Serafina and the Virtual Man - By Marie Treanor Page 0,32

found the hardness of a book in his inside pocket. “And it generally makes all the difference between completing a mission and not. I’ve played enough of your games to know that. How much explosive do we need to blow this bridge? We shouldn’t waste any.”

In her torch beam, Adam grinned, and took a dog-eared book from his inside pocket. In the game, he was clean-shaven and his hair was shorter and tidier under the dark trilby hat. He looked both handsome and mysterious in the shadows.

“Yep, you can save some,” he said admiringly. “Come on, they could be back any moment.”

Adam, it seemed, was a gentleman. While he dangled upside down laying wires and explosives under the middle section of the bridge, Jilly much more daintily laid the charges at either end, from the relative safety of the river bank. Which gave her time to pick up his discarded coat and hold her torch steady for him as he worked. Her gaze tended to slide away from the explosive to the rippling muscles of his arms and shoulders.

Then he swung himself up beside her on the bridge, breathing deeply and they ran together to the far side, Adam letting out wire from the reel as he went. They climbed down the river bank again, stumbled as many yards as they could before the wire ran out, then lay flat on the ground.

“Stick your fingers in your ears,” Adam said. Then he pushed down the lever and flung his arm across her head and shoulders.

Jilly heard her heart beat once, and then the world exploded in the loudest noise she’d ever heard in her life. Adam’s arm tightened briefly. A scattering of light debris fell along the length of her body, but it felt like little more than dust.

“All right?” Adam asked.

Jilly tried to nod. She could barely hear.

He leapt to his feet, drawing her with him, and they ran again, stumbling away from the scene before the soldiers or police could get there.

“Okay, so that was bloody real,” Jilly gasped with approval. They slowed and turned to look at the bridge in the distance. Or at least what was left of it.

“Ace sabotage,” Adam said with satisfaction. He licked his lips. “Could murder a pint.”

“Hey, you’re in France.”

“A pint of wine—or even Cognac—is equally acceptable. We can report to our Resistance contact at the café.”

“How far? Do you have the map?”

“I remember the way, and not very.”

“Good.” Jilly was all set for the next step of the game, which was great fun in Adam’s company. It wasn’t just playing either—it was living.

But with the realization came a short blast of reality. She remembered who and what he was and what she was really here for. To say nothing of Sera taking on the poltergeist single-handed.

“Wait, though,” she said uneasily, “I don’t think I’ve got time—”

“Time goes faster here,” he reminded her. “It goes at the speed of your thoughts and mine, not of actual reality.”

She stared at him. “Then how do I know how long I’ve been here?”

“Your phone’s in your pocket, isn’t it?”

“In my real pocket,” she corrected, feeling inside her 1940s raincoat. Her hand closed around the comforting shape of her phone and dragged it out triumphantly.

“It comes with you,” Adam explained. “And since it’s hardly a 1940s thing, all its displays will be of actual times and events, not our VR.”

Jilly stopped and blinked at the phone screen. “According to this, we’ve only been here for about ten minutes!”

He took her free hand and swung it high into the air as they walked on. “See? We’re fast thinkers, you and me.”

****

The poltergeist clearly didn’t want to be sent away, and it was damned if it would stay still for long enough to let Sera disperse it against its will. She chased it around the house for nearly half an hour before she admitted she was wasting her time. She needed to corral the bastard somehow.

Dissatisfied, she slid her back down the nearest wall until she was sitting on the floor. Now what? she thought, dragging her hand through her short, spiky hair and taking stock. She was in a small, narrow corridor leading from the utility room to the back door. Like the rest of the house, it was spotless.

Or was it? Were those not muddy tracks along the tiles? She frowned and blinked, and the marks disappeared. Either her eyes were playing tricks or the present scene was overlaid with a past vision. Drawing in