The Vampire's Release, A Paranormal Romance (Undead in Brown County #4) (5 page)

“What’s going on?”  It was Jackson.  He had come down the stairs and stood in the doorway.  When he saw Alex, concern lit his face.  “What’s happened?”

Katie laughed dryly
.
“Wonderful.  Yes, let’s be sure to fill Jackson in on my crimes.”

“Why don’t you tell all of us, Katie?” Alex countered.

“Why should I say anything?”

“Because you’re my sister and I need to know if you’re in trouble,” I said.  There was a distinct tremble to my voice.  There was no getting around the emotion running out of contro
l through me and the rest of us in that dusty room.

“Why do you always think it’s your job to save me, Sarah?”  Her words were thrown at me like stones and her aim was perfect.
“You were supposed to be my sister, not my guardian.”

Why shouldn’t I?  Who else should I worry about?  Nelly was a rock—the cornerstone of our world.  And I had pushed everyone else away after Dad died.  If my concerns weren’t focused on my sister, it would force me to throw all that emotional bullshit right at the mirror.  The realization of it smacked me like a wet rag.

“Maybe I shouldn’t always have to save you.  But this…” I wasn’t sure how to put the gravity of the whole thing into coherent words.  “People are dead.”

“Yes.”  She stared at me directly, without any hint of regret.  “People are dead.  Yes, I killed some humans.  Yes,
it’s horrible.”

I covered my mouth with both hands and bent at the waist, desperate to contain the shock of her statement.  It was true then.  My little sister was a killer.
  She had taken lives.  I shook my head and backed away, running into the cement wall behind me.  I felt the surface of it, rough and damp against my fingertips.  I didn’t want to look at her anymore.

“You okay, Sarah?” Alex asked.

“No.”

“I’ll take her upstairs,” Jackson offered, lightly grasping one of my arms and wrapping me up against
his
side
.
  His strength lent me the ability to continue to stand.  My entire body felt strangely weak.

“Wait.  She needs to hear this.”

We watched as Alex approached Katie and I saw her flinch when he made a move to grab her.  And I heard his words clearly when he bent down to her.  They were delivered in a tone equal to that of a federal circuit judge.

“If you don’t do exactly as I say, you will be destroyed.  Vampires take it very seriously when one of their kind decides to break the rules and doesn’t bother to cover their tracks very well.  It puts all vampires at risk when you pull that kind of shit.  They don’t tolerate it, Katie
.”

There was a flicker of fear in her face.

“If the Council finds out, they will either terminate you or send you somewhere very unpleasant.”

Jackson said quietly, “The Arizona camp.”

Alex continued with a short nod, “Exactly.  I’m giving you one chance to save your ass and only one chance.  You are going to come with me quietly and you will not touch a single drop of blood unless it is from a bag that I personally hand to you.  Do you understand?”

She snorted.  “Are you taking me to see Dr. Drew?  I’m going to rehab?”

His strike was swift and without mercy.  Before I could take a breath, there was a flash of movement and a crash.  When my eyes finally processed what was in front of me, I was stunned to see Katie on the floor
.  There was
a
spider web of cracks in the cement floor from the force of the impact
of her head
.  Her eyes were open, but she was very still.

I started forward, but Alex lifted a hand towards me.  “Don’t.”

“But…”

“No.  She’s not hurt.  Trust me.”
  His green eyes swept over my sister calmly. “It would take a lot more than that to do any real damage to your sister, Sarah.”

There was something meaningful in that statement that struck me silent and left me as still as my sister.  I had spent so much of my own energy protecting Katie.  I had somehow seen that fierce façade as fragility under a mask.  But it was certainly possible that I had been wrong. 

What if Katie was the tough one?  In reality, it was probably me that was more easily hurt, too quick to trust, prone to falling.  I didn’t like being wrong.  And I wasn’t sure if I really could let go like the situation required.  Could I really let Alex take her away? 

“Where will you go?”

“
Not far for right now.  I would take her into the caves, but the possibility of her waking up another old vampire doesn’t sit well with me.  I’ll look for a place outside the perimeter where I can keep her until the hearings are over.”

“What am I supposed to do, Alex?  She’s my little sister.  I have to know that she’ll be okay.”

His look was serious and disturbing.
“She’s not going to be okay.  She’s
a murderer.”

CHAPTER 6 – Alex

I knew it wasn’t going to be easy.  Sarah’s skin tone had gone gray during Katie’s questioning in the basement.  I wondered what my family might have thought of me when I first became a killer like Katie.  Would they have suffered
like Sarah
?  As far as I knew, none of my relatives had ever discovered what had really happened to me.

It was still an open wound to me, losing my family and knowing that what I had become would prevent me from ever being a part of their lives again.  When Michael first turned me, I had only been nineteen years old.  I was living in Chicago and studying to be a lawyer.  There had been a future available to me.  But I was arrogant, even then.

I vainly yearned for more exciting things to happen to me. 
The
wheels were set into motion at an Irish pub on the outskirts of Chicago in August of 1945. 
I will never know exactly what prompted Michael to pick me out of the crowd and begin a conversation with me.  Maybe he sensed something unique about my nature and background.  Perhaps he was just bored.  But we became friends.

I w
as an angry young man.  It seemed
like I spent most of my young adulthood trying to prove how successful I could be and how much power I might have over others.  There was a specific person from my mortal past who had pushed me into that persona. 

When I was a little boy, my family and I lived next door to the McDowells.  They were a straight-laced, ambitious clan of
Scottish descent.  Between the outer walls of that tiny brick bungalow, they brought five children into the world and had to bury three of them before their third birthdays.
  Some said the little ones had suffered from crib death, but I had my own suspicions.

Phil McDowell was five years older than me and our families were close.  But he was indescribably cruel to other children.  Somehow, he had his parents convinced that the “accidents” that happened to the other kids around him had nothing to do with him. 

After his beatings, he would hand deliver me to my mother and explain that he’d seen me climbing a large tree and had warned me to get down before I got hurt.  Or he’d say that he’d found a group of
boys from across town beating me up in the alley behind our houses.  He was clever enough to remind me that his words would be seen as the truth if I ever accused him of his crimes.

I never said a word to my parents about the beatings and who was really responsible.  Maybe they suspected that things were not right, as I learned to stay close to the adults whenever we got together for the weekly cookouts.  If Phil suggested in front of my parents that he wanted to take me fishing or down to Franklin’s, the corner store, they would not usually hesitate in urging me to go.  Occasionally I could fake a tummy ache to get out of it.

The anger inside me took root.  I had nightmares about Phil burning me alive, burying me
in the landfill that his family helped manage or drowning me in Lake Michigan.  My father always encouraged me to be tough and work through my fear.  But it turned into rage.

By the time I was in high school, I’d grown three inches taller than Phil.  He had headed off to law school at Princeton, oddly enough.  When Mr. McDowell bragged about how well he was doing, I felt a consuming resentment that someone of his character should have that kind of success.  I decided that one way to bring about my revenge would be to outperform Phil. 

When I decided on that path, my parents were skeptical.  They had seen my early interest in music and art and assumed I would pursue that after school.  They were even prepared to help support me until I could make a living out of my artistic ability. 

I announced to them one balmy summer evening that I wanted to be an attorney.  Despite their surprise, they were supportive
.  In my final year of high school, I was accepted to one of the best pre-law programs in Chicago.  The first two semesters were stellar.  My professors were impressed with my efforts and my grades were nearly perfect.

One
early summer
night on my way home from the library, I saw a familiar man walking down the sidewalk towards me.  His face was still etched in my memory and still incited nightmares.  It was Phil McDowell.  He was older but in good shape.  Recognition crossed his face when he saw me there.

“Alex!  My God, it’s been a long time.  How are you, pal?”

“It has been a very long time, Phil.”

When I said nothing further, he grimaced a little.  “How are your folks?”

Again, I refused to reply. 
Phil began to look more uncomfortable at my silence.  He shuffled his feet a little, looked around us at the empty streets and fear began to fall over his face like a thick
, sticky layer of bitter syrup.  His growing unease fueled me.

“Do you remember what you used to do to me, Phil?”

“What do you mean?”

I sneered at him.
“The beatings.  The bloody noses.  The broken arm.  Do you remember?”

He wiped at his brow.
“Say, Alex.  That was just horsing around.  Kids get into those messes all the time.”

“I still have nightmares, Phil.”

There was a flame of anger surging through him, though it didn’t last long.  “You were always a goddamn sissy.  You deserved to get your ass kicked.”

“Not the right answer, Phil.”

“You’re crazy.  Stay the hell away from me.”

I didn’t pursue him.  I thought about the success I’d had at school as I watched him walk away.  I tried to focus on what I had achieved.  He disappeared around a corner a few blocks away from the library.  I saw the sign for O’Mara’s Pub and decided to go in for a pint or two.  It was rare for me to drink alcohol.  I had spent so much time studying and concentrating on winning my imagined competition with Phil that I had left very little time for enjoying myself.

That was the night I met Michael.
  That was the night that changed everything.

He had changed my life.  He had changed Sarah’s life.  Drawn back into the present, I looked carefully at Sarah’s face and took note of the pallor of her skin, the brightness of her eyes.  She was going to have to face some very unpleasant facts if she were to get through this with her sanity intact.  I wasn’t sure how much I could help, but I felt I had to do something.
 

Hiding Katie from the Council would only be a temporary fix.  Once Isaiah’s hearings were over, they would insist on taking her in for her own
judgment
.  Until then, I wanted to make sure that Sarah’s sister stayed out of the way and didn’t spill any further blood.

“Maybe the Council will go easy on her.”

Sarah sighed, her shoulders sagging.  “It’s not likely, though.  We both know that.”

We were standing in the kitchen.  Jackson had started some tea for her, hoping it would soothe her nerves.  There had been no sounds from the basement since we had come upstairs.  I was assuming that Katie knew better than to press me into a pursuit.  If she did manage to escape, tracking her down wouldn’t take long.

Sarah sat at the small kitchen table and rubbed
a
corner of the tabletop with her thumb, absently attempting to smooth over the small nicks in the wood.  It was another thing she couldn’t fix.  She couldn’t change what had happened to her sister or what actions Katie had taken since she’d turned.  But she felt responsible.  I could tell.

“You can’t blame yourself for this.”  I sat next to her and rested my arm on the back of her chair.  I didn’t miss the sharp look Jackson sent my way, but I chose to ignore it. 
I didn’t like the guy or the way he acted like she was his property.  If Sarah belonged to anybody, it certainly wasn’t either of us.

She turned tear-filled eyes towards me and shook her head, “What else can go wrong, Alex?  I don’t understand why all this had to happen.”

“I don’t know.  But you have lots of people that care about you and will help you through this.”

The cell phone sitting on the kitchen counter by Jackson rang brightly with some Caribbean tune.  When he glanced at Sarah, she nodded.