Edge of Twilight by MAGGIE SHAYNE Page A

black. The door had swollen, didn’t want to budge, but he was a vampire and not in the mood to play. He shoved, and it popped open, immediately sagging to one side due to a missing hinge.
    Edge stepped through. The room in the back was small, just a storage space, probably. There were shelves on the back wall, even a stray box or two, mold growing on the outsides of them. He reached for one of them, tugging it from the shelf. The wet bottom gave, and the contents spilled over his feet.
    Candles.
    He smiled. Perfect. Everything a vampire needed to feel at home. A trap-door in the floor led to the small basement. Barely room enough to stand. Dirt floor, stacked stone walls without a hint of cement to hold them together. Just flat stones piled atop one another on all four sides. He nodded in approval and moved back to the upper floor, slung his duffel bag onto a pew. Then he tugged one of the two remaining pews from its place, took it to the front, where the dais was, and set it dead center.
    Returning to his duffel, he opened it and removed a smaller sack, carrying it with him. From the sack he took several small items and carefully, lovingly, set them in a circle on the surface of the pew. A bone-trimmed switchblade with Billy Boy’s initials carved in the side. Thesilver crescent moon that Ginger had worn in her ear. Scottie’s gold pen. He’d had the soul of a poet. And the opal barrettes Bridget had worn in her hair.
    Edge retrieved a handful of the candles from the back, used his lighter to set the wicks aflame and dripped wax onto the pew, then set them upright in it, so they wouldn’t tip easily. He placed them in a circle around the objects and watched their fiery light dance over his odd little collection of keepsakes.
    His family. These items represented his family. The only one he’d ever had. The only one he wanted, because God knew he wouldn’t put himself through that kind of pain again. The people they represented were long gone. Hunted down and executed by a man named Frank W. Stiles. And Edge was closer than ever to finding him and, finally, exacting revenge.
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    â€œYou look wonderful,” Amber told Will when he returned to the house.
    â€œWhat, you were expecting otherwise?” He set his walking stick aside and gave her a hug, and she noted that his arms felt strong around her, powerful.
    She smiled and hugged back, never admitting that she had expected otherwise. He had cancer, had been given a death sentence—she’d expected him to be pale and weak, to have lost weight. Not so. His hair hadn’t turned gray. His face was harsher, more lines had appeared around his dark eyes, but they seemed more like laugh lines than age. And while his limp was more pronounced than it had been before, that could have been for any number of reasons besides the cancer.
    â€œDon’t look terminally ill at all, do I, kid?” he asked.
    She winced inwardly but kept her smile in place. “Youlook healthy as a horse. Guess it takes more than a little cancer to bother a Special Forces colonel.”
    â€œRetired,” he said, retrieving his intricately carved and painted walking stick—one Sarafina had bought him on their recent trip to Africa—and limping to where his beloved sat. He leaned over ‘Fina, slid his hand over her shoulder, bent to kiss her neck. She closed her eyes. They’d been all around the world, the two of them. Privately, Amber thought it the most romantic thing she could imagine. And thank God, she thought. Thank God they’d had the time they had, to be together. Just in case they were nearing the end.
    Amber moved around the table, pulled out the chair next to ‘Fina’s. “Sit down, Willem, have some tea with me.”
    He smiled at her. “It’s been a while since I’ve had anyone to share tea with.” ‘Fina sent him a playful pout, and he patted her hand. “Not that I’m