Devil at Midnight (17 page)

C
harles’s words were prophetic, though only the sharpest watchers would have been aware of this.

“To my son,” Gregori toasted, lifting his goblet high, “whose sharp eyes may have saved all our lives.”

He stood at the head of the supper table in the bandits’ stone tower house. None of Nim Wei’s guard had died, and Charles’s was the only serious injury. Fired up by their easy victory, the men were enjoying the spoils of their brief battle. The wine with which they saluted Christian came from the bandits’ stores, as did the side of mutton Oswald was still turning on a spit at the fire. Though Christian was grateful for the warmth of the meal and the men’s approval, his father’s manner provoked caution. The signs were subtle—no more than a tightness in Gregori’s lips and around his eyes—but Christian knew his father resented having to acknowledge his ascendance in anything.

“To Charles,” Christian returned politely, “who killed six of the enemy by his own hand.”

“To me,” Charles agreed with his easy laugh. William had created a makeshift camp bed for him on an extra bench, allowing him to recline near the others at the table. The wine he lifted was well watered, but he seemed well, considering he had recently had half an arrow prized out of him. He was fortunate the tips the bandits had been using were bodkin style, designed for piercing armor rather than rending flesh.

“May your fool self always prove as lucky as it did tonight,” Oswald said.

“Hear! Hear!” chorused the others, with only Lavaux’s contribution coming grudgingly.

“You were a beast,” Mace bellowed in approval, his fist thumping his big chest. “The head you lopped off that bastard nearly hit me!”

“I aimed it thus apurpose. I knew it would not hurt your thick skull.”

“Ha!” Mace barked, seeming to enjoy this riposte. “I would slap you on the back, but you would collapse.”

“We have something for you, Charles,” Christian’s father said through the swell of laughter. “To honor your valor. Timkin found it in the lead bandit’s treasure chest.”

Timkin was Gregori’s most effective fighter, not because he was the largest of his men, but because he was so very quick and ruthless. He spoke even less than Oswald, and rarely to anyone but Christian’s father. He was often given charge of divvying up booty. Christian suspected he was honest, but even if he were not, no one dared accuse him of misconduct. Aside from Timkin’s willingness to stab any fellow human being in the back, he was—from his silvered hair to the soles of his hobnailed boots—absolutely Gregori’s creature.

“Timkin the Shadow” was Charles’s nickname for him.

Charles’s eyes widened as Timkin handed him a small object wrapped in a velvet cloth. For once, no witticism rolled from his tongue.

“Above and beyond your share,” Gregori’s father said.

Everyone caught their breath as Charles unwrapped his prize. It was a brooch as long as his palm, beautifully wrought and inset with smoothly polished cabochon rubies. The gold was so pure, so yellow, that it resembled butter in the firelight.

“Good Lord,” Charles said as he touched one stone with his fingertip. “Saint Bernardino preserve me from gambling this away.”

“The take was rich,” Gregori said expansively, everything about him jovial to the eye. “These bandits were not bad thieves before they met us.”

Grace made the tiniest noise. She was huddled by the fire in her thin white gown, out of Oswald’s way with her arms wrapped around her shins as if she were cold. She looked small and alone sitting as she was, scarcely more than a child. Her big green eyes were on Christian’s father’s face, seeming to read even direr messages in Gregori’s visage than Christian did. Christian’s futile longing to gather her in his arms was nothing short of painful.

She had not screamed once during the battle, though he knew it had frightened her. Maybe her father had taught her not to. Maybe she would not look so shaken now if she had not held in her terror. The thought tightened his ribs oddly. He was no believer in putting one’s weaknesses on display.

Sweetheart
, he thought, wishing she could hear him.
I shall hold you close again as soon as I may
.

Nim Wei’s smoke-and-silk voice came from the shadowed entrance opposite the fire.

“I have one more gift,” she announced.

She had disappeared after the fight, somewhat to Christian’s surprise. Given her taste for admiration, he had expected her to relish the men’s battle-stirred concern. Also to his surprise, she seemed strained as she glided into the room. She was as graceful as ever, but her impossibly pale skin was paler, the crimson bow of her lips rolled into a line.

William rose like a puppet as she entered. The others looked as though they wanted to as well, but something prevented them. The air grew heavy with more than roasting meat as the little minstrel stopped a foot in front of William. He was breathing harder as he looked down at her, his big chest going in and out. William was pleasant looking but no beauty, and unused to being pursued by females as exquisite as Nim Wei. His desire for her, and his unsureness regarding it, were so obvious Christian felt as though he ought to turn his gaze away.

The minstrel was too worldly not to read both emotions in William’s face. Though the strain did not leave her features, she smiled faintly.

“This is for you.” She lifted a brass flask to him on both palms. “For throwing your body over mine when those arrows were pelting down.”

“That was my job,” William said, backing a step away.

Her smile deepened at his reluctance to be rewarded. She pressed the stoppered bottle into his hand and wrapped his battered warrior’s fingers around it. Her skin was utterly white against his, like snow on a steer’s tanned hide.

“This flask contains a special oil from Byzantium. I procured it before the fall of Constantinople. It is infused with rare herbs that speed the healing of any wound.”

Christian could not have said why he thought she was lying, only that her words sounded like a claim from a fairy tale:
Wear this magic girdle, and no harm shall befall you.

“I am not wounded,” William said hoarsely. “My armor protected me.”

Nim Wei rose on tiptoe to kiss his cheek, her hands bracing her weight against his broad chest. Whatever she whispered in his ear turned his face scarlet.

“Take your prize,” Gregori urged him laughingly. “Or does my son train his men to be shy?”

William could not blush any harder, or he would have. Nim Wei drew back from him, amusement glittering in her slanted eyes.
Later
, Christian saw her mouth to her reluctant hero, her teeth a startling flash of white. It was the quickest of motions, but he thought she ran her tongue around her catlike incisors before her lips closed again.

She glided from the room as she had come in. The heated glance she threw Christian on the way was so fleeting he might have imagined it. The tingle that swept his body promised him he had not. Philippe’s earlier guess had hit the mark: Nim Wei was bedding Christian’s men as a means toward seducing him.

His member hardened; it seemed he could not stop it. Gritting his teeth, he willed the stiffening flesh downward, not wanting to succumb to this woman any more than he had before. He was glad the men’s attention was on William ... until he realized his father was studying him.

Gregori held Christian’s gaze, calculations clicking visibly through his mind. Only slowly did his eyes turn toward the darkened arch where Nim Wei had exited.

Christian jumped when Grace’s ghostly fingers curled around his. Her hold was tense but steady. Appreciating her effort to convey calm, he struggled not to look at her.

“She was using her power on you,” she said. “I saw it wrapping around you like a nest of snakes.”

Christian rolled his lips together like Nim Wei had. Though his spine was trying to shudder, he would not allow it to.

“Let us leave here,” he muttered from the side of his mouth.

N
im Wei’s grip on herself was shakier than she wanted to admit. The bandits’ attack had rattled her for more than one reason. It had almost been too late to cry a warning when she read the thieves’ intentions from their rapacious minds. She had allowed herself to become too fixated on Christian and her plans for him. Yes, she meant to seduce him—more than, to tell the truth—but that was no excuse for failing to use the gifts her maker had given her.

She was
upyr,
an immortal race superior to mere humans. Though she was immune to most threats, those iron-tipped arrows could have killed her if they had pierced her heart. Iron was the one metal that could harm her kind, and she was very much looking forward to humans perfecting the manufacture of weapons steel. As matters stood, she could not wear plate armor, because so much of it was impure. Worn close to her body, it damped her power. It also ruined the fit of her clothes, which possibly should not have been important, but Nim Wei chose to allow herself certain vanities. In any case, she had not expected to need the defensive services of her guard on this journey.

William had saved her from that oversight by throwing his big body over hers. She had not even bitten him, an act that intensified her influence. William had protected her because he considered it his duty. Such bravery impressed her. It could not, however, distract her from all of her questions.

She ceased pacing the chamber she had claimed for herself in the bandits’ home. She had pushed its foul-smelling bed into the passage, but the room still fell short of the standards she had grown accustomed to. The stone floor was caked with dust that had not been swept in years, and the walls were not much better. As her body fell into the utter stillness only
upyr
were capable of, her power began clearing the dirt away. The dust washed away from her in a silent wave, as if she were a stone that had been thrown into its center. Because no human was there to see, Nim Wei did not rein in the effect.

The larger portion of her mind was caught up in other concerns.

How, she wondered, had Christian spied those bandits before she did? The thieves had been concealed, even to her sharp eyes. Christian could not have heard them shifting in their hiding place. Human ears were not that acute. There was something
different
about him, more than the intelligence and the passion that had attracted her in the first place.

Like his father, Christian resisted her, not simply the bespelling power of her gaze but her feminine appeal as well. In his father’s case, it did not matter. Gregori Durand held no long-term appeal for her. He was smart and ruthless and cruel, and he left her perfectly indifferent. He did not have the necessary imagination to spark her lust. Already, he had reached the stage of mortal life where he felt his supremacy slip away. He could clutch harder to what power he had, but he was unlikely to garner more. The circumstance made him dangerous but not attractive. If he did not want her, she hardly cared. That his son
did
desire her but held himself apart was a thorn in her side.

Nim Wei knew her allure was formidable. Emperors had dropped to their knees before her, for no more reason than to beg a kiss from her ruby lips. Christian Durand was young and healthy, with all the appetites that implied. She sensed he did not currently have—or did not permit himself to have—sufficient outlet for his natural urges. That being so, he should have been panting for her by now. She should not have been reduced to playing games with him through his friends.

She let out a sound of annoyance, breaking her statue-like stillness to smooth her hands down her black velvet tunic front. The garment fit wondrously, clinging to the lithe, curved body that she had molded into one of her best weapons. Somewhat less elegantly, her fangs were run out and pulsing, the effect of the bloody battle and her frustration over Christian. She should have brought William back with her to this chamber instead of hoping Christian would give in. At the least, she could have fed from the big soldier. Now her hunger reminded her how frayed her discipline was. She had actually had to leave the men until their bloody injuries were patched up. Considering the centuries she had behind her, that should not have been the case. She ruled herself as she ruled her people. Not for nothing was she the queen of all the city-dwelling blood drinkers.

Prove it then,
she ordered herself.
Be the queen your maker never thought you deserved to be
.

Her eyes glowed gold with anger at remembering that, the last of her human semblance unraveling. Normally, she hid her true appearance behind her glamour, but the bit of concentration that required failed her now. Auriclus had thought her soul too cold and dark to be trusted to found a line of
upyr.
Nim Wei had founded one anyway, without his approval. She would not live off the blood of rabbits the way her sire’s get did. Let the shapechangers roll in the mud and hunt with the wolves. Let them keep their precious secrets if that made them feel special. Nim Wei would not abide by anyone’s morals except her own.