Stormy drove along behind the yellow van and told herself everything was going to be fine. She visualized a bright future, she and Max with their own private investigations agency: SIS. Supernatural Investigations Services-because that would be their specialty. Max had assured her, though, that they wouldn't turn down ordinary types of cases. The acronym "sis" was, Max said, as much in honor of her own newfound twin sister, Morgan, as it was in honor of her relationship with Stormy. The two were far more than best friends-always had been.
God, it would be just like the old days, just like when they'd been in their teens and snooping into things that didn't concern them. They'd been kids then, amateurs, usually digging for proof of one or another of Max's farfetched conspiracy theories and most often finding none.
Until that day when the "research lab" in White Plains had burned to the ground. Max had always insisted there was something more going on in that place than met the eye. And that time, for once, she'd been right.
The building had housed the headquarters of the DPI-the Division of Paranormal Investigations-a super-secret government agency dedicated to the study and elimination of vampires. The repercussions of what Max had learned while snooping through the debris that night almost six years ago were still reverberating through their lives. She had found proof of the existence of vampires. It still rattled Storm's brain when she tried to process everything that had happened since. But it had all been leading up to this. Max and Stormy, professional snoops now. Licensed professional snoops, specializing in things beyond what most considered "normal."
But it wasn't quite the same, was it? Back in the old days, there had been three of them. Stormy, Max and Jason. Gorgeous, chocolate-skinned, studious, conservative Jason Beck. He'd provided a counterbalance to Storm's fearlessness and Maxie's impulsiveness. But he'd moved away, never knowing what Max had found in the rubble that night. Hell, she hadn't even told Stormy until a few months ago.
Stormy often wondered what might have happened if she hadn't turned Jason down when he'd asked her out hack in college. Or if he'd stayed, instead of moving away, going to law school. She missed Jason.
Jason.
Pain. A red-hot blade plunged deep into her head. White light blinded her, and noise-radio static like a thousand stations fighting for a frequency-exploded inside her mind.
She pressed a hand to her head and jammed both feet on the brake pedal, since she could no longer see the road.
Jason.
The light in her mind took form, and she saw his familiar profile in her inner vision. Harder, more angular than she remembered him. Older. Brown eyes, shaved head, drop-dead handsome as he'd always been.
Facing him, also in profile, was another man's face. A chiseled face with full dark lips and deep brown luminescent eyes with paintbrush lashes and brows so full they nearly met. His hair was long, perfectly straight and raven-wing black. And he was as familiar to her as her own reflection in the mirror. And yet a total stranger.
Dragostea cea veche sopteste la ureche, a woman's voice, strange and exotic, whispered. And though the words were in some language she didn't know, Stormy realized that the voice she had heard was her own. Only... not.
It frightened her that she understood those words she had uttered. "Old love will not be forgotten, " she whispered.
The pain faded. The light dimmed. The noise went silent. She opened her eyes. Her car was sitting cock-eyed on the shoulder of the road in a cloud of dust. A glimpse behind showed black skid marks on the pavement. A look ahead told her the van had pulled over, as well. Max and Lou were getting out, running toward her.
Stormy closed her eyes. Yes, things were different now. She was different now. Had been, ever since she'd come out of the coma.
She hadn't stayed in that hospital bed the whole time. She'd left the hospital. She'd left her body. She'd gone somewhere...else.
And she couldn't shake the feeling that when she'd come back, she hadn't come alone. Something had hitched a ride. The owner of that voice that didn't even speak her own language, perhaps. She didn't live alone in her body anymore.
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.
