Serafina and the Silent Vampire (13 page)

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?”

“I don’t know,” Blair said. “I haven’t decided yet.”

Sera smiled at the windscreen. Sometimes touch wasn’t necessary. Not with the dead or, it seemed, the undead. Stupidly, her heart felt warm and fuzzy. She didn’t even mind that she could be repeating the same mistakes as yesterday. Surely the important thing was that he
hadn’t
killed her yesterday and he showed no signs of killing her today.

“What about the dead?” Blair asked.

“What?”

“The dead. Spirits. How do you know when they’re lying?”

She frowned. “Generally, spirits don’t bother lying, though I suppose I’ve encountered the odd mischievous one who wasn’t above porky pies.” She glanced at him. “Lies,” she translated.

“I got that.”

“I just know when they’re doing it. Why? Do you think it would work that way with vampires?”

“You tell me.”

She thought it through, felt the fuzziness drop away to ice. “You
did
want to drink my blood. Last night. You’ve never lied to me, have you?”

Although she couldn’t look at him, she felt his gaze on her face. “No.” There was a pause, then, “I still want to drink your blood. I want it very badly. But I don’t want to kill you.”

“So what was last night? A temper tantrum?”

She knew he was smiling. “Perhaps. And I suppose I was giving you the chance to get out while you could. Phil persuaded me that we needed you.”

“For what? Lie detecting and tracking?”

“And sex.”

She swerved, and an oncoming car hooted in outrage. “I will not,” she said breathlessly, “have sex with Phil.”

“Thanks.”

“For what?” she demanded, risking a glance at him.

He winked. “Not ruling me out.”

****

PC Alex McGowan saw the MacBride woman emerge from the building and walk rather erratically toward her car, where the man waited for her. Tall and fit and unnaturally still, he moved like McGowan’s idea of a secret, well-paid assassin. He might have been a bodyguard. Well, it was a rough neighborhood, and a rip-off artist like Serafina MacBride would probably need one around here.

McGowan hesitated. He’d been working overtime—trawling the Hard Knox and the other pubs where people had died recently in bizarre circumstances that weren’t being made generally known to the public—and he was on his way home when he’d spotted Sera MacBride’s distinctive car on Ferry Road. On impulse, he’d followed her, growing increasingly angry as he realized she was heading to the Gordons’ house for the second time in as many days.

How much was she robbing from these people who’d already suffered so much? McGowan had been first on the scene when the Gordons had first discovered their little daughter dead in her cot one morning. He’d never managed to harden himself to the many tragedies encountered in the job, and he couldn’t help feeling personally responsible for the Gordons’ welfare.

And, of course, he hated MacBride and all her kind.

She’d spent a long time up there, and he needed to be sure the Gordons were all right. He needed to know what damage the bloody woman had done and, if possible, put a stop to her business.

Except he wasn’t on duty.

Who cares?
Decision made, he left his unmarked car and walked into the building and up the depressing but clean stairs. Most of the graffiti had been washed off the walls. When he rang the bell, there was a long pause. Then Eddie Gordon, looking a bit wild but not angry or beaten down, opened the door.

“Mr. Gordon,” McGowan said, flashing his ID card. “Sorry to bother you so late. I just wanted to make sure everything’s okay with you and Mrs. Gordon.”

“Of course, it is. Why wouldn’t it be?”

“I’ve been looking into complaints against a spiritualist who I believe just visited you.”

“Sera MacBride? What sort of complaints?”

“Can I come in and ask you a few questions? I won’t take long.”

Eddie glanced over his shoulder. “It’s not a good time,” he said uneasily. “Maybe you can come back in the morning?”

“Eddie? Who is it?” Moira Gordon came out of the living room. Her face was blotched with crying, and McGowan felt his simmering fury rise toward boiling point.

“Police,” said Eddie. “But it’s nothing to worry about.”

However, Moira seemed to recognize him this time, as she hadn’t at Serafina’s the other day. She came closer, hugging her cardigan around her. “You’re PC McGowan, aren’t you? You came when Anna died.”

“Yes, I did. That’s why I was concerned to see Sera MacBride here.”

“She’s been a great help to us,” Moira said warmly. “I think she’s finally laid Anna to rest in peace.”

For once, McGowan couldn’t think of anything to say to that. He glanced for guidance to Eddie, who shrugged—not embarrassed, precisely, but certainly baffled.

“We do feel a bit—lighter this evening.”

It wasn’t what he expected. “When’s your next appointment with her?” he asked.

“We haven’t made one,” Moira answered. “She didn’t think it’d be necessary.”

Got all the money she could out of them already, McGowan thought savagely. Well, it wouldn’t have taken long; they didn’t exactly have much. Swallowing his anger down, he said, “Do you mind if I ask you how much she charged you?”

“For tonight? It was included in the original fee,” Moira said. “Why?”

Bitch. Making them believe they’d got a freebie so they’d come back for more. “And how much,” McGowan asked, struggling to keep a lid on his anger, “was the original fee?”

Eddie shrugged, looking at his wife for the answer. She gave him a slightly guilty smile. “Ten pounds, but I’d saved it from Christmas.”

“
Ten pounds?
” McGowan stared at her in disbelief. “Ten pounds is all you’ve ever paid her?”

Moira glanced at him in confusion. “Is that not the going rate?”

Considering the amount of time she’d spent here this evening alone, it wasn’t even minimum wage.

****

On Blair’s advice, Sera parked a street away from Nicholas Smith’s house. “Give me five minutes,” Blair said, opening his door. “And then follow.”

“Slight problem,” Sera pointed out. “I’m happy to spy on them and detect their lies, but how the hell do I get in unseen?”

“I’ll leave a window open for you.”

She stared at him as he glanced back over his shoulder. “You really mean that, don’t you?”

“Don’t get your knickers in a twist. I’ll tell you which one. Telepathically,” he added. “In fact, you can probably send to me the same way, if you try and articulate it beyond the normal jumble you usually project.”

“I do not project jumble!” He didn’t trouble to answer that, merely closed the door. She lunged over and shoved it open again. “Wait! Won’t they smell my blood and come after me?”

“I can cover you,” Blair said, as casually as someone else might have said
I can pick that up from the shops
, and strolled down the road and around the corner. Sera let the door close again and straightened. She took an emery board from her shoulder bag, filed a broken nail, and tried to imagine what was happening in the next street.

When he spoke, she nearly jumped out of her skin. “Sera. All the vampires are in a ground-floor room at the front of the house.”

It was as if her mind had always hung on to the idea that his telepathic speech really was ventriloquism, for now that he was nowhere near her, the disembodied voice in her head freaked her out.

She’d only just recovered herself enough to breathe evenly when he spoke again. “I’ve unlocked the larger window at the back on the ground floor. Just push it open, and leave the same way as soon as I give you the word.”

Sera put the nail file back in her bag and got out of the car. As she walked smartly along the road, Blair’s voice said briefly, “I’m in.” And this time, it was curiously comforting to be told what was going on without the annoyance of a mobile phone.

Approaching Nicholas Smith’s house, she began to tense. Her skin prickled with warning. No wonder; the place was full of vampires. The first time, she walked straight past it, checking for any signs that she might be observed. The curtains were closed in the front room where Blair said the vampires were meeting. They didn’t twitch. Nor, so far as she could see, was there any activity at the others. She turned at the next lamppost, walked back the way she’d come, and swerved into Nicholas Smith’s garden. Keeping every sense on high alert, she moved as swiftly and silently as she could up the side of the house to the back garden, where a cat sitting on the windowsill nearly gave her a heart attack just by staring at her with its luminous eyes.

Life was getting so weird she wouldn’t have been surprised if it had been some kind of witch’s familiar. But clinging to some semblance of normal behavior, she stretched out a hand to stroke the animal. It tolerated the attention for a moment, then jumped down from the windowsill and crept off into the night.

Sera took its place on the sill, resting her hip and touching the glass with her fingertips to get some sense of who or what was beyond it. Blair. Undoubtedly Blair. And behind his unmistakable “feel,” that of many other undead who hadn’t necessarily touched the window but were certainly in the house. She tried to think of the human, Nicholas Smith, aka stage magician Nick Black, but nothing came to her. She hoped he was still alive.

As soon as she eased the window up, she parted the closed curtains to make sure the room was empty. Blank darkness greeted her. She climbed in and closed the window.

She stood still for an instant, waiting, every nerve ready to fight back if necessary. She held the stake in her right hand. When nothing happened, she released her breath and switched on her flashlight.

Lit by its narrow glow, a dark male figure with a pale face and amber eyes stared at her. He smiled, revealing long canine teeth.

Sera grasped tighter the stake she’d been about to return to her pocket, but the figure didn’t move.

“Evening,” the vampire said in her head.

“Phil?” she hissed. What the hell did this mean?

“Please, don’t shine the light in my face.”

“Sorry.” She lowered the light but didn’t release the stake. “What are you doing here?”

“Watching his back.”

“I thought he didn’t need his back watched?”

“That was last night. In his own house. Who knows what traps have been set in this one?”

“What’s going on?” she asked, still in a whisper as she found the door with her flashlight beam and walked toward it.

“Nothing. A lot of talk.”

“I can’t hear it. I have to go closer.” She opened the door a crack. The light was on in the hall beyond, and she could hear a vague rumble of indistinguishable voices, as if there was a closed door or a lot of space between them and her. She hoped it was the latter, since there wasn’t a lot she could do discreetly with a closed door.