Books by Maggie Shayne (238 page)

She's not going to Salem!

Edge blinked, gave his head a shake, but couldn't ignore the voice. "She's not going to Salem."

"What? Why the hell not?" Jameson demanded.

"I'm damned if I know." He shook his head, heard words whispering through his mind.
Canada. Edmunston, New Brunswick
. He felt an urgency tugging at him. Dammit, he hated to leave Stiles. The bastard would escape him yet again, and it was high time he extract the vengeance that was his only priority. Or… used to be his only priority, anyway. Hell, when had that changed?

They passed a sign showing a bus icon.

"Take the next exit," Edge said. "There's a bus station. Get me there."

"You can't get on a bus this close to daylight," Donovan argued.

"No, not on one. Under one." He glanced at Jameson, who was studying him without blinking.

"The luggage compartment," he said. "It's not first class, but it gets you where you need to go." He nodded to Dante. "Don't pretend you won't be glad to be rid of me."

"I wasn't planning to." He steered onto the exit ramp, followed the signs for the bus depot.

"The four of you can handle Stiles all right without me," Edge said as he got out of the car when Dante pulled it to a stop outside the terminal. It was more an effort to convince himself of it than a statement of fact.

"Three of them," Jameson said, getting out of the front seat.

Edge looked at him.

"Don't even think of arguing. She's my daughter."

Sighing, he lowered his head. The man was right. He had ten times the right to go after Alby as Edge did. If it had been his own daughter—

Son.

Edge's head came up fast, and he looked around, but like every other time, there was no one there. He blinked hard, felt his throat getting tight. Of all the things the voice had said to him, this one made the least sense of all.

"What? What is it?"

Amber was going to have to tell her father about her condition sooner or later. Edge wasn't the least bit afraid of telling him—hell, he had no reason to be. But it wasn't his place. Right now, though… Right now, he didn't know what the hell to think.

The two men walked to the area just outside the terminal, where buses were lined up in angular parking slots, some with their engines running. Jameson approached a driver, just ambling down out of his vehicle, moving as if it were an effort.

"Is one of these buses going to Canada?''

The driver glanced at his watch, gave a nod. "Woodstock, Grand Falls, Edmunston," he said. "Three slots down. But he won't be leaving for a half hour yet." Then he glanced at the ticket window. "Ticket window isn't open until nine, but you talk with the driver, he can take care of it for you."

"Thanks."

Edge led the way to the large, silent bus. "Half hour," he said, with a glance at the sky.

"The sun will be up by then," Jameson said.

"Driver will come out before then," Edge said. "Warm up the engine, open the baggage compartments."

"And we just… what? Climb in and hope no one notices?"

"We can move faster than human eyes can perceive. Getting in unnoticed won't be a problem."

"And when the driver goes to toss a few passengers' bags in, and there are two bodies inside?"

Edge met the man's eyes, a hint of mischief in his own. "Have a little faith. It's not like I haven't done this before, you know."

Jameson looked doubtful, but he sat down on a bench outside the station. "I'll just sit here, then. Fortunately, this bench faces east, so I'll be able to see the sun a split second before I burst into flames."

"Such an optimist."

Minutes ticked by. Jameson seemed to be growing more nervous with every one that passed. Edge, meanwhile, stood near the bus and smoked.

Eventually a few passengers showed up, cars and taxis dropping them off, then leaving. They invariably went first to the ticket window, then grew anxious when they found it closed. Then they gathered around the bus.

But not around Edge. His smoke created a buffer zone. It was a secondary benefit of smoking—kept nonsmokers from invading your space. Oh, there was always a wheezing mealymouthed type who would come close enough to get a whiff and then make a big production of waving his hand in front of his face and sending Edge a dirty look. Just to make a point. The point, Edge guessed, was that smoking out of doors should be made illegal.

He smiled to himself as he wondered if the passive aggressive idiots ever caught a clue who—or what—he was.

Inevitably, it happened. One pale, scrawny mortal broke from the cluster gathered near the bus, walked a few steps in his direction, then began to cough. He tugged a handkerchief from his pocket and held it to his mouth, scowling over it at Edge.

Edge growled at him, softly, so the others couldn't hear, baring his fangs just for an instant.

The man gasped and backed away so fast he bumped into one of the people standing behind him. When he looked again, though, Edge was gone, having moved to the far side of the bus. Maybe the little prick would remember his manners next time, he thought a little darkly.

He heard the sound of the bus engine starting, then, moments later, the luggage compartments being opened. The driver slung bags in, heavily and none too carefully, one after the other. Edge moved around to the front of the bus, crossed to where Jameson was still sitting, pondering the sky, which had lightened alarmingly to a pale gray near the horizon.

"Ready?"

"As I'll ever be," Jameson said.

He got up, followed Edge back around until they stood near the rear of the bus. The driver's back was toward them, and the passengers were focused on climbing aboard the bus, picking out seats, wrestling with their carry-on bags.

Edge waited until the driver was reaching for one last bag and the final passenger had stepped aboard to knock several bags back out of the compartment with a quick grab.

Swearing and looking as surprised as a toddler when Jack pops out of the box, the driver bent to begin retrieving them—some had shot several feet from the bus, so he was kept distracted.

"Let's go, then," Edge said. And he dove into the compartment, on top of the bags, shoving them aside until he'd made room for himself behind them. Jameson joined him within a heartbeat and assisted him in redistributing the luggage into a neat stack in front of the two of them. There was just room enough to sit up. Not to lie down, and not to stand.

"Grand accommodations, Edge."

"Mmm. Fortunately, we'll be unconscious for most of the trip."

"We'll be more than that, if he doesn't hurry up and close the compartment door."

Beyond the luggage, Edge could see the light beginning to filter through. Not direct sunlight, not yet, but the daylight creeping just ahead of it.

The compartment rocked as the driver slung bags into it. Then, finally, he slammed it closed. Edge heard a latch turn.

Jameson sighed in relief. "About time. I guess we're home free now."

Edge shrugged. "Barring a rollover or flaming wreck, yes, I suppose we are."

"You're just full of happy thoughts, aren't you, Edge?"

"Always."

Amber frowned at the sky, irritated that the extended layovers the bus had made had taken up so much of the darker hours. "We're going to have to stop soon. It'll be daylight."

Rhiannon looked back at her. "You forget whose car you're riding in, dear. There will be no need to stop."

"But… the sun."

Rhiannon shrugged. "Climb up here, child."

Frowning, Amber climbed into the passenger side of the front.

Rhiannon set the cruise control. "Take the wheel."

Amber took hold of the steering wheel, holding the car on course while Rhiannon climbed into the back seat. Then Amber slid over into the driver's side. The car wobbled a bit, veering over the broken white lines briefly, before Amber straightened it out again.

"I think it would be better to stop," Angelica said. "Amber can get some rest, find herself something to eat while we sleep."

"It would cost us precious time," Rhiannon said. "God knows this bus with its roundabout route, endless stops and long-term layovers, has already cost us enough. Why people ride those things I will never know. Besides, we'll be perfectly safe back here. I've installed certain… precautions."

"It's not us I'm worried about," she replied, sending a worried look at Amber.

"I'll be fine, Mom. If I'd wanted to rest, I would have during one of the layovers. And I've been grabbing junk food at every one of them. I just don't want to risk losing Brooke."

"You need to start taking better care of yourself, Amber. It's not just you you're driving to the point of exhaustion. It's your baby."

Amber closed her eyes, the words effectively dragging the impossible situation to the forefront of her mind again. But then, who was she kidding? It had never been far from there.

She glanced into the back seat, ignoring her mother's warnings. "So where are these safety features of yours, Aunt Rhi?"

"Are you sure you're all right to drive?" Angelica asked before Rhiannon could reply. "The drug—"

"Has worn off. I feel better."

"Amber, I just don't like this. I don't want you confronting the woman on your own."

"She's only a mortal," Amber said.

"So was Stiles."

Amber frowned. "If it were Dad dying slowly of something horrible, and the cure was rolling along the highway just ahead of us, would you be willing to stop?''

Angelica tipped her head skyward, then finally shook it slowly. "I don't suppose I would be."

"Then think of Sarafina. Think of Will. He saved my life, Mother. And yours."

"And mine," Rhiannon added. "There's no point in arguing with her, Angelica. She's going to do as she pleases the moment we're asleep anyway." She shrugged. "Much as I hate to admit it, in this case, I believe she's right."

"The sun is rising. Will you get into the trunk or do whatever it is you're planning to do back there before you both go up in smoke?"

Rhiannon nodded, then hit a button on the armrest that Amber had taken as the window control. The tinted glass side windows remained still, but panels rose up inside them—shining black sheets of what looked like acrylic. Rhiannon hit another button, and a similar sheet slid smoothly upward, covering the rear window. Amber could see through them, though they were very, very dark.

"You can see out, but nothing can penetrate within. No light. It's also bullet-proof, fireproof and airtight," Rhiannon said, sounding proud.

"Leave it to you to have a custom-made coffin on wheels," Amber said. "And a Mercedes, at that."

"Then you approve," Rhiannon said.

"Assuming there's another partition that slides up between the front seat and back… "

"Of course."

"Then yes, I think it's ingenious."

Rhiannon pursed her lips. "Kissing up isn't going to make me forget your bad manners, Amber Lily."

Amber sighed. "I'm sorry, Rhiannon. Chalk it up to the drugs, the stress, the fear and the fact that you were threatening to disembowel the father of my… baby." She had to force that word out. Saying it aloud was like—like making it real, somehow.

"I would do the same should someone threaten Roland," Rhiannon said slowly. "But only because I love him beyond reason. Beyond comprehension. Beyond life, death, sanity or madness. Beyond anything. Is that the way you feel about this… Edge character?"

"Don't be ridiculous," Amber said, the words spilling out automatically, without her giving any thought at all to her answer. "I'd be an idiot to feel anything for a man like him."

Rhiannon shrugged, hit another button, and the partition between the seats began to rise. "Well then, I cannot accept your apology. You're going to have to do better."

Amber sighed, wondering just how much groveling and ass-kissing she was going to have to do to make things up to her honorary aunt. "Sleep well," she told them as the partition neared the top.

"Be careful, Amber," her mother said. Her voice already heavy with sleep.

"I will."

The partition closed. Silence engulfed her. She sensed the two most important women in her life slipping far from her reach, into the day sleep, and felt utterly alone. Thoughts she'd been holding at bay came rushing in on her. A baby. God, a baby—one she feared would never live to draw its first breath.

Amber's dreams had never, ever been wrong. Not once.

Tears rose up in her eyes, even as she told herself that maybe, so long as she never let herself think of this child as real, as alive, as her baby, but instead just as a mass of cells destined to live for nine short months and then die, she would be able to bear it. You couldn't lose what you had never had, could you?

But I do have it. I have it now, alive and growing inside me. A baby. My own living child.

She hit the radio button. Classical strains filled the car, but only until she found a station playing hard driving Godsmack. She cranked up the volume, and let the sexy, growling voice and heavy bass drown out the unwanted thoughts.

When the night whispered to his senses, rousing him from the impenetrable day sleep, Edge felt the weight of a dozen pieces of luggage pressing down on him. A corner of a suitcase was jabbing him in the rib cage; a large heavy object that bounced with every bump in the road kept knocking him on the head.

He groaned and shoved and wriggled until he'd managed to move the worst offenders and allow himself a modicum of breathing room.

"God," Jameson muttered, his voice muffled. "I feel as if I've been beaten all day with a club." Some more cases shifted, and his face appeared in the hole they'd left behind. "This is torture."

"Maybe for an old guy."

Jameson scowled. Edge grinned at him, and then almost gasped in surprise when the other man returned a half smile. "Very funny."

"I do what I can."

"So will this barge be stopping anytime soon?"

Edge glanced at his watch. "Another hour. But we don't need to wait."

"No?"

"We're close."

"To Amber?"

Edge nodded.

Jameson's eyes narrowed on him. "How is it you're so connected to my daughter, Edge?"

Edge averted his eyes. "I don't know that I am. After all, it's not her voice that refuses to stop shouting at me."

"Are you sure this… voice… is on our side? I mean, it could be a trick. Someone trying to lead us into a trap."

"I've thought of that." Edge shrugged. "Frankly, it could be just that. I've got no frame of reference for this type of thing. You?"

Jameson shot him a look. "You're asking my opinion?"

"I figure a man who fathered a woman like Alby can't be all bad." He sighed. "So what do you think? You ever have voices in your head like this?"

Jameson shook his head. "Not like the one you describe, no. But… what kind of feelings does this voice stir within you? Is there a gut reaction? Anger, trepidation, fear?"

Edge shook his head. "More like… a call to battle. Makes me want to go charging in like some kind of mythical hero." He sighed heavily.

"And that worries you?"

"Greatly. It's not me. It's not what I do."

"Not the heroic type, hmm?''

"Heroes tend to die young. I intend to live a long time."

Jameson nodded. "And yet you're here, following a voice you're not sure you can trust, into what might be a life-threatening venture."

"Yeah." Edge smiled self-deprecatingly, shaking his head. "Go figure, huh?"

"Why?" Jameson asked.

"Damned if I know." He shoved some more cases out of the way, making a path to the compartment door.

"Is it because you'd rather risk your own life than hers?"

Without looking back at him, Edge said, "More likely because the damned voice screaming in my ears will drive me insane if I don't do what it's telling me." He got to the front of the compartment, turned so he was sitting down, and braced his feet against the door. "What do you say we quit with the analysis and get on with this?"

"Ready when you are," Jameson said.

With a nod, Edge shoved with his feet, and the compartment door gave way. He saw the pavement speeding by beneath him. "This is going to hurt like hell." He glanced back at the other man. "Sure your old bones can take it?"

"Enough with the age jokes. I may have been older than you when I was remade, but you've likely been a vamp longer."

"Mmm. So I have both mortal youth and vampiric power on you."

"I won't hold it against you." Jameson made his way to the front of the compartment, put a hand on Edge's shoulder. "Ready?"

"Aim for the grass along the roadside," Edge said. "It'll be kinder than the blacktop."

Edge leaped from the bus, Jameson at his side. They hit the ground hard, rolling down the grassy hill that ran along the roadside. The ground pummeled them, until they came to stop. Jameson sat up slowly, brushing dirt and twigs from his clothes, wincing in pain. Edge did the same, even while inspecting himself for cuts or gashes.

"You bleeding anywhere?" Jameson asked.

Edge shook his head. "You?"

"Don't think so." He got to his feet, then extended a hand down to Edge.

Edge hesitated, then took it, let the other man pull him upright. "Thanks."

Jameson nodded, then turned, and seemed to focus inward. He was silent for a moment, then he sighed. "I can't feel her," he said at last.

"She's blocking. Has been right along."

Jameson shot him a look. "Trying to protect us, keep us from following her and getting into trouble."

Edge thought it more likely she was blocking to keep something of a far more personal nature from her father—hell, from the both of them—but he wasn't about to say it aloud.

"If her mother were here, she'd pick up on her," Jameson said.

Edge lifted his brows. "Even if she's blocking?"

"Sometimes. They have a connection that's… it's powerful. I haven't seen anything like it, even among our kind. It started before Amber was even born. Angelica could communicate with her in the womb, could tell how she was doing."

"Amazing."

"I've always been just a little envious of the bond they share." He sighed. "It sure as hell would come in handy right now."

Edge shrugged. "It would, but we don't need it." He looked off in the distance, lifted a hand and pointed. "She's that way."

By the time the sun set, Amber had parked Rhiannon's customized Benz on the tree-lined lane outside the towering gates of a miniature castle. The building was made of pale, rust-tinted stone blocks and included two towerlike structures that flanked the entryway. Matching stone blocks formed a solid, ten-foot boundary fence around the entire property and held an iron gate in place that sealed off the driveway.

The sign mounted on the gate read Athena, and there were sculptures of large owls atop the stones on either side.

Amber squinted at it, willing it to give up its secret meaning to her, but the only thing she heard was the soft hum of the motor lowering the dark glass partition.

Rhiannon stretched and yawned. Angelica smoothed her hair away from her face. "What I wouldn't give for a shower," she muttered.

"Amen to that, sister," Rhiannon said.

Amber shot her a look, then glanced at her mother.

"Sorry," Rhiannon said quickly. "That was not a jibe at your former calling, Angelica. Just a slip of the tongue."

"I know."

Amber opened the car door and stepped out, putting her hands on her lower back and arching. Angelica got out, too, and paused in the midst of inhaling the night air to stare at the building beyond the gate across the street. "What is this place?"

"Yes, what have we missed, Amber? Fill us in," Rhiannon said, as she exited the car.

Amber got out, taking the keys with her, dropping them into her pocket. "Well, we're in Canada. Crossed the border a while back. I don't know what this place is. But it's where Brooke went. She took a cab from the bus station—must have cost a fortune, too, because it was fifty miles, at least. I followed her, of course."

"Were you seen, Amber?" Rhiannon asked.

"Of course not. I didn't even stay within sight of her. And the car is blocked from sight by that little copse of trees and the stone wall."

Rhiannon nodded. "So they have no idea we're out here."

"None." Amber glanced at her mother, then frowned. She was staring into the place as if transfixed. "What is it, Mom?"

Blinking and giving her head a shake, she said, "I don't know. It feels… familiar."

"You've been here before?" Amber asked.

"No, never. But the feeling… " She looked in at the house again; then her brows went up. "It feels like a convent," she said suddenly.

Rhiannon blinked in shock. "Oh, joy. This Brooke person has taken refuge in a nunnery?"

"I don't think they're nuns," Angelica said. "But there's that same kind of energy here."

Amber slid a hand over her mother's shoulder. "What kind? Tell us."

She narrowed her eyes. "A sisterhood. That place is filled with women who share a powerful bond and single-minded devotion to… something."

"To what?" Rhiannon asked.

"That I can't tell you."

Amber swallowed hard. "Somehow, I'd feel safer sneaking into an army barracks."