The Vampire's Release, A Paranormal Romance (Undead in Brown County #4) (17 page)

When the love of my life did lift her head, I saw in her beautiful blue eyes the kind of strength I knew I would never have.  I saw courage that came from within her soul, not the anger that had been her crutch against further pain. 
  When she turned away from the destruction, s
he came to me with new eyes, opened to a world that she had denied in the past.

Amanda hadn’t moved
, but her blood had been spilled
.  Everyo
ne in that room was quite still, but I saw the change coming over them when they caught the scent of Amanda’s blood.  They knew Teddy spoke the truth.  The blood of my ex-lover reeked of the stench of Isaiah’s
presence
. 

The Council vampires
turned on Vincent.
 
There was a wild shriek of denial, but his fate was sealed.
  There would be no trial.  They fell on him like hungry animals.  I turned away and pulled Sarah with me.  Selena joined us at the door.  I saw Sarah look at her with confusion.

The woman she had always thought was her mother had not been the selfish creature that everyone had assumed.  Selena had provided an even playing field by injecting Amanda with the same potion that had rendered me nearly helpless a month before.  Even then, Amanda had some strength left in her.

Only moments after Sarah was back at my side, Amanda did the one thing I’d never imagined her capable of doing.  She secured her own destruction by attempting a half-hearted attack on Teddy. 
She leaped wildly towards the guards surrounding my mentor, though
she must have known
there was no hope of success. 

Theodora, the queen, struck Amanda’s
head from her shoulders with one well-executed move
.  I felt a shiver run th
rough Sarah when it happened.  I watched as the head hit the floor and turned my head away when I saw that the crazed eyes were still open. 

“I think I’m going to be sick.”  Doctor Nguyen said.  Before he bent over and vomited up his late dinner, another human rushed in.  The doctor gestured towards Teddy.  “Give it to her.”

The doctor’s assistant,
a bright-looking young man, stumbled through the grisly scene to Teddy and gave her a piece of paper.  He also proceeded to throw up when he saw the headless body on the floor.  Teddy looked at the paper and then at me.

“Michael’s blood is clean.”

Another tremor went through Sarah’s body.  I suspected she was going through some shock after everything she’d seen.  We vampires had seen worse than the gore in that restaurant—far worse.  For humans, the violence of the end of a life was a stark reminder of their own vulnerability. 

I gathered her against me.  “It’s done.”

Alex approached cautiously.  He looked a great deal better than he had down on the street.  Sam stood with him
, her eyes wide and fearful.  I gently moved Sarah away from me.  When she saw Alex and Sam, she nodded slightly and let Alex guide her out of the room.

“Samantha?”

She didn’t answer me at first.  I tipped her chin up.  Her blond hair fell back against her shoulders.  When I saw her face, there was a different kind of recognition that hadn’t been there before.  I’d seen that lost look on a different face—on the face of the woman I loved.

It was a reminder to me that there was more to do.  There were others
who needed me.  I wasn’t a prisoner anymore.  If I were to be the kind of person that really deserved a full life, I would have to change.  Selena was standing in the doorway, looking at me thoughtfully.  She knew what I was thinking, and I knew that she would help me.  It was going to be risky.  I nodded at her without saying a word. 

I picked up Samantha
.

“It’s going to be okay, kid.
”  I felt the warmth of two little arms go around my neck and the weight of a little girl’s head on my shoulder. 
Sarah would survive, despite all the obstacles thrown her way. 
Sam and Anne would survive.  And I would be there
to see
them
t
hrough it—
c
ome
what may.

CHAPTER 27 – Sarah

THREE MONTHS LATER

“Nelly, tell me again why I’m doing this?”

She grinned at me from her easy chair. 
“Because if you’re going to be a veterinary
technician
, you have to get your
license
.
  It was your choice, honey.”
  She took a sip of her tea and went back to watching her favorite crime TV show.

I pulled off my new eyeglasses and rubbed my temples. 
College
was absolutely nothing like
high school. 
It seemed like there was so much more work involved, but it was also possible that unlike high school, I was actually taking the vet technician training seriously.  I closed my laptop and got up for a stretch.

It was amazing how much things had changed.  It didn’t seem real to me most of the time.
  The change in environment had been so sc
ary at first.  I had gone from living with Nelly in a huge, mostly-empty country inn to living out in the woods in a three-bedroom log cabin with two kids.
  Nelly was there nearly every day, but when I’d sold the farm she had expressed some interest in gettin
g a little condo near Greenwood and it seemed like the right time to cut the apron strings.

The cabin was cozy and warm and had everything I could want.  It was also very good for the girls.
  After spending decades traveling from one big city to another with Teddy, Anne and Sam were thrilled to be settling down in a real house.
  When
I started spending time with them after everything that had happened in Chicago
, I realized how much of a difference I could make if I gave more of myself.
  Teddy had known that they needed somet
hing different in their lives and I offered them a home.

“Sarah,
have you talked to Katie lately
?” Nelly asked.

I sighed. 
“Yes. 
But they only let her talk to me for a few minutes
.”

My sister turned herself in to the Council for the murders she had committed in Brown County.  They weren’t being easy on her.  Anonymous donations were made to the families of her victims, and she was at the very beginning of her prison term set by the Council’s lead attorney.  She was given some leniency
based on her connections with Michael and the fact that she was willing to undergo a radical new “detoxification” process that could end up being the standard treatment for rogue vampires.  She was being held in a Council-run private prison in
Brazil.

“How is she holding up
?”

“
She’s a little edgy, but she’s trying to come to terms with what she’s done
.
  The detox process will start next week.
”  I got up and went to the sliding doors that led to the backyard.  The sun wasn’t due to set for another two hours, but I wanted the girls to get cleaned up before bed.  When I opened the door and stepped out, Sadie pounced at me playfully.

“Calm down, you silly dog.”
  I saw Lenny grazing in the small pasture behind the shed, but not Messenger.  “Anne!  Sam! 
Time to come in!”

Anne appeared around the corner of the shed, carrying her easel and paint box.  Her smock was encrusted with different shades of blue and yellow watercolors.  I ruffled her dark hair as she went past me and she smiled.

“Is Nelly still here?  I wanted to show her the landscape I did earlier.”

“She’s still here.  I’m sure she’d love to see it, sweetie,” I told her.  She took her things inside and I went in search of Sam.  Sadie followed along, always happy for an excuse to take a walk.  Behind the shed where we kept the lawn mower and garden tools, Messenger stood quietly as a little blond-haired girl
stood on a stool beside her and
pulled burrs out of her long black mane.

I opened the wooden gate and joined them.  “She got into them again, huh?”

Sam sighed.  “It’s so annoying.  I almost want to cut the hair off instead of trying to get these things out every other day.” 

“You’d miss all that gorgeous hair, girl.  Besides, brushing her mane is the best part.”

She giggled.  “At least it doesn’t get poop in it like her tail.”

“That’s disgusting!” 

Her pale eyebrows crinkled up as she laughed, and the dimples in her cheeks
made me want to grab her up for a hug.  I nearly did before I saw how filthy her clothes were.  “Sam, that’s the shirt that Kara
bought you for your birthday!”  It was smeared with some brown stuff that made me wonder if she’d used the shirt to clean Messenger’s tail.

She pulled one last burr from the mare’s mane, ran her fingers through the dark strands of hair and jumped down from her stool.  “It’ll come out with that pre-wash stuff you use.  That works on everything.”
  I watched as she put her grooming bucket and stool back inside the shed and gave the horse one last kiss on the nose.
 
I rubbed Messenger’s neck and turned to head back to the house.
  Sam had disappeared around the corner of the shed.  I heard a squeal from her, then a low familiar voice rumble a warm greeting.

My pulse sped up at the sound.  When I rounded the corner, a sob made its way up through my throat.  He was there.  Michael was standing on my back porch with Sam cradled in his arms and an easy smile sweeping across his amazing face.  After months of waiting and hoping, he was finally here. 

There was a freshness that seemed to roll off of him.  He wasn’t pale.  The tone of his skin was
different, and there were lines around his eyes that I’d never noticed before.  He was more real than the cool grass against my bare feet.  He wasn’t a part of some dark dream.

Michael was alive.

He saw me staring at him, and a different kind of smile found its way to his lips when our eyes finally met.  He put Samantha down, but didn’t watch when she went running inside to get cleaned up.  His focus was locked on me.

“Hello, beautiful.”

CHAPTER 28 – Michael

Being with Sarah again—holding her and talking and making love was an entirely different experience.  She was glowing with warmth from the first moment I came back.  It was far more than I’d hoped for and definitely worth the price I’d paid to get to that point.

The events that happened in Chicago
set the stage for a revolutionary change for the Council.  What happened at the farm while we were battling for our lives in that skyscraper was worse than any of us could have predicted. 

I did finally get in touch with Victoria, but the news was not good.  Captain Jones had been injured by Elizabeth, one of the vampires to whom I’d given some of my blood.  What followed was a horrific fight for survival between the vampires who’d had my blood and those who had not. 

Jackson had disappeared.  He slipped away while Victoria was trying to protect the Captain.  When Katie arrived, she came home to a bloody battlefield.  Jones and Victoria were both seriously hurt
.  Jackson was gone.  And there were fourteen dead vampires on the property, some of which had been completely ripped apart.

The team that Vincent had sent to keep the situation under control was admitted onto the property by Katie.  She barely had time to get the Captain and Victoria out before Vincent’s thugs set off the explosives.  There were only pieces of burning wreckage left when the fire department arrived thirty minutes later.

Teddy went with me to sift through the remains.  Katie had to let us in.  Whatever force held the protective barrier in place hadn’t been
affected by the violence within its boundaries.  While we were picking through what was left, Katie found her grandfather’s journal.  It had been partially damaged, but most of it was still intact enough to be read.  She tucked it inside her jacket before we left.

No vampires will ever cross onto the property again.  Sarah sold it to a company who planned to harvest the standing timber.  She refused to sell it to an individual or family, fearing that somehow the whole dreadful process would start again.

Trevor Kincaid never found Alex, nor did his father.  Six months after his attempted assault on Sarah outside of the tavern in Nashville, he was arrested and convicted of indecency with a minor.  I would
imagine he is finding a new kind of hell behind prison bars with only his fellow male inmates for company.

The two young men that I had killed and turned when I was under the influence of Isaiah’s blood were purged of the poison, but they decided to remain as vampires despite Selena’s offer to give them their human lives back.  Large amounts of money were distributed to their families anonymously and we used two medical school cadavers, infused with the men’s’ DNA, to create an automobile crash scenario in order to bring their families a sense of closure.  The two new vampires were inducted into the Council’s primary security team after completing a rigorous four weeks of training.