With the halberd finally angled to the side, she lowered it to the floor. Only then did she realize she'd been repeating a breathless litany: Oh, God! Oh, God! Oh, God!

Wiping her palms on her breeches, sick to her stomach, she looked at her innocent victim. The sound of the halberd connecting with his skull echoed in her ears. It hadn't helped that he'd chosen that precise moment to leap to his feet. He'd come up propelled like a spring, only to meet the halberd going down.

He'd hit the floor with a sickening thud, too. He hadn't moved since.

Steeling herself, she stepped over the pole. "Oh, God-please don't let me have killed him!" Horatio had been murdered, and now she'd murdered a stranger. What was her world coming to?

Panic gnawing at her nerves, she sank to her knees; the gentleman lay slumped forward, facing Horatio…

Lucifer sensed a presence approaching. He couldn't hear, he couldn't see, but he knew when they knelt at his back. The murderer. He had to assume that. If only he could gather enough strength, even to lift his lids. He tried, but nothing happened. Unconsciousness welled, lapping about him-he refused to let go and sink under. There was a roaring in his head. Even through it he knew when the murderer reached out. The roaring in his head escalated-

Fingers-small fingers-touched his cheek gently, hesitantly.

The touch blazed across his brain.

Not the murderer. Relief swept through him, and relentlessly carried him into the black.

Phyllida traced the fallen man's cheek, mesmerized by the stark beauty of his face. He looked like a fallen angel-such classically pure lines could not possibly be found on mortal men. His brow was wide, his nose patrician, his thick hair very dark, sable black. His eyes were large under arched black brows. His lids didn't flicker; her stomach clenched tight. Then she saw his lips, lean and mobile, ease, softening as if he'd exhaled.