A Vampire's Christmas Carol (12 page)

Chapter
9

At first she thought the cold woke her. She
was beginning to shiver as the chill temperatures penetrated and
seeped down into her core.

Then a voice called her name, softly so as
not to startle her, but demanding her attention. It sounded
like…

“Michael?”

She lifted her head and raised her arm off
his face. His eyes were open, watching her with a bemused
expression.

“I thought… I thought you were dead.”

“I was. But a very persistent young lady
refused to take death for an answer.”

She stared at him. He looked…different. The
features were recognizably the same, though they seemed a bit
rougher, less beautiful and more human. Still, no one would
describe him as homely. The black hair remained and his eyes were a
deep, rich blue, the features regular and well-shaped, jaw firm and
cheekbones graceful. But his skin tone had changed dramatically
from the near-dead white to a more normal pinkish with olive
undertones. He still looked dramatically thin, however, like a
victim of starvation. A white scar marked where she’d cut across
his throat, but it looked old, as if it had been there for
years.

“Oh, my God. Michael! You’re alive? I mean,
really alive?”

“So it would appear. I’m lying here with the
sun shining on me and not burning up. In fact, it feels remarkably
wonderful, even though I’m wet and freezing. I haven’t seen or felt
the sun for a hundred years.”

“It worked. I can’t believe it worked.”

“I admit I’m a bit stunned too. I expected to
be dead now. I was, I think. Then I woke up again, with you on top
of me.” He looked around, tried to move, and the chain clanked as
it resisted his effort. “I think it’s safe to unhook these.”

Carol sniffed, wiped her eyes and stood up.
She fumbled with the clamps and buckles for a few minutes before
getting them all released and off him. She gave him a hand to help
him to his feet. He needed it.

“Drat, I’m weak. I feel like I haven’t eaten
in years.” He stopped and grinned. “I haven’t, exactly, have
I?”

“Depends on how you define ‘eating’ I
suppose.”

The grin went to a full-out smile. No fangs.
And the glow in his eyes was a pure blue shine of joy. “A liquid
diet isn’t what I call eating,” he agreed, shivering. “I need to
get warmed up or I’ll catch pneumonia and undo all your good work.”
He swayed as he tried to walk toward the house. Carol put an arm
around his waist to help support him and they leaned on each other
as they crossed the yard.

They stopped when they reached the abandoned
clothes and pile of dust.

“This was Antoine?” he asked.

Carol nodded.

His smile faded as he stared at the remains.
“He was a human victim once too, I suppose. I never heard how he
came to be a vampire. But he chose to be a monster when he drank
another man’s blood. And he did everything but force you on me. He
probably would have done that too, before it was over, if—“

“If I hadn’t staked him first.”

Michael nodded. “I can’t mourn him. If he
ever—“ He stopped and lifted his head.

Carol heard it then. The crunch of tires on
the drive up to the house.

“We’re about to have company,” he said. “And
since no one ever comes to visit me, I suspect it’s someone out
looking for you.”

“Oh. Yeah, I suppose my family is probably in
a panic by now. I’d better call them.”

“Let’s see what our visitors want first.”

He really was weak. She had to support him
all the way into the house and finally dropped him into a chair in
the living room just as the front doorbell rang.

She answered it to find two men in uniform
standing there. She smiled at them.

“Ma’am, we’re from the county sheriff’s
department,” one of the two said. “Do you know anything about the
car that’s partway in the ditch up at the crossroads?”

“Unfortunately, I do. That’s my car. I’m
sorry I just left it there, but it was stuck and I didn’t know what
to do. I wanted to call for help, but my cell phone isn’t getting a
signal and the phone lines here are down. I was incredibly lucky to
find this place. I probably would have frozen to death out there
last night if I hadn’t. Mr. Carpenter was generous enough to let me
stay the night.”

“You are Miss Prescott, then?”

“Carol Prescott.”

The deputy looked at her arm. “Looks like
you’re hurt.”

“Oh. Just a scratch. Klutz that I am, I
knocked over a lamp and cut myself on one of the shards. But I
don’t think it’s serious.”

“Still, it might be a good idea to get it
looked at. Might need a couple of stitches. Should be cleaned up at
least. We could take you to the emergency room while we get your
car towed.”

“All right. But I think Michael needs to go
as well. When I got here, he was pretty sick. He seems better now,
but I get the feeling it’s been ages since he ate anything and he’s
still very weak.”

“I’ll be all right.” Michael had gotten up
and come to stand nearby. “Deputies,” he said. “I’m Michael
Carpenter.” He shook hands with each of them.

The two men studied her host and one said,
“You do look a bit…thin. Might not be a bad idea to come and get
checked out too.” He turned back to Carol. “First, though, your
family is pretty frantic. I’m going to radio back that we’ve found
you and you’re okay. Might want to give them a call yourself.”

“I should be able to call from the hospital,”
she said.

“I think service has been restored here,
Ma’am,” the deputy answered.

“Oh. I haven’t tried in a bit.” She went and
picked up the handset. “Yes! Give me a minute to call my family and
I’ll go with you. Michael, I really think you should go too.”

He sighed and nodded.

Carol dialed her parents’ number. Her mother
answered on the second ring, sounding frantic. “Hi, Mom,” she
said.

“Carol! Where are you? Are you all right?
We’ve been so worried. What happened to you?”

She told her mom about the wreck closing the
highway, having to exit, getting lost on the back roads, skidding
and ending up in the ditch, and how she sought refuge in a house
near where her car was stuck. The deputies were standing right
there where they could hear too. “I was very lucky,” she finished.
“When I knocked on the door of this house, the owner was home and
he let me spend the night. He had a fire in the fireplace and it
felt soooo good after I had to get out and walk in the sleet and
snow. Even though he was sick himself, he was really nice to
me.”

She saw the others watching her, waiting for
her to finish and shrugged. “Yes, I hope you’ll meet him too,” she
told her mother. “He’s really nice. No, I’m not sure when I’ll get
there. My car’s kind of messed up and I don’t know how long it will
take… Well, sure, if she wants to drive up here, that would be
fine. She probably should come right to the hospital. No, nothing
serious. I just scratched up my arm and it might need a stitch or
two. A stupid accident. You know how clumsy I am. It’s already
stopped bleeding, though, so I don’t think it’s anything more than
a scratch.”

Carol sighed and tried to finish the call.
“I’ll see you soon, Mom. More then.” She hung up the phone. “My
sister and her husband are coming to get me, but it will probably
take them a couple of hours to get here.”

She collected her purse and coat, then she
and Michael rode in the back of the sheriff’s deputy’s car to the
small regional medical center, stopping briefly at her car so they
could transfer her suitcase and the box of gifts to the deputy’s
cruiser.

The hospital was empty except for a group of
bored employees on Christmas morning, so they got very fast
attention from the staff.

A nurse cleaned and disinfected her arm, put
a few butterfly bandages on most of it and then the doctor put a
few stitches in the lower part where the cut was deeper. Carol got
some instructions on taking care of it and complications to watch
for, but she was still finished before her sister arrived. A
sheriff’s deputy came back to give her a card for the service
station where they’d left her car and warned her that, given the
holiday, it would probably be a few days before it could be
repaired.

She asked the receptionist about Michael and
the woman went to check. She returned a few minutes later, saying
he was fine, just a bit dehydrated. They were giving him
intravenous fluids and then they’d let him go. Did she want to go
back and sit with him?

Definitely, she did.

She found him lying on a gurney in a cubicle
similar to the one where they’d cleaned up her arm. He had an IV
line running into his arm, but he didn’t look uncomfortable with
it. In fact, he looked peaceful and content.

He glanced up as she entered. The smile that
spread across his face when he saw her made her heart lurch and its
beat speed up. It thrilled her to see him look like that after
watching him suffer so horribly through the night. A wave of
shyness stilled her brain and tongue. All she could think of to say
was, “Hey.”

“Hey, yourself,” he answered. “Come over and
have a seat.”

She perched on the single, hard chair beside
the bed.

“How’s your arm?” he asked.

“It’s fine. They put in four stitches where
the cut went a little deeper at one end, but it’s nothing major.
You?”

“I’m fine too. Dehydrated, which is why
they’re giving me fluids, but other than that the doctor said I’m
in excellent health. There’s got to be some kind of weird irony
there, but I haven’t figured out what it is yet.” His expression
turned abruptly serious. “Carol—why? Why did you do it?”

“Would you have preferred I didn’t?”

“No. Definitely no. But I told you not to try
it. It was too dangerous. And I’m a complete stranger to you. Why
should you take such a risk for me?” He reached out with the arm
that didn’t have the intravenous line in it and took her hand. His
fingers were warm and strong and comforting as they lightly
squeezed hers.

She looked down at their joined hands.
“Because… Remember when you told me to go and find my hero? As you
were dying? I got inside the house and started to go, and I
realized that I’d already found a hero. I didn’t know if you were
my hero or not, but you were by far the most heroic man I’d ever
met. And mine or not, there are too few heroes in the world. We
can’t afford to waste any of the ones we’ve got.”

He didn’t answer for a moment, but his
fingers tightened around hers until she looked up at him again. A
deep, steady light shone in his eyes.

“I don’t feel like any kind of hero, but if
you say so, I’ll take it for now. If I’m a hero, you’re every bit
as much a heroine. But I don’t know—” He shrugged. “By the way, how
did you do it? Kurt was only guessing at the way. Was it the blood?
I wonder if we can find a way to share that information. It might
be useful to some others.”

“I think… I think it wasn’t just the blood
and the fact that it was freely given. It took—“

A tide of noise swept down the corridor,
coming toward them. Seconds later, the first head poked into the
cubicle. Bodies followed it. A minute or two later, a crowd of
seven people—her parents, her brother, her sister and
brother-in-law and their two children had all managed to squeeze
into the tiny space and wrapped her in their hugs and relieved
laughter.

She introduced them to Michael and explained
that he’d been her host for the night, but he’d been ill and was
still recovering.

Her mother looked from Michael to her and
back again, but kept her thoughts to herself. Instead she said to
Michael, “You’re all by yourself on Christmas Day? Where’s your
family?”

“I’m afraid I don’t have much left, ma’am,”
he answered.

“Well, then, we’d be honored if you’d join us
for dinner, and maybe stay a day or two? You need some feeding
up.”

Considering what she’d told him of her
mother’s cooking, that might not be much of an inducement. But he
accepted the offer anyway.

Later, when they were alone together for a
moment, he asked her, “Earlier you said you thought it took more
than just the blood to revive me.”

Carol nodded. “I think it was the mix—blood,
sweat and tears. I managed to drip all three on you. I think it
took all three.”

“Could be,” he admitted. “I’m grateful for
all three. Carol, can I…? I’ve wanted to do this since the moment I
saw you at the door, but I didn’t dare.”

He leaned forward and kissed her. Carol had
no objection to it. None at all.

About the
Author

Karen McCullough is the author of more than a
dozen published novels and novellas in the mystery, paranormal,
romantic suspense, and fantasy genres. She’s won numerous awards,
including an Eppie Award for fantasy and a Vixen Award from the
Maryland Romance Writers. She’s also been a four-time Eppie
finalist, as well as a finalist in the Writers of the Future,
Prism, Dream Realm, Rising Star, Lories, and Scarlett Letter Awards
contests. Her short fiction has appeared in several anthologies and
numerous small press publications in the fantasy, science fiction,
and romance genres. She invites visitors to check out her home on
the web at
http://www.kmccullough.com
.
Her backlist will soon be available in ebook form.

Other Books Available as ebooks:

A Question of Fire

Magic, Murder and Microcircuits

Shadow of a Doubt

Heart of the Night

Wizard’s Bridge

Witch’s Journey

Create Your Own Ebook Cover series

Coming Soon:

A Gift for Murder

The Night Prowlers

Blue December

Programmed for Danger

Stormtide