Serafina and the Virtual Man - By Marie Treanor Page 0,18

looked…purposeful.

Pleased, Blair nodded. “Go home. Sleep it off and start your new role tomorrow night. We’ll stay in touch.”

And he strode off. When he glanced back over his shoulder, Jason was standing in the middle of the alley, spinning as he gazed up at the sky with all the enhanced perception and understanding he’d gained from his few sips of Blair’s blood. Perhaps it would bring him closer to the Founder and a longer existence. Perhaps.

But Blair couldn’t think about that now. Jason’s bite had opened the floodgates of his own hunger, his own sexual desire. He wanted to pin Sera beneath him and drink from her all night while fucking her senseless. Oh yes.

But Sera had gone home. He could follow and convince her she wanted him after all. Which she did. She’d just chosen to walk away. Because sex, after all, was only sex.

And blood was only blood.

At the street corner, he bumped into a young woman hurrying home. Blair had no time to waste on charm. He just hooked her, mesmerised her, and drew her back into the alley with him. Then he bent and sank his teeth into her sweet-smelling, willing throat. She gasped and pushed into him, torturing his rock-hard erection. He concentrated on her blood.

It wasn’t Sera’s, but it was good.

****

Jilly ignored the pall of dread that settled about her as she walked down the familiar street toward the flat she grew up in. Early in the morning was the best time to go there.

The postman was delivering letters on the other side of the road. A man ran past her toward the bus stop. Somewhere, in one of the flats, a child was crying. The sound set her teeth on edge, reached right inside her before she could prevent it. She hated to hear children cry.

And so there was actually an element of relief when she turned away from it into her parents’ building, pushed open the permanently broken security door, and ran up the stairs to the first floor.

She used her old key and entered her old home.

It stank vaguely of rubbish, smoke, and stale alcohol. But at least there were no voices apart from a low-volume radio mutter drifting from the kitchen. Jilly walked up the narrow hall and pushed open the door.

Her mother sat at the kitchen table, pouring vodka into a cup of tea.

“Bit early, isn’t it?” Jilly said, striding across the room to throw open the window.

“Hair of the dog,” her mother said. “Want tea?”

“Go on.” Jilly grabbed a mug from the sink, rinsed it, and poured her own tea from the pot on the table. She didn’t sit down. “How’re things?”

“Same as always. Still working for Sera?”

“Aye. Andy in?”

Her mother shrugged. “Probably. In his bed.”

That’s why visiting home was best first thing in the morning. Less of them were up.

Mug in hand, Jilly strolled out of the kitchen and across the hall to Andy’s room. She shoved open the door and walked in.

“Oi. Wakey-wakey.” She picked up a pair of jeans from the floor and threw them at the huddle on the bed.

Andy jerked upright, arms flailing. “Jillian, you cow! What’d you do that for?”

“To wake you up.”

“There’s no need.” Andy jerked his head in the general direction of their parents’ room. “He’s been fine.”

Jilly grunted. “You and George got arrested for robbing a big house outside the city last August.”

“Charges were dropped,” Andy said with dignity.

“Why?”

“Bloke lost interest. What’s it to you?”

“What bloke?” Jilly leaned against the doorframe and sipped her tea.

“The owner.”

“Dale Ewan?”

Andy reached for his cigarettes and cast her a sardonic grin. “Friend of yours these days, aye?”

“No. So he just withdrew the charges against you? Wouldn’t the police want to prosecute you anyway?”

Andy shrugged. “He withdrew the complaint. We never got anything anyway, so the police let us go.”

Jilly frowned. “Why?”

“I just told you!” Andy said, hurling the empty cigarette packet on the floor in annoyance.

“No, I mean why didn’t you nick anything?”

Andy lay back down. His short, fair hair stuck up in spikes, emphasising the harassed expression on his sharp features. “The house was supposed to be empty. That’s why we went out there. Only it was crawling with people. When we heard the gunshot, we just fucked off.”

Jilly straightened, staring at her brother. “Gunshot?”

“Aye. Assumed it was aimed at us and ran like hell. Too good to be true, a house like that standing empty.”

Jilly roused herself. “Who told you it would be?”

“Can’t remember. Heard it on the grapevine.” Andy propped