But of course she didn’t. Just because Gregory Buxton had vanished from the Hounds’ radar when he was in this town didn’t mean she would, too. And even if she did, so what? The Hounds would still be able to ride on in here and search. They didn’t need supernatural powers to find her – they just needed eyes.
So she kept that edge, the part of herself that remained wary, and she let it bite at her thoughts and burrow into her head. That edge had helped keep her alive after Imelda had died. After Glen. After her parents.
She wondered about them, where they were, what they were doing. How they were doing. She felt a curious mix of satisfaction that she’d fouled up her parents’ plans, that she’d forced them to go on the run with Grant and Kirsty Van der Valk, that Astaroth was almost as pissed with them as he was with her … but also concern. That part puzzled Amber. She didn’t care about them. They had bred her to be killed and eaten, just like they had her brother and sister whom she had never known. She was not concerned for their well-being.
She was definitely, definitely not. She was almost sure of that.
Thoughts of her parents irritated her, but there was only one other person she could think about that would banish them to the back of her mind, and that was Glen. She only thought about him when she was in demon form. Her heart was harder when she was like this, better able to cope with what had happened to him. With who he was now. What he’d turned into.
She’d been aware of him following her. Some nights she’d look in the side mirror and glimpse something moving behind them. Some nights, when the Charger was quiet, she could hear him above her, his clothes fluttering in the wind.
Why he was following her, she didn’t know. She’d been told that most breeds of vampire were pack animals – they stuck close to the one who’d turned them. But the vampire that had killed Glen had vanished, and his undead family back in Cascade Falls were in disarray – certainly the patriarch was no longer around to guide them. Amber had seen to that personally.
That might be it, of course. Glen could be following her to kill her, to exact revenge for Varga’s death. She doubted it, though. Revenge didn’t seem to be Glen’s style, soulless monster or not. No, what was infinitely more likely was that Glen’s preoccupation with Amber – especially in her current form – had stayed with him even after his death. Maybe it was the one thing he was clinging on to. Maybe he had designs on a coffin built for two.
Amber closed her eyes and held her breath, and submerged so that only her knees and her hands and her horns were above the water line. Down here, in the muted world of the bathtub, she opened her eyes again and looked at herself. She couldn’t blame Glen for his preoccupations, of course. Was she not as magnificent as everyone said? Was her figure not astonishing? Were her features not flawless?
She loved being this way. She loved being tall and red and horned and beautiful. She loved being sexy. She’d never been sexy, not as an ordinary human. Sexiness was for other girls, not for her. Never for her.
She broke the surface of the water, and smiled.
Until now.
After her bath, Amber went for a walk. The people seemed friendly enough, even if she did catch them staring at her from time to time. On three occasions she actually glanced at her bandaged hands to make sure she wasn’t in demon mode, then she put it down to the fact that visitors were probably a rarity around here.
It was a pretty town, surrounded as it was by trees and snow-covered mountains and looking up into a huge blazingly blue sky. It had a smell to it, too – fresh and open and healthy. Invigorating, even. Amber fully acknowledged all of this. Further, she had no trouble admitting that it was downright lovely to see every store open for business – that being quite a change after spending the last few weeks driving through small towns teetering on the edge of survival.
Watching the people file into church, she figured that there was absolutely nothing about Desolation Hill that she found disagreeable, and yet something had got its hooks into her and was pulling her down.
Deciding that breakfast might improve her mood, she stepped into Fast Danny’s, the only one of the three cafe/diner joints on Main Street open on a Sunday morning. There were a few patrons sitting at tables, all of whom examined Amber when she walked in. She ignored them, chose a table in the corner, and sat, started reading through the menu.
The waitress came over, a woman in her forties who looked like she’d had a busy morning. Her nametag identified her as Brenda.
“Just passing through?” Brenda asked, which struck Amber as an odd thing to greet someone with. At the Firebird, Amber had always greeted customers with a smile. There was no smile on show here.
“Kinda,” said Amber.
“Oh yeah?” Brenda said, but not in a conversational way.
Amber had a soft spot for people waiting tables. She knew what a crappy job it could be. That being said, Brenda’s attitude was not going to be earning her any tips.
“I’m staying for a few days,” Amber said. “At the motel.”
“The Dowall Motel?”
“Is there another one?”
Brenda didn’t bother to answer that. “Were you told about the festival?”
“Yeah. But we weren’t told what kind of festival it is.”
“It’s a local one,” said Brenda. “Townsfolk only.”
Amber decided that she didn’t like Brenda’s dismissive tone. She didn’t like being dismissed. Her skin itched. All she had to do was relax and she’d shift, and then she’d be taken seriously. Then she’d be respected.
“That was mentioned,” she said quietly.
Brenda nodded, apparently satisfied. “Okay then, what can I get you?”
And, all of a sudden, Brenda was in full waitress mode and Amber was left with all that hostility and nowhere to put it. “Uh …”
Brenda looked at her, eyebrows raised, waiting.
Amber felt the hostility drain from her. “The Danny’s Breakfast, please.”
“Will do,” said Brenda. “Eggs sunny side up or scrambled?”
“Scrambled.”
“Coffee or juice?”
Had she really been about to jump up and rip the waitress’s face off, just because of her tone of voice? She felt amazingly stupid right now.
“Juice,” she said. “Thank you. Oh, and …” Amber held up her hands. “I had an accident.”
“So I see.”
She gave Brenda a weak smile. “Would it be possible to have my breakfast, like, cut into smaller pieces?”
“You want it all chopped up?”
“Yes, please. Well, besides the egg. Because that’ll be scrambled.”
“Okay,” Brenda said dubiously. “Might cost you a little more, though.”
Amber frowned. “To cut it up?”
“It’s an unusual requirement.”
“But it’ll only take ten seconds.”
The waitress shrugged. “We’ll see if the cook is comfortable doing it. Will that be all?”
Amber hesitated. “Yes.”
Brenda nodded, and moved away as an old man came in.
“Hey there, Brenda,” he