self-satisfaction suggested itself.
Oh, fucking hell! I’ve been watching the wrong place. Springing to his feet, Blair began the race back to Davidson’s Mains and the Bells’ house.
He was in time to see Jason step out of the front door in the pale gray light of the predawn. Dressed in a smart three-piece suit, he climbed into the white sports car which was waiting only feet from the door and drove away at breakneck speed.
Blair scowled. Under my bloody nose, you bastards. This has got to stop.
Only he couldn’t afford the chase right now. The sun was on its way up, and he needed to be home.
****
When Jilly entered the welcoming front office of Serafina’s Psychic Investigations, she found Jack poring over telephone books, and Elspeth, the gray-haired receptionist, rummaging so dementedly through her desk drawers that she could spare no more than an inarticulate grunt in response to Jilly’s “Good morning.” She’d obviously lost her vodka again.
“Where’s Herself?” Jilly asked, throwing her jacket and laptop bag onto her own desk. She pointed at the door to the inner office, where clients could be private. “In there?”
“Haven’t seen her,” Jack said in a depressed tone of voice. “I don’t think she’s come down yet.”
Elspeth shut the drawer. “We need milk.”
Milk and vodka. Jilly had no idea why Sera insisted on employing Elspeth, unless it was so she could pinch her alcohol supply late at night.
“And then,” Elspeth said, struggling into her coat while Jilly set her laptop up on the desk, “I’ll make coffee.”
“Great. I could murder a cup.” Jilly slid into her chair and glanced at Jack. “You looking for Blairs?”
Jack shoved his phonebook across the desk. “Hundreds of them. And that’s only if Blair’s the surname. I’ve tried all the likely local agencies too—no actors or magicians or ventriloquists on their books matching our man’s description.”
“You want to try social networking sites.”
“No, I don’t. I don’t even know if he’s based in Scotland, let alone Edinburgh. Sera said he sounded Scottish, but that doesn’t mean anything. I don’t actually know the guy exists.”
“Oh, he exists,” Jilly argued. “Seems to be the one thing Sera and Tam agree on.”
Jack dragged one hand through his unruly, curly brown hair. “What is all this neck-biting stuff? Is someone taking the mick out of Ferdy?”
“You mean apart from us?”
Jack scratched his chin. “What if Jason was taking the mick out of us in retaliation? Because he didn’t like us making a fool of his father?”
Jilly raised one eyebrow at him. “You’re the one who gave him mouth-to-mouth and claimed he was dead.”
“Shit, Jilly, you saw him! All white and shrunken, exactly as if someone had let all the blood out of him.”
Jilly sat back in her chair, savoring the moment. “You’re suggesting a vampire really did bite him?”
To her surprise, Jack’s gaze didn’t falter. “I’m saying, what’s Sera’s problem with this? Why doesn’t she believe in vampires when…”
“When she believes in all the other mumbo jumbo?”
“Doesn’t she?”
Unsure what response to make, Jilly played for time. “Why ask me?”
“You’ve known her longer than I have. I realize she takes the piss, puts on shows, but sometimes…”
“What?”
“You know,” Jack said darkly.
Jilly, who’d been acquainted with Sera since they were outsiders together at school, had long ago accepted the strange gifts of her friend and respected absolutely Sera’s right to pretend charlatanism if she chose. It was Sera’s place, not Jilly’s, to tell Jack as little or as much as she saw fit. Besides, Sera’s real problem right now was not so much with the existence of vampires as with the possible death of Jason Bell under her nose, which was setting off all sorts of blame issues that Jilly really didn’t want her to go through again.
So she merely smirked at Jack as she stood up. “You believe in the powers of our glorious leader. I’m going to tell her.”
“No, you’re not,” Jack disputed as she crossed to the inner office.
“Actually,” said Jilly, opening the door and stepping inside, “I am.”
The office was indeed empty and the door in the side wall which led to Sera’s flat carelessly left unlocked. Jilly knocked and barged in.
“Sera, it’s me!” she called as she ran up the stairs.
Sera sat on her living room floor in the same jeans and T-shirt she’d worn last night, looking white and exhausted, her short, jet-black hair sticking up like spikes. The skin seemed to be stretched so tightly across the fine bones of her face that her skull looked in danger of