has a brain tumor, Amber. It’s inoperable. And it’s … terminal.”
“No.” She searched her father’s eyes, then her mother’s and Susan’s. “There has to be something we can do. There has to be something—”
“He’s a mortal,” Angelica whispered. “Mortals. die.”
As she said it, Alicia and her mother exchanged a knowing look, one of sad acceptance, but it wasn’t lost on Amber Lily. She wasn’t used to dealing with death. She refused to accept it as the inevitable end to those she loved. Even the mortals.
“It can’t happen. Not now, not yet,” she said, as if saying the words emphatically enough could make them true. “God, Sarafina only just found him. How can he be taken from her like this? They should have had years together. Decades!”
“It’s not fair,” Alicia whispered. Then she licked her lips, shook her head. “But, it won’t kill him. Will’s the strongest man I know. He’ll beat it. He will.”
Amber nodded. “'Leesha’s right. God, he withstood torture in the desert, he was given medals for protecting all those men who would have died if he’d talked. He’s a hero. He faced down Stiles, he even faced down Aunt Rhiannon and Sarafina and lived to tell the tale!”
“This is different, Amber,” Susan said softly. “I know it’s not fair, but it’s the way life works. Death is—it’s a natural part of the cycle for some of us, honey. It’s just the way of things—part of being human.”
Amber lifted her head, staring for a long time at Susan, noticing her gray hairs, extra weight, the wrinkles around her eyes. She looked at Alicia, who’d changed in the past five years in far more subtle ways. She’d lost the look of a teenager, looked like a woman now. While Amber hadn’t changed at all. Not since that house in Byram, Connecticut. Not since Frank Stiles and his experiments.
She lowered her head. “Sarafina must be devastated.”
“Rhiannon is with them right now at their place in Salem Harbor,” Jameson said. “Eric’s doing research at the lab at Wind Ridge, but.” He shook his head. “There’s not a lot of time.”
Amber’s brows drew together. “How long?”
“Six months, at the outside.”
Her eyes fell closed even as the words were spoken, and tears flooded them. God, six months. It was less than a heartbeat. She sniffed and knuckled away her tears. “I need to go to him. I need to see him—both of them. How is he? Have you spoken to him?”
“It was Rhiannon who phoned with the news,” Angelica said softly. “She specifically asked for you to come.”
Amber nodded. “And what about the rest of you?”
“We’ll be coming later. First we’re heading down to Eric’s. Roland is already there. They need all the help they can get with the research,” Jameson said.
“Besides,” Angelica added, “we don’t want to overwhelm ‘Fina and Will. All of us descending on them at once might be a little too much.”
“They’ll want time alone, too.” Amber swallowed her tears, though they nearly choked her. “Coming with me, Alicia?”
“One of us needs to stay and keep the shop open, hon. Pandora’s Box can’t run itself. But if you need me, call me, and I’ll be there like lightning.”
“Alicia, I’d feel better if you went along,” Angelica began.
Amber interrupted her. “Mom, I’m twenty-three and perfectly capable of getting to Salem Harbor on my own.”
Angelica thinned her lips.
“We both learned from our mistakes, Angelica,” Alicia said softly. “We’re not teenagers anymore. We own a business now. The Box is already turning a profit. We’re responsible adult women. Both of us.”
“I know that.” Angelica shot a look at Jameson, and he gave her a silent nod.
Amber drew a breath and sighed in gratitude. Alicia was giving her time and space to do this on her own. Amber and Will—they’d formed an odd bond when he’d saved her life five years back. He was like the big brother she’d never had. She loved him madly, and maybe part of that was because he was an outsider, too. Part of this extended family of the undead, even though he wasn’t one of them. Just like Susan and Alicia. Just like she was herself. Well, not just like, she thought slowly. She wasn’t mortal, either. She didn’t know exactly what she was.
Nodding hard, her mind made up, Amber said, “I’ll pack up tonight. Leave early in the morning.”
“Should I call the airlines for you, Amber?” Susan asked.
“No, I.I think I’ll drive. It’ll give me time to … process all this.”
“Sounds like a good idea.” Alicia got to her feet. “Are you guys all right?”
“We’re dealing with it as best we can,” Angelica said. “It’s not easy on any of us. But Eric’s refusing to give up hope, and maybe there’s some chance he’s right.”
“But you don’t really think so, do you?” Amber asked.
Her mother lowered her eyes, but Amber heard the hopelessness in her heart.
Alicia said, “Amber, let’s get back. I’ll help you pack, maybe even make you a few snacks for the road, huh?”
Smiling her thanks, Amber nodded. She got to her feet, let her father hug her hard. “When you go out there, Amber, forget your own pain. Think of easing theirs.”
“I will.”
“I know you will.”
Edge was staked out in the shadows outside the kitschy little New Age-slash-magic shop in one of Rochester, New York’s suburbs, a town called Irondequoit. The sign in the window read Pandora’s Box, and included a stylized drawing of a treasure chest with its lid open and purple sparkles spiraling from within. The apartment where Amber Lily Bryant lived with her mortal roommate Alicia Jennings was on the second floor, and his research showed the two were joint owners of the shop, which they’d purchased from its former owners two years ago.
Why the Child of Promise was sharing an apartment and a business with a mortal, rather than living under the constant protection of a dozen vampiric bodyguards, he couldn’t begin to guess. None of the vampires he’d questioned in order to track her down had offered a reason. The information he’d been able to glean had been piecemeal at best, but he’d been persistent, nosy, less than ethical, and he’d picked up the occasional unguarded thought. Taken together, the pieces had led him here … where she lived in an ordinary apartment with an ordinary mortal girl. She must be the most sought after prize of every vampire hunter in existence—and he had heard of many, besides the rogue DPI agent Frank Stiles. And yet she lived like a mortal. Unprotected.
If she had guardians, he thought, they ought to be taken out and beaten.
There had been no one at home when he’d first arrived, but the two woman returned around 2:30 a.m.
