But he wasn’t.
There were so many reasons to draw back from whatever it was she’d found with him. She knew she was doing the right thing.
And yet, when she woke up suddenly to the clicking of the front door lock, she was on her feet and running down the stairs in nameless panic before she was properly conscious.
He must have heard her coming. At the speed he moved, he could have been halfway home before her foot hit the top step. Instead, he stood below her, one hand on the half-open door as he watched her descent.
“You’re going,” she whispered stupidly.
“It’s nearly dawn.”
Reaching the bottom, she walked slowly toward him, not knowing what to say except a lame, “Thanks for your help tonight.”
He inclined his head. It didn’t appear to be ironic. His expression was serious, if otherwise unreadable. She stood beside him, waiting for him to say something or to go. She didn’t know which she wanted.
Slowly, unsmiling, he lifted his hand and touched her cheek, cupping it in his palm. It felt tender and sweet. Until she blinked, and then his touch and his presence were both gone. The door didn’t make a sound as it closed behind him.
Sera stared at it without seeing. She raised her hand, placing it over the skin he’d caressed. It felt like good-bye.
Chapter Sixteen
Judging by the sky, Blair reckoned he had time to call in on Phil before he went home. He wanted to make sure the old piss-head was up for the fight. Or at least, that was what he told himself. In reality, he didn’t want time alone to brood about Serafina.
One thing a vampire learned was patience. He knew better than to invite Sera to his house for a dawn ravishing. Whatever was going on in her mixed-up head, she needed time to sort it out, and Blair was happy to give her that. After all, he’d be seeing her regularly until this mess was sorted out anyway. The fact that she’d followed him in panic to the front door, the arrested look in her eye when she imagined he was saying a terminal farewell—a belief he’d rather deliberately inspired—both convinced him that hope of Serafina was not lost. He could wait. But the knowledge didn’t stop the lust or the frustration from rampaging through him until he almost turned back, shoved the door in, and took her while she was still halfway up the stairs.
A fantasy for another day.
Phil had taken up temporary residence, as he frequently did while in Edinburgh, in a condemned warehouse in the old brewery district of Fountainbridge. He wouldn’t have the use of it much longer, though—a sign bearing the name of a major property developer had gone up. It would soon be luxury, serviced flats, so unless Phil stumped up and bought one, he’d be homeless pretty soon.
There had once been iron gates leading into the yard. Now it was a much lower, makeshift, wood-and-wire barrier held on with string. Blair jumped over it without touching it and strode toward the smaller, boarded-up door at the side of the building. His mind was on Sera, on the difficulties of the task she was trying to achieve, and on how to charm her back into his bed before he exploded with lust. So he barely noticed the warning prickles breaking out all over his body until he’d reached up and almost pushed open the door.
Vampires. On the outside, close by.
“Run, Blair. Don’t come in. Run.” Phil’s telepathic voice from the inside turned the cold blood in his veins to ice. He’d never before felt such panic, such fear in Phil’s mind.
“What’s going on?” he demanded.
“Run!” Phil pleaded desperately. “Fucking run!”
He could rush in and try to save Phil from whatever was scaring his pants off. But Phil would hardly tell him to run unless—
Blair was already leaping backward when the force of the explosion blasted him even farther. A fireball followed him, bursting from the building and searing him on its way past. Blair could hear the awed, triumphant laughter of the vampires in his head, and then it was drowned out by Phil’s terrible screams.
A vampire couldn’t survive fire; and the warehouse was burning.
At the last moment, Blair managed to twist in mid-air, so that when the force of the blast released him, he hit the ground feetfirst, instantly running through the billowing clouds of smoke and dust, back toward the warehouse. The raging inferno straight in front of him had to be the door he’d almost entered. Swerving, he sped to the main front door, which was in much the same state.
The other vampire presences were melting away. Perhaps they’d imagined he’d burned up in the fireball. Or perhaps they’d heard the police and fire sirens screaming toward them. Blair leapt to the upper floor window, crashing through the boards and into the derelict, smoke-filled room. Phil’s mental screaming grew fainter, but it was enough for Blair to trace him. Forcing his way through the heat, which grew ever more intense toward the inferno that had once been the wooden stairs, he ignored the agonizing blistering and crumpling of his skin. In the end, he found Phil by bumping into him.
From instinct, he grabbed at him as an ominous cracking sounded even through the roar of the flames. There was an instant of clarity when he realized Phil was pinned to the balustrade with wooden stakes through his hands, and that the whole stairwell was about to collapse, balustrade and all.
The only way to go on was not to think. To shut out the heat and close down the part of his brain that still felt pain. He allowed the anger, the fury, since it gave him a false strength he no longer had in reality. Blair altered his grip and yanked. The balustrade came with Phil, and Blair swung back the way he’d come.
But the smoke was so thick now he couldn’t even see the window he’d crashed through. Still relying on an instinct that couldn’t be trusted in this hell of heat and smoke, Blair took his last chance. He could end it all by rushing straight into the thick stone walls. With the force of his run, that would be his last act. Or he might get it right and find the window.
Carrying Phil and the accompanying balustrade in his arms, Blair leapt. The balustrade crashed and broke against the wall, vibrating through him like a machine-gun blast. But there was colder air and nothing under his feet.
The night was alight not just with fire but with emergency flood lights. Human voices yelled, mingling with the wail of sirens. Fire engines, ambulances, and police cars seemed to fill the edge of the yard and the street beyond.
The ground rushed to meet him. He glimpsed a policeman, openmouthed and stunned, and then the sea of smoke and rubble closed in once more.
Even as he hit the ground running once more, despite the agony of burning skin and the dead weight of his tragically silent friend in his arms, the joy of survival rushed through him.
Who’d have thought a mere forty years ago, when Ailis had forcibly tethered him to the earth with responsibility, that the mere extension of existence could have made him grin like a maniac in the carnage?
****
Nobody wanted to be the one to open Serafina’s the next day. So, buoyed up by a shower and a lot of coffee, Sera did it while the others took turns to go home and change. It was a mostly clear day, appointment-wise, because Sera had set it aside for the chasing of new business.
“And since I don’t feel capable of chasing anything that moves faster than a cup of coffee,” she told Melanie, “I think I should stay here and watch you de-spell the banking vampires.”
“What if they go on the rampage?” Mel asked anxiously. “If they’re suddenly released from Nick’s control…”
“Well, they can’t rampage before tonight. And if they’re no longer acting together, Blair can kill them.”
Something twisted inside her as she spoke the words, but there was no time to dwell on that because Melanie was bringing up other problems. “Yes, but how long will that take? You said he wanted you to track them for him. Do you really want to be a sniffer dog for a vampire assassin?”
Sera flopped into the nearest chair and rubbed her tired eyes. “I don’t know what else to do. There are too many of them, and they keep killing.” She lifted h
er gaze to Mel, who looked unnaturally bright and wide awake. “And what about Nicholas himself? If you break his spell, will he not be able to just recast it when you’ve gone home?”
Mel eased her hip off Elspeth’s desk and walked to the window. “Not really,” she said ruefully. “My counter-spell should run through each vampire to the source of the original spell.”
“Nick?”
“Nick. Each loosening should weaken him. To be honest, I doubt he’ll have much magical power left by the time we finish with him.”
The twist tightened. Sera wondered if it was her conscience. “You mean he won’t be psychic anymore?” How would that make me feel? I wouldn’t be different anymore. I could have a normal life, get married, have kids… So why does the very idea make me feel dead inside?
Melanie said, “I don’t think that can be taken from him, any more than his knowledge can.”
Was that relief? Did she really care what happened to that bastard who’d rejected and ignored her and was perfectly happy to enslave humanity? Christ, I need more sleep.
“It’s his—energy, if you like, that’ll be affected. He’s needed a lot for what he’s doing, and it sort of feeds itself on a loop as he uses it. We’re going to smash the loop. And that will leave him with a hell of a lot less than he started with. At the very most.”
Sera frowned at Melanie’s back. “You mean we could kill him?”
Mel hesitated, then shivered and glanced back over her shoulder. “I don’t know. But we certainly won’t do his health any good. Do you want to call it off, Sera? Look for some other way?”
Sera spread her hands on her knees and regarded her fingers, spotting an uneven nail, a random scratch on her thumb. “There isn’t another way, is there?”
“There’s always another way. We just have to find it.”
“I don’t think we’ve time for that, do you?”
Mel shrugged. “I don’t even know how often we’ll have to do the spell. I don’t imagine you get many vampires with one shot. And this is going to use up a hell of a lot of my own energy. I’ll need to sleep in between.”
Sera stood up with decision. “Then let’s start. Why don’t you use the inner office? I’ll mind the shop as well as watch for you.”
****
There were no words, but Blair sensed their grim, silent presence. As he gazed down on the still, burned husk on the bed, all those with whom he or Phil had links hovered in his mind with grief and anger. It was rare enough for one of them to die that they all felt Phil’s pain and the shock of his imminent passing.
Possible passing.
Again, Blair had to break his own skin before holding his wrist to Phil’s lips, pressing hard enough for some of the blood to spill over his lips and teeth. At least this time, he felt the weak, instinctive suck, and knew there was hope.
Abruptly, Davie spoke in his mind. “I’ll be coming over now.”
“Now would be good,” Blair said after a pause, willing Phil to keep drinking. Surely the pull was growing stronger? “Keep hidden and wait for my call.”
For once, there was no dispute, no posturing or defiance, only a subdued murmur of assent as they drifted away.
“You have them well in hand,” a very different voice said in his mind, mingling amusement with admiration. Relief washed over him, almost like a pain.
“Ailis.”
She was Phil’s best chance, and, as if Phil felt her too, he sucked harder, drawing Blair’s blood greedily into his own mouth. The blackness of his skin began to recede and lighten to blistered redness in places.
“I’m on my way,” Ailis said. “But it will be well after dark before I can reach Edinburgh.”
Blair sent her a nod, gritting his teeth. His blood was doing its job, reviving Phil, giving him the strength to remember his greed. He could drain Blair dry and it still wouldn’t be enough blood to heal him.
Reluctantly, he pulled his wrist free. “Enough for now. Rest.”
****
On his way out of the police station to begin his shift, McGowan was surprised to see Steve Paton slumped over a desk, apparently doodling with pencil and paper.
“You still here?” he said in surprise. “I thought you were on night shift.”
“Yes.” Steve grunted, throwing down his pencil and rubbing his face with one hand. “I feel like shite. Need my bed. I just wanted to draw this character before I forgot what he looked like.”
Steve wasn’t a police artist as such. He was just a police constable with a talent for sketching. Over the years, he’d done caricatures of McGowan and most of their colleagues and superiors. They hung on the walls of the canteen and the locker rooms.
“Who’s he?” McGowan asked without much interest.
“You heard about the Fountainbridge fire? Definitely arson. I saw this guy running away from it, carrying someone else. I suppose you could say he’s our chief suspect. I’ll give it to Sal before I go.”
McGowan nodded and was about to pass on when, as Steve stood and reached for the picture, he glanced at it himself and stopped dead. Snatching it from Steve’s surprised grasp, he stared at it.
It showed a good-looking, lean young man with thick, wild hair, and large, deep-set eyes, looking out of the picture as if he was dropping from the sky. He had the sort of bone structure women swooned over and the lips of a sensualist. He also looked furious, and his skin seemed to be peeling.
“I know him,” McGowan said slowly. “I’ve seen him before. Recently…” He cast his mind back over the previous working day and its finish via the home of the enigmatic Sera MacBride. His breath caught. He lifted his gaze to the expectant Steve. “Blair. His name’s Blair, and he’s a friend of that psychic researcher in the New Town: Serafina MacBride.”
****
Jilly, her ear to the door of the inner office, said, “It’s very quiet in there. She’s not speaking.”
“Maybe it’s happening,” Sera said hopefully. She was trying to concentrate on her research for tomorrow’s appointments, with indifferent success.
“How long did she say it would take?” Jack asked, carefully neutral. He was having a hard time believing in witches and spells. If it wasn’t for the recent events featuring vampires, he’d have been snorting in derision. At least in private.
“What do your parents think of you working for a psychic researcher?” Sera asked suddenly. Jack’s parents were a surgeon and a company director.
Jack grinned sheepishly. “They don’t know. They think I’m unemployed.”
Sera gave a slightly twisted smile. “Which, for all the salary you get here, you probably are.”
“And for all the work he does,” Jilly added, moving away from the door.
“Why don’t you get a real job? The sort graduates are supposed to do?” It wasn’t the first time she’d asked, and she wasn’t surprised to get the same answer.
“When the right one comes along, I will.”
“What is the right job for you, Jack?” Jilly mocked.
“Nursery nurse,” Jack scowled. “I feel I’m already doing it.”
Sera stood up. “I don’t like this. She’s too quiet too long.”
Jilly caught her arm as she marched toward the inner office. “Wait. What if you interrupt her at the crucial moment?”
“What if she’s dead?” The words slipped out without intention, scaring Sera as much as Jilly.
White, Jilly stared at her. “You’d know, wouldn’t you?”
Not with Mel… This time, Sera closed her lips before she spoke aloud. She pulled free of Jilly and reached for the door.
Quietly, she turned the handle and went in.
Oh Jesus Christ, no…
Mel was slumped over the table, one hand still in the tray of earth, the other under her head on the table. Without conscious volition, Sera found herself crouching beside her friend, smoothing the hair from her face so that she could see her.
She touched Mel’s lips, felt her breath, and almost s
obbed in relief. Then she saw the tearstains on Mel’s face as the witch’s eyes fluttered open. She tried to lift her head but seemed unable.
“I’m sorry, Sera,” she whispered. “I can’t reach them. I’m not strong enough.”
Sera stroked her hair. “Not any of them?”
“Not one.”
“The spell doesn’t work,” Jilly said from the doorway. Frustration was clear in her voice.
“The spell is good,” Mel said weakly. “It just needs more power than I have. Even in the same room, I’d have difficulty. It’s too strong for me.”
“You’re just tired,” Sera said. She didn’t know if she meant to comfort Melanie or herself. “Come on. You need rest. You can’t do something like this on the strength of three hours’ sleep.”
Jilly came to help, and between them, they lifted her from the chair and half carried her through the door and upstairs to the flat. Sera fetched her a glass of water, which she drank obediently and then lay down on Sera’s bed as if she couldn’t keep her eyes open any longer. Over her sleeping body, Sera met Jilly’s gaze.
And then came the distant sound of Elspeth’s voice, speaking too loudly, in too much panic. “She isn’t here right now. I’ll get her to call you.”
Sera bolted to the stairs and crept down, listening. “I’ll wait,” said the voice of Nicholas Smith.
Sera glanced over her shoulder at Jilly, whose eyes narrowed, ready for a fight. Sera grinned and walked the rest of the way down to the inner office. Through its open door, she could see Nicholas Smith seating himself in the waiting chairs. He wore a suit and tie.
Sera and Jilly strolled through. It comforted Sera to hear the click of the flat door locking behind them.
“Old Nick,” she observed, entering the main office. “How can I help you today?”
“By telling me what you’re doing.” Smith rose to his feet, and Sera at once sensed anger. He was suppressing it beneath his usual, suave exterior, but tension radiated from his tense shoulders, the careful modulation of his voice, the infinitesimal tightness of his polite smile.
Serafina and the Silent Vampire Page 24
