The Vampire's Consort (Undead in Brown County) Read Online Free Page A

with someone he knew from his past?
    So when Robert turned to fill up the feed buckets in the horses’ stalls, Michael spent two minutes exploring all the features available. He didn’t understand the messaging very well, but he found the search button and punched in the letters from the name of a female vampire he had known for many years. A screen popped up with advertisements and in the center was the name of his most trusted friend. Victoria.
    He memorized the phone number. If he could somehow get access to one of the cell phones in the Inn, he could use it then. But it was more likely every day that he would have no such chance. Robert had been gone for two months. The Inn stopped accepting reservations. Nelly and the older girl, Sarah, would sit out on the front porch on some evenings and talk about the sudden decline in Robert’s health. They had been told about the cancer finally. But the girls were angry that he wouldn’t consent to chemo or radiation treatment. Even the younger sister drove home from college during a regular school week to be there when the oncologist finally gave them the results of Robert’s MRI’s and blood counts. The younger one was Katie. She stayed only a day or so after the funeral and went back to school, leaving the housekeeper and her sister to handle the running of the family business.
    The woodworking had started out innocently enough. Michael was going to build a bird feeder for the cardinals that so fascinated him. Feathers the color of blood. Black eyes patches. There was an eerie realization when he considered the juxtaposition between those little red birds and himself.
     
    Sarah sighed.
    She listened to the night sounds that had become so ingrained in her memories. A pair of owls was in the trees to the east, calling back and forth to each other in their somber tones. It made her feel sad for some indefinable reason. The cicadas were wildly loud, filling the night with their endless chirping. Sarah swatted at a mosquito that had landed on her wrist. The body of the insect had been filled with blood and left the bright red remains of its dinner on her skin.
    She heard the front door open and the noisy squeak of the screen door as Michael came out. He handed her a hot cup of raspberry tea and leaned against the porch railing. When his eyes found hers in the darkness, she felt a chill travel through her. It started as a prickly feeling in her shoulders and began to drift downwards, leaving each part of her entirely frigid.
    “Michael, what’s wrong?” She didn’t really want to know. Not really. It was obvious from the look on his face. Teddy had been there earlier and now Michael was very disturbed. The totality of it rose up like angry storm clouds in his eyes, turning their color to steel gray.
    “She wants the girls back.” He began to move across the porch in slow deliberate strides with his eyes locked to the ground.
    “You and I talked about this before. We knew it wasn’t just possible, but likely.”
    Sarah put her teacup down on the porch rail and unwrapped herself from the blanket.
    “Yes. We knew. Teddy probably thought it was going to be like going to camp or something for them.”
    “That’s what I thought as well, when she first told me she was going to let them stay. It wasn’t just getting back to nature for them or for us.”
    Her eyes were huge in her pale face as she went to him. Michael held Sarah gently with arms that did not have the power to keep this particular hurt from her.
    “Why can’t she understand what she’s forcing them to give up?”
    Michael moved his fingers through her soft wavy hair, smoothing it down against her back as he went on. “She never had that. Teddy grew up just trying to survive. Even after she married, she never found the kind of happiness that we have here. The whole concept of it is foreign to her, Sarah.”
    “And vampire business comes first,” she whispered with her cheek against his