Branded (18 page)

The old man’s gaze turned up as I rushed in. Then he looked down to my hand that clutched the brand. His rheumy eyes widened. His tongue poked out of his mouth and swiped along his top lip. He looked…hungry.

And I could relate. I felt famished. And the old man’s neck looked as tasty as anything.

Toft gave me a once over and raised an eyebrow. “You’re almost there.”

I shook the brand at him. “Let’s do this.”

Toft turned to the old man. “Is there still time?”

My stomach dropped as the old man took a century to contemplate the question. He stared me in the eyes. Finally, he nodded. “If he is as strong as you say, then yes.”

“Are you?” Toft asked me.

“Yes,” I pushed through my clenched teeth.

The old man waved me over. “Enter the circle and give me the brand.”

I stepped over the salt line and handed over the artifact, which the old man wrenched from my grasp like a child taking a present at his birthday party.

He jammed the business end into the bucket of flames. “Take off your shirt.”

I didn’t bother with the buttons. I ripped the shirt open and yanked it off of me as if it were full of fire ants. I tossed it outside the circle.

The old man gazed into the fire, watching the end of the brand grow brighter and brighter as it absorbed the heat from the flames. The light flickered across his features, adding depth to his wrinkles and deep-set eyes. A small smile tugged at the corner of his weathered lips. “I am going to close the circle now,” he said, never taking his gaze from the fire. “Do not cross the salt. Do not throw anything beyond the circle.”

“I know how a magic circle works,” I said.

His grin widened. He jostled the end of the brand deeper into the coals. The hot stench of smoke filled the air and made my eyes water. Toft didn’t seem bothered by it. And while the old man’s eyes were bloodshot, he showed no outward sign of discomfort. Strangely, the smoke did not make it hard to breathe. These flames were not the same you’d find in your backyard barbeque pit, so it stood to reason the smoke it produced would possess different qualities as well. It didn’t smell like sulfur, so it wasn’t Hellfire—thank the gods. This area of magic wasn’t my specialty, so I couldn’t make a proper guess about the fire’s true nature. I didn’t much care either, because as each second ticked by, my body temperature dropped, and the craving for the iron taste of blood threatened to drive me insane.

“Get on your knees,” the old mage said.

I dropped without hesitation.

The mage muttered something under his breath. A second later I felt a sudden pressure in my ears like what you feel when a plane takes off. The surrounding air took on an electric quality. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end, and my scalp prickled. He had closed the circle.

“Something you should know,” Toft said. “About how this works.”

I looked at him. “You waited until now to tell me?”

“We’re in a hurry, no?”

Despite his youthful looks, I saw the age in the vampire’s eyes, and an ancient wickedness. I realized, in my desperation, I had trusted him too easily. And now I was about to learn the cost of that trust.

“The Brand of Gelding,” he said. “Gelding, as in
neutering
.”

I clenched my jaw. I wanted to spit, to punch something. But I was more angry with myself than Toft. I had let that stupid word—
gelding
—slip right by without a thought.

“Don’t give me that look.” Toft gave me a wounded look of his own, which came off as more petulant because of his little boy appearance. “I’m not betraying you. But you need to know some history so there are no surprises.”

A liquid cold wormed through me. I found it more and more difficult to breathe. Yet I didn’t feel starved for breath either. I didn’t seem to need the air at all. “I don’t have time for a history lesson.”

“I’ll be brief. The Brand of Gelding was once used to punish sorcerers for misuse of their power. Since you can’t take the magic out of one born with it naturally, the only way to keep a sorcerer from their power was to cut off its use.”

I did not like the sound of where this was going.

“The brand works as a sort of stopper to bottle up the power, locking away the punished one's access to it.”

“How the hell is that going to help me here?”

“The good mage here assures me he can make it so he creates a sort of partition to your power, saving a portion of it strictly for fighting off the infection, much as you have until now. In this case, however, you won’t have to worry about accidentally dipping into that reserve. In fact, you needn’t think of it at all. It will always be there, subconsciously keeping the infection from turning you.”

I tried to wrap my head around what he was saying. It sort of made sense. Yet the deeper implication worried me. “How much?” I asked.

Toft didn’t have to ask how much of what. He knew what I meant. “About half, from what my friend here tells me.”

Half of my power? Cut off? Out of reach? Lost to me forever? Since you couldn’t measure magical power like you could electricity or gasoline, I couldn’t know how much weaker that would make me. I had a lot of natural power. My bloodline had assured me of that. Maybe half still wouldn’t be so bad. After all, I had never come close to my limits until these past few days.

And I didn’t have much of a choice. I could either keep all of my power and lose my soul, or keep my soul and lose half of my power.

I liked my soul too much to kiss it goodbye.

“Fine,” I said. “Do it before I grow fucking fangs.”

Toft nodded to the mage.

The mage smiled, showing his teeth. The front two on top were gold. He pulled the brand from the fire. The end glowed bright orange. He circled around me until he stood at my back.

I dipped my head down and clenched every muscle, anticipating the pain to come.

The mage rattled off a string of Latin. I was better at reading Latin than listening to it. But I caught the gist. Something about my spirit, my power, and the unholy something or other inside of me.

Then he hit me with the brand up on my right shoulder.

The pain shot through me and straight down into my groin. My shoulder burned while I felt like someone had kicked me in the nuts, that oozy, nauseating pain twisting through my belly. I cried out. The edges of my vision closed in.

The mage pushed the brand harder against me.

A fresh blast of pain ripped down into my belly. The air filled with the smell of my cooking flesh. I could hear my skin sizzling. Then a white flash stole my vision. My surroundings turned to a white blur. Every organ inside of me felt as if it exploded. I threw my head back and howled.

The white blur faded to blackness.

Then I lost consciousness.

When I woke up, I lay on a hard surface. I was pretty sure I had opened my eyes, but I couldn’t see anything. For a panicked moment I thought the branding ritual had blinded me.

“Try to relax.”

I recognized Toft’s little boy voice. I turned my head in the direction it had come from. I thought, maybe, I saw a shadow move in the darkness.

“Where am I?”

“Still in my office.”

I felt along the surface underneath me and realized I lay on Toft’s desk. “I can’t see.”

“That’s because all the lights are off,” he said with an amused lilt.

I let out the breath I’d been unconsciously holding and lay still for a moment. “Did it work?”

“Are you hungry?”

As if on command, my stomach growled. “Starving.”

“What are you in the mood for?”

My mouth watered as I imagined biting into a crispy slice of Jet’s Detroit style pizza. I could have polished off a whole large by myself right then and there. And with that thought, I relaxed. I was hungry for people food, not blood.

“It worked,” I said. I blinked a few times, but my eyes refused to adjust to the darkness. “Doesn’t your office have any windows for the gods’ sake?”

Toft laughed. “I’m a vampire. And sometimes I have to work days.”

“Right. So now what?”

“That’s entirely up to you. When you’re feeling up to it, I can have Mortimer give you a lift home. I took the liberty of relocating the vehicle you stole to get here last night.”

Last night? How long had I been out? “What time is it?”

“Just past noon.”

“You stayed with me all this time?”

“I wasn’t going to leave you alone in my place of business and give you the chance to steal from the bar’s top shelf.”

I laughed. “You were worried about me.”

“I’m certain to have use for you one day. I simply needed to protect my investment. And since you seem all right, I’d like to get some sleep. Dusk always seems to come too quickly, and I’m a terrible crank when I don’t get my rest.”

I heard the faint rustle of fabric as he stood. “I’ll have Mortimer in a car waiting out front for you. But take your time. You’ve had a rough couple of days.”

I didn’t hear footsteps or the sound of a door opening or closing. For all I knew, he still stood there watching me with his vampire night vision, making funny faces at me. The silence was unnerving. Almost as much as the complete darkness.

I wanted nothing more than to stand in the sun and let it bake right through me.

I swung my legs off the desk and slowly rose. My head spun a bit, but I otherwise felt fine. I noticed a tingling on my shoulder where the mage had pressed the brand. I was still shirtless. I reached back and traced the scared flesh with my fingertips. A subtle energy vibrated from the branded skin. Clearly something magical going on there. I turned my focus inward, seeking any power that remained within me. My rest had allowed my power a chance to recover, but I could clearly feel a…
lacking.
A piece of me was gone, like an amputated limb.

I began to shiver. My throat closed. My heartbeat quickened, and my pulse thumped in my ears.

What have I done? Dear gods, what did I let them do to me?

I’d had no choice, I tried to convince myself. But a primal part of me stoked my growing panic. That part of me didn’t care about choices or consequences. It wanted its whole self back. It wanted it
now
.

I did my best to take calming breaths. All I’d gone through, I wasn’t about to have a fucking heart attack over it and die anyway.

So I had lost some power? I had also kept myself from turning into a vampire. I didn’t have to worry about that anymore. I could go to the Ministry, clear things up. They would revoke the contract, and Anda would have to suck it up and let me live.

Meanwhile, I could get my life back in order, get back to work, and set up a second date with Fiona. And a third. And hopefully a whole lot more.

Things were good.

Right?

When I managed to stave off the panic attack, I took Mortimer the troll up on his offered ride and had him take me to the MGM so I could retrieve my own car. Not surprisingly, the casino was closed, but I was able to recover my car from valet parking on my own.

Next stop, the Ministry’s Detroit office. Time to get all this contract on my head shit straightened out.

Chapter Twenty-Five

I made it a block from the casino when my phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out and found the screen cracked, but it was still functioning. The caller’s number didn’t show up on the ID so I almost tapped ignore. Something compelled me to answer, though.

“Hello, Sebastian.”

Anda.

“Glad you called,” I said. “Good news. I’m no longer in danger of turning into a vampire. In fact, I’m headed over to the Ministry to let them know.”

“I don’t care.”

“That’s sweet.”

“Someone wants to talk to you.”

I heard rustling, then Anda’s voice away from the phone say, “Do it.”

The next voice I heard chilled me.

“Don’t let this bitch bully you,” Fiona said. “I can take care of myself.”

I had to pull to the curb in case I ripped the steering wheel loose from the column. I gripped the phone so tightly, I imagined I could hear more cracks form across the screen. “Where are you?”

Before she could answer, Anda took the phone back. “This is it, Sebastian. Time to settle this.”

“I just told you, I’m not a fucking vampire. You can’t do this.”

“The contract is still good,” she said.

“Not if I go to the Ministry, it won’t be.”

“How long will that take? Long enough for something…sad…to happen to your girlfriend?”

“Why are you doing this?”

“Because I’m sick of you. Sick of your arrogance. Sick of you leaving nothing but scraps for the rest of us hunters to survive on. Sick of your smug face I see in my nightmares every night.”

“You’re insane.”

“I’m not the only one you’ve pissed off. We’re all in agreement. You have to go.”

I thought about explaining everything, telling her I didn’t have as much power as I used to, that the competition would probably level off because of it. But I knew it wouldn’t make any difference. Anda had decided I needed to die in order for her to live. So it was best I not give her the intel about my recent magical downgrade and let her think I had as much juice as always.

“Do you really think I’m going to just let you kill me?”

“Let me worry about the details,” she said. “You get your ass to the Silverdome. No stops.”

I started to argue, but the connection went dead.

I threw the phone at the dashboard, not giving a damn how much more I broke it. A piece of plastic flew one way and the phone bounced off the dash and out of sight to the floorboards on the passenger side. The air crackled with the magical energy my extreme emotions evoked. I might not have had it all anymore, but I still had some. And I would use every last bit to put Anda down for this.

I pulled a U-turn and headed for the Pontiac Silverdome.

Chapter Twenty-Six

I found Fiona in the center of what used to be the football field where the Detroit Lions played. The dome that gave the stadium its name had long since collapsed, exposing the field to the elements. Only shreds of Astroturf remained around the edges, the rest eroded away from years of rain and flooding. A mossy smell hung in the air. Weeds choked nearly every available crack. Shreds of the dome dangled from the collapsed frame like flags of surrender.