The Vampire's Curse, A Paranormal Romance (Undead in Brown County #2) (13 page)

“
Any idea exactly where Sarah is right now?” She was trying to get back to business, and I was relieved.

“
I’m not sure. Maybe she’ll answer her cell phone if she sees your number come up.”

“
Will you try to call her as well?”

“
Yes. Let me know.” I hit the end button and turned to Jones. “We need a plan, my friend.”

His wide shoulders rose in an exasperated shrug, “Do I have a choice?”

Chapter 15 –
Sarah

I was a basket case. I kept seeing Katie’s face and how dead her eyes looked as Alex lowered his head and pressed his lips against hers. Any evidence that my sister still existed had been wiped away by Alex’s compulsion. At least, I assumed that’s what it was. I’d been reading up on various vampire myths and stories over the previous few weeks. What I’d discovered had been confusing, interesting and probably fabrications. I knew that some of the myths weren’t true, but I hadn’t really had much of a chance to discuss my findings with Michael.

Sitting in the passenger seat of Victoria’s sleek black Mercedes, I dashed away the lingering tears and tried not to think about Katie. Or Alex. But it was overwhelming, what I’d just been through. What I’d seen.

“
You want to talk about it?” Victoria asked.

I shook my head, “No.”

“
I think you should.”

Turning my head, I gazed at her. How could she always be so composed? Was it a vampire thing? I guess I should have felt grateful for her help, given the fact that I was in no condition to drive after seeing Alex and Katie together at the bar.

“
Michael cares for you very much, you know.” Her words were spoken carefully, with eloquent precision. “He has never been willing to sacrifice so much for a human.”

“
What do you mean?”

She pressed her lips together for a moment, as if to stifle the answer. When she did speak again, it was in a cold tone.

“
He saved me. When my human life had become unbearable, there he was. He offered me a way out of the misery.” She kept her cool hazel eyes fixed on the road before us. “Everything I now have, I owe to Michael.”

That was loyalty. I recognized it.

“
He is lucky to count you as a friend.” I said softly.

She glanced over at me with a hint of caution in her expression, “He’s not perfect. You know he’s not. But he’s capable of great things. I once saw him rescue an entire family from a rogue vampire. There is a great deal of good left in him.”

“
I certainly hope that’s true.”

“
You doubt it.”

“
Sometimes I don’t know what to think of him.” I pressed two fingers against the glass of my window, feeling the cold smooth surface but seeing nothing. My mind was somewhere else. With Alex and Katie. With Michael.

She merged onto the interstate that led south.

He was waiting on the road with a man I’d never seen before. As we drew closer to the two of them, I realized that the other one probably wasn’t human. I heard Victoria’s quick intake of breath and saw her eyes come alive when she saw the two of them. I realized a few minutes later that it was the redhead who had caused this transformation in her.

When I got out of the car, all I wanted was Michael’s embrace. The smooth tips of his fingers against my face, drawing away the pain. I didn’t care about the tension that was riding the air between Victoria and the stranger. I didn’t care about the mascara running down my cheeks.

For just a miniscule moment in time, I saw relief wash over him completely when he saw me. The tightness around his amazing eyes relaxed, smoothing out that little line between his eyebrows. His generous mouth softened, his lips parted slightly. Those broad shoulders fell. It was a slice of naked vulnerability as he watched me come towards him.

He had probably been hoping I might have missed it. But in my head, I mapped it all out like a picture that I could hold and look back on when the need might arise. I suddenly realized that no matter what games he thought he might be playing, he really loved me. In spite of his vampire’s nature.

Michael
loved
me.

“
Are you alright?” He had quickly morphed into the guise of a concerned acquaintance.

Stopping a few feet from him, I nodded. He glanced from Victoria to the redhead.

“
Sarah, this is Captain Aiden Jones. He’s just risen from the caves.”

I nodded at the captain awkwardly. There would time later for pleasantries, I told myself. The captain gave me a firm nod in acknowledgement. His attention was fixed on something else as well. Victoria had stepped out of the car.

Her eyes didn’t move from the captain’s face when she spoke to me, “You’ll need to invite me back in, Sarah.”

“
Actually, I think Jones might enjoy a little freedom.” Michael said, casting a penetrating glance towards the two of them.

“
Oh.” I nodded, understanding him and beginning to feel my blood heat up. “Victoria, why don’t you take him down to Bloomington?”

“
Are you sure, Michael? What about Alex?” She asked.

My blood went cold just hearing her say his name. My head fell as I recalled the events of the evening. My fear for Katie, the loss of her, weighed me down. Would I ever get my sister back after tonight? It was clear that Alex was just using her to get to me. Some kind of payback for turning him away or something like that. Then a single thought broke through everything, releasing a storm of guilt that hovered over me like a horrible dark faceless monster.

Was he getting his revenge for what I’d done? Allowing them to turn him into a vampire?

Michael knew immediately that something had changed. He reached my side with unbelievable speed and pulled me against him, “Sarah, give permission to the captain to go.”

“
You may go, Captain Jones.” I said haltingly, the rising tide of guilt drew a little sob from me at the end of the required statement.

They left in Victoria’s car. Michael watched them drive away.

His eyes, when they came to rest on me, were swimming with serious contemplation that I found comforting. I didn’t want his sarcasm or his entrapping innuendos at that point. I didn’t want pity either. I just wanted him near me.

Calmly, he took my hand and began leading me up the road towards the driveway. His fingers were warm. When I glanced over at him, he kept his eyes on the road. We walked together down that dark road with the future looming gray and unknown ahead of us.

Inside my head, despite the comforting touch of Michael’s skin against mine, I began to feel oddly detached. There was a darkness blooming all around me that held no light, no love, and no hope at all. My feet moved and I kept drawing in breaths of air, but my brain was being consumed by something that I couldn’t fight.

Chapter 16 –
Michael

She sat silently in the window seat of the study for hours. I waited for her to cry, to rail against Alex and his changeable appetites, even to curse me for my inability to stop what was happening to her sister. Her face was without definable expression. Her beautiful eyes were lifeless, like a doll.

Nelly called twice while I was there and left two messages. Sarah didn’t respond to the ringing of the phone. In fact, she responded to nothing. Sadie crept past me at one point and pushed her wet nose against Sarah’s hand. Even the dog received no response from her.

Desperate and angry, I fled from the room and called Victoria.

“
She won’t speak.” I growled as soon as she answered.

Victoria was hesitant, and I wondered if I might have interrupted something between her and Jones.

“
I’m sorry. Is this a
bad time
?” The words were a hiss through my teeth.

“
No, it’s fine. She hasn’t said anything about what happened?”

“
Not a damn word. Were you able to get anything out of her on the way back?”

She sighed despondently, “Not voluntarily. I was able to pick up a few scenes that she kept replaying in her head. Mostly it was Alex and Katie in the bar being very affectionate with each other.”

“
This isn’t just jealousy. Could he have turned Katie?”

“
I don’t know. I’m sorry, Michael.”

Throwing the phone into the woods sounded like a very good idea at that point. Instead, I ground my teeth together and tried to regain some control of my rage.

“
Michael?”

“
Be back before dawn. Isaiah will arrive tomorrow night. We need to be prepared.”

Sarah fell asleep eventually. When I lifted her from the seat, her head rolled against my shoulder, and the chill of her skin alarmed me. She was so pale. Whatever was ailing her, I began to suspect it wasn’t just confined to the emotional torture she’d been through recently. When I entered her bedroom, the scent of Alex washed over me. It made me feel physically ill imagining him being in that room.

When I had her stretched out upon her bed, her chest rising and falling with shallow little breaths that seemed frighteningly insufficient for a human, I covered her with her bedclothes and rushed downstairs. In the library, I found what I was looking for. Sarah’s personal address book.

There was only one thought in my mind as I dialed the doctor’s phone number. I had to try to stop whatever was happening inside her body. The virus or infection must be destroyed. And Fleming seemed the most likely person to lend assistance.

“
This is Doctor Fleming.” He sounded bleary with sleep. I felt somewhat pleased at having awakened him.

“
This is Michael. Sarah is ill. You must come out here immediately.”

I heard him fumble with his eyeglasses, “What’s wrong with her?”

“
I was hoping you might be able to tell me. Her breathing is off. Too quick and light. She’s cold to the touch and hasn’t been acting like herself for hours. Too quiet.”

“
Has she been bitten?” I was expecting this line of questioning.

“
Yes. Several times. It was Alex.”

“
I’ll be there directly.”

I was waiting by one of the windows when his headlights slashed through the darkness like dull silver knives. The fear that had been churning through me at the notion of Sarah’s possible demise had become a tangle of lead in my veins. It weighed me down, pulling me into despair so unfamiliar and strange to me that I had no idea how to move or think.

Nothing in my long years on this God-forsaken earth had prepared me for such disillusion, such contemptible helplessness. I’d known loss first hand, though I had learned to toss my head at it and shrug it all off after a short period of time. As a human, I’d seen and felt with the subdued sensations of that species the aching and weeping that inevitably followed the death of a loved one. My mother’s death had been a particularly bleak instance in my human life all those centuries ago.

However, with the supernatural height of all senses that vampires must experience in the world, not once had I ever been so attached to a human being that I felt true fear at the loss of one from my life. I became convinced that if Sarah should truly die, it would be the end of me. This realization was singularly stunning in its sense of finality. How odd it was to see my travels and attachments coming to such an abrupt and pointless ending.

So I decided that something, anything must be done to save Sarah’s life.

The doctor was quick to get started. He hurried up to her room, peered at her closely, withdrew several instruments from his black bag and set out to determine what might be the cause of her malady. He inquired about the bites from Alex, when they might have occurred and the sites of each on her utterly pale, clammy skin.

“
What is wrong with her?”

He shook his head, withdrew his stethoscope from his neck, and looked at me gravely. “His venom. It’s taken root in her bloodstream. We need something to counteract the effects.”

“
My venom?”

“
If you sealed the wounds Alex made, then your venom is already there.” He smoothed back a stray lock of her dark hair, wet with perspiration. His eyes looked upon her with weary resolution.

“
What about blood?” The dreadful idea of that proposition made me shiver, even as I uttered the words.

“
Perhaps Alex’s blood might reverse the effects.” He replied doubtfully.

“
No. I’m sure she’d rather die than face what dangers that might bring her.”

The doctor wasn’t hopeful. I could easily discern the defeat that blanketed his whole body. My thoughts were scattered. Who else had the kind of venom that might obliterate this horrible thing that was happening to her? Before the question came to my lips, I knew the answer.

Isaiah. He would be highly amused by this turn of events in his favor. I could imagine the victorious flash in those grey eyes, the scornful words that would likely pour forth like salt on the wounds of my pride. But it was the most likely solution. I would have to rid myself of the antagonism I felt for that horrid old creature in order to save the woman who lay so still before me on that bed.