Cursed: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Thrice Cursed Mage Book 1) (2 page)

The gods must have been on my side because I reached the curb without becoming roadkill. My chest heaved from the effort. With my hands on my knees, I sucked in a breath or seven. I wasn’t sure why I was so tired since I appeared to be in relatively decent shape, but then again, I’d just ran all out for fifteen feet. I needed to get my ass on a treadmill stat.

A smirk crossed my lips. I’d have to put cardio on my list. You know, right after finding out why I woke up in a dumpster covered in blood. Still, I probably had a gym membership I never used like every other person I didn’t remember knowing. Did I have friends? A girlfriend? Children? Was there someone wondering why I didn’t come home last night?

I needed to stop thinking. It was bringing up too many questions I didn’t have answers for. The only thing I had was fog where memories should have been. It wasn’t nearly enough, and I could already feel frustration starting to set in. If I kept it up, I was going to go into a tailspin fast. That wouldn’t help.

No, what I needed was to follow my two-step plan. Get clothes and a shower. It was simple. I felt like I could handle that. I made my way across the sidewalk with purpose and stepped through the yellow flowers marking the divide between the parking lot and the outside world. A moment later, I was passing the only two cars in the strip mall, a red convertible and one of those black kidnapper vans. Hopefully neither of their drivers would be inside the laundromat.

With that happy thought, I pushed open the heavy black framed glass door and found myself staring at exactly no one inside. It made me wonder briefly how places like this even stayed in business. It wasn’t like it was attached to an apartment complex where expenses were mostly covered by rent and the change collected was like extra profit. No, this place was off on its own. That meant people used it a lot. People who couldn’t afford things like washers and dryers.

Great. I was in the poor section of town. I didn’t have a problem with poor people or anything and wasn’t exactly worried about getting mugged. If someone tried something, I was going to go with the whole “beware my demonic hand” thing while making scary faces. No, my sense of unease came more from distaste. As I stared at the spinning, rumbling dryers, I knew I was going to steal myself some new clothes provided I found anything even remotely my size. I was robbing poor people. I might as well have been a banker.

With that ugly thought, I began pulling open dryers, looking for stuff I thought would fit me. It didn’t take long for me to find a navy blue polo that had clearly been washed one too many times, a pair of tan khaki pants, black socks, and even though it hurt me deep in my soul, a pair of red boxer briefs. Yeah, that’s right, I was going to steal another man’s underwear. For all I knew, this wasn’t a new low point in my life, but it sure as hell felt like one.

I stuffed the pilfered clothing under my arm and moved toward the bathroom in the back. When I’d stepped in here, I wasn’t sure if they’d even have a lavatory, but hey, apparently today wishes were horses. Once inside the restroom, I locked the door so no one would bother me while I changed. Since there wasn’t any good place to hang up my stolen clothes and I was loath to put them on the floor of a public bathroom, I stuffed them on top of the faucet and prayed they wouldn’t fall in the sink. I turned on the hot water and much to my surprise, nothing came out.

“Swell,” I muttered in a voice that had smoked one too many cigarettes and chased it with one too many shots of cheap whiskey. “Double or nothing the cold works.”

It did. Cold water splashed out of the faucet and struck the cheap ceramic bowl in a torrent. So they’d shut off the hot water, probably to keep people from bathing in here. Cheap bastards. Well, I’d show them. I stripped off my clothes and flung them next to the pathetic black trashcan in the corner. Yes, it was a little gross taking them off since they were stuck to my skin with sticky blood. It was even worse because they left slimy streaks of crimson across my body.

Once I was naked, I stared at myself in the scratched mirror above the sink. I had one of those douchebag faces you’d see on a tennis court at an expensive country club attached to a guy named Chet. It was the kind of face that begged to be punched. Someone else must have thought so too because my right eye looked like it’d been on the wrong side of a fist, and my nose was crooked just enough for me to know it’d been broken at least once. My cheeks were covered in at least a day’s worth of stubble and my blond goatee was streaked with dried blood and curdled milk.

The rest of me wasn’t much better what with the cuts, scratches and bruises. My ribs were an ugly shade of yellowish purple, and as I touched them with my index finger, a stab of pain nearly made me cry out. As far as I knew, I wasn’t a doctor nor had I played one on TV, but nothing seemed to be broken. Maybe the bruising was my body’s way of telling me not to go getting my ass kicked. I instantly agreed with its sentiment.

Whoever had put me in the dumpster hadn’t been kind, and not being able to remember why it happened was really starting to piss me off. Why had someone left me in a dumpster with no form of identification and no memory?

Still, I had to admit it was possible those two things weren’t connected. Maybe it was a simple mugging that had no connection to me having no memories. It wasn’t like I’d searched the alley well. Maybe if I went back, I’d find my wallet, sans money and credit cards, on the ground somewhere? I needed to check as soon as I cleaned myself off. A surge of confidence shot through me.

“All I need to do is go back to the alley and find my wallet,” I told myself, trying to ignore the possibility that my wallet had been in the dumpster along with me and was now in the belly of the garbage truck that had tried to eat me.

I pushed it out of my mind and plunged my hands into the freezing water, desperate to wash off the smears of blood and the stink of hot garbage. The sensation was hard to describe because while it should have been cold enough to turn my skin blue, it felt more like lukewarm bathwater. Maybe the room was just chillier than I’d thought and the comparison was messing with my mind?

There were no goosebumps on my naked body though, and I didn’t feel particularly cold. It was curious, but not as curious as the dark tendrils extending out from my right shoulder. They reminded me of slowly spreading rot. It was like a promise of things to come. None of them good.

That’s when I freaked out and started scrubbing at my flesh, trying desperately to get the ink off my skin. The blood and grit came off pretty quickly, but the darkness remained behind, stubbornly clinging to my arm. Whoever had done this to me had sure made it tough to get off.

I stood there scrubbing my flesh raw until the draining water ran clear. I let out a slow breath as cold water ran down the back of my neck and decided I needed to get myself a real shower with warm water. So far, I’d just assaulted the darkness with cold water and soap so cheap it couldn’t even get the gunk out from beneath my fingernails. That wasn’t going to do the job on this black stuff. Whoever had done this, didn’t want me getting it off easily. I wasn’t sure why that was the case, but it would probably make perfect sense once I figured out who I was and what was going on.

“I just need to get out of here,” I mumbled to myself before I pulled on another man’s underwear. If stealing it had been a low point, this one was five feet under. I bit my lip to keep from cursing in frustration and put on the rest of my permanently-borrowed clothing. I hadn’t found a belt or shoes so I was forced to use my old ones. Thankfully, the cheap black leather loafers and matching black belt were easy enough to clean off with paper towels and soapy water. I’d still have to trade them in, but for now I was confident they’d withstand cursory inspection.

In a fit of neighborliness, I gathered up the remnants of my bloody clothing and dumped it in the trash instead of leaving it on the floor. That done, I began moving toward the door, intent on letting myself out of the place. Something behind me grabbed ahold of the back of my neck and jerked me backward so abruptly, I nearly fell on my ass. I spun, fists raised, but the only thing I saw was my trench coat sticking out of the trashcan even though I was pretty sure I’d put it on the bottom. It was pristine which was somewhat surprising since I didn’t remember cleaning it off.

Before I realized what I was doing, I’d pulled it free of the garbage can and slung it on. Something about wearing the heavy black coat felt like coming home. Perhaps it had sentimental value my lizard brain wouldn’t let me ignore. That must have been it.

I probably looked ridiculous standing there in a half-tucked blue polo, a black trench coat, and khaki pants several inches too long for my thirty-two inch legs, but hey, maybe I was going to go scare children at the local Walmart after I figured out who I was. I had no memories after all, so who knew what I was supposed to be doing right now?

With that thought still fresh in my mind, I unlocked the door and stepped out into the laundromat to see two hulking men in tank tops beating the shit out of a five-foot-nothing woman.

Chapter 3

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I yelled at the thugs trying to stomp a mud hole in the girl’s ass.

The two brutes glanced at me from across the laundromat with black as mud eyes. The dismissal plastered across their faces made me angry in a way I couldn’t quite explain. Clearly, they didn’t see me as much of a threat and that was unacceptable. I stepped forward with the sudden desire to show them exactly who the alpha male was in here.

The guy closest to me was bigger than his compatriot and had skin the color of coffee spoiled by too much cream. His bulk seemed to overflow out of his sweat-stained white tank top, making me think of someone who had probably played sports in high school, but had since let an extra layer of years build up over his muscles. He turned his shaved head back toward the brunette, ignoring me. A surge of rage exploded in the back of my brain.

Something reptilian and angry lifted itself up from the recesses of my mind as I took a step forward, my hands clenched as my eyes zeroed in on the woman’s raven-colored hair still clutched in the thug’s meaty fist. The beginning of a bruise in the shape of a handprint was evident on her left cheek and blood dribbled from her swollen lips and down her chin. Blood was spattered all across the cheap tile floor of the laundromat.

The thug holding her raised his other hand like he was going to slap the taste out of her mouth even though I was standing right there. I guess he didn’t care about witnesses. Well, I’d make him regret that. I took another step forward as a red film of rage filled my vision.

“What have we here?” his compatriot, a tattooed white gorilla with a face like a bulldog and a military buzz cut said. He raised one dark eyebrow as he watched me cross the room. “Some kind of hero?” He cracked his massive neck before sniffing at the air hard enough for his industrial-sized nostrils to flare. “Trust me, she’s not worth it, pal. Best hurry on your way.”

“I’m not a hero,” I said as a glimpse into my past zipped across my mind. The girl was different, and the guy beating her had been her boyfriend, but the circumstances had been otherwise the same. I’d done something to the guy. I stopped mid-step and reached for the memory, grasping for it with mental hands, but it slipped through my ethereal fingers and disappeared into the winds, leaving me with a faded picture of me covered in the guy’s blood.

“Good to know. If you’re smart, you won’t be here long,” said the dark one in a bored tone. Then, like I wasn’t there at all, he smacked the tiny brunette hard enough for the sound of it to reverberate through the room before tossing her across the cheap linoleum floor.

She bounced once and slid to a stop at the booted feet of the man’s partner. Her trip left a crimson snail trail in her wake. They’d really have to have done a number on her for that to happen. That realization made me want to tear them in half, to show them what it felt like to be beaten to a bloody pulp. It was one thing to ignore me, but it was quite another to beat the crap out of a woman who probably weighed less than a hundred pounds soaking wet.

My eyes snapped from the brunette on the laundromat’s floor to the bulldog-faced thug coming toward me. His arms were covered in tattoos of babies being skewered on spikes and other evil shit, and while something told me I should be scared, I just wasn’t. Not even a little. I wanted him to attack me, to give me an excuse to end him.

Instinctively, my right hand tightened into a fist, and I could have sworn I smelled the faintest hint of rotten eggs and swamp gas. Not only that, the temperature seemed to creep up a couple degrees as I took my own step forward to meet the bruiser’s charge.

“The fuck you think you’re gonna do here, pal?” The bulldog’s mouth curled into a snarl as he reached out one hand to stop me. I walked brazenly into it so his palm was pressed against my chest. The man’s eyes narrowed as he glanced from his hand to my face. “Newsflash son, you don’t want to save this girl. She’s not worth it.”

My vision went red with rage as everything inside me screamed for me to tear him apart. A snarl tore from my lips, and without thinking, I grabbed his wrist with my right hand and twisted while stepping in closer so I could throw my entire bodyweight into the movement. His wrist snapped in my grip as he came crashing down to the floor. He slammed into the linoleum, and his forehead bounced off the ground with a wet smack. I gave him a kick in the face just to make sure he wouldn’t be getting up. It felt so good, I did it again. What can I say? If it feels good, I do it.

“You should just go away now, unless you want to cuddle up next to your friend.” My voice was way more confident than I had expected as I smiled congenially at the other guy.

He stared back at me in a mixture of rage and horror, and the sight of it made me get all warm and fuzzy inside. I’m not sure why seeing his shock made me feel better, probably because he’d been beating on the girl. At least I hoped that was why. If not, I was probably not a very good person, and I was really hoping that wasn’t the case. If I wound up being some kind of dick bag, maybe I was better off forgetting my past.