. That’s bad for you.” He pointed the gun at Maya. “Now while I may like her Daddy, I like being alive way more. Get up, put your hands on the back of your head, and stand there like a fucking statue, or the next round goes in her face. Understand?”
    “Yeah,” I said and started to get up. It hurt more than it should have. As soon as I’d complied, he smiled at me, and I got the feeling holding people at gunpoint wasn’t an abnormal occurrence for him. No, Sargent struck me as the type who was used to getting what he wanted.
    “Now, was that so bad?” he asked right before Mammon’s pimp cane smacked him upside the head. While it didn’t obliterate his skull, which probably had to do with it not glowing, he flew sideways, his Stetson falling off his head and landing on the carpet as he smashed into the television, knocking it off the cheap black stand and onto the ground. He crashed into the drywall as Jack stepped past me, brandishing Mammon’s cane and picked up the hat. I’ll be honest, I’d never been more excited to see a vampire before.
    “Move!” he hissed while putting the Stetson on his head. I wasted no time moving after the vampire. Maya was already falling in behind us, but as we stepped through the door, a nunchuck came flying at Jack’s skull. He blocked with the pimp cane and shoved the martial artist backward.
    Bruce wobbled as Maya and I stepped through the opening into the shrapnel hewn street. You know, I’ve heard the expression “it looked like a bomb went off” but in reality, that expression didn’t quite do the street justice. The buildings were torn apart, light poles snapped off like broken, charred twigs. Overturned, burning cars littered the street.
    “How are we going to get out of here?” I asked as Maya deftly pulled another black candle out of her purse and lit it while using only one arm. Black smoke spread out like fog from the candle, and as it did, it began to solidify around her.
    Maya pointed one finger at Bruce Lee. “I’ll finish this fucker off while you two get Duane. Go! Now!”
    I wasn’t sure if her final words were directed at us or at Bruce because as they left her mouth the shadows exploded toward the ninja assassin. The tentacles hit him like a punch in the face, sending him sprawling across the debris strewn pavement and holding him down in a seething mass of darkness.
    “Maya, you can’t hold them both off,” I said as a bullet tore through the wall beside my head and zinged by my ear.
    “Jack can fly, but he can’t carry us both, and right now, that’s the only way out of here,” she said, whipping out her hand and filling the doorway with a wall of darkness. “Someone has to stay behind. Besides, Pops and I have some unfinished business to settle.”
    “Jack, talk some sense into her,” I said, trying to reach out toward her, but as I did, my ribs and shoulder screamed in pain and my vision went dark around the edges.
    “Yeah, I got this,” he said, bat wings sprouting from his back as he hefted the pimp staff in