I knew that if Meekah was telling Amanda about all her visions, we were doomed. My fiery ex-lover would be sure to eliminate Sarah as soon as the opportunity presented itself. But if Meekah were holding back for some reason or if her visions had become fewer and less relevant to our situation, we had a chance of getting through it all. It was that remote possibility that gave me some sense of hope.
As for Katie, I had a few ideas about how to bring her around but none of that could be attempted until after the hearing. I also had a suspicion that Katie might prove to be something more than just an ordinary creature of the night. There was something truly enthralling about the blood that ran through the veins of the two Wood sisters, and combining that element with the supernatural powers inherent in the undead might have given rise to a creature far different than what I knew myself to be.
My jaw began to ache with the urge to release my canines when I thought about Sarah’s blood. The rich, thick powerful flavor of it remained vivid in my memory. I had to fight the desire rising through me once again. It gripped me like the vision of a rising red tide in some demonic landscape, guaranteed to overwhelm and drown me if I didn’t succumb.
“Fuck,” I swore. “Alex, stop the vehicle.”
Sarah leaned forward over the back of my seat and touched my shoulder. “What’s wrong?”
The dreaded blood lust surged through me relentlessly. There was no stopping it when she was that close. The growl of hunger ripped through me and came out as a low snarl. I felt the shock of sudden fear go through her fingers. Sarah’s hand fell away.
“I’m pulling over. Just keep it together,” Alex muttered.
But there was no earthly way he could stop in time. I had to get out of there.
When I glanced desperately over at him, he looked shell shocked. I can imagine he was probably remembering his own moments of weakness with Sarah and how impossible it seemed to push the urges back. He was probably remembering how guilty he felt afterwards. But all I could think about was getting the hell out of that car. If my mind would have strayed towards anything other than warm blood or the exquisite softness of Sarah’s inner thighs, I may have been able to prevent the violent accident that happened next.
Sarah was not wearing her seatbelt. She should have been. I should have insisted on fastening it for her myself. My mind had been so entrenched in the memory of her skin against mine that I had neglected to consider her safety. So when the collision occurred, I wasn’t prepared at all.
I had never been in an automobile crash. There’s really no way to describe the shock of that amount of force being expended in the span of a half second of time. The sound itself was wretched—a clashing of metallic surfaces that echoed through me like a wave of electrical power. For the first time since I was a child, I wanted to cover my ears with my hands.
As immortals, Alex and I had not bothered with the safety devices either. We are not impervious to the laws of physics, however. So he and I were catapulted into the glass in front of us. The steering wheel stopped his forward motion, while I was thrown completely through the glass and into the air above the truck that had hit us.
I landed painfully on my left side on the pavement of the interstate about thirty yards from the two vehicles. Somewhere in the mass of twisted, smoking wreckage lay Sarah. I rose awkwardly from the surface of the road and briefly assessed my injuries. I was bleeding from a deep gash in my left bicep and numerous small cuts over my arms which had already begun the intricate process of cellular regeneration bestowed on the undead.
Alex, if he had been injured at all, was already pulling Sarah from the backseat of the crushed sedan. He appeared to be fine, although it was more likely that his self-healing process was even faster than my own given his unique physical powers. It was Sarah that concerned me. Her head was bleeding profusely and she appeared to be unconscious.
After delivering her to me, Alex made a point of checking the occupant of the truck that had swerved across the grassy median and slammed into us. The driver, a white male human of middle age, was dead. Already there were other vehicles slowing down on both sides of the highway, which didn’t worry me nearly as much as Sarah’s condition, but Alex urged me to get her hidden.
“The cops will be here, Michael. We have to leave.” His clothes were smeared with Sarah’s blood and probably some of his own. Some of it was also matted in his hair right above his forehead.
Sarah’s blood was on my hands from her head wound. Despite her condition and my love for her fragile human soul, I desperately wanted to latch onto that wound with my relentless mouth and draw every single drop of that precious fluid into myself. The urge to do it right there, in front of Alex and the growing population of human witnesses, was so distinctly unlike me.
“Take her,” I growled. The timbre of my own voice sounded off, as if were coming from someone else—a stranger.
“Michael?” It was a little whisper of sound that came from her mouth that nearly undid me.
“Damn it, Michael! What the hell is wrong with you?” Alex demanded sharply. He pulled her out of my arms. “Get out of here. Just meet us in Chicago. Keep your cell phone on.”
He moved away quickly, and I saw only a flash of her confused expression before they completely disappeared into the trees at the side of the road. With the hunger inside me rising, I started after them, only making it a few feet before a voice stopped me cold.
“Sir, are you okay?”
I turned and saw a group of three young men approach me. They seemed too young to even be driving a vehicle. Their unlined, fresh faces expressed a measure of disbelief and shock that I’d seen dozens of times throughout my long unnatural life—whenever mortals were witness to the supernatural abilities of the truly undead. They had, undoubtedly, seen Alex with a delicate human form wrapped in his arms and then watched in awe as he shot out of their field of vision.
I recognized the look on their faces and noted that one of them, a young man of some Spanish descent, had his cell phone out. But instead of holding it to his ear, he was holding it up and away from him. I had seen the technique before, but didn’t feel a need at the time to think about what it meant. I was far too hungry to contemplate the risks I was taking.
In the space of a few seconds, I deliberated on their fate. Then I attacked.
Sharp teeth, breathtaking strength in all four limbs, desperation, speed. It was all me. I had spent fifteen minutes in a car with a woman whose blood made me feel like I was finally home, yet at the same time left me incredibly desperate for sustenance.
I had been hesitant to attempt the conversion of humans to serve a specific purpose. Up until that night on the side of a dark highway in Indiana, I’d chosen not to take the opportunity. Or perhaps the thought of doing it no longer filled me with dread. I wanted to do it right. Creating my own undead personal protection squad probably should have taken place at a more convenient time. But it seemed that my life after waking from the caves had become increasingly dangerous, and while Victoria and Jones represented irreplaceable friendship and mutual respect, they were always free to do as they liked. All these were flimsy excuses at the time, but they raced through my consciousness in an effort to deny what was happening to my long-held belief that essentially, humans were to be regarded with a certain amount of respect.
To be completely candid, I was ravenous and the three of them were the closest humans available. I did take the precaution of luring the three of them into the tree line at the side of the road before drinking their blood. Unfortunately, more people had stopped along the side of the road and were rapidly making their way not only to the two wrecked vehicles, but also to the place where I was feeding.
The Spaniard was whining incessantly by that time, and it was with effort that I forced myself to leave him alive. The other two were closer to death, but still held several pints each of the blood I needed. Warm blood. So I dropped the Spaniard onto the forest floor, grabbed the other two by the back of their shirts and
left the scene of the crime.
CHAPTER 14 - Sarah
I don’t know exactly how long I was out. When I woke up, I was lying in a large bed in an unfamiliar room. There was a window, but the heavy drapes were closed. I didn’t have any indication of the time of day. My head hurt, and when I lifted my hand to touch it, I felt cloth and a sharper pain at my scalp.
“Damn.” My voice came out as a little squeak that reminded me of a kitten.
“Relax, dear.” I searched out the source of the voice and found Teddy sitting beside the bed in a plain wooden chair. She patted my arm and smiled at me. “How are you feeling? You had quite an eventful few days. You had us all worried to death.”
I swallowed and tried to clear my throat, but when my words came out it was in the same weird tone. “What happened?”
“You were in an automobile accident in Indiana. Alex brought you here.”
There was a crash. I remembered hearing it, but nothing else. Surely this was all just a dream, I thought. But before the collision, there was something that happened in the car that had scared me. I couldn’t exactly remember what it was.
“Where am I?”
“Chicago, Sarah,” she replied. “Alex was able to get in touch with me and told me you were hurt. You’ve been seen by a doctor. He wants us to keep a close eye on you, but it doesn’t appear that your concussion is very serious. He did have to stitch up the cut on your head, though.”
“Where is Michael?”
Her hesitation frightened me more than anything else. She paused for several moments before speaking in a mild tone. “He is close by. He wanted me to tell you that he’ll see you soon.”
Something was very wrong. Teddy’s eyes were steady on me, but I sensed something horrible coming—some revelation that might change everything for me. For all of us. I almost didn’t want to know. Too much had gone wrong already. But if Michael was in danger, I had to find out.
“Tell me what’s going on. Please.”
She sighed and shook her head. “Not now. I am going to bring you something to eat.”
I reached out for her, my fingers making contact with the unnaturally cold surface of the skin on the back of her hand. “Is he okay?”
“He is healthy.”
That wasn’t enough. She got up gracefully and disappeared through a doorway without a sound, coming back in a few minutes with a tray of soup and tea. She helped me to sit up and put the tray on my lap. But I didn’t want anything to eat. Food was the last thing on my mind.
“Tell me what’s going on, Teddy.”
Her black eyes closed and she looked as if she were trying to summon a great deal of patience. When she opened her eyes again, she smiled at me stiffly. “You will be told everything when the time is right. That time is not now. So you just relax and have some soup.”
Teddy hadn’t personally known me for a very long time. What she did know was that my temper was easily provoked. So she didn’t look particularly surprised when I dumped the tray from my lap onto the floor, soaking the burgundy carpet with chicken broth and warm tea.
I really couldn’t help myself. If something had happened to Michael, I certainly had a right to know about it. She was denying me information about someone I loved. I had considered her to be a friend, but she was giving me cause to doubt that idea.
“Teddy, something is going on. And I want to know what it is!” My throat ached with the force I’d put into the words.
With a cloth napkin from the tray, she dabbed delicately at a spot of broth that had splashed onto her gray slacks. “No. Perhaps later.” She laid the white napkin on the foot of the bed and turned to go. “Someone will be up shortly to clean up the mess.” Then I heard the sound of a door closing and the click of a lock being turned.
“What the fuck?”
I took stock of the room. The bed was king-sized and covered with a somewhat plain white duvet and white sheets. There was a wooden dresser against the opposite wall that appeared to be a well-maintained antique. Other than the plain chair that Teddy had been sitting on, there was no other seating in the room. From my place on the bed, the carpet looked a little worn in some places but generally seemed clean.
Where was I? She had said Chicago. But it definitely wasn’t a hotel room because I could see no indication of anything with a hotel name on it and there was no television. Virtually all hotels that I had ever been in always had a TV. So I was in someone’s house. But whose?
With a groan, I drew the sheet and duvet away from my legs and put my feet on the floor. Then I noticed that I was not wearing my own clothes. At some point, someone had dressed me in a pair of flowery pajamas made of flannel. I touched the bandage on my head and winced.
Avoiding the spill on the floor, I got up and edged my way towards where Teddy had disappeared. There was a thick oak door at the end of a short hallway. When I went forward and tried to turn the knob, I found that I couldn’t. She really had locked me inside.
With my frustration rising, I smacked one hand against the door. “Teddy! Open the door!”
There was no answer.
CHAPTER 15 – Alex
The headaches were getting worse. I had picked up a pair of dark sunglasses at a nearly deserted corner store near Washington Park in Chicago. Afterwards, I walked down 55th street towards the shore of Lake Michigan. I wasn’t in a hurry. My meeting with the Council was still hours away. It had seemed pointless to hang around Teddy’s townhouse, waiting for Sarah to wake up.
The streets were quiet. Here and there, I saw a few couples leaving the bars after a few too many beers. A man in an old, unraveling sweater and stained yellow pants asked me for some money. I gave him a twenty-dollar bill and waved off his words of thanks. He should have been thanking me for not killing him. I had wanted to. The bagged blood Teddy’s assistant had given me had helped with the thirst, but not alleviated it.
It was snowing in Chicago. The temperature was in the teens. The snowflakes hit my face but didn’t melt. It was another hazard of being a reborn vampire. The cold didn’t matter much to me. What bothered me were the lights—seemingly millions of them in the city, coming at me from every direction. When I was human, I’d suffered from migraines. The pain shooting through my skull reminded me a great deal of how the migraines used to feel.
Selena had predicted that I would be indestructible. She said that I was some kind of “Guardian” and that no one could kill me after becoming a vampire again and then drinking Sarah’s blood. But I hadn’t told Selena about the headaches. No one knew. If it had just been headaches, I guess I wouldn’t have been too worried. But I was also beginning to lose sensation in my toes and fingers. So far, I hadn’t noticed a change in my strength. I wasn’t sure what to think about it.
A few blocks from Lakeshore Drive, I realized that I was being followed. Judging by the scent, I knew it was a vampire. I continued on at the same casual pace for a few hundred feet and then began to jog. I ducked into the doorway of a grocery that was closed. The windows and doors were covered in metal bars, but the entrance offered a small alcove in which to hide myself.
A few minutes later, I heard the sound of women’s heels on pavement. One vampire. But there were more. I could feel them out there somehow, calling me. It wasn’t even audible. It was just a feeling of being summoned. I didn’t like it.
A shadow appeared in front of the store.
“Alex, it’s me.”
I yanked her into the alcove. It was Selena.
She pushed me away with a hiss. “Keep your hands off me.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I should be asking you that. You were supposed to take Katie to the island.”
I used a hand to wipe the snow from my hair. “I’m not your employee, Selena.”
“Obviously,” she replied. “If you were, I would have fired you long before now.”
“What do you want?”
She crossed her arms and rolled her dark eyes. “Nothing from you. But i
f my contacts are right, you should be meeting the Council tonight. I want you to give a message to Vincent for me.”
“Give it to him yourself. They’ll all be at the Dwight Tower in a few hours.”
“No. I need to stay clear of all that.”
“That’s your problem, not mine.”
She changed tactics quickly, the tone of her voice growing soft and her movements languid in the darkness. “Alex, would you be interested to know that the Breath-Giver is here?”
That stopped me. It even stopped the headache, if only for a few precious moments.
“What do you mean?”
She smiled slyly. “She’s here. In Chicago.”
“Bullshit.”
“It’s true. She will be at Isaiah’s hearing.”
I didn’t believe her. Not only because she was a good liar, but also because the only time I’d seen the Breath-Giver she hadn’t been in the form of a human. She had spoken to me, but at the time it hadn’t seemed to be any kind of language spoken by humans. The whole scene seemed as if it had been written by some evangelical preacher. A light came out of the sky, talked to a doomed soul and promised salvation.
The rest of the story had been relayed to me by Selena. I hadn’t known much about Selena’s dark past at that time. Right before my transformation from vampire into human, she told me about Sarah and Katie and explained what she wanted me to do. I didn’t consider that I might have a choice, given the fact that she had summoned the Breath-Giver. I assumed that she would find a way to make me obey her.
Then I met Sarah, which changed everything.
“What is the Breath-Giver?” I asked Selena quietly.
Her face lost some of its allure and her eyes became hard with suppressed malice. “She’s a spirit. A very powerful one.” The leather surface of the jacket she wore was wet from her walk in the snow, and the moisture picked up the lights beyond the storefront and magnified them, sending more waves of pain through my head. But I listened.
The Vampire's Release, A Paranormal Romance (Undead in Brown County #4) Page 7
