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

by Wright, S. J.

  “You okay?”

  I looked up. Jackson was standing in the kitchen doorway. He had pulled his hair back into a ponytail at the base of his neck and was wearing a black crewneck sweater and jeans. His face was vivid with concern, and his eyes were bright.

  I nodded. “Yeah. I’ll be okay.”

  “You don’t look well.”

  Standing up, I tried to smile to reassure him, but failed. The stress was becoming too much. I sighed and shook my head. “Sorry. Everything is just crazy for me right now.”

  He leaned up against the wall and folded his arms. “That’s understandable. You’ve been through a lot.” He smiled slightly and put his hands in his pockets. “Listen, how would you feel about a little hike tomorrow? I’ve wanted to check out the property, but haven’t really had a chance yet. I’m curious how it compares to Wyoming.”

  I did manage a tiny grin at that. “I’m pretty sure it’s incredibly boring compared to where you grew up.”

  The dimples in his cheeks made a welcome appearance. “Well, I don’t know about that. We certainly didn’t have any vampires on our ranch.”

  “They’re not exactly part of the official farm tour.” I said bitterly.

  “Still, it would be good for you to get out. I personally don’t have any desire to visit the caves, but there has to be something you can show me.”

  It would be a distraction, I thought. Something different to do other than worry myself sick about vampires and the danger they posed. I granted him another limited grin and nodded. “Sure. It sounds good.”

  That night, sleep came to me more quickly than I expected. But I dreamed that Michael was standing over my bed, staring at me expectantly with a hard expression that frightened me. Eventually, his image drifted away into the darkness of my room and I was left alone with my fears. But underneath it all, I felt a bright expectation of the day to come; an excitement that eventually chased away the nightmares and had me looking forward to the dawn.

  I knew instinctively that things were beginning to change. The entrance of Jackson Bennett into my life was something I hadn’t expected, but it was significant to me even back then. I knew that this man was going to have an impact on me that might change the way I looked at life. I welcomed it.

  After being constantly overwhelmed by anger, disappointment, rejection and danger, I was ready for something good. It was possible that I deserved it. If I didn’t reach out and take it, I faced the possibility of living the rest of my life in this hopeless darkness, always seeking some sign that somebody out there would pull me away from my misery.

  Maybe it was time to take myself out of it.

  CHAPTER 7 – Jackson

  Home is a name, a word, it is a strong one; stronger than magician

  ever spoke, or spirit ever answered to, in the strongest conjuration.

  -Charles Dickens

  My grandfather used to talk about vampires. My cousins all said he was crazy, that the old man had smoked way too much weed back in the sixties and it had screwed up his head. I remember my grandmother always got so quiet when he brought it up. She never said a word when he started ranting and raving about his ancestor who made a deal with the devil.

  My cousins didn’t live with them like I did. They all had homes to go to after the traditional Sunday dinners. My Mom would usually show up for a little while to reassure her parents that she was going to group therapy and that the doctors said she was making progress. She would spend some time with me, curled up in my grandfather’s arm chair, telling me made-up stories about animals who saved each other from great sorcerers. Sometimes we would play board games with my cousins. She always left with tears in her eyes and a promise that we would be together soon.

  There was never a Sunday that she didn’t show up. And finally, a few months after I turned seven years old, she said she was ready. She had a place for us; just a little house, but it was in a good school district and had a hell of a backyard.

  Leaving my grandparents was as hard for me as it was for them. I was moving off into a new world where everything would be so different. I didn’t know what to expect at all. But Mom made it into an adventure, and she left me with no doubts about her loyalty or her commitment to be a good mother.

  She had a job at a ranch in outside of Casper, doing the books for the boss. He paid her a reasonable wage and included some medical insurance coverage, as well as reduced rent on a cottage on the property. It was an ideal situation for my Mom and me.

  I was happy growing up there. We still drove to my grandparents’ place on Sundays for the big family dinners. Some of my cousins remained, but most went their own way in the world. The dinners became less crowded, but there was still laughter. There was still an air of solid familiarity and comfort in that old house whenever we walked through the door to see my grandmother in her faded cooking apron, a smile on her face and Billie Holiday crooning from the record player in the den.

  When I found the albums in Sarah’s parlor, it was like stepping back in time. It brought everything back so clearly. There was no denying the connection. It meant everything had come around full circle. The peace I’d known would find me again. Of that I was certain. And I knew it would be in this place. Despite the vampires.

  I was glad I didn’t remember leaving the ranch or meeting Isaiah. But it would have been nice to know what he looked like so that the next time I saw him I could throw a decent punch and know who I was hitting.

  It was hard to believe that I had actually tried to rape Sarah when they first told me about it. It seemed like a cruel joke at the time. But the striking fear on her face when she saw me afterwards seemed proof enough. At the time, I was laying down in one of the guest rooms with the doctor standing over me. I remember more people entering the room; strangers who seemed unusually quick in their movements and too beautiful to be real. Two men, one woman. And then Sarah standing in the doorway looking pale and frightened.

  The woman was small and calm. She took my hand. Her skin was incredibly cold, but there was a warmth in her gaze when she looked at me. She told me her name was Victoria and assured me that I was in a safe place. She explained in a hollow tone that I had been influenced by a vampire to do something horrible but they had been able to stop me before it actually happened.

  The word “vampire” conjured memories of my grandfather immediately. I had been one of only a handful of the family to consider the idea that he wasn’t making up those stories. Maybe it was because I’d lived with him and knew him better than my cousins. He’d never shown any other signs of delusional behavior, and when I was around ten years old I began to take his story seriously.

  Like any other young boy, I was easily distracted by other things. I didn’t take the time to do any research into the subject until after he died. It was a deathbed request. He’d wanted me to find out as much as I could about my ancestors and particularly anything about a medicine man called Moon Chanter (Pah Raruuku). He told me there was a threat to me because of what Pah Raruuku had done long ago.

  At the time, it just seemed like the hazy thoughts of a treasured family member close to death. I only remembered his request a few weeks after the funeral when my grandmother had asked me about it over the phone. After finishing up my last chores on the ranch that afternoon, I got onto the internet and started looking.

  I found nothing. Grandma said that she would try to contact a few tribal elders in Oklahoma. She may have made those calls, but I never got a chance to ask her about them. Because she died in her bed two days after I talked to her. She passed away alone, but I hoped that my grandfather was able to meet her.

  The phone call to my mother in Fort Lauderdale was one of the more difficult moments of my life. She had moved there after receiving a very generous retirement check from our employer at the ranch. She’d worked there for twenty years without a single sick day. It had been up to me to break the news to her about her mother’s death. The silence was long on the other end of the line after I’d d
elivered the news. Eventually, she’d let out a mournful wail that echoed through me like the blast of a cannon. I never forgot the sense of loss that overcame us all when Grandma died.

  When Isaiah and his goons found me I was separating a group of yearling Herefords for branding under heavy cloud cover and hoping I could get the job done by the time the rain came in. Luna was my ride, as she had been for the previous three years. She was a steady buckskin ranch mare with a lot of cow sense. She knew where they were going even before they did.

  The vampires killed her first. It was just a simple twist of her neck from the ground that ended the life of the horse I’d worked with for years. I never saw them. The ground rushed up and I felt hands on me. Then there was nothing until I woke up on cool white sheets in a guest bedroom in Indiana with a wicked bite mark on one side of my neck and a throbbing head.

  A few days later I found the albums downstairs and saw Sarah standing in the doorway, looking like something out of a fairy tale with long glossy waves of hair falling down against the fabric of her lace-trimmed nightgown and her eyes full of unspoken emotion.

  I don’t claim to know exactly what happened in that moment. I managed to keep talking even though every cell in body felt like it was trained in her direction. When she finally started talking, I began to realize the possibility that there was a reason for all this. Even when her sister and the vampire came in, I knew that the bond between Sarah and I had taken hold. It was frightening to have to leave her alone with him. I wanted to stay. But it was her world. I wasn’t really a part of it yet.

  “Are you ready?”

  There was an eager light in her eyes that hadn’t been there during the first few days I’d been at the Inn. I wanted to ask her about it, but Nelly was standing there holding a couple of water bottles and Sarah’s backpack. I wanted to take Sarah’s hand just to assure myself that she was real and warm, to feel the pulse in her wrist and the soft delicate skin in between her thumb and index finger.

  There were urges breaking through me that had been dormant for so long. I felt more vibrantly alive than I ever had before, and it was no mystery to me what was going on. The dreams that came to me the night before seemed to crystallize everything. I knew why I had ended up in this place. Although it had been her enemy who forced me to travel there, Sarah was the real reason.

  The dream was fleeting; images sliding into my sub consciousness and then out again in no particular order and without reason. Until the end when my grandfather’s face became fixed before me and he spoke to me for the first time in many years.

  “My grandson, you now know that the things I spoke about were truth. Vampires exist.”

  “Yes,” I answered.

  “Our ancestor, Pah Raruuku, made a terrible bargain many years ago with one of the undead creatures in this land.”

  “Moon Chanter?”

  “Yes. He was an angry man who had lost nearly his entire family to the whites who continued to flood into our lands. When the undead creature called William came to him with a plan to get rid of the white people, our ancestor was eager to help.” His voice echoed through my head woodenly.

  “William claimed he needed a safe place to hide during the day hours. There had to be special spirits to guard him in his rest. He gave his word that if such a place could be made safe for him, that he would rid the surrounding country of white people. He would eliminate them all.”

  “Pah Raruuku was a bitter soul who cared nothing for the whites. If this creature could take the problem of the whites away, he thought that perhaps the tribes might live in peace again. They would be able to move from place to place as the seasons willed without having their favorite winter grounds destroyed by the building of wooden and brick houses, without having their children forced into the white man’s clothes. Pah Raruuku may have thought he was helping the tribe when he made this deal.”

  “But he used dark magic to seal up the resting place. It now will keep out all supernatural creatures unless they are invited in by the Warden. If the Warden dies without having any children, the containment center’s magic comes to a close. The vampires in those caves will all awake. The unearthly creatures that have been waiting sixty years to get a chance to destroy them will be able to walk onto the property without any barrier. It would be a bloodbath, my grandson.”

  “Why not just step back and let it happen? It seems to me that the world would be a hell of a lot safer if these sleeping vamps were knocked off, one by one as they woke up.”

  But he disappeared. There was no answering voice.

  Shaking off the memory of the dream, I slung Sarah’s backpack over my shoulder gave her a weak smile. “Yeah. I’m ready. Let’s go.”

  CHAPTER 8 – Sarah

  I hadn’t explored the land around the farm since I was just a little girl. There had been times when I’d helped Joe repair some fences, but I’d never taken the time to really look around. Seeing the red maple leaves scattering the forest floor and traversing the pine-covered hillsides of my father’s land was eye-opening.

  The variety of vegetation and wildlife had always been soothing to me, and when two chattering squirrels rushed up the base of a tree to flee before us, I couldn’t help the smile that came. It seemed so normal to be outside in the crisp air and sunshine, listening to the mourning doves calling out to their mates and picking through the dying leaves on the ground.

  We made our way through the northern section of forest, stopping at the big creek for a rest break and to admire the way the clear water cascaded musically over the limestone ridges. Jackson had settled himself on a section of the dry limestone near the stream and was very still.

  “You okay?” I asked, taking a drink from my water bottle.

  “Yeah.” But he didn’t turn to look at me.

  Taking a few steps closer, I capped the bottle and took a good look at him. “What is it?”

  “I didn’t sleep very well last night.”

  “Bad dream?”

  He shook his head and turned a gentle smile on me. “Not bad. Just different.”

  I sat down next to him and instantly felt that same glowing vitality that I’d felt last night when we were in the parlor together. It was disconcerting to know that being close to him had such an effect on me. I tried to ignore it.

  “How long have you known Michael?” He asked.

  “Not very long. He’s been here for quite a while, but I didn’t actually meet him until a few months ago.”

  His eyes were golden in the sunlight, trapping light inside and magnifying it a thousand times over. I wanted to touch his face, push back the dark hair that was brushing against his strong jawline. But I only kept my eyes on him, drinking in the splendor that was Jackson Bennett in the light of day.

  “It can’t be easy on you,” he murmured, “I see what you are, Sarah.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “My grandfather believed in vampires.”

  He scooped up a smooth oval stone by his feet and held it in both hands, studying its contours as he spoke, “Last night, I had a dream that he was talking to me about this place.” He gently threw the stone into the water and we both watched it sink to the bottom. Then he turned back to me with a worried frown.

  “Do you know how many of them are here? How many vampires are in the caves?”

  His question made me uncomfortable, but I wasn’t sure why. A thread of doubt began to penetrate my insides. “Michael said there were seven, but that was before Jones woke up. So there should be six.”

  “Six vampires, as far as you know.”

  “Michael wouldn’t lie to me,” I replied uncertainly.

  He nodded. “Okay. So let’s assume he’s right. What do you know about the ones that are still asleep? What happens if one or two of them wake up when Michael and the others aren’t around?”

  I hadn’t thought that far ahead, which was incredibly stupid of me. They were vampires and they didn’t know me. Even if they were familiar with Michael, that
didn’t mean that Nelly or Joe would be safe from them. Or me, for that matter.

  “I don’t know. I need to ask Michael about it.”

  We sat in silence for several minutes, taking in our surroundings and lost in our own thoughts. The stream continued its unstoppable gurgling, shining in the morning sun and drowning out the birdsong in the background.

  “Sarah…”

  “Yeah?” I turned my head and found that he had moved closer.

  A rampage of whirling anticipation surged through me. I couldn’t focus on anything but him, the heat in his amazing eyes and the smooth surface of his lips. I should have been moving away. I should have been thinking about something else and reminding myself that this man before me was a stranger. But it was impossible. Because what I saw in his face, what I recognized in the space of that few moments, was that he knew me.

  He understood the desperation, the confusion, the loss that I had plowed my way through over the last year. I felt the truth of that. I felt him. I wanted to weep with him over the loss of his grandparents and the sudden loss of his world. Like me, Jackson had been ripped from his own reality into something else that had once seemed inconceivable.

  My eyelids fluttered closed on their own. The very second that I felt his touch, my cell phone rang.

  Jerking back in surprise, I opened my eyes. Without looking at him, I fumbled for my phone and looked at the display. Nelly. It was somewhat unusual for me to even be getting one bar of service that deep into the woods, so I was surprised.

  I rose and moved away quickly, putting the phone to my ear.

  “Is everything okay?”

  Her voice was tight with fear, “Something’s happened. Joe found something in the barn that you need to see.”

  “We’re at the northern edge of the woods by the creek. It’ll take a little while to get back.”