Branded (4 page)

I started to back down the driveway and that’s when the dark panel van squealed its tires as it turned into my driveway and blocked me in.

Oh, shit.

I glanced in my side mirror in time to see four figures pour out of the van—one from behind the wheel and three others out the sliding side door. The red gleam in their eyes and the grotesque distortion of their facial features told me I was dealing with vamps. One of the streetlights caught the gleam of one of the vamp’s fangs in case I needed to be sure.

I immediately reached into the glove box and grabbed the wooden crucifix I kept there.

I got out of the car and faced the vampires as they lined up alongside my car’s rear bumper. Three males and a female. Telling their ages was impossible, since they stopped aging once they turned. Their looks could only give you an estimate of how old they’d been upon turning. And that didn’t matter much either, because once you went vamp, a whole new set of rules determined how powerful you were, and physical condition was low on that hierarchy.

“Well, kids, this isn’t really your kind of neighborhood,” I said. I kept the cross held down at my side so they could see it, but I didn’t flash it around in front of me. That kind of gesture was considered especially rude in vampire company, and so far they hadn’t officially threatened me, so Ministry law could slap me with the equivalent of a misdemeanor if the vampires wanted to press charges.

Yep, all sorts of laws laid down based on this stuff. Otherwise, the streets would run amok with the denizens of the dark…and the light, for that matter.

The female vampire stood on the end of their lineup farther from my car. She wore a leather half-coat and had her straw-colored hair pulled back in a ponytail. Her face was full on vamp, the usual glamour that hid her true nature pulled aside. While this usually meant the vampire wasn’t happy to see you, it didn’t qualify as a technical aggression. So I had to look at her ugly face that looked like a skull with gray shrink-wrap for skin.

She stepped forward. “Put down the cross.”

I slowly shook my head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” I pointed with it down my driveway as if it were nothing more than an extension of my figure, casual, not facing it toward them. They all cringed back, but I wasn’t using it against them in any obvious way, so no one could cry foul. “I was headed out my drive,” I said, then lowered the cross back to my side. “But you’re blocking me.”

“Put it down,” the female snarled. The depth of red in her eyes turned three shades darker.

“Is this about Darius?” I asked. “Because I had a legitimate contract on him. You can’t retaliate against me for that.”

“We can do whatever we want,” said one of the males in the middle. His lips peeled away from his fangs and I noticed some discoloration at the tips. He had fed recently. Which would make him strong.

I checked the others and noticed the same darkness at the tips of their fangs. They all had had a fine meal before coming over to my house. This was not a social visit. Nor was it an empty threat.

These vampires came here to dance.

And still, until they showed obvious violent intent, I had to stand there and do nothing. Well, except shoot my mouth off.

“You know, you really should brush your teeth after meals. I’m sure your breath must stink.”

The female spokesperson took another step forward. “You are weak.”

I wrinkled my brow. “Is that supposed to make me cry? If I didn’t know any better, I would think you’re trying to provoke me. Is that how you plan on getting away with this?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You need to get off my property, or I make a call to the regional prefect’s office, and you can take this up with the Ministry.”

“Fuck the Ministry,” the grumpy male said. “Let’s just do it.”

I tucked the crucifix into my back pocket and crossed my arms. I could smell my body sweat overpowering my deodorant from standing out in the humidity. Nerves may have been a factor in my perspiration as well. I’d never stood against a quartet of angry vampires before. Usually, they kept away from types like me. While the Ministry laws protected them as much as anybody, vampires naturally suffered a heavier burden of proof than sorcerers. After all, sucking blood was their thing, not ours. It kind of made them look bad.

“What, exactly, are you here to
do
?” I asked.

The female’s lips pulled back so far she was almost all gums and teeth. She tilted her head from side to side while she stared at me, as if trying to figure me out. Or trying to decide which side of my neck to chomp on.

“You are afraid,” she said.

“Not afraid,” I said. “But I’m not stupid either. And if you show me anymore of your teeth, I’m going to take that as an official threat and dust you with fire. I’ll skip right over the crucifix phase.”

“I dare you,” she said.

What the hell? They really did want to pick a fight. Yet they weren’t willing to start it. So, in theory, I could turn around and go back inside and ignore them completely. They couldn’t follow me in without an invite, and eventually the sun always rose, and that would force them to make themselves scarce.

Problem with that was I had a maybe-date with Fiona, and I was loathe to pass that up. Especially since I’d have to offer some lame excuse. Telling her there were four vampires camped out in my front yard waiting to eat me probably would doom any chance of a reschedule.

I gritted my teeth. “Enough, freaks. Get out of my way, or suffer consequences.”

The female’s lips curled up giving her a huge clown-faced kind of smile.

A green sickness wormed in my stomach.

“Please, make us suffer,” she said. Her voice sounded like the combined hiss and rattle of a desert snake.

An idea occurred to me. I climbed back in my car, pulled forward a bit, then looped around in reverse, riding onto my lawn, which forced the female vamp to scoot aside. I did my best not to dig my tires too deeply into the sod by not spinning the wheels any faster than necessary. Luckily, besides the humidity, the weather had been dry, so I wasn’t sinking into wet sod. No matter what, though, I’d be leaving tire tracks on the lawn.

“Sorry, Mom,” I said under my breath and put the car into drive.

Before I could pull forward, the crabby male vamp jumped onto my hood and snarled at me through the windshield.

I officially took that as a threat.

All bets were off.

Throwing the car into park, I gathered my mojo. I held my hands up more to guide my spell than conduct it. Focusing on the air around the vampire on my hood, I pulled it to my will. The air coalesced around him. He must have sensed the magical energy growing. His red eyes went wide.

Too late for him, though.

I threw my hands up and directed the gathered air around the vampire up with him. The force carried the vamp off my hood and straight up as if I had taped a rocket to his back. He howled as he rose a good twenty feet before sailing back down in a narrow arc and thumping onto his back just in front of my tires.

I smirked.

Threw the car back into drive.

Floored it.

The back tires spun in the grass a second to gather purchase. I cringed as I imagined all the dirt flinging off the wheels and the ruts I was probably making in the lawn.

Finally, the tires gripped and the car lurched forward.

The shock of the vampire’s sudden ascent and descent kept him stunned for only a second. But it was enough time that, though he scampered out of the brunt of my car’s charge, I still clipped his legs under one tire.

Even with the windows up, I heard the crunch of his bones as his legs got tangled up in the wheel well. A most satisfying sound after having to deal with these douche bags trying to hem me in. I have control issues. I’ll admit it. And I’d be damned if I let some low-life ex-mortals ruin my date plans.

The female ringleader screeched like a dying crow. Reminded me of the sound Darius Strong made right before I turned him into wet dust.

She shot toward me on the driver’s side and threw a fist through the window.
The safety glass broke easily against her strike, opening a gummy hole that allowed her arm through.

I slammed on the gas, but between my back tires spinning in the chewed up sod and the fucking vamp all twisted up around my front wheel, the car jerked but didn’t move forward.

The female vamp grabbed my throat, getting a good grip right under my jaw, and yanked.

If I’d been buckled in, she probably would have taken my head off.

Lucky for me, my whole body came through the broken window and out onto the ground, where she unceremoniously dropped me like a sack of shit.

She stepped over me so that she straddled me, one booted foot on either side of my waist. Her fangy wide grin somehow widened further—I wondered for a split second if a vampire could peel back their lips all the way to their eyes—and her glowing eyes seemed to burn a hole right down to my trembling soul.

I didn’t tremble long, though.

I wasn’t an amateur.

I gathered another wave of power and hit her with a blast of focused wind. I knocked her into the air and down onto the neighbor’s front lawn. Then I hopped to my feet.

The other two vamps closed in.

I still had the crucifix in my back pocket and I whipped that baby out and aimed the cross between them. They hissed and drew back. The one on my right covered his eyes as if I’d shone a strobe light in his face. The other looked up toward the night sky as if he meant to bay at the moon.

Wrong creature.

While I had them distracted, I shifted the cross to my left hand and gathered heat into my right. (I’m right handed, and that does matter when it comes to magic). Flames quickly engulfed my fist. I swung my fist twice like tossing a couple of stones. Two fireballs shot forth, one for each vampire, and both hit square in their chests.

They screamed. The fire spread across their bodies as if coated in napalm.

While they flailed in pain, I turned back to Mr. Grumpy, whose broken legs were still pinned under the tire of my car. I tried to think of something smart to say, but came up empty.

He glared up at me, all fangs and angry eyes. “I’m going to rip your throat open and—”

I melted his face with another fire bolt before he could finish.

His vampire flesh sloughed off in large glops, exposing his misshapen skull underneath. His eyes still glowed. And he still screamed. When the flames died, if I let him be, his flesh would eventually regenerate. I either had to totally obliterate him with fire, chop his head off, or pierce his heart to actually kill him. But he wasn’t going anywhere at the moment, so I let him scream while I turned my attention to…

Shit.

The ringleader wasn’t where I’d left her. In fact, she wasn’t anywhere I could see her.

Plenty of shadows up close to the houses. And vampires could use the shadows to cloak themselves beyond the natural obscurity of darkness. I backed up to my car on the opposite end from where Grumpy was trapped and burning like a wick. I kept the vehicle at my back for what little protection it offered me while I scanned the neighbors’ and my own house for any sign of movement.

Nothing.

The pair of vamps I had lit up had stopped screaming. The pain must have knocked them out. Their cooked flesh continued to pop and hiss like grease in a cooling skillet.

I tilted my head and strained to hear any sign of their leader. Since vampires didn’t breathe, I wasn’t counting on hearing a quickened breath. Maybe the shift of a shrub, or the scuff of one of her shoes in the dirt.

No such luck.

I gritted my teeth. I had expended a fair amount of magic. And while I had plenty of power, my stores weren’t unlimited. I wasn’t even close to empty. But I’m only so cocky. I’m not an idiot. I don’t like to take unnecessary chances.

With the crucifix still clenched in my left fist, I slid along the side of the car toward the driver’s side. I pulled the door open, scanning the scene around me the whole while.

Grumpy flailed his hand at me, trying to grab my ankle. The flames around his face had mostly died, leaving charred pieces of his flesh glowing with embers around the edges. I stomped on his hand and pinned it under the heel of my shoe.

He growled, but it sounded like most of the fight had left him.

I took another second to glance around, and entertained the hope that the remaining vampiress had fled.

The two I had scorched had managed to flail and pat away the flames that had engulfed them. But they were both on their hands and knees, coughing on the smoke wafting from their bodies. Their clothes were a tattered and charred mess. The air smelled of burnt and rotten meat.

Satisfied I was done here, I slid behind the wheel.

I did not expect to find the female vamp in the passenger seat.

My surprise gave her enough time to launch at me and sink her fangs into the side of my neck.

Chapter Six

I felt my pulse in my throat pound with each gulp of my blood the vampire took. I tried to pull away, but she had me clutched tight. I worked out on a regular basis, lifted weights. I looked pretty good naked. But I had nothing against vampire strength. I did, however, kick ass in the magical department, and I needed to remember that if I was going to get away from this bitch before she completely drained me.

I stopped struggling and took a deep breath, trying to calm my mind even as the edges of my vision closed in and my blood drained away. My heart pounded at double speed to make up for the sudden loss. Eventually it would quit. Eventually this vampire would drain everything my heart could stand to give.

Focus, damn it.

I drew from my power. But each time I did, I felt it flow out of me in a rush from the gash in my throat the vampire was suckling at. Magic is as much a part of a practitioner’s physiology as it is intellect or life-force. I’d never been fed on before, but I had studied hard as the son of a pair of scholars. They made sure I knew everything necessary to understand the “world behind the world” as they liked to call it.