Serafina and the Virtual Man

CHAPTER Nineteen



“Can you do it?” Sera’s telepathic plea still filled Blair’s ears as he ran after the shadow of the Founder. “Will you do it?” He’d known what she was asking. If Adam was dead, could he bring him back, make him undead.

As if there weren’t enough stupid, annoying fledglings in Edinburgh cutting up his peace, drinking blood from his humans, and generally endangering the secrecy of vampire existence that was so necessary to their survival.

But he’d looked into her huge, desperate eyes, full of compassion for her friend’s suffering and the need to alleviate it, and his silent throat had closed up. He’d known he would do whatever she asked.

“For Jilly,” she pleaded.

Maybe for Jilly. He’d grown to like the girl’s prickles and aggression, which came with the appealing leaven of humour. And after all, it would have served her right for all the vampire hatred she’d expended on him in the last five months. So he might have done it for Jilly. For Sera, certainly, God help him. Only that seemed not to be necessary. The human lived, and amid the flurry of activity around him and phone calls to the emergency services, Blair had seized his opportunity to chase the shadow that had been following him and his.

The glass front door stood wide open. And yet Sera had closed it behind her when she’d arrived. Either Dale had woken up and done a runner or…

Could the Founder go out in daylight?

Blair picked up the biker’s helmet from the floor where Sera had dropped it to rush down to the cellar with everyone else, and took the gloves from the plastic bag beside it. Then he walked into the cool, grey daylight. Nothing moved. Even the birds weren’t singing. And yet Blair sensed a presence as surely as he knew his own name.

“Can we talk?”

He sent the thought out there with more hope than expectation. It didn’t get a reply. He wished he knew what the Founder was looking for.

And then it came to him that the Founder’s quest was none of his business, except in so far as it affected him and his, and it seemed he knew what to say after all.

“Things happen around her, that’s all. She makes them better.”

Something touched his mind, a flutter of amusement, not untinged with pity, and then it was gone, along with the presence he’d still never seen. After a moment, he realised the undead skin under his thin clothes was smarting, and he backed into the house and closed the door.

In spite of the unsatisfying nature of his one-sided conversation, to say nothing of his physical discomfort caused by the daylight, he felt oddly soothed, almost…contented. Because although the Founder hadn’t spoken to him, he had touched his mind, almost like a father’s caress. For now, at least, Sera was safe.

****



“Where’s Dale Ewan?” DC Alex McGowan demanded.

The ambulance had taken Adam away, breathing but heartbreakingly weak. The police had refused to let Jilly go with it, though. Now they all sat once more in the Ewans’ gracious if empty entrance hall. Petra, flanked by two policewomen, held an ice pack to the lump on her head. Sera sat close to Jilly in silent solidarity while Blair sprawled in the shadows in the corner, wearing biker’s leathers and holding a black helmet dangling from one hand.

“Good question.” Jilly frowned at Sera. “Where is Dale?”

“Um, asleep on his bed,” Sera said tranquilly. She didn’t once glance at Blair, although while Alex issued instruction to two uniformed men, she did murmur in Jilly’s ear. “Blair took enough blood to make him lose consciousness in the study. Which is why he left him there when he came to open the trapdoor. When it was all over, he bunged him on his own bed.”

“Won’t they be suspicious he’s so weak?”

“In all the rest of this shit, I doubt they’ll notice,” Sera said frankly. “Anyway, at least it means Blair’s less likely to drink from the police.”

Jilly couldn’t help the sudden hiccup of laughter. And then Alex was there, studiously ignoring Petra’s glare as he sat on the low table facing Jilly and Sera. Jack strolled over and sat on the arm next to Jilly.

“Okay. Spill. You’re really telling me Mr. and Mrs. Ewan kept Genesis Adam down there for five months, connected to nothing but a drip and a state-of-the-art virtual reality machine?”

“The evidence is all there,” Sera pointed out. “They forged documents and spread false rumours in the press alleging Adam’s descent in drink, drugs, and rehab. They forged the documents that signed over his share of the company to them for a relative pittance, which the Ewans then got back anyway because they were his chief heirs.”

“So why didn’t they just kill him?”

Sera didn’t really understand this part, so Jilly forced her own lips apart. “Petra meant to. I suspect Dale just wanted to squeeze him out, relying on Adam’s disgust and unwillingness to drag everything through the courts for justice. Dale probably reckoned Adam would just start again on his own.”

“Would he have?” Jack asked curiously.

Jilly shrugged. “Not sure that’s all he would have done. He is a fighter and doesn’t let go. Whatever, Petra was pretty sure Dale was wrong, so she took things into her own hands.”

Jilly glanced at Alex’s fascinated if slightly bemused face. “Petra didn’t have the long-standing friendship Dale couldn’t quite shake off,” she explained. “And she did, probably, bear a grudge for Adam rejecting her romantically at some point. Whatever, I’m sure her main motive was simply money. She hired Killearn to kill Adam here at the house. She feels in control here, you may have noticed, and I suspect she planned to bury him in the garden, probably where we eventually found Killearn instead. After all, Adam’s disappearance was already arranged and no one would look for him. Killearn, however, didn’t know anything about this plan, and so he set up my stupid brothers to take the fall. Only my brothers run faster than anyone suspects.”

Alex frowned. “That reminds me, I need to talk to Andy about something else entirely.”

“Axel!” Jilly exclaimed, suddenly remembering with a spurt of guilt.

“It can wait,” Alex assured her. “We’re talking about Genesis Adam.”

Jilly drew in her breath. “Adam demonstrated his new system to Dale here in the test lab. It was a planned thing, so Petra knew Dale would now have all the details. After the demo and dinner, Killearn attacked Adam with a machete, only Adam was stronger than the geek he clearly expected, and put up a fight that eventually killed Killearn.”

“Arsehole never knew when to back off, by all accounts,” Alex contributed. “So what did Dale and Petra do all this time the fight was happening?”

“Absolutely nothing. Dale must have known Petra was responsible, and he couldn’t expose her. He’s well under her thumb. Adam calls it love. Not the word I’d use, but still. So Dale did nothing to help Adam. And Petra, meanwhile, had covered all her bases by stuffing a gun down the back of the sofa.”

“It wasn’t a hunting rifle,” Petra said unexpectedly from the other side of the room. “Adam got that wrong. It was a much smaller handgun.”

Alex scowled. “Have you read her her rights yet?”

“Just about to,” said a shame-faced policeman.

Petra laughed.

“Go on,” Alex said grimly.

“Well, when she saw Adam had killed Killearn, she simply drew out her hidden gun and shot Adam in the back. Sweet girl.”

Petra cast her a glance of pure venom, but whatever she saw in Jilly’s eyes suddenly made her drop her own and turn impatiently to the policewomen. “I want my solicitor.”

“Okay, here’s the only good bit of the sorry tale,” Jilly said in a flat, hard voice. “She’s a crap shot and didn’t kill Adam. Dale was distraught. His wife had tried to kill his best friend, and he couldn’t let her take the rap. Nor could he watch his friend bleed out on the floor. Besides, they already had the body of Killearn to hide if they didn’t want the police asking all sorts of awkward questions. So Dale came up with the bizarre idea of keeping Adam alive and hidden in the cellar. He reckoned the VR machine would keep his brain patterns going in its database. But you might want to talk to one Dr. Stuart Cameron about that. I doubt he was in on it, but I suspect Dale at least consulted him. It was his work that made this whole system possible.”

Jilly drew breath and then looked at her hands. “I think Petra cleaned up whatever wounds Adam had and set him up on the drip. She used to be a nursing sister. She’s not as stupid as she pretends.” Neither am I, and neither of us recognised it in the other for far too long…

“And as far as I know, it all went fine. They forged Adam’s trip to Australia and set up a fake death and funeral, and carried on keeping him alive. They must have known he’d die eventually, but presumably not until they’d thought of some other method of disposing of the body. The only fly in the ointment was the poltergeist, which they may have suspected was Adam’s fury at their betrayal. But since Adam was officially dead on the other side of the world, they felt safe enough to call in Sera to exorcise it.”

“Mistake,” Sera said brightly. “I like to know what I’m exorcising. And Jilly here is insatiably curious. She read far too much power in the house and went to investigate. She pushed the wrong—or indeed the right—button on a computer and started up Adam’s virtual reality program.”

No mention, of course, that Jilly actually broke into the test lab. No one would be able to prove it if Dale or Petra ever accused her.

Sera said, “Somehow, Adam’s spirit—or consciousness, if you prefer—broke through into the program. Perhaps because of all those electrodes connecting him to the VR machine, which in turn was connected to the one upstairs.”

“Wait a minute,” Alex interrupted. “Where did this second VR machine now in the cellar come from in the first place?”

“Adam’s flat,” Jilly said. “He kept one in his own work area in his attic. I think Dale and Petra had it moved to their house and then installed it in the cellar, where they then bunged Adam. Only it was more convenient to keep things running from the original computer they’d used in the test lab. Which is why I was able to switch him on. And because of what he told me, I kept digging. Sera could never reach his spirit, either before or after she exorcised the poltergeist.”

Jack said smoothly, “We needed to know what happened to Adam and how he was connected to our clients, because we didn’t want to have been unwitting accessories.”

Alex glanced at him. “Aye, right.”

“Right,” Sera insisted. “Jilly began to suspect he’d never died. So Adam—or at least Adam’s consciousness in the VR program—recreated a VR scene of the night he was shot, to force Dale or Petra or both to give away what had really happened that night. While Jilly worked out from the security videos the likely area to find the entrance to wherever they’d hidden him, Jack hid himself round the corner there and watched under the stairs for the moment Petra would run to destroy the evidence. While Jilly stayed in the VR as a witness to Adam’s little scene.”

Jilly took her phone from her bag and passed it to Alex. “Their voices are all recorded on there.”

Alex took it slowly. “It won’t stand up,” he warned. “They can claim they were playing a game, however sick.”

“I know,” Jilly said. “But at least, from that, you’ll know what to look for to get the evidence and bang the bastards up.”

****



Outside, in the low January midday sun, Jilly watched with her friends as Dale and Petra were driven away in police custody. Odd, she thought vaguely, to be regarding the policeman in the select ranks of her friends, but it seemed she did.

The sun glinted off his bright red head and seemed to reflect into a metaphorical lightbulb in her own brain.

“Alex,” she murmured. “You knew Axel’s name. You know he’s another psycho, like Killearn? And he’s after my brother Andy?”

Alex shrugged. “So I heard incidentally. I know he’s responsible for a big designer-clothes heist, but we can’t prove it.”

“Why not?”

“Can’t find the goods,” Alex said ruefully.

“And if you could find the goods, it would send him down for long enough to forget my stupid brother?”

“Oh yes.” Alex’s gaze had brightened considerably. “Would Andy know where to look?”

“No,” Jilly said, “I doubt that. But I’m pretty sure he knows someone who does. Lend us your phone, Sera.”

Sera obliged with some amusement while the others waited, agog. “Andy? It’s me— No, shut up, I’m tireder than you’ll ever imagine, you lazy, useless sod. Your friend who left Edinburgh—find out from them an address for fashion goods, and you’ll be home free. Bye.”

She broke the connection on Andy’s splutters, passed the phone back to Sera, and smiled beatifically at Alex. “I’ll text you.”

Alex grinned, and she walked off toward Sera’s car.

“Come on, Jack,” Sera said behind her. “You’re far too tired to drive. I’ll take you back.”

“Why does she do that?” Jack burst out—perhaps louder than he intended; perhaps he meant Jilly to hear. “Why does she keep looking after the scumbags? I know they’re family, but—”

“Andy’s more than family,” Sera interrupted. “He’s her eyes and ears on her paedophile father. It’s the only way she could leave, and she pays Andy back for it any way she can.”

And that, Jilly thought for the first time, wasn’t fair either. She’d used Andy’s guilt, because as a kid Andy had known what her father did and couldn’t prevent it happening to his wee sister. And so he stayed for her and watched. Their father knew and behaved. But it kept Andy in the life Jilly so despised and Andy himself could hardly have enjoyed.

I’ll fix that, Jilly thought, climbing into the car and closing her eyes. Just as soon as I can think again, I’ll find a way to fix that too.

****



Adam opened his eyes with caution. He seemed to be in a hospital bed, in the same room as last time he woke up. The room was small and he its only occupant. A nurse scribbled on a chart at the foot of his bed. She was different from the last nurse he’d seen: older but kindlier in expression.

“Hello.” His voice was weak, hoarse, as if he hadn’t used it in months. But the nurse looked up with a delighted smile.

“Ah, you’re awake again.”

Again. That was a good sign—continuity. “I hate to talk in clichés,” Adam said, struggling to sit up. “But—er—where am I?”

The nurse leapt to his side immediately. “Careful,” she said. “You’re going to be weak for a while—you’ve been in a coma for five months. You’re in the Royal Infirmary.”

But at least he’d managed to sit up without her help, even if it knackered him. The nurse arranged his pillows more comfortably.

“I’d love a cup of coffee,” he wheedled.

She smiled. “The trolley’s on its way.”

“How long have I been here?”

“Since around midday yesterday afternoon, so nearly twenty-four hours. The doctor will be along to see you at some point today.” She hesitated. “How are you feeling?”

“Pretty good. As if I’ve had flu and a load of bad dreams.”

The nurse lowered her voice. “There’s a policeman here, waiting to talk to you. I can put him off until tomorrow if you like.”

“No, that’s all right. I want to talk to him.”

The nurse smiled. “I’ll make sure you get your coffee,” she assured him and bustled out.

A few moments later, a red-haired man in a brown wool jacket came in carrying a cup and saucer.

“Mr. Adam? I’m DC McGowan. Um—the nurse asked me to give you this.”

“Thank God,” Adam said flippantly, reaching for it. Although it felt unaccountably heavy, he managed to ferry it down to his lap and raise the cup to his lips. He wrinkled his nose. “You know, I thought it would taste better than that.”

“Hospital coffee,” McGowan observed by way of explanation. “How are you feeling?” He turned the chair by the bed and sat beside him.

“Confused, to be honest.”

McGowan said carefully, “We found you in the cellar of a house belonging to Dale and Petra Ewan. You seemed to have been there for some time.”

Then it was real. Some, at least, of all that was real. The pain of betrayal clawed at his stomach. Yet somewhere, he knew he’d already gone through the initial shock of this, and he found he could deal with it, lay it aside in his need for more answers.

“Do you remember any of that?” McGowan asked, taking out his notebook and pen.

“I remember a load of stuff that might be dreams. And I remember waking up somewhere that looked like a cellar. Damp, cold, musty. There was a drip in my hand.” And a girl, holding me; a sweet, beautiful girl, crying for me…

McGowan nodded. “I have to inform you that we’ve charged Mr. and Mrs. Ewan with kidnapping and false imprisonment. There will be other charges relating to fraud.”

Adam held his eyes steadily, listening to the beat of his own heart. “That was part of my dream.”

“You were found in the cellar by Serafina MacBride and her staff. Do you know these people?”

Adam’s pulse leapt. “Psychics?” he hazarded. “At least, Sera is.”

“Go on,” McGowan said. His voice was calm, but something about his unblinking eyes told Adam the policeman was as excited as he was.

“There was another girl, JK.”

McGowan’s gaze fell in apparent disappointment.

Adam tried harder. “Jilly. Jilly Kerr. She’s into computers. Blonde, beautiful.”

McGowan smiled. Encouraged, Adam named Jack and Blair too. And then McGowan asked the all-important question: “How do you know these people?”

Adam glugged down the rest of the coffee. It wasn’t very nice, but he was thirsty. “That’s the hard part,” he admitted, shoving the cup and saucer on to his bedside table. “I don’t really know. Because I’m not sure what’s real.”

Having thus cleared JK and her friends—if they were real—by leaving open the absolute possibility of his dreaming them—he told the policeman how he’d first encountered JK, and an edited version of what he remembered vividly came after.

McGowan gave little away, which kept Adam on tenterhooks, still unsure of what was dream and what reality. Then the detective said, “Can you remember the night you were attacked in the Ewans’ home?”

And he told him about that too, right up to the point he was shot and his brain shut down.

The nurse stuck her head around the door. “Two more minutes, please,” she said to McGowan. “The doctor needs to examine Mr. Adam.”

McGowan nodded and finished writing before stuffing his notebook and pen away in his pocket and standing up.

“Wait,” Adam said in frustration. “I’ve got questions too.”

“Better be quick.”

“Did Dale really hire a psychic to get rid of a poltergeist?”

McGowan nodded.

“Then—Serafina’s is real?”

McGowan nodded. “Only too bloody real,” he said with feeling. “Talk to you soon, Mr. Adam. Thanks for your help.”

Perhaps it was the adjustment, but all through the doctor’s poking and prodding and questioning, Adam felt totally exhausted and had to fight not to close his eyes. The doctor seemed to make his stately progress with an escort of several younger, white-coated acolytes who hung on his every word.

“This is a most interesting case,” the doctor pronounced. “As you can see, the muscles are far less wasted than one might expect after so long without use.”

“That’s the VR machine,” Adam said vaguely, his eyes already closed. Since this was greeted with absolute silence, he opened his eyes again to find them all staring at him. “Virtual reality. My brain was active for at least some of the time and passed certain signals to my body. So I didn’t lie perfectly still. It might not be exactly working out, but I did make definite movements.”

The acolytes stared at their high priest, who swallowed and coughed. “As I say, a most interesting case,” he repeated hastily. “Keep resting, Mr. Adam, you’re doing well.”

Resting. He felt as if he’d done enough of that for a lifetime. It was just his eyes wouldn’t stay open.

****



He came to with the low, distant buzz of conversation in his ears. Visiting time? Something rustled in his room, and he opened his eyes to see the same nurse from this morning, walking toward the door.

“I’m awake,” he volunteered, and she turned at once.

“Oh good! It’s just you have a visitor, and the doctor’s orders are only for those who won’t upset you.”

“Tell her I never upset you,” said a familiar voice with a charming Irish lilt, and Roxy walked into the room. “Oh God, it is you!”

She flew at him, and he held open his arms to receive her. “You were dead! I thought you were dead. We all thought you were dead!”

“Hey, I thought I was dead. I’m really not. This place is full of doctors, and they all say the same thing.” Over Roxy’s head, he nodded to the nurse, who departed, smiling.

****



Jilly felt more nervous than she ever had in her life. Sera had refused to come with her.

“I’ve got appointments this afternoon. I’ll go in the evening,” Sera had insisted with a grin. “Go first and prepare the way.”

Jilly had glanced at Jack, studiously engrossed in his reading. They were all pretending they weren’t interested in seeing the man they’d rescued, but she knew they were giving her this time alone, and that only made her more nervous than ever.

She was dressed for work, with the lighter makeup she’d begun to adopt over the last week. She refused to touch it up, but she did brush her hair till it shone before she left Serafina’s.

Did you buy flowers for a man? Eventually, she decided you definitely did if he was in hospital, since it would brighten up the dull, sterile ward. She bought grapes too and blew her pay in advance on the newest handheld gaming device that came with games of spectacularly good graphics and entertainment value. Thus armed, she caught the bus to the Infirmary and tracked down his ward.

“He’s in the room at the end,” the nurse said brightly from behind her desk. Jilly nodded her thanks and walked along the long, echoing corridor, her heart hammering. This was ridiculous. It felt like the Green Mile. She wasn’t going to her own or anyone else’s execution; she was going to visit the man who felt ridiculously like her best friend. Her virtual lover.

“Love is for life,” he’d said to her. And now he had life.

This was real. And that scared the shit out of her.

Hushed voices, the occasional laugh from the rooms on either side brushed against her ears as she made her way to the end. The final room. There was a window just before the door. She couldn’t help looking in.

And there he was. Adam. Genesis Adam, alive and real, and holding another woman in his arms. Roxy May.

Her stomach twisted. She’d been right. They did look great together, all tumbled black hair and dramatic good looks. Worse, they were comfortable. Roxy drew back, seizing his face between her hands and kissing him hard on the lips. Adam smiled, and Jilly drew back from the window, pressing her back into the wall next to it.

She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think beyond the sudden flood of understanding. This was real. No wonder she’d been so scared. What she’d had with Adam wasn’t real at all. He’d needed her because of the situation he was in, and she—well, she was f*cked up and desperate. Even if he remembered her, even if Roxy remained no more than a friend and an ex to him, Jilly was nothing.

She closed her eyes. How could she have built a fairy tale out of this? He may not have been a prince, but he was a wealthy genius, Genesis Adam. Jilly Kerr was no Cinderella. She was a computer hacker with the family from hell, and if she’d learned anything, it was how to take care of herself. She could not bring herself to walk into that room and watch her virtual fairy tale crumble. She’d leave that, at least, intact.

Heaving her suddenly heavy body off the wall, she walked swiftly back the way she’d come, pausing at the nurses’ station to ask them to pass the flowers on to Genesis Adam. “He’s busy,” she muttered, “and I can’t wait.”

“Of course,” the nurse said pleasantly. “Who’ll I say they’re from?”

“JK,” Jilly said and walked away.