Mark of Cain (Immortal Mercenary Book 1) Page 3

  So, how did I get saddled with saving the only dumbass in all of human history who didn’t get the memo?

  I stumbled back out onto River Street, shocked to find it nearly empty.

  Time was strange inside the magical fog of the War Room. What felt like ten minutes in there could have been ten-seconds, or it might have been ten days.

  All I knew for sure was that it was night, either still or again. It was probably late too, given the fact that both candy stores in my line of sight were closed.

  This was probably for the best. Nobody on the street meant finding that stupid mage would be easier. It also meant that I didn’t have to deal with prying eyes as I gently (or otherwise) convinced him to return what didn’t belong to him.

  But again, there was that time thing to think about.

  Thanks to Alpha dude’s stubbornness, the mage got a bit of a head start on me. Hopefully, it wasn’t more than a few minutes. But, it just as easily could have been a day.

  There was no way to tell.

  I moved down River Street with my hands in my pockets, feet clapping against the cobblestone and head down.

  Just because there weren’t many people outside didn’t mean it was empty, and this late at night, anyone who I came ran across might be just as likely to mug me as to shake my hand.

  Not that I was afraid of a fight. I was trained in an ass load of different types of combat. But I didn’t need them. The curse the Big Guy put on me way back in the day assured that anyone who harmed me would get it back sevenfold. And, I didn’t want some poor mugger getting a broken nose or worse from trying to rob me.

  Not with the paltry change I had in my pockets.

  I was ten minutes down the street, passed the second candy shop and dam near the Joe’s Crab Shack that sat at the end of the street, when I felt it.

  That itch in the back of my throat that signified someone was about to be murdered.

  Damn it. I had hoped that my intervention would have been enough to save the mage from the wolf heavy death that his actions had bought him, but apparently I hadn’t done enough yet.

  The kid still had a straight shot to death’s door, but at least I knew he was close now.

  I took a sharp right toward the shopping district.

  Most of the shops were closed, save for an ‘occult’ shop that was little more than a book and candle store meant to sate the appetites of tourists looking for Southern mysticism and decidedly rowdy night club.

  My ‘murder sense’ wasn’t pulling me in one direction or another, so I had to look at things a little more objectively.

  Finally, I figured the boy would beat out the mage, and turned into the nightclub.

  Wincing as I heard a Kenny Chesney song blast through the speakers, I surveyed the room, realizing I had just walked into a country western bar.

  Who says hell can’t be on earth?

  I sighed and moved through the crowd. At this point, it takes a lot to shock me, but the sheer amount of denim on display that night definitely did the trick.

  No sooner was I on the main dance floor, inadvertently caught in the middle of an inexplicably popular square dancing contest, the sensation came back. Strong.

  I had made the right choice. The mage was here somewhere, and I had to find him before Alpha dude got tired of waiting around and decided to take matters into his own paws.

  Getting a nasty look from a woman who accused me of ‘screwing up the ho-down,' I moved to the side of the room, out of boot’s way, and closed my eyes.

  Trying to drown out a loud tune that lamented ‘living in fast forward,' I took a deep breath and zoned in on the feeling.

  I hated this damn thing. The fact that it left the inside of my mouth feeling fuzzy and wrong was one thing, but I also took offense to what it meant.

  It wasn’t death that I had the connection with. If an old man had a heart attack right in front of me, I wouldn’t feel a thing. If a woman text walked her way into the path of an oncoming bus, I wouldn’t get so much as a tickle. But throw murder on the table, and I was basically a basset hound.

  Not death — Just murder. And, that meant that the Big Guy equated me with it so much that he didn’t want me to forget, even for a second. It meant that, like some random witch told me years ago, I was responsible for bringing it into the world. And he wanted to make sure that I kept that in mind.

  This burden was on me. Whatever happened to the people destined to die, it was my fault. Fruit of the poisonous tree and all that.

  But, just because I didn’t like it didn’t mean I couldn’t use it. It might have been a punishment, but sometimes punishments can be useful. At least, that’s what I was telling myself tonight.

  My eyes flew back open as I followed the sensation to its source.

  The mage wasn’t in this place at all; at least not anymore. He was in a back alley and the sting of murder laid even stronger on him now.

  I darted back through the dance floor toward the backdoor, garnering nasty looks and boos from more cowboys than I had seen in one place since my summer in Deadwood.

  I pushed through the backdoor and marched out into the alley.

  Of course, the mage was right there. His eyes were bugged out and he was sniffling and scratching himself like crazy.

  Of course. How had I not seen it before? He was an addict, all strung out on magic. That meant that the tall woman with black lips and snow white hair standing beside him was very likely a witch of some sort.

  He handed her the wallet and she nodded.

  As if I’d sprung some magical tripwire by coming into the alley (which was probably exactly what happened), the witches head snapped up toward me. Her eyes met mine, narrowing in recognition.

  Somehow, she knew exactly who I was. And, if the hissing that escaped her lips soon after was any indication, she wasn’t a fan.

  She muttered something I couldn’t quite hear. Shadows stretched out from the edge of the alley, covering her. When they receded, seconds later, she was gone.

  “What the fuck!” the mage yelled, realizing the witch had just left without fulfilling her end of the bargain. He turned to me, his addict eyes full on raging.

  “What the fuck, bro! What the fuck did you do?”

  He practically ran toward me, and as he did, I took the chance to finally have a look at him.

  With stringy blonde hair and arms so thin that a stiff wind could break them, he didn’t look like much of a threat. The fact that his hands held the star tattoos of a first year mage and the very likely assumption I was making that he was out of magic for the moment, didn’t help either.

  I didn’t want to fight him though. The entire reason I came here was to save his life. And now that the witch had vanished into thin air with the wolf’s property, that was going to be all the more difficult.

  “I needed that!” He screamed at me, sweat pouring off his face. “How am I gonna sleep now, bro? How am I gonna sleep?!”

  He shoved me back hard, and my mind went right for the old ‘sevenfold’ thing.

  I threw my hands out in front of me, trying to stop him.

  Undoubtedly, he thought I was afraid. And I was, just not for myself.

  “Look, it sucks being addicted to that crap. Believe it or not, I know that firsthand,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady and calm. “But, this isn’t the way to live, and ripping off werewolves won’t end well for you.”

  “What the hell do you know?” he asked, his entire body under a sheen of sweat. “I need it.”

  “I know you do,” I answered. “And I also know that no witch in her right mind is going to give you even an ounce of magic for the contents of a werewolf’s wallet. So, why don’t you tell me what that was about? Who was that witch? What did she really want with that wallet?”

  “G-get away from me,” the mage stammered, trying to move past me.

  I put my hands on his shoulder, stopping him. I could still feel murder all over him. I had to stop it.

  “You
don’t want to do that,” I said. “Running away, it’s just going to get you killed. You need to tell me what’s going on so that I can make it right. You’ve got to-”

  My voice sputtered to a stop as all the breath flew from my body. I felt a sharp, hot flash of pain in my gut and-looking down — I saw why.

  The mage, that stupid kid, stabbed me with a knife I hadn’t seen in his hand.

  The hilt was jutting out of my stomach, a torrent of bright red spurting from it.

  My head spun, but not with concern for myself.

  “What did you do?” I asked, my voice far weaker than it had been just seconds ago.

  “I-I told you to move, bro.” The mage swallowed hard. “You should have listened.”

  Even now there was regret in his voice. He was just a boy who was addicted to garbage and surrounded by people who wanted to use him and throw him away. He didn’t know any better.

  But that wouldn’t be enough to save him.

  “You need to get to a hospital,” I said, already feeling lightheaded.

  “I ain’t taking you to no hospital,” he spit back, though I could still hear the regret.

  “Not me,” I said, trying to tighten my grasp on his shoulders and finding my hands didn’t want to grasp anymore. “Get yourself to the emergency room and wait there until it happens. It’s the only chance you’ve got.”

  “Wait for what to happ-”

  He stopped short and I knew I was too late. Karma was going to be quick this time, and if the searing pain in my gut and the speed at which I was losing blood was any indication, it would also be deadly.

  The mage’s face twisted. He was confused at first, unsure of what was happening. As he jolted back though, stabbed repeatedly by unseen blades, the confusion melted away.

  It was replaced by pain, and soon, the pain was all that mattered.

  He opened his mouth, trying to speak, but the jabbing just kept coming.

  Four.

  Five.

  Six.

  When the seventh mercifully came and went, his lifeless body crumpled to the ground, his eyes open and looking up at the night sky.

  I sank with him, half because I was so damn lightheaded and half because I had failed. The murder had happened anyway. Only, the wolves weren’t the ones responsible.

  “He was just a kid,” I said weakly. Looking up at the sky, I repeated myself. “Did you hear me? He was just a kid!”

  My voice was hoarse and I knew it was no use. The Big Guy wasn’t going to answer. Even if face to faces with Him were still in vogue, I doubt he’d have made a concession for me.

  “Why are you being so dramatic?” A voice, so familiar that it stripped every waking thought from my mind, said from above me.

  I looked up to see Abel, my baby brother, standing over me as I sat at the body of a dead boy.

  “It’s not like you’ve never been in this situation before.”

  4

  It was a little over a hundred years ago that I started seeing my brother.

  I was understandably shocked at first. Going from thousands and thousands of years without so much as a peep from him, to watching him sit across from me in the empty seat of a stagecoach was more than a little jarring.

  I thought he was an apparition at first; some poltergeist stuck in this world and unable to complete unfinished business. But, none of the mediums I knew at the time could see or speak to him. They didn’t sense him at all.

  Then I figured he was another part of the curse, sent from the Big Guy himself in order to make sure I was living out my punishment with just the right amount of agonizing flair. But every fallen angel I ran across assured me that wasn’t the Big Guy’s style.

  I figured maybe it was a separate curse that — the certainty of a horrible retribution aside — some witch I had wronged cast on me. But the shamans in the Great Plains assured me that wasn’t the case.

  Even the oracle herself couldn’t sense even a whiff of my long lost baby brother around. So, in the end, I came to the only conclusion I could.

  I was fucking insane.

  That had to be it. My brain had finally cracked under the weight of this long life, and it was giving me Abel to either make me feel better or worse. I could never really tell.

  Still, it was good to see his face.

  “He was just a kid, Abe,” I said, looking up at my brother and brushing aside the snide remark he’d just thrown my way. “He didn’t deserve this.”

  “Is that for you to say?” Abel asked me, circling me and looking at me with those eyes that had haunted my dreams for millennia.

  He looked like our mother, Abel. With his dark brown hair and angled features, you could see her all over him. He had her lightness about him too. Even now, after all these centuries, he was still as bright as a lighthouse.

  Or maybe, that was just the way I remembered him.

  “This is my punishment. This kid shouldn’t have been brought into it,” I said, looking back down at the body. His skin was so pale it was almost translucent.

  “Then you shouldn’t have brought him into it,” Abel answered quickly, like he knew what I was going to say.

  “It wasn’t me who did this,” I spit back.

  “Wasn’t it? I didn’t see anyone else chasing him through the city.”

  “I was trying to save him,” I explained.

  “And how did that work out for you?” Abel asked, his dark eyebrows shooting upward.

  “Worked just fine until he came in contact with this damn mark,” I shot back.

  “Then perhaps, you shouldn’t have had those witches cover the mark, Brother. Really? Visible only through the lens of a flame? Don’t you think that’s a bit melodramatic?”

  “I was sick of looking at the damn thing,” I admitted. “I just wanted to be able to look in the mirror and not see —”

  “What you did?” He asked. I didn’t answer. “You should get that looked at.” He said, motioning toward the knife still sticking out of my gut.

  “It won’t kill me,” I said, though I was starting to feel a little dizzy.

  “No, it won’t. But it won’t heal either, not unless you take it to the proper people.” He shook his head. “I hear medicine is really something special these days.”

  I set my jaw. He was right. This wound wouldn’t kill me, even if I bled every drop of blood I had out onto this pavement. But it wouldn’t heal either. That was the bitch of my condition. I could get hurt all I wanted to. I could feel like I was dying, feel what it would be like to die. But it would never happen for me. It was all the anguish and none of the relief.

  Lucky me.

  “Besides,” Abel added. “You don’t want to have to explain to the people who find you, why you’re still alive hours after a normal person would have passed on.”

  Passed on? I always hated that phrase. It made the whole bloody mess sound so civilized. Death was anything but civilized, especially when it was a murder.

  “Nobody’s going to find me,” I said, pulling my hands from under the mage’s body. “I’m getting out of here.”

  “You can’t stand, Brother. You’re far too weak,” Abel answered, looking down at me.

  “Oh yeah?” I asked, pushing myself upward. “Watch m-”

  I stumbled back and hit my ass hard on the pavement and I fell. The whole world was spinning. The alley, the walls, the dumpsters that lined those walls. The only constant was Abel. Whatever that was worth.

  “Pull out that pocket phone of yours and call for help,” Abel said. His voice sounded further away somehow.

  “It’s not called a pocket phone, Abe,” I said, feeling my head lean back and rest against the far wall. My eyes felt heavy and my body started to shiver. “He didn’t deserve to die,” I added in a low voice.

  Abel leaned next to me and sat down, resting beside me as if he was still actually here.

  “Why do you say that, Brother? As though you know anything of death?”

  “Some people s
ay I invented the concept, that I’m death’s father or something.”

  “Those people give you too much credit,” he answered. “The first drop of rain that reaches the ground is no more important than the thousands that follow. The storm needs them all to do its work.”

  “Tell that to the flooded earth,” I answered, finally letting go and allowing my eyes to flicker closed.

  “Storms are meant to be weathered,” Abel said, reaching me through the darkness my closed eyes enveloped me in. “Just as people are meant to die.”

  “Not me,” I answered groggily. “Not thanks to Him.”

  “So death is punishment, but so is life?” Abel asked and I actually felt his hand on mine. “What would you consider fair then, Brother? What happy medium would ease your troubled mind?”

  “I just — I want to sleep, Abe,” I said, feeling unconsciousness sneaking up on me.

  “Then sleep, Brother. You’ve earned the rest. But you mustn’t sleep long. The storm is coming, and the first drop of rain must safeguard the rest.”

  “Shut your face, Abe,” I said, no longer feeling the pain. “That doesn’t make any…make any…”

  The next thing I felt was a pair of strong hands on my shoulders, shaking me hard.

  My eyes fluttered open and I saw Ralphie leaned over me, his face all twisted with worry.

  “I’m okay,” I said weakly, and though Ralphie relaxed a little, it wasn’t as much as he should have. “I’m really okay.”

  “He’s alive,” Ralphie said. “But I can’t understand a Goddamn word of this Arabic.”

  My eyes slammed back shut, and right before I blacked out again, I felt the first drops of a rainstorm.

  I woke more slowly next time, and I must have been doing better, because I was hurting like a bitch.

  In some hospital room, I saw machines all around me. I was hooked to most of them, with a not nearly potent enough morphine drip in my left arm, and heart monitors stuck to my chest.

  A large bandage was plastered across my abdomen but, other than that, I was as naked as Eden under my paper gown.

  Modesty aside, I’d have rather just been naked, given the way the stupid thing itched.