Serafina and the Virtual Man (3 page)

Something weird
was
going on in this house. It just wasn’t like anything she’d imagined. When she reached the sitting room again, still deep in thought about her encounter with the vanishing stranger who thought he was dead, the door suddenly flew open and Dale Ewan almost mowed her down.

Jilly stepped back smartly to avoid contact.

“Where the hell have you been?” he demanded.

“Just wandering around taking readings,” Jilly said mildly. “It’s necessary to understand what we’re dealing with. How’d you get on, Sera?”

“It’s big and it’s angry and it’s got to go,” Sera said flippantly. Jilly breezed past Dale and into the room, where she sat on the arm of Sera’s sofa once more and got the laptop back out of her bag. Hastily, she opened a Notepad and keyed in:
Adam?
Then, as the Ewans approached, she erased it and called up the environmental data files.

“Yes, the psychic energy was all focused in here,” Sera said sagely as if picking this up from the computer readings.

“Did you learn anything useful about it?” Jilly asked.

“Yes, a bit. It’s extraordinarily angry, negative parts of a spirit left behind, I’d say.” She frowned as if remembering something, then glanced up at the hovering Ewans. “Does the name Adam mean anything to you?”

Neither of them blinked.

“Of course,” Dale said in surprise. “My ex-partner. He founded the company with me in 2004. He died last year.”

****

“What’s the matter with you?” Sera demanded as soon as they were in the car. “You’re white as a sheet.”

“Go, just go,” Jilly said urgently. Sera started the car, turned it, and began to drive away from the house. Jilly forced her tense shoulders to drop. A laugh tried to surge up in her throat. “Fuck, Sera. I think I’ve seen a ghost.”

Sera swerved slightly as she jerked her head around to stare. She righted the car, satisfying herself with short sharp glances at Jilly instead.

Jilly drew a shuddering breath, controlling the threatening hysteria. “Adam. The dead partner. In Dale’s secret test lab, hidden behind the study. He told me he was shot.”

Sera frowned. “They told me he didn’t die in the house and that his death was expected. I assumed he’d died of cancer or some other long-term illness.”

Jilly chewed her lip. “Could he have died somewhere else and his spirit gone back there?”

“I suppose so,” Sera said doubtfully. “Or it could be some other manifestation of the spirit trashing their house. Was he an angry ghost?”

“No, he seemed pretty laid-back about the whole thing, considering. A bit lost, maybe, but quite accepting.”

“Well, the poltergeist is the most focused anger I’ve ever come across.”

“Could it be the negative half of my ghost?”

“I’ve never heard of such a thing,” Sera said after a moment. “But it does make a weird sort of sense. Only why would he come back to haunt these two?”

“And how come I saw him and you didn’t?” Jilly asked, rubbing her head, which had begun to ache. “I don’t see ghosts.”

“Well, either you do or he wasn’t one,” Sera said reasonably. “What we need is more information. An afternoon of research, I think—you’re good at that.”

They drove for a while in silence. The earlier brightness of the morning had faded with the frost, and the sky was darkening to a more universal, dull grey. Jilly watched the trees and fields fly by. But everything seemed overlaid with the face of the dead man, the memory of his solid touch.

Sera said, “Genesis is into virtual reality, right? Could this ghost just have been some kind of hologram or whatever?”

Jilly shook her head. “No, I touched him. He was real, all right. Hey, can you touch ghosts?”

“Not like that… What if you didn’t really touch him? What if you were just made to think you did?”

“I thought of that. But I wasn’t wearing VR gloves or goggles. I hadn’t touched anything that should have had that effect on me. But you’re right, it does sound like a computer game. I just can’t explain it.” She sighed, shifting her legs with a jerk of frustration. “At least the poltergeist is real. Will you be able to get rid of it as easily as you told them?”

Sera’s hands lifted off the wheel and regripped. “No, it won’t be easy. I’ve never encountered a poltergeist that formed and focused. But if we can get the Ewans out of the house —it’s feeding off their terror with fiendish delight, you might say—it’s probably doable.”

She glanced at Jilly. “What did you think of them?”

“You’re the psychic,” Jilly retorted.

“But I’ve never been so good at human nature. Spill.”

Jilly shrugged. “I wanted to like him and didn’t. Maybe that’s why I got this idea they’re both up to something.”

“What sort of something?”

“Secret something. No-good something. When a millionaire—billionaire, whatever he is—starts looking like my brother Andy, there’s got to be something going on.”

“Fair point,” Sera allowed. She was well acquainted with Jilly’s brother Andy and indeed with the rest of the nefarious Kerrs. “He didn’t look like a geek,” she offered at last.

“Doesn’t mean he isn’t one under the suit,” Jilly pointed out. “He has a highly prized degree in geekery, according to this article I read, as well as being a business whiz. What did you pick up from him? From either of them?”

“Genuine terror. They’re at their wits’ ends or they’d never have called us. Even then, they didn’t really believe we could help, until I summoned the poltergeist and sent it away. That’s the weird thing, Jilly. They’re terrified in that house with that thing, and I don’t blame them in the slightest. But they’re very reluctant to leave.”

“Don’t like giving in?” Jilly suggested.

“Maybe,” Sera allowed. It was a motive both of them understood and valued. “But the good news is, Dale didn’t even blink when I came up with our fee. If we pull this off, we can all have a raise.”

“I could upgrade my laptop,” Jilly said, brightening.

“We could go out for a fabulous slap-up meal,” Sera said.

“We could do both. Maybe the Ewans will recommend us to all their neurotic friends.”

Chapter Three

Back at Serafina’s, they found Elspeth making coffee and Jack huddled over his computer in a frustrated sort of way. Jilly slapped him on the back. “Be nice to it,” she advised. “It’ll do exactly as you ask.”

“Will it buggery,” Jack retorted, then glanced at the prim, grey-haired figure of Elspeth at the far end of the office. “Sorry, Elspeth.”

“I’ve heard worse, Jack,” Elspeth said, presenting her boss with a mug of coffee, which Sera took in both hands with a sigh of pleasure. “How was the millionaire?”

“Riddled with poltergeist,” Sera said with satisfaction. “Fat fee guaranteed so long as it doesn’t bury me under a heap of the ugliest house you ever saw in your life.”

Elspeth reached over to her desk and pulled a glossy magazine toward them. Jilly peered over Sera’s shoulder. It was a popular-lifestyle magazine featuring photos of the interior of the house they’d just left. The huge entrance space and Petra’s sitting room were there along with several other rooms they hadn’t seen.

“That house?” Elspeth asked.

“Aye, that’s the one,” Jilly said. “It really looks like that too. Where do they lay their coffee mugs? What do they read? Where’s their
stuff
?”

“It’s like a mausoleum,” Sera confirmed. “Or an art gallery maybe.”

Jack, who’d wandered over to collect his coffee from Elspeth, pushed his drooping spectacles back up his nose and said, “I like it.”

“You would,” Jilly said in disgust, pushing past him to get to her own desk.

“What?” Jack demanded. “You wouldn’t know style if it hit you in the face. You’d only hit it back.”

“Damn right,” Jilly agreed. Nowadays their constant bickering amused her. Jack was still an upper-class arse, but she was aware that when he finally left Serafina’s to take up the “real” job his family expected him to do, she’d miss him. “Chuck over that magazine, will you?”

****

By the time Jilly left work that afternoon, she was a lot more familiar with the history of Genesis Gaming. Cofounded by Dale Ewan and the improbably named Genesis Adam, who’d met and bonded at university while studying for what Sera called their “degrees in Geekery,” the company had specialised in pushing the boundaries of gaming technology and then selling the results to the masses at pretty reasonable prices. The strategy had paid off, and the company grew quickly into the runaway success it was today.

Jilly had had to dig deep into much older articles and forums, obscure technical journals and serious, deadly dull business publications to discover the dynamics of the organization. Genesis’s success, it seemed, was down to Ewan’s sound and yet flamboyant business sense. Ewan was the front man, serious with the banks, dramatic in sales and style, and he got results. But he wasn’t the technical genius behind the products. According to himself, he was merely competent in that side of things. Adam had been the whiz.

Only, Adam hadn’t been able to handle the success. After a descent into drink and drugs addiction, he’d let Ewan buy him out and emigrated to Australia, where he’d died.

Adam’s sad, squalid little story made Jilly unaccountably dejected as she let herself into her flat that evening. Pictures of him had been few and far between, and those she’d found had been grainy and blurred. He didn’t turn up for photo shoots, et cetera; his partner had handled all that side of things. Why? No comments from anyone who knew him pegged him as any kind of sociopath or embarrassment. He was never even described as reclusive until fairly close to his meltdown, when it had probably been an attempt to hide his decline from the public.

Whatever, she couldn’t either confirm or deny the identity of whoever it was who’d accosted her in the Ewans’ house claiming to be called Adam.

Her phone rang just as everyone was packing up for the day. Although she didn’t recognise the number, she answered it.

“Hi, is that Jilly?” came a man’s voice.

“Who’s that?” she returned.

“Dave. Dave Jenner. We met at the Theatre Bar on Friday night.”

Jilly racked her brain. She’d met up with a couple of geek friends after work on Friday, and when Sera and Blair had joined them, somehow there had been a whole lot of people drinking and talking together at the same table. It had, Jilly recalled, been quite fun at the time, even though she’d suspected Blair of hunting up some dinner. It wasn’t easy when your friend’s lover was a vampire, not least because no one would believe you if you warned them.

“Hello?” came Dave’s voice again, with just a hint of anxiety.

“Aye, so we did,” Jilly replied, which seemed to flummox Dave.

“Um, how are you?” he hazarded.

“Fine. How’s yourself?” Jilly carried on stuffing her laptop into her bag, wondering what the devil he wanted. She had a vague recollection of speaking to him toward the end of the night, of him writing down her phone number. He must have been all right, or she wouldn’t have given him it.

“Good,” Dave said brightly. “Just about to leave work, wondered if you fancied a quick drink?”

Jilly, who’d already planned a more intensive date with her computer, opened her mouth to refuse. Then she imagined her sad evening further investigating the even sadder decline and fall of the ingenious Genesis Adam, and the rise and rise of his successful if haunted ex-partner.

Hell, she needed a pick-me-up. And maybe Dave was nice. Maybe he was very nice.

“Okay,” she agreed. “Just the one, though. I’ve got stuff to do.”

“Me too,” Dave said. “One’s fantastic. Is the Theatre Bar okay for you again, or would you rather go somewhere else?”

“No, the Theatre Bar’s fine. See you there in half an hour,” Jilly said. Which should give her time to get a quick one in before he turned up. Most men were easier to bear after a couple of drinks.

She disconnected and dropped the phone in her jacket pocket.

“Date?” Sera murmured, stopping by her desk with eyebrows raised.

“One of those blokes in the pub on Friday. Dave something. Jenner. D’you know him?”

“Not really. One of his friends was giving Blair the eye.”

“Nothing to what Blair gave him, I’m sure,” Jilly muttered.

Sera threw her scarf at her. “You can’t be suspicious of everyone all the time,” she said. And Jilly had the feeling she wasn’t just talking about Blair’s biting proclivities. They were grown-ups now, heading for thirty. No one—or, at least, hardly anyone—was out to hurt them anymore.

Sera’s lips quirked. “Have fun,” she said.

****

And at first, Jilly did. Dave was a smart, good-looking bloke, an IT developer who worked in an office close to the Playhouse. And they did have a mutual acquaintance in her secret hacker friend Henry, who earned his living in the same office as Dave. It made Jilly more comfortable in his presence. He was polite, bought her a drink, paid her compliments, and if he didn’t want to talk computers, well, at least his chatter was vaguely amusing. He didn’t even complain when she bought him a drink back, even though she was still sipping the one he’d paid for.

And when she rose to go, she found she was almost sorry. “Thanks for the drink,” she said sincerely. “Just what I needed.”

“Me too,” he said, downing the last of his beer and getting to his feet. “I’ll walk you to your car.”

“No need. I’m walking home.”

“I’ll give you a lift,” he offered, striding beside her to the door of the pub.

Although it was dark and cold outside, and it looked as if rain, or even snow, could arrive at any moment, Jilly didn’t need to think twice about Dave’s offer. She turned right toward London Road. “Thanks, but no again. It isn’t far.”

“Where do you live?”

“Near Holyrood Park.”

“Oh well, won’t take long in the car. I’m up here.” He grasped her arm and pulled her toward the side street where many of the office workers parked.

But this was too much for Jilly. She yanked her arm free with enough force to surprise him into stopping and staring at her.

“Do you not listen?” Jilly said. “I told you, I’m walking.” So much for her hopes of a second date. Even if she’d wanted to see him again, which suddenly she didn’t, she knew she’d just blown it with him.

However, after his first blink of surprise, he only grinned in an annoyingly patronizing sort of a way. “Aw, come on, sweetheart, I’m not an axe murderer, am I? We can go to my place, if you prefer.”

She stared at him. “I don’t.”

“Yours it is,” he said and grabbed her shoulder to haul her into his embrace. Perhaps he imagined it was all manly and Rhett Butler.

“Oi!” She jerked free of his hold and brushed down the shoulder of her coat.

“Oh, for God’s sake, Jilly, I didn’t damage the bloody coat. Hell, even if I did, I’ll buy you a new one. It only looks good on you because you’ve got a body to die for. Close up, anyone can see it only cost twenty quid in the local supermarket.”

He put both hands on her face and bent his head—before she knocked up his arms and kneed him once, hard, in the thigh. It was a warning shot. They both knew it hadn’t needed to be his thigh.

“Aye, the coat’s cheap,” she said contemptuously as he rubbed feeling back into his dead leg. “But I’m not. And since you seem a wee bit slow on the uptake here, let me make it a bit plainer. Fuck off, wanker.” She turned on her heels and strode off.

Three young lads were standing on the pavement, gawping. “What are you looking at?” she snarled, and the boys backed off with muttered apologies. Poor buggers had probably just wandered over to see if she needed help. As it happened, she never did, but it didn’t make her seethe less.

Bastard. So what if she wore cheap clothes? She couldn’t afford any other kind, not if she wanted to spend money on her computer and her flat. It didn’t make her a cheap lay.

She dashed the back of her hand across her eyes to dam the angry tears before they made her mascara run.

Your fault
, a little voice whispered inside her head.
It’s your fault he got the wrong idea. You made yourself into this ice cold, desirable doll that no one can touch.

Only some men didn’t get it and assumed they could. Assumed the makeup, the glamorous clothes, and the high heels meant she’d take anyone. Even more lowering, she’d actually been considering taking him, Dave. Not tonight, of course, because she didn’t know him from Adam…

Adam. Would Genesis Adam have treated her like that? Would he have talked computers with her if they’d ever met in his lifetime? Would he even have noticed her looks, and if he did, would he have liked them? His partner had noticed but done nothing, as his wife had known he wouldn’t. Why? Because she despised Jilly and her cheap clothes? Or because she was secure in her marriage?

I am so fucked up. I will
not
want what I’ve been avoiding all my life.

Why was she suddenly considering boyfriends, even marriage, things well outside her ambitions before now? Because Sera, her friend and ally from a hundred fights and awful situations over nearly twenty years, had found such unexpected happiness? Had it made her curious at last?

Or had it just made her lonely?

Jilly walked faster—no mean feat in stilettos of such height, but she’d had plenty of practice. She was damned if she’d let that arsehole drag her down to wallow in self-pity. She’d go home to her cosy flat, put the fire on, get some good dinner on the go, shower, and relax over the computer.

She’d made a good life for herself, and she enjoyed it.

****

“Where are you going?” Blair’s seductive, telepathic voice murmured in Sera’s head as she rolled out of his bed and reached for her clothes. It was the only way he could speak, a silent telepathy that she’d grown to love, because it conveyed so much more than mere words. Pictures, ideas, connotations, emotions all came with it. And yet he had a distinctive voice tone that melted her bones.

She slipped her panties back on and reached over to kiss his naked shoulder before returning to the matter of dressing. “Home. Got stuff there I need to do before tomorrow morning.”

“Can I come?” His finger slid down her spine, making her shiver. She glanced down at her tall, gorgeous lover. Her stomach still did backflips at the sight of him, his lean, sharp-boned, inhumanly handsome face and his terrifyingly strong, sexy body: smooth, pale skin over hard muscle. Even his fangs, those long, pointed, biting teeth with which he brought the weirdest, most perverse joy, were a turn-on.

Where would be the harm…? Her breath caught as his finger continued lower.

“I won’t work if you’re there,” she exclaimed, pulling her top on. Disappointingly, his finger dropped away. “Besides, Jilly’s got a date tonight. I want to hear the dirt without distraction.”

It wasn’t the real reason. Or, at least, only part of it. Every so often, she just needed to remind herself of her independence. To remind
him
. They were together, but he didn’t own her any more than she could or would control him. He was a vampire, for Christ’s sake. She knew hers wasn’t the only neck he bit, although if she could arrange such matters, she was aware she’d pick out only old men for him, for purely selfish and jealous reasons. That alone should scare the pants off her.

Blair didn’t say anything as she pulled on her jeans and her boots.

Ask me to stay
, a voice whispered in her head. Her own voice, this time.
Make me stay…
Would she, if he exerted all his considerable persuasion? Her body flushed, despite its recent and entirely satisfying sex.
Should
she, was more appropriate. And no, she shouldn’t.

She swung around to face him, and something caught the corner of her eye: a shadow, a blur of movement. For an instant, she imagined it was Blair himself, diving at her to make her stay, with the inhuman speed only he was capable of. But Blair remained lounging against the pillows, watching her with his intense yet expressionless eyes.

“What was that?” Sera said. Not imagination. She could sense something, some presence that reminded her of Blair himself. “Blair, there’s another vampire in here,” she gasped, jumping up off the bed.