Branded

by Rob Cornell

  Ironically, what I needed for my Mission: Impossible breach of dragon central did not rest in the basement. I had my own stuff. I kept my magical arsenal in my bedroom closet, in a gun safe. That’s where I needed to go. I had only one way to get there—through the kitchen. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I squinted, trying to peer in and make out any unusual shadows. I could see the dark outline of the kitchen table and chairs. The stove. The fridge. The counter and cupboards. And…

  Something rushed at me. A big shadow. Wide. Like a freaking grizzly bear charging out of my kitchen.

  I froze for a second, the sudden approach startling me.

  I expected the mammoth shadow to collide with me. Instead, something buzzed like one of those zappers you hang outside to kill mosquitoes. I saw the short arc of blue electric light right before it came at me.

  Taser, I had time to think right before that electric arc bit against my chest.

  The pain zapped through me. My muscles did a little dance, ignoring any of my commands.

  I kept telling my legs to run back out the door.

  Wasn’t happening. Instead, they gave out under me.

  I fell.

  And fell.

  I tipped sideways and right into the stairwell to the basement. I felt every step’s corner beat against me as I rolled down them. The jagged agony from the Taser kept most of my pain stores to itself, but the damage from the fall tried hard to compete. I came to a sudden, flopping halt when I hit the basement floor.

  The wind knocked out of me, my limbs still spasming, all I could do was lay there and moan.

  I heard heavy footsteps on the stairs. The basement was in complete darkness, so all I could make out of my attacker was the silhouette of a large head against the vague moonlight coming through the back door.

  I tried to say something, warn him off, as if I could really scare him with words. Even if I could have, I couldn’t form a sound more coherent than, “Ugh.”

  Thump, thump, thump. The grizzly bear wore boots, and he took his dear sweet time coming down those stairs. I posed no threat to him, so why rush?

  When he reached the last step he flicked on the light switch. The fluorescent lights hung from the bare crossbeams along the basement’s ceiling flicker to life. The sudden light burned my dark-adjusted eyes and forced me to close them. A wicked headache stabbed me straight between my eyes. I groaned and writhed. Whoever this was had me dead to rights. If I’d had more magic energy in my system like normal, I could have bounced back from this and burned the son of a bitch down to the bones.

  All I had was what remained in my father’s watch. All I had to spare, at least.

  But if I used the remaining magic in the watch, that would kill it as an enchanted item. Whatever my father had had to do to get it charmed, whatever price he had paid—and it was bound to be a hefty one, considering how closely he had kept it on his person—I would undo all of that.

  And if I tapped what remained of my own energy, it would leave the infection to do what it wanted in my system.

  Of course, if I didn’t tap either, I would be dead.

  How did I know the grizzly wanted to kill me?

  Well, my eyes finally adjusted to the light, and when I opened them, there stood Günter Klonk. He wore a black suit and a red shirt underneath. The suit had to have been tailor made for his massive size. He had bus-sized width to his chest. His feet were as big as compact cars. And he almost knocked his head on the crossbeams above. He smiled down at me. He was missing his top front teeth. Had for as long as I had known him when he arrived on the Detroit demon hunting scene from some small country overseas.

  Günter had his Taser in one hand and a wooden stake in the other.

  “Light,” he said with a voice that sounded like his mouth was full of water. I’d heard some call him the Big Fish because of his voice. He was like an oversized talking bass. “You of all sorcerers. I never would have taken you for the vamp type.”

  I tried to yell at him to take a closer look. I wasn’t a fucking vampire.

  I still couldn’t talk straight thought.

  “Ungughah.”

  “Shhh.” He tucked his Taser in a back pocket, knelt beside me, and gripped the stake in both hands with the point down, aimed at my heart. “You don’t want to be a vampire. It is an ugly life.”

  He left me with no choice.

  I managed to get enough control of my hand to wriggle it into my pocket. I gripped the watch and pulled all the energy I could from it. I felt it course into me. I also felt the sudden cut off, like a psychic click of a pistol after it had shot its last round.

  I massaged the energy through my body, straitening my nerves, driving out the pain, killing the fatigue. After mere seconds, I felt like I had woken from a good nap. I wasn’t super powered or anything. But I was back to a base normal.

  Günter raised the stake over his head to bring it down on me.

  I rolled away as he brought it down in an arc. The stake’s point splintered against the concrete floor. He grunted as the shockwaves from his blow reverberated up his arms.

  I scrambled to my feet and spun around, looking for anything I could use as a weapon. I knew how to throw a punch. I even had taken some martial arts when I was younger. I kept my body in great shape, not just because washboard abs were hot, but my body and my magic were tightly connected. It’s why you don’t see a lot of fat sorcerers. You don’t take care of yourself, you don’t have good magic.

  So, anyone else, I could have engaged in hand to hand. But Günter didn’t have hands. He had hand-shaped clubs that could dent my face with one hit.

  He recovered quickly from his miss. He got to his feet, though it took him a bit. Strong as he was, gravity worked the same way on such a big frame as much as it did anything else. He looked at the ruined point of his stake and tossed it aside with a growl. It plink-plonked like a bowling pin across the floor.

  I backed up. His angry glower felt as imposing as his size. I felt crowded by it. I came up against one of the metal shelving units that carried a portion of my parents’ collection. I glanced over my shoulder at the contents. Stacks of old, big books. I grabbed one of the heavier ones and hurled it at Günter.

  He didn’t bother dodging. The book was the size of a toaster oven, but it bounced off his chest. The book swung open, the pages fluttered, and it landed splayed open on the floor.

  I smirked. “You probably don’t read much, huh?”

  He bared his teeth. I was pretty sure it wasn’t a smile. I wasn’t sure the Big Fish knew how to smile. He trudged toward me.

  I shuffled sideways along the shelves until I came to the next unit. I grabbed the first solid object I could lay my hands on. It was a blue and white vase with ornate paintings. Looked like some angelic figures. Some clouds. Pretty. Looked expensive.

  I threw it at Günter’s face.

  It shattered against his jaw. He flinched and staggered a little. But only a little. He growled some more and charged me.

  I had him on speed. I dodged away from the shelves and he plowed right into the one I’d stood in front of. The other objects—a few more fragile decanters and vases, some bronze bowls, a few glass figurines—all jostled and toppled over him, the metal objects pinging off his skull, the breakable stuff shattering on the floor around his feet.

  Before he had a chance to recover, I dashed for the far wall, more shelves all lined up and full with…stuff. I scanned left and right to find something more hefty than a vase and less soft than a book. There.

  On a lower shelf of one of the units a…huge bone. Gods, it looked like a femur. A dinosaur femur. But my parents were never paleontologists. This thing belonged to some other kind a creature. One I hoped to never meet. I was, however, most thankful for its leg bone. I grabbed it, wielded it like a bat, and spun just in time to see Günter charging like a bull.

  He had his Taser back out.

  Like hell I was going to get zapped by that thing again. When he came within range
, I swung the bone right at his hand holding the Taser. I knocked it like a tee ball off the tee. I heard the bones in his big paw crunch. The Taser flew from his grip and disappeared with a clatter among the plethora of items on the shelves.

  Gunter wrenched his broken hand back against his belly and cradled it with his other. The mad fire in his eyes made me glad he wasn’t a sorcerer, but just an amateur practitioning mortal. That kind of rage could have burned this whole house down.

  I had him on the defensive, and I wasn’t about to lose the advantage. I moved in for another swing.

  He threw up his arm to block. The knobby end of the femur cracked against his forearm and I heard another snap.

  A piece of the end of the bone flung off and twirled through the air and to the floor.

  Günter howled and staggered, now favoring his arm and broken hand at the same time, holding both arms close against him.

  I moved forward once again and swung the bone in a downward arc right on top of Günter’s thick head.

  The bone broke in half, the free end flying away, leaving the end I still held with a sharp point where it had snapped.

  Günter’s eyes rolled into the back of his head. A runnel of blood rolled down from his scalp and along one side of his fat nose. He dropped to his knees, then fell down on his face.

  Heaving breaths, I held the half bone I still clung to ready in case he got up. I waited a good long while, watching the steady rise and fall of his torso from his breathing. I contemplated driving the pointed end of the shattered bone through his back, drive it into his heart and end him right there. But I wasn’t a cold-blooded killer, even though he had had every intention of cold-bloodedly killing me. The difference was, he had a legal contract to do so, and was acting on good faith. I had never had a chance to tell him I hadn’t turned. Not like Anda, who didn’t seem to care either way.

  When I was satisfied the Big Fish wasn’t waking up any time soon, I dropped the bone, and tried to think of what to do next. I couldn’t very well leave him on my basement floor. And I didn’t have time to wait for him to come to and explain things to him.

  I drew my cell phone and dialed.

  “Hey, Sly,” I said when he answered with a sleep-choked “Hello?” “I need a favor.”

  Before he could correct me, I quickly added, “Yes. I mean another favor.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  When Sly arrived, I left him with Günter and went up to my room. I opened the gun safe in my closet using my code on the keypad in the door. The smell of old stuff wafted out at me as the door swung open. Not that anything inside was particularly old. But magical items tend to have that scent, mostly, I think, because magic is so old. Magic, in theory, pre-dates the existence of Earth. It is as natural a force as gravity, even though it is only fully available to a few. Still, it has the weight of ages. So that’s why I think everything it touches carries a scent of age as well.

  Could totally be my imagination, too.

  Inside my safe there are a few black velvet-lined shelves. Most of these shelves are full of glass bottles of various sizes containing liquids of even more variety of colors and consistency. An arsenal of potions. Unlike Sly, I don’t have the touch for alchemy, and never bothered to try learning it. My parents didn’t have an interest, so I didn’t get exposed to it much as a kid either. So the stuff on these shelves cost a shit ton of money. Only a few were mixed up by Sly. The others came from all over the world. And this wasn’t the kind of thing you could get mail ordered. I had to actually travel to the places where the alchemists made the potions. So, aside from the cost of the potions themselves, I had to factor in travel expenses and time as well.

  See why I kept this stuff in a safe?

  Aside from the potions, I kept a small chest on the bottom of the safe, not unlike the one my dad had stashed his watch in. Mine was made of enchanted pine, and while it didn’t have a physical lock, the wards threaded through the wood would kill anyone or thing who wasn’t me. I kept a few specialized trinkets in there, none of which could help me at the moment.

  What I was looking for I found on the top shelf right where I remembered leaving it. A bulbous bottle that I could conceal in one hand if I closed my fist around it. The liquid inside was clear as tears, but it was actually blood.

  Ghost blood.

  I grabbed the bottle and checked how much I had left. Only a couple doses. Three if I was lucky. But I would probably leave it at two. A half dose of this stuff could probably lead to some strange consequences.

  Right now you’re wondering how the hell a ghost could have blood.

  It’s more an expression than a reality. The liquid was what was left behind when a ghost was forcibly throw into the next life or spectral plane or whatever you wanted to call it based on what you believed. Basically, the place ghosts belonged. Alas, most of them didn’t agree with that assessment. They wanted to stay on the material plane. That’s what made them ghosts, duh.

  This clear fluid would be what the geeks considered ectoplasm, though it wasn’t slimy. It looked like water, only a little cloudy.

  Again, the name didn’t matter so much. The effects of drinking said fluid was what I had it for.

  Essentially, drinking this stuff turned you into a ghost. You and everything you had on you. It was like instant afterlife without all the trouble of dying. The effects also wore off after a while, so that was good. Ghost blood was rare as hell. I think this bottle had cost me a hundred grand, and it only came with a half dozen doses.

  Yeah.

  But this stuff was made for exactly the kind of thing I planned on using it for that night. Getting into very difficult to infiltrate places. I normally used it to get at bounties who had gone into deep hiding. Those tended to pay the most, making the cost of the ghost blood worth every dollar. The few times I had used it had paid for the stuff three times over already.

  I tucked the bottle in my pocket.

  I closed the gun safe and locked her up, then went to check on Sly.

  I found him in the basement staring down at Günter’s unmoving form. I hadn’t noticed the bloody gash on his skull until I saw it now, Günter’s wet and matted hair glistening in the light.

  Sly had his arms crossed, staring at Günter as if he were the world’s greatest riddle. “What the fuck am I supposed to do with him?”

  I shrugged. “You could wait for him to wake up, tell him I’m out, but if he’d like to try and kill me, there’s a line forming and he’ll just have to wait his turn.”

  Sly laughed, but he didn’t sound like he meant it. “I don’t think I want to be around when he comes to.” Sly groaned. “I’m going to have to call a few friends. Carry him out of here and drop him off someplace.”

  “Sounds like a great idea.”

  He looked up from Günter at me. “You really going through with this?”

  I had given him the quick version of Toft Kitchens’ plan when Sly first arrived. He had given me the requisite dubious look and that look was making an encore now.

  “Yes,” I said. “I don’t have much of a choice.”

  “There’s always a choice.”

  “Okay, Confucius. But the alternative sucks. Like, literally. As in, I’ll be sucking blood. And I happen to like real food.”

  Sly grunted, nodded, and seemed to come to some internal decision of his own, though I’m not sure what. Maybe he had planned on trying to talk me out of breaking into a dragon’s lair and stealing a piece of his treasure. I just might have let him, too, despite the sucky alternative option. He didn’t try, though.

  “You better get going,” he said. “I’ll take care of this.”

  “Thanks, Sly. I owe you big time.”

  He snorted, but left it at that.

  Without any more excuses to delay, I left for the dragon’s lair.

  Detroit used to have a Chinatown a long time ago. But the only evidence of its existence was an old sign welcoming visitors to Chinatown, kept around either as a historical la
ndmark or to confuse people. Not sure which. But now, where Chinatown once stood, was a new grand display of Detroit culture. And by grand, I mean the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino.

  However, underneath the MGM Grand, there remained a piece of Chinatown’s history. A rather big piece, actually.

  Not many knew about the underground complex where Detroit’s last dragon went to hide when his home was forcibly removed by the ever growing progress of a city. But the complex stretched well beyond the confines of the casino. In fact, I’m not sure if anyone really knew how large the place was. For the few of us in the magical community who knew of its existence, I don’t know of anybody who had been inside. Yet Toft Kitchens had claimed to know exactly where the vault containing the dragon’s booty was located. When I had asked him how he knew, he had blown off the question. I assumed it was the same way he knew this Brand of Gelding was in the vault to begin with. I couldn’t argue. I had to trust his intel. Had to go with the flow.

  I hated the flow.

  I used the casino’s valet parking. Made things easier than searching around for a parking place. I handed over my keys and headed inside, out of the humidity and into a chilly yet comfortable air-conditioning. I quickly threaded my way across the casino floor, the ping and pling of slot machines and video poker near deafening. I could smell grilled steak and onions from the casino’s Wolfgang Puck. A fair amount of people occupied the casino despite the late hour—it was after midnight by this point. Most of the patrons were over fifty. A good number well over fifty.

  I made my way directly to the high limit room. I kept my head down and my pace brisk. I wanted as few people to notice me as possible. Especially since the next few moments would get strange.

  I snuck into the high limit lounge and hung back in a corner. Luckily, I had the space mostly to myself and could scoot back out of sight from anyone outside the lounge area.

  Then I pulled out the ghost blood and took a sip.

  I felt the effects immediately. The fluid went down cold, like liquid nitrogen. A shiver raked through my whole body, shaking me like a mini seizure. My stomach did a couple flips as if I were going through the loops on a roller coaster, then I felt myself…fade. Really the only way I could describe it. It felt as if I was in a dream, that moment right when you drift from waking to sleep. It’s that same time when the sensation of falling can sometimes snap you back awake.