Blue Twilight. Maggie Shayne

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      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.

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