Devil at Midnight by Emma Holly Page A

thousand pardons,” he said, pushing a little shakily to his feet. “I am afraid you have mistaken me for someone else.”
    Her curving smile did not falter. “Never. I always recognize kindred souls.”
    His tongue was not quick enough to answer. He bowed and withdrew a step. “I must take my leave,” he said.
    “Christian,” she said, stopping him before he could turn.
    His scalp prickled violently, though he knew many of the tavern’s patrons could have revealed his name.
    “I will be here,” the woman promised, “sipping at my wine, any night you tire of the succor your hand can bring. I shall be here, utterly available to you.”
    She was guessing, a lucky arrow shot in the dark.
    His nod was a jerk of his head and neck. He backed away from her to rejoin his companions, trying not to retreat too quickly. The woman seemed to fade again into the shadows, but he sensed her still watching him. Tense, he rolled his shoulders as he sat.
    “Too rich for your blood?” Michael asked sympathetically.
    “Too something,” Christian agreed.
    Charles opened his mouth, laughing.
    “No,” Christian advised, laying his hand on his friend’s forearm. “Do not give her a try yourself. I think she is dangerous.”
    Charles twitted him for that, but his eyes were already seeking out the barmaid. Charles liked simple, blowsy women, not adders in the grass. Christian tossed his wine back in one swallow, wondering how long he had to wait before they returned home.

Six

    G race sat alone in Christian’s chamber. Before he left, Christian had opened the shutters so she could look out at the road and the giant lake, but without him there, that soon palled. Her guide wasn’t answering her calls, and a whole world stretched outside this room to explore.
    There was no TV here, no movies, no Nat King Cole crooning over Mona Lisa on the radio. If Grace didn’t entertain herself, no one would.
    “No reason to be a mouse,” she said practically, pushing up from Christian’s three-legged stool.
    It occurred to her that one advantage to being a spirit was that no one heard you talking to yourself.
    Through trial and error, she discovered she couldn’t float or fly, but she could walk through walls. Many of the rooms she passed through were as dull as Christian’s-apart from the start she took at finding groups of people sleeping there. Most were soldiers—mercenaries, Christian had said—each of whom kept a frightening knife or two close at hand. Grace saw a lot of gruesome scars and heard a lot of bodily noises, making her glad her ghostly nose wasn’t functional.
    None of the rooms impressed her until she got to the dining hall. There the ceiling rose to a dizzying height, with thick, age-darkened beams to support the roof. Three tall men could have stood inside the hearth, could have danced a jig in it, if they wished. The fire had been extinguished for the night, leaving the great space quiet and dark. Grace could see everything anyway, including the colors of the intricate patterns painted on the walls, which said volumes about her changed circumstances.
    Grace wasn’t alive anymore. She might not even be human.
    For all she knew, she’d never find out whether All About Eve really was Bette Davis’s comeback.
    She hugged herself, shivering for reasons other than a chill. What was she supposed to do here? Perform some divinely appointed task? Pester Christian for the rest of his life? Maybe she was meant to rescue him from some danger. Grace didn’t mind that idea. She kind of liked it, in fact. She just wondered what would happen to what was left of her afterward.
    She didn’t understand why heaven wasn’t any more responsive here than in Ohio. Shouldn’t that have been an advantage to being dead?
    “You are a fool, Philippe,” someone chuckled low and dark behind her.
    It wasn’t Christian. It was one of the men who’d left with him earlier. He had a companion, yet another of the oversized, supermuscular males