The Vampire's Consort (Undead in Brown County) (7 page)

He sighed and ran his fingers through his hair.

“I found two adults already deceased and two children who were critically injured.
I did what I could to save you both.”

He gave her an entreat
ing look.

“Sam, I had no idea that they weren’t your parents.”

“I believe you,” she said softly. “But I think there’s more to the story than either of us know.”

He moved forward, sitting on the edge of her bed.
He took both of her small hands in his and his eyes were full of sorrow.

“I don’t know what to say, sweetheart.
When we found you by the side of the road, I felt like I had to try to save you both. I didn’t want you to become a creature like me. When Anne stopped breathing, Teddy reminded me of the process of turning. I was crazy with fear. Anne awoke as a vampire child right before you took your last breath. Soon, you too were awake once again.”

She sat beside him and leaned her golden head against his arm.

“I remember nothing before that moment.
When I opened my eyes, I saw your face. That’s my first memory.”

She looked up at him in fascination.

“You were my whole world until I began to get to know Anne.
Then everything went to hell.”

“What about Teddy?”

She furrowed her brow.

“She wasn’t as honest as you were.
She always seemed to be holding back and keeping secrets. I didn’t like that about her.”

“I see your point.”

She fidgeted with the ruffles on the sleeve of her polka dotted pajama top. “Luna might be related to us. But, I don’t understand why she was so casual about being around so many vampires. The way that Teddy explained it seemed to indicate they consider vampires to be enemies.”

He shrugged.

“Maybe they don’t share
Marrok’s hatred of us.”

“Can you protect Luna?
Is it in your power to take her from Edinna?”

“I’ve already thought of that, smart girl.
I’m just waiting for Edinna to call me back about it. Hopefully she won’t protest too much.”

He stood up.

“Back to bed, sweet pea.”

Sam tumbled into her bed, crawled under her covers and accepted his gentle kiss on her forehead. When he turned out her light, Sam noticed that he still had the copied newspaper article in his hand. It took her three hours to fall asleep.

“My God, Sarah!
Look at this place! Get up.”

Nelly’s voice pierced through the fog surrounding Sarah like a shining blade.
She lifted her head slowly and looked around. The last few days were just sad dim ghosts in her frazzled brain. The cabin was a wreck. There was a pot of what was once macaroni and cheese sitting on the coffee table. The bright yellow cheese sauce had crusted over on the edges of the pan and the wooden spoon she had used to eat it with. There was an empty pack of cigarettes on the floor and extinguished butts floating in a bowl of chicken noodle soup next to the pot of macaroni and cheese.

“Good heavens, you’ve been smoking too?”

Nelly began picking
up things, shaking her gray head and muttering under her breath about bad habits. She picked up two empty bottles of vodka from the coffee table.

“Well, I hope you had a good time because I’m hiding your keys.
You will not be going down to Paul’s Liquor Store anytime soon, young lady.”

Sarah felt like her head weighed a hundred pounds.
She half rose from the sofa and realized that some of the macaroni and cheese had landed on the old t-shirt she had been wearing for the past three days. She smelled like stale cigarette smoke and saw where she had burned a hole in one of the cushions of the green sofa.

“What time is it?” she asked Nelly.
Her voice was hoarse.

“Time for you to get your fanny up and take a shower.
You’re going to have a visitor in a little while.”

“No.
No visitors.”

Nelly sniffed and turned her head.

“You don’t have a choice.
He’s already on his way.”

“Who?”

Her heart did a little flip inside her chest.
Was it possible? Could Michael be coming back for her? She stood up and grabbed the edge of the sofa for support when the dizziness hit her.

“Alexander,” Nelly said. “So get yourself cleaned up and I’ll do what I can with this mess.”

Of course, she thought. Alex was going to come sweeping in and try to save her.

Pointless
,
I have no interest in life anymore
.

“He’s wasting his time.
Nothing is going to make things better.”

“You just hush and get in the shower before I take you outside and turn the hose on you.”

Sarah moaned and shuffled to the stairs. She looked over her shoulder at Nelly who was still busy picking up the ridiculous mess she’s made of her own house. She watched for a few minutes and then went quite slowly up the stairs to the bathroom across from her bedroom. Her head pounding. The light streaming in through the bathroom window hurt her eyes. She yanked the curtain closed and looked at herself in the mirror over the sink.

“Holy shit.
”

It had never been this bad before.
She had suffered occasionally from minor bouts of depression, but she had never completely neglected herself this way. The hangover she was suffering was the most painful she’d ever had. She turned the cold water on and splashed some on her face.

What was going to happen to her?
Except for Nelly, she felt totally alone in the world. But, Alex was coming. He would try to help—she just hated that he had to. She didn’t want to inconvenience anybody. Even now, she felt guilty about Nelly cleaning up the shit storm downstairs. She couldn’t dwell too long on the guilt because she was in so much physical agony.

Twice she went to the toilet, leaning over it and thinking she was going to be sick.
The second time she vomited bile, which stung her throat and left her eyes watering. At that moment, she told herself that she would never touch vodka again. She flushed the toilet, took off her clothes, and got in the shower.

“How long has she been like this?”

Alex and Nelly were in front of the cabin, standing next to the four-wheel-drive truck he’d just purchased from a dealership in Indianapolis. Nelly had been waiting for him on the porch, eager to speak with him before he saw Sarah.

“I went to visit some friends of mine in Lexington for a few days.
She seemed a little upset when I left, but she insisted I go on my trip. When I got here this morning, I called you before she even woke up. The place was a complete mess. When I saw all the liquor bottles, I was so shocked. Sarah never kept any hard liquor at the Inn. I’m sorry to have bothered you, but I didn’t know who else to call.”

He nodded.

“I’m glad you did
call. I’ll see what I can do.”

Alex went in through the front door.

“Sarah?”

She didn’t answer. He looked around the kitchen and noticed the sliding glass door leading outside was cracked open. He stepped outside and spotted her out by the shed, smoking a cigarette and staring off at nothing. Her Golden Retriever lay at her feet, staring up at the face of her tormented mistress with soulful brown eyes.

Alex went down the steps and approached her.
She didn’t turn around when he touched her shoulder.

“Sarah?”

“Hmm?”

“Nelly’s worried about you.”

“I know,” she said.

He hadn’t expected this.
He had known Sarah for a while now and had been through some extraordinary situations with her, but he’d never seen her quite so lost.

“I want to help you,” he said.

“No.”

“Why not?”

She finally turned to him and Alex was struck by the dead look in her eyes, the lack of emotion in her face. Had she been suffering that much? He hated to think of how much losing Michael and girls had affected her, but it couldn’t be denied. Just by looking at her, it was clear that Sarah had lost her joy.

“There has to be something I can do.
Anything you need, Sarah. Really.”

She took a long drag on her cigarette and turned away again.

“It doesn’t matter.
Nothing matters.”

“What do you think Sam would say if she were here?
What do you think her reaction would be to see you like this? To hear you say that?”

He had struck a nerve with that one.
She glanced at him quickly from the side. “She has a new life now. She doesn’t need me.”

“Bullshit! You know that’s complete bullshit, Sarah. Those girls love you. They need you in their lives.”

“And Michael?”

Alex sighed.

“I don’t know.
I don’t really care what he thinks right now.”

She threw her cigarette in the grass and stepped on it with one of her sneakers.
She turned to go back to the house, but he reached out and gripped her arm. He put some pressure in that touch, trying to wake her up and make her see what she was doing was wrong.

“
Cut it out, Alex. That hurts,” she said.

He leaned towards her.

“Maybe it’s what you need.
You want to kill yourself with booze and cigarettes? It would be a lot faster if I just broke your neck.”

Sarah cast hurt blue eyes on his face and he loosened his hold a little.

“There’s no going back. I have no soul without them, Alex.”

The tears began to come, slowly sliding
down her pale cheeks and Alex wrapped an arm around her and walked with her back to the cabin.

An idea burst to life in his mind and as she put her hand on the rail of the stairs leading up to the back porch, he stopped walking.
When she looked at him, to see what was wrong, she saw grim determination fixed in his expression.

“Maybe there’s something we can do,” he muttered.
“But Michael is going to hate me for it. Shit. Everybody except you is going to hate me for it.”

Sarah gave him a curious
glance and walked up the stairs and into the house. Nelly was standing at the kitchen sink, scrubbing the cheese sauce from the pan Sarah had left on the coffee table. When they walked in, she dried her hands on a towel and moved towards Sarah with tears in her eyes.

“Honey, I’m sorry I spoke to you that way earlier.
I shouldn’t have been so harsh.”

Sarah shook her head.

“Don’t apologize.
I messed up, Nelly. Um… Mom.”

Alex’s golden eyebrows rose.

“Okay…?”

“I’ll tell you about it later,” Sarah said softly.

“Sure. Look, Nelly. We will get all this cleaned up. Sarah’s got a lot on her mind and I’m not sure she feels comfortable telling you everything. Would it be okay if I called you later to let you know how she’s doing?”

The two women looked at him
and wondered why he was acting so strange. Sarah started to say something, but Alex stopped her by grabbing one of her hands. He squeezed it lightly.

“Trust me.”

Nelly sighed and looked around at all the work left to be done.

“I don’t mind helping.”

“It’s okay. We’ll give you a call in a few hours.”

Sarah gave her a h
ug.

“Alex will keep an eye on me.”

“Well, if you’re sure.”

She gave Sarah another tight hug before she picked up her purse and went out to her car.
They listened as Nelly’s old mini van drove off down the long wooded lane to the road.

Sarah crossed her arms and gave Alex a doubtful look.

“What is this big idea of yours, anyway?
I’m assuming it’s something that Nelly wouldn’t approve of.”

Alex
shook his head.

“
No, she wouldn’t approve.”

He pulled her to the sofa and sat
beside her, studying her face with his warm emerald eyes.

“Have you ever considered being turned?”

“Into a vampire?”

The expression on her face changed by degrees as she considered this taboo idea.
The beginning spark of hope began to burn inside her chest, pushing away some of the darkness.

“It’s not pleasant, Sarah.
It’s a difficult decision for anyone to make when this opportunity presents itself. A hundred years ago, I would have said that this thing can’t be undone. But, you know it can. It’s been done to me and to Michael.”

“He never told me how it was done.”

“It’s not important right now. If we need to consider that option, I’ll tell you everything. Right now, I just need to know if it’s something that you think you could do. Would it make things better?”

She turned her head to stare out the front window.
The trees in the front yard were bending with the summer breeze and the sunlight sifting through them landed in bright patches against the green forest floor.

“I know that Michael will be furious if I do this, Sarah.”

“Not if he understood that it was my choice. He did what he had to do. Maybe now I have to do something as well. But it would change everything, wouldn’t it?”

He nodded.

“Yes.
Everything.”

“I could be with the girls.
Maybe even with Michael.”

“It’s a very good possibility.
Michael wouldn’t be able to turn you away. He probably hates himself right now for leaving you.”

She sighed and nibbled on one of her thumbnails.

“What about Nelly?”

“She accepted Katie’s change pretty well.”

A thought bloomed suddenly in her brain.

“Katie…
Oh, Alex. If I were a vampire, Katie and I could be real sisters again.”

“Once she completes her treatment, yes.”

Sarah rested her elbows on her knees and buried her face in her hands. What he was proposing could be the answer to her prayers. Or it could end up throwing her into a nightmare worse than anything she’d experienced before. What if she couldn’t control her hunger once she became a vampire? What if she began hurting people like Katie had?

“You would have to stay with me for a while, Alex,” she said.
“You can’t leave me until we know for sure that I can control the thirst.”

“I know.
I’m okay with that. You’ll need to learn a lot of things. I can teach you what you need to know.”

He smile
d slightly, and she watched as one of his dimples appeared.

She moved from the sofa and went to the window, looking out again into the beauty that was summer in Brown County.
Green, gold, sweet and real. Would she see it the same way through a vampire’s eyes? Would it still mean as much to her?

“What was the hardest part of changing?” she asked.

“Losing my family.”

That wouldn’t be a problem
.
The people I love already exist in that dark world. Now I have a chance to join them.