Branded by Rob Cornell Read Free Book Online Page A

hand, I found I didn’t have the physical strength either. I leaned my back against the door and looked around for another exit. A standard door was all the way on the other side of the warehouse. It looked a million miles away to me.
    I shuffled toward it.
    Again, my legs gave out. This time I dropped onto the concrete floor on my side. The floor was cold. All this time, I hadn’t realized that I’d been stripped to the waist. But while I lay there a moment, trying to regain the will to get back on my feet, I noticed a strange feeling inside of me, like something—or several somethings—crawling through my veins.
    I knew instantly what it meant.
    The vampire infection was taking effect.

Chapter Eight
    I found my shirt and my phone in a neat pile on a workbench not far from the exit. I don’t know how long I had laid on the floor feeling the infection skittering through my system, but I was pretty sure I had passed out at one point. I was only feeling slightly better now. I had found that I could focus what little magical energy I had left to push back that creepy feeling. I didn’t know if it actually had any effect on the infection itself. It made me feel better, though. I’d take it for now.
    I also felt better once I had a shirt on and my phone in hand.
    I had speed dialed Sly and now waited for him outside the warehouse in its weed choked cement lot. I was somewhere downtown, but not in any place I had been before. When I had explained my surroundings to Sly, he seemed to know where I meant. He probably could throw together some potion or something to trace me too. I had given him a lock of my hair a while back for him to use in case I disappeared without warning. My line of work, that’s a distinct possibility. I trusted Sly with such things. I trusted him with my life.
    I was more than relieved when he pulled up in his Caddy. I got in and stared out the window as he wound his way around several blocks until he reached I-75.
    “You ready to tell me what happened?” Sly asked as he merged onto the expressway.
    I opened my mouth. The words did not present themselves. I closed my eyes and rested my forehead against the glass of the side window. My sweaty forehead slid a little against the glass.
    “That bad, huh? Was it a job?”
    “No.” My voice growled as if I’d inhaled too much smoke. I guess I had. Yummy vampire smoke. “I don’t know what the hell that was.”
    Sly didn’t say anything.
    According to the clock on the dashboard, it was after three in the morning. I had long since missed out on my date with Fiona. Guess I could kiss that dating opportunity goodbye. Probably just as well. She didn’t want to get wrapped up with a guy who’d nearly been turned into a vampire.
    “They tried to turn me, Sly.”
    “Who tried to turn you into what ?”
    “A group of vamps. A whole slew of them.”
    The car veered into the next lane. Sly glanced at me. “They tried to turn you, turn you?”
    I nodded and sighed. I really wanted to crash in bed and sleep for an eon, but I had too much to do before I could rest. I had to get this vampire infection out of my system, for one. And I had to deal with the inevitable fallout of the fight at my house. My neighborhood had an active neighborhood watch program, which, in my opinion, was an official means of snooping for nosy neighbors. Like the old lady who lived next door. She was widowed about ten years before I lost my parents, and since that day she had given them hell with all the questions and commentary about their comings and goings.
    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