Branded

by Rob Cornell

  Dad used to call her Mrs. Snoopis.

  Good old Dad had a nickname for everyone.

  I clenched my jaw as my eyes watered. I was in no state to start getting nostalgic about Dad. I had enough weighing on me at the moment.

  “But they failed, right?” Sly asked.

  “Do I look undead to you?” I shook my head. “No, I just have to get this infection out of my system and I’ll be fine.”

  The car veered again, this time nearly plowing into the concrete wall in the median. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  “I got some vamp blood in me. Not a lot. A little spray.”

  “It doesn’t matter how much.”

  “I know. Calm down. They didn’t finish the ritual. I turned them all to ash first. I just need you to cook me something up so I can get this shit out of me.”

  Sly was shaking his head and muttering over and over under his breath, “Nononono.”

  “What are you freaking out about?”

  “You can’t get vampire blood out of your system,” he shouted. His face had turned pink. I could see it whenever we passed under one of the lights illuminating the expressway. “Once it’s in you…” He threw up his hands and the car swerved again. “…it’s in you.”

  I think I was deliberately not understanding him. What he said was simple and easy to grasp. I just didn’t want to do the grasping. “What are you talking about? I’m fine. They have to kill me, right? Kill me and then I rise. But…” I trailed off. I realized I didn’t really know the details of the turning process. I didn’t have any vampire friends to ask about this shit.

  Sly gripped the wheel again. He squeezed so hard his knuckles bulged. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “No,” I admitted.

  “You are infected. I assume you were fed on, right? Based on that nasty gash in your neck.”

  “Yes.”

  “Then the circle is complete. You have shared the liquid of life. You are bonded to the vampire who fed you. He’s the only one who can break that bond, but if he was trying to turn you, I doubt he’ll be willing to help.”

  A ray of hope rose in me. “What if he’s dead?”

  Sly shook his head. “Don’t even think about killing him. Then you are well and truly fucked.”

  “Um…” I swallowed. I felt like I had a handful of sand in my throat. “I sort of already killed him.”

  Sly groaned.

  “What?”

  “You’re locked in, brother. That’s it. Next time you go to sleep, you are waking up a vampire.”

  “No. No way.”

  Sly chewed on his lip. I had never seen such worry in his eyes. No. Not worry. Flat out fear. He kept his attention on the road, but that actually made me worry more. He didn’t want to look at me.

  “There has to be some way out of this. I mean, I’m not a vampire.”

  “Not yet.” He seemed to chew on something for a minute before continuing. “Look, the infection is in you. The killing ritual is a formality with these guys. All it does is speed up the process. But once you’ve exchanged blood there is no turning back.”

  “I won’t accept that.”

  He hitched a shoulder. “Probably the only reason you haven’t turned already is ‘cause some of your power is keeping the infection at bay.”

  I thought about the trick I’d done to keep the feeling of the stuff worming around inside of me from driving me nuts. Apparently, I really was having an effect on it. “Okay, so I hold off until we figure out something.”

  Sly shook his head and cut across three lanes of traffic to catch an exit ramp at the last possible second. Either he had changed his mind about where he was taking me, or he’d been too distracted until he had nearly missed his exit. We were getting off at John R, so I assumed he was taking me to his shop instead of my house.

  Fine by me. I still wasn’t sure how I was going to handle the mess back home. A lot of questions waited for me with answers I couldn’t freely give. The Ministry would probably have to get involved.

  “Maybe I can cook up something.”

  I nodded. “See that?”

  He held up a hand, then took a hard right onto John R off of Chrysler, barely slowing for the turn.

  “It’ll be a stop gap. Something to give your power a boost so you can keep the infection from turning you. But unless you expect to keep your power focused on fighting this back for the next century or however long you plan to live, the shit’s going to catch up with you. Basically, either you’ll tire out or you’ll give up.”

  I punched the dashboard.

  Sly gave me a dirty look, but I ignored it.

  “I’m not becoming a vamp, Sly. I’d rather die.”

  Sly nodded. “That’s your other option.”

  I couldn’t believe how casually he had let that drop. Then again, I never knew Sly to try to sugar coat the hard truths. He was one of the few people who hadn’t fed me a sympathetic line of bullshit after Dad was killed. He laid it right out for me—someone had done my parents wrong, and I’d better not forget shit like that happened all the time among those of us who lived on the other side of reality’s veil.

  I pressed my knuckle against my mouth to keep myself from shouting out. My nostrils flared. I glared out the window at the passing strip malls and furniture stores and party stores in the night. Some of them had lights on inside, or illuminated signs in the lots. Others stood dark, their blank windows like dead eyes staring back at me.

  A chill ran down my spine.

  I was so very screwed.

  Neither of us spoke for the rest of the trip to Sly’s shop.

  When he turned on the lights after disabling the alarm, the sudden blare stung my eyes. A massive headache bloomed behind my right eye.

  Sly hurried into the back without bothering to give me a second look. I shuffled in after him. He was already pulling out boxes and sorting through the contents by the time I came in. I stood back and let him work. Vilas and powders and strange smelling plants. He looked like one of those chefs in a cooking competition on TV the way he worked so calmly yet with frantic speed. Iron Alchemist.

  It took him about thirty minutes to finish, and at the end he had a tiny murky fluid that only filled the bottom inch of a vial.

  He handed it over.

  “Take it now. It expires quickly.”

  I lifted the vial to my nose and took a sniff. What smelled like rotten tuna stung my nostrils and twisted my stomach. “Agg.”

  Sly rolled his eyes. “You know better than to smell a potion. Just drink the damn thing.”

  I pinched my nose, then tossed the potion back. It was thick and cold and felt like I was swallowing raw sewage. But I managed to swallow and keep it down without hurling. I handed the vial back to Sly, who promptly hit the pedal on a trash can to pop the lid and tossed the vial in.

  “Isn’t that a waste of a perfectly good vial?”

  “There’s no redeeming that. The stuff will never come clean.”

  I wondered what that meant for the inside of my stomach, but didn’t ask. First off, I trusted Sly. Secondly, I probably didn’t want to know any details anyway.

  “Now what?”

  Sly waved me out to the shop. I followed him behind the glass counter holding all the fancy smoking implements. He pulled open a wooden drawer underneath the cash register, rummaged around, and came out with a joint. “Stupid kid thinks I don’t know he stashes these here for his breaks.”

  “And you’re okay with that?”

  “I’m okay with it for times exactly like this.” He pulled out a Zippo from his pocket and fired up the blunt. The smell of pot quickly clouded around both of us. Like I said before, I don’t do mind-altering substances—except for an occasional craft beer—because it takes the edge off my power. I wasn’t morally opposed to it in any way, though, and Sly deserved the chance to relax with some grass.

  He took a deep hit. The end blazed orange. It reminded me of the warehouse, of a
ll those vamps I’d cooked. Suddenly, I felt tired all over. I leaned up against the counter to keep from collapsing.

  Sly held his breath for a moment, then blew out a series of smoke rings. “You all right?”

  “I need a thousand years of sleep.”

  He snorted. “You’ll get it if you relax too much.”

  “So the potion you gave me? What’s it supposed to do?”

  He shrugged and took another long draw on his joint before answering. When he spoke, he let the smoke puff out along with his words. “It’s the equivalent of caffeine for your manna. Your magical energy. Or whatever you kids are calling it these days. Just a boost. Usually I mix them for mortal practitioners who want to get into the serious stuff. I don’t make it as potent for them, though.”

  “But it’s just a stop gap. What do I do next?”

  “I don’t know, brother Sebastian. I’ve reached the limits of my knowledge on this score.” He closed his eyes as he toked his joint once more. For a moment it looked like he’d fallen asleep, then he sighed out a stream of sweet smelling smoke, which made him resemble a dozing dragon. “I guess there is someone,” he said, eyes still closed. The hesitance in his voice worried me.

  “You guess?”

  He opened his eyes and gave me a serious stare. “I really don’t… Ah, fuck it. How much worse can your situation get, right?”

  “Come on, Sly. Don’t jinx me. I’ve had enough bad luck for one night.”

  “There’s a…guy. I could connect you with him, I suppose.”

  “This so-called guy can help me?”

  “I don’t know. But he’ll know more about all this than either of us put together.”

  “Who is he?”

  Sly regarded the burning tip of his joint as if it might tell him something he really needed to know. He hummed softly, then flicked some ash onto the floor and drew so hard on the joint he burned it to a nub. He pulled a cheap metal ashtray like the kind you used to find in fast food restaurants before all public places went non-smoking. He set the ashtray on the counter and stubbed out his roach while exhaling.

  “His name is Toft Kitchens.”

  “Seriously?”

  He shrugged. “I didn’t name him.” The growl in his voice told me he wasn’t happy talking about this guy. “But don’t think he’s a joke. He’s anything but.”

  “Is he an alchemist like you? A sorcerer? The boogey man? What’s the deal, Sly?”

  He gave me a flat stare. “He’s a four-hundred year-old vampire.”

  My jaw dropped so wide it almost came unhinged. “You…in the condition I’m in, you want me to go see a vampire?”

  “No, I don’t want you to, but what the hell? If someone’s going to know how to deal with this, he will. And he’s one of the…tame ones.”

  Yes, there were plenty of vamps who played by Ministry rules, who fed only on the willing, or took their blood from animals or underground blood banks. They kept to themselves and did whatever vampires did for fun. But that didn’t exactly make them nice. And they normally didn’t like dealing with humans, as it was hard enough for them to control their appetite without having tasty treats waved in front of them all the time.

  And since they mostly had to operate during the night, their occupations tended to skew to the more illicit brand.

  Still, Sly made a good point. I was utterly screwed if I couldn’t get this infection out of me. So what difference did it make walking into the den of an ancient and probably massively powerful vampire? The worst he could do was kill me and then make me his slave.

  Oh. When I put it that way…

  “Well?”

  I blinked. I must have faded there a minute. I desperately needed some sleep.

  “What?”

  “You want his address?”

  I nodded.

  He pulled out a pad and paper from under the register and scribbled out an downtown address. Handed the slip over to me. “This is his club. Obviously, you should wait until after dusk to see him. There isn’t long now before dawn.”

  “I’ll probably want to clean up before I see him anyway. Walking in all covered with blood and a nasty bite mark on my throat could make for a poor first impression.”

  Sly chuffed, but there was no humor in it. “Let me give you a lift home.”

  “That would be great,” I said, then remembered what I had to face there. “Though it’s going to be a while before I get any sleep, I think.”

  Chapter Nine

  “I thought you said your car was upside down on your lawn,” Sly said as he pulled his Caddy into my driveway.

  Sure enough, it wasn’t on the lawn. It wasn’t anywhere in sight at all. I got out and rounded the Caddy. The lawn was all chewed up where the car had landed, and a set of tire tracks curled away from the cement driveway. A few greasy stains on the ground might have been left over vamp guts. But those things were the only evidence that I hadn’t dreamed the whole confrontation up.

  Sly rolled down his window. “What’s going on, brother?”

  I shook my head. “No idea.”

  I had to admit, I was as much relieved as I was unnerved by the situation. It meant I wouldn’t have to deal with explanations to authorities. But it also spoke to a larger problem. Whoever had orchestrated my attack and abduction had wanted to make sure it stayed quiet. And they had the resources to not only scour away the burnt remains of a quartet of vampires, but haul off a car that had been on its roof and not exactly drivable.

  Surely the neighbors had seen something.

  Sure enough, as if thinking it made it so, Mrs. Snoopis came out of her front door and marched her way toward me.

  She wore a flannel nightgown that looked like it would be way too hot for this July heat. Her wide face was a pasty white and she had eyes that bulged so much they looked like they might drop out of their sockets if she shook her head too quickly.

  Her scowl looked like an ax wound across her face.

  Her slippers scuffed against the concrete as she crossed the driveway in front of Sly’s Caddy and over to me. She waved a finger in my face. “I knew it,” she said.

  I leaned back to avoid getting her stubby finger stuck up my nose.

  “I’ll leave you to it,” Sly said, rolled up his window, and backed out of the driveway.

  Thanks for the support, buddy.

  Mrs. Snoopis didn’t pay his departure any mind. Her ire was locked on me.

  “I knew it,” she repeated.

  I sighed. “Knew what, Mrs.…” I almost said Snoopis. I cleared my throat and course corrected. “Mrs. Sokalski.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Don’t play coy with me.”

  If only I could. But I honestly had no idea what she was talking about. She’d had many theories about my family throughout our years as neighbors. I could only imagine which she had decided on for tonight.

  “Ma’am, I have had a rough night, and all—”

  “I bet you have,” she said. Her voice made nails on a chalkboard sound like Mozart. She tilted her head to get a look at my neck. “What is that?”

  I put a hand over the vampire bite. Touching it made it burn. It felt crusty and scabbed.

  “I hurt myself,” I said.

  “Drugs.”

  I couldn’t hold back from looking at her like she had sprouted deer antlers.

  “Don’t you eyeball me that way,” she said. “Drugs. Plain and simple. You should be ashamed.”

  I assumed she meant that I was on drugs. Or maybe dealing them. Hell, for all I knew she thought I was a ranking member of the Mexican cartel. Frankly, I didn’t give a gods damned what she thought. I wanted my bed.

  “I don’t have time for this,” I said. “If you have a problem, take it up with the police.”

  She wagged her finger at me again. “Don’t think I won’t.”

  I rolled my eyes, turned away, and headed for my house. My shoes sunk into the churned sod from my car’s landing spot.

  “You’re just li
ke them, you know.”

  I froze. Turned slowly. “You don’t want to go there,” I said.

  She drew back, one hand going to the buttoned collar of her nightgown and drawing it closer to her throat. “Well, it’s true. Whatever strange things they were involved with—”

  My turn to point a finger. I aimed it right at her face, and if I’d had a little more strength and a lot less self-control I might have sent a hex right up her puggish little nose. “Don’t you ever talk about my parents. You don’t know a damn thing about who they are or what they’ve been through.”

  Her face pinched, but she must have seen something in my posture or expression, because I could see the fear fill her eyes, and it gave me a sick pleasure to find it. I felt a scary grin pull at my cheeks.

  “Yeah,” I said. “You better keep your distance. You don’t want any part of this.” I waved my pointed finger in a circle in the air. “You got it?”

  She huffed, but she didn’t have anything else to say. I stared her down until she finally waddled back to her house and disappeared inside. She slammed the door shut, but I would have bet she was peeking through the curtains of her bay window.

  “To hell with her,” I said and went inside.

  Chapter Ten

  I wanted nothing more than to go straight to bed, not even take off my clothes or clean off the wound on my neck. Plop down on top of the covers and drift off into oblivion.

  But I knew that was a bad idea. Sly’s potion might keep my magical energy up enough to fight the infection from spreading, but I did not feel comfortable allowing myself to lose consciousness without a little more backup. Last thing I wanted was to wake up undead. So I went into the basement.

  It had been a couple years since I’d gone down those steps. Yet I recognized every creak and give to the wooden risers. I recognized the musty smell and the faint oaken scent from the various wooden chests set along the floors between the metal shelving units carrying an infinite assortment of magical curios my parents had collected over their decades as scholars. They would often go on “digs” in far off locations, all corners of the globe, unearthing ancient artifacts. Magic had taken many forms throughout history, but it had always remained the same at its core.