Devil at Midnight (4 page)

“Be not troubled,” he said to Michael. “No one else could have whipped me as well as you.”

Michael snorted out a bitter laugh, then cleared the gawking servants from the bailey entrance with a sharp command.

“Find Cook,” he snapped. “The young master’s wounds need tending.”

The staff scurried away even as the men half carried, half dragged their young master in. Gregori Durand’s fortress was a thick-walled square built around a large courtyard. His men-at-arms slept on the upper floors, three or four to a chamber close to the weapons stores. They had never been attacked at home, but they all knew it might happen. No one could doubt they had rivals among the area’s mercenary bands.

In these parts, war still brought in more gold than wine.

Christian was one of few with a private room, a narrow, stone-lined chamber with a single window—monklike quarters, at best. The two most massive of the men, Hans and William, laid him on his bed facedown. Despite their care, Christian hissed with pain as the muscles of his back shifted.

“St. Sebastian’s balls,” Hans swore darkly. “If your father weren’t such a good commander ...”

He was, though, sharp as a Venetian dagger on the battlefield and off. Gregori Durand found them contracts and got them paid, not always an easy matter when the merchant they had been escorting decided he would rather spend their fee on a new mistress.

“’s fine,” Christian mumbled into his mattress. “I shall sleep in tomorrow.”

Only Michael stayed while Cook came to clean his wounds and dress them in bandages. He sat on the bed after she had finished, not touching Christian but probably wanting to. Ferocious though he was in battle, Michael had a tender heart—and a tendency toward guilt left over from his former failed calling.

“I am sorry,” he said now.

“You had to whip me,” Christian said. “If you had not, Father would have demanded worse penance.”

“No. I am sorry your sacrifice failed to save Lucy.”

Christian’s hands curled into themselves. “She was just a dog. I should not have let you men get attached to her.”

“Stop.”

Michael’s order was sharp. Christian rolled onto his side to look up at him. His friend’s lean, ascetic face was flushed with intensity. “Do not turn into him, Christian. Your father is no better than a beast. In truth, he has less soul than that dog you killed.”

“Do you want me to weep for her?” Christian asked, hard with scorn. “Do you think that would change anything?”

“I want you to feel. Or pray. Anything human.” Michael covered Christian’s clenched hand. “Your mother would not want you to grow cold like this.”

Against his will, Christian’s gaze slid to the wooden crucifix that hung on his wall. This and a small gold ring were all that remained of the woman who had brought him into this world. He had been seven when she died in child-bed, trying to birth the third of his brothers who had not lived. He still remembered his father saying
good riddance to weak stock.
A burn flashed across his eyes, but he tightened his jaw swiftly.

“Let her pray for me,” he said. “Let her look down from heaven and pray for me.”

Christian tugged his hand back, and Michael rose. He paused, seeming as if he would speak. But the one-time monk could not bring himself to preach. As he put it, his flesh had always been too weak to counsel others to holiness. Instead, his breath sighed out of him and he left.

Christian knew he had disappointed his friend. He also knew he could not have responded any other way. He wanted to survive, wanted to protect the men who relied on him. If that meant hardening his heart, so be it. From what he could see, God and the saints were a capricious lot anyway.

He rolled onto his face again, ordering his fists to relax. His right hand stroked the coarse wool blanket on which he lay, fingers petting it until he recognized what he did. Pain seized his rib cage worse than any scourge. He could feel Lucy’s fur again beneath his fingers, could see her eyes turned trustingly up to his. She had thought herself safe up until the instant he snapped her neck. She had thought herself safe with him.

The first sob tore from him, so harsh and strange he barely knew what it was. Tears came with it and he could not stop them, though he fought hard enough. He could scarcely breathe through the fit of sorrow, the violence of it taking him aback.

His sole consolation was that no one was there to see.

 

 

G
race was on her feet, standing on the grass-clad stage beneath the magical movie screen. She felt as if her cells were going to explode. Never had she felt more called to action—or more helpless. Considering her recently ended life, that was no small claim.

“I should be there,” she said, so sure of it her voice vibrated. “You said he was my friend. I should be there to comfort him.”

Her tuxedoed guide came toward her down the broad aisle steps, his expression smooth and unreadable. “These events happened long ago.”

“You said you could do things for me if I allowed it. I’m willing to be sent to him.”

“I can’t send you like you think, Grace, not as a person.”

“But you
can
send me.”

He glanced at the screen where the young man named Christian lay racked with grief on his narrow bed. “I can send you after a fashion. If that’s what you truly wish.”

“I promise you, it is.”

He looked at her, considering. “I didn’t expect you to ask this. There are ... limitations on this sort of thing. Time will stretch but not indefinitely.”

“I accept the limits. Don’t you want me to help him?”

She knew she had to convince him. She’d never had a friend that she could remember, not one she’d been allowed to keep. Dead or not, she wanted to know this one.

Michael smiled, slowly, sweetly, his face abruptly so lovely that it hurt to look at it. “I would like you to help him, yes.”

His words had power. This place she’d ended up in—the emerald grass, the plush red seats, the flickering screen—melted around her like colored sugar left in the rain. For just a moment she was frightened like the old days.

Holy cow!
she thought.

And then her feet found solid ground again.

R
ecovering from her little panic, Grace looked with fascination at her surroundings. Dying might not have been fun, but thus far the aftermath had been interesting. Now she’d traveled to another time, with sweaty men in chain mail and giant swords. Despite having her doubts about reincarnation, it looked like she was going to meet a friend from a former life. As the kids at school said, that was Fat City.

She was only a teensy bit disappointed that the Middle Ages were homely.

Christian’s room was a far cry from knightly splendor. Longer than it was wide, she could have touched both walls with her arms outstretched. For furnishings, it had a bed, a worn chest with leather buckles, and a three-legged stool. A set of solid wooden shutters blocked the window, but there was no glass. Surprisingly, the draft didn’t chill her. It should have; her clothes had changed again, and she wore a thin white nightgown. Her feet were bare on the plastered floor, but they, too, seemed immune to the cold. Her body felt as if it had no temperature at all. It also seemed lighter than normal, as if she floated in water.

Time must have passed while her guide did whatever he did to transport her here. Christian’s storm of tears had abated. He breathed heavily, wearily, his hard arms wrapped around a small pillow. His hair was shoulder-length, straight and black and caught behind his neck with a leather tie. It looked coarse but healthy, with blue black highlights shining in the strands.

Suddenly shy, Grace hesitated to call his attention. He appeared older than she was—twenty, maybe, though this was hard to judge, given the mature development of his physique. College boys didn’t have this many muscles, that she knew of: big ones, small ones, layered and interlocking in a fascinating sun-browned puzzle. The bandages couldn’t disguise the dramatic narrowing of his torso, nor did she fail to notice that he was barely dressed. Christian’s lower half was clad in a garment as light as the shift she wore. Tied around his trim waist, it extended midway down his thighs and then stopped. His legs were long and muscular, stirring an unexpected urge to drag her mouth up their light covering of black hair. The rounds of his buttocks looked tight enough to bounce quarters on. When he shifted at some discomfort, she just had to lick her lips. His spine ended in two dimples where its curve dove into his hindquarters’ crack.

The shadows that area harbored drew her eyes irresistibly.

Feeling uncomfortably like a Peeping Tom, Grace realized she could register temperature, after all. Her face was blazing, along with certain lower parts. Apparently, she’d underestimated what desire could be. Johnny’s most enthusiastic embraces hadn’t affected her this strongly.

“Christian,” she whispered, tearing her guilty gaze from his taut rear end. “Christian, I’m here to help.”

He scrambled up so quickly from the dark gray blanket that the movement must have hurt his back.

“Who are you?” he demanded, one forearm swiping his tear-marked face. “Why come you here garbed like that?”

His right hand held a dangerous-looking knife. Grace had no idea where the thing had come from. She hadn’t seen it anywhere nearby. The well-honed sheen of its blade had her heart jumping.

“Um,” she said, the uncertainty that swept her unwelcome. “Don’t you recognize me?”

“Are you one of Charles’s whores? Is this his notion of ajest?”

“Hey,” she said. “I didn’t put myself in this nightgown. And it’s not like
you’re
wearing any more.”

He looked down at himself and then up at her. For some reason, this caused her to blush harder. Clearly, he wasn’t modest. His underthings were too transparent to cover his front parts any better than they had the back. Whatever his age, the sexual organs cradled by that cloth were a man’s.

“I grant you are a comely wench,” he conceded, “but I have no spirit for bed sport tonight.”

“I’m not offering you
bed sport.”

He laid the huge knife on the mattress. “I am tired,” he sighed. “I mean no insult, but I bid you go.”

Well, this was awkward. Possibly Grace should have asked her guide a few more questions before she leaped into this. Then again, how was she to know she’d need to when everything that had happened since she’d died was at least half dreamlike?

“No,” she said unimaginatively back.

Christian made a growling noise that spiked her temperature again. There were barely two strides between them. He closed them, his arms coming up in preparation to steer her away. Grace dug her heels in, determined to stand her ground for once.

They both gasped as loud as gunshots when his body passed straight through hers. All she’d felt when it happened was a slight tingle.

“Blessed Mary,” he breathed. They’d whipped around to face each other, and he was backed up against the door with his eyes gone wide. Swallowing hard enough to jerk his Adam’s apple, he waved his trembling hand through her form again. Her body didn’t stop the motion any more than it had before.

“Holy cow,” Grace said, gazing down at his wrist disappearing disconcertingly into her belly. “I guess this is what he meant by not being able to send me here as a person!”

“Specter,” Christian accused. “Why have you come here? Is it because of Lucy? Are you my punishment?”

“I’m not a punishment,” she huffed, backing away until his hand slipped free. “And I’m not a specter!”

Christian’s brows lowered. His eyes were so dark she thought they might actually be black. “You are not corporeal. And that gown could easily be grave clothes.”

Much as she would have liked to, Grace couldn’t argue this. “All right, maybe I am a spirit, but I’m not a ghost. I died and met this man—an angel, I think. He said you and I had been friends before.”

“I assure you, we have not met.”

“He—” Grace struggled not to mumble with embarrassment. “He said we’d known each other in another life.”

“Another life! I see I am to be haunted by a lunatic.”

“I haven’t come to haunt you! ”

“Why else would you travel hence? I am not a man with whom angels do business.” He laughed, short and sharp. “That is, unless they seek vengeance.”

“I told you, the angel said we’re friends. I came to ... offer you comfort.”

Christian’s muscles bunched impressively as he crossed his arms. Grace fought not to shiver at the breadth of his naked chest. It had a nice smattering of hair on it.

“I need no pity,” he said. “Certainly not from a denizen of the otherworld.”

The sneer in his tone drew Grace’s attention up. His face had grown handsomer with his anger, his sharp, thin nose as proud as an emperor’s. His slash of a mouth was cruel—or it would have been if she hadn’t seen for herself the depth of attachment he was capable of. Her own anger bled away as she remembered him cradling the poor slain dog.