The Vampire's Redemption, A Paranormal Romance (Undead in Brown County #3)

by Wright, S. J.

  THE VAMPIRE’S REDEMPTION

  (Undead in Brown County #3)

  By S.J. Wright

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, or events is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for third-party websites or their content.

  Copyright © 2012 by Stephanie J. Wright

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  For Brenda, who never gives up and always pays attention to details. I love you,Sis.

  Other books by S.J. Wright:

  The Vampire’s Warden: Book 1 of the Undead in Brown County series

  The Vampire’s Curse: Book 2 of the Undead in Brown County series

  Prologue

  October 26, 1945

  Winston Churchill once said that an appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile—and hopes it eats him last. Five years ago, before good ol’ Uncle Sam told me I was no good for the Army, I would have spit in the dirt and walked away after hearing such a stupid damned thing. I didn’t give a fig for such philosophical talk. At that time, I didn’t know what an appeaser was- nor did I care.

  My heart was sore. Kenny, Jake, Bill and Leeman had all been shipped out. One brother and three of the best friends I’d ever had. All of us farm boys. When the Army doc looked at my back (I’d been hoping he’d forget to check) and saw the short little scar over my tailbone, he’d shook his head.

  “Spina bifida?”

  My Mamma had piped up from behind the faded curtain, “Yes, Doctor! He was sewed up when he was just a little tyke.”

  If I hadn’t had the doc before me as well as a healthy measure of respect for the woman who’d raised me, I would have cussed her. It could have been passed off as a minor cut. But he’d seen the puffy tissue around the scar—the bluish veins and the red streaking marks that would never really go away.

  “You’re darn lucky, son. Must have had a good surgeon. All your fingers and toes work right?”

  I’d nodded miserably. “Yes, sir.”

  He’d lowered the flimsy dressing gown and sighed. “Too bad, really. The Army could’ve used a good hard-working boy like you. Well, get dressed. I’ll sign the papers.”

  As I’d pulled on my old coveralls and dingy plaid shirt, I listened to Mamma yammer on while the doctor signed the papers that would state I was unfit for the Army.

  “Dr. Martin said we were lucky there weren’t nothin’ messed up with his head. I heard tell of some poor little children whose brains built up with fluid and they just up and died. We sure are lucky.”

  Sure. Lucky. I had pulled back the plain curtain covering the window in the examination room and looked out at the all the young men lined up, waiting their turn to be questioned and prodded and looked over like bulls going to market. Most of them would get their chance to fight the Japs or those damned Germans. Not me, though.

  Of course, at that time, I hadn’t started drinking hard yet. I didn’t know about the damn vampires.

  -From the journal of Jonathon Wood

  CHAPTER 1 – Michael

  I don’t pretend to know all the intricacies of a woman’s mind. It is more of a mystery to me now than it was five hundred years ago. As a rule, women are unpredictable. When betrayed, one woman might cry for hours. Another woman, when faced with the same situation, might become unusually quiet. In my experience, it’s the quiet ones that eventually prove to be the most dangerous.

  Katie was being very quiet. Witnessing the change come over her on that stormy October day was an exercise in patience and vigilance. When a human is transformed into a vampire, the results can be tragic or enlightening. Having an experienced vampire on hand is essential for many reasons. Firstly, only another vampire can control a newborn. We understand their needs, their new heightened sensations, strengths, and their weaknesses. Secondly, there is the matter of discretion. It will always be necessary for the undead to live on the outskirts of human society. A seasoned vampire knows this and can deal effectively with any human witnesses if the newborn somehow makes a scene in a public place.

  Technological advances in the human realm had made it more dangerous than ever for vampires to exist in this world. Also, there had always been those who knew about our kind and sought to destroy us for the sake of preventing human death. Humans referred to them as slayers. They were a small group, spread out over several countries and singularly faithful to their cause. The Council planted a spy in their ranks in the past, but it did not end well for him. In any case, we always had to be alert and aware of our surroundings.

  If I ever had to choose a particular place in which to change a human into a vampire, the countryside of southern Indiana would not be a bad selection. In this case, however, our location happened to be quite well known in vampire society. Up until a year or so ago, it had remained a relatively unknown containment zone.

  Somehow, the word spread among my undead brethren that I had been kept prisoner there for unjust causes. It was no doing of mine, I assure you. I leave the duty of spreading gossip to the unwashed masses. Word of my unjust imprisonment soon spread far enough to reach the ears of a very loyal friend who had been looking forward to a time when I might be free again.

  In order to escape detection, she surrounded herself with a group of rather unpleasant newborn vampires and attempted to see me. At the time, she found it necessary to kidnap the sister of the woman who had become, through unfortunate inheritance, my jailer. That sister’s name was Katie Wood.

  After a series of luckless accidents and supernatural assaults, Katie and I found ourselves sitting face-to-face in an underground cavern within the containment zone that had been my abode for more than sixty-five years. She was becoming a vampire. I was there to provide whatever support I could during my scheduled watch.

  Victoria would take over my watch at six in the evening. I was more than eager to hand over this particular responsibility, as I had other concerns that needed my attention. So it was with impatience that I beheld the young vampire before me, sitting so still and quiet on the rough surface of the floor of one of caverns I had called home for decades.

  Katherine Anne Wood was born the second daughter of Robert and Selena Wood, an unassuming young couple who resided in Brown County, Indiana. Her elder sister, Sarah, an inquisitive and bright two-year-old child, gave her younger sister the nickname of Katie soon after the baby arrived home from the hospital. The name Katherine only existed on her birth certificate.

  The nickname seemed incredibly childish when viewed from my perspective, as I watched this fearsome young vampire before me sit in endless silence and stare at me with such venomous hatred in her dark eyes. Her animosity was misplaced. I had never actually had a private conversation with her. She could not hate me for offending her in that way.

  The place in which we sat, while being quite familiar to me, was a strange one to her, although she had grown up running through the fields and forests above our present location. She should have been exhibiting some kind of fear, being in such a dark place with a creature such as myself. But Katie was a paragon of self control.

  She had been with me down there for three hours before she said anything. Fin
ally, the questions began rolling forth.

  “What do you plan on doing to that guy who attacked Sarah?”

  I eyed her with surprise. “He was under compulsion when he assaulted your sister. Victoria confirmed it. And your sister does not wish for him to be punished.”

  She growled in frustration and rolled her eyes toward the ceiling of the cavern. “Of course! Sarah would forgive anyone for anything. She forgave you. She forgave Alex, for Christ’s sake!”

  I turned my head from her. It would do no good for her to see that I was as exasperated with that point as she was. Sarah had forgiven Alex for everything. Including giving his blood to her sister and taking enough blood from Sarah herself to nearly kill her. I still had some problems with Alex, but I’d learned to keep them to myself when Sarah was around. Whatever the connection between those two, it seemed to have evolved into something like respect and friendship. Whether or not he was still romantically interested in her was not something that he would reveal to me. I could only guess that there might be more to it.

  And how did Sarah feel about me? Well, I hadn’t exactly brought up that question with her yet. With the present amount of tension in the air between Alex, Sarah, Katie and the young man who had come to the Inn under the compulsion of another vampire, it seemed uncouth to try to discover Sarah’s real feelings for me. I wasn’t entirely sure that I wanted to know the extent of those emotions anyway. I had always tried valiantly to keep any connections with humans on a strictly business level.

  Sarah was unlike any other human female in the world. She was amazingly brave in the face of danger. At least up until the point when she passed out. There was a true sensitivity under that tough-girl exterior, and that was probably the lure that kept drawing me towards her. My feelings for Sarah were also one of the few things that kept me reining in the impulse to destroy her younger sister.

  “How are you feeling? Do you need another bag?” I asked her patiently. There was a large plastic cooler at my side filled with ice and bags of donated blood.

  She tilted her head and gazed at me curiously. “Why are you being so nice to me?”

  “You’re Sarah’s sister.”

  “What is the deal with you two? What are you hoping for?” She narrowed her dark eyes at me suspiciously.

  I heard someone approaching from the entrance to the cave and smelled Victoria’s floral essence wafting my way. She entered alone with a half grin on her unlined pale face.

  “How is she doing?”

  Victoria’s entrance had been perfectly timed. I imagined she’d been listening to our conversation and was eager to put a stop to the uncomfortable questions. I stood slowly and motioned towards Katie with a slight shrug. “She’s very much in control. She drank the first four bags and then sat down.”

  “I’m still here, you know. You can speak to me, Victoria. I do still have a brain,” the girl interjected irritably.

  Victoria smiled and bent down to Katie’s level. “Of course you do. I’m sorry. Would you like to go for a walk? Maybe test out some of your new powers?”

  “I don’t know if that’s such a good idea, Vic,” I said.

  My old friend turned to me. “Give her some credit, Michael. She’s obviously in excellent control of her impulses at this point. Let’s give her a little space.”

  Katie had risen quietly, and I noticed her eyes had gone bright with fevered excitement. “Can I?”

  I glanced from one of them to the other. We couldn’t keep her locked up in the cave forever. I sighed. “Just be careful. If you feel like you’re about to lose control at all, let Victoria know immediately.”

  When they both turned to leave, I added sternly, “And stay away from the house.”

  My newly acquired wrist watch told me that it was nearing nine o’clock in the evening as I stepped out of the darkness of the caves and walked past the three large gatestones into the meadow beyond. The crickets were striking up a dazzling chorus as my boots pressed down with every step upon the crispy fallen leaves of autumn.

  If Sarah had not been absorbed with her inherited vampire curse, she could have made a tidy profit this quarter. But every time the phone rang at the main house, Nelly would pause, shake her head sadly and say, “I’m sorry. We’re closed for renovations right now. Try again in January.”

  If her father had been alive, he would be shuffling across the faded white boards of the front porch with his brown hat in hand and muttering about lost revenue, about how disappointed the regulars would be who came to Woodhaven Inn every year.

  The regulars were those parents who had watched his daughters grow up alongside their own. They cherished those early evenings beside the campfire, joking about crazy old Joe and admiring the mums that sat in bright shiny pots around every corner. They would laugh and tell stories about the last time they’d come to the inn. They’d grin at their bright-eyed youngsters and tell about the time that their elderly Aunt Margery had yanked herself up onto the back of the old chestnut plow horse on a dare, only to slide unceremoniously down the horse’s long neck as he ignored her and went on grazing.

  The children would yawn and lean against each other, as their Grandpa would tell the Indian story. Having heard it a hundred times, they would each drift off into dreams, as the campfire grew lower. A mother would have to tap Grandpa on the shoulder and point to the little ones to remind him that it was too late for such stuff. The Grandpa would nod as his grandchildren, warm and exhausted, were lifted and taken up to the house to be laid down in sweet-smelling white sheets.

  There was always a little yellow note on each child’s pillow (done in Nelly’s handwriting) along with a chocolate square wrapped in silver paper.

  Hope you had a great day, Riley! We’ll have your

  favorite pancakes ready for you in the morning!

  It really was a comfortable little place to stay. Although I spent most of my evenings outdoors or in the caverns, I’d been in the house many times. I’d touched the fading family portraits in the upstairs hallway. I’d smelled the delicious scent of Nelly’s homemade banana bread cooking in the old-fashioned kitchen. However, the one place inside that was most familiar to me was Sarah’s bedroom.

  If she’d known exactly how often I had visited her while she slept, she would have been furious. Sarah treasured her privacy. Perhaps it was due to the public nature of the business and how much time she was required to spend with her guests. Her bedroom was a place she could be herself. Much of the time, Sarah’s fiery temper was hidden behind the polite smile of a professional hostess. She was very good at her job and had spent her life training for it. It was a vocation she enjoyed, even though her basic inner character traits did not particularly make her a natural fit for that occupation.

  It was all tied together. She loved the land and the house. She also knew from the time she was a tiny girl, she knew that the business and the house were one in the same. In order to be a part of the everyday workings of the house and enjoy the land it was on, she had to assume the role of hostess. I often sensed it was an inner conflict that might someday become bigger than she ever could have foreseen. But before that problem arose, she lost her father to cancer and discovered the truth about her mother and the vampires living on her land.

  It would have been shocking to anyone; to find out that the mother you thought had died in a car accident had actually abandoned the entire family and was still alive somewhere, to discover that the land you’d always called home was both a safe haven and a prison for the undead. And she had been close to her father. She hadn’t had much time to prepare herself emotionally for the loss. Only a few months or so. Then he was gone.

  I knew Robert well. He was a good man and an admirable father to his daughters. It was unfortunate that he’d gotten mixed up with Selena. There were indications early on that his association with that woman would not bring him happiness, but love blinds us all at times. And although Robert was intelligent, he was a fool when it came to women. Perhaps it was a si
mple lack of experience. Growing up on a farm in a town as small as Nashville, Indiana isn’t the best way to turn a young man into a suave lady killer.

  So when Selena Watson bumped into him as he was paying for gas one afternoon and shot him a smile, he fell in love rather quickly. She was looking for a steady young man who could provide her with a home and money. Living with her parents, three cousins and two aunts in a tiny bungalow on the outskirts of Indianapolis had left her with a desperate need to escape. She flirted shamelessly with the young farmer out in front of the gas station that sunny April day. Within two months, they were married and she was firmly established in the big farmhouse down in Brown County.

  Perhaps if Robert had known more about her, he would have hesitated. When her family discovered she’d married a Protestant boy with Pawnee roots, they disowned her. On the inside, Selena had been devastated by the rejection. But what was done was done. And it wasn’t long before she discovered she was pregnant. Robert was thrilled, of course.

  Selena found out about me four years after Katie was born. In her calculating, self-serving way, she convinced me that making her into a vampire would be the only way she might escape the life that she claimed had destroyed her ability to be a loving mother. By then, Robert and I had become friends and I knew what agony awaited him if he continued to be married to Selena. She would resort to anything in order to abandon the detestable existence her life had become since she’d married Robert. She was also quite capable of harming the girls and Robert. That wasn’t a risk I was willing to take.

  So I did give her the gift of my blood. As soon as her powers of speed and strength made themselves apparent, she disappeared. I didn’t really care where she went, as long as it was far enough away from Robert and the girls to keep them from harm. I never did regret that decision. Not even when I saw how desperately forlorn my human friend became once he realized she had left.