Serafina and the Virtual Man - By Marie Treanor Page 0,3

can form from negative thoughts and emotions of the living, not just the angry spirits of the dead. To get it to disperse, it helps to understand where it came from. It could be from you or from frequent visitors to your house.”

Dale paused outside the final door and cast them a sardonic smile. “I don’t think any of my workers are that unhappy. This is where it went ape last night.”

He flung open the door, and Sera stepped forward. Petra, Jilly noticed, made no effort to go in.

The room had certainly been spectacularly trashed. The entire floor was covered with splintered wood, feathers, ripped books, shards of glass, what looked like bits of machinery and clothing, and, surely, a shredded mattress. The light fitting was no more than a frayed wire dangling from the ceiling. Dents and scratches of various sizes were scattered over the walls and the door, as if hard objects had been flung at them with considerable force.

“Bloody hell,” Sera observed in awed tones. “It looks like someone took a wrecking ball to the place. Except,” she added as her glance moved on, “the window isn’t broken. What is this room? Your bedroom?”

“No, thank God,” Dale said fervently. “It’s just a spare bedroom. We used it a bit like a storeroom, shoved things in here to get them out of the way—old computers, books, clothes for charity collections, that kind of thing.”

Jilly stepped into the midst of the rubble. Beside her, Sera had gone still and quiet, trying to feel for whatever had caused this mess. If the Ewans hadn’t just had a massive fight and wrecked the place from temper. Although even Jilly had to admit it would have to have been a hell of a temper and pretty drawn out to achieve quite this much carnage.

“So what actually happened?” Jilly asked. “Were you in here when the trouble started?”

“No, I woke up to these awful crashing sounds,” Petra said from outside the door. “I thought a plane had crashed into the house or something, but it was all coming from this direction, and it didn’t let up, so then I knew… I yelled for Dale.”

“And where were you?” Jilly asked him. He stood on the other side of the door, looking in with a wariness that seemed genuine.

“In my study along the gallery there.” Dale nodded back the way they’d come, perhaps toward the slightly open door Jilly had already noticed—if it was his study, it would perhaps explain the massive electronic activity in that area of the house. “I ran around when I heard it, met Petra at our bedroom door. We both knew what it was. We didn’t go in until it stopped. It would have been suicide.”

“But you did go in immediately after?” Jilly pursued. “You didn’t go away and then come back?”

“No, we huddled in the hall here and waited for it to stop. After about five minutes of silence, I opened the door and found this.”

“And was the window open or closed?” Jilly asked.

“Closed and locked,” Petra said. “Why? Are you imagining some disgruntled employee broke in, trashed the place, and climbed back out through the window?”

Jilly shrugged. “It crossed my mind. We have to eliminate all the physical possibilities before the psychic can really be considered.” She glanced at Sera, who’d started to move around the room again as best she could, picking her way through the mess.

“There’s nothing here now,” Sera said shortly. “But I can feel something, an echo.”

She reached out, touched the pristine window frame. Her breath caught, and she drew back, blinking.

“What?” Jilly asked and received a false, bright smile.

“Nothing. Yet.” She swung toward the door. “Does it always stick to this room?”

“Oh no, it roams all over the house. It’s flung things around the kitchen, the main sitting room, my study, Petra’s sitting room. But never as badly as this. This made me realise we really have to do something about it. It’s going to kill us.”

Sera nodded. “It’s obviously growing, picking up your negative energy and adding it to its own. Does it only make its presence felt at night?”

“So far. Why is that?”

Sera shrugged. “Humans’ primal fear of darkness. More negative emotions around, makes it stronger. Okay,” she said decisively, making for the door. “Let’s see if we can’t have a chat with it while it’s weak enough not to hurl us off the walls.”

Petra’s jaw dropped. “You want to bring it?” she managed at last, pointing with a shaking hand