“Just be careful.”
I ended the call and finally glanced over at Jackson, who had already grabbed the backpack and water.
“We’ve got to go.”
CHAPTER 9 – Michael
The body was lying at the back of the barn, covered by a sheet. Joe had been determined to contact the local constable, but Nelly had talked him out of it. Sarah and Jackson were waiting at the open barn door at sunset, both looking pensive and full of questions. Victoria and Jones were out checking around the property for signs of any trespassers.
I could smell the corpse before I even woke up. It triggered memories from my past that forced me from my sleep and had me running through the caverns as if I were being chased by a ghost.
As I approached the barn, I ignored Jackson and searched Sarah’s face for any hint that she might be injured. She looked odd to me for some reason, but I couldn’t define the source of it. I attributed it to stress.
“I’m fine.” she said stiffly, “It’s in the barn.”
It was a woman, probably deceased for eight hours or so. She was middle-aged and dressed for the outdoors. She was also wearing an expensive engagement ring. There were four bite wounds. Two on the neck, one on the left wrist and one on the right shoulder. Vampires had killed her. Two of them.
I replaced the sheet and shook my head. Victoria would be expecting a call. I pulled the phone out of my pocket and started to pull her up on speed dial.
“Where’s Katie?” Sarah had come up behind me in the barn, her blue eyes swimming with apprehension. Katie. Katie. I recalled the acidic tone of her voice from the night before and her anger at me for doing nothing about Jackson.
My cell phone hit the barn wall and shattered into a hundred pieces.
She was gone. We knew she hadn’t acted alone, and although she had the power to invite vampires into the containment field, I was sure that hadn’t been the case. Which meant that she woke up one of the vampires in the caves, shared a meal and left with them. Once I figured out what she had done, I went back to the caves to see who was missing. There was a new hole dug in one of the side chambers that led to the tombs. The dirt and clay were still moist.
Mallory, Jacob, Kenneth, Truman and Elizabeth were still as cold and gray as they had been for decades. But there was an empty space near the back that should have held the figure of a young woman; a face and form that was more than familiar to me. When I saw she was missing, I knew we were in trouble.
Katie could have picked any of the others and it wouldn’t have alarmed me. Jacob would have been my first choice. But it was likely that the fledgling vampire had been drawn in by the pleading tones of a very old female vampire who had been waiting a long time to be set free from her tomb.
She had tried with me as well, of course. In fact, I had tried to revive her more than a few times. But even my potent blood wasn’t powerful enough to reverse the voodoo curse that had put Amanda in her recumbent state. Somehow, Sarah’s little sister had managed it.
Katie had succeeded in awakening the only vampire I’d ever loved.
There were very few who knew about my connection to Amanda. I had planned it that way. When you love someone, it’s very easy for your enemies to use that against you. I had fully intended on keeping my relationship with her a secret. Even from Victoria. But especially from Jones.
Amanda Winston had been the vicious female vampire who had turned the captain into one of the undead. She had done so with such cruelty and unbridled fury that Jones couldn’t hear her name without physically cringing. It had been his stories of her that made me curious. Once we became real friends, I suppose I also wanted to exact some revenge for what she’d put him through.
When I finally did find Amanda, fifty-six years after she had turned Jones, I didn’t introduce myself. Being the cautious creature I am, I observed her for several weeks before coming forward. She had set herself up as a wealthy New York socialite, entertaining scores of humans every evening in her Fifth Avenue flat.
With that intoxicating red hair and those dark blue eyes, she was irresistible to most humans. She was an actress at heart and knew how to play the hearts of men, moving them from casual acquaintance to utter slave with a graceful turn of her head. I was drawn in by it as well.
She was heartless with her victims, sensing the fears of each one and touching lightly until they were begging for death. She was unstoppable. I think that was the real draw for me. She was a challenge, something I wanted to conquer just to prove that I could do it.
So I trailed her one night when she went to the theater with some human friends who had yet to sample her particular brand of torture. I stood in the shadows near her theater box as they watched a performance of Macbeth. Her eyes were always vivid, dancing with excitement.
When the first act ended, she sensed me and our eyes met. If she felt threatened by the presence of another vampire, she didn’t reveal it. One corner of her glistening mouth lifted in a half smile of acknowledgement and she turned back to her friends as if I weren’t there. It was irritating to be ignored in such a way, but I realized she was playing a game and backed off.
Four days later, she came to me. We met in Central Park shortly after midnight.
It was one of the most memorable evenings of my life.
CHAPTER 10 – Jackson
Michael took the body. He said he was going to bury it somewhere. By the time Victoria and Jones came back to the house, he had already finished. The three of them huddled up on the front porch, speaking too quickly and softly for me to understand. They looked like a trio of dark angels standing there with their black coats and white faces.
I turned away from the window and saw Sarah sitting on the stairs, her arms tightly wrapped around herself and shivering in fear. It seemed entirely natural to go to her, pull her up against me. I did it almost without conscious thought. Her tremors abated slightly as I held her.
“She couldn’t have done it, Jackson.”
“We don’t know yet,” I answered, trying not to think about how good she smelled and how soft her hair felt against my neck.
She sobbed and I felt her tears soak through my shirt. It made me crazy to see her hurt like that. All I could do was stand there, allow her to get it out. I could hold her a little tighter, kiss her hair. And I did all that, but it didn’t seem like nearly enough. There had to be something more that I could do to help her. I wanted to be able to prove that Katie hadn’t killed that poor woman. I needed to find a way to put her at ease.
“Let me find out what Michael knows, okay?”
Jones had started up Victoria’s sedan and it was idling in the driveway. She was still talking to Michael, but they were arguing. Their voices rose in anger as I drew open the screen door and stepped out onto the porch. They both went quiet at the same time.
“What happening?” I asked, looking at each of them carefully.
“Nothing for you to worry about. Where’s Sarah?” Michael ground out roughly.
“Inside. She’s terrified right now.”
“I need permission to leave with Jones,” Victoria said. She glared at Michael with deliberate malice.
“You and Jones may go.”
Both of them looked at me sharply.
I shrugged. “It’s in my power. When will you be back?”
Victoria shook her head. “I don’t know. We’re going to try to bring Katie back. Along with the vampire she awoke from the tomb.” Her hazel eyes fixed on Michael in a dangerous stare. “It may take a while.”
“I need to go with you,” Michael said.
“No. You need to stay here to protect Sarah in case they come back.” She settled another dark look on him before turning away.
We watched them pull away and head down the gravel driveway. Michael’s face was set in stone, his features hard with anger and frustration. As far as I knew, he was probably to blame for the majority of the things that had gone wrong out there. Which put him in the number one spot on my shit
list. But getting into any confrontation with him wasn’t going to help Sarah. I needed answers.
“Michael, are you positive that Katie was involved in the murder?”
He glanced over at me dismissively. “No. But I do know that she was close to the edge last night and was probably angry enough to kill.”
“Because of me? You want to pin this on me?”
His arm snaked out and hard fingers curled around my throat, cutting off my air supply almost instantly. I struggled to pull his hand away, using all the strength I had available. It was impossible. He was immovable. When the edges of my vision began to grow dark, I vaguely heard the screen door open.
“What the fuck are you doing? Let him go!”
I was released and fell, landing hard on my right side against the boards of the porch. I struggled to drag in a breath of air somehow. Sarah’s gentle hands were on my shoulders, and I heard her verbal assault on Michael clearly.
“What is wrong with you? Don’t we have enough problems already without you attacking Jackson?”
“Your sister would still be human if it weren’t for him.”
“So it was his fault that Isaiah brought him out here and compelled him to rape me?”
There was a brief silence before his reply. When it came, it was said with undisguised revulsion.
“Maybe rape isn’t necessary with you.”
I wanted to hit him, but she did it first. I heard the smack of her hand against his face like a strike of lightning through the night air. She took a hard breath and I looked up to see her cupping her hand in pain. He was as still and dark as the shadows beyond the house.
“Get the hell out of here, Michael. I want you off my property.”
He hesitated, conflicting emotions passing over his face like storm clouds.
“Now.”
Whether it was the power of the Warden’s words or his own desire to flee, Michael disappeared. There was only a quick gust of wind across my face and then he was gone. Just as if he had never been there. I was sure that the bruises on my throat would remind me in the morning, though.
Silently, Sarah helped me to my feet. She looked shell-shocked and pale, so I took her hand and brought her inside the house. I knew we hadn’t seen the last of Michael, but I was hoping that he would at least give her some time to recover from everything.
She was safe for the moment. That was really all that mattered to me.
CHAPTER 11 – Sarah
“What happened between you and Michael?”
Nelly and I were in the den, watching the mid-season finale of our favorite primetime crime show. It was one of the few TV shows that we agreed on. Most of the time she watched old episodes of Little House on the Prairie and Matlock and that crap bored the hell out of me.
I shook my head. “Not now. The episode is almost over.”
The screen went black and I looked over at her in surprise. She was holding the TV remote and giving me a chastising look that I remembered well from when I was little.
“No way, young lady.”
I tossed the pillow from my lap back onto the sofa and stood up. “You really want to know? Jackson didn’t say anything about it?”
“He told me that I should ask you.” She patted the wide armrest of her chair. “Sit down and tell me.”
She wrapped an arm around me when I settled next to her.
“Michael said something that set me off. It was beyond rude. So I slapped him and told him to get off the property.”
“You think that was wise?”
I grunted, “Probably not. But he stepped over the line.”
A half grimace crossed her face as she considered my words. She tightened her fingers around my waist and leaned against me. “Honey, I think that emotions on both sides were probably running high when that happened. I know that you both care about each other.”
“If you had heard what he said, you wouldn’t be saying that. Trust me.” I gave her a quick squeeze in return and glanced at the clock on the wall. “I’m going to go out and check on Lenny before bed. He didn’t eat much of his hay earlier.”
“Did you know that Jackson has been riding Messenger?”
I turned and stared at Nelly, my mouth open.
She grinned and picked up her reading glasses before beginning her nightly crossword puzzle.
“Why would he do that?” I sputtered.
Nelly chuckled lightly. “He’s a cowboy, honey. He probably missed riding every day.”
“Well, he could have had the decency to at least ask me first. She’s my horse.”
Messenger definitely did belong to me. But I had never ridden her. As far as I knew, Jackson was the only person who had been up on her since she came to the farm. It wasn’t that I didn’t know how to ride a horse. I was just a chicken shit.
When my Dad’s cancer diagnosis was first made, something changed inside me. I tried to ride Lenny a few times but found that I was terrified of moving beyond a walk with him. I kept imagining myself falling and hurting myself. I was sure that Lenny would shy at any little thing and that I would hit the ground hard. Hard enough to make me useless. I couldn’t stand the thought of not being able to physically do my job and take care of Dad during his illness. It made me sick to my stomach to imagine Katie having to drop out of school and come home to take care of her injured sister and the father who had always been our rock.
The fear of falling didn’t go away when Dad brought Messenger home. I loved her dearly. But her energy was twice as frightening to me as Lenny’s. She was ten years younger than he was and black as coal all over. She had an amazing mane that draped down to her shoulders and gleamed like the night sky. As stunningly beautiful as she was, I still couldn’t gather the courage I needed to climb up onto her back.
To know that Jackson had made that leap before me made me feel sad instead of angry. Nelly let me think it over instead of calling me on it. It was one of the many things I appreciated about her. But before I left the room, she did say something that caught me by surprise.
“That boy is the real deal, Sarah.”
“What do you mean?”
She had that look on her face that she sometimes got when she was absolutely positive about her opinion. From experience, I knew to take it seriously. She’d had a bad feeling about Trevor Kincaid when she first met him. And that time, her instincts had been right on the nose.
Her eyes were twinkling. “He has a place here. He was meant to come here. You’ll see what I mean before long.”
She went back to her puzzle. I contemplated her words and thought about the night Jackson had played Dad’s old records. I remembered how hard it was to look away from him and how irritated I’d been when my sister and Michael had walked in. My feelings for him were entirely different than anything I’d felt before. He made me feel safe.
As I was making my way out to the barn to check on Lenny, the cell phone in my coat pocket rang.
“You’ve managed to create quite a stir inside the Council, my dear.”
“Doctor Fleming?” I pulled open the barn door and found that the lights were already on. I heard Jackson murmuring something to one of the horses and saw him inside Lenny’s stall, stroking the gelding’s long neck.
“Letting Michael out of the containment zone was a mistake. I don’t know what happened, but the Council is determined to capture him and bring him back.” The doctor’s voice sounded unusually stern. “I just heard about it this afternoon. What is going on out there, Sarah?”
Pausing by the tack room door, I nodded once at Jackson and rolled my eyes at the phone.
“We had a disagreement and I asked him to leave the property.”
“You didn’t have the authority to do such a thing. The Council…”
“Doctor Fleming, you know what? I don’t give a shit about the Council. They don’t own this land and they can’t tell me what to do.” This whole thing was really starting to piss me off. What right did they have to dictate to me?
/> “There was an agreement, Sarah. Between your father and the Council.” He was trying to be patient with me because he understood that I was fairly close to the boiling point. Dr. Fleming had seen my temper first hand more than a few times, so he knew what he was dealing with.
“An agreement between them that was signed and was to be upheld after my father died?”
He hesitated for a few seconds. I watched Jackson come out of Lenny’s stall and approach with a concerned tightness around his full mouth. He reached out one hand and touched my upper arm. When the doctor continued talking, I found myself reaching for Jackson and threading the fingers of my free hand through his.
“There was no signed contract. It was a verbal agreement that your father would keep Michael within the containment field until the Council deemed that his punishment was over.”
I cleared my throat. Jackson was standing very close to me, his warm dark eyes lit with curiosity and wonder. The pulse in his throat throbbed under his golden brown skin. There was an amazing, electrifying glow around him that seemed to extend towards me and into me where our hands were joined. My lips parted in surprise.
“Sarah?” The doctor’s voice was sharp against my ear.
“Hmm?”
“I realize that you’re not happy about the duty you’ve inherited, but I think your father would have wanted you to honor the agreement he made.”
“I’ll… I’ll think about it, Doc.”
Breaking my disconcerting gaze with Jackson, I hit the end button with one finger and slipped the phone back into the fleece pocket of my coat. I needed to double check the journal that my grandfather had started to see if Dad had written anything about the so-called agreement regarding Michael’s imprisonment.
Two infinitely gentle fingers touched my jaw and slid down to my chin, lifting my head.
When I looked up at him, I was stunned to see the fire in his eyes. Inside me, in the deepest part of my mind and soul, a torch flared to life. I realized, as I stood there under the hazy glow of the barn light, that the man standing before me would come to mean everything. And it was simple fear of that feeling that caused me to turn away and let go of his hand.
The Vampire's Redemption, A Paranormal Romance (Undead in Brown County #3) Page 5