Seized: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Thrice Cursed Mage Book 4) Read Online Free PDF Page A

and crashed onto the bench. As I lay there trying to remember how to breathe, the magical shield surrounding my body died away, leaving me staring at a fucking Abrams tank rolling down the empty street. Who the hell were these nuns? The armored sisters of the sixth division?
    As I got slowly to my feet, glad I wasn’t fucking dead, but still sort of pissed my shield had decided to vacate the premises when I was face to face with a tank, I flipped the tank the bird. After all, I never let a little thing like insurmountable fucking odds stop me before.
    The tank didn’t seem to have noticed me, despite my comet-like exit from the diner, which was good because I wasn’t sure how to go about fighting a tank with my bare hands. It rumbled toward the diner, smashing parked cars into junked ruins and churning up the cracked asphalt like it was made of mud.
    As the tank’s big gun swiveled to take aim at the diner, a dozen nuns armed with what looked like oversized silver dog-catching equipment jerked Vitaly out of the diner. Behind them, a blacked out van stood with its doors opened. More nuns were spread out beside it, firing AK47s into the diner with reckless abandon.
    I took a deep breath and called upon my magic so I could even the odds. Crimson light leapt from my tattoos, and as my magic flared, my vision went blurry. Before I could stop myself, I collapsed to my knees, sucking in gulps of air like I’d just run a marathon. My heart hammered in my chest, and my skin went cold and clammy. Had I already used too much magic? It seemed impossible, but then again, I’d just been blasted by a bazooka.
    “Fuck it,” I growled, gritting my teeth. I thrust my palm toward the tank, intent on blasting it anyway. I wasn’t sure what my Hellfire would do to its thick armor, but I was damned sure going to find out. As the fireball formed in my hand, a half-dozen Molotov cocktails flew out of the diner’s bullet-riddle window and smashed into the tank’s air vents, filling them with fire.
    The screams were loud even over the ringing in my ears. The top of the tank burst open in a cloud of smoke and flame, and as a nun came climbing out, a trio of Molotov cocktails hit her square in the chest. The sound she made as she burst into flame and tumbled back inside the tank was unlike anything I’d ever heard. Seriously. Words can’t do it justice.
    A second later, Jenna dove through the window, firing a .40 caliber Baby Eagle with one hand while clutching a lit Molotov in her other hand. Before she even hit the ground, she put three precision shots into three different nuns trying desperately to wrangle in Vitaly. As she touched down, she hurled the Molotov at the cluster by the van.
    The nuns scattered, and as they did, she dropped them with steely precision. I wasn’t sure what we’d done together in the past, but judging by her cold, ruthless proficiency, it hadn’t been cotton candy and daydreams.
    Vitaly roared and flung himself to his feet in a surge of strength and mass that sent nuns flying through the air. He spun on his heel, jerking on one of the dog-catchers around his neck. The nun holding it stumbling forward, and as she did, Vitaly grabbed her by the throat and sent her hurtling into the building across the street. The force of the impact was enough to reduce the bandolier-wearing nun into raspberry jam.
    Before I could finish calling up my magic, Jenna took down several more nuns with precision shots, and those she didn’t, well, let’s just say I’d rather have Jenna shoot me than experience Vitaly at close range.
    As I stared at the carnage, I was certain of one thing. I was not on the side of the good guys. Sure, the nuns had snuck up on us and tried to blow us away without caring about most of the workers in the diner, but at the same time, we’d just murdered over a dozen people, who were nuns. Even if they were sisters of the blackened denarius and worshiped Judas, I wasn’t sure it was something a hero