Serafina and the Virtual Man by Marie Treanor Read Free Book Online Page B

his weird sense of unreality kept the panic at bay. He just had to consider the situation logically until he found the solution to his problem. He was used to that. So…
    The memories slowly clearing in his mind confirmed his identity. Everything he’d told the girl, JK, was true. So far as he knew. He remembered being shot quite distinctly, in this house, although from whom or exactly where the shot had come from he’d no idea. Yet.
    And he definitely wasn’t alive. If he was, he wouldn’t be able to connect to JK’s computer like he just had, to see her through her webcam when she hadn’t even switched it on. Part of him had remained here in Dale’s lab, typing, while, bizarrely, another, nebulous part of him had seemed to be swirling around the circuits of JK’s laptop. That was not natural, or even possible, even in a VR program.
    But God, the girl was even more beautiful without the mask, without the tough edges she affected in her speech and mannerisms. Although her typed words were direct enough. Her eyes were still defiant, but she hadn’t been hiding tonight. Her unglossed, natural mouth had seemed to reveal unexpected vulnerability. He wanted to taste the softness of her lips… An odd desire for a dead man.
    Why had she been here this morning? She’d wakened him by accident. She was curious, but not, it seemed, investigating his death. Which she said had happened in Australia.
    So why had his ghost popped up in Dale’s Scottish home five months after his death? And why couldn’t he leave this room except via a computer connection?
    Because he’d forced his spirit into his own VR program. Hadn’t he felt himself doing that as he whooshed to consciousness? But where had the compulsion come from? Some weird instinct to go on existing in some form, any form? He couldn’t grasp that bit. It had just happened.
    Adam rubbed his forehead tiredly. He’d things to do. Important things, only he couldn’t quite work out what they were. He had to talk to Dale. And if he could talk to JK this way, surely it wasn’t impossible to contact his partner the same way.
    He reached for the mouse again and found Dale’s computer quicker than a shot. In fact, he even found the security cameras. They weren’t switched on, but again that didn’t seem to matter.
    From the security camera focused on the window, and from the webcam built into Dale’s laptop, he got a double view of his friend sitting on the sofa of the huge sitting room downstairs, one of his laptops on the low glass table in front of him. Petra would tell him off for scratching it. Except she wasn’t there.
    Dale looked harassed, as if he wasn’t sleeping well. Difficulties with the new system, maybe. How far had he been able to take it in five months? So much Adam needed to know…
    Adam connected into Dale’s open chat program, and from the lab typed, “Fancy a pint?”
    Which had an unexpectedly dramatic effect. Dale dropped the mouse on the floor and leapt to his feet. At the same time, the curtains whooshed high into the air; Dale’s hair seemed literally to stand on end; and the laptop flew onto the floor as if an unseen hand had picked it up and hurled it.
    Dale clutched his head in both hands. “Stop it, Adam!” he yelled. “Just fucking stop it!”
    ****
     
    In Edinburgh’s dark Old Town, the vampire Blair leapt off the tenement roof, landed in the back court, and yanked the fledgling off his female victim before hurling him into the wall with enough force to have killed a human. As it was, he hoped it gave the stupid little shite a big headache.
    Ignoring the third vampire who stood uncertainly in the shadows, Blair caught the terrified gaze of the victim and hooked her. Slowly, the fear faded from her eyes as her mind adjusted to the new memory he was installing there: a foiled attack and no harm done. Still holding her mesmerised gaze, Blair licked his forefinger and pressed it to the ugly wounds in her throat. But the clumsy