Serafina and the Virtual Man

CHAPTER Seventeen



Melanie sipped her wine and glanced at Sera almost with apology. “Still nothing?”

They were curled at opposite ends of Mel’s sofa in front of the log fire, listening to music and talking sporadically over the wine. It was good to talk to Mel, and on the whole, Sera was glad to spend the night here. She just couldn’t help the underlying anxiety because she knew Jilly had gone to the Ewans, and even with Blair to protect her, she just wasn’t safe there. For any number of reasons, not least of which, her unhealthy obsession with the late Genesis Adam.

Besides which, if Blair was protecting her, he was more than capable of murdering anyone who tried to hurt her. Not that Sera wasn’t in favour of that; she just doubted her ability to deal with the fallout.

At Mel’s question, she allowed herself to be distracted once more and reached out with all her senses. It was an old house; there were spirits here like echoes, quiet, unthreatening. Sera thought of them as “passing through,” drifting briefly through the haunts of their mortal life from their own plane of existence, without any desire to intrude. But she sensed nothing else, no evil presence and certainly nothing undead.

She shook her head. “Nothing. He isn’t here.”

“You seem very sure.”

“Well, I told you I sensed something similar in Blair’s house. I know what he feels like.”

Mel’s eyes widened. “Then it is the Founder? Not some underling?”

Sera hesitated. She wasn’t sure if this would frighten her friend off or fascinate her further. Whatever, she’d always been truthful with Mel. “I think it was the Founder we saw, whatever or whoever came here. We saw him again, Blair and me, at this house with the poltergeist. I think he’s checking up on me because I’m with Blair.”

Mel regarded her over the top of her glass. “Well, it is a curious choice on your part,” she observed.

Sera shifted her legs irritably. “I didn’t choose. It just sort of…happened.”

“I can see the attraction.” Mel leaned her head against the back of the sofa. “There’s something very sexy about him, odd as that might be for a dead man. But it’s not like you to deny responsibility. Of course you chose.”

Sera picked her glass off the low table beside the sofa and took a drink. “I chose the relationship,” she muttered. “Not the feeling. You can’t choose that. Or Jilly wouldn’t obsess over a virtual man.”

“Actually, since we’re talking about Jilly, she probably would,” Mel said lightly. “She’s comfortable around computers, after all.”

Mel was perceptive, too perceptive sometimes, and if Sera had hoped to distract her with Jilly’s oddity, she was disappointed. “So you have feelings for Blair. Are you saying you like the sex? Or that you love him?”

“Oh, bugger off, Mel.” Sera downed her wine and held her glass out for more.

Melanie obliged, reaching for the bottle and refilling both their glasses. “He makes you happy,” she said. “And whatever he is, he doesn’t hurt you.”

He does hurt me; just by being there, he’s hurting me. God help me, I’m in too deep, and I don’t think I can get out. I don’t even want to. And it’ll only get worse the longer I stay with him…

Squashing the rising panic with an impatient shake of her head, Sera muttered, “He’s different, okay? That makes him…interesting.”

“Oh, he’s interesting,” Mel allowed and took a sip from her glass. “But if the Founder told him to leave you, would he?”

“No. No, he wouldn’t.” The knowledge felt too good, too warm and comforting, almost euphoric.

Melanie twisted farther round to face her. “And what would the Founder do then? Does he tolerate disobedience?”

“Shit, I don’t know. He’s never spoken to Blair. Blair’s never even seen him, doesn’t seem to know anyone who has, unless it’s his own maker, Ailis. According to Blair, the Founder’s just looking and won’t interfere.”

“Then why look?” Mel asked reasonably.

Sera sighed. “I don’t know.”

“My impression is, he acts as a watcher, a protector of his kind.”

“Probably. And we did all have a hand in massacring vast numbers of them last year,” Sera observed. “I suppose they’re all his ‘children.’”

“And you‘re probably not a very comfortable daughter-in-law.”

Sera gave a reluctant laugh. “That would be true whoever I was with. And we’re not exactly married, are we?”

“Would you like to be?”

“To an immortal creature who’ll watch me grow old and die?” Sera snapped. “What do you think?”

Mel bit her lip, for the first time looking uncertain in her questioning. “I think you’re in trouble, whether now or later. And I want you to know I’m always here.”

Sera threw her head back against the sofa. “Can you make it go away? Have you got a spell for that?”

“Sera, you wouldn’t take it if I had,” Mel said gently. “That’s why you’re in trouble.”

I am. God help me, I am. She drew in a shaky breath. “Don’t be daft. I have other troubles. Do you happen to know if the Ewans, either Dale or Petra or both, are into witchcraft? Is there a spell that can hide spirits while binding them to the earth for whatever reason?” She took another drink, relishing it this time. “And if so, can you break the spell to let me find the spirit? Or even the body would be good…”

****



Jilly had just taken a series of photos on her phone, systematically covering the entire sitting room, when she heard the faintest scuffling sounds close by. Her heart thudding at the possibility of discovery, she leapt behind the sofa and crouched down. Unfortunately, there was no way of switching off the dimmed spotlights from there. She could only hope that Dale or Petra would assume the other had forgotten to switch them off before they went to bed.

Then, with appalling timing, her phone vibrated, nearly making her drop it with a clatter on the wooden floor. Fortunately, her fumbling fingers managed to retain control.

It was a text from Jack: “Where are you?”

Hardly daring to breathe as further faint shuffling sounds reached her ears, she keyed back: “Sitting room. Take care, someone’s up.”

She could hear breathing now, controlled, surreptitious, almost inaudible. Was it Dale? Had he heard something and was checking up?

“Where?” Jack texted.

“Close to me,” she replied.

There was a pause. The sounds had stopped, apart, maybe, from the breathing. As if he’d paused to listen. Shite…

The phone vibrated in her hands. “Are you behind the sofa?”

“Yes. Why?” Could Jack see Dale approaching her? Should she just pop up and brazen it out? Hit him or come up with some implausible story?

Hit him, she decided, just as another message from Jack appeared on the screen.

“Use your brain.”

What the f…?

A figure loomed over the back of the sofa and winked.

“Blair,” she hissed in fury, jumping to her feet. “What the f*ck are you doing? Where’s Jack?”

“Right here,” Jack murmured. “Thought you were in the lab upstairs, and wondered why the light was on in here.”

“I’m taking photos.”

“Why?”

“Adam has a plan, relating to your photos, of course. Find anything in the cellar?”

Jack shook his head. Blair held up two bottles, a dusty Scotch in one hand and a cleaner red wine in the other.

Jilly closed her mouth and looked rather wildly at Jack for clarification.

Jack shrugged. “Couldn’t stop him.”

“You mean he stole them?”

“Well, he didn’t leave any money,” Jack retorted.

Jilly glared at the impassive Blair. “You can’t steal them.”

Blair’s lips twitched. Otherwise he didn’t move.

“Hell, why should I care?” Jilly muttered. “Did you find anything useful?”

Jack shook his head. “Couldn’t see any way beyond the wine cellar. We went all round the walls and the floor, twice each, behind wine racks as well. He spent a lot of time staring at one wall, but there was nothing there.”

Blair frowned and shook his head.

Jilly’s breath caught. “There is something there?”

Without warning, the phone vanished from her hand, and Blair straightened in a blur. Before she could snatch the phone back, Blair gave her it. He’d found the Notes and written one word. Blood.

Her stomach twisted. “There’s blood on the wall?” she whispered.

Blair shook his head, gesticulated with both hands. At some point, the bottles had been laid on the sofa.

“Behind the wall?” Jilly guessed doubtfully.

Blair inclined his head, and she and Jack exchanged glances.

“You smelled it?” Jilly asked with distaste.

Again, he inclined his head.

Jilly swallowed and forced the words out. “Alive or dead?”

Blair shrugged, and she stared at him. “Can’t you tell?”

Blair shook his head and retrieved his bottles.

Christ, this is frustrating… So think. If Blair couldn’t tell, then the odour could have been very faint, either because it was old or because the owner was very weak. Or the death was recent. So she could be right that Adam hadn’t died in August or October.

But he could be dead now.

Almost blindly, she brushed past the others, making her way across the room and through the arches to the entrance hall and the stairs. Behind her, Jack turned out the lights, and she switched on her flashlight to guide them all up to the study.

All was quiet in the rest of the house, so far as she could tell. And she was pretty sure Blair would hear far more than she or Jack. When they were all safely in the study with the door closed right over, she keyed in the code to open the lab door, and they trouped inside.

Blair laid his bottles down on the first computer desk and lounged in the chair, presumably their self-appointed lookout. In a hurry, Jilly shoved Jack in front of her into the green light. He made a noise like a strangled cat but put up with it until it stopped, and she nudged him on so she could pass too.

Jack was staring at the figure of Adam, hunched over a computer, his fingers flying across the keys while he concentrated on the screen. For an instant, she froze with sheer relief. She hadn’t been able to prevent the fear that he’d actually died while she’d been downstairs.

“Is that…?” Jack began.

“Genesis Adam, aye.”

“Wow.”

“This is Jack,” Jilly said casually to Adam’s back.

Without taking his eyes off the screen, Adam reached one hand over his shoulder. “Adam,” he muttered. “Be with you in a moment.”

Obviously bemused, Jack took the hand in a brief shake, and then both Adam’s hands whizzed over the keys once more. The screens shifted and changed between code and photographs.

“Good ones of the cellar,” Adam approved. “Got them in there, just in case.” His fingers stilled, and he swivelled the chair to look up at them both. “Thanks.”

Since Jack seemed to be temporarily deprived of words, Jilly passed her phone to Adam. “Got most of downstairs: entrance hall, kitchen area, sitting room.”

Adam took the phone and dropped a kiss on the base of her thumb by way of thanks. Her skin tingled, and she couldn’t help her pleasure in his open affection, even when she caught Jack’s widened gaze on her.

“So what’s going on?” Jack asked.

“Adam’s recreating the scene the night he was shot, and then we’re going to get Dale to relive it in VR.”

Jack gazed from Jilly to Adam. “You really think that will make him give away what actually happened that night?”

“Oh yes,” Adam said and plugged Jilly’s phone into the computer.

“I’m a technophobe,” Jack said. He jerked his head toward the end of the room where the invisible Blair sat. “And he’s dead. Anything we can do?”

Adam paused, casting a quick, quizzical glance at Jack. “Does he do what you say?”

“No,” Jack admitted. “Not unless he wants to.”

“He thinks there’s something beyond the wine-cellar wall,” Jilly blurted. “He smelled blood.”

“Gross,” Adam said vaguely. Too vaguely. As if he was bothered too. As if he wanted this existence to go on, however much he needed to know the truth. Jilly’s heart ached. Maybe for him, maybe for herself.

His fingers paused again. “Actually, when I’ve uploaded these photos, you’d better all go home. Don’t want Dale to find you here.”

“Hey, we’ve brought our own vampire as protection,” Jilly said lightly.

“Doesn’t he burn up in the light?”

“Not necessarily. Anyway, it’s dark.”

“Can’t deny he’s useful in a fight,” Jack allowed.

Over Adam’s head, Jilly saw part of a still from the security camera. It showed the main glass front door and the figure of Petra walking away from it.

Petra the enigmatic. Petra the nurse.

“You really want to stay here and watch?” Adam asked.

“And act on what we find out,” Jack said steadily.

For a moment, Adam didn’t say anything. Then, “I don’t want anyone hurt.”

Jack’s lips tugged into a smile. “For what it’s worth, I’d back Jilly in any fight.”

“I’d be relying on you for just that.”

Jilly glanced from one to the other. “Hey, I’m still here. I don’t need a nursemaid. What I need from you,” she said, poking Adam in the shoulder, “is access to all the security-camera footage going back to August. And you”—she tugged Jack by the arm—”are going to help me go through it. In fact, Blair can help too. He goes faster. Can he use the computer by the door?”

Adam regarded her, head on one side as if trying to read from her mind what she was up to. “Okay,” he said at last.

****



Jilly sat back and rubbed her eyes. It was heading for six in the morning, but she’d narrowed her search as far as she could. She glanced at Adam, sprawled in the computer chair next to hers. His hand still held the mouse lightly on his thigh, but he didn’t move it, and his attention was on Jilly.

“How’s it going?” she asked.

“I’ve got enough to use.”

“Let’s see,” Jilly said eagerly.

Adam glanced back at the screen, moving the mouse across his muscled thigh, and Jilly’s throat went suddenly dry as she remembered those legs wrapped around her. Even doing something this mundane, Adam was effortlessly sexy. She’d always got along with geeks, of course, but she couldn’t ever remember any of them inspiring this kind of desire.

Without warning, the world changed. She was sitting not in the lab but on a sofa in the large sitting room downstairs,

“Whoa!” Jack exclaimed beside her. “What the…?”

“It’s VR,” Jilly said impatiently. “This is what he’s been working on.”

“Bloody hell,” Jack said admiringly. “You did this just from photographs?”

“And the programs already written for the new system,” Adam said. “I think we’ll call that working.”

Dizzyingly, the sitting room disappeared, and Jilly sat once more in the computer chair, blinking at Adam. “Do you always test this thoroughly?”

“Sarcasm in the ranks,” Adam observed. “I want to know what you’ve been up to.”

Jilly opened her mouth and closed it again. The impossibility of explaining this to him when she could be terribly, horribly wrong swamped her. She couldn’t find the words to use without raising what could be criminally false hopes. For both of them.

Unexpectedly, Adam’s eyes softened. “You’re tired,” he observed. “You should go home and sleep.”

“I’ll be fine,” she said uncertainly. She wasn’t used to people looking after her. It made her glow with something both warm and uncomfortable, so she aimed for humour instead. “Mind you, I’d kill for some coffee.”

“No need to go that far,” Jack said in a pleased voice. He delved inside the coat dangling over the back of his chair and produced a thermos flask. Jilly’s mouth fell open as he took off the caps and poured strong black coffee into two of them.

“Have you been sitting on that all night?” Jilly demanded, grabbing one of them.

“Thank you, Jack, how thoughtful,” he murmured.

Ignoring him, Jilly gulped down the warm liquid and closed her eyes with a sigh. “I forgive you,” she announced. “In fact, I almost like you.”

Jack snorted, and her eyes suddenly flew open.

“Shit, what about Blair?” she demanded. “It’ll be light soon; he’d better bugger off.”

Jack stood up, swallowing a mouthful of coffee. “He might have gone already. I’ll go and see.”

He took his cup with him and walked down the room, passing through the trigger point into the real world. Jilly took another sip of coffee, and turned with strange reluctance to find Adam staring at her intently.

“What are you up to?” he asked.

Jilly set down the plastic cup and drew in her breath. “If Blair was right, there could be some kind of secret cellar beyond the wine cellar. According to him and Jack, there was no sign of the wall being rebuilt, so there must be a way into it from the house. We don’t have time to tear the house apart, so I’ve been looking for the number of times our hosts disappear off camera for any length of time, only to reemerge from the same direction. I think I know the rough area now.”

Adam’s eyes searched hers, his own giving nothing away. “And if you don’t?” he said quietly.

“Then Blair can just break down the cellar wall. Trust me, it wouldn’t take him long.”

A flicker of amusement warmed his veiled eyes. “You guys are weird.”

“But lovable,” she said.

He reached for her, drawing her to her feet and then, into his lap. Surprise made her stiffen, and then, she relaxed against him, pressing her cheek to his and clutching his shoulders. How could she bear to let this go? To let him go…

He said, “I don’t know what keeps me here. Maybe I’ll vanish when Dale tells the truth or when you find my body.”

Her fingers dug into his shoulder so hard it should have hurt. “I don’t want… I wish you could—”

“I know,” he whispered into her hair. “It’s all right. I don’t want you ever to regret this. Whatever happens, I want you to be happy, JK.”

She nodded against his cheek, unable to speak for the tears clogging in her aching throat.

She felt his lips stretch into a smile against her temple. “You’ve made my death very happy so far.”

A strangled laugh broke from her throat in an uncivilised gurgle. She raised her head to apologise, or perhaps just to look at him because she’d have so long to remember him. But his hand moved in her hair, angling her head so that he could kiss her parted lips, and she realised that he already understood everything she had such trouble saying. He might not have known exactly how much this meant to her f*cked-up soul, but he got the basics. She cared, and somehow, astoundingly, so did he.

For once, she ignored the tears, let them roll down her cheeks and into her mouth and his, because it was more important to kiss him. As it was more important to help him than to selfishly enjoy his virtual company.

“No regrets,” he whispered into her mouth.

I’ll try. I’ll try.