Blue Twilight

2

Stormy drove along behind the yellow van and told herself everything was going to be fine. She visualized a bright future, she and Max with their own private investigations agency: SIS. Supernatural Investigations Services—because that would be their specialty. Max had assured her, though, that they wouldn’t turn down ordinary types of cases. The acronym “sis” was, Max said, as much in honor of her own newfound twin sister, Morgan, as it was in honor of her relationship with Stormy. The two were far more than best friends—always had been.

God, it would be just like the old days, just like when they’d been in their teens and snooping into things that didn’t concern them. They’d been kids then, amateurs, usually digging for proof of one or another of Max’s far-fetched conspiracy theories and most often finding none.

Until that day when the “research lab” in White Plains had burned to the ground. Max had always insisted there was something more going on in that place than met the eye. And that time, for once, she’d been right.

The building had housed the headquarters of the DPI—the Division of Paranormal Investigations—a super-secret government agency dedicated to the study and elimination of vampires. The repercussions of what Max had learned while snooping through the debris that night almost six years ago were still reverberating through their lives. She had found proof of the existence of vampires. It still rattled Storm’s brain when she tried to process everything that had happened since. But it had all been leading up to this. Max and Stormy, professional snoops now. Licensed professional snoops, specializing in things beyond what most considered “normal.”

But it wasn’t quite the same, was it? Back in the old days, there had been three of them. Stormy, Max and Jason. Gorgeous, chocolate-skinned, studious, conservative Jason Beck. He’d provided a counterbalance to Storm’s fearlessness and Maxie’s impulsiveness. But he’d moved away, never knowing what Max had found in the rubble that night. Hell, she hadn’t even told Stormy until a few months ago.

Stormy often wondered what might have happened if she hadn’t turned Jason down when he’d asked her out back in college. Or if he’d stayed, instead of moving away, going to law school. She missed Jason.

Jason.

Pain. A red-hot blade plunged deep into her head. White light blinded her, and noise—radio static like a thousand stations fighting for a frequency—exploded inside her mind.

She pressed a hand to her head and jammed both feet on the brake pedal, since she could no longer see the road.

Jason.

The light in her mind took form, and she saw his familiar profile in her inner vision. Harder, more angular than she remembered him. Older. Brown eyes, shaved head, drop-dead handsome as he’d always been.

Facing him, also in profile, was another man’s face. A chiseled face with full dark lips and deep brown luminescent eyes with paintbrush lashes and brows so full they nearly met. His hair was long, perfectly straight and raven-wing black. And he was as familiar to her as her own reflection in the mirror. And yet a total stranger.

Dragostea cea veche îti sopteste la ureche, a woman’s voice, strange and exotic, whispered. And though the words were in some language she didn’t know, Stormy realized that the voice she had heard was her own. Only … not.

It frightened her that she understood those words she had uttered. “Old love will not be forgotten,” she whispered.

The pain faded. The light dimmed. The noise went silent. She opened her eyes. Her car was sitting cockeyed on the shoulder of the road in a cloud of dust. A glimpse behind showed black skid marks on the pavement. A look ahead told her the van had pulled over, as well. Max and Lou were getting out, running toward her.

Stormy closed her eyes. Yes, things were different now. She was different now. Had been, ever since she’d come out of the coma.

She hadn’t stayed in that hospital bed the whole time. She’d left the hospital. She’d left her body. She’d gone somewhere … else.

And she couldn’t shake the feeling that when she’d come back, she hadn’t come alone. Something had hitched a ride. The owner of that voice that didn’t even speak her own language, perhaps. She didn’t live alone in her body anymore.

Max was tapping on the glass of the driver’s side window, and Stormy rolled it down. “I’m okay,” she said.

“What happened? Stormy, you just went out of control for no reason! What is it?”

“Nothing. Really, I.I fell asleep. That’s all.”

Max wasn’t buying it. She searched Stormy’s face, then paused, and her eyes widened. “Stormy, your eyes!”

“What? What about them?” Stormy reached for the rearview mirror and stared into it. An ebony-eyed stranger stared back at her. But even as she looked, the color changed from ebony back to their normal vivid blue. She quelled the full body shiver that moved through her and turned back to Max again, schooling her expression to a picture of calm. “There’s nothing wrong with my eyes, Max. Must have been the way the sun was hitting me,” she said.

Max squinted at her. “But …”

Lou put a hand on Maxine’s shoulder. “There’s a diner up ahead. Maybe we need to stop for a rest.”

“Good idea,” Max said. She nodded to Stormy. “Shove over. I’m driving.”

Stormy knew better than to argue. Max was worried. And she’d seen something. Hell, Stormy was surprised she’d been able to keep her strange symptoms to herself for as long as she had—keeping secrets from Mad Maxie was not easily done. She’d had a few episodes similar to this one: blacking out, seeing strange flashes, hearing incoherent murmurs. But never before had an image come clear, the way this one had, nor had any of the murmurs taken on the form of words, foreign or otherwise. Whatever it was, it was getting worse. But dammit, she couldn’t tell anyone about this, not even Maxie. Not until she knew what it was—what it meant.

She flipped down the visor, looked in the makeup mirror there, and was relieved to see her own eyes looking back at her.

Maxine was pulling her car into motion. “So you gonna tell me what’s up?”

“Honestly, Max, I don’t know. I was tired, and I guess I nodded off.”

“That’s all?”

“That’s all.”

Max thinned her lips. Time to change the subject. “Hey, Max, you remember those flyers we had made up, announcing the new business?”

“Sure do.”

“Did you send one to Jason Beck?”

Max frowned at her. “Yeah, I did. A business card, too. I sent them to everyone I could think of. Why?”

“I don’t know. I’ve just been thinking about him lately.”

“Yeah?”

Storm nodded, then pointed ahead. “There’s the diner. Lou’s pulling around back.”

“Probably more room to park that tank back there. We’ll pull around, too.” She drove Stormy’s car into the parking lot.

Subject successfully changed, Stormy thought slowly. She wanted to rub her head—it didn’t hurt, exactly, just felt tender. Sensitive, or something. But she didn’t dare. If she gave Max any sign she was in less-than-perfect health, Max would hover like a first-time mother.

“I really am starved,” she said. Max always saw an appetite as a sign of good health.

“Me, too.” Max pulled Stormy’s car to a stop next to the van.

“How’s the ride going?” Stormy asked. “Any progress with Lou?”

“Hell, no. He put the radio on some country music channel to limit opportunities for conversation.”

“You sure you don’t want to ride the rest of the way with me?” She tapped her CD collection. “I have Disturbed.”

“You are disturbed,” Max told her with a wink. Then she frowned as she looked at Stormy again. “Despite that, I think I will ride with you for a while. Give you a break from driving for the next couple of hours.”

“I was kidding, Max. You need to ride with Lou. Maybe he’ll hit a bump and you’ll wind up in his lap. You can’t miss an opportunity like that.”

“Hell, I’ll have plenty of opportunities once we get him installed in the mansion.”

“But I thought he wasn’t staying,” Stormy said.

“So does he,” Max replied. “But I stashed his bag in your car, just in case.”

Stormy looked behind her seat and saw the black leather satchel that she hadn’t put there or even noticed up until now. “How observant am I?” she asked. “Could have been a serial killer squatting back there for all I noticed.”

“No room for a whole serial killer,” Max observed.

“Hey!” Lou tapped on the roof of the little car. “You two getting out or what?”

Grinning, Max opened her door and got out of the car.

Stormy did, too, but her legs felt oddly weak and her muscles, shaky. As if she’d worked out to the point of muscle fatigue. Only she hadn’t.

When it had happened before, the weakness had soon passed. But it had never been this clear or this powerful before, nor had it ever left her this shaken. She’d asked her doctor about it after the first attack, but though he had run a battery of tests, nothing abnormal had shown up.

Whatever it was, Stormy was convinced it wasn’t physical. It didn’t feel physical. She couldn’t describe why, exactly, or what it did feel like.

They walked into the diner, Max watching her every move.

3

“Here they are, my lord.”

He stepped through the open doors into his parlor. It had been weeks since he’d fed. He’d learned to do without for long periods, and Fieldner had been whining that no woman had passed through Endover in all that time.

But tonight, tonight, he would feed his body and, more important, his soul with the memory of his beloved.

He looked at the female Fieldner had brought to him. Mocha skin, brown eyes, hair like mink that curled to her shoulders. Beautiful. She stood trembling and wide-eyed at his approach. “You needn’t be afraid,” he said, staring deeply into her eyes, working to ease her mind with the power of his own.

He frowned and moved closer, and when she backed away, he said two words. “Be still.” And he waved his hand to direct his power more fully.

She didn’t move again. Just stood there, still afraid. He could hear her heart fluttering as madly as the wings of a trapped dove.

No matter. He would calm her soon enough. He moved nearer, and when he was right in front of her, he touched her chin with one hand and studied her face.

Anger flooded him, though he was careful to keep his voice gentle. “How old are you, child?”

“S-s-seventeen.”

He lowered his hand and turned away from her, disappointment washing through him as his hunger stabbed more deeply. Free from the hold of his mind, the girl stumbled backward as if suddenly released from a powerful grip.

“A child?” His eyes sought out those of his servant. Fieldner stood in the shadows, cowering now. “You’ve brought me a child, Fieldner?”

The man cringed into himself but didn’t back away. “Seventeen is hardly a child. And I brought two of them, master.”

“Two?” He turned again, noticing the second girl. Caucasian, blond and apparently unconscious on the chaise. He moved to her side, bending over her, touching her, his long fingers sending messages to his keen mind. Then he shot another look at Fieldner. “You’ve drugged her?”

“B-both of us,” the other girl said.

He shot her a look, turned to face the girl again. “What is your name, child?”

“D-Delia. Delia Beck. She’s Janie.” Her lip trembled. “Is she going to be all right?”

“Yes, I promise you she’s fine. Don’t be afraid, Delia Beck. You have nothing to fear from me.” He took a moment to ease her mind, reaching out to it with his own until she relaxed visibly. “Sit there with your friend,” he told her. “While I deal with this.”

She went to the chaise and sat upon it, taking her friend’s hand in her own, speaking softly to her.

He walked across the room to Fieldner, who started babbling at his approach. “I—I had to drug them. I did! There are two of them, and they would have fought me. I didn’t want to have to hurt one of them. You got angry the last time I hurt one of them.”

“And what good did you think it would do to bring me tainted blood, you idiot?” He looked back at the girls.

The one called Delia was staring at him as if she couldn’t look away, her heart still racing, though she wasn’t as afraid as she had been. She was mesmerized and terrified all at once. The other one, Janie, moaned, shifting restlessly on the chaise.

“I cannot feed on tainted blood,” he said to Fieldner. “And I will not feed on children.”

“I’m sorry, master.”

“The damage is done. There’s nothing for it but to keep it from getting worse. They will be missed, surely.”

“No! They were traveling alone.”

That, at least, was a point in his favor. “Good. I’ll command them to forget and send them on their way. But I need sustenance, Fieldner. And I won’t take it from them.”

“The emergency stores, sir?”

“I don’t think so.”

Bowing his head, the drone—who was also the police chief of Endover—moved across the room to the hardwood bar, a modern contrivance but one he liked. Fieldner removed a velvet case and set it on top. Opening the lid, he extracted a beautiful cut-crystal wineglass and then a jeweled, razor-sharp dagger.

“I apologize for the girls, sir. But there is something else. Something you should know before I proceed.”

“You wouldn’t be trying to stall, would you, Fieldner?”

“No, master.” He held his wrist over the wineglass and, clasping the dagger in his other hand, laid the blade against his own skin. He would do as commanded. But his blood would be gamey. Male blood always was. And the blood of a man as weak-minded as Fieldner would lack spark and power.

The vampire sighed. “Go on, then. Tell me what it is I should know.”

“That one. The dark one,” the chief said with a nod of his head toward Delia. “She managed to make a call on her cell phone.”

He lifted his brows. “And how did she manage that?” he asked.

“Cowering in the back of my car. I didn’t realize what she was doing.” He swallowed, his Adam’s apple swelling and receding like a wave. “Her brother is in town.”

The girl gasped. “Jason?”

Fieldner sent her a quelling look. “You shouldn’t ought to have made that phone call, girl. What happens to him now will be on your shoulders.”

The vampire felt her panic returning, and glanced again at the child. “No harm will befall your brother, Delia. Trust me.”

“But what about him?” she cried. She pointed a finger at Fieldner. “He kept us locked up in the bottom of some lighthouse for hours! It was dark and we—”

“Calm,” the vampire said. He drew the word out, aiming more power at the girl. Teenagers—God, but their minds were so much more difficult to control than those of adults. “Relax, child. Everything is fine.”

She gulped back a sob and sat on the chaise once more.

Turning to Fieldner again, he said, “Perhaps you’d better begin at the beginning.”

The other man nodded. “The two girls were passing through town. Stopped at the old visitor center. While they were looking for rest rooms, I pulled a couple of the plug wires, so their car wouldn’t start. Then I offered them a ride to the nearest diner, where they could wait for a tow truck to arrive. They trusted me.”

Of course they had, he thought. Fieldner was a policeman. He wore a uniform and drove a marked cruiser. Any woman would trust him.

“That was this morning. I couldn’t very well bring them out here then, so I locked them up in the lighthouse. But on the way there, that one caught on that something wasn’t right and called her brother. I don’t know how she even got through, with the reception being as bad as it is. There must be a hot spot on the highway somewhere.”

“And why didn’t you hear the phone call?”

“By then they were making a fuss, demanding I stop the car, let them out. I.I put on the radio to drown out the noise.”

Disgusted, the vampire rolled his eyes.

“So she told her brother where she was.”

Fieldner nodded. “He was in my office not an hour ago, asking if I had seen her.”

“Her car?”

“I’d already hidden it.”

The vampire nodded slowly. “That makes one smart move you’ve made this week,” he told Fieldner. “Where is he now?”

“He’s staying at the North Star. I think he suspects something.”

“Of course he suspects something, if he’s less than a complete moron.” The vampire heaved a deep sigh. Complications. God, how he hated them. He’d created an idyllic life for himself here, one where he was in complete control. Anytime unexpected complications crept in, they put his entire lifestyle at risk.

He would have to deal with this as quickly and cleanly as possible. “I’ll speak with these children, and then you may return them and their car. Leave them far from the shores of Endover. They will remember nothing, of course. This brother of hers will not find them here, and he’ll go on his way to discover them safe and sound.” He nodded at the man’s wrist. “Proceed.”

“There’s more.”

Closing his eyes slowly, the vampire sighed. “What more?”

“This,” Fieldner said. He took a paper from his pocket, unfolded it and handed it over.

He took it, skimming the glossy flyer, which advertised some sort of detective agency. But then he went as still as if he’d suddenly turned to stone. His eyes were riveted to the photographs of the women on the front. One of the women, to be more precise. It was impossible. Impossible.

“What is the meaning of this?” he asked, and his voice was no more than a whisper.

“The resemblance is amazing, isn’t it, master? I thought the same.”

As he said it, the police chief looked up. So did the vampire. He looked up at the portrait of the woman with the delicate facial features of a porcelain doll and beautiful blond hair flowing over her shoulders. She wore a gown from an era long, long ago, and her wide, expressive eyes were as black as the night.

He kept looking from the face on the flyer to the face on the wall. “Tell me what you know of these two women,” he whispered.

“The girl’s brother—Jason Beck—he had this flyer in his wallet. It fell out when he took out his sister’s photo to show it to me. As to the women, I know only what’s on the flyer, sir. Their names are Maxine Stuart and Tempest Jones. They’re some kind of investigators for hire, who work, apparently, out of an office in Maine. When I asked who they were, Beck said they were old friends of his.”

Another good move on the chief’s part. One that might keep him alive a little bit longer, the vampire thought. He paced closer, removed the blade from the police chief’s hand and returned it to the case. “I’ll need you at full strength, Fieldner.”

“I await your command, my lord.”

He drew a deep breath, moving back to the girls. The second girl, Janie, was sitting up now, watching the men with unfocused eyes. She was confused and frightened.