Edge kept to the shadows while Amber thanked Sally for the huge basket of food she had made up for them to take along. He shouldn't be surprised, he figured, that Amber had won the woman's affections within the space of a single day. She'd won his in a heartbeat.
He smiled, waved goodbye, took the heavy basket from Amber and headed out to the car. Amber opened the passenger door for him, and he set the basket inside. Then he frowned at her. "It's chilly tonight. We'll be running the heat in the car. You think the food would be better off in the trunk?''
"No." She said it quickly.
Edge frowned at her, tipping his head to one side. "You hiding another vampire back there, Alby?"
She rolled her eyes, moving around to the driver's side. "Don't be ridiculous."
"Well, I know your penchant for shutting us up in your trunk. And you obviously don't want me poking around back there."
She crammed the keys into the switch and started the engine. "You coming with me or staying behind?''
Pursing his lips, Edge got in. He looked at her as she pulled away, then looked again. "You're wearing different clothes," he noted.
"Mmm-hmm. Sally took me shopping today. God knows I needed a change."
He nodded, noticing the loose fitting cotton sundress, white with lilac and yellow pansies all over it in honor of the impending springtime, and the long yellow cardigan sweater she wore with it in deference to the chill of winter still lingering in the air.
"It's pretty," he said. "Awfully timid for you, though."
"What, I'm not timid?"
He shot her a look. "You're vivid. You should wear jewel tones, not pastels. Satin and velvet, not cotton." He frowned a little. "You're not trying to change, are you?"
She shrugged. "Why would I?"
"The pregnancy. Do you think you need to behave in a manner befitting an expectant mother, Alby? Respectable, discreet... toned down?"
She didn't look him in the eye, which told him he might just be onto something.
"Don't mute your colors, love. It won't work, anyway. They're too bright to be covered in paler shades. They'll only bleed through."
She pursed her lips, seemed to think for a moment. Then she said, "I figured I should get used to it. I was looking at maternity clothes, and they really tend to be mostly muted pastels and sunny floral prints. Besides, I've been eating so much my jeans barely buttoned this morning."
"Maternity." He digested that. "God, I hadn't thought that far ahead. You're going to swell up like a hot air balloon before long, aren't you?"
She swung her head his way so fast he thought she must have wrenched her neck. "You have a problem with that?"
He grinned at her, looking her up and down and trying to imagine her tiny body stretched around a baby. Her little belly swollen to beach ball size. It made his insides feel knotted up to picture her that way.
He jerked out of his imaginings when her fist connected with his shoulder hard enough to make him wince, and he forced his eyes up to hers again. "What?"
She looked wounded, refused to speak to him and kept her eyes dead ahead.
He reached out, cupping his palm over her belly. "Hard to believe it can happen. You're so tiny. I mean, there's not enough of you to stretch to that size, is there?"
"Oh, you just wait and see," she said. And she said it like a threat. As if she expected it to upset him or bother him, which, of course, it didn't.
"I intend to." His hand warmed there where it rested on her belly. Warmed and tingled. "I saw this sculpture of a goddess once. She was as green as the forest, and her belly was huge. Her breasts, too. She looked like a wild woman, an earth mother, and yet she had this expression of... serenity. I thought at the time that she was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen." He smiled at her. "That's what you're going to look like, Alby. Like an earth mother, a nature goddess."
When he dared a glance at her face, she was gaping at him, blinking as if she'd never seen him before.
He shrugged. "Yeah, you're right. That was the sappiest thing I've ever said. I think your pregnancy hormones must be spilling over into me. Probably seeped in with your blood."
Her smile was tentative but finally real. "You have a sweet side," she accused.
"Don't let it get around."
There was a sharp popping sound, like a gunshot, and the car jerked suddenly to the left. Amber gripped the wheel for all she was worth, her foot jamming onto the brake in a reflexive motion as the car skidded sideways. Edge gripped the wheel, as well, to help her hold it. A rush of panic hit him. What would have once seemed to him an amusing little thrill ride now scared him senseless, his mind jumping to thoughts of the tiny life inside Amber's womb. How easily it might be snuffed out.
The car finally came to a halt in a spray of gravel on the road's shoulder. Edge turned to Amber, hands to her belly, eyes wide as they searched her face. "Are you all right? Were you hurt? Is the baby... ?"
"Fine, I'm... we're fine."
He let his eyes fall closed and sighed his relief. He'd never known fear like that. While self-preservation had always been his top priority, he thought, he'd never really cared if he lived or died. Oh, he'd decided he preferred living on, but he had no fear of death and what lay beyond its veil.
Now... God, now he was a quivering wreck of a man. To panic over a little skid. Is this what fatherhood did to men? He would never have believed himself capable of falling this far.
Sighing, he backed away, opened his door and got out to survey the damage. The driver's side front tire was flat, with a large, jagged tear in it. Amber got out, as well, and came to stand beside him.
"What happened?"
"Blowout," he said. "It's no big deal. I can fix it. Keys?"
She slapped them into his hand, and he aimed the key ring and thumbed the button with the open trunk icon. The trunk opened as if by magic, and Edge went to the rear of the car. Amber gasped and raced after him, right on his heels.
"Wait!"
He didn't heed her. And then he was standing there, looking down into the trunk, at the semitransparent pink and blue shopping bags, each bearing a teddy bear logo. He glanced up at her, and she lowered her eyes. Then he returned his attention to the bags, tugging one open and reaching inside. He pulled out a brown plush bunny with floppy ears. A tiny quilt in bright yellow checks with happy little ducklings all over it. A stack of tiny white T-shirts, and an assortment of minuscule pajamas in the softest fabric he'd ever touched and every color of the rainbow. They had little feet at the bottom. He couldn't believe any baby could be small enough to fit these things.
He lifted his head again, met her eyes, the little pajamas still in his hands. "You bought baby things today."
She nodded.
"And you didn't want me to see them?"
Pursing her lips, she seemed to have to make an effort to hold his gaze. "I don't know why I bought them. Given the dream, it's not like the baby is going to get the chance to use them."
"Don't say that."
"Sally took me into town, to the baby stores. I saw these things and I got... foolish. I forgot what I know. I let myself believe... "
Edge gripped her shoulders and turned her to face him. "You have to believe. Dammit, Alby, if you don't believe, who the hell is going to? If you don't believe, what hope can this baby possibly have?"
She blinked up at him, tears brimming in her eyes.
"Forget about protecting yourself from heartache,
Alby. You already know you can't. If it's going to come, it's going to come. But you can't just lie there like a doormat and wait for it. You can goddamn well fight it."
She stared into his eyes. "That's basically what Alicia said."
"Alicia's a smart girl."
Amber licked her lips. "The visions have never been wrong before."
"Damn the visions, then. Nothing is certain. Any tiny change you make can alter the future. You know that."
She blinked at him, seemed to gather herself, swallowed hard. "I so want to believe that."
"Don't want to. Just do it." He gave her a little shake. "Do it, Alby. I am. And I'll tell you what else, that baby is, too. No kid of mine is going to go down without a fight."
"I'm just not sure I'm strong enough to bear it, Edge, if... "
"I'll be strong enough for the both of us," he told her, even though he doubted his ability. He pulled her against him, pressing his mouth to her hair, holding her hard.
He felt her relax in his arms after a moment. Felt her melt against him and go soft and pliant. And then he felt the soft sobs shaking her back and shoulders as she wept. "I... wasn't sure what colors to get. So I... I bought everything."
"You don't have any sense of whether the baby is a girl or a boy, then?" Edge asked.
She sniffled, straightened a little, and looked at him, smiling through the tears on her face. "No idea at all."
I'm a boy. J.W. Mom calls me Jimmy. Tell her I like blues and greens, and especially red. I really like red.
Edge frowned, because the voice in his head was back.
And it hadn't been, not since it had directed him to where Amber was.
"My mother said she had this powerful sense of me from very early on. She knew I was a girl. She knew what I would look like."
I have my mother's hair, almost black with that blood-red rinse effect. But my face and my eyes, those are all yours. By the time I'm nineteen, people who see us together will mistake us for brothers.
"What the hell... ?" Edge whispered.
He tucked the blanket sleepers-that was what the pajamas were called, according to their tags-back into the bag and shoved it aside to reach for the spare tire and jack.
"Mom says there was even some kind of... communication going on between us when I was still inside the womb," Amber was saying. She stood by herself now, hands cradling her belly as if holding her child. "And afterward, as well. Hell, it's still pretty strong. I can shield from anyone else, but it's almost impossible to keep her in the dark for long." She licked her lips, sighed. "It worries me, Edge. It scares me that I'm not feeling those things for this baby. I keep thinking maybe it's just another sign that it's not meant to be."
"Or it could be because in this case the baby's psychic bond is to its father."
He rolled the tire out onto the ground, stood there holding it upright with one hand, the jack in the other, as she blinked up at him.
"What do you mean?"
"I just figured it out," he told her. "That voice in my head, the one that told me where you were, both when Stiles had you and again when you went to Athenaville."
He shook his head, only barely believing it himself. "It was the baby."
Her eyes widened. "Edge?"
"I wouldn't lie to you about this, Alby. He's a boy. He says he likes blue and green and especially red, and that he has your hair and my eyes." He frowned a little. "He also got a hellish kick out of his old man getting beaten up by a gang of girls-though I don't imagine he saw it coming."
"He... spoke to you?"
Edge nodded. "Yes. And more than that, he spoke about his future, about how he'll look at nineteen. Don't you think that suggests there's a hole in your vision, Alby?"
"I... I don't know."
"Well, he knows. He knows what we're thinking, hears what we're saying when he's tuned in. And it can't do him a hell of a lot of good to hear you thinking he's doomed from birth."
"No. No, it can't."
Edge nodded firmly and rolled the tire around to the front of the car. He leaned it against the fender, then knelt to put the jack underneath.
"Edge, why are you bothering?" she asked softly. And he realized she was in a hurry to be on the road again.
He shrugged, looked both ways, saw no traffic and straightened, lifting the car up with one hand. Amber crouched down and spun off the lug nuts with her fingers. She yanked off the old tire, slid the new one into place and quickly spun the nuts back on.
As she stood up, brushing the dirt from her hands, Edge lowered the car.
"Why do you suppose he doesn't speak to me?" she asked.
Edge picked up the demolished tire and the jack, carrying both of them back to the trunk and putting them inside. "I don't know. Why didn't you speak to your father before you were born?''
She shrugged.
"Is it because you love your mother more?"
"Of course not! I adore my dad. He... oh, I see what you're doing." She smiled a little. "Thank you for that."
"Listen, next time I get the little runt talking, I'll let you know. You can try to listen in, through me. I mean, you and I seem to have a pretty strong bond ourselves, don't we?"
"I think that's an understatement."
"Then you probably know I want to take a turn driving."
"Yes, I do," she said. "And you know I'm starving and need to stop somewhere for a veggie sub soon or die."
He smiled. "Yes, I do. What's wrong, are you sick of the things in the goodie basket Miss Sally packed?''
She made a face. "I polished that off an hour ago."
He smiled. "I'll pull off at the first spot I see."
Edge pulled into the driveway of the Marquand Estate just after midnight. He whistled softly as he cut the engine. "Some place. Looks like a miniature of the White House."
"Eric always lives in style. Though this place is a lot more modern than what he normally prefers."
"Yeah?"
"Mmm, stone castles are more to Eric's taste."
"Maybe he got sick of living the cliche." He opened his door and got out, then came around to open hers, as well, but Amber was out of the car before he got there.
"There's Tarn," she said, waving as Tamara came out the front door, onto the curving, elegant front steps, framed by twin pillars. Amber hurried forward, hugged Tam hard. Tamara wore jeans and a lacy white blouse, her long black curls draping over her shoulders like a shawl. Amber sighed, glad to see her dear friend again.
"It's been so long, honey. How are you?"
"I'm good. I... there's a lot to talk about, Tam. So much." She lowered her eyes briefly, then brought her head up again as she heard Edge's footsteps. She glanced his way. "Tamara, this is Edge."
"I've heard a lot about you," Tam said, reaching out a hand.
Edge took it briefly. "Not as flattering as the things I've heard about you, I'm sure. Hope you'll give me the benefit of the doubt, though."
He smiled a little when he said it, but Amber picked up a little undercurrent. Was he really concerned what these people thought of him? That would be a switch.
"I heard you saved Amber's life-a couple of times now, according to my last talk with her mother. That's good enough for me." She stepped aside. "Come on inside. Everyone's waiting."
Edge walked beside Amber into the house. She glanced up at him, wondered if he were nervous, or if there was something else wrong with him. He seemed off, somehow.
Tam led them into an elegant sitting room, every piece of furniture an antique. Eric had always had a penchant for oversized, chunky wooden pieces from various ages and cultures, and it showed here. Four men sat waiting. Dante and Donovan, Roland and Eric. All four rose to greet them. Of them all, Roland was the only one who was formally dressed. He wore a dark suit, crisp white shirt underneath with a tab collar.
Amber didn't sense any underlying animosity in any of them, and suspected her mother hadn't told them her little secret. Probably just as well.
She took the little vial from her shoulder bag, held it out to Eric. "This is a sample of the formula Stiles made from my blood the last time he held me. We sent an equal amount back to Salem, for Will. But... this is all there is."
Eric took it, nodding. "I've been running tests on Stiles's blood since Roland, Donovan and Dante brought him here. But... "
"No luck?"
Eric shook his head. "Oh, there's been luck. All of it bad. The man's blood is deteriorating. Rather rapidly, I'm afraid. Whatever changes had occurred in him are reversing themselves. In other words, he's aging."
Amber frowned. "He told me it would be several more weeks before that happened."
"He likely thought that was true."
"He told me he only needed the formula every six months or so," Amber said.
"This time... something's different."
Amber frowned. "What?"
Eric shook his head. "I don't know." He held up the vial. "With this I may be able to duplicate the process he used, though."
"And when you do, we'll create a fresh batch for Willem."
He averted his eyes. "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it." He glanced at Edge. "You're famished."
"I'm way ahead of you, my friend," Roland said.
He'd slipped away, Amber realized, and she'd been too caught up in her talk with Eric to have noticed. But he'd returned now with a cut crystal goblet on a silver tray. He offered it to Edge.
Frowning, Edge took the glass, sniffed at it, then drank the contents down. "Fancy," he said, replacing the glass on the tray. "Thanks, I feel better already." Then he turned to Eric. "Where are you keeping Stiles?"
"Edge... " Amber began.
He met her eyes. "I'm not going to kill him, Alby. Yet. I just want to see him."
She held his gaze, trying to read him. Did she dare believe him? Donovan stepped between them. "I'll take you to him. He's in one of the bedrooms upstairs."
"Has he given you any information about how all this works?"
"No, nothing," Donovan said. "Come on, it's this way." The two of them went up the stairs.
Sighing, Amber turned to Tarn. "He's got a very old grudge against Stiles. He's been hunting him for more than forty years."
"Do you know why?" she asked.
Amber nodded. "Edge was kind of... mentor and protector to a small group of fledglings. Street kids who'd been transformed young and abandoned by their sires."
"Just as he was," Tamara whispered. Then she met Amber's eyes and clarified. "Donovan explained the circumstances."
"Edge loved those kids. He hasn't told me so, but I've felt it. Stiles butchered them. All of them."
"Oh my God." Tamara closed her eyes, shook her head. "Do you think Edge will try for Stiles again here?"
Amber swallowed hard. "I don't think he'd lie to me. But... just in case... "
"We'll keep an eye on Stiles, Amber. Don't worry," Dante promised. "Go on. Go to the lab with Eric. You two have your work cut out for you."
Sighing, Amber nodded and followed Eric through the depths of the house and into his lab. "Have a seat, Amber. I suppose the first thing I ought to do is take another small sample of your blood."
She felt her lips thin, knowing that within a few moments Eric would likely know the secret she was keeping. Still, she took off her long sweater.
Then she went utterly still, staring down at herself, at her belly. "Oh my God," she whispered.
Eric turned, stared at her with wide eyes, and blinked slowly. "Is there... something you forgot to tell me Amber?"
Edge walked into the bedroom with Donovan at his side and took a look around. Plush carpet, elegant queen-sized bed laden with plump, soft bedding and pillows, soft lighting, a crystal water pitcher and glass on an antique stand near the bedside.
"Who's idea was this?" Edge asked bitterly.
"Sorry?"
"Well, when he takes one of ours, they get a dungeon or a cage. Who decided to give him the presidential suite?"
Donovan sighed. "Vengeance isn't the Marquands' style, Edge. Besides, they don't have cages or dungeons here."
"Aren't they worried he'll escape?"
"Go on. Go take a look at him."
Edge rolled his eyes, but he moved forward to the bedside. He stopped when he could see the man's face. The plump covers had blocked his view from the doorway, but now he saw it.
Stiles lay in the bed, his face pale, creased with lines that hadn't been there before. And his hair had gone utterly gray. He opened his eyes weakly, spotted Edge and didn't even look panicked. He muttered, "Good. I've been hoping you'd show up. Kill me and end this."
Edge pursed his lips, ignoring Stiles as if he were a piece of the furniture. "He looks twenty years older. What the hell happened?"
"We don't know. It's more than the elixir wearing off, though, but I think Eric was trying not to send Amber into a panic. If the Ambrosia-Six had worn off, then, according to the notes we have, he would have begun aging again, but only up until he reached his true chronological age. That's not what's happening here. Within just a short time he's aged beyond that, and there's no end in sight."
Edge tilted his head, probed into Stiles's mind. "He knows what caused this," he said at length.
"Yes, we sensed the same. But he's not talking."
"Oh, he'll talk."
"Edge, I can't let you... "
Edge looked at the man in the bed again. "At this rate, he'll be dead in a few weeks anyway. Surely you don't intend to stand by and let him take his secrets with him."
Donovan lowered his head. From behind them, Tamara's voice came softly. "No, Edge," she said. "We don't intend that at all."
Both men turned to face her.
"We only hope we can discover what we need to know without resorting to violence. Or torture."
"And if you can't?" Edge asked.
Tamara lowered her eyes. "We still have time."
Edge pursed his lips, turning to look at Stiles and addressing him for the first time. "Well, old man, it looks as if you have a bit longer to decide to tell us what you know. But not much longer. I don't have the qualms these people do."
Turning, then, he strode out of the room, but he'd only gotten into the hallway when he felt the rush of pure panic hit him. Not his own... but Amber's.
"Alby?"
Something was wrong, terribly wrong. He lunged down the hall to the staircase, down it and through the sprawling house, following his sense of her. He didn't slow down, even when he realized others were following. He didn't have to think, to look into empty rooms, to wonder which door would lead to her. He just knew, and then he found that door and flung it wide.
She turned slowly to face him, her lips forming soundless questions, her eyes wet and frightened... her belly swollen so much that the fabric of the loose fitting sundress was near to tearing.
"Oh my God," Tamara whispered from behind him. "Amber... Amber, are you... pregnant?"
Amber held Edge's eyes, never looking away, and he held hers. "Yes," she said. "I have been for almost a week now."
"A week? But-" Tam didn't finish the sentence, ending instead with a little gasp.
"I thought I was just getting bloated. And maybe a little fat, since I've been eating nonstop... but this... "
"I don't understand," Edge said softly.
Amber whispered, "Something's wrong, Edge. Something is terribly, terribly wrong."
He shook his head in vehement denial and moved forward, pulling her into his arms and hoping to God she couldn't feel the paralyzing fear inside him, or the trembling that was starting down deep in his bones.