The Vampire's Release, A Paranormal Romance (Undead in Brown County #4) (13 page)

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes.

“Isaiah’s blood has changed him, Sarah.”

“No.”

He nodded forcefully.  “Yes.  When we were in the car, something triggered his thirst.  He wanted me to pull over because he had to g
et away from  you
.”

“But before that, when he first came back…”
  I wanted to explain how tender and amazingly gentle Michael had been with me at the cabin.  But it was too personal.  I couldn’t use it to argue
in favor of
him.

“It
could be
progressive.  He may have been fine when he got back to the farm, but he’s not fine now.
  After the accident, he attacked three teenagers who witnessed the crash.  It was caught on one of the guys’ cell phones.  The Council is trying to keep the video away from the media.”

“The media?  Nobody would believe it, Alex.”

He
shrugged
.  “Maybe not.  But do you think the Council wants to take that chance?”

The idea of Michael physically attacking three humans seemed far-fetched to me.  I knew his past was full of those kinds of incidents, but the vampire I knew would never go after innocents.  It just wasn’t who he was anymore.

“
How badly were they hurt
?”

“The one who recorded it survived.  The other two…”  He abruptly stopped speaking, turned towards the window and then quickly stood up.  I looked towards
the window and saw a shadow slice through the meager light coming in.
  I heard a scrape and a rattle outside.

Alex was alert.  He motioned for me to mov
e against the wall by the bed, but I ignored him.

“It could be Isaiah.  Get back,” he whispered.

But I wasn’t about to listen to orders.  I knew exactly who was outside the window.
  Before Alex could stop me,
I unlocked the metal latch.  His hands stopped me from doing more.  He wrapped both arms around me and pulled me away from the window.

“Let me go!” I yelled.

Then I heard something from outside that made my heart sing.

“Sarah?”
  It was Michael’s low voice, soft and promising.

“It’s him!” I cried.  But Alex wouldn’t let go.  He grabbed me by the shoulders.

I pulled to the side, trying to dislodge myself.  But it was pointless.  He was too strong.  When I looked past Alex at the window, the face I adored was there.  He was there.  Michael was outside, waiting to be let in.

“You don’t understand, Sarah!  He killed the other two,” Alex said.

Shaking my head, I continued to struggle.  “No.  He wouldn’t do that.  Somebody lied to you.”

“He killed them and then turned them.  He’s not the same, Sarah!” 

Suddenly, he let me go. 
His eyes went cold and his body went still.  Then h
e gestured half-heartedly towards the window.  “Ask him, then.”

Freed by his grip, I rushed to the window.
  Frantically, I tried to pull it up but it wouldn’t move.  I heard a door opening behind me and then Teddy’s cool voice.

“He can’t come in, Sarah.  He hasn’t been invited and you don’t have the power to do it. 
Not here
.”

I put my fingers on the glass.  “I’ll go to him, then.”

Michael’s strong jaw was tense and his eyes flashed from me to the two who were behind me.
  He dropped his head and rested it against the glass.  His dark hair was wet and tangled.  I longed to run my fingers through it.

“Michael…” I said gently.  “Tell them you didn’t kill anybody.”
  I knew he could hear me.  It was likely he had heard my entire conversation with Alex.  I wanted him to defend himself, even if it were through a pane of cold glass.
  I needed him to tell them the truth.

But he didn’t raise his head.

CHAPTER 18 – Alex

She crumbled.  I didn’t want to see it.  More than anything, I wanted to kill Michael Graviano.  He was a murderer, a vampire, a traitor.  And I could have destroyed him, if I hadn’t been in such a crappy state.  I stumbled down the dark stairs that led to the front door of the townhouse and went out into the cold.

He was waiting under her window.  Teddy had shut the drapes against his eyes and Sarah didn’t protest when she did it.  He looked almost as bad as I felt.  It softened me, I guess.
  No one could ever argue that I liked the guy, but Sarah loved him.  It was a sad thing.

It was too bright under the street light and the reflection of the light off the snow was torture.  I put the stupid sunglasses back on to block some of the light out and went to stand next to Michael on the wet sidewalk.
  He kept his eyes on her window.

“You told her,” he said.

“Not everything.”

He glanced at me quickly.  “What else did Selena tell you?”

“She’s not Sarah’s real mother.”

Michael’s face contorted in surprise.  “
What
?”

I hadn’t thought much about Michael’
s reaction.  G
iven the fact that he’d personally known Robert, I assumed that he had known.  He was clearly shocked.  He grabbed me by my jacket and hauled me towards him.

“What the
fuck
are you saying?” he growled.

It took some effort, but I pushed him away.  “Lay off.”

That’s when he noticed my condition.
  His gaze moved over me slowly.

“What’s wrong with you?  You don’t look right.”

“You think?  Jesus, you can be stupid sometimes,” I replied.  I
bent over,
pressed the tips of my fingers against my screaming skull and groaned.  It was getting really bad.  The thing was, I had no idea what to do about it and no one could help me.

“How long have you had the headaches?” Michael asked.

I straightened up slowly and tried to ignore the pain.  “Only a couple of days.”

“Did it get worse when you came up north?”

“Yes.”

His cell phone rang.  I didn’t pretend not to be interested in the call.  It was likely Victoria.  He dug the phone out of his pocket and hit a button.  “Vic?”

“No.  It’s Katie.”  I heard her clearly, as if she were standing next to me.
  She sounded rushed.

Michael’s tone changed almost instantly.  “What do you want?”

“Sarah’s not answering her phone and there’s no answer at the farm.”

“So?”

There was a brief pause before she spoke again.  When she did, her voice was different—scared.  It brought something to life inside of me.  I wasn’t really sure where it came from, but I needed to talk to her.

“Michael, I’m sorry.  I’m sorry for everything.  I don’t want anybody to get hurt,” she said.

“Give me the phone,” I told him sharply.

He hesitated for a few seconds and then handed it off to me.
 

“Where are you?” I asked.

She didn’t speak right away, but I didn’t know if she was with the other vampires or if she was just surprised to hear my voice.  After a few seconds, she finally responded.

“I’m in Indy.  They left me a few minutes ago to go hunt.”

“They left you?”

“William and Meekah kept fighting about me being with them.  She finally got pissed off and left.  He followed her.  Amanda has been gone since yesterday.”

I looked over at Michael.  He returned my stare and then said roughly, “Amanda’s either on her way here or she’s already arrived. 
She also knows about this house.”

“Katie, get away from there,” I told her.  “I want you to find Victoria and Jones.”  Michael nodded at me as I talked.  I explained to her what Jackson had done in the caves and about the other vampires waking up.  I advised her to be careful, told her where the stockpile of bagged blood could be found in the basement of the house and asked how she was.

“I’ll be okay,” she answered. “What’s going on with Sarah?”

Michael took the phone from me at that point.  It was good that he did, because the waves of pain moving through my head were increasing in intensity.  I walked back to the steps leading up to the front door and sat down with my head in my hands.
  I was glad that Katie was safe
.  The idea that Amanda could be watching our every move made me uncomfortable.

“She’s heading to the farm,” Michael said.  I didn’t bother to look up at him when he approached the stairs.  I was in too much pain to make eye contact.  He sat down beside me on the step.  “There’s a doctor here in Chicago that I know.  Do you want me to try to get in touch with him?”

I shook my head slowly.  “There’s no point.  He wouldn’t understand what I am, much less how to fix what’s wrong.  My best hope at this point is to get some seriously powerful pain killers.”

“They won’t help either.  But there is another option.”

His features were edged with tensi
on and his eyes appeared silver when I finally had the guts to look over at him.  I didn’t like the way
the numb feeling in my fingers had spread further up, into my palms and the back of my hands.  I rubbed at them, hoping to restore the feeling.

Michael’s voice was low when he addressed me again.

“I could drain you.”

CHAPTER 19 – Sarah

“You need to calm down, Sarah.”

Teddy was talking, but I didn’t really want to listen.  She had finally let me out of the
bed
room.  We were in her sitting room.  She had her assistant, Leon, make me some tea.  He was a quiet, gray-haired black vampire who always seemed to be hovering in the shadows.  I had yet to hear him utter a single word towards me or Teddy.

I was a wreck.  My hands still showed signs of tremors.  I had to put a lot of effort into keeping my hands still enough to be able to drink the tea without sloshing it all over myself.  Teddy was getting worried about me, I knew.
  She hadn’t said much about Michael.  She probably thought I was going to have a nervous breakdown.

“What’s going to happen to Michael?” I asked quietly.

She shook her head.  “I don’t know.  It’s complicated.”

“But if they knew that Amanda gave him Isaiah’s blood, would it make any difference?  Can you say with absolute certainty that his actions weren’t directly connected to the blood she gave him?”  I was probably reaching, but I had to try.

“I can’t say because I don’t know.  There is to be a preliminary
investigation into everything t
hat happened with him.
  There is a possibility that some of the Council members will see it that way.  But they would have to be presented with some scientific evidence to back up the idea that Isaiah’s blood has a negative effect on impulse control.  The only ones who can give that kind of evidence are employed by Isaiah.  We can’t bring in outside help without exposing ourselves to the general public.”

I nibbled on one of my thumbnails.  “So we would need to get one of Isaiah’s people to testify in our favor.  That’s not going to be easy.”

“It’s not your problem, Sarah,” she admonished gently.

I
crossed my arms.  “Of course it’s my problem.  Michael and I are a couple.  Nothing is going to change that.  If he killed someone, it was under the influence of something much darker than himself.”
  She was ready to interrupt me, but I waved her off.  “I won’t give up on him.  I can’t.  He loves me, Teddy.”

“He could live for another five hundred years, Sarah.  But
you
can’t do that.  How is that fair to him?”

It wasn’t fair to him.  I knew that.  There had to be another way.

“What do you know about the Breath-Giver, Teddy?” I asked.

Her white eyebrows rose.  “Only a little.  But it’s all conjecture.  Some
humans
claim to have seen her, as have some
vampires
.  Your mother, for instance.”

“But how else could Alex have changed back into a human?”

The look she gave me was gentile, almost motherly.  “Sarah, what if he was never human?”

“
But…”

“No.  Listen to me.  I know there are forces at work that most humans and vampires cannot imagine.  I’ve been around for a very long time.”  She paused for a moment in thought and then continued calmly.  “However, reanimation of the human form from an undead state is physically impossible.  No one can create life in a place where life cannot exist.”

It was too deep of a subject for me.  I was looking for answers and she was turning it into a theology debate.  “Okay, I understand that part.  But at some point, Alex had to be human.  Why else would the Council imprison Michael?”

She became very quiet, her black eyes were vacant.  I was never sure what vampire powers Teddy had been gifted with.  Victoria had the ability to read minds.  Meekah could see visions of the future.
  Michael had been given eternal sexiness, I guessed.  But Teddy hadn’t shared much with me about her life as a vampire.  The first time I’d met her, she’d had some sort of a vision in the middle of our conversation and told me that I had to leave.