Serafina and the Virtual Man

CHAPTER Two



Despite the activity in the sitting room, Jilly half expected one or both of the Ewans to call after her as she hurried back along the gallery, stuffing the laptop into her bag as she went. It wouldn’t matter much to be dragged back, she assured herself. She was simply following her nose—and the computer readings—to see if she could get away with it. So far as she could tell, the poltergeist was real, but the unexplained electronic activity still bothered her. And that brief, shifty look she’d intercepted between the Ewans.

She went straight to the not-quite-closed door, behind which she suspected was some very powerful computer equipment. Probably nothing to do with poltergeists and none of her business, but she was pretty sure now the Ewans were hiding something. And if it was equipment capable of conjuring something like the effects of a poltergeist, she needed to know. She could scratch her head over motive later.

Besides, how could anyone who appreciated electronics pass by the chance of a snoop around the house of the Genesis owner?

Jilly whisked into the room and pushed the door back into its original position. So far, so good.

She was in Dale Ewan’s study: surprisingly small, dominated by a huge desk; laptop almost hidden by a big tower computer and three monitors. At last—geeks’ paradise. Except the laptop was closed and the big computer was switched off. So where was all the power coming from?

From beyond the inner door.

Jilly almost didn’t see it because there was no frame surrounding it and no handle. At first glance it looked like part of the wall, except that it had a keypad beside it at around Jilly’s head height.

Impasse. She glared at the tiny, visible crack down one side of the door. Apparently, Sera’s lover, the vampire Blair, could open doors by looking at them. For the first time ever, Jilly wished for his presence. Since she didn’t have it, she ran one finger down the crack in a regretful sort of way while wondering if she could simply ask Dale for a tour. She decided against it on the grounds that he’d almost certainly take it as an invitation to seduce her.

Jilly wrestled with her conscience and her common sense. Not only would breaking in be wrong, she could lose Serafina’s the job and get herself arrested. She really didn’t want the police poking around her own electronic gadgetry.

I’m a hacker, not a burglar.

But they’re hiding something, I know they are. That must impact on the case…

“F*ck it,” Jilly whispered and delved into her laptop bag to find the correct, illegally acquired instrument. Even as she stuck one end to the keypad panel and plugged the other into her laptop, she was aware that the case wasn’t her only motive. She really wanted to see what Genesis was up to next. For no other reason than sheer geekery.

The computer whirred, the door clicked and slid open. Jilly took a deep breath, detached the gadget from the keypad and walked inside while still shoving her equipment back in the bag.

Oh yes, she’d struck gold. Not one but several computers were banked along one wall of the large, sterile room, although only one hummed busily behind its blank screen.

Jilly surveyed the room. It was large, probably ran for some distance behind the mirror in the gallery. A cushioned bench, like an operating table, stood in the centre of the space with masses of wiring, virtual reality headsets, gloves, etc. Above it hung other instruments. It looked a bit like a dentist’s surgery.

She’d no time to investigate properly. Pointless—and mad!—to have broken in here without several hours to play around.

She turned back to the active computer, bent, and wiggled its mouse. Nothing more interesting than a list of numbered files popped up. On impulse, Jilly grabbed a memory stick from her bag and shoved it into one of several USB ports.

She had to remind herself that less than five months ago she’d hacked into the systems of several banks and got away with it. Nicking files was no big deal. It wasn’t as if she’d use them for anything except satisfying her own curiosity.

She clicked Copy and stepped back from the computer, farther into the room.

As if she’d pressed a different button entirely, coloured lights suddenly flashed all around her. She whirled. The lights seemed to merge into one green one, emanating from some instrument over the operating table. The light moved, sweeping down her body and back up with increasing brightness so that she had to throw her arms up over her eyes.

When she lowered her arms, a man stood in front of her.

Tall, lean, a little dishevelled, he regarded her with a mixture of frowning anxiety and wonder. His steady, unblinking eyes were a melting dark brown, his hair a shock of unstyled black messiness, sticking up in various places and flopping forward over one side of his forehead. He wore casual, faded blue jeans and an old black T-shirt with some of the band logo worn off.

The overall effect was curiously appealing. Of course, his shoulders were broad and his arms pleasingly muscled, and he was very good-looking in a careless sort of way Jilly didn’t quite understand, because the sight of him was sending pleasant little tingles through her stomach. Then he spoke, his voice deep, quiet, and oddly stirring. It also sounded bewildered.

“Who are you?” he asked. “Are you dead?”

****



Sera had encountered several poltergeist-type spirits before. Two of those seemed to have formed merely from the negative energies of very much alive if troubled teenagers. Another had been all that was left of a very unpleasant dead man’s spirit. The Ewans’ poltergeist had something of the feel of the latter, but she’d never encountered such focused fury before.

Sera wasn’t normally scared by any supernatural being, but this one’s pure hatred made her skin crawl. It whirled around the room, no more than air, battering at anything it came in contact with, desperately trying to form, to strengthen.

It fed off fear, of course. She could control her own, but the Ewans, who’d been living with it for months, had more than enough for all of them. To calm them, she addressed the being aloud.

“Settle down and tell me the problem, or we’ll get nowhere,” she said, keeping her voice cool, amused.

The rushing air lessened, as if she’d surprised it. She’d certainly surprised the Ewans, who were gawping at her openmouthed. Good. Just for a moment, they’d forgotten to be afraid.

“What are you doing here?” she asked it, again aloud, although she kept the question in her mind too, directing it toward the furious consciousness of the spirit.

A blast of fury battered against her mind. No words. Just concepts. Anger. Hatred. Death.

“You’re dead,” Sera observed, and the anger battered her again. Enraged to be dead. “You can’t stay here. You have to move on with the rest of your spirit. Find peace.”

Ridicule, more fury, a blast of air in her face as though it would hurt her if it could. It didn’t want to disperse and wouldn’t just because she told it to. Her words were still more for the Ewans.

The poltergeist huffed around the room some more, a bit like an angry toddler.

“Oh, bugger off,” Sera said and forced the thought into the spirit’s consciousness. The malevolence evaporated, disappearing like air from a pierced balloon.

The Ewans huddled together on the opposite sofa, stared at her in growing wonder, doubt, and hope.

“Is it gone? Is that it? Is that all it took?” Petra babbled.

“Oh no, not quite,” Sera said. “It’s still around and will come back constantly stronger unless we disperse it for good.”

“How do we do that?” Dale asked, frowning in irritation as if she hadn’t done her job to the standard he expected of his hirelings.

“We need to deprive it of food—the negative energy it’s living off. I’m afraid that’s you two, largely, although it has a sizable amount of its own anger and hatred to keep it in place. If it stops growing, I can force it away.”

“How?” Petra demanded with more despair, Sera suspected, than any real desire to know.

Sera winked at her. “I’m stronger than it. Tell me, did someone die in the house recently?”

The Ewans shook their heads in perfect unison. Too perfect?

“No one’s ever died here,” Dale said. “We built the house only about four years ago.”

“Then I wonder where your angry spirit came from?” Sera mused.

“Could he have died on this land some time before the house was built?” Dale asked.

“Maybe,” Sera allowed. “But he didn’t make his presence felt until five months ago? Did something happen around that time? Some major event that affected either of you deeply?”

They looked blankly at her, at each other. They shook their heads. For Sera, there was just a little bit too much innocence there, and yet if they were lying, they were bloody good at it. Besides, what was the point if they wanted their poltergeist sent about its business?

“Not that I can think of, no,” Dale said. “My friend and ex-partner died in October, which was a horrible shock, if not entirely unexpected. But this stuff was already well underway by then.”

He shifted in his seat. “You don’t think our grief could have made this thing even stronger?”

Sera shrugged. “It’s possible. Look—”

“Where’s your friend?” Petra said suddenly.

Good question. “Probably taking readings elsewhere in the house,” Sera said comfortably. “It’s all useful information.”

But Dale would not be distracted. He strode toward the half-open door, and Sera hoped profoundly that he wouldn’t find Jilly anywhere she shouldn’t be. In a house full of electronic wizardry, it was a pretty vain hope.

****



Jilly stared at the stranger in front of her. Typical. The first man she’d met in ages whom she didn’t want to punch, and he was short of the full shilling.

“Dead? Why should I be dead,” she snapped. “Are you?”

He dragged one hand through his untidy black hair and down over his stubbly jaw. “Well, yes, I think so.”

Jilly blinked. “You look pretty lively to me. Where did you come from?”

He gazed around. “I don’t know. Sort of—asleep, and then I was here looking at you.”

Shit, she hadn’t even seen him in her desperation to get at the computers. He hadn’t been on the benches… Perhaps he’d been under them? Or wandered in from somewhere else in the house, through the outer study?

“Who are you?” she asked. And then since attack was the best method of defence: “What are you doing here?”

“Adam. And I don’t know.” His dark gaze came back to her. His frown deepened. “Are you sure you aren’t dead?” He stepped closer, reached out one curious, hesitant hand, and touched her cheek. Almost as if he imagined she’d disintegrate on contact.

Warm fingers, slightly rough in texture…

Her breath caught, but since his hand slid away almost immediately, she’d no reason to shove or punch. She curled her hands into fists but kept them still at her side.

“Soft,” he murmured as if pleased by the discovery. His frown cleared, and his lips quirked upward, almost smiling. “So soft.”

Jilly flushed. “Only on the outside. Why do you keep saying ‘dead’?”

“I remember dying.” The frown was back. “I was shot. Hurt like hell.”

“You’ve been dreaming,” Jilly said with a dismissive flap of one hand.

He nodded. “Could be. Or I could be wasted. Certainly never imagined the afterlife would resemble Dale’s testing lab.”

“Is that what this place is?” Jilly asked with interest. “What’s he testing?”

The frown between his brows twitched. His lips parted, and he sank backward, leaning his hip against the edge of the bench. “Of course… Wow. Shit, this is mind-blowing. I can remember.”

“Remember what?”

“My life… Well, most of it. No wonder everything’s so unreal.” His glazed eyes came back into focus, sparkling with excitement as he gazed at her face. “And you—did I really manage to think you up too?”

“No, you f*cking didn’t,” Jilly said indignantly, and a grin flickered across his face. He had a good grin, boyish and spontaneous, allowing her a glimpse of what might, in other circumstances, be a fun-loving personality.

“Thought not. You’re much too grumpy.”

Jilly felt her lips part in shock. She wasn’t used to anyone calling her something as unpleasantly mundane and trivial as “grumpy.” Even Sera usually just ignored her or threw things at her when she got bad tempered. Men either told her she was beautiful in a placating sort of a way or backed off in terror, which was just as it should be.

Amusement lingered in his dark eyes as he straightened and began to pace around the room. “Trust me, it’s a fascinating combination, and I’m very glad to have met you. Although I wish I was alive to enjoy the experience to the full.”

Jilly rolled her eyes. “Oh, for… Are you back at the dead thing again? You want to see a doctor, or preferably a shrink.”

He spread his hands wide at his side and came to a halt just in front of her. “Feel free to bring one.”

She had to crick her neck to look him in the eye. She wished she wasn’t so aware of his tall, strong body only inches from hers, and confusion made her snappish.

“You’re not my problem, pal. Look, just walk past me and out the door.”

She stepped aside with a strange mixture of relief and disappointment. He glanced at the door. His brows twitched. Then he took one pace forward and stopped. Suddenly, he looked lost, and, stupidly, her heart tugged as if he were an abandoned child.

“Come on,” she muttered ungraciously. “I have to get out of here anyway. Follow me.” She marched to the door, turned to make sure he was coming too—and found an empty room.

She stared carefully around, even looking under the bench this time, but there was no sign of him. All the hairs on the back of her neck stood up.

This she really couldn’t understand.

Swallowing, she turned away, then suddenly recalled her flash drive still attached to the computer. She ran and grabbed it. At least she remembered to remove all trace of it from the computer before she left the room and hit the Close and Lock button on the keypad.

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

Jilly stepped back smartly to avoid contact.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Neither of them blinked.

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

****



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“You’re the psychic,” Jilly retorted.

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

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

“What sort of something?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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