Marked: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Thrice Cursed Mage Book 2) Read Free

legs, my employer had sent his own goons to ensure I finished the job while Ambrose had decided to stamp me out before I could take another crack at him. Well, this just reeked of awesome.
    I wasn’t sure who Pierce Ambrose was, nor why I’d been sent to kill him, but the realization made my blood run cold. Had I been some kind of assassin before I’d lost my memories? It would certainly explain some things, like why I knew everything there was to know about firearms, and why I could look at a building and think of fifty ways to get inside without breaking a sweat. Those were not typical skills, or at least, I didn’t think they were.
    If I had been an assassin, I had killed people for money. How could that have been who I was? The thought of doing such a thing turned my stomach. I may not have been willing to say I was a hero, but I definitely wasn’t someone who could indiscriminately sell my skills to the highest bidder. At least, not this version of me.
    Still, the idea of getting my family returned to me unscathed was nearly all encompassing, and if all I needed to do was kill Pierce Ambrose, the guy was as good as dead, assuming of course, he was a guy. Maybe he was a girl. For all I knew, I was an equal opportunity hitman. Then again, what was the saying about the shortest distance between two points being a straight line? I didn’t need to kill Ambrose if I could get this clown to tell me precisely where they had my sister. I could just break in, go all crazy demonic arm on her captors and walk out with Michael Bay explosions in the background. That sounded like a plan to me.
    Before I could even get to my feet, something dark and monstrous swam through the clown’s eyes. Fear filled my gut, making me suck in a breath so hard it physically hurt. Could he read my thoughts? No, seeing my thoughts was impossible. Surely, I was just imagining things. Right?
    As that question flitted through my brain, the clown chuckled at me, opening his mouth to reveal so many teeth it was almost like there was no end to them. There were hundreds, no thousands of teeth in that mouth. Teeth that stretched all the way down to Hell and back again.
    “I’m starting to think you might be as smart as my boy said you were, Mac. Admittedly, I was a little skittish about hiring a normal guy to try to take one of my rival’s best pieces off the board, but he insisted you could do it. Of course he was wrong, but then again,” he gestured at my arm, “it looks like you went and got yourself an upgrade.” He flashed me a cruel smile. “Hope it was worth whatever you traded. I might have offered you a deal myself, but I don’t particularly like coming to Earth. I can’t stand the smells or the clothing, but after what you did to Vassago’s guy, I just had to come see you for myself, especially since you and I happen to be in business together.” He clapped his ham-sized hands together with a loud thwack. “Never did care for Vassago. He’s kind of a weird cat.”
    “Glad, I could help you out,” I mumbled, trying to figure out why this clown seemed so pleased about me offing Vassago’s right-hand man. Sure, Vassago might have been the demon prince of twenty four realms of Hell, but I was under no illusions about my ability to take on the demon mano a mano. If Vassago wanted me dead, I’d be a smudge on the ground. I was just hoping the demon didn’t actually care enough to make that happen even though I’d spent all of yesterday thwarting his evil plans to kidnap a woman and her son.
    “I appreciate your moxie, but that doesn’t change things between us, Mac,” the clown replied before spouting off a phone number that burned itself into my brain like a red hot poker. I cried out, clutching my forehead as actual smoke curled from between my fingers. As the pain subsided, leaving behind one hell of a headache, I glared at the man through my splayed fingers.
    “You could have just wrote it down,” I growled as tiny invisible