“I can’t. The Council wants me to take Sarah to their meeting in Chicago.”
“So lock Katie in the caves and take her to the island when you get back. As you are now, it would take you less than an hour to make it there.” Her gaze slid over me like a black cloud. “How long did it take you to get here from South America?”
I didn’t want to tell her. The speed I was able to achieve seemed shameful. All of my new powers made me feel that way most of the time. I was alone in the jungle for a long time after Michael turned himself over to Isaiah. At least it had seemed like a long time to me. It had felt like years passed before I began making my way back north, coasting above green treetops, chattering tropical birds, and turquoise waters teeming with fat fish. I saw a huge ebony stain across the Gulf of Mexico and only later heard about the oil spill that had caused it.
I stood on the beach in Pensacola and stared at the dead fish and birds, amazed at the difference between that and the green, healthy land I had left behind. I was coming back to a land of death and darkness after having been surrounded by pure life and virility. It was a sobering experience--one that I did not relish.
Brief conversations had taken place over the phone between Sarah and I since Michael had been taken. I knew she was petrified for him. I was ambivalent towards Michael. Where once there had been anger and jealousy, now there was a level of acceptance of the change in our circumstances and Sarah’s affection.
She loved him. It was easy to ascertain that fact by the quaking fear in her tone when she talked about him. As far as my feelings for Sarah, I didn’t understand them and hated to try to analyze any of it. We were friends. Maybe it always should have been that way. I had hurt her. I had almost killed her in my blood lust. And Michael brought her back.
I would have to go back to the farm. Back to Indiana. If something went wrong, Michael wasn’t there to save her anymore. The Indian wouldn’t be able to stop Katie if she decided to take out her sister. I would be surprised if Jackson was still alive by the time I got there.
CHAPTER 4 – Michael
Amanda was relentless. She had taken out all twelve guards around the pitiful little house where I’d been held. The location had been known only to Isaiah and the guards themselves before Amanda had convinced Isaiah that she would be able to feed me her blood and lengthen the time I had left to live. He wouldn’t risk exposure by coming himself. He knew he was being followed by the Council’s agents. His every move was being reported directly to Vincent and Teddy. She didn’t reveal to me how she obtained the vial of Isaiah’s blood.
“I finally managed to shake the Council yesterday. They lost track of me in a crowd in New Orleans.”
I eyed her warily as she removed her blood-stained denim pants and tank top. There was far too much worry inside my head to feel any lust for her at that moment. Between my thoughts of Sarah, my hatred of Isaiah and my recent captivity, there was no room for such animalistic instincts. And with Amanda trust seemed an impossible proposition, even though she had saved my life.
The motel room we’d rented in St. Louis had yellow walls and smelled like stale cigarette smoke. Amanda had paid cash and given a fake name at the desk. Apparently she had adjusted quite well to the new century. She drove a shiny black roadster called a Lexus and sent messages over her cell phone by typing with her thumbs on a touch screen. I had seen others do this before, but had never quite mastered that kind of skill.
She tossed the soiled garments on the dingy bed, ran her fingers through her long red hair and looked at me over her shoulder. “I’m taking a shower. Would you care to join me?”
“No.” Turning away from her, I grabbed the television remote on the nightstand by the bed. The filth I had accumulated after weeks of being tied to that bed had barely been skimmed off by the garden hose a few doors down from the house I’d been in. A more thorough shower was definitely called for, but I could wait. It was dangerous to assume I could effectively put off my rescuer’s advances indefinitely. Resisting Amanda’s many charms had never been easy for me. I didn’t look at her again, but concentrated on finding a news channel on the tiny television set.
A few minutes after the water came on in the bathroom, I picked up the phone by the bed and dialed Victoria’s cell number. Her voice was a comforting sound in that dank smelly room.
“I was hoping it would be you,” she said.
“I’m in St. Louis.”
“I know,” she admitted in a little huff, “Amanda was supposed to call me herself once she got you out.”
Speechless for a moment, I stared at the wall.
“Michael?”
“You were working with Amanda to get me free?”
“Unfortunately, we didn’t have any other way into Isaiah’s group. She knew where you were and said she could get you out. Meekah told me it would happen that way. We had to take a chance.”
I couldn’t imagine the bitter meetings that had probably taken place between the three of them. Once again, the loyalty of Victoria and Jones had proven to be one of my greatest assets. After everything they had already been through for me, I felt I owed them something more than what I’d offered in the past--something infinitely more suitable as a gift to two such treasured friends. But for the moment, I was more concerned about the current political situation of the Council.
“The Council has renounced Isaiah?”
“Yes. They have called a hearing to pass judgment.” There was a subtle breath before she finished. “They’ve asked Sarah to be there.”
Worry plunged through me like a ghost on the warpath. If they had requested her presence, then it would be public knowledge. She was going to be in a great deal of danger if she went to that meeting. It had to be stopped. Until Isaiah was destroyed, the only safe place for Sarah was the farm.
“Who put that on the table, Victoria?” I asked.
“Vincent.”
“Shit.”
He was the last one I wanted to spar with over this issue. The resources available to Vincent were sizeable. He had the money and influence necessary to downplay any request I might make on the behalf of Sarah’s safety. Additionally, he possessed a coldly calculating sense of justice with little room for negotiation. If he intended to fully prosecute Isaiah for his crimes, he would require Sarah’s testimony before the Council in order to render his opinion.
“Do you want me to set up a meeting with him?”
“Yes,” I answered, “And please come pick me up.” I gave her the address of the motel.
“We’ll be there soon. I’m glad you’re okay, Michael.”
“Thanks, Vic.”
When I hung up, I turned to see Amanda standing in the open doorway of the bathroom. She was still wet from her shower, her sodden mass of shining hair barely covering the dark nipples of her breasts. Despite my intentions, desire surged through me. Memories of us together fluttered around the edges of my consciousness. She had changed the way I saw women. After knowing her, I became so much more aware of the things a woman wanted and the things that I hadn’t even realized that I’d wanted for myself.
“Leaving so soon?” she purred. Her eyes were switchblades in the dark, seeking to cut through my defenses cleanly. But there was another image in my mind. It was another set of blue eyes, wide and infinitely more innocent, that kept a fragile check on my lust.
Sarah. Her vulnerability. Her strength of heart.
The vampire before me was a reminder of what I had been before Sarah had wrapped her slender fingers around my soul and grounded me. Amanda represented the ruthless, ghastly fantasy that had been my existence before I had been taken in. Before I’d learned to rein in the monsters inside me and trust that other voice that sometimes whispered that I was good underneath everything else.
Doubt had no place inside the chaos of Amanda’s head. She sent me a tiny little smile across the space between us, as if assuring me that any reservations I had would be dealt with in time.
The shiver that went
through my body should have been sufficient warning of things to come.
CHAPTER 5 – Sarah
“Katie, don’t lie to me.”
She was cornered. Alex stood beside me in the gloom of the storage room in the basement. It was the only place that might prevent her escape. She glared at us both in turn with her chin up indignantly and her dark eyes burning.
The betrayal and fear churning in me had dulled a little once Alex had arrived. Maybe it was just the knowledge that he had my back. But he also knew everything that had happened with Katie and me. He approached the house with clear purpose, having already caught up with my sister and he had her firmly in his grip. She had ceased to struggle against him, knowing it was pointless. Nothing on planet Earth could match the strength in him. Certainly not a fledgling vampire.
So he had taken her into the basement and decided to interrogate her there, among the boxes of Christmas decorations, suitcases and tattered rugs that Nelly had declared unsuitable for the house. The room had one door with ancient rusty hinges that had sat open for decades. I wasn’t sure if it could even be closed after all that time.
“How many?” Alex barked at her.
“How many what?”
“Ten? Twenty? How many have you killed?”
Holy shit. I felt a chill descend from my neck to my toes, as if someone had touched me with a want of ice, rendering my fingers and toes numb. My brain fought to drive away the feeling but it was nearly impossible. When my sister’s gaze slid over both of us dismissively and her face remained impassive and cold, I wanted to scream.
“What’s going on?” It was Jackson. He had come down the stairs and stood in the doorway. When he saw Alex, concern lit his face. “What’s happened?”
Katie laughed dryly. “Wonderful. Yes, let’s be sure to fill Jackson in on my crimes.”
“Why don’t you tell all of us, Katie?” Alex countered.
“Why should I say anything?”
“Because you’re my sister and I need to know if you’re in trouble,” I said. There was a distinct tremble to my voice. There was no getting around the emotion running out of control through me and the rest of us in that dusty room.
“Why do you always think it’s your job to save me, Sarah?” Her words were thrown at me like stones and her aim was perfect. “You were supposed to be my sister, not my guardian.”
Why shouldn’t I? Who else should I worry about? Nelly was a rock—the cornerstone of our world. And I had pushed everyone else away after Dad died. If my concerns weren’t focused on my sister, it would force me to throw all that emotional bullshit right at the mirror. The realization of it smacked me like a wet rag.
“Maybe I shouldn’t always have to save you. But this…” I wasn’t sure how to put the gravity of the whole thing into coherent words. “People are dead.”
“Yes.” She stared at me directly, without any hint of regret. “People are dead. Yes, I killed some humans. Yes, it’s horrible.”
I covered my mouth with both hands and bent at the waist, desperate to contain the shock of her statement. It was true then. My little sister was a killer. She had taken lives. I shook my head and backed away, running into the cement wall behind me. I felt the surface of it, rough and damp against my fingertips. I didn’t want to look at her anymore.
“You okay, Sarah?” Alex asked.
“No.”
“I’ll take her upstairs,” Jackson offered, lightly grasping one of my arms and wrapping me up against his side. His strength lent me the ability to continue to stand. My entire body felt strangely weak.
“Wait. She needs to hear this.”
We watched as Alex approached Katie and I saw her flinch when he made a move to grab her. And I heard his words clearly when he bent down to her. They were delivered in a tone equal to that of a federal circuit judge.
“If you don’t do exactly as I say, you will be destroyed. Vampires take it very seriously when one of their kind decides to break the rules and doesn’t bother to cover their tracks very well. It puts all vampires at risk when you pull that kind of shit. They don’t tolerate it, Katie.”
There was a flicker of fear in her face.
“If the Council finds out, they will either terminate you or send you somewhere very unpleasant.”
Jackson said quietly, “The Arizona camp.”
Alex continued with a short nod, “Exactly. I’m giving you one chance to save your ass and only one chance. You are going to come with me quietly and you will not touch a single drop of blood unless it is from a bag that I personally hand to you. Do you understand?”
She snorted. “Are you taking me to see Dr. Drew? I’m going to rehab?”
His strike was swift and without mercy. Before I could take a breath, there was a flash of movement and a crash. When my eyes finally processed what was in front of me, I was stunned to see Katie on the floor. There was a spider web of cracks in the cement floor from the force of the impact of her head. Her eyes were open, but she was very still.
I started forward, but Alex lifted a hand towards me. “Don’t.”
“But…”
“No. She’s not hurt. Trust me.” His green eyes swept over my sister calmly. “It would take a lot more than that to do any real damage to your sister, Sarah.”
There was something meaningful in that statement that struck me silent and left me as still as my sister. I had spent so much of my own energy protecting Katie. I had somehow seen that fierce façade as fragility under a mask. But it was certainly possible that I had been wrong.
What if Katie was the tough one? In reality, it was probably me that was more easily hurt, too quick to trust, prone to falling. I didn’t like being wrong. And I wasn’t sure if I really could let go like the situation required. Could I really let Alex take her away?
“Where will you go?”
“Not far for right now. I would take her into the caves, but the possibility of her waking up another old vampire doesn’t sit well with me. I’ll look for a place outside the perimeter where I can keep her until the hearings are over.”
“What am I supposed to do, Alex? She’s my little sister. I have to know that she’ll be okay.”
His look was serious and disturbing. “She’s not going to be okay. She’s a murderer.”
CHAPTER 6 – Alex
I knew it wasn’t going to be easy. Sarah’s skin tone had gone gray during Katie’s questioning in the basement. I wondered what my family might have thought of me when I first became a killer like Katie. Would they have suffered like Sarah? As far as I knew, none of my relatives had ever discovered what had really happened to me.
It was still an open wound to me, losing my family and knowing that what I had become would prevent me from ever being a part of their lives again. When Michael first turned me, I had only been nineteen years old. I was living in Chicago and studying to be a lawyer. There had been a future available to me. But I was arrogant, even then.
I vainly yearned for more exciting things to happen to me. The wheels were set into motion at an Irish pub on the outskirts of Chicago in August of 1945. I will never know exactly what prompted Michael to pick me out of the crowd and begin a conversation with me. Maybe he sensed something unique about my nature and background. Perhaps he was just bored. But we became friends.
I was an angry young man. It seemed like I spent most of my young adulthood trying to prove how successful I could be and how much power I might have over others. There was a specific person from my mortal past who had pushed me into that persona.
When I was a little boy, my family and I lived next door to the McDowells. They were a straight-laced, ambitious clan of Scottish descent. Between the outer walls of that tiny brick bungalow, they brought five children into the world and had to bury three of them before their third birthdays. Some said the little ones had suffered from crib death, but I had my own suspicions.
Phil McDowell was five years older than me and our families were close. But he was indescribably
cruel to other children. Somehow, he had his parents convinced that the “accidents” that happened to the other kids around him had nothing to do with him.
After his beatings, he would hand deliver me to my mother and explain that he’d seen me climbing a large tree and had warned me to get down before I got hurt. Or he’d say that he’d found a group of boys from across town beating me up in the alley behind our houses. He was clever enough to remind me that his words would be seen as the truth if I ever accused him of his crimes.
I never said a word to my parents about the beatings and who was really responsible. Maybe they suspected that things were not right, as I learned to stay close to the adults whenever we got together for the weekly cookouts. If Phil suggested in front of my parents that he wanted to take me fishing or down to Franklin’s, the corner store, they would not usually hesitate in urging me to go. Occasionally I could fake a tummy ache to get out of it.
The anger inside me took root. I had nightmares about Phil burning me alive, burying me in the landfill that his family helped manage or drowning me in Lake Michigan. My father always encouraged me to be tough and work through my fear. But it turned into rage.
By the time I was in high school, I’d grown three inches taller than Phil. He had headed off to law school at Princeton, oddly enough. When Mr. McDowell bragged about how well he was doing, I felt a consuming resentment that someone of his character should have that kind of success. I decided that one way to bring about my revenge would be to outperform Phil.
When I decided on that path, my parents were skeptical. They had seen my early interest in music and art and assumed I would pursue that after school. They were even prepared to help support me until I could make a living out of my artistic ability.
I announced to them one balmy summer evening that I wanted to be an attorney. Despite their surprise, they were supportive. In my final year of high school, I was accepted to one of the best pre-law programs in Chicago. The first two semesters were stellar. My professors were impressed with my efforts and my grades were nearly perfect.
The Vampire's Release, A Paranormal Romance (Undead in Brown County #4) Page 3
