Serafina and the Virtual Man (4 page)

Now, he moved, blurring across to the door, fangs bared. And fuck, he was beautiful. Even through her alarm, she acknowledged that. He reached for her, dragging her behind him, and they both stood still, listening, feeling.

“He’s gone,” Blair said. He sounded almost—bewildered.

“How?” Sera demanded. But Blair was right. The force of actual presence had been a mere instant. What remained was an echo, already fading into nothing.

“I don’t know.”

She came out from behind him and waited for his scanning eyes to come back to her. “But you felt it, didn’t you? I could swear it was undead.”

“I felt something.” For the first time in ages—possibly ever—Sera realised she didn’t have his full attention. It piqued her.

“Did you see it? Him? Whatever…”

“I saw something. A shadow. He’s gone.”

“Who was it?”

Blair gazed around the room once more, paused at the window. “I don’t know.”

Sera frowned. “What’s the matter? Is this some kind of threat to you?”

He shook his head, and she stared up at him, a new, quite unfamiliar fear gathering in her stomach. “Blair, what
is
it? Why are you so…distant?”

His gaze came back to her. His lips quirked into a lopsided smile. “Distant? You’re the one who’s leaving.”

Her eyes narrowed. Was that what this was about? He wasn’t above manipulating her emotions for his own ends. Well, she wouldn’t let him, not tonight.

“So I am,” she said as if pleased to be reminded. “See you tomorrow.” She reached up to give him a quick peck on his cheek—a suitably distant embrace in the circumstances. But unexpectedly, his arm came around her, his other hand held her head, and he kissed her full on the mouth for long enough to remind her that he was completely naked and quite ready for Round Two.

“Tomorrow,” she forced herself to whisper against his lips, and when his arm loosened, she dragged herself reluctantly away and ran into the hall and along to the front door, glancing over her shoulder just to make sure there were no shadows lurking. There weren’t. Not even Blair’s.

In the fresh air, she wondered what the hell she was doing trudging home through the freezing darkness of a January evening when she could have been tucked up until morning with her gorgeous and energetic lover.

****

Jilly whipped herself up a quick salmon risotto—a wonderful recipe that didn’t require you to stand over the pot—and while it was cooking, she showered as she’d promised herself and changed into some sloppy pull-ons and a loose sweatshirt. On her way out of the bedroom, she caught sight of herself in the mirror with her hair all rumpled from pulling the sweatshirt over it. She paused and stared at herself.

There I am, she thought. The Jilly that no one else sees…. Except Sera, very occasionally. No makeup, no glamour, just dull old Jilly Kerr, vulnerable and powerless.

She stuck her tongue out at herself.
No, I’m bloody not.

She swung away from the mirror and went back to the kitchen to rescue the risotto. So, she reflected, the man in Ewan’s secret study…
Was
he some shade of Genesis Adam? Flown over from Australia, for God’s sake? From the blurry photos she’d seen, Adam certainly seemed to have been dark-haired, tall, and lanky in his youth, but that was hardly conclusive.

If her stranger really was the ghost of Adam, she thought, spooning risotto into a bowl, was it really likely there’d be two supernatural entities hiding out in Dale’s house? No. Either he was the other half of the poltergeist, or he wasn’t a ghost.

Which meant he was an actual person. Who? And what was he doing in Ewan’s house? And why was he pretending to be Adam? What was all this
Are you dead?
stuff?

Jilly grabbed the salad bowl from the fridge and carried it, together with her risotto, through to the living room and settled down on a cushion on the floor with her meal on the low coffee table in front of her. After a satisfying mouthful, she reached for her laptop bag and set the computer up next to her bowl.

Why didn’t I just ask the Ewans? Why didn’t I just say, ‘Who’s the weird guy wandering about your house?’

Because
she
was wandering where she’d no right to be. And because the guy had freaked her by appearing and disappearing without warning.

And somewhere, she had this ridiculous idea that she was protecting him. Because he was insane? Because he’d looked so lost and bewildered? Or because he’d said she had soft skin?

Because he’d touched her and she hadn’t immediately wanted to knee him in the groin. Like she’d come so close to doing to Dave Jenner only hours later.

Oh no. I will
not
be any more fucked up than I already am.

Banishing the whole Ewan episode from her mind for a little, she decided to concentrate on her social life instead. Which consisted of fellow techies, nerds, and hackers. People among whom she was comfortable, who didn’t care what she looked like or want to know anything about her personal life. She caught up with a few e-mails, continued a few long-running discussions and quick answers. Then someone on a forum reminded her of a very nifty code-breaking program she’d promised him, so she inserted the memory stick from her bag to see if she’d stored it there.

She clicked back to the forum and typed,
Searching for it now
. The code breaker told her a couple of jokes that had her sniggering, and she passed on another one she’d just had by e-mail. Then she flipped back to check on the memory-stick contents. The list of numbered files hit her like a football in the gut.

Fuck. How could I have forgotten about them?

With a pleasurable frisson of excitement, she hovered the mouse over the first file. She had no compunction about invading this kind of privacy, committing this kind of theft. She’d been doing it since school. She never profited by it, only learned. And if an uneasy voice whispered at the back of her mind that she had occasionally passed on this information to others who might well have profited, she ignored it. Other people’s acts and consciences were their own affairs. The Internet and anything you could make it do was fair game.

So long as you didn’t hurt anyone.

She clicked on the first file.

Nothing happened.

The forum conversation flashed impatiently at the bottom of her screen. She returned to it, began to type,
Searching for the right file n
. Before she finished the word, the forum screen vanished, and she found herself looking at a page from a newspaper.

She frowned. She’d never called that up. It was from a local newspaper archive, one of the inner pages of an issue from August last year. She was about to close it down with annoyance when a name leapt out at her. In fact, it was highlighted in red. Dale Ewan.

She blinked, then read. It was a brief report about a break-in at the home of Genesis Gaming’s owner. The thieves had apparently been disturbed by the alarm system and fled with nothing.

August. Round about the time the poltergeist made its first appearance. Why had the Ewans never mentioned that? Surely a break-in, even a foiled one, was a fairly major event for anyone?

Frowning, she went back to the search engine to find more. She never got the chance to type. The search page was replaced with a different newspaper page. This time a minor headline was highlighted in red.

“Two arrested in connection with Ewan burglary.”

This was bizarre. How was this stuff coming up, and how was it highlighting exactly the bits she was interested in?

Releasing the mouse as if afraid it was reading her mind, she sat back on her heels and read the paragraph.

“Two men known to Edinburgh police have been arrested in connection with the recent burglary at the luxury home of millionaire Dale Ewan. Ewan, thirty-two, is the co-owner of thriving computer game company, Genesis Gaming. The two arrested have been named as Andrew Kerr, 30, and George Kerr, 27, both from Edinburgh.”

Jilly clutched at her hair. Oh no. Her own brothers had broken into the Ewans’ house? Why hadn’t she known this?

Because she avoided knowing anything about them at all if she could.

Without warning, the article disappeared. Another page replaced it with an even smaller highlighted paragraph.

“The two men arrested on Friday for the break-in at the luxury home of computer-game giant Dale Ewan have been released without charge.”

Jilly tugged at her hair in frustration. What did that mean? That they didn’t do it? That the police had no real evidence against them? That some lawyer got them off on a technicality? Whatever that meant.

Shite. I’m going to have to go home.

Almost blindly, she went through the motions of finding and sending the code-breaking file, then removed the memory stick from her computer. Something on it must have been calling up the newspaper articles, something she’d inadvertently downloaded from Ewan’s computer.

Staring at the screen, she shovelled risotto into her mouth without tasting it. If Ewan had cared enough about the burglary to keep newspaper articles relating to it, why hadn’t he mentioned it to her and Sera?

One of her favourite chat programs flashed. Apparently, Exodus wanted to chat.

Who was Exodus again? Whatever, she needed something else to think about. Maybe everything would make sense if she stopped worrying at it. She clicked Allow.

Exodus: Thanks.

JK: For what?

Exodus: Talking. Did you read the articles?

Jilly laid down her fork. For a moment, she stared at the screen, then swallowed the food still in her mouth and typed rapidly, using both hands, setting off the best virus scan software she knew. Only then did she answer Exodus cagily.

JK: What articles?

Exodus: On the burglary at Dale’s house.

JK: YOU sent me the articles?

Exodus: Yes.

JK: How?

Exodus: You mean why.

JK: No, I mean how.

Keep him chatting. The scan will find him, and then he’s mince.

Exodus: The usual way.

JK: Bollocks. How’d you get access to my computer?

Exodus: You gave me it.

JK: No, I fucking didn’t.

The scan results began to flash up at the corner of her screen. They included one huge new data file that she certainly hadn’t put there. Although not identified as harmful, it was numbered, like the files she’d stolen from Ewan. They seemed to have moved from the memory stick without permission. It was spooky, like Hal taking over the ship in
2001
.

Exodus: I won’t harm your computer.

JK: Damn right. What do you want?

Exodus: Something’s wrong. You woke me up.

JK: Hey. YOU contacted ME.

Exodus: I mean earlier. You’re the girl with the soft skin.

Chapter Four

The beautiful girl on his monitor dragged her hand through her rumpled hair, tugging it as she stared at her own computer screen. She looked different but no less gorgeous without all the makeup, her hair damp and clinging as if from a recent shower. But she was definitely the same girl he’d met this morning. Just… softer. And she was some technical whiz too, judging by all the stuff on her tiny laptop.

He remembered the soft skin of her cheek under his fingers, the big, defiant blue eyes staring at him from a lovely, carefully made-up face. The face she showed the world. But even this morning, here in Dale’s lab, he’d been intrigued by the layers of character and tragedy behind the mask she wore. To say nothing of the intelligence that shone out of her eyes like the sun.

Letting go of her hair, she began to type.

JK: Where are you?

Exodus: Dale’s.

JK: Why? What are you doing there?

Exodus: Don’t know. Don’t seem able to leave.

JK: Who are you? What’s your first name?

Exodus: Call me Adam.

JK: You invaded my computer, I’ll call you whatever I like.

He grinned at that. Fair point. Would she pursue it? Apparently she would.

JK: What’s your first name?

He hesitated from habit, because he had such a ridiculous first name. And because he’d no idea what her reaction would be. Only one way to find out.

Exodus: Genesis.

JK: Aye, right. You’re Genesis Adam? Cofounder of Genesis Gaming? Now calling yourself EXODUS?
Please.

Exodus: I
was
Genesis Adam. I died.

JK: Genesis Adam certainly did.

Exodus: The night of the break-in at Dale’s.

JK: I hate to break it to you. But Genesis Adam died two months after the burglary. In Australia.

It was his turn to stare at the screen in total silence. Such a small thing to be thrown by, but he felt suddenly rudderless, dizzy, without any certainty to hold on to. He thought he’d remembered it all, knew what he was, what he’d done and where. But this, this wasn’t even part of any nebulous thought he ever recalled crossing his mind.

Exodus: I don’t remember that. Why was I in Australia?

JK: You emigrated.

Exodus: I did? Why?

JK: You tell me.

He only wished he could. Right now, this girl was his only link with the present or the past, his only way to any knowledge at all.

Exodus: What happened after I was shot?

JK: This is your story. Why should I do all the work?

Exodus: You don’t believe me.

JK: No, but don’t take it personally. I’m hard to fool. I just can’t see where you’re going with this.

Exodus: Why did you wake me up?

JK: I didn’t.

She did. She must have. She’d been the only one there when he’d arrived… But her lovely face looked sculpted in marble as she stared at the screen, waiting for his response. Her full lips had thinned and set, her eyes were wide and wary. And when she shoved her unruly hair out of her face, her hand shook.

Fuck.
She didn’t know anything about him. That was the truth. She’d flicked the switch by accident, copied the wrong file by accident, and now he was stalking her. Frightening her.

Blackness clawed its way up his spine. He was on his own.

Exodus: OK. Sorry. I’ll sort it out. Thnx.

Exodus is offline.

He pushed himself away from the computer, flummoxed, ashamed but not yet defeated. Only his weird sense of unreality kept the panic at bay. He just had to consider the situation logically until he found the solution to his problem. He was used to that. So…

The memories slowly clearing in his mind confirmed his identity. Everything he’d told the girl, JK, was true. So far as he knew. He remembered being shot quite distinctly, in this house, although from whom or exactly where the shot had come from he’d no idea. Yet.

And he definitely wasn’t alive. If he was, he wouldn’t be able to connect to JK’s computer like he just had, to see her through her webcam when she hadn’t even switched it on. Part of him had remained here in Dale’s lab, typing, while, bizarrely, another, nebulous part of him had seemed to be swirling around the circuits of JK’s laptop. That was not natural, or even possible, even in a VR program.

But God, the girl was even more beautiful without the mask, without the tough edges she affected in her speech and mannerisms. Although her typed words were direct enough. Her eyes were still defiant, but she hadn’t been hiding tonight. Her unglossed, natural mouth had seemed to reveal unexpected vulnerability. He wanted to taste the softness of her lips… An odd desire for a dead man.

Why had she been here this morning? She’d wakened him by accident. She was curious, but not, it seemed, investigating his death. Which she said had happened in Australia.

So why had his ghost popped up in Dale’s Scottish home five months after his death? And why couldn’t he leave this room except via a computer connection?

Because he’d forced his spirit into his own VR program. Hadn’t he felt himself doing that as he whooshed to consciousness? But where had the compulsion come from? Some weird instinct to go on existing in some form, any form? He couldn’t grasp that bit. It had just happened.

Adam rubbed his forehead tiredly. He’d things to do. Important things, only he couldn’t quite work out what they were. He had to talk to Dale. And if he could talk to JK this way, surely it wasn’t impossible to contact his partner the same way.

He reached for the mouse again and found Dale’s computer quicker than a shot. In fact, he even found the security cameras. They weren’t switched on, but again that didn’t seem to matter.

From the security camera focused on the window, and from the webcam built into Dale’s laptop, he got a double view of his friend sitting on the sofa of the huge sitting room downstairs, one of his laptops on the low glass table in front of him. Petra would tell him off for scratching it. Except she wasn’t there.

Dale looked harassed, as if he wasn’t sleeping well. Difficulties with the new system, maybe. How far had he been able to take it in five months? So much Adam needed to know…

Adam connected into Dale’s open chat program, and from the lab typed, “Fancy a pint?”

Which had an unexpectedly dramatic effect. Dale dropped the mouse on the floor and leapt to his feet. At the same time, the curtains whooshed high into the air; Dale’s hair seemed literally to stand on end; and the laptop flew onto the floor as if an unseen hand had picked it up and hurled it.

Dale clutched his head in both hands. “Stop it, Adam!” he yelled. “Just fucking stop it!”

****

In Edinburgh’s dark Old Town, the vampire Blair leapt off the tenement roof, landed in the back court, and yanked the fledgling off his female victim before hurling him into the wall with enough force to have killed a human. As it was, he hoped it gave the stupid little shite a big headache.

Ignoring the third vampire who stood uncertainly in the shadows, Blair caught the terrified gaze of the victim and hooked her. Slowly, the fear faded from her eyes as her mind adjusted to the new memory he was installing there: a foiled attack and no harm done. Still holding her mesmerised gaze, Blair licked his forefinger and pressed it to the ugly wounds in her throat. But the clumsy fledgling had made a mess, and Blair, driving down his own hunger, had to use his tongue to repair the damage. As it was, the girl would be pretty weak for a couple of days, so he planted the possibility of flu in her head and sent her on her way.

By that time, the fledgling, Connor, was staggering to his feet, clutching his head.

“What the fuck was that for?” he raged.

Blair forced open Connor’s reluctant telepathic pathways. “If you don’t know that,” he told him coldly, “I might as well kill you now.”

Jason, the third vampire, emerged from the shadows, looking anxious as he always did.

“I’ve got to feed,” Connor whined. “Even you do that!”

“You were killing her, you moron. I’ve seen wild dogs with better table manners than you. You took too much, and you hurt her. How did you expect her to forget that?”

Connor laughed, an act of foolish bravado, because before he could even notice the movement, Blair’s hand was squeezing his throat. “You didn’t, did you?” Blair said softly. “You don’t care. Better start caring, then, because the next time I witness anything like that—and, I’m watching, Connor, never doubt that—I’ll kill you without a second thought. No pause, no discussion. Your imbecility endangers all of us, and I won’t allow it.”

Blair shook him like a rat and threw him from him once more. Connor’s defiance needed to be dealt with, but even so, Blair was aware his irritation was out of proportion. Because he almost hadn’t noticed. His mind had been too much on his own problems, on Sera, on the shadow he was sure he knew. Otherwise, he’d have noticed earlier that Connor was going too far and stepped in before he’d taken so much blood from the girl.

Connor’s slipup was not an unusual one in fledglings, but right now, with so many of the wretched creatures still skulking in Edinburgh since last year’s fiasco, they couldn’t afford to allow any to pass, and keeping track of them all occupied far too much of Blair’s time.

As Connor stumbled away to sleep off his banquet, Jason said excusingly, “He just got carried away.”

Blair scowled. “Well, none of us can afford for that to happen. I’m going to start killing anyone who gets ‘carried away’ from now on. Spread the word.”

Jason nodded unhappily. He looked pale and unwell. Blair sighed. Mentoring the fledglings was not a job he particularly enjoyed. Someone just had to do it, or there would soon be chaos in the city and the existence of vampires might well be discovered. But on the whole, morons like Connor were more easily dealt with than Jason, who, since the battle in Holyrood Park that had killed so many of his fellow fledglings, had clung to his humanity as if it were a lifeline rather his death knell.

“When did you last feed?”

“I was going to bite
her
,” Jason said with a jerk of his head toward the street. “But Connor got there first.”

“Don’t hunt in pairs,” Blair said. “It leads to competition and idiocy like tonight’s. Hunt alone. You’re better at it than Connor, and if you keep your wits about you, you’ll be the one who survives the longest.”

Even as he said the words, though, he doubted they were true. No longer bound to the sorcerer who’d initiated his “turning” and free from all instruction but Blair’s, Jason found himself rudderless and miserable. In fact, Blair suspected if it wasn’t for his devoted parents, Jason would have let himself die by now. Which plucked an uncomfortable chord in Blair’s own far older and much more selfish soul.

On the other hand, Jason had the intelligence and the finesse the others lacked.

“Walk with me,” Blair said abruptly, and obediently, Jason fell into step with him. They strolled out of the courtyard and into the alley beyond, meandering up the hill toward the Royal Mile.

“I have other things on my mind than you lot,” Blair said at last.

“Better things, I imagine,” Jason said humbly.

Oh yes. Sera and her ridiculous job, which he seemed to have fallen into. Plus he had to watch out for the Founder now and protect her from any move that entity might make. If he could. How the hell did one protect anyone from the most powerful being on the Earth? At any rate, he had to try. Even if she was drifting away from him.

For a moment, an echo of the old blackness slithered into his mind. He shoved it aside. He could win Sera’s body whenever he chose to. He couldn’t force her to feel more, to relax into the deeper companionship he craved. He could only wait and see, and watch out for her. And so he answered Jason, “Better? Not necessarily. Just ‘other.’”

He glanced at the fledgling thoughtfully.
Make-or-break time, Jason.
“So, how would you like to be my lieutenant here in Edinburgh?”

Jason’s jaw dropped. “Me? They wouldn’t listen to me!”

“More fool them. You’re the one with the brains.”

“Unfortunately, you need brawn to make that count with them,” Jason said dryly.

“I can give you brawn.”

Jason’s brow twitched. “You can?”

Blair stopped. He knew the alley was empty, but he cast a glance up at the tenement windows on either side. There weren’t many at this angle, and all were dark.

“Bite me,” he said.

“What?” said Jason in alarm.

“Drink my blood,” Blair said impatiently. “Don’t worry, I won’t let you have much. For one thing, you couldn’t handle it. It will make you much stronger than the rest. One demonstration should be all you’ll need to keep the shits like Connor in line. You’ll watch them and discipline them, and if you have trouble, you come to me. Sound fair?”

Jason closed his mouth. For a few moments, his eyes stood out like organ stops at the very idea. Then the possibilities began to filter through quite visibly. It was a purpose, a necessary purpose beyond his next meal, and Blair knew from experience that any vampire with intelligence needed one of those.

He held his head to one side, exposing his neck. “Do it, then.”

Jason advanced, reached hesitant arms up to Blair’s shoulders, and swallowed once, convulsively, before he bit.

Christ, it felt good. It had been so long since anyone had drunk from him, he’d forgotten… It was actually a wrench, after a few seconds, to yank Jason back by the hair with a curt, “Enough.” But the difference in the fledgling was immediate. He didn’t just look suddenly healthier— rosy-skinned and fuller in face and body; he looked…purposeful.

Pleased, Blair nodded. “Go home. Sleep it off and start your new role tomorrow night. We’ll stay in touch.”

And he strode off. When he glanced back over his shoulder, Jason was standing in the middle of the alley, spinning as he gazed up at the sky with all the enhanced perception and understanding he’d gained from his few sips of Blair’s blood. Perhaps it would bring him closer to the Founder and a longer existence. Perhaps.

But Blair couldn’t think about that now. Jason’s bite had opened the floodgates of his own hunger, his own sexual desire. He wanted to pin Sera beneath him and drink from her all night while fucking her senseless. Oh yes.