Serafina and the Virtual Man - By Marie Treanor Page 0,40
a poltergeist thingy, and I have a dead body and the police to contend with. Talking of which, Mel, can I pick your brains?”
“Sure.”
“Have you ever heard of a spirit split into two? One half poltergeist? Any spells that might do that?”
“Never heard of any,” Mel answered after a moment’s pause. “I can check. If you come up here and check my place for spirits.”
Sera frowned. “What sort of spirits?” she demanded and took another bite of toast.
Blair, dressed in jeans and no shirt, wandered into the room and picked up the other mug of coffee. Stupidly, it gave her a warm feeling, as if they were a normal couple going through the morning routine together. Only they weren’t, and she shouldn’t like this so much; she shouldn’t want this so much. He was a fucking vampire. He didn’t play houses and happy families.
“I don’t know,” Mel was saying. “I just thought I saw something last night. But I was tired and half-asleep, so it’s probably nothing. Just freaked me.”
Sera swallowed her toast. “What did you see?”
“Just a shadow, a deeper space of darkness, and it moved so fast I couldn’t even make out its shape.”
Sera lifted her gaze to Blair, who was already staring at her with troubling intensity. With his amazing hearing, he’d be able to make out every word Melanie said.
He spoke inside her mind. “What was she doing when she saw it? What was she working on?”
Sera relayed the question.
“Nothing,” Melanie said. “Just reading. I fell asleep over the book, woke up, and staggered off to bed. I saw this thing—or didn’t—during the staggering part.”
“What were you reading?” Sera asked while Blair continued to watch her. For some reason, it made her more uneasy than randy, although she had to admit to elements of both.
“A history of magic in Bulgaria.”
“Well, that explains why you fell asleep.”
“Philistine.”
“Did you cast any spells that day?”
“No, I’ve just been reading recently, researching.”
“You’re avoiding telling me what you’ve been researching,” Sera observed. “Spill, Mel. What are you up to?”
Melanie sighed down the phone. “I just got interested in this Founder character of Blair’s after he told us about him last autumn. So I’ve been seeing what I could find out about him.”
Blair closed his eyes.
“Mel, you haven’t been trying to summon him?” Sera said uneasily, and Blair’s eyes flew open again.
“God, no,” Melanie answered, much to her relief and, apparently, Blair’s. He sat down and drank his coffee in several gulps. Not for the first time, Sera wondered how his body dealt with that. He never ate anything solid, but liquids he just seemed to absorb, somehow. Like blood.
“I’ve just been finding out all I can about his life and legend and the kind of magic he practiced. Fascinating, although, to be honest, there’s bugger all there, and what there is, is damned difficult to trace. Vampires don’t exactly recount their history for humans to write down.”
“There’s a reason for that,” Blair said harshly in Sera’s head. “The Founder’s basic tenet was as little contact as possible between humans and vampires. We’re different species, different worlds, and only connect very fleetingly to feed. For her own safety, she has to stop looking.”
Connect very fleetingly… Stricken, Sera relayed Blair’s words like an automaton. But they had a quite different effect on Mel.
“Wow,” she breathed. “You mean I felt him? The shadow was him? The Founder?”
That penetrated Sera’s hurt. Because it would explain what she and Blair had seen and felt the previous night, the shadow vanishing across his bedroom. And Blair’s weird reaction. She stared at him, but he only shrugged.
“More likely something sent by him to check on her. But if he’s noticed her at all, she should stop.”
Sera relayed that too, adding, “I’ll call you later, Mel, let you know when I can come up.”
“Great. See you soon. Bye.”
Sera broke the connection. “Something sent by him to check on her,” she repeated. “And us?”
He was silent for several moments. Long enough for her to take a last mouthful of coffee and put on her leather jacket. Then he said, “I don’t know. Maybe.”
“He wouldn’t approve of you and me being together, would he?”
“No.”
“But you’ve been with other humans. You told me that months ago.”
“No one—” He broke off and stood up. “Only fleetingly.”
“Like all human connections?” She meant it to be light, mocking, but it came out too harshly, almost accusing.
He stood up and walked over to her, laying his mug deliberately on the table beside hers. Then he placed