Serafina and the Silent Vampire (12 page)

Jamie had seen some good, some compassion or regret or
something
in Blair. Although it had done him no good when it really counted. Again, Sera banished the vision. She needed her mind focused on the present

“Clever,” Phil acknowledged in her mind as he ran down the stairs beside her now. “Think one thing, do another. You’re going to lead Blair a fine dance.”

With the immediate danger from Phil apparently averted, she caught on to the other important point—that there were no sounds of fighting from downstairs anymore, only a female voice. Sera exchanged frowning, interrogative glances with Phil as she crossed the hall to the sitting room. He inclined his head and stayed where he was, propping his shoulder against the wall opposite the door.

The room was full of vampires. Several of them turned toward Sera, staring at her with enough inhuman hunger to freeze her bones. Yet she stood paralyzed by the vision of Blair seated close beside a young woman—the vampire of the black silk dress, the one from her vision, who’d been asleep beside Jason Bell at C & H.

Neither Blair nor the female vampire paid her a blind bit of notice. Blair sat close to the vampiress, his arm stretched behind her along the back of the sofa. She wasn’t immune to his proximity. Her undead eyelashes were fluttering; one of her fingers toyed with a lock of her hair.

Jesus Christ,
Sera thought, suddenly stricken.
Is that how
I
looked to him too?

“No,” Blair said in her mind. “Never.”

What the hell did he mean by that? That she was less attractive than the vampire or more? And why the hell should she care? Before she could work any of this out, Phil stepped in front of her, and the vampires advancing on her halted uncertainly. One of them said, “Ella.”

The female vampire glanced round impatiently, her gaze glancing off Sera to Phil. She rose gracefully from the sofa saying, “You see how wonderful it could be for us? You’ll come?”

“Oh, I’ll come,” Blair murmured, but the vampire didn’t seem to hear him. Sera, listening to Blair in her mind and the others in her ears, began to think her brain would melt. Ella went on gazing at Blair, eyebrows raised in expectation. He inclined his head and stood up. Apparently satisfied, she called to the others that they were leaving. As one, they made for the window, but Blair moved unexpectedly, blocking the way. They stopped at once, clearly wary of him. With mocking politeness, he gestured them out of the room to the front door and herded them out like a sheepdog for Phil to oversee their departure.

Baffled, yet with slow-dawning understanding, Sera gazed after them. She felt betrayed; she felt stupid; and she knew she should feel far more afraid than she did. Not for the first time, sheer anger made her brave.

“What the hell was that all about?” she exploded as soon as the door was closed behind the vampires. “Have you done a deal with them?”

“Not yet,” Blair said. “Except for the one that they enter my house again uninvited and I kill them all.” He indicated the stairs, but Sera spun on her heel and stalked back into the bare sitting room.

For a moment, she thought her gesture had backfired, because no one followed her. She drew a breath of frustration, started back toward the door just as Blair strolled in with her shoes in one hand. Brought up short—and much too close—she glared at him and went on the attack.

“
Did
they kill Jason Bell?”

Blair dropped her shoes on the floor and inclined his head. “Ella did that. And turned him. An older, English vampire called Arthur met him when he woke and took him away to explain things to him. Then he was sent to work before it got light.”

“Then he’s one of them,” she said flatly, cramming her feet back into the shoes. Although she’d known it already, the confirmation hurt with unexpected sharpness.

“Undoubtedly. And I have to say they have an interesting plan. Why do you look so sad?” He brushed her cheek with the back of one finger, and she knocked his hand away.

“What plan?” she demanded.

“To take over the banks and siphon off unlimited wealth. In time, they can also control the Scottish Parliament and spread their influence into England. After that, who knows? World vampire domination via banking.”

“That’s stupid! How can they take over the banks? They only come out at night!”

“Yes, but they can stay in their offices all day. They don’t need to sleep all the time, and as they get older, they’ll need less. Plus, winter’s coming up—gives them longer hours. They already have three key staff at C & H, four at the Bank of Scotland, five at the Royal Bank, a scattering through building societies and insurance companies based in the city—”

“She told you all that?”

“Oh yes.”

Sera narrowed her eyes, ignoring the pain clawing at her stomach. “You like the idea. You’re going to join them.”

“Well, think about it. I could have a much more comfortable house, and easier meals, since discretion won’t matter for much longer.”

“And that’s all you care about?” she raged.

“I’m a vampire. What else is there?”

Her hand flew without permission, all her strength behind it in a forceful, ringing slap. She didn’t see him move, knew even then through her anger and disappointment and reasonless hurt that he allowed the blow but immediately trapped her stinging hand, holding it against his cheek.

“Why are you so angry? Isn’t that what you do with your fake séances and vampire hunts? Make money.”

“I don’t kill people!” Didn’t she? Wasn’t Jason at least her fault?
And George and Mattie and my mother…
Gasping, she tugged at her hand, and he lowered it from his face without releasing it.

“You’re not a vampire,” he observed, turning her palm upward and gazing at the veins in her wrist. His thumb brushed over them, sending shivers of fear up her arm to her spine. At least she called it fear, although behind it was the same insidious desire that had swamped her earlier in the evening.

“You can’t allow this!” She yanked her hand again, hard, and this time, he released it so that she staggered backward, raging, “Humans would become no more than food!”

Blair shrugged, closing the distance between them once more. “What makes you think you’re more than that now? To a vampire?”

Oh Jesus Christ.
“Vanity,” she said bitterly. “Stupidity.” She only just bit back the eternal cry of the too-stupid-to-live:
I trusted you.
Why the hell had she trusted him? She who never trusted anyone outside the tiny circle of her friends. Because he flirted? Kissed her? Even now, when he took hold of her shoulders, part of her treacherous body melted. The other, fortunately, was waiting for the right moment to knee him in the groin.

“You would make a delicious meal, Serafina.” His low, insidious voice murmured inside her head; monstrous words spoken in almost loving, tragic tones. As if she were already dead. Like Jamie.

One of his hands lay heavily on her shoulder; the other slid up to her throat, stroking. A breeze from the window left open by the invading vampires stirred the hairs on her neck. He must have been able to feel the trembling of her body; he might even have been able to hear the treacherous thought that slid through her mind:
What would it be like for me?

Somehow, she managed to use the question, to keep it echoing, while her fingers gripped the sharpened stick in her jacket pocket. She whipped it out, swept it around behind him and plunged down hard, aiming for the center of his back. If it didn’t kill him, it would surely slow him up.

But the force of her thrust sent her staggering forward, for he was no longer there to hold her. The stake whooshed through air, and she found herself staring at Blair on the other side of the room. For the space of a heartbeat, she gazed into his cruel, profound eyes, and then she spun around and ran for the open window.

There was no triumph in escaping through it. He let her. As he’d let her live.

“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.”