Page 61 of Whispers at Dusk
They wandered the graveyard for several minutes, pointing out different gravestones and memorials, then Della shrugged and said, “Thank you for humoring me.”
“We saw something beautiful, and we need beautiful things sometimes,” he assured her. He reached out a hand. She took it, and they left the graveyard. As they did so, she realized that leaving there, hand in hand, seemed to be the most natural thing in the world.
They were working and they were professionals, and yet...
She’d heard the termsoulmatebandied about. It had never meant much to her. In fact, she’d fought against the concept of mistrust when they had first met.
And now...
She gave herself a serious mental shake. They were after a heinous killer.
All the more reason to long for all that was beautiful in humanity.
She was so involved with her thoughts on an intimate and personal nature that she didn’t notice the man striding by her side at first.
And it was only after she finally saw him that she knew why she hadn’t heard him.
He was a dead man.
A dead man moving along, kilted rather than wearing breeches. His tartan stretched over his shoulder and a brooch with a family crest held the tartan in place above the white linen of his shirt.
And he was grinning at her as he strode along beside them, having accomplished his feat of startling her to the core.
“Beggin’ your pardon, lass, but you were lookin’ for someone, eh? Well, I watched and saw you were among the magic ones, and decided I’d be finding out just what it was the two of y’ be a lookin’ to find.”
She was so startled she nearly stopped dead in the street.
Mason had her hand.
“Keep walking, Della. Sir, it’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance. My name is Mason Carter and this is Della Hamilton.”
“Americans,” their new spirit friend said knowingly.
“Yes,” Della told him quickly.
“Ye haven’t quite the look of tourists,” he said.
“Because we’re not,” Mason said, looking ahead as they walked. “We’re part of an international team trying to stop a killer,” he explained.
“Ah, the poor lass by the great stones!” he said.
“Yes,” Mason told him.
“I’ve heard. People are getting quite afraid here, they are. Those who live here, those who come here. They talk in the burial ground at the old kirk. A monster is at work. Some fear vampires truly roam the earth. There will ne’er come a time, I fear, when men and women all realize the greatest monsters come in human form!”
“We’ve caught a couple—they were killing in Norway,” Della told him. “And we were hoping since you freely go about unseen, you might have been able to see something. How rude! I’ve not asked you your name yet!”
A tam sat atop the fellow’s head of rich chestnut hair. He smiled and looked as if he must have been a friendly and easy-going man in life.
“Sir Gordon, dear lass, Sir Gordon Stewart. Part of His Majesty’s fine peacekeeping force at the time when the Islands were becoming part of the greatest land on God’s great earth, Scotland!”
“Ah, well, lovely to meet you,” Della assured him.
“Likewise.”
“Aye, well the pleasure be mine, for the magic ones are few and far between!” Sir Stewart said. “And you were part of that, eh? They talked that a killer or killers had been apprehended in Lillehammer, but warnings were still out and about. There are no monsters,” he said firmly. “A witch here and there, perhaps, but that by choice. Evil can only happen then when evil is allowed. How may I be of service?”
“Shall we stop up ahead by that charming little café? I see outside tables, set for the season, I imagine, and if we may...”
