The Vampire's Consort (Undead in Brown County) (4 page)

Sam’s large blue eyes reflected the trees rushing past.
Looking to her left, she watched Michael shift in his sleep against the dark leather seat of the SUV they were riding in. Two hours earlier, Teddy had done what was necessary to return Michael to his former undead state.

His facial hair was gone.
His skin was as pale as ivory silk and the hint of extra weight he’d put on over the last year while enjoying Nelly and Sarah’s home cooking had simply evaporated. He looked the same as the day he’d come upon Sam and her sister outside of that church in New York so long ago. His eyes, once they opened, would not be as they once were. Sam knew this. She knew without having to ask that the price Michael had to pay to keep her safe would haunt him for the rest of his days.

If it weren’t for Teddy, Sam might be home with Sarah.
Michael would still be the human that they all loved. Her sister would be by her side. But, Teddy had made all that go away. She had disrupted the peace and happiness of their family to fulfill what she felt were her responsibilities as an elder vampire of the council.

Anne had indeed disappeared the morning following Teddy’s visit.
Once Nelly had dropped them off, Anne packed only a few things into her favorite backpack and left the cabin. She had few words to say to Sam. It had been obvious to the both of them that Anne had her own plans and she was ready to put those plans into action. She also knew that a long goodbye with Sarah or Michael would rouse their suspicions, so she said nothing. She slipped silently into the woods and disappeared. Her sister watched her flee with envy and a certain sense of awe. Sam wished she had that kind of courage. She wished there was another way—some solution that could keep them together. They had always been so different from each other, with widely varying tastes and ambitions. Although they talked about their feelings sometimes, Anne kept a great deal to herself. She wasn’t one to moan or complain about her lot in life. She had chided Sam for that very thing on many occasions.

Now no one knew where Anne was or how to get in touch with her.
She had left her cell phone on the dresser in the bedroom she had shared with her sister. So Michael wasn’t the only one who had cut ties. Anne did not linger to even give Sarah a hug. She was simply gone.

Now Teddy was in the front passenger seat, talking on her cell phone.
In an effort to take her mind off her sister, she listened to the conversation taking place. Her childlike eyes narrowed as she listened.

“Listen to me, Charlie.
I’m going to handle all that when I get back. Michael will need a day or so to adjust before he starts dealing with the Arizona situation.”

Sam heard Charlie’s voice raised in panic.

“Bennett is
dead
. Did you hear me? That foreign rogue has killed the Warden!”

“I heard you.
I can’t do anything about it right now. The team from L.A. is in chaos right now. There’s no one else to send.”

“Teddy, if this rogue finds a way to get loose we are in serious trouble.”

“I realize that, Charlie. Just calm down. I’ll make a few calls and get back to you.”

Her voice was becoming agitated.
Sam knew that tone. Teddy ended the call and began thumbing through the address book on her phone.

“Trouble in Arizona?” Michael said hoarsely from the backseat.

“It appears Mr. Bennett has been murdered.”

He groaned and moved to sit up.
As Sam had predicted, there were shadows of grief in his gaze when he glanced over at her. She met his eyes briefly and then turned away.

“Have you been able to contact Victoria?
She and Jones could probably head out there to see what the situation looks like. How long can your seer keep an eye on it?”

“Charlie said Dumas is capable enough to watch for several hours as long as nothing else is distracting him.
We need to get someone out there to assess things on the ground.”

Dumas was
new to the council. He was not a vampire and therefore not technically a standing member of the group, but he was a highly valuable asset. He had approached Charlie several years ago and offered his services to the council in exchange for a piece of land in Colorado that the council owned the deed to. He was an eccentric young man of African descent who had immigrated to the United States in the late 1960’s. Little else was known about him, other than the fact he was the descendant of a very powerful witch. The council had him vetted by Victoria, whose mindreading powers were becoming quite well known.

Teddy turned to Michael with a cell phone
in her hand.

“This is your new
phone. I already had my assistant enter all the numbers you will need as well as email addresses for everyone on the council.”

He took the phone
with hesitation.

“I suppose you’re going to be tracking me with this?”

“You’re not a prisoner anymore, Michael.”

He snorted.
“I’m not exactly free, either. Am I?”

One of her thin white eyebrows rose.

“Perhaps not.
But it was your choice.”

She turned and gave him a stern look across the seat that separated them.
“Don’t let this be a source of division between us. We have to work together. You made the decision and now the die is cast. There’s no going back.”

The look in his eyes was full of impotent rage.
She was right. He had cut his ties and there would not be a chance to mend things now. It was how things had to be, as much as it pained him. He felt Samantha’s small fingers squeeze his arm in a supportive gesture and he tried to relax again.

He looked at the new cell phone.
He would have to read through another instruction manual to use it. Swearing under his breath, he flipped through it so quickly that even Sam had a hard time seeing the pages being turned. In less than two minutes, he had the information memorized. He threw the manual on the floor of the SUV and searched for Victoria’s cell number.

It rang twice before her familiar voice answered.

“Michael?”

“Yes.”

“How are you?”

He pulled the phone away from his ear and looked at it oddly for a moment. Was that pity in her voice? He put it against his ear again.

“I’m fine.
Where are you?”

“Houston.
We’ve been looking for Jackson Bennett.”

“Any luck?”

He heard traffic noise in the background when she answered. “I think so. We may have him cornered in a hotel room north of the city. Can I call you back when I know more? We just need to confirm it’s really him.”

“Yes.
Call me back.”

He ended the call and
gave Teddy a hard stare when she turned his way again.

“How long have they been looking for him?”
he asked.

“A week or so.
They got an anonymous tip from a vampire in Galveston who said he’d been spotted in a bus depot.”

“Teddy, using Jackson as the Warden in Arizona is not a good idea.
He’s probably less stable than his father was.”

Sam leaned forward.
“What about Katie? She’s due to be released from the Brazilian clinic soon. She has the Pawnee blood.”

Michael contemplated her idea.
“It could work. If the council agrees.”

“You can convince them,” Teddy said.
“You know better than any of us how the warden system works.”

“If they’re still bitter about her being sent to the clinic, this might be a way to pacify them for a little while.
I just doubt she would be willing to follow orders.” He turned to look out the window.

The afternoon light was fading on the landscape around them, leaving long delicate shadows stretched out across the highway like sticks to be snapped under the wheels of their vehicle.
In an hour, they were scheduled to depart Chicago on a private jet. They planned to land at JFK in New York where the council would be waiting to welcome Michael back into the fold.

He watched those shadows across the road and thought of Sarah.
And he loathed himself for the choice he’d made. He knew she might hate him for it as well. It was what he deserved for leaving her.

The light faded
to almost nothing.

“Have a seat, Sarah. We just have a few questions.”

Sarah
lowered herself warily onto the metal chair. On the table lay a red folder with the word “classified” printed in bold letters. Sarah looked at the camera mounted to the ceiling.

This is not happening
.

Beads of sweat appeared on her smooth forehead.

The taller of the two men, the one with the
thinning auburn hair, sat across from her with his hands up on the table. He sighed and gave her a half-lit smile that seemed far from genuine.

“Where were you on October 3
rd
, 2012?”

Crap.

“Chicago. I was there to see some friends.”

Keep it cool, Sarah.
Just fucking relax.

“What friends?”

“I don’t remember who all showed up.
Just some friends I went to high school with.”

She looked pointedly at the one sitting in front of her.

“Am I under arrest?”

The dark one with the sideburns shook his head and sat down next to his partner.

“Nope.
Just a few questions.”

She saw his security
nametag that included his picture. Justin Vanner, Senior Investigator. She didn’t like where this was going at all.

“You can’t keep me here.
I know my rights.”

“We can keep you here as long as it takes, Sarah.
This isn’t some local police investigation. We work for Homeland Security,” Vanner replied.

Holy fuck.

She knew right then that shit was about to get real.
Homeland Security had special privileges that other government agencies didn’t have. She knew that much from watching the news during the Bush years after 9/11.

“What exactly do you want from me?”

She felt the beginnings of another migraine coming on.

“Information.
You aren’t a suspect, Sarah.”

She sought out the partner’s name
on his tag. Jack Renfield, Field Investigator.

“So, what?
You’re investigating the explosion at the farm?”

Renfield
opened the file on the table revealing a small stack of photographs. He pulled the top picture off the stack and slid it across the table towards Sarah.

“Have you ever met this man?”

It was a black and white photo that looked as if it had been taken in a shopping mall.
The man was definitely familiar to Sarah. In fact, she’d met with him the day before.

“That’s my friend, Alex.
He worked with us for awhile at the Inn.”

“He worked with you
. What’s his last name?” Renfield asked.

“I don’t know.
He just worked for room and board for a few months.”

Vanner
leaned forward in his seat.

“So he just showed up and you hired him?
No references?”

“We handled things informally.
If I felt I could trust someone and they needed work, I would find something for them to do. It wasn’t that unusual,” she replied. “And Alex didn’t have anything to do with that explosion. He was in Chicago.”

“Really?
A guy that you barely knew, basically some stranger off the street, went with you to meet high school friends in Chicago? And you don’t even know his last name?”

It sounded like
horseshit to Sarah as well. But, she was trying to keep her head above water. Renfield pulled another black and white picture from the top of the stack and slid it over to her, next to the picture of Alex.

“Do you recognize this
woman?”

It was Teddy.
Her silver hair was swept back from her face, her head was held high, as always. She had been photographed with five men, all wearing dark suits. They looked to be security guards and were probably ex-military men.

Sarah crossed her arms and leaned back in her chair.

“Never seen her before.”

The investigators were dubious.
Vanner’s eyebrows rose marginally.

“That’s odd
, because last winter you had a meeting with her in a private dining room at the Hatfield House in downtown Nashville.”

She remained silent,
but inside she was terrified.

“A few months before that, you met with her privately at the Wentworth Hotel in Indianapolis.
We have the video showing you entering the hotel where she had secured a private suite for a meeting. She was meeting with you. You want to rethink your answer?”

Still, she said nothing.
Renfield rose from his chair, went to the only door in the room to whispered something to someone outside. A few moments later, he was handed a black case which he brought to the table and opened for Sarah.

It was a computer.
Renfield reached around and pressed a single key. On the screen was a jerky video of an outdoor scene. The camera operator was following two people as they crossed a highway. Sarah could see smoke and a familiar car. It was an accident. The camera panned around and stopped. Two men were crouching on the ground with something in between them. There was some shouting going on. Then one of the men stood with a human figure in his arms.

Sarah suddenly realized what she was watching.
The car accident that happened on the way to Chicago—more accurately, the aftermath of that accident. She felt herself begin to tremble. She didn’t want to see this.

Renfield
reach around the screen of the computer and tapped a button that paused the playback. He gave Sarah a skeptical look.

“Your friend, Alex.
Right? And the woman he is holding is you.”

“I don’t know.
I did get into an accident, but I don’t remember much of what happened after that.”

“Who is the other man with you?”
Tanner asked gently.

Sarah’s jaw snapped shut.
She couldn’t do it because she knew what would happen next in that video and it would put Michael right in the crosshairs of the federal government. The consequences were more than frightening.

Tanner was the one that tapped the button this time.
The video continued. Sarah saw herself being rushed away into the woods at unbelievable speed. Then the camera focused on the dark-haired man kneeling at the side of the road. He was trembling, his back to the camera as the other two bystanders approached.

The man stood up and his head swiveled towards the three men who were approaching him.
Sarah recognized that look on his face. She’d seen that same expression on Alex’s face. Right before he almost killed her.

She turned away from the screen before the first strike, but she heard the screams, the roaring of the undead creature that was Michael.
She heard ripping sounds and then the sound of the cell phone hitting the pavement. There was moaning. Then nothing.

“You should watch it,”
Renfield said casually. “It’s fascinating. That speed… I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Tanner slowly walked around the table and stopped beside Sarah
. “You know exactly what we’re looking at, don’t you?” he said.

“I don’t know anything.”

She shook her head
; her breathing had gone ragged. Under the table, her knees were shaking. Why couldn’t they just let her out of there? All she wanted was to leave that room.

Tanner leaned down close to her ear.
His breath tickled the hair on the back of her neck under her ponytail.

“One car accident with a fatality.
Two murders. Two very unusual men with unnatural speed and strength. You know them both.”

Her eyes were fixed on the rest of the photographs that she hadn’t seen.
What else did they know? Could she find out without revealing anything more to them?

“Show me the other pictures and maybe I’ll have a little more to tell you.”

Renfield
regarded her with an expression of disbelief.

“We aren’t negotiating, Sarah.
You will tell us everything or you’ll go to detainee lockup. We’re not fucking around with you.”

Tanner help up a hand in supplication.

“Let’s all just step back for a minute, okay?”

He closed the lid of the laptop case.

“Maybe you should start at the beginning, Sarah.”

“I don’t have anything more to say.
If you want to arrest me, then do it. I’m no terrorist. You know that.”

“We didn’t say you were.”

“I have never known a terrorist either. So, you have no right to hold me. Let me go or let me call an attorney, because I’m sick of this bullshit.”

The angry fire in her eyes and her expression told them she wasn’t giving up any more information.

Renfield motioned to his partner and the two left the room together.

In a few minutes, they returned.
Tanner handed a business card to her and looked her in the eye sternly.

“You’re free to go
, for now. But, we will be in touch. And if you decide you what to tell us anything more, get in touch.”

Sarah looked down at the card and then
back up at the men. She held the card in front of Tanner’s face and ripped it down the center before dropping it on the floor.

“Go fuck yourselves.”

She turned and left the room.

Renfield chuckled.

“She’
s a sweet girl.”

Sarah was dropped off back at the cabin. She slammed the door on her way in as an insult to the two agents who had dropped her off. Once she was safely inside with the curtains closed at the front window, she dropped into one of the easy chairs in the den and nibbled on a thumbnail.

Should she warn Michael?
She wasn’t even sure how to reach him. His old cell number had been disconnected. Calling Teddy was out of the question. Maybe Victoria would know what to do. She started to remove her own cell phone from the purse she’d taken with her to the local constable’s station when her thoughts and actions were interrupted by a familiar male voice.

“Hey, beautiful girl.”

When she looked up, she saw Alex leaning against the doorway that led into the kitchen. He seemed larger than she remembered. Alex was one of those people whose presence filled a room so completely that he usually seemed larger than life.

“Alex!”

She jumped from the chair and rushed to hug him.

Though she couldn’t see it, his green eyes lit up at her response and his engaging, bright smile was a clear indication of how happy he was to see her.

His arms wrapped around her tightly but briefly for a moment or two before he pulled away slightly to get a better look at her.

There was something in her expression that indicated trouble.
He could see fear and sadness radiating from her eyes and her slim body was filled with tension.

“Something’s wrong,” he said gently.
“Tell me.”

“I don’t know where to start,” she
said.

“Come sit down.”

They arranged themselves comfortably facing each other on the long moss-green sofa. He held one of her hands as she began and as she recounted episodes of the story that caused her pain, he squeezed gently to console and encourage.

“So now all three of them are gone.”
She finished on a sob.

He reached over to the coffee table and drew a tissue out of the box sitting there.
Handing it to her, he squeezed her hand again.

“First of all, don’t worry about Anne.
She’s almost entirely self-sufficient, Sarah. If you were honest with yourself, you would know that to be true. I know you liked to baby her and treat her like a child, but she’s incredibly intelligent and independent.”

Sarah wiped her eyes and crumpled the tissue
in her free hand. “I know. I just didn’t want to lose her. She didn’t even say goodbye, Alex.”

“If she had taken the time to do that, what would have happened?” he asked quietly.

Her gaze fell.

“Michael and I would have tried to stop her.”

“Exactly. I always thought that Anne hated being under the supervision of anyone else. She wasn’t the kind to voice her objections very often, but she didn’t like the fact that she and her sister were essentially indebted to Teddy. She told me so.”

He smiled at her tear-stained face.

“You’ll see her again, Sarah.
This won’t last forever.”

“What about Sam?
Do you think Teddy will allow her to come back now that Michael is stepping forward? I don’t think she will, Alex.”