Branded

by Rob Cornell

  The woman holding my elbow didn’t seem to notice my distaste. She gave me a gentle tug. “Please. Best not to keep him waiting.”

  I met eyes with the kid and could practically feel the old soul within him like a chilly winter breeze. Would have been nice if Sly had warned me that his four-hundred year-old tame vampire acquaintance had been turned when he was just a child. At the same time, I could see why he kept it to himself. I would have had second, third, and fourth thoughts about coming to see him. This was too disturbing for words.

  I let the woman guide me over to the booth. She held out her hand to indicate I should slide in on her side. Again, I hesitated, until the man came out of the booth and walked away without a word.

  “Please,” the kid said, and the one word was thick with a British accent. “We’ll speak alone.”

  I glanced at the woman.

  She smiled at me.

  I had an idea of why she wore the high collar now. Not because she was old-fashioned, but to hide the bite marks. She was a mortal feeder. From the stiff way she was acting, I felt confident she was merely a blood pet to Kitchens. Whether willing or not was impossible to tell. In the end, they all ended up the same way—slaves for their blood.

  But I didn’t have the time or luxury to judge. If anything Kitchens did wasn’t legal, the Ministry could take care of it. Who knew? Maybe one day I’d end up back here with a contract. Stranger things always happened.

  I took a seat. The “mother” left us.

  For a moment, we sized each other up without speaking. His little red mouth curled up at one corner. He inhaled deeply through his nose. “I can smell it on you.”

  I didn’t have to ask what. “My friend Sly says you might be able to help me get rid of it.”

  The little fucker pretended to pout. “Why would I want to help the man responsible for killing so many of my brothers?”

  So my reputation had proceeded me. Just not the one I had hoped for.

  “That’s a neat trick with the troll out front, seeing through his eyes. What is that? Astral projection or something like that?”

  “Something like that,” he said, his thick British accent making everything he said sound condescending.

  “A troll, though? That kind of magic seems out of his league.”

  “But not out of mine.” He raised his martini glass and took a sip. His suit was clearly custom fitted, but with that martini in hand he still looked like a kid dressed in his father’s clothing, pretending to be an adult.

  “How does a vamp live to four-hundred when he’s turned at twelve?”

  “Thirteen,” he corrected casually. He sipped his martini again and set it gingerly back on the table. He stared at the glass for a moment like a fortuneteller into a crystal ball. He licked his ruby lips and returned his attention to me. “It is both complicated and easy. A child isn’t suspected of much. Generally, they are given the benefit of the doubt. And there are many mortals who, for whatever reason, feel it their duty to protect children.” He shrugged his narrow shoulders. “I took advantage of that instinct. As you can see, I have a very fine set of parents at the moment, though they are getting a little old. I shall have to replace them soon.”

  I felt sick, right down to the pit of my stomach. Vampires, tame or not, were sick fucks. Plain and simple. I did my best not to forget that. I leaned an elbow on the table and lowered my head. “Can you help me or not?”

  He pursed his lips. Outside he was all child. Those eyes, though. Four-hundred years of whatever things he’d seen seemed to fill them to the brim. It was a weird disconnect to sit talking to a kid while at the same time knowing his knowledge of this world trumped your own tenfold.

  “As I said, I can’t see any reason why I should.”

  “Out of the goodness of your un-beating heart?”

  He made a face. “Really, is that any way to speak to someone whose help you are begging for?”

  “I’m not begging.”

  “Not yet.”

  My tempter got the best of me. I stood up. “Forget it then.”

  He shrugged and took up his martini again. “I will. Easily. You, on the other hand, cannot. Will not. Ever.”

  “For all I know, you had something to do with this. There were an awful lot of vamps involved.”

  “Please.” He wrinkled his brow as if he smelled something rank. He finished off his martini, set the glass aside, then picked the olive out of the glass that had sat in front of his “mother.” He pulled the olive off with his fingers and dropped it onto the table where it rolled a few inches, leaving a wet trail across the white table cloth. “I have better things to do.”

  “Like what? Drink martinis that can’t get you drunk?”

  Kitchens raised an eyebrow and smirked. “You don’t know if vampires can get drunk or not.”

  “I know a lot more about vampires than you might think.”

  “Well, I certainly don’t drink this shit for the flavor.”

  I didn’t really have anything to say to that. I had said all I could to this freak. He wasn’t going to help me. I turned around. And started walking away.

  “You know,” the little vampire shouted over the whine of the band’s trumpeter taking his own turn. “I have to admit it would be nice to have a sorcerer such as yourself in my debt.”

  I froze. The skin on the back of my neck crawled. I touched the lump in my pocket made by Dad’s watch. He would be so disappointed seeing me hanging with a vampire. Of course, he wouldn’t want me to turn into one either. Maybe he would understand.

  The thought gave me little comfort.

  I turned slowly.

  “I’m not making deals,” I said. “You can help me or not.”

  He shook his head. The gleam in his eyes made him look both giddy and hungry, like a kid staring down at his birthday cake, aching to blow out the candles and dig in. “It doesn’t work that way. You couldn’t have possibly thought you would come in here, garner my aid, and walk out without some kind of price.”

  I bristled at the idea of owing a vampire anything. It was the next worst thing to making a deal with The Devil himself. They were demons after all—souls from Hell wearing mortal bodies like puppet suits.

  “Well?” Kitchens said. He smiled, and the son of a bitching little shit showed me his fangs.

  I clenched my fist. Every fiber inside of me wanted me to turn around and walk out. But he was right. I couldn’t expect to have him help me without something in return. “What do you want?”

  “A blank check,” he said.

  “You need money?”

  He waved me over. “I don’t want to shout over this fine performance. Come and sit.”

  I complied. Grumbling under my breath on the way.

  Kitchens leaned toward me as if to impart a great secret. “I want an open invitation to request your services if or when I should require them.”

  Oh, man. I did not like the sound of that. “That leaves me open to a lot of ugly possibilities, kid.” I had added the kid as a jab, but he didn’t so much as flinch. “You tell me what you want and I’ll tell you if we’re square.”

  Kitchens leaned back. He still had the tiny plastic sword in his hand. He whisked it around in the air as if having a miniature duel with an invisible swordsman standing on the table. His smile defied the age in his eyes, enhancing his youthful appearance. “Fine. I’m bored. Go play it…” He laughed. “I was going to say safe, but safe is well behind you now, isn’t it?”

  Did this guy think he could bully me into a terrible deal? I didn’t care how young he looked, I was half tempted to take that stupid little sword and jam it in his eyeball.

  I must have shown my anger on my face. Kitchens bobbled his head in a well then way, as pretentious in posture as he was in word.

  Again, I almost stood. There had to be another way. Right?

  Even if there was, I didn’t have much time to find it. He had me against the wall. I had never had any leverage here from the moment I wa
lked in the club.

  “There has to be a few stipulations,” I said.

  “I’m listening.”

  “I won’t kill anyone for you. I won’t break any Ministry laws. And I will not, under any circumstances, let you feed on me.”

  Kitchens snorted. “Well, what good are you then?”

  “Forget this.” I started to stand.

  Kitchens grabbed my wrist. The strength in his grip was ten times what it should have been from such a small hand. “Sit, Mr. Light. I was only joking.”

  I eased back into the booth. He let go.

  “I do not see any problems with your stipulations. I can have my attorney work up a contract.”

  “I don’t have time for a contract.”

  “Then we shall swear by blood.”

  I took a long, deep breath. “Fine.”

  As if it had been his plan all along, he grabbed my wrist again and pinned my hand to the table. Then he stabbed the back of my hand with the plastic sword.

  “Ouch.”

  Blood oozed out from the tiny wound, out around the thin plastic blade which was only a shade brighter than my blood.

  Kitchens curled his lip, exposing one fang. A thirsty look crossed his face and disappeared as quickly as it came.

  “Swear by your blood, Mr. Light.”

  “I swear to offer my services to you with the understanding that I break no Ministry law or offer my blood as payment.”

  The blood on the back of my hand began to sizzle and bubble like butter on a hot skillet.

  Kitchens yanked out the sword and tossed it into his “father’s” untouched martini. A red swirl of my blood ran through the clear liquid. Meanwhile, the bubbling blood on my hand began to evaporate.

  “There’ll be no need for me to swear as I shall give you what you need right now.”

  The tiny hole in the back of my hand closed up. Without any blood left behind, it was like it never happened. “You know how to cure the infection?”

  Kitchens laughed. “There is no cure,” he said. “The infection is in you. It will always be in you.”

  I looked at the plastic sword floating in the glass, the martini had turned a light pink from my blood. “Then what the hell did I just swear for? You lying son of a—”

  “Stop. Do not say anything uncouth, or you’ll spoil my mood.”

  “I don’t give a damn about your mood.”

  “I agreed to help you. And I will. But that starts with the sad truth. You cannot expel the infection. But by virtue of the fact that you have somehow managed to keep it at bay for so long suggests there is a way to keep you from turning.”

  Always infected. But not turned. Didn’t sound like such a great deal. And if he thought he could count on my power to keep this up, he didn’t fully grasp the situation. Which meant I had to admit the full extent of my weakened state.

  “I have to use all the energy I’ve got holding this off,” I said. “I can’t keep doing it. Eventually I’ll slip.”

  Kitchens nodded. “In most cases, that would be true. But you are a powerful sorcerer, Mr. Light. Much like your parents and your grandparents. I don’t know your family personally, but I have heard of them ever since I crossed the Atlantic.”

  “So what?”

  “The problem isn’t the amount of power. It’s the allocation of your resources. Right now, you have brought yourself so low, you must fight to keep your head above water. Which means you can’t allow your own power to regenerate. Instead you depend on trinkets and potions.”

  “I never said I used any potions or anything.”

  “Don’t insult my intelligence, Mr. Light. You only make yourself look foolish.”

  I glowered, but kept my mouth shut.

  “You can only take power from outside yourself for so long. So in that case, you’d be right. You would slip and join myself and my brothers as an undead. You will need to fortify what is in you.”

  “I’m not sure anything you’re saying makes a lick of sense.”

  Kitchens rolled his eyes. “Please try to follow along, Mr. Light. Your life depends on it.”

  “Then quit babbling and do this thing.”

  “I’ll need something first.”

  “Of course you do. Is this the favor already? I thought you were saving that.”

  “This is a favor for yourself. There is an artifact. A relatively old one. Made before my time at least.”

  “An artifact? I thought you just said outside things can’t help me.”

  “Mr. Light, you are going to have to trust that I know what I’m doing. Bickering will not make this any easier.”

  I made a fist under the table. I was getting impatient. I wanted this over with, but the vampire kid was stringing me along. “Fine. Go ahead.”

  “All right then, the artifact is called the Brand of Gelding.”

  “Who’s Gelding?”

  Kitchens laughed, loud and hard. The drummer from the band glanced over. Even he had heard it over the music.

  “What’s so damn funny?”

  “You’ll find out soon enough. If I am correct, I believe I can make this artifact work in your favor.”

  I wanted to ask how, but I figured he would get to that. I wasn’t going to interrupt him anymore.

  “Aren’t you going to ask me where to find it?”

  “I figured you’d get to that on your own. Eventually.”

  “Very well,” he said. “But you won’t like it.”

  “There isn’t much about this I do like. Just tell me.”

  “Have you heard of Kuan-Yin Chern?”

  Every nerve in my body buzzed. “The Detroit Dragon?”

  “The very same.”

  “He has this Brand of Gelding.”

  “I’m nearly certain of it.”

  “You want me to ask a dragon for something out of his collection?”

  He laughed again, though not as loudly and with a strong core of mirth. “I highly doubt he would give you anything.”

  “You want me to pilfer a dragon’s treasure?”

  “Surely, there isn’t a thing I want you to do, Mr. Light. It is you who should want to acquire the artifact. For your own sake.”

  I sat back and dragged my hands down over my face. This vampire wanted the impossible.

  “This is really all you’ve got?” I asked.

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “But you’re sure it will work?”

  “Not in the slightest. Nothing is certain. However, I have high confidence that with the help of my personal mage, we can help you solve your problem.”

  “Wow, kid. You certainly have a way of making a guy feel good.”

  Chapter Twenty

  I needed a few things if I planned on breaking into a dragon’s lair. I headed home. I felt a little greasy after coming out of the Black Rose. Like the air had left a bit of darkness on me. Which made sense. I had offered my services to a vampire, and I had no idea when or how he would collect.

  I pulled into my driveway, not really paying attention to my surroundings until I started up the approach to my front door. A buzz in the air. A tingle up the back of my neck.

  Something had disturbed my wards.

  Like any self-respecting sorcerer, I had cast wards all over my home. Some were also left over from my parents. There was no way someone could break into my house without my knowing about it. Some of the wards were also set to discourage anyone from trying, painfully. I reached out and mentally checked those particular wards. Tripped. No…disarmed.

  “Shit.”

  I thought about getting in my car and just driving off. Let whoever had invited themselves into my house do what they wanted. Couldn’t have been the vamps. Even without the wards, they couldn’t get in without an actual invitation, and I have never—nor would I ever—invite a vampire over for drinks.

  I would have been fine if it were merely a burglar trying to pilfer some things, though it would have sucked to lose some of my parents’ stuff from the ba
sement. But a run of the mill burglar would have ended up knocked on his ass trying to get in in the first place.

  No, if they had managed to disarmed my wards, whoever had gotten in was a practitioner of some kind.

  I couldn’t walk away, though. I needed to get to my stuff.

  I took a deep breath, muttered some non-dangerous curses, then headed around the back. I wasn’t going to walk in the front door and let my intruder ambush me. Because I was certain that was their plan. Her plan, if I had to guess.

  Anda.

  But as I entered the shadows of my backyard, out of the reach of the streetlights, it occurred to me that Anda was not a practitioner. She was all about real-world, normal attacks. Breaking wards wasn’t in her repertoire.

  The Dalton brothers?

  Some other player?

  Or…sheesh, who knew?

  Best to get this over with.

  I reached the back door, crouching slightly to keep below any of the windows. I waited, cocked my head to listen.

  Crickets chirped.

  I dug into my pocket for my house key, tested the knob first to make sure it was locked the way I had left it. It was. Which suggested the intruder had used another entrance. Maybe had balls enough to march right in through the front door. Though I was surprised Mrs. Snoopis hadn’t made it her business to come over and ask my intruder just what he thought he was doing breaking into the house of such a low-life as Sebastian Light.

  I slid my key into the lock as quietly as possible and disengaged the lock. Then I shoved the keys back in my pocket and let myself in.

  The back door led into a mudroom with a pantry and the staircase into the basement. Up a step to the left is the kitchen.

  All the lights were out. The floor painfully creaked under foot. I winced and froze, listening for a similar sound deeper in the house. Silent, still, nothing.

  Maybe whoever had broken in had already left. Could have still been a burglar, only one with a taste for the arcane. While nobody overtly knew about the massive collection downstairs, my parents were well known in the magical community, as was their work. It wasn’t such a mental leap to assume they might have some goodies tucked away in their home.

  I waited another few seconds, then felt safe enough to move.