“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.
Phil watched her silently as she slipped out of the back room and ran lightly along the hall. It was an L-shape, and she slid around the corner warily, knowing she was coming closer to a large concentration of vampires. The door to the front room was closed. Which was particularly annoying since the nearest door to it lay open. At least she could use that to hide if necessary.
Creeping closer, she pressed her ear to the door.
“Nice to have you with us,” Blair murmured in her head.
At the same time, she heard another voice she was sure belonged to Nicholas Smith, speaking aloud inside the room.
“…be hard for you to get into a position of influence very quickly. The method they’ve used so far—of simply turning humans already in powerful positions—is working very well for us.”
Crouching down until her eye was level with the keyhole, Sera pushed aside the cover and peered through. As she’d hoped, the cover on the other side of the keyhole was missing or pushed aside. The room was full of people—vampires—sitting and standing, perching on the arms of chairs, as if they were attending a busy but dull party.
She saw Blair at once, lounging in an armchair by the fireplace, one foot crossed over his knee. In jeans and T-shirt, he looked perfectly comfortable and at ease.
Without moving his lips, he said, “I can imagine few things more boring than running a bank.”
Nicholas Smith, standing with his back to the fireplace, looked distinguished and relaxed in slacks and polo shirt as he spoke to the room at large. “He doesn’t want a bank role.”
Of course, the other vampires couldn’t hear Blair. Only the psychic Smith heard him. It was weird—Blair and Phil were like a completely different species from the other vampires. Jason and the vampiress Ella sat side by side on a sofa, staring at Blair.
Another vampire, out of her line of vision, said in an English accent, “It wouldn’t work anyway. He has no experience and would be useless for anything except a smash-and-grab.”
“Which brings me to another point,” Blair said. “What’s wrong with smash-and-grab?”
Nicholas rapidly repeated his words for the benefit of the vampires, then added almost immediately, “It’s not sustainable. This way, they keep all the infrastructure intact and take what they need without fight or fuss.”
“While vastly increasing the vampire population. Human numbers will dwindle.”
“They believe there’ll be enough to go round.”
“Humans will always be useful to us as more than blood supply,” the other vampire said. Sera altered position to try to get him in the picture. She thought she could see one side of his face and concentrated on him, hard. Arthur. His name is Arthur.
“Then you’ve some way of controlling the vampires you’ve made?”
Again, Smith repeated the question, but before he’d finished, Blair was speaking again. “Already there’ve been enough vampire murders in the city to have sparked off a human police hunt for a serial killer. It’s instinctive for new vampires to go on the rampage unless they’re under some kind of control. My only surprise, given your numbers, is that there haven’t been more murders.”
“They are under control,” said Arthur, the English vampire. “I control them.”
Sera’s breath caught. He’s lying!
“Well done,” Blair said in her mind, and she realized the thought had been so loud and so instinctively hurled at Blair that she’d projected it right to him. “Keep it down, though, or Smith will hear too.”
She glanced apprehensively at the human who, fortunately, was showing no sign of having overheard her private conversation with Blair.
“Then yours is the master plan?” Blair said, looking across at the English vampire Arthur.
Smith said smoothly, “Of course, the plan is his.” Sera caught something from him—not unease, not uncertainty, but something basically untruthful.
It’s all a lie; they’re all lying, she threw silently to Blair.
Blair said, “Then where does he see me fitting in?”
Arthur stood up and moved thoughtfully into Sera’s line of vision. He was a tall, strong man with smooth cheeks and an unsmiling mouth. He stood in front of Sera, blocking her view of Blair.
“You’re a strong vampire,” he observed. “Stronger than any we’ve encountered. Are there more like you?”
Blair inclined his head. “A few.”
“Any even stronger than you?”
Blair smiled. She could hear it in his telepathic voice. “One or two.”
While Smith translated, Arthur walked closer to Blair, who remained apparently unmoved by the implicit threat of the other vampire.
“At the very least,” Arthur said, “we need your cooperation and are prepared to pay handsomely for it. At best, we’d value you in a more positive role, as an enforcer against other vampires who might try to muscle in or
oppose us, or against any human opposition that might arise.”
That, Sera thought, was truthful.
Blair said, “I’ll think about it.” And that was truthful too. He really was thinking about it, the bastard. How could he even consider a situation that would endanger, if not kill, thousands—millions!—of humans?
Easy. He wasn’t human.
In spite of herself, she shivered and tried to pull her concentration back to the scene inside.
Arthur spun around and seemed to stare right at her. In spite of herself, she fell backward in case he’d seen her.
“Humans!” Arthur barked. “There are humans in the house! I can smell them!”
“Run,” Blair said in her head. There was no need. She was already bolting back along the hallway. But as the front-room door wrenched open, she knew she’d have no time to reach the room she’d left Phil in. She leapt into the nearest and dived toward the window. Wrenching aside the curtain, she tugged futilely at the window—locked.
Then she realized the drumming in her ears was the clatter of feet running upstairs. They weren’t chasing her. She turned and slipped back out of the room, running on to the room she’d entered by. Phil’s silhouette sat on the windowsill.
“There are other humans here,” Sera hissed at him.
“I know. They’re on a ladder outside.”
“A ladder?” Sera closed her mouth and strode to the window. Obligingly, Phil climbed the rest of the way over the sill to let her out too.
A long ladder ran from the ground up the back of the house to one of the top-floor windows. Two figures were scuttling down it while someone, some vampire, wrenched open the upstairs window.
“Jump!” Sera yelled. “They’ll reach the ground before you!”
A vampire was already scrambling out the window. The two human figures wasted no more time but flopped to the ground in a winded heap. Sera ran to them. With one hand, she snatched the stake from her pocket. With the other, she grabbed the nearest man by the elbow, hauling him to his feet. It was Ferdy Bell.
“Run,” she begged. “Run like hell.” A vampire leaping from the upper window landed right beside her. As quick as thought, she plunged the stake into his chest. It was like slicing through butter, then crunching into bone. The vampire disintegrated.
Serafina and the Silent Vampire Page 14