For Heaven's Eyes Only Read Online Free

stood there smiling, tall and dark and handsome in his splendid tuxedo. Every inch the master spy I never was. Looking just as he had before I got him killed.
    “No,” I said. “Please. No. Not you, Uncle James. I can’t stand it. . . .”
    “Relax,” said Uncle James. “It’s all right, Eddie. I forgave you long ago.”
    For a long moment, I couldn’t say anything. Uncles James nodded understandingly.
    “It’s good to see you again, Eddie. I understood why you did what you did, even when I was alive. Ah, the things we do for the family . . . I don’t hold grudges. You see things a lot more clearly once you’re dead. You did for the family what I should have done long before.”
    “Why are you here?” I said. “Are you a prisoner in this place, like me?”
    “No. I was called here, like the others. But unlike most of them, I’m on your side.”
    “Do you think I should tell Walker what he wants to know?” I said. “Tell him all my secrets, and those of the family?”
    “Of course not,” said Uncle James. “Walker always was too ready to bow down to authority, or to anyone with a public-school accent. Tell him to go to hell, Eddie.”
    I had to grin. Death had not mellowed Uncle James. “Do you know whom Walker’s working for? Who it is who wants my secrets?”
    Uncle James frowned. “It’s hard to be sure of anything here. Hardly anyone or anything is necessarily what they appear to be.”
    “Even you?” I said.
    He shrugged easily. “Hard to tell. I think I’m me, but then I would, wouldn’t I?”
    I put out my hand to him, but when he went to shake it, our fingers drifted through one another.
    “Am I a ghost?” I said. “Give it to me straight; I can take it.”
    “Not even close,” snapped another familiar voice. “You shouldn’t be here, boy.”
    And suddenly standing next to my uncle James was Jacob Drood, the family ghost. He wore a battered Hawaiian shirt over grubby shorts, looking older than death itself. His face was a mass of wrinkles, his big, bony skull graced with a few flyaway hairs. But his eyes were as sharp and fierce as ever. He nodded brusquely to Uncle James, and then fixed me with his glare. “I’m the only ghost here, Eddie; but I can’t help you. There are rules even the dead have to obey. Perhaps especially the dead.”
    I studied him carefully. He looked more solid and more real than anyone else I’d met in this empty Hall. “Are you really here, Jacob?”
    “Yes. But not everyone else is.” He looked at Uncle James, who smiled easily back. Jacob sniffed loudly and glared about him before piercing me with his sharp gaze again. “Someone’s running a game on you, Eddie. Even I can’t tell who the players are, for sure. You need to get out of here, boy. You don’t belong here. Bad things are on their way, attracted by the light.”
    “The blue moonlight?”
    “Your light, boy! Get out of here! Run, while you still can!”
    I looked at Uncle James, and he nodded quickly. That was enough for me. I turned and ran back through the Armoury, and almost immediately found myself in the Sanctity, the great open chamber that served as a meeting place for the ruling council of the family. Once it was home to the Heart, the huge other-dimensional diamond that gave the family its power, and its original armour. As long as we fed it the souls of our children. I put a stop to that and destroyed the Heart, and now the Sanctity was only a room. But there was no trace of the rose red glow that usually suffused the chamber, the physical manifestation of the other-dimensional traveller called Ethel, who came to the Hall to replace the Heart and supply our new armour. The good angel I’d found to replace the bad. Except that angels always have their own agenda, and don’t always give a damn for merely human concerns. . . .
    The Sanctity felt cold and desolate without Ethel’s comforting glow. I called out to her, but no one answered. I nodded quietly to myself. One