Serafina and the Virtual Man

CHAPTER Nine



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

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

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

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

“Sera?”

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

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

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

“Sure.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sera relayed the question.

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

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

“A history of magic in Bulgaria.”

“Well, that explains why you fell asleep.”

“Philistine.”

“Did you cast any spells that day?”

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

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

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

Blair closed his eyes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Great. See you soon. Bye.”

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

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

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

“No.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

****



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

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

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

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

“You mean common,” Jilly said dryly.

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

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

“On his head,” Jilly said unkindly.

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

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

“Deal,” Sera said promptly.

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

Jilly met Sera’s stunned gaze with her own.

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

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

“Not shot?” Jilly said quickly.

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

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

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

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

Maybe, Jilly thought. Maybe not.

“Who?” Sera demanded. “Who done it?”

“Genesis Adam.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“How do you know?” Jilly asked suddenly.

“Know what?”

“That Adam killed Killearn.”

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

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

“Yes, I know that,” Jilly said.

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

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

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

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

Alex hesitated, then nodded.

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

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

“It crossed my mind.”

“By whom?”

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

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

“Thanks,” Jilly muttered.

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

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

Jilly nodded.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The door to Serafina’s tinkled open and closed.

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

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

“I’m looking for Jillian.”

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

****



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

He remembered a lot now, though. And he knew who the body was. More to the point, JK would know too, and before long she’d probably know who killed him. He rather thought that would hurt her.

JK of the mixed messages. She’d liked him; she’d had fun playing the game with him. But he’d read easily enough that whatever attraction sizzled between them, she was untouchable. Fair enough. They were in a VR game, and Adam didn’t exist in any other form. But she did things to his unreal body—why had that part of the program worked quite so bleeding well?—and he had this insane urge to protect her, however tough and mouthy she was. He liked her. And f*ck, yes, he’d liked kissing her. So soft and yielding, with passion simmering up below the surface and about to explode… He wanted that. He wanted it a lot.

He’d spent too long in the bat cave before he died. Too long being nerdy and celibate.

He was glad she’d told him the body wasn’t his. He’d been pretty sure his sentience, or whatever this was, would fade from the program with the discovery of his body. Wasn’t that how these things worked? The spirit needed to make things right, see justice done. Or something. He didn’t know, but he could see she believed it, and her best friend and employer was a psychic.

Perhaps it would have been best if he had just vanished into whatever nothing or afterlife was waiting for him, but he was reluctant to leave her just yet and was ridiculously pleased that she obviously felt the same. That was what held him back. Why he hadn’t answered her last night.

Because he’d always sensed emotional damage in her, and he’d suddenly realised he was adding to it. Genesis Adam, supergenius, just not always quick on the uptake. She’d even removed the tape from her webcam again, and he’d just sat back and looked at her.

And fantasised a little. Well, a lot.

Even made-up to lose a lot of the expression that made her so beautiful to him, she was stunning. She had a body to die for—if you weren’t already dead—and he longed to bury himself in it, right up to his balls, and give her the best sex of her life.

He suspected men always fantasised about giving women the best sex of their lives. He wondered how many actually succeeded. Of those, it seemed unlikely that many managed it after death.

Why wasn’t she at her computer? She’d left it on, and he could see through the webcam that she was in her office. He could hear voices, and when he upped the volume, he heard JK and Sera talking about the body with a man who seemed to be a policeman.

Shit, that was quick. And JK sounded weird. No wonder…

“Your dad’s coming this way,” Sera shouted suddenly. “Get out through the flat.”

What? Elegant, tough, don’t-mess-with-me JK still hid from her parents? Amused, searching for distraction, he listened in, heard a door slamming.

“What do you want?” Sera’s voice asked, with enough contempt to ice the blood. Adam was surprised. Sera radiated tough and mouthy, much in the same way that JK did, but Adam had grown up in a similar environment if a different city, and he’d never recognised any malice or reasonless disrespect in either of them. Until now.

“Jilly isn’t here,” Sera said shortly. “Elspeth, would you please go over the road for some milk?”

“No,” said the middle-aged lady uncompromisingly.

Uh-oh.

But everyone seemed to ignore the insubordination. “She works for you, doesn’t she?” JK’s dad retorted.

“None of your f*cking business,” Sera said.

The webcam suddenly moved, as if Sera had knocked the laptop with her coat or her arm, and Adam could make out most of two people: the slim, feminine figure of Sera and a dumpier man in grubby trousers and an expensive brand-name rain jacket.

The man snarled, “You were always a foul-mouthed wee—”

“But at least it’s only my mouth that’s foul. You don’t scare me, Mister Kerr.” She slurred the word mister in a deliberately insulting manner. “What’s more, you can’t scare Jilly anymore either. If you were to go near her, she’d break your arm and probably your face. If she got to you first. Me, I’d just mash your obscene knackers.”

The man had gone very still. Adam could imagine his mouth falling open in shock. Adam knew how he felt. Bile rose through him with reluctant, terrible understanding. Oh f*ck, surely not…

“Did you imagine I didn’t know?” Sera was all but whispering. What’s more, it was she who’d stepped closer, crowding her friend’s father. “Do you really think the world’s full of women like your poor wife who can’t live with you or her own silence without a bottle of vodka in every teapot? Stuff that. Let me make it plain. If I ever see you again, if Jilly ever sees you again—hell, if you so much as leave a message on her phone, I’ll find you. And I’ll make sure your so-called friends—inside and outside of prison—know exactly why.”

The man swallowed audibly. Adam felt sick to his stomach.

JK’s dad spoke in a strangled voice. “I’d never hurt Jillian.”

“Not now. She’s too old for you. Plus, she can fight back, and trust me, she still might if she gets a whiff of you abusing anyone else. Even if you think about it, you’ll go to jail for what you did to Jilly. Now, get out.”

He got out. Adam was vaguely aware of it, as he was of Sera saying apologetically, “Had that on my mind for a long time.”

“I could tell,” the older woman said faintly.

“Not a word to Jilly,” Sera warned.

“Poor little Jilly…”

Poor little Jilly indeed. Adam wanted to take her in his arms and soothe away the nightmare, make her forget. He wanted to smash her father’s face in, destroy the monster who’d so hurt a child, his own child.

A man, it seemed, could do worse things than abandon his kid.

Shoving back his chair, he leapt to his feet and paced around the large room, kicking and punching the walls, because, after all, no one could hear him. It made his knuckles bleed, but he didn’t care.

Online friends were a large part of JK’s life. He knew that. What was he except a form of online friend? Where was the harm in that? If she needed him, if she just liked hanging out with him, he should be there, for as long as he was allowed to be. She was strong enough to have survived childhood abuse by the person who should have protected her most, so yes, she was more than strong enough to survive a kiss with the virtual Genesis Adams.

Smiling with rueful self-mockery, Adam flung himself back into his chair and typed.

Exodus: Where do you think I am? A man has to sleep after beating up the Nazis.