Devil at Midnight Read Online Free PDF Page A

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.

Four

    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