Free Cursed: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Thrice Cursed Mage Book 1) by J. A. Cipriano

not here so you can be El Macho and save me from an evil monster. We’re here so Duane can make you one of his special teas—” The rest of her words were cut off in an explosion of sound and debris as one of those big silver tanker trucks people use to haul dangerous liquids burst through the front door in an explosion of glass and debris. Flames poured from the cab like someone had lit a bonfire inside. It ripped open as it jackknifed, spilling a metric ton of its contents across the floor.
    The horrible smell of gasoline filled my nose as I flung myself over the bar. My shoulder crashed into Duane, knocking both of us to the cement as black smoke billowed up against the ceiling in a way that let me know the second that gasoline caught fire I was as good as dead.
     

Chapter 9
    I threw my arm up to ward off the impending blast of fiery death from the tanker truck’s inevitable explosion while Duane clung to me. His wiry hands gripped my trench coat like it’d somehow save him from certain doom. Clearly, he knew something I didn’t. Before I had a chance to untangle myself from the old man, the room erupted into a fireball of debris that deafened my ears and reduced the world to a high-pitched fuzzy ring.
    We were pitched backward under the force of the concussion as shrapnel punched into the shelves above us. I smacked into the wall beneath the shelves with enough force to drive the breath from my body. The bottles above us exploded, raining down bits of burning glass and flaming liquor onto our bodies. I struggled to draw in a breath as I scrambled to my hands and knees, but all I succeeded in doing was scalding my lungs.
    Flame was everywhere. The ceiling and walls all around me were rippling with sheets of golden blue fire. The air was a wash of heat and death, burning my chest from the inside with each superheated breath I took. Blinding crimson light burst from my outstretched right arm as I tried to shield my face from the din. The arm of my trench coat glowed gold then silver, then bright “eyes of the Devil himself” red as a wave of force rippled out from my forearm. A tornado of hellish energy sucked the flames out of the room itself while flinging the remains of the tanker truck, along with most of the shattered room, back from whence it came.
    The truck’s crash outside sounded far away and distant, like my ears and brain were shrouded in cotton. Sweat covered my body in an instant as the room went dark and hazy. I tried to push myself to my feet anyway, but just that tiny effort made spots dance across my vision. Duane struggled under me as my trench coat faded back to its normal sooty black color and my tattoos winked out like someone had unplugged a string of Christmas lights on a dark night.
    The room swam again as I gripped the edge of the charred bar and used all my strength to hoist myself onto my feet. I’d been wrong. It only seemed like the fire had gone out. Half the damned bar was still on fire. It just looked like someone had sliced a pie piece shaped hole in it. Sunlight streamed in through the front wall as the fire on either side of the slice tried to retake the room. Fortunately, there seemed to be some unexplained line in the sand that kept the flames from crossing. Had I done that when I’d thrown the tanker truck out of the bar?
    Before I could find an answer to that question, a horrible thought made my guts twist in horror. I swung my gaze toward where Sera and the vampire had been. I didn’t see them behind the bar. Duane was on his feet now, sprinting in that direction as a veritable firestorm of heat and death swept across the rest of the room. I wasn’t sure what the old man was going to do when he reached the fire, but if my arm had saved me once, it could damned well do it again.
    I leaned heavily on the bar with my left forearm and reached toward the fire with my right hand. My fingers splayed outward as I tried to will my arm to put out the rest of the fire. Something