Blue Twilight (18 page)

“Lisette, Manchester's about forty miles for us.”

“Closer to fifty. You're coming just west of it. And that's as close to Endover as I will ever get. There's an invisible line I've drawn, right down the middle of this state. I won't cross it. Don't ask me to.”

“All right. I won't. It's fine, Manchester's fine. I can be there in an hour. Will the coffee shop still be open?”

There was a heavy breath, then, “I don't go out at night anymore, Miss Stuart. But I'll meet you in the morning. Is 10:00 a.m. too early?”

Max wanted to check out the island in the morning. It was vital. “Actually, noon would be better.”

“Noon. Are you ready for those directions?”

Stormy had already grabbed a notepad and pencil, and she nodded. Max said, “Ready.”

The woman rattled off directions. Max barely listened, because Stormy was scratching them down. “Thank you, Lisette.”

“I'll see you tomorrow.”

The woman hung up. Max drew a breath, lifted her eyebrows and sent her gaze around the room. “That wasn't easy.”

“Did you expect it to be?” Lou asked.

“No. And I don't expect the rest of the people on this list will be any easier.” She looked at Stormy. “Do you think I left us enough time to visit that island?”

“Yeah, if we can go out there early enough. Which means we need to find a boat.”

“If I can't find one, I fully intend to steal one,” Max said. “You should speak to the next person on our list, Storm. She's way down in Massachusetts. And the one after that is north, in Maine. We'll have to split this up if we're going to talk to all of them.”

“With any luck, we'll have the girls back before we have to keep any of these appointments.”

“Even if we do, I think we should follow up. This bastard needs to be stopped.”

Stormy nodded, picked up the phone again. Max dialed, since the list was closest to her. “This one is Mary Ann Prusinski,” she said.

When they finished, they had two appointments each for the next day. Max was going to Manchester first, then all the way to Newport, another forty miles inland. Stormy would go south to Boston, then stop at Lowell on the way back. Max had expected that one of them would have to go north, to Maine, to meet the fifth person on her list, but when she phoned, she learned that the woman had committed suicide.

H
e should have waited. Waiting, after all, was something he'd been doing for centuries. He ought to be good at it by now.

But he wasn't. And so he found himself at the small motel, moving slowly through the darkness, from one door to the next. At each one, he laid his palm flat against the door, closed his eyes, opened his mind and searched for her—the one he'd been feeling ever since she had arrived here. The one whose photograph had so startled him. Who was she? Why did her presence distract him to the point of madness?

“Excuse me—is there something I can do for you?”

He went stiff at the sound of the voice behind him, wondering how he could be so focused on the woman that he had allowed a mortal to walk up on him so easily. He quickly scanned the man who stood behind him. Young, gullible…Gary, the motel's manager. One of his own, a mindless drone, compelled to do his bidding, to protect his secrets, even while remaining blissfully unaware he was doing so. Gary was so loyal he had
knocked one of these women unconscious when he caught her snooping. When he had come at the boy's summons, he had thought it was the blond one lying there on the ground. He'd been determined to take her back with him to his island, furious at the whelp for his overreaction. If he had harmed her…

But the blow had been minor, and the victim had been the wrong woman.

Slowly he turned and met Gary's eyes. “You're dreaming, Gary. That's all this is, just a dream. Go back to your bed now, and forget you ever saw me. Forget.”

Gary didn't blink. His eyes were fixed and wide. “A dream,” he muttered.

“That's it. Just a dream. Forget, Gary. Go to your bed and forget.” He moved his hand in front of the young man's eyes.

Gary turned and shuffled his feet as he moved slowly back toward the motel office, where he entered through a back door, going directly to his rooms. To his bed.

Nodding his satisfaction, the vampire returned his attention to the door, resting his hand against it, feeling for her presence.

There. She was there, on the other side. Asleep, sound asleep in her bed. So sound no dreams wove their spells through her mind.

He moved his hand over the doorknob, felt the locks give way. Then he opened it and stepped slowly inside.

It wasn't the first time he'd seen the strange woman they called Storm. Her hair was soft and pale, cut short, all the better to complement her exquisite face. Her eyes
were wide-set and almond-shaped, and her cheekbones sculpted as if by the hand of a loving creator. The name suited her, he thought. He sensed the storm raging inside her, even now. And she had created a maelstrom in him, as well. Closing his eyes, he moved to the bed, stood beside it, willed her to continue to sleep, while he probed and explored the deepest recesses of her mind.

But what he found there startled him so much that he withdrew with a soft gasp. The woman was not one—she was two. Another lived within her even now. Lurking in the hidden depths of her psyche, sleeping, as she was. But strong, and growing stronger.

She stirred. In the room beside this one, someone was awake and moving about. But he could not resist touching her. Just once. He lowered his hand to her hair, closed his eyes as its softness brushed his palm. And then he ran his fingers over her cheek, willing her not to wake.

Her lips parted, and she whispered in her sleep. Words, in his own native tongue, that startled him to his core.
“Iubirea ca moartea e de tare.”

“Love is stronger than death,” he whispered. His eyes on her face, he muttered, “Who are you?”

All he saw in her mind, as he probed it ever more deeply, was her intent to come to his island in the morning—bringing her friends along with her.

He couldn't have that. Not by day, and not with Malone. The man was too worthy an adversary to have snooping around his abode.

Fortunately, he had ways of preventing them from visiting in daylight. He would see to it.

He needed to know more about this woman, this Storm. But to do so, he needed to take her away from the others, her protectors. He needed her alone, far from anyone else.

The movements in the next room grew more lively, and he knew he would be discovered soon if he did not leave. He was not ready for that. Not yet. He hadn't accumulated nearly enough information about these women—about what it was they did. He'd learned only enough to know they were dangerous to him. That all of this—right down to Storm's appearance—could be part of some plot to destroy him. They knew far more about the undead than any mortal should ever know. He had to learn more about them before he made any move.

Beyond that, he didn't want to have to take her by force, harming her friends in the process. To do so would be to incur her hatred, something he wished to avoid. So he must go. But he would solve the mystery of this woman—of her pull on him, and of the sense he couldn't ignore that her soul was being torn slowly apart.

 

When Max woke in the morning, it was to the sight and sound of a raging storm. High winds, flashes of lightning, cracks of thunder so loud she barely heard the pounding on her door.

She flew out of bed and opened it. Lou, Stormy and Jason surged inside, all of them wet and dripping.

“God, when did this blow up?” Max asked, closing the door against the storm.

“Sunrise,” Lou said. He took off his coat and shook it. “It's going to be hell getting out to that island in this.”

“Much less finding a boat to get there,” Stormy said.

Max hurried into her bathroom, grabbed an armful of towels and brought them back out. She handed one to each of them.

Jason shook his head as he rubbed the rainwater from his face and hair. “We can't. We can't even try it in this storm.”

“But, Jay, we have to,” Max said. “The girls have been at this maniac's mercy too long already.”

He lifted his gaze to hers. “We could end up drowning in the effort, Max. Who's going to get them out of there then?”

Lou lowered his head. “Maybe it'll pass. Maybe if we wait till this afternoon—”

“I don't want to wait on this, Lou.”

He met her eyes, and she knew just by looking into his that he didn't want to wait, either. “It's not safe, Max.”

“Not safe for who?” He looked away. “That's what I thought. If it were just you, or you and Jay going out there, you'd do it despite the storm. You know you would.” She sighed and put a hand on his arm. “It's sweet that you want to protect us, Lou, but Storm and I are not fragile females in need of a strong man to look out for us. We can do this.”

“We don't even have a boat.”

“Then we'll go back to that rental place, and this time we won't take no for an answer.”

“No.” It was Jason who spoke. He faced Max
squarely. “Look, Max, I hired you, right? That means you're working for me. It's my sister who's missing, my money paying for all this. It's my call, Max.”

She stared at him, blinking. “I can't believe this. You should be pushing harder than any of us to get out there as soon as possible.”

He lowered his eyes. “I want the girls back more than you know, Max. But we can't go out there this morning. Not in this. Let's wait it out, see if the storm passes. You've got those visits to make. Call the women, see if you can bump your appointments up a little earlier. Lou and I will split up and go with the two of you, since there's nothing for us to do here. Maybe by the time we get back this will have cleared up.”

Max closed her eyes and bit her lip to keep from swearing. Why the hell was Jason so determined? God, could Lou be right about him? Was he keeping something from her?

“He's a vampire, Max,” Lou said. “He can't hurt the girls during the day. They'll be safe until we can get out there.”

God, it killed Max to have to put off exploring the island until later—to leave those poor girls out there one minute longer than necessary. And her gut instinct told her to find a way to get out there, despite the storm.

Still, she supposed Jason and Lou were right. Waiting for the storm to pass was better than drowning in the effort. And the vampire could do the girls no harm by day. It was a small reassurance but the best she could come up with.

They ate takeout for breakfast, while she phoned the women to change their meeting times. She also phoned Lydia, who told her she'd ordered a replacement pane for the mansion's front door, and that it would likely be installed before Max returned.

The storm kept raging, never relaxing its intensity, right up until she and Lou were in the car, on the road and headed out of town for the first of their scheduled meetings with the survivors of the vampire. The wipers beat frantically against the deluge.

And then they left Endover, and the dark clouds seemed to thin, then vanished entirely. The roads beyond the strange, haunted town were dry, the skies clear and bright.

“Jesus,” Lou muttered.

Max just shook her head and tried her damnedest to put a positive spin on the enforced delay. “It'll do Stormy a world of good to get out of that town for the day,” she said as she drove her Bug along Route 101 toward Manchester.

“It won't do
us
any harm, either. Though I'm still not sure I like that she's got only Jason for backup.”

Max shrugged. “I didn't like it much, either, but she insisted. I think she would have preferred to go alone. But she figured that would make Jason feel excluded and a little crazy, waiting at the motel alone, doing nothing.” She swallowed. “Now I'm wondering if she would have been safer on her own. Jason's…I'm beginning to think you might be right. He's got more going on than he's saying.”

Lou reached across the space between them to pat her hand where it rested on the seat. “That might be so, but he adores Storm. If she were alone and had one of those episodes, passed out the way she has before—then what? It's better Jay's with her. He knows what's been going on and can get help if he has to. Besides, we all have our phones with us.”

“Yeah. And they all miraculously work as soon as we get away from Endover. That storm was centered over the town, too. How freaking powerful must this guy be to be able to control the weather?”

“You don't know that was him, Max.”

“Maybe
you
don't. I think he's done something to that town. I think that's why the phones don't work there.”

“Bad airwaves as well as bad air, you think?”

She made a face. “Bad jokes must be one of the side effects.”

Lou rolled down his window. “I feel better already. I'll bet Stormy does, too, don't you?”

“I hope so. I'm so afraid for her, Lou.”

“Me too, hon.” He closed his hand around hers, and she was glad he was at her side. “Did you hear from the linguist?”

She nodded. “I e-mailed him again last night, told him it was urgent. His reply came through within the hour, but I didn't get it until this morning. I sneaked in after breakfast, checked the mail while Storm was in the shower.”

“And?”

“He said he couldn't be sure, given that what I sent him was spelled phonetically, but he thought it was likely Slavic, possibly Romanian.”

“You're shitting me.”

She lifted her brows. “You look surprised.”

“I honestly expected it to turn out to be gibberish. I don't suppose this guy offered any sort of translation?”

“If it was Romanian, he said it was something like, “‘Who lives by the sword, by the sword shall he perish.'”

“That's what she said—when I was getting ready to shoot the wolf?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“And the other? The stuff she whispered when she stroked the critter's neck?”

“‘He is not so black as he is painted.'” Max couldn't suppress a shiver as she repeated the translation. “What the hell could this mean, Lou?”

“I don't know. I do not for the life of me know.” He sent her a sideways look. “Did you tell Storm about this?”

“Not yet. I'm afraid it's just going to upset her more. But I have to tell her, I guess.”

“Yeah,” Lou agreed. “You really do.”

He kept holding her hand. She let his strength comfort her and wished, as she always did, for more.

 

Mary Ann Prusinski was a tall woman of perhaps thirty. She arrived at the prearranged meeting spot, a café in Boston, twenty minutes late, and by the time she got there, Stormy was ready to give up and move on. But then she came in, her black hair caught up in a bun be
hind her head. She wore a suit of muted gray that was so nondescript that Storm guessed she wanted to blend into the woodwork. Nothing about her was noticeable. She could have been a beauty with her huge dark eyes and aristocratic nose. But she wasn't—she was exceedingly, deliberately plain.

“Mary Ann?” Stormy asked, rising as the woman came toward the table where she and Jason sat.

“Yes. You're Ms. Jones?”

“Call me Stormy, everyone does.”

The woman didn't acknowledge the invitation but instead glanced nervously at Jason. “Who are you?”

“This is my friend Jason Beck,” Stormy said quickly. “His sister is one of the girls who's missing.”

“I see.”

Jason got to his feet and extended a hand. The woman just shook her head, pulled out the empty chair and sat down. “I'm sorry about your sister,” she said. “But I'm afraid I'm not going to be much help. As I told you on the phone, I don't remember anything that happened during the time I was…missing.”

“I know,” Stormy said. “No one else does, either.”

That got the woman's attention. She looked at Stormy sharply. “No one else…there are others?”

“Almost a dozen.”

“Not counting my sister and her friend,” Jason added.

A waitress came, placing glasses of ice water in front of each of them and handing out menus. She began reciting specials, and Stormy held up a hand. “Give us a minute?”