Serafina and the Silent Vampire

by Marie Treanor

  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 fucking 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 fuck 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?”