Serafina and the Silent Vampire

CHAPTER Nine


“Smooth-tongued devil,” Phil drawled when Blair walked into the upstairs sitting room. Blair threw the nearest whisky bottle at him with enough force to break a human head. Inevitably, Phil caught it and raised it to his lips. Blair made do with pouring himself some whisky from the other bottle.

“Nice girl,” Phil remarked as Blair threw himself into the nearest chair. “Scary girl, but nice. Good, strong, sweet-smelling blood. If you didn’t want her after all, you might have passed her on to me.”

Blair took a sizable gulp of his whisky.

“I thought you wanted her to track those vampires?” Phil said.

“Don’t need her to now, do I? I have an invitation to meet with them and discuss my role in their Big Plan.”

“Do I have a role too?”

“They might get you a nice job in a distillery.”

“Sounds dull.”

Blair curled his lip.

“You scared her off,” Phil said.

Blair took another sip, rested his head on the back of his chair, and closed his eyes.

“Pity,” Phil went on.

Why couldn’t the bastard shut up for five minutes?

“Seems to me she’s lots more fun than your banking vampires.”

Serafina with her smart mouth and eager lips and long, lithe legs… “Lots,” Blair agreed.

“Then why get rid of her without so much as a bite?”

“She had—expectations,” Blair said impatiently. “Too many for someone so cynical. I’m not her ally or her crusading partner. I’m a f*cking vampire!”

“Don’t seem to be doing too much of that either, if you ask me,” Phil remarked, taking another, audible swig from the bottle.

Blair opened his eyes to find Phil watching him with far too much perception. To say nothing of the mockery.

“I love it when you have an attack of conscience,” Phil crowed. “You scared her off to save her from yourself. What will you do now? Single-handedly defeat the new vampires for her? Or join them and get stinking rich in human wealth and blood? Manage an investment bank, perhaps?”

“Perhaps,” said Blair. “Or perhaps I’ll kill you while I decide.”

Phil belched.

“You’re an uncivilized bastard. Get out of my house.”

Phil smiled amiably, for all the world like a sleepy, human drunk. “Sure,” he said, stretching his legs out on the sofa.

They both knew Blair was glad of his presence. It kept the bleakness at bay. But Blair would never tell him. He let the silence enfold them, tried to focus on the vampires’ plan without thinking of Serafina.

“It’s not natural, is it?” he said at last.

“The creation of the new vampires? Or their plan?”

“Both. They’re ignorant of their gifts. And their doom.”

Phil paused, the bottle hovering over his lips. “You believe that? That the further the descent from the Founder, the more corrupt the vampire body?”

“Don’t you?”

Phil shrugged. “Maybe. On the other hand, you’re third generation, I’m fourth, but my body’s at least as fit as yours.”

“One generation’s difference is nothing. Neither is a decade or two in terms of immortality. But these new vampires, even the ones that came from the south, weren’t so old. I’d say seventh or eighth generation at least, and it’s their creations who’re making more. Maybe the Founder’s qualities have been too diluted, and that’s why they’ve no telepathy. And why they can talk.”

“Then all we have to do is wait for them to die out? Wait until they sicken or commit suicide?”

“If you’re prepared to wait a decade or two. Maybe three. They could do a lot of damage in that time.”

As if he’d finally remembered it was there, Phil put the bottle to his lips and drank. “Poor sods. They think they’re immortal.”

“Maybe they’ll reach the stage where the turning just doesn’t work anymore. I don’t know. But there’s a reason so few vampires are made, and they don’t even know what it is. Apart from the blood drinking, they’re not even living like vampires.”

Phil pursed his lips thoughtfully while stroking the rim of his bottle. “It’s not the way we’ve ever lived before,” he admitted. “Banks, money, government: traditionally, they’re human concerns and nothing to do with us.”

“We exist in silence among them, not of them,” Blair said intensely. For once, the thoughts poured out of him, and he made no effort to stem the turbulent flow. “We drift past them like shadows, legends they’re too frightened to believe in. For decades, centuries on end, we stay in their houses, stalk them in dark streets, prey off their blood, and they never even hear us. They mustn’t, or they’d know we were there. Alien worlds, frightened of each other, totally separate in any way that matters. We don’t speak to them because there’s nothing to say. The Founder was right about that.”

“Was he? I found it quite fun talking to her.”

Blair rubbed the bridge of his nose, then abruptly dropped his hand and glared at Phil. He didn’t even know why he was angry, except that it was something to do with Serafina and impossible desires. With being old and jaded. “Where is it written that nothing can change? That nothing should?”

Phil shrugged. “I never knew we wrote anything down.” Once again, his eyes were too piercing, too perceptive. And it annoyed Blair further to glimpse the cloud of concern that lurked behind. It wasn’t the first time in his long existence that Blair had thought such things, but the blackness of forty years ago was past, and Phil should know it.

Phil’s lips curved upward into a rueful smile. “My rebel friend, we could turn the world upside down, if it would amuse you; let the humans live off the scraps we can spare instead of the other way around. We could drink them dry for fun, steal their money, enslave them. But we’d still never be able to speak to them. Not to the vast majority, anyhow.”

“Does that matter?”

“It never has before,” Phil acknowledged.

It didn’t matter to Serafina. They could converse as easily as two vampires or two humans. She was a rare find.

Phil said, “A little expectation can be good for a bored vampire.”

Something unpleasant passed through Blair’s body to his head, where it lingered, throbbing. It took him several moments to recognize it as pain.

****

“Hey,” Jilly said, sticking her head around the door of the inner office where Sera was composing a speech for a spirit that didn’t exist. She’d spout it next week for a wealthy but harmless client who wanted to believe the ghost of her husband was still around. Sera was happy enough to help the woman’s imagination along a bit.

She threw down her pen with something akin to relief. “What’s on your mind?”

Jilly came right in and closed the door. “Who’s the handsome stranger you went out with last night?”

Sera blinked. “Handsome str…? Oh.”

“Elspeth blabbed. Very taken with him—on your behalf, of course.”

“Of course,” Sera said dryly. “Well, she needn’t be. That was none other than the elusive Blair.”

Jill stared and sank onto the nearest chair. “Blair? Bloody hell, Sera, you shouldn’t have gone off on your own with him! Jack and I were only feet away.”

“He wasn’t in dangerous mode, and if he was, to be honest, there’s nothing any of us could do to stop him. He just wanted my help to track the vampires who turned Jason. He was with me when we found Nicholas Smith’s house.”

“Ah yes,” Jilly said, fortunately distracted by the name, as Sera had hoped she’d be. “Nicholas Smith.”

Sera sat back in her seat. “Found anything?”

“Yes, actually. If it’s the same guy. I’ve got a picture of him on the laptop.”

Sera rose with alacrity and followed Jilly into the outer office. She didn’t even need to get close to the computer. She could see at once it was the same man—brushed-back, graying hair, handsome, distinguished face. The only difference was the pencil moustache in the picture.

“That’s my man,” Sera said. “Hit me.”

“Stage magician. Uses the name Nick Black for his act.”

“Never heard of him,” Sera observed. “Is he any good? Is he big?”

“He has a cult following, apparently. Never been on television, but constantly on stage in smaller theatres, and he does private shows.”

“What, like mediums do? Mind reading, stuff like that?”

“No mention of spiritualism. Mind reading’s a big part of his draw, though. Apparently, he’s really good at it.” Jilly, long familiar with the tricks of that particular trade, snorted in derision.

“Actually, he probably is,” Sera said. “He’s telepathic and can probably hypnotize too. Now what the hell do you suppose he’s doing with a bunch of vampires?”

“Maybe they help him with his act,” Jilly sneered.

The phone rang, and Elspeth answered it while Sera read quickly through the article on Jilly’s laptop.

“One moment,” Elspeth said and covered the phone with her hand. “Eddie Gordon,” she said quietly. “Are you available?”

Sera straightened. “I’ll take it in the office,” she said.

Her heart sank even farther as she walked through to take the call. Eddie, Moira’s husband, was not as receptive as his wife to the spirit of their dead daughter. He thought Moira needed a shrink rather than a psychic and made no secret of his disapproval of Sera. Sera didn’t mind that; it was the couple’s combined pain which flattened her.

She picked up the phone. “Hello, Sera here. How are you?”

“I’m all right,” Eddie said, adding after a pause, “Thanks. Moira’s not so good. Last night upset her.”

“I know. It’s very hard for both of you. If you—”

Eddie interrupted. “Moira thinks you can really help Anna move on.”

Sera swallowed. “I think I can.”

The phone was silent for several moments, so long, in fact, that Sera thought he’d broken the connection. Then he said abruptly, “Look, I don’t believe in any of this stuff. I can’t believe you talk to the dead or have any contact whatever with my daughter, but if you can make my wife feel any better, I want you to come back.”

“Okay. I can come this evening. It’s probably better for Moira if you’re there too, unless you’d rather not be.”

“No, I’ll be there.” There was another pause; then, “How much will it be?”

“No more,” Sera mumbled. “The original fee covers it. I’ll see you round about seven.”

“Thanks,” Eddie muttered and hung up.

Sera put down the phone and dragged her fingers through her hair. She was going to have to clear her head for tonight, get rid of all this jumble of emotion that surrounded every thought of Blair. She’d always liked to live a little on the edge, but she was well aware she’d nearly fallen off altogether last night. Blair could have killed her. God knew why he didn’t, but she certainly wouldn’t take the same chance again. He might be charming in his own way, and definitely sexy as hell—with the emphasis on the hell—but he was a vampire. The one who’d killed two of the four young men in her vision last night. She might have forgiven the first as self-defense—after all, they were trying to kill him—but Jamie had stuck up for him. He’d killed Jamie from pure rage because of whatever the other vampires had asked of him.

Unwillingly, she remembered the black, dreadful deadness of his eyes in the vision, the sorrow that had made Jamie weep. What the hell had that been about, anyway? And why had he let them attack him before the other vampires arrived? Had he just been playing with them? Leading them on to think they could win against him?

It didn’t matter. He was a vampire. One of the same creatures who’d killed and turned Jason Bell, whom she’d promised to protect, however indirectly.

Time to check in with Ferdy, she supposed, and reached for the phone once more before she decided she’d rather go round there, get some air, and check on the vibes. See if Jason or any of his cronies were lurking there.

****

Although she deliberately touched the front door and trailed her fingers along walls and furniture, she got no sense of recent vampire visits from the Bells’ house. Her old crosses and strings of garlic bulbs still hung in every room, a reminder of her own guilt and inappropriate smugness. When Mrs. Bell showed her into the study, Ferdy was sharpening a wooden stick. A little row of them lay on the desk in front of him. The sight gave her pause, but only for an instant.

“Preparing for battle?” she said lightly.

“Just in case.”

She nodded. There didn’t seem to be much more to say on that score. “Do you know anyone called Ella? I think she might have worked with Jason at C & H.”

“Ella Cameron?”

“Young woman, still in her thirties. Dark, pretty. She was at your party, wearing a black silk dress.”

“Sounds like her. She’s an investor, excellent at her job. Going places, according to Jason.”

Sera took a deep breath. “Well, if you see her, I think you should be wary. Your wife too. I believe Ella’s a vampire. I think she killed Jason and turned him.” Christ, did I just say that? Why don’t I just section myself?

Ferdy stared at her. For an instant, he looked old and defeated. Then he rubbed his forehead, and when he looked at her again, the light of battle was back in his eyes. “Then we have to finish both of them.”

“Yes, but you mustn’t do it on your own,” Sera said urgently. “I think there are lots of them, nearly all with important positions in financial institutions. You won’t necessarily be able to tell them apart from normal humans of your acquaintance. Leave it to me. I have a team of people I can call on.” Jilly, Jack, Elspeth, and Tam, if she groveled a lot. But not Blair, who would have been their only real asset.

Dragging her thoughts back from that direction, she realized Ferdy was frowning, tapping his penknife on the semi-sharpened stake in front of him. “Financial institutions,” he repeated. “Is that deliberate? Or luck?”

“Deliberate. I think. They have some plan to take over the banks and lord it over humans.”

“Oh no,” Ferdy said, jumping to his feet. “I can’t allow that!”

Of course, he couldn’t. The financial world was sacrosanct to him. “No, no, we can’t,” she agreed hastily. “Leave it to me. I’ll keep you posted.” She stood up to go, glancing rather ruefully at the balding top of his head as he bent back over the stake. “Don’t worry,” she said awkwardly. “I will sort this out.”

And how the hell am I going to do that?

****

Eddie Gordon’s eyes were nearly as wild as his hair when he showed her to the door of his flat that evening. “I almost believe you did something there,” he blurted. “I almost believe she was here and moved on to heaven to be happy.”

Sera couldn’t stand much more. But she had to turn and face him and couldn’t blot out the image of Moira through the open door in the living room, weeping and smiling through her tears.

“Moira saw her. Anna was clinging to the parents she had such little chance to know and who needed her so much. Moira was keeping her here without realizing it. You both were. But Anna understands now. And she’s moved on. It’s right for her. And for you.”

A reluctant half smile curled one side of Eddie’s mouth. “See you?” he said in the local vernacular. “You talk a right load of shite.” And he stuck out his hand.

Choking on a laugh that would turn to tears in seconds, Sera seized his hand. “Good luck,” she muttered and bolted out the front door. She clattered down the stairs and broke into the fresh air with a gasp.

At last, striding toward her beaten-up old car, she could let the tears course down her face, for Moira and Eddie and their lost daughter. She had to believe things would get better for them now, but just for this moment, their grief, their pain all raked to the surface to free their daughter, crushed Sera to pieces.

“I didn’t expect you to miss me this much.” The only too familiar voice brought her up short. In the darkness and her own distress, she hadn’t even seen the blurry figure negligently leaning his elbow on her car roof.

She halted, her broken heart lurching back together, reminding her it was her own survival that counted now. She shoved her hand in her pocket, clutching the stake, and blinked hard in an attempt to clear the tears from her vision. It didn’t help.

“Miss you?” she retorted. “I can’t turn round without bumping into you. What do you want now?”

“What’s the matter?”

“Nothing,” she said fiercely. She still couldn’t see him properly, though he’d closed the distance between them. Another rising sob was closing up her throat, aching. A tear trickled down her chin and splashed onto her shoe. “Parental grief. Someone else’s. Why don’t you f*ck off?”

He touched her face, brushing moisture with his thumb. She gasped, closing her eyes tight. Even then she knew it was hardly the best way to fight off a vampire, but it seemed infinitely more necessary to hide the shame of her tears.

Something—his lips, incredibly, irrefutably his lips—pressed briefly to her mouth. Her eyes flew open in astonishment, but he’d already released her and was climbing into her car.

“Take me to meet the banking vampires.”

Sera closed her mouth, which seemed to have fallen open. It didn’t even seem worth asking him how he’d got into her locked vehicle. He had an affinity with doors. Or to inquire if they were now working together again. Surreptitiously, she wiped her face with a tissue and climbed into the driver’s seat. Blair seemed huge, folded into the passenger seat beside her.

“Where is sir’s appointment?” she asked.

“Roseburn. Nicholas Smith’s house.”

She fastened her belt and started the car. “And why am I in attendance?”

“It struck me that you have another valuable asset. You know when people are lying.”

“True, but I generally have to touch them, and I might blow your cover if I roam among them doing the touchy-feely thing.” She pulled onto the road and glanced at him. “This is a cover, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know,” Blair said. “I haven’t decided yet.”

Sera smiled at the windscreen. Sometimes touch wasn’t necessary. Not with the dead or, it seemed, the undead. Stupidly, her heart felt warm and fuzzy. She didn’t even mind that she could be repeating the same mistakes as yesterday. Surely the important thing was that he hadn’t killed her yesterday and he showed no signs of killing her today.

“What about the dead?” Blair asked.

“What?”

“The dead. Spirits. How do you know when they’re lying?”

She frowned. “Generally, spirits don’t bother lying, though I suppose I’ve encountered the odd mischievous one who wasn’t above porky pies.” She glanced at him. “Lies,” she translated.

“I got that.”

“I just know when they’re doing it. Why? Do you think it would work that way with vampires?”

“You tell me.”

She thought it through, felt the fuzziness drop away to ice. “You did want to drink my blood. Last night. You’ve never lied to me, have you?”

Although she couldn’t look at him, she felt his gaze on her face. “No.” There was a pause, then, “I still want to drink your blood. I want it very badly. But I don’t want to kill you.”

“So what was last night? A temper tantrum?”

She knew he was smiling. “Perhaps. And I suppose I was giving you the chance to get out while you could. Phil persuaded me that we needed you.”

“For what? Lie detecting and tracking?”

“And sex.”

She swerved, and an oncoming car hooted in outrage. “I will not,” she said breathlessly, “have sex with Phil.”

“Thanks.”

“For what?” she demanded, risking a glance at him.

He winked. “Not ruling me out.”

****

PC Alex McGowan saw the MacBride woman emerge from the building and walk rather erratically toward her car, where the man waited for her. Tall and fit and unnaturally still, he moved like McGowan’s idea of a secret, well-paid assassin. He might have been a bodyguard. Well, it was a rough neighborhood, and a rip-off artist like Serafina MacBride would probably need one around here.

McGowan hesitated. He’d been working overtime—trawling the Hard Knox and the other pubs where people had died recently in bizarre circumstances that weren’t being made generally known to the public—and he was on his way home when he’d spotted Sera MacBride’s distinctive car on Ferry Road. On impulse, he’d followed her, growing increasingly angry as he realized she was heading to the Gordons’ house for the second time in as many days.

How much was she robbing from these people who’d already suffered so much? McGowan had been first on the scene when the Gordons had first discovered their little daughter dead in her cot one morning. He’d never managed to harden himself to the many tragedies encountered in the job, and he couldn’t help feeling personally responsible for the Gordons’ welfare.

And, of course, he hated MacBride and all her kind.

She’d spent a long time up there, and he needed to be sure the Gordons were all right. He needed to know what damage the bloody woman had done and, if possible, put a stop to her business.

Except he wasn’t on duty.

Who cares? Decision made, he left his unmarked car and walked into the building and up the depressing but clean stairs. Most of the graffiti had been washed off the walls. When he rang the bell, there was a long pause. Then Eddie Gordon, looking a bit wild but not angry or beaten down, opened the door.

“Mr. Gordon,” McGowan said, flashing his ID card. “Sorry to bother you so late. I just wanted to make sure everything’s okay with you and Mrs. Gordon.”

“Of course, it is. Why wouldn’t it be?”

“I’ve been looking into complaints against a spiritualist who I believe just visited you.”

“Sera MacBride? What sort of complaints?”

“Can I come in and ask you a few questions? I won’t take long.”

Eddie glanced over his shoulder. “It’s not a good time,” he said uneasily. “Maybe you can come back in the morning?”

“Eddie? Who is it?” Moira Gordon came out of the living room. Her face was blotched with crying, and McGowan felt his simmering fury rise toward boiling point.

“Police,” said Eddie. “But it’s nothing to worry about.”

However, Moira seemed to recognize him this time, as she hadn’t at Serafina’s the other day. She came closer, hugging her cardigan around her. “You’re PC McGowan, aren’t you? You came when Anna died.”

“Yes, I did. That’s why I was concerned to see Sera MacBride here.”

“She’s been a great help to us,” Moira said warmly. “I think she’s finally laid Anna to rest in peace.”

For once, McGowan couldn’t think of anything to say to that. He glanced for guidance to Eddie, who shrugged—not embarrassed, precisely, but certainly baffled.

“We do feel a bit—lighter this evening.”

It wasn’t what he expected. “When’s your next appointment with her?” he asked.

“We haven’t made one,” Moira answered. “She didn’t think it’d be necessary.”

Got all the money she could out of them already, McGowan thought savagely. Well, it wouldn’t have taken long; they didn’t exactly have much. Swallowing his anger down, he said, “Do you mind if I ask you how much she charged you?”

“For tonight? It was included in the original fee,” Moira said. “Why?”

Bitch. Making them believe they’d got a freebie so they’d come back for more. “And how much,” McGowan asked, struggling to keep a lid on his anger, “was the original fee?”

Eddie shrugged, looking at his wife for the answer. She gave him a slightly guilty smile. “Ten pounds, but I’d saved it from Christmas.”

“Ten pounds?” McGowan stared at her in disbelief. “Ten pounds is all you’ve ever paid her?”

Moira glanced at him in confusion. “Is that not the going rate?”

Considering the amount of time she’d spent here this evening alone, it wasn’t even minimum wage.

****

On Blair’s advice, Sera parked a street away from Nicholas Smith’s house. “Give me five minutes,” Blair said, opening his door. “And then follow.”

“Slight problem,” Sera pointed out. “I’m happy to spy on them and detect their lies, but how the hell do I get in unseen?”

“I’ll leave a window open for you.”

She stared at him as he glanced back over his shoulder. “You really mean that, don’t you?”

“Don’t get your knickers in a twist. I’ll tell you which one. Telepathically,” he added. “In fact, you can probably send to me the same way, if you try and articulate it beyond the normal jumble you usually project.”

“I do not project jumble!” He didn’t trouble to answer that, merely closed the door. She lunged over and shoved it open again. “Wait! Won’t they smell my blood and come after me?”

“I can cover you,” Blair said, as casually as someone else might have said I can pick that up from the shops, and strolled down the road and around the corner. Sera let the door close again and straightened. She took an emery board from her shoulder bag, filed a broken nail, and tried to imagine what was happening in the next street.

When he spoke, she nearly jumped out of her skin. “Sera. All the vampires are in a ground-floor room at the front of the house.”

It was as if her mind had always hung on to the idea that his telepathic speech really was ventriloquism, for now that he was nowhere near her, the disembodied voice in her head freaked her out.

She’d only just recovered herself enough to breathe evenly when he spoke again. “I’ve unlocked the larger window at the back on the ground floor. Just push it open, and leave the same way as soon as I give you the word.”

Sera put the nail file back in her bag and got out of the car. As she walked smartly along the road, Blair’s voice said briefly, “I’m in.” And this time, it was curiously comforting to be told what was going on without the annoyance of a mobile phone.

Approaching Nicholas Smith’s house, she began to tense. Her skin prickled with warning. No wonder; the place was full of vampires. The first time, she walked straight past it, checking for any signs that she might be observed. The curtains were closed in the front room where Blair said the vampires were meeting. They didn’t twitch. Nor, so far as she could see, was there any activity at the others. She turned at the next lamppost, walked back the way she’d come, and swerved into Nicholas Smith’s garden. Keeping every sense on high alert, she moved as swiftly and silently as she could up the side of the house to the back garden, where a cat sitting on the windowsill nearly gave her a heart attack just by staring at her with its luminous eyes.

Life was getting so weird she wouldn’t have been surprised if it had been some kind of witch’s familiar. But clinging to some semblance of normal behavior, she stretched out a hand to stroke the animal. It tolerated the attention for a moment, then jumped down from the windowsill and crept off into the night.

Sera took its place on the sill, resting her hip and touching the glass with her fingertips to get some sense of who or what was beyond it. Blair. Undoubtedly Blair. And behind his unmistakable “feel,” that of many other undead who hadn’t necessarily touched the window but were certainly in the house. She tried to think of the human, Nicholas Smith, aka stage magician Nick Black, but nothing came to her. She hoped he was still alive.

As soon as she eased the window up, she parted the closed curtains to make sure the room was empty. Blank darkness greeted her. She climbed in and closed the window.

She stood still for an instant, waiting, every nerve ready to fight back if necessary. She held the stake in her right hand. When nothing happened, she released her breath and switched on her flashlight.

Lit by its narrow glow, a dark male figure with a pale face and amber eyes stared at her. He smiled, revealing long canine teeth.

Sera grasped tighter the stake she’d been about to return to her pocket, but the figure didn’t move.

“Evening,” the vampire said in her head.

“Phil?” she hissed. What the hell did this mean?

“Please, don’t shine the light in my face.”

“Sorry.” She lowered the light but didn’t release the stake. “What are you doing here?”

“Watching his back.”

“I thought he didn’t need his back watched?”

“That was last night. In his own house. Who knows what traps have been set in this one?”

“What’s going on?” she asked, still in a whisper as she found the door with her flashlight beam and walked toward it.

“Nothing. A lot of talk.”

“I can’t hear it. I have to go closer.” She opened the door a crack. The light was on in the hall beyond, and she could hear a vague rumble of indistinguishable voices, as if there was a closed door or a lot of space between them and her. She hoped it was the latter, since there wasn’t a lot she could do discreetly with a closed door.

Phil watched her silently as she slipped out of the back room and ran lightly along the hall. It was an L-shape, and she slid around the corner warily, knowing she was coming closer to a large concentration of vampires. The door to the front room was closed. Which was particularly annoying since the nearest door to it lay open. At least she could use that to hide if necessary.

Creeping closer, she pressed her ear to the door.

“Nice to have you with us,” Blair murmured in her head.

At the same time, she heard another voice she was sure belonged to Nicholas Smith, speaking aloud inside the room.

“…be hard for you to get into a position of influence very quickly. The method they’ve used so far—of simply turning humans already in powerful positions—is working very well for us.”

Crouching down until her eye was level with the keyhole, Sera pushed aside the cover and peered through. As she’d hoped, the cover on the other side of the keyhole was missing or pushed aside. The room was full of people—vampires—sitting and standing, perching on the arms of chairs, as if they were attending a busy but dull party.

She saw Blair at once, lounging in an armchair by the fireplace, one foot crossed over his knee. In jeans and T-shirt, he looked perfectly comfortable and at ease.

Without moving his lips, he said, “I can imagine few things more boring than running a bank.”

Nicholas Smith, standing with his back to the fireplace, looked distinguished and relaxed in slacks and polo shirt as he spoke to the room at large. “He doesn’t want a bank role.”

Of course, the other vampires couldn’t hear Blair. Only the psychic Smith heard him. It was weird—Blair and Phil were like a completely different species from the other vampires. Jason and the vampiress Ella sat side by side on a sofa, staring at Blair.

Another vampire, out of her line of vision, said in an English accent, “It wouldn’t work anyway. He has no experience and would be useless for anything except a smash-and-grab.”

“Which brings me to another point,” Blair said. “What’s wrong with smash-and-grab?”

Nicholas rapidly repeated his words for the benefit of the vampires, then added almost immediately, “It’s not sustainable. This way, they keep all the infrastructure intact and take what they need without fight or fuss.”

“While vastly increasing the vampire population. Human numbers will dwindle.”

“They believe there’ll be enough to go round.”

“Humans will always be useful to us as more than blood supply,” the other vampire said. Sera altered position to try to get him in the picture. She thought she could see one side of his face and concentrated on him, hard. Arthur. His name is Arthur.

“Then you’ve some way of controlling the vampires you’ve made?”

Again, Smith repeated the question, but before he’d finished, Blair was speaking again. “Already there’ve been enough vampire murders in the city to have sparked off a human police hunt for a serial killer. It’s instinctive for new vampires to go on the rampage unless they’re under some kind of control. My only surprise, given your numbers, is that there haven’t been more murders.”

“They are under control,” said Arthur, the English vampire. “I control them.”

Sera’s breath caught. He’s lying!

“Well done,” Blair said in her mind, and she realized the thought had been so loud and so instinctively hurled at Blair that she’d projected it right to him. “Keep it down, though, or Smith will hear too.”

She glanced apprehensively at the human who, fortunately, was showing no sign of having overheard her private conversation with Blair.

“Then yours is the master plan?” Blair said, looking across at the English vampire Arthur.

Smith said smoothly, “Of course, the plan is his.” Sera caught something from him—not unease, not uncertainty, but something basically untruthful.

It’s all a lie; they’re all lying, she threw silently to Blair.

Blair said, “Then where does he see me fitting in?”

Arthur stood up and moved thoughtfully into Sera’s line of vision. He was a tall, strong man with smooth cheeks and an unsmiling mouth. He stood in front of Sera, blocking her view of Blair.

“You’re a strong vampire,” he observed. “Stronger than any we’ve encountered. Are there more like you?”

Blair inclined his head. “A few.”

“Any even stronger than you?”

Blair smiled. She could hear it in his telepathic voice. “One or two.”

While Smith translated, Arthur walked closer to Blair, who remained apparently unmoved by the implicit threat of the other vampire.

“At the very least,” Arthur said, “we need your cooperation and are prepared to pay handsomely for it. At best, we’d value you in a more positive role, as an enforcer against other vampires who might try to muscle in or oppose us, or against any human opposition that might arise.”

That, Sera thought, was truthful.

Blair said, “I’ll think about it.” And that was truthful too. He really was thinking about it, the bastard. How could he even consider a situation that would endanger, if not kill, thousands—millions!—of humans?

Easy. He wasn’t human.

In spite of herself, she shivered and tried to pull her concentration back to the scene inside.

Arthur spun around and seemed to stare right at her. In spite of herself, she fell backward in case he’d seen her.

“Humans!” Arthur barked. “There are humans in the house! I can smell them!”

“Run,” Blair said in her head. There was no need. She was already bolting back along the hallway. But as the front-room door wrenched open, she knew she’d have no time to reach the room she’d left Phil in. She leapt into the nearest and dived toward the window. Wrenching aside the curtain, she tugged futilely at the window—locked.

Then she realized the drumming in her ears was the clatter of feet running upstairs. They weren’t chasing her. She turned and slipped back out of the room, running on to the room she’d entered by. Phil’s silhouette sat on the windowsill.

“There are other humans here,” Sera hissed at him.

“I know. They’re on a ladder outside.”

“A ladder?” Sera closed her mouth and strode to the window. Obligingly, Phil climbed the rest of the way over the sill to let her out too.

A long ladder ran from the ground up the back of the house to one of the top-floor windows. Two figures were scuttling down it while someone, some vampire, wrenched open the upstairs window.

“Jump!” Sera yelled. “They’ll reach the ground before you!”

A vampire was already scrambling out the window. The two human figures wasted no more time but flopped to the ground in a winded heap. Sera ran to them. With one hand, she snatched the stake from her pocket. With the other, she grabbed the nearest man by the elbow, hauling him to his feet. It was Ferdy Bell.

“Run,” she begged. “Run like hell.” A vampire leaping from the upper window landed right beside her. As quick as thought, she plunged the stake into his chest. It was like slicing through butter, then crunching into bone. The vampire disintegrated.

As Ferdy and his companion ran for it, limping and lumbering across the lawn to the back fence, Sera kicked another landing vampire in the groin and spun around, stake at the ready, to face the next threat.

Instead, she faced Nicholas Smith.

She paused, the stake poised to attack.

“You can’t,” he said in a slightly strange voice. “Can you?”

It seemed she couldn’t. At least not while he stood still and made no move to attack her. Instead, she stood there, letting the other vampires jump from the windows and surround her.

“Who were the others?” Nicholas said, as a couple of vampires broke ranks and moved toward the back of the garden.

“No idea. They weren’t with me.”

“It was my dad,” said Jason Bell without emotion.

Bugger. Would they go after the Bells now? It was possible, but she had a more immediate problem. A circle of vampires was closing in on her. Nearly all their fangs showed; some were actually drooling, like slavering dogs.

Arthur, the chief vampire, reached for her. From instinct, she hurled herself out of the way, toward the only other human present.

“You can’t let them! You can’t!” she said incoherently, clutching at Nicholas Smith’s arm. And if he didn’t help her, she could use him, maybe, as some kind of human shield. She still had a very sharp stake to compel him with.

But again, he took her by surprise. He patted her shoulder, and she realized his hands were shaking. “My dear, I don’t control them,” he said sadly.

Sera froze. Slowly, she lifted her eyes to his face. Yes, you do. Oh yes, you f*cking do. He wasn’t some kind of slave. He was the master.