The Vampire's Release, A Paranormal Romance (Undead in Brown County #4) (16 page)

Teddy responded coolly.  “Not long ago, Isaiah was attacked here in the building.  He was decapitated and his blood was completely drained.”

Charlie turned to Vincent.  “You see?  He couldn’t have done it.”

“He had more motive than anyone,” Vincent replied.

After putting on a pair of white gloves, the doctor gingerly touched the edges of my shoulder wound and stared at it closely with a strange-looking pair of glasses.  “The regeneration is beginning.  The fibers are coming together quite well.”  He put the glasses back into his bag and took out a needle attached to a plastic container.  He pushed the needle into my uninjured arm, pulled back the plunger device and blood filled the little container.  He pulled out the needle, put it into a plastic bag and stood up.

“It should only take a few minutes.”
  The doctor hurried away.

As he door was about to swing closed behind him, someone else came in.  When I saw her red hair and the saucy way she entered the room, I groaned and closed my eyes. 

“Amanda…” Teddy started.  “What are you doing here?”

She addressed the room as if she owned them all, as if they had all been waiting for her arrival.  She was wearing a very short skirt, excessively high heels and a dark jacket.  Her bright hair was
tamed into a modest-looking chignon.

“I am here to claim Isaiah’s seat.”

Teddy’s face froze in its expression of surprise, and I saw from where I was that her eyes were unfocused.  She was sensing something from Amanda that disturbed her.  I had seen this happen before with Teddy.

“As you know, there is a lengthy vetting process,” Vincent murmured to Amanda.  “It will take time.”

She smiled brightly, her red lipstick gleaming.  “I have all the time in the world.”

Teddy seemed to relax somewhat, but she turned to one of her guards.  “Bring the doctor back in.  I want another sample taken.”

“That’s not necessary, Sister,” Vincent said.

Amanda became a little unglued.  “I don’t believe that is the standard procedure, Teddy.”

“When you address me, I expect to be called
Theodora
.”

A dead silence consumed the space for several seconds.  Amanda looked as if she wanted to tear Teddy apart.  Vincent stepped aside when Dr. Nguyen came back through the door and approached Amanda.  But when he set the bag down this time, Amanda responded by kicking it over with one foot.  The nervous doctor started gathering the spilled contents.

Teddy took two steps towards Vincent, stopped and lifted her head.  Her nostrils flared slightly and she stared incredulously at the vampire who had been ruling by her side for decades.  His eyebrows rose a few degrees.

“What it is, Sister?”

She seemed to have trouble putting the words together.  I took a deep breath of the scents in the room.  Something wasn’t right.  I could smell Isaiah.  It didn’t make sense.  I looked over at Sarah.  She was staring at Amanda with distinct animosity. 

“Guards,” Teddy said haltingly.
“Surround Amanda and my Brother.”

Vincent laughed hollowly.  “What game is this, Teddy?”

She didn’t return his humorous take on the situation.  She settled her black, fathomless eyes on him.

“You are responsible for Isaiah’s death.  I smell his blood on you.  That thing,” she indicated Amanda with one pointed, white
finger,
“is full of Isaiah’s blood.”

“She hasn’t even been tested, Teddy,” Charlie replied timidly at her shoulder.

“Use your senses, my Brothers and Sisters.  Then tell me if you can’t point out the one
s responsible for this atrocity,” Teddy declared.

The two guards holding Sarah let her go to surround the two suspects.  She rushed over to me and dropped to her knees beside me when my two guards went to do Teddy’s bidding
as well
.  Sarah’s eyes were full of unshed tears and her mouth was set in a sad line.
  The tears began falling when she saw how badly I was hurt.

“We have to get out of here,”
I told her quietly.  “This is going to get really bad.”

CHAPTER 24 – Alex

“Oh, for God’s sake.”
 

I looked over at the woman who’d spoken to me so boldly.

Selena.
  I waved her away.  “Get out of here.”

She shook her head.  “What the hell are you doing?”

I tried to pull myself up higher against the light post, but only managed to gain a few inches.  The strength didn’t seem to be coming back to me.  I slumped even lower, finally falling to the ground in a heap.  I kept hoping she would leave me alone.  I should have known better.

“I can’t believe you let him drink from you,” she grumbled.

“It helped with the headaches,” I said.

She snorted.  “Of course it did, you stupid thing.”
  She kneeled down next to me on the sidewalk and pulled a bottle out of her red leather purse.  I had no idea what it was.  It looked to be some clear liquid.  I tried to push her hand away when she brought it close to my mouth.

“Just drink it, you fool.”

I did, but it tasted like something from a sewer.  “What the hell is that stuff?”

“It’s medicine, Alex.  And if you would have told me about your headaches, I could have helped you when you were in Tahoe.
”  She mumbled curses about Michael and threw Sarah’s name in there somewhere, but I was just on the edge of consciousness and didn’t pay much attention.
  Then she put her wrist to my mouth and urged me to drink.  I wanted desperately to resist, but the hunger that had been stirring lowly in my gut was suddenly screaming for attention.

“Drink, Alex.  It’s the only way.”

So I did.  The flavor wasn’t new to me, but the feeling of fulfillment in those first few swallows was astounding.  I wasn’t sure if I had waited too long to feed or if the clear stuff she made me drink had changed something inside me, but for the first time since I’d become a vampire again, I felt
full
.

“You’re needed upstairs, Selena.”  It was a child’s voice.

I heard Selena curse again and then someone small came to my side. 

“Sam, do NOT move.  Stay right here with him until I get Sarah and Michael out of there, okay?”

“Okay.”

I looked up at Sam.  “What did she just give me?”

The smile she gave me was like a ray of sunshine through a storm.

“She gave you your life back.”

CHAPTER 25 – Sarah

The true chaos hadn’t begun, but I knew Michael was right.  The rising tension in the room was truly scary.  There were no less than tw
enty vampires in the restaurant, and very few of them were staying out of the argument brewing between Vincent, Amanda and Teddy.
  Michael shifted, stretched out his right hand as far as it would go and twisted it.  There was a pop.

“My knee…” he said quietly, his breath surprisingly warm in my ear.  He wedged his foot between the leg of one of the tables and the leg of a chair.  “Hold the chair and table together.  I’ve got to use my arms for leverage.”

“Oh, my God.”
  I had made the mistake of looking away from what he was asking me to do, and the person who walked through the door next caught my eye.  She spotted us instantly.  “My fucking mother is here.”

“That’s never a good way to end a dinner date,” Michael said through gritted teeth. “Hold the chair.”

My mother had caught the attention
of some of the other vampires, but she was heading straight for us
.  She didn’t even look at me, but kneeled down next to Michael across from me with a very annoyed expression on her face.

“Which leg?” she asked quickly.

“Left knee is twisted,” he replied.

Without hesitation, she grabbed his left calf and twisted it ruthlessly.  He shouted out in pain, and I wanted to slap her across the room until I saw what she’d done.  He lifted his leg, flexed it twice and tried to get up.
  He was too heavy for me.

“He’ll need another few minutes before he can move,” she muttered.  “But we don’t have the time.”

When I looked back over towards Teddy, I saw that another set of guards were trying to move her away from Amanda and Vincent.  It was hard to tell exactly who the guards were listening to.  Amanda had lashed out at two of the guards who had gotten too close.  They were bleeding on the floor, the
crimson stain spreading like cracks in ice.  Charlie was shouting
to try to gain some control over the situation, but no one was listening.

When I turned back to Michael, my mother was helping him move behind a serving station.  But I didn’t get a chance to follow.  I heard an angry voice in my ear and felt a pair of unusually strong fingers wrapped around my throat.

“I have waited for this moment for a long time, you little piece of shit.”

Amanda.  Her fingers were steel against my skin, crushing and unyielding.  She was in front of me, raising me up before her.  I felt the biting winter winds whipping through the broken window.  The likelihood of my death seemed clear.  She would either choke the life out of me or throw me down to the street. 

But something caused her grip to loosen suddenly.  She stumbled, bringing me down with her.  Vaguely, I saw someone backing away from her. 
My mother.
  She had something in her hand that was sharp and shining.

Michael’
s voice moved throug
h me then like a burst of electric light.

“It’s not over. 
Be strong.”

Amanda moved off me, reaching behind her to try to find something.  She saw my mother moving away with the hypodermic needle in her hand.  I didn’t know what it was at the time that had been injected into Amanda, but between Michael’s words and the way he looked at me across the space of that room, I knew the game had changed.

Something had gone out of Amand
a.  She still looked on me with rage, but the movement of her body had slowed.  I heard a gasp from the back of the room by the door and saw Alex come in.  There was no time to run.  There was no time to do anything.

I had to finish it.

All of the bitterness came back.  The haunting memories washed through me like acid.  I saw my father in his hospital bed, his eyes hollow and dark against his pale skin.  I heard the last beat of his heart against my ear.  I felt Katie’s tears soak through my shirt, coating me with more sorrow than any person should have to bear.  I heard the disdain in Trevor’s voice when I confronted him about cheating on me,
deceiving me.  I saw the bills that had piled up on my Dad’s desk.  I saw Doctor Fleming sitting across from me, telling me that my mother was still alive.  I felt the bewilderment and shock of knowing that my mother had decided to leave her children.
  I heard the slamming of the door when my sister walked away and left me to battle these things without her. 

I felt the anger.

The target
was in front of me.  The frustration spiraling in my head demanded release.
  I didn’t think about what might happen afterwards.  The rage bursting inside of me didn’t leave room for any of that.  There was a vampire on the floor in front of me who was a monster.  She had tortured Captain Jones and turned my sister in
to
a murderer.    She had almost turned my lover into the same kind of monster that she was.  I would not allow it to continue.

CHAPTER 26 – Michael

When she let it go, no one in the room took their eyes off of her.

Amanda had been neutralized.  Her vampire powers were on hold, just as mine had been before Isaiah took me.  I tried to tell Sarah in the only way I knew how.  There was a joining of minds present between the two of us and I used that connection to try to convey a message.  And she got it.

The emotion beh
ind her
kick would have been lethal to a human.  The force of it was enough to move Amanda a meter across the floor.  Sarah’s attack was purely driven by her own pain and loss.  It was focused and incredibly powerful. 
Two members of the extended Council physically recoiled when they witnessed that kick.  And it wasn’t because they were afraid of the damage that one human could do with her leg.  It was the outpouring of emotion.

That was the reason she fascinated me.  That was the glory of who she was.  She carried in her head the most intense emotional experience
s
I’ve ever come across.  But that intensity was tempered by an inner kindness that she offered to anyone who could see who she really was inside.  Anyone who gave her the honest chance could see that side of her.

Sarah looked down at Amanda.  What she saw, lying broken and vacant in the midst of shattered glass, was the person she might have become.  She saw what would have been her future self if she had actually given in to the agony of the circumstances that had plagued her.  She lowered her head.