Serafina and the Virtual Man (9 page)

Blair teased her nipple and spoke in her mind. “The poltergeist?”

“I promised I’d find its killer. But…”

“It frightens you,” Blair observed, wrapping his lips around the nipple and gently tugging.

“I told the Ewans I was stronger than it. I don’t think I am.”

Blair eased himself back inside her body, and she gasped, half with pleasure and half with annoyance.

“Damn it, are you even listening to me?”

“I can listen to you and fuck you at the same time. You’re afraid it won’t go away even when its killer is found, because it’s developed a taste for causing havoc and it’s stronger than you.”

Sated as she already was, Sera’s body began to move without permission, distracting her from less pleasant thoughts. “Blair, I’m serious.”

“So am I,” he said huskily, arching and moving with more emphasis. “I’ll catch it for you.”

“Catch it?” she repeated, grabbing at his head to keep him focused. “How?”

“Vampires scare the crap out of all spirits. Didn’t you know?”

She closed her wide-open mouth. “No,” she managed before Blair opened it again with his. She couldn’t
not
kiss Blair. It was physically impossible. Although, when her lips were free once more, she did remember to gasp out, “And what’s with Jilly and this Adam program? She talks about him as if he’s still alive—Adam
is
dark, Adam
is
as tall as Blair. I’m worried about her.”

“Don’t be. Think of something else.”

“You?” she suggested, and he reared up, reaching impossibly far inside her.

“Me,” he agreed.

Sera smiled and stroked his powerful thighs. “All right,” she agreed. “Just for tonight…”

****

In a quiet cottage near Loch Lomond, Melanie Merrow had her face in a book. Literally. She woke up to find her cheek resting on the pages of the ancient and valuable tome she’d managed to borrow from a suspicious witch only with promises of exceptional care. Dribbling on its pristine pages could certainly count as exceptional.

She lifted her head, and, with the white gloves she’d promised to wear while handling the book, she guiltily swiped at the tiny marks of moisture. It would dry out. Zoe would never know, and the book would still be there.

Damn, she hadn’t meant to fall asleep. Her watch told her it was nearly three o’clock in the morning, so she must have been out for at least an hour.

I need to get my life back, Melanie thought ruefully, and stop chasing shadows. It was all Sera’s fault, of course, not just encountering vampires, of all illusive and mysterious paranormal beings, but having a relationship with one. Blair was certainly a fascinating being—and damned sexy—but his importance to Melanie went beyond whatever happiness or unhappiness he brought to Sera. He had knowledge, knowledge that had pointed her to the road she was now on.

Snoring on a priceless book was hardly an auspicious road. But at least, before she’d fallen asleep looking for further references, she’d discovered a direct mention of the Founder.

And when the men captured the vampire and laid him in a grave, preparing to drive the stake through his heart, the Founder appeared and the vampire vanished with him. The village knew no further assaults from the unnatural world.

Smiling, Melanie marked her page with a strip of acid-free paper, closed the book, and stroked it. So the Founder, the once mortal human from whom all vampires were descended, even the mass-produced and inferior survivors of last year’s battle, had been in Bulgaria around 1620. Whether his intention had been to save the village from a marauding killer vampire or to save that vampire from execution, he’d been there. A tiny discovery that felt like a massive breakthrough to Melanie.

She stood up, yawning, and stumbled out of her sitting room in the general direction of the bathroom. Since the hall was in darkness, she reached for the light switch, and some deeper darkness surged in front of her eyes.

Her heart swooped in sudden alarm. All the protective spells she’d ever learned vanished from her mind.

I’m mince, she thought with resignation.

Nothing happened.

Melanie let out her breath and flicked the light switch. There was nothing there. No shadow, no creature, no feeling of malevolence. Had the surging shadow been malevolent? It hadn’t hung around long enough for her to find out.

But then, she was knackered. She’d already been asleep and wasn’t exactly at her sharpest. The shadow could easily have been imagination. She relaxed and crossed the hall to the bathroom, reminding herself that the whole house was protected by the strongest of spells. Anything evil—or even anything very
un
evil that hadn’t been invited—would have a bloody hard job getting through her protection. She was a strong witch.

Still, it left her uneasy. She’d phone Sera in the morning, get her to come up here and check the place for any uninvited presences.

****

“Andy, wake up, you lazy arse.”

Unwilling to touch any of the dirty clothes lying on the floor this time, Jilly resorted to manual and merely shook her brother awake until he sat bolt upright in bed yelling, “Fuck off!”

“Trust me I will. Did you kill some poor bastard when you broke into the Ewans’ house?”

“Shite, not this again,” Andy groaned. “Have I not got enough on my plate? I told you, we didn’t have a gun. The shot came from someone else, and we ran away.”

“I didn’t ask if you shot him. Did you strangle him?”

Andy stared, blinked, and opened his mouth.

“Think carefully,” Jilly warned, “because if I even
suspect
you’re not telling the truth I’ll bring Sera MacBride here to find out.”

“Jillian, for f—”

“Did you or George strangle someone?”

“Of course we bloody didn’t!”

Huffily, he threw himself back down on the pillow and dragged the quilt up over his ears.

After a moment, Jilly said reluctantly, “So what’s piled so high on your plate, then?”

“Aw, nothing,” Andy said, his voice muffled by the covers. “Just some big psycho bastard got wind of the night I slept with his girlfriend. Word is, he isn’t pleased.”

“Better start grovelling, then,” Jilly advised.

“Don’t think that works on Axel.”

“Axel?” Jilly repeated with disbelief.

“Aye, it’s the axe you have to worry about.”

Jilly scowled at the huddle of quilt. “So what are you going to do?”

“Pray,” Andy said, dragging the quilt down as far as one ear. “At the moment, he doesn’t know it was me. So as long as no one grasses me up, I’m fine.”

Jilly saw no reason to encourage that line of insane optimism. “You’re dead, then,” she observed, and turned and left.

Chapter Nine

Sera was cramming a piece of toast into her mouth and reaching for her coffee at the same time when her phone rang. Which was annoying. She was already late and in a hurry, and the toast was still warm. She didn’t have time to make a fresh slice, even supposing there was any more bread in Blair’s house. Human food was not high on his shopping list.

Still chewing, she grabbed the coffee with her right hand and picked up her phone from the living room table with her left. It was Melanie, so she answered.

Melanie was her only link with the past, with her real parents, the one continuous thread which had run through Sera’s disjointed life. Besides being a powerful witch, the apprentice of Sera’s own mother, she was Sera’s best friend in the world after Jilly. There was no way she wouldn’t answer Melanie, however tempting the siren call of warm, buttered toast.

“Hi, Mel,” she mumbled with her mouth full.

“Sera?”

“Yes, it’s me. Breakfast,” she explained, swallowing. She took a gulp of coffee. “What’s up?”

“Oh, nothing. Everything’s fine. Just wondered if you had a few free hours to come up here?”

“Today? Don’t think I can. I have this appointment at ten, and besides, the shit’s hit the fan over a poltergeist thingy, and I have a dead body and the police to contend with. Talking of which, Mel, can I pick your brains?”

“Sure.”

“Have you ever heard of a spirit split into two? One half poltergeist? Any spells that might do that?”

“Never heard of any,” Mel answered after a moment’s pause. “I can check. If you come up here and check my place for spirits.”

Sera frowned. “What sort of spirits?” she demanded and took another bite of toast.

Blair, dressed in jeans and no shirt, wandered into the room and picked up the other mug of coffee. Stupidly, it gave her a warm feeling, as if they were a normal couple going through the morning routine together. Only they weren’t, and she shouldn’t like this so much; she shouldn’t want this so much. He was a fucking vampire. He didn’t play houses and happy families.

“I don’t know,” Mel was saying. “I just thought I saw something last night. But I was tired and half-asleep, so it’s probably nothing. Just freaked me.”

Sera swallowed her toast. “What did you see?”

“Just a shadow, a deeper space of darkness, and it moved so fast I couldn’t even make out its shape.”

Sera lifted her gaze to Blair, who was already staring at her with troubling intensity. With his amazing hearing, he’d be able to make out every word Melanie said.

He spoke inside her mind. “What was she doing when she saw it? What was she working on?”

Sera relayed the question.

“Nothing,” Melanie said. “Just reading. I fell asleep over the book, woke up, and staggered off to bed. I saw this thing—or didn’t—during the staggering part.”

“What were you reading?” Sera asked while Blair continued to watch her. For some reason, it made her more uneasy than randy, although she had to admit to elements of both.

“A history of magic in Bulgaria.”

“Well, that explains why you fell asleep.”

“Philistine.”

“Did you cast any spells that day?”

“No, I’ve just been reading recently, researching.”

“You’re avoiding telling me what you’ve been researching,” Sera observed. “Spill, Mel. What are you up to?”

Melanie sighed down the phone. “I just got interested in this Founder character of Blair’s after he told us about him last autumn. So I’ve been seeing what I could find out about him.”

Blair closed his eyes.

“Mel, you haven’t been trying to
summon
him?” Sera said uneasily, and Blair’s eyes flew open again.

“God, no,” Melanie answered, much to her relief and, apparently, Blair’s. He sat down and drank his coffee in several gulps. Not for the first time, Sera wondered how his body dealt with that. He never ate anything solid, but liquids he just seemed to absorb, somehow. Like blood.

“I’ve just been finding out all I can about his life and legend and the kind of magic he practiced. Fascinating, although, to be honest, there’s bugger all there, and what there is, is damned difficult to trace. Vampires don’t exactly recount their history for humans to write down.”

“There’s a reason for that,” Blair said harshly in Sera’s head. “The Founder’s basic tenet was as little contact as possible between humans and vampires. We’re different species, different worlds, and only connect very fleetingly to feed. For her own safety, she has to stop looking.”

Connect very fleetingly…
Stricken, Sera relayed Blair’s words like an automaton. But they had a quite different effect on Mel.

“Wow,” she breathed. “You mean I felt him? The shadow was
him
? The Founder?”

That penetrated Sera’s hurt. Because it would explain what she and Blair had seen and felt the previous night, the shadow vanishing across his bedroom. And Blair’s weird reaction. She stared at him, but he only shrugged.

“More likely something sent by him to check on her. But if he’s noticed her at all, she should stop.”

Sera relayed that too, adding, “I’ll call you later, Mel, let you know when I can come up.”

“Great. See you soon. Bye.”

Sera broke the connection. “Something sent by him to check on her,” she repeated. “And us?”

He was silent for several moments. Long enough for her to take a last mouthful of coffee and put on her leather jacket. Then he said, “I don’t know. Maybe.”

“He wouldn’t approve of you and me being together, would he?”

“No.”

“But you’ve been with other humans. You told me that months ago.”

“No one—” He broke off and stood up. “Only fleetingly.”

“Like all human connections?” She meant it to be light, mocking, but it came out too harshly, almost accusing.

He stood up and walked over to her, laying his mug deliberately on the table beside hers. Then he placed both hands on her shoulders. “You were never fleeting. You were always different, and I will keep you.”

Her heart, her whole body surged with warmth. It didn’t matter that she wasn’t an object to be kept like a favourite book or a pet. She wanted to be kept by him.
Oh Sera, Sera, where have you gone wrong?

Perhaps misunderstanding the distress leaking from her expression or her mind, Blair said firmly, “The Founder will not hurt you.”

Her breath caught. “Shit, Blair, would he hurt
you
for this? For me?”

Blair shook his head. “Why should he? You’re already up to your neck in the paranormal. You’re not a normal human, and our being together is no threat to vampires. Maybe we attracted his attention, briefly—probably by killing all those banking vampires last year—but trust me, he’s got better things to do.”

Sera felt her eyes widen. “The banking vampires. Would he regard them as his people too, however they were made? Is he pissed off with us for that?”

“Of course not.” Blair’s voice in her head sounded affronted. “We did the right thing for vampires. There were never intended to be such numbers and certainly not such mingling with humans. And we’re trying to look after the ones that are left. Besides, if he was angry, I suspect we’d know. In fact, we’d have known four months ago.”

“Okay… But if Mel’s also attracted his attention because of her part in all that, and there’s a connection between us, which there is, isn’t that going to worry him?”

“Why should it? We’ll all be fine if Melanie pulls back on her obsessive searching. He’s just looking, Sera. We probably weren’t even meant to notice. I probably wouldn’t have if you hadn’t picked up on an extra presence.”

Sera reached up and kissed him, hard. “Stuff him, then. I’m going to kick some poltergeist arse.”

****

Since Jilly didn’t want Adam to know she was checking up on him—if he was still around and if he really was Adam—Jilly pushed Jack off his computer and used his instead to track down Roxy May. As if relieved, Jack went to the library to do his research there.

Jilly had just discovered Roxy’s registration at the Scotsman Hotel when Alex McGowan breezed into the office like a ginger tornado. “Where’s Sera?”

Since Elspeth was the only other person present in the office, Jilly opened her mouth and yelled, “Sera!”

Alex blinked. “Wow. You’re so…unexpected.”

“You mean common,” Jilly said dryly.

“Oh no,” Alex said with enough fervour to widen her eyes with surprise.

“Where’s the fire?” Sera demanded, emerging from her inner office.

“On his head,” Jilly said unkindly.

Alex sniggered, and the unlikely thought crossed her mind that it wasn’t just Sera he’d come to like since their first inauspicious meeting last autumn.

“I’m in a hurry,” Alex said. “So here it is. If I give you this, you keep me in the loop about anything else—anything at all—that you discover in this case.”

“Deal,” Sera said promptly.

Alex rested his hip on the edge of Jack’s desk. “We’ve ID’d your body. One James Killearn, tough boy, hit man and all-round villain, associated with drugs gangs among other unsavoury organizations. Disappeared off our radar around August last year.”

Jilly met Sera’s stunned gaze with her own.

“Someone hit the hit man?” Sera said faintly.

“Looks like it. Initial examination shows he was strangled.”

“Not shot?” Jilly said quickly.

Alex frowned. “No signs of gunshot wounds. Why?”

“More of my visions,” Sera said hastily. “Anything else?”

“What, apart from the fact that we’ve also discovered his killer?” Alex said casually.

“You have?” Sera brightened. “That should make things easier.”

Maybe, Jilly thought. Maybe not.

“Who?” Sera demanded. “Who done it?”

“Genesis Adam.”

Jilly’s ears sang. She knew she sagged in her chair but seemed incapable of self-control. It should have been relief at having George and Andy in the clear—although the bastards should really be sent down for something. But it wasn’t. It wasn’t.

“Well,” Sera said at last. “That’s astonished us. I suppose it explains his sudden urge to leave the country. And why the body was buried in the Ewans’ garden.”

And possibly why the Ewans had covered it up. If they did. And why Adam hadn’t been welcome anymore in their house.

“By all accounts, Adam was into drink and drugs. Which would explain his association with a lowlife like Killearn.”

“But not why Killearn came after him,” Sera argued. “It’s not as if Genesis Adam couldn’t afford a drug habit. Financially speaking.”

“Doesn’t mean he paid his bills,” Alex pointed out.

“How do you know?” Jilly asked suddenly.

“Know what?”

“That Adam killed Killearn.”

Alex straightened. “His fingerprints were all over the gold medallion thing around the victim’s neck. Looks like Adam tried to strangle him with that before resorting to his hands to finish the job.

“I’ve got to go.” He took a pace forward, then paused and glanced back at Jilly. “You know your brothers were arrested for breaking into the Ewans’ house round about the time Killearn must have died?”

“Yes, I know that,” Jilly said.

“They don’t do violent crime,” Sera said quickly.

Alex turned to stare at her. Jilly didn’t blame him. The constable said, “Sera, they’ve been done for assault. Twice.”

“Yes, but not
murder
,” Sera objected. “That’s serious.”

“There’s something else about that break-in,” Jilly said, dragging her thoughts back into some semblance of sense. “Off the record.”

Alex hesitated, then nodded.

“Someone told George and Andy they could get in easily, that no one would be at home and the alarm would be switched off. The alarm
was
switched off, but the Ewans were there.”

Alex frowned. “You think your brothers were set up to take the fall for whoever Killearn was there to kill?”

“It crossed my mind.”

“By whom?”

Jilly shrugged. “I have no idea. Believe it or not, I don’t move in their circles.”

Alex sighed. “I know,” he said, surprising her for the second time that morning. “Just wanted to warn you that my partner might want to question you about that coincidence.”

“Thanks,” Jilly muttered.

She and Sera watched Alex leave, then looked at each other.

Sera said, “Maybe the poltergeist doesn’t know Adam’s dead.”

Jilly nodded.

Sera hesitated, then, “It might have been self-defence. Or drug-induced hallucination. We don’t know what he took. I know he’s a techie hero, Jilly, but you shouldn’t care this much.”

“I don’t know that I do.” Right now, she wasn’t sure of anything. “I think I might have been scammed. By your poltergeist. I definitely don’t like that.”

Sera opened her mouth to say more, then caught sight of the clock. “Shite. I have an appointment at ten. Got to dash.”

She ran back into the inner office and came back with her jacket, bag, and car keys before flying out the door in typically chaotic Sera style.

Elspeth shook her head with wry amusement. “Coffee?” she suggested, just as Sera leapt back in the door and slammed it shut.

“Your dad’s coming this way,” she gasped. “Get out through the flat.”

Jilly didn’t need to be told twice. Without coat or laptop, she bolted into the inner office and slammed the door. Leaning against it, she listened to the heightened beat of her heart and wondered why so little had changed.

The door to Serafina’s tinkled open and closed.

Sera’s voice said coldly, “What do you want?”

Jilly shut her eyes. Oh yes, it was her dad all right.

“I’m looking for Jillian.”

Bastard.
She heaved herself across the room and through the other door into Sera’s flat. She took one of Sera’s jackets from the hooks in the narrow entrance hall, slipped out the flat door, and ran around the corner.

****

Genesis Adam stared broodingly at the computer screen. She hadn’t spoken to him since last night. Which was a good thing, only it didn’t feel that way. He felt lost again, almost like when she’d first wakened him up and he couldn’t remember anything.