Branded by Rob Cornell Page B

on the lawn. It wasn’t anywhere in sight at all. I got out and rounded the Caddy. The lawn was all chewed up where the car had landed, and a set of tire tracks curled away from the cement driveway. A few greasy stains on the ground might have been left over vamp guts. But those things were the only evidence that I hadn’t dreamed the whole confrontation up.
    Sly rolled down his window. “What’s going on, brother?”
    I shook my head. “No idea.”
    I had to admit, I was as much relieved as I was unnerved by the situation. It meant I wouldn’t have to deal with explanations to authorities. But it also spoke to a larger problem. Whoever had orchestrated my attack and abduction had wanted to make sure it stayed quiet. And they had the resources to not only scour away the burnt remains of a quartet of vampires, but haul off a car that had been on its roof and not exactly drivable.
    Surely the neighbors had seen something.
    Sure enough, as if thinking it made it so, Mrs. Snoopis came out of her front door and marched her way toward me.
    She wore a flannel nightgown that looked like it would be way too hot for this July heat. Her wide face was a pasty white and she had eyes that bulged so much they looked like they might drop out of their sockets if she shook her head too quickly.
    Her scowl looked like an ax wound across her face.
    Her slippers scuffed against the concrete as she crossed the driveway in front of Sly’s Caddy and over to me. She waved a finger in my face. “I knew it,” she said.
    I leaned back to avoid getting her stubby finger stuck up my nose.
    “I’ll leave you to it,” Sly said, rolled up his window, and backed out of the driveway.
    Thanks for the support, buddy.
    Mrs. Snoopis didn’t pay his departure any mind. Her ire was locked on me.
    “I knew it,” she repeated.
    I sighed. “Knew what, Mrs.…” I almost said Snoopis . I cleared my throat and course corrected. “Mrs. Sokalski.”
    She narrowed her eyes. “Don’t play coy with me.”
    If only I could. But I honestly had no idea what she was talking about. She’d had many theories about my family throughout our years as neighbors. I could only imagine which she had decided on for tonight.
    “Ma’am, I have had a rough night, and all—”
    “I bet you have,” she said. Her voice made nails on a chalkboard sound like Mozart. She tilted her head to get a look at my neck. “What is that?”
    I put a hand over the vampire bite. Touching it made it burn. It felt crusty and scabbed.
    “I hurt myself,” I said.
    “Drugs.”
    I couldn’t hold back from looking at her like she had sprouted deer antlers.
    “Don’t you eyeball me that way,” she said. “Drugs. Plain and simple. You should be ashamed.”
    I assumed she meant that I was on drugs. Or maybe dealing them. Hell, for all I knew she thought I was a ranking member of the Mexican cartel. Frankly, I didn’t give a gods damned what she thought. I wanted my bed.
    “I don’t have time for this,” I said. “If you have a problem, take it up with the police.”
    She wagged her finger at me again. “Don’t think I won’t.”
    I rolled my eyes, turned away, and headed for my house. My shoes sunk into the churned sod from my car’s landing spot.
    “You’re just like them, you know.”
    I froze. Turned slowly. “You don’t want to go there,” I said.
    She drew back, one hand going to the buttoned collar of her nightgown and drawing it closer to her throat. “Well, it’s true. Whatever strange things they were involved with—”
    My turn to point a finger. I aimed it right at her face, and if I’d had a little more strength and a lot less self-control I might have sent a hex right up her puggish little nose. “Don’t you ever talk about my parents. You don’t know a damn thing about who they are or what they’ve been through.”
    Her face pinched, but she must have seen something in my posture or expression, because I could see the fear fill her eyes, and it gave me