had the door unlocked, and, without troubling to see if she was all right, Derek followed him with alacrity.
Hiding a grin, Sera rose and walked after them into the outer office—and came face-to-face with Blair.
“Jesus Christ!”
Chapter Six
The exclamation sprang to her lips before she could stop it. Worse, it spilled with an obvious start, and she grabbed at her throat in a betraying gesture of fright. Blair’s lips curved in almost predatory amusement.
Sera, after a wild glance to make sure Elspeth was still upright at her desk, recovered quickly, saying with a laugh, “What are you doing here? Never creep up on a girl after a séance!”
But the damage was done. She’d betrayed just enough weakness for bullies like the Seelies to flex their muscles once more. Besides, in the bright, mundane office, away from the darkness and the carefully manufactured atmosphere of the séance, they needed to recover their skepticism in self-defense.
“That was a total rip-off,” Derek said. “We want our money back.”
“But why?” Sera asked innocently. “Didn’t you like what you heard?”
“No! What’s more, no way was that the spirit of my dead baby brother.”
“That’s not for me to say. We signed a contract, gentlemen. You agreed to pay, and I agreed to act as a medium for you this hour of this day. I can’t and didn’t guarantee any spirit would speak to you, let alone the one you wanted. You were lucky. You spoke to the dead.”
“Lucky? It was pure shite!”
“Look, Mr. Seelie, you didn’t pay for an evening of fun and frolics. Nor was that what I offered you. I’m sorry it wasn’t an enjoyable experience for you, but that doesn’t invalidate our contract. Good evening.”
Throughout the exchange, Elspeth had watched anxiously from her desk. Blair, still lounging outside the inner office, one shoulder against the wall, looked on in silence. In the one glance she spared him, she could read nothing in his closed face or his dark, unnatural eyes.
Frankie stepped closer, crowding her between his body and Derek’s. “You repeat a word of what you said in there, and I’ll—”
“Frankie!” said Derek sharply.
It was his gaze she chose to meet. “Good evening, gentlemen,” she said firmly. For a moment, it hung in the balance. Sera knew she’d won and was quite capable of coping if she was wrong. But Blair chose to stroll past the huddle and perch on Elspeth’s desk, well within both Seelies’ line of vision. Their eyes flickered to him, widened, and then they backed off. They were out the front door in three seconds flat, although Frankie flung over his shoulder, “This is shite!”
Sera glared at Blair. “What did you do?”
Blair shrugged. “They’d forgotten I was there. I merely reminded them.”
“Thank you so much,” Elspeth twittered. “Such uncivil young men! And threatening too!”
“Elspeth, they’re just wankers,” Sera said irritably. “We were in no danger whatsoever!” She swung on Blair, snapping, “What do you want?”
Blair eased his denim-clad hip off Elspeth’s desk and gestured toward the door. “Walk with me,” he suggested.
Walk with me, die with me… Oh no. Sera had opened her mouth to reply in blistering terms before it came to her that Elspeth would think she was talking to herself. It must already seem a rather one-sided conversation, but since Elspeth hadn’t clocked her visitor as the murderous vampire from the C & H car park, Sera had no intention of freaking her out by introducing him.
“All right,” she muttered. She threw her flat key to Elspeth. “Lock up after Jilly and Jack, will you? Jack’ll drive you home. Thanks for staying late.”
“Glad I did,” said Elspeth with a shudder. “Awful young men.”
Not half as awful as the one you’re so happy to leave me with now, Sera thought wryly, snatching her jacket off the coat hook.
“Where are we going?” she asked as soon as the door of Serafina’s closed behind them.
“You tell me.”
She glanced at him with amusement. “You think I’m going to lead you straight across the city to the vampires’ lair, don’t you?”
“You’ve had all day to touch and feel and track.”
“All day? This isn’t my only case, you know.”
He smiled, apparently at the memory of the case he’d interrupted. “I like your style. Simple and effective.”
“Self-absorbed, self-satisfied pricks,” Sera said with some relish.
“You like to punish people for messing with the dead, don’t you?”
Her gaze flew to his. The light from a car’s headlights flashed into his face and vanished, leaving it dark and shadowed. He walked on at her side, lithe, predatory,