Drake pulled his face out of my neck just long enough to give me a look that left my knees weak. There was something different about his beautiful green eyes. The pupils were slightly elongated rather than round, almost like a cat's eye, but not quite as dramatic. It wasn't just his eyes, though. It was the way he touched me, the way he spoke, the way he … scented me. There was some-thing not quite human about

him that had my heart rac-ing. I understood then what he meant about my fear of him—it was definitely sexually charged, but beneath that was a baser emotion—the fear of being consumed, de-stroyed by a being who was much more powerful than I.

With a gentle touch that belied the threat in his voice, he tucked a strand of hair behind my ear and said, "The police are here, Aisling; thus I must bid you adieu. I do not know for what purpose you are denying the truth, but I advise you to be a bit more circumspect with the French police. They are not known for their tolerance of those who dally with the dark powers."

He leaned forward and brushed his lips against mine, the warmth so quickly withdrawn that he was gone before I pulled my wits together.

"What? Hey! You can't kiss me! And what do you mean to be more circumspect? What dark powers? Where are you going—? No! Stop! That's mine!"

I lunged forward but was too late. Drake snatched up my case and spun around, racing out the door of the apartment before I stumbled forward three steps.

Unfortunately, the three steps were directly into the circle. Instinctively I reached out to keep myself from ca-reening into the body. What I grabbed, though, wasn't Mme. Deauxville. It was a silver object that I suspected had been plunged into her heart, an object I hadn't seen because of the way her body was hunched over. The cool metal slid easily out of her body as I staggered to the side, away from her. I stood staring at the weapon in my hand for one horrified moment. It was long, with a thick curved blade smeared almost to the hilt in blood. I recog-nized what it was from several of the texts I'd read on demon lore—it was a seax, a medieval single-bladed dagger that was commonly used in the ritual destruction of beings of a dark origin. This seax had a bone handle and appeared to be made of silver. It was said that only silver piercing a demon's heart could destroy it… when coupled with the twelve words, of course.

"A real live example of one of the Demon Deaths," I murmured, the reality of the decidedly unreal situation being driven home by the cold weight of the seax in my hand. I was just thinking about making a sketch of the arrangement of symbols so I could compare them with a book back home when noises in the hall had me gawking in surprise. A number of policemen pushed through the door, all talking at once. They stopped and looked at me in equal surprise, the look quickly turning to one of pro-found suspicion as they saw the dead woman next to me … and the bloody seax in my hand.

I sighed as I raised my hands in surrender, the police swarming forward to surround me. What was turning out to be the longest day of my life had just grown a whole lot longer. 3

Hi. I'm Aisling Grey, in room twenty-three. Are there any messages for me?"

The hotel clerk on graveyard duty looked up from his magazine and gave me a martyred sigh before reluctantly setting down hisParis Match and hoisting his bulk out of the chair. "It will require me to check," he said, his voice rich with accusation.

I gave him a feeble smile as an apology. After spend-ing the whole night explaining to the police over and over and over again who I was and what I was doing at Mme. Deauxville's apartment holding the deadly weapon that had been used to kill her, my "be a good American abroad" muscles were all worn out.

"Yes, there is one."

The clerk looked at me. I looked back at him. Neither one of us blinked. When the room started to swim, I de-cided to give in. "I'm sorry, it's six in the morning, but according to my internal clock, it's two in the afternoon, and I've just spent the last thirty-some hours without sleep, which means I'm more than a little bit fuzzy around the edges. Could you maybe get the message for me? So I could read it? If it isn't too much trouble?"

He sighed and shambled over to the old-fashioned wall of pigeonholes that served as the hotel's room direc-tory, plucking a yellow message sheet from the square la-beled23. With an even bigger sigh, he gave it to me, then stood looking at me as if I were going to demand some other extraordinary act.

"Thank you," I said politely, and glanced at it. It was a message from Uncle Damian demanding that I check in and tell him how the delivery had gone. I crumpled up the note and turned toward die little elevator that the tiny but eccentric Hotel de la Femme Sans Tete (which, I found out at the police station, means "hotel of the headless lady") boasted.

'The lift, it is not marching," the clerk called out after me, with, I couldn't help but notice, an immense amount of satisfaction. With five rooms on each floor, my room was on the fifth floor. My shoulders sagged a bit at the thought of dragging myself up five flights of stairs, but mere was no help for it.

Ten minutes later I collapsed on my bed, having first rallied enough energy to kick off my sandals and peel from my body the dress that had been light and gauzy when I'd put it on, but was now just limp and blood-stained. I figured that being grilled nonstop by the police for more than twelve hours would have sent me immedi-ately to sleep, but I ended up tossing and turning for a long time while the events of the day ran through my head like an annoying song refrain that refuses to stop.

"Oh, this is ridiculous. I'm so tired, I can't even see straight, and yet my mind won't shut up," I said, sitting up and clicking on the light next to the bed. I caught a glimpse of myself in the bathroom mirror visible through the open door—the skin around my eyes looked bruised; my hair, normally cute and curly, resembled brown straw sticking out of my head; and my skin could have doubled for the underbelly of a fish. Asick fish.

"Right, shower first, then coffee, lots and lots of cof-fee, followed by some exquisite French food, and then, after I've gathered my strength, I'll call Uncle Damian."

The pale face staring back at me in the mirror flinched at the words. The only way I could possibly imagine my day getting any worse was thinking about what my uncle would have to say to me.

"I take that back," I said out loud a moment later as I did a little spin, looking at every possible spot in the small room for a dark blue canvas bag. "Having my lug-gage stolen out of my room can make my day worse, too. Well, hell."