Her eyes changed, though he couldn’t quite put his finger on how. “That’s no gentleman, Constable. That’s my brother.”
“Does he work here too?”
“Andy? Work? Of course, he doesn’t.”
“Then can I ask what his business was here?”
Her eyes flashed. She really was extraordinarily pretty. “Not without a bloody good reason.”
“Arson investigation’s a bloody good reason.”
Her lips parted. Her gaze dropped, then returned to his. “For what it’s worth, I’m sure Andy had nothing to do with Fountainbridge, if that’s what you’re talking about. He came to borrow money off me, if you must know.”
“D’you give him any?”
“Do I look stupid?” she countered. In fact, some people might make that mistake. On one level, she possessed a sort of doll-like beauty which, combined with blonde hair and glamorous clothes certainly not chosen from the top-of-the-range shops, gave her something the look of a bimbette. But sharp intelligence positively gleamed in those china-blue eyes, and her mouth was far too quick.
“Actually, no,” he replied. “Seen anything of the elusive Mr. Blair?”
“Nah,” she said at once. She looked him in the eye, but for the first time, Alex was sure she was lying.
Behind him, he heard movement from the inner office. He hoped it was Sera, but he said nothing. Then, just as the silence was stretching too long, another voice called from the office.
“Jilly, I’m going back to your place to check up on Sera!”
“Okay,” Jilly called back, smoothing the instinctive crease of irritation from her brow. She hadn’t wanted him to know where Sera was. Why? What was going on at Jilly Kerr’s place?
Before he could enquire further, his phone went off. It was his partner, brief and to the point. “Shoplifter at the St. James Centre.”
Alex sighed. “On my way.”
****
Blair’s arrival at dusk took Sera by surprise. Sitting on Jilly’s living room sofa, picking at the vegetables Melanie insisted she eat instead of the fish supper Tam had brought her, she could hear Jilly telling someone off at the front door, but until he walked into the living room, she didn’t sense him at all.
“I’m masking,” he told her blandly when she glared at him.
“He won’t lead them here,” she interrupted Jilly’s tirade. “He’s covering his scent, or whatever it is they use to follow each other. I couldn’t sense him either.”
“Yes? Well, I’ll bet the cops can see him easily enough,” Jilly muttered.
Blair, who, she was sure, had taken in the occupants of the room at a glance, now gave them a longer sweep. Tam laid down his fish supper. Blair inclined his head.
Tam’s face colored a dull red. “You’re the bastard who bit me.”
Blair gave another ironic bow.
“Don’t dwell on it,” Sera advised. “He bites a lot of people.”
Blair smiled at her, revealing his fangs.
“Fuck,” said Tam.
Blair walked past him and Sera to the window. He appeared to allow Melanie’s accoutrements set out on the table a cursory glance; then he looked out at the park below.
“Smith was there earlier,” Sera reported. “Just taking a walk.”
“Did he look up here? Did he see you?”
“No. And no.”
Blair turned from the window. “You must all have stakes and be prepared to use them.”
“I thought you were going to take care of the fighting out there?” Sera retorted.
“There are a lot of vampires. I can’t guarantee to engage them all. If you’re uncovered, you’ll need to be able defend yourselves.” He didn’t sound anxious, and yet it came to Sera that he was.
Without a word, she stood and opened the drawer in the table. It was full of lethally sharpened sticks. She’d made them during the day while reading Melanie’s books.
Blair nodded and jerked his head in Tam’s direction. “Make sure he knows.” He walked toward the living room door.
“Wait,” Sera exclaimed, jumping up. “Are you really going to be able to fight all of them? Just four of you?”
He didn’t even turn. “There are more than four. I told you. I summoned all I could.”
She followed him into the hall, catching his arm. He turned, and at once, she released him.
With his cool, unreadable eyes holding her gaze, she spoke with difficulty. “Some of you could die, couldn’t you?” His lip quirked, and she added almost angrily, “Don’t tell me you’re all dead already. You know exactly what I mean.”
“More of them will die.”
She stepped back, feeling her shoulders slump. “Why does that not make me feel better?”
His eyes searched hers, one to the other. But he didn’t answer. Instead, he reached up and touched her lips. His fingertip felt smooth again, healed from its burns, like his face. And as always, his cool touch heated her skin, catching at her breath. Understanding, he smiled lazily. He dropped his hand before she could pull away and walked toward the front door.
Sera swallowed. She wanted to call him back. Terrified she’d never see him again; terrified she would and be unable to live with what he’d done and seen. It was all muddled with her own fear of messing up tonight, of failing Melanie and endangering everyone. With a sudden yearning that shook her, she longed for one more time with Blair, not just to shut out the unbearable inadequacy, but because it was him. And she couldn’t even find the words. All she could do was stare miserably at his back. Until, without warning, he swung back to her.
She didn’t see him move, but suddenly she was crushed in his arms, and his mouth seized hers. His kiss was hard, almost brutal, making her gasp into his mouth. But she wasn’t afraid, even when his fangs cut into her lip. Everything in her rose to meet his onslaught. She fought back with her teeth as well as her tongue and lips. She sucked on his tongue and his wicked canines, rubbing her breasts against his chest in an instinctive effort to get closer to him. When he ground his erection into her hip, she writhed for a better position, glorying in her own outburst of lust as much as in his. Tangling his hands in her hair to hold her head steady, he deepened the kiss impossibly until she moaned aloud in utter need.
“Channel that,” he said fiercely in her head. “Sexual energy is very powerful.”
His lips released hers, then came back for one more brush and lingered, sensually teasing. “You’re strong, Serafina. You’ll do this. And I’m not fucking history.”
With that, he strode away from her, leaving her wobbling unsteadily in the hall. The door closed sharply, although she didn’t see him pull it.
Jilly’s head appeared at the kitchen door. “All right?”
Sera tried to pull herself together, to work out what the hell had just happened. “What did he mean by that?” she wondered.
“By what?” Jilly asked suspiciously.
“He said he wasn’t history. Of course, he bloody is. He’s walking history!”
“Ah,” Jilly said. She chewed her lower lip and released it. “That might have been me. After you discovered Smith was your dad and got upset, I told him he was history.” Jilly’s eyes narrowed. “He is, isn’t he?”
Sera gazed at her friend. A smile seemed to begin deep inside her. “None of us are history,” she said firmly. “We’re going to save the world.”
****
Blair leaned his shoulder against the broad trunk of a tree and waited. Since he was no longer masking his presence, Smith and his vampires would all know exactly where he was. He’d chosen the time of the rendezvous deliberately early in the evening, both to help Sera and Melanie avoid the late-night tiredness common to humans and to allay the suspicions of his enemies, who would be less likely to expect a fight when so many people were still abroad.
The gray clouds that had been threatening rain all day had vanished to leave a clear night sky sparkling with stars. Pity. Rain would have repelled humans.
When he closed his eyes, he could feel her gaze on him. Serafina. Her eyes would look as they had when he’d held her in his arms an hour ago, shining with longing and lust and self-belief. His loins began to ache and harden.
History my arse. I will have her…
…Right after this.
His senses dragged him out of Serafina fantasies and back to reality. Nicholas Smith was striding toward him from the direction of the main path. Not far behind him came Ella and Arthur, as if he considered them an appropriate escort for an important man unafraid for his life. But the park was crawling with vampires. Blair could feel them from all sides, combing for enemy vampires as they converged on the meeting place. They wouldn’t find any. Arthur was with Smith, and the others were too weak to have much more than human senses.
But there were lots of them. Enough to bury him.
As Smith and his escort approached, Blair straightened and strolled out of the tree’s shadow.
“Nicholas,” he said fondly.
Smith halted. Although he smiled, his eyes were understandably wary, and he didn’t offer his hand. After all, they were both well aware that Smith had tried to burn him to death. And, in fact, Smith still believed Phil had died in the fire, though he’d no idea if that would inspire Blair with a sense of vengeance.
Smith spoke with his mind, slowly, haltingly, as if he had difficulty keeping background thoughts at bay. He didn’t share Sera’s instinctive talent for telepathic speech. “Blair. Thank you for meeting me.”
“Thank you for bringing your friends.”
Smith’s brow gave a betraying twitch.
Blair smiled and waved one lazy hand toward Arthur and Ella. “Charmed to meet you both again. So let’s talk business. What are you offering me to join your merry band of banker pirates? Aside from a share in the new wealth.”
Smith smiled back. “But I don’t really need to offer you anything else, do I? In the circumstances, isn’t your continued existence enough?”
He didn’t mean it. He was keeping the conversation going, to give the bulk of his vampires time to get here and kill Blair for him. Blair was happy to play along, since he needed them here.
“Nicholas,” he reproved. “You don’t really want me in the same condition as my friend, do you? I thought you were just trying to get my attention.”
“It worked, didn’t it?”
“Absolutely,” Blair agreed. “So pay the price of my attention. I want the command of your vampires. And let’s face it, if I don’t get it, I may not be able to kill you, but I can certainly kill enough of them to make your banking career—difficult.”
The numbers were building. Vampires were emerging through the trees, advancing from the path and the gate, closing in on them.
“Let’s not quarrel over it, Blair,” said Smith smoothly. “We both know I outnumber you by—oh, about a hundred to one.”
He was right. The twenty or so vampires who’d been present at their last encounter had multiplied considerably, so much so that Blair suspected some had been created solely to fight him rather than to enhance the banking plan.
“About a hundred to four,” Blair corrected and issued the telepathic summons that brought Ailis, Sebastian, and Phil leaping downward from the tree branches to the left to land flanking Blair and facing Smith.
Smith did a satisfyingly ludicrous double take as his nervous gaze flitted across Phil, who accorded him a toast with his inevitable bottle. “You made me burn in hell,” Phil told him. “I wish you the same joy.”
Smith said, “You can’t touch me. None of you can. Ask Blair.”
Phil took a swig from his bottle. “You don’t need to be dead to be in hell.” He passed the bottle under Blair’s nose. Without touching it, Blair breathed on it and worked his party-trick magic. The whisky burst into flames, and Phil hurled it into the midst of the gathering crowd of vampires.
Now’s your moment, Serafina. Begin.
Chapter Nineteen
“My God,” Jilly said. “There must be a hundred of them.”
She and Jack stood at either side of Sera and Melanie, who’d taken their places at the table under the window. Elspeth stood silently behind, while Tam stood in the doorway, from where he could also see the front door.
“What are they doing?” Jack asked uneasily.
“Just talking, I think… Shite.”
Sera jumped as Blair’s allies leapt out of the trees. She recognized Phil—that had to be him with his inevitable bottle. She reached out with one hand and grasped Melanie’s.
“Now?” Mel asked. Her voice was hoarse.
“Soon.”
Melanie slipped the elastic band over her left wrist to hold the rowan twigs in place. Then she took the bone in her left hand and buried it in the tray of earth. Her other hand gripped Sera’s convulsively.
Sera saw Phil casually pass the bottle. It even crossed her mind that his wits were too addled to appreciate their danger. But then, as if Blair had ignited it by thought, the bottle went up in flames, and Phil hurled it into the crowd of banking vampires.
And the voice that even now could set her very bones on fire spoke inside her head with the calm triumph of total belief. Now’s your moment, Serafina. Begin.
“Now, Mel,” she whispered.
Melanie’s breath shuddered, but when she began to intone the words, her voice was clear and firm. Sera concentrated on it, drew her energy into herself. Every emotion, positive and negative, all her love and affection, desire, disappointment, anger, even fear, she thought into pure energy and sent it shooting down her arm into Melanie’s fingers.
Mel jerked but didn’t let go. Her voice grew louder, and the link between them, now it was established, kept drawing the energy from Sera. As it flowed into Melanie, she felt herself contract, reached out for more energy, for the emotion and fears and hopes of the others. Their thoughts too became her energy and were sucked out of her into Melanie.
She’d done the easy part, with people she knew. She focused her eyes on the window once more, became aware of the melee of flying bodies and screaming voices. Searching for another link, a consciousness to ground her there, she found Blair, fighting and spinning in the maelstrom, and she let the curious happiness of his presence wash through her. She reached through him for his lust and his rage and was thrown backward in her chair so hard she nearly lost Melanie’s hand.
Somewhere, she knew the doorbell was ringing, but she couldn’t concentrate on that. Instead, she felt Blair in her mind, calming her so that she could bear the force of his energy, accept it, and pass it on. Through him she seemed to expand, to feel the vampires’ energy in general terms: hate and violence, the sheer love of violence, enough to break her heart. But she held firm, united with Mel’s hand and Mel’s voice, as her friend leached energy from her like a vampire sucking blood.
****
She was a natural, Blair thought proudly as he tore at a vampire’s throat and hurled his body at another before it exploded into dust. He’d already summoned his second rank of vampires, wild Davie well to the fore, so there wasn’t one of them not fighting to supply Sera with the energy necessary to destroy their master. It was a neat, pleasing plan, and it was working to perfection.
Or at least, he thought it was until he saw Smith.
The sorcerer, Sera’s father, stood aloof from the fighting. No one even troubled to try to attack him. Blair had told everyone there was no point. So Smith stood to one side, watching the battle with growing anxiety, a wooden stake in either hand which, presumably, he meant to use on any vampires not his own. Although, in the darkness and carnage of this battle, Blair had no idea how h
e would identify friend from enemy.
But Smith was psychic, and he was sensitive. He could feel the magic happening around him. Blair saw him scanning the park, then actually close his eyes as if he were trying to find the source by psychic means. And then, slowly, he turned and lifted his gaze toward the tenements overlooking the park.
“Sera!” he screamed.
Blair laughed. He wished it was vocal so that it would echo around the park instead of just inside the minds of his friends and Smith and Arthur and the few vampires present capable of hearing him.
With Smith’s cry, Arthur seemed to catch on too. He disengaged and swung around to follow Smith’s gaze. Then he was talking, snarling out orders, and suddenly, Blair was beset by vampires, as if as one they’d left off their other opponents and turned on him. He killed or felled the first few, but when they leapt on his back and hurled themselves into him from all sides, he knew he had to go under, however hard he fought.
As he fell under the sheer mass, he saw Arthur dragging Ella by the hand. They leapt up above the trees and over the wall to the road, heading, unmistakably, for Jilly’s flat. And several vampires, the few who weren’t crushing Blair to death or engaging with his allies, raced after them in support.
****
Off duty but still eternally inquisitive, Alex McGowan had been waiting in his car opposite Jillian Kerr’s flat in Royal Park Terrace when the noise began. Curious, he got out of his car and ran along the road until he could find a place to peer over the wall into the park. It looked like a gang fight. And yet the only sounds were the slapping of skin, the cracking of bones, the rushing and occasional thud of feet on grass. These gangs were fighting in bizarre silence.
McGowan already had his phone out to call for assistance when a figure caught his eye.
Blair. Unmistakably, the man he’d first seen waiting for Sera MacBride in Muirhouse, and then, later, lounging on her sofa. If he was her bodyguard, he was a damned good one, leaping through the air like a circus act and kicking with enough force to kill.
Serafina and the Silent Vampire Page 28