Paper Children (Phoebe Harkness Book 3)

by James Fahy

  “Let’s get this over with, season three Buffy,” I muttered to myself, regarding my reflection critically in the long mirror propped against my bedroom wall. I had left my hair down loose. I could always roll with the ‘wild and free’ image, but in truth I wanted as much of my neck covered as possible if I was going to Sanctum. If any vampire fancied their chances, they were going to have to endure a L’Oréal floss at the same time. Because I’m worth it, fangbangers.

  I was in a taxi, ploughing through the dark and relentlessly drizzly streets of Oxford, headed to the vampire district when my phone rang. I didn’t recognise the number.

  “Harkness.”

  The voice on the other end was a woman. “Doctor Harkness. I need to speak with you. It’s about the daughter. She is not fit to rule.”

  I peered out of the misty cab window as we turned onto the High, frowning as I tried to place the voice. Smoky, thick Eastern-European accent. Sounded perpetually annoyed. The shops and bars along the road were already festooned with Halloween decorations. Orange and red pumpkin lights everywhere.

  “Sorry? The daughter? Who is this?”

  The woman sighed noisily into the phone, irritated. “She has lived too long among your kind,” she said insistently. “And now what? She thinks she can stroll to the head of the pack and lead our people? She knows nothing. She is a whelp, a milk-suckling cub. The people will eat her alive. I need to meet with you.”

  I placed the voice. Sofia, the red-headed right hand of the Tribal leader, Kane. She was caustic and rather abrupt, but she had saved me from being strangled one time by a faceless genetic nightmare. I’m not saying that we were sisters from another mister because of it, but that kind of experience does leave something of a bond I suppose. How on earth she had gotten my private number I had no idea.

  “Sofia? Wait, what are you talking about. Who’s a whelp?” And what’s it got to do with me? I added silently. The last thing on my mind at the moment was the Tribals.

  “Kane’s daughter,” Sofia hissed down the phone, as my cab stopped in heavy traffic near to Carfax. The streets were busy outside, now that we were closing on the crimson mile. A little light drizzle wouldn’t deter Helsings, and they were out in force, pedestrians jostling in the dark against the garish shopfronts and weaving between the cars. They were shadows against the neon, outlined in the mist and rain. It was all very Blade Runner.

  “You remember? The innocent child you rescued? The one who had spent her whole adult life self-exiled from the tribe? Living amongst you humans like a wolf in wool?” Sofia snorted. “Well with Kane gone, thanks to you, she seeks to rule our people, taking up the mantle of Alpha, and things are not going well. She has no authority, no alpha blood. The pack will tear itself apart, starting with her. I cannot let that happen.”

  “Let me guess,” I said. “You think you would make a better ruler?” I had only a vague idea how Tribal politics worked amongst our shapeshifter section of society, but I imagined it was bloody and brutal.

  There was a moment of hissing silence down the phone, which was just long enough for me to realise I’d said entirely the wrong thing.

  “You see me as the jackal tearing at the lion’s throat, is it?” she said. “This is what you think of me? I have pride, Doctor Harkness. I would never!” There was a growl beneath her words. It’s not possible for a human throat to make that kind of noise. “Kane is my leader. I am sworn to him, and I will protect his clueless, idiotic daughter with my life. But this is not possible when she seeks to rule. She clomps about the compound, a little girl in daddy’s shadow. There is unrest and anger here. I cannot keep her safe from her own tribe. They smell her weakness.”

  I was still struggling to see how any of this was my problem. “Kane was your leader,” I corrected. “He’s dead, remember?”

  My cab pulled away again, gently nudging its way through the crowds of the vampire district as it headed up St Giles.

  “Kane lives!” Sofia sounded indignant. “I know it!”

  I pursed my lips. “I’m pretty sure he doesn’t.” I said, as kindly as I could. I had seen him brought to the floor by several rabid Pale. Last I’d seen, they had been tearing him to pieces in the middle of a dark power plant. I didn’t want to sound too harsh though. I suspected Sofia’s loyalty to Kane went beyond hero-worship and straight to shapeshifter messiah.

  “He is not dead,” she said flatly. “I know this.”

  “How? How do you know this?” I asked. Granted, there had been no body, but then, there had been no Pale bodies either, or any faceless zombie girl corpses, or indeed any sign whatsoever at the scene. Cabal are very, very good at cleaning up. That whole night? Never happened.

  “I feel it,” she said with great feeling and absolutely no humour.

  “Oh… you ‘feel it’,” I said flatly. “Well, that clears things up then.”

  “We need to find him,” she insisted. “To bring him home. He needs to lead. I can only hold back the tribe for so long. If his daughter falls, the fault will be mine.”

  “We? Sofia, I’m not even one of you.” I pressed the phone a little closer to my ear, lowering my voice a little. I have a constant paranoia that taxi drivers are always eavesdropping. “I’m a ‘useless human’ remember? I don’t see what I could do? And since when did any of you Tribals want outsiders muddled up in your internal affairs anyway? I don’t see what I could do to help.”

  “I’m desperate,” she said flatly. This silenced me a little. I knew how proud and haughty Sofia was. It would have cost her dearly to admit that. Especially to a lowly human. “You have… connections… information. You are the go-between all peoples.”

  “I’m an unwilling ambassador,” I corrected. “I’m not Barbara bloody Gordon. You think Cabal know what happened to Kane?”

  “Someone does. And you need to find out for me,” she said. “You owe him.”

  This, I couldn’t argue with. Kane may well have been a very large and rugged gangster with a reputation for extreme cold-blooded violence, with the cherry on the cake that occasionally he was also a bear. Literally a bear I mean, not a big hairy guy, we’re talking full-on evil bloodthirsty Yogi Bear here. But all that aside, he had saved my life. Mine and Cloves’. Maybe I could lean on her for info, see if she’d heard anything about the fate of his corpse.

  “Look, I’ll ask around,” I said weakly. “I’m not promising anything, but I’m kind of in the middle of something else right now.” My cab had pulled up right outside the Eagle and Child, a rather small and non-descript pub of some fame, which also happened to be one of the many entrances to the subterranean vampire underworld.

  “The vampire slayings,” she said in response. My eyebrows shot up.

  “You know about them?”

  Although I couldn’t see her, I could practically feel her disinterested shrug. “Only what our people have sniffed out. We keep a close watch on our enemies. The vampires are being executed. Rooftops mainly, out of the way places. They are savages. This does not surprise me.”

  “Any thoughts?” I asked. It was a long shot, but hey, I was always happy to get an outside opinion from anywhere I could. The Tribals might have a theory about the murders which hadn’t occurred to myself or to Cabal.

  “My opinion?” Sofia said. “Don’t get involved. You have other things to worry about.”

  She hung up. “Don’t get involved,” I muttered to myself, as I paid and got out of the cab. The pub which served as the entrance to Sanctum was lit up like a Halloween grotto. Above the doors, a wide crimson banner proclaimed “Fangfest was coming” and “tonight was bloodletting night!!” With two exclamation marks.

  I would love to have the option to not get involved, but amongst the line of eager Helsings jostling under umbrellas behind the red-rope line to the club, I could already see Lucy waving happily to me. I didn’t have time to look for a dead Tribal leader, I barely had time to eat or sleep. Someone was painting the town all the wrong kinds of red, and the only per
son who might have a lead was somewhere down there in a nest of vampires, amongst two-for-one cocktails and heavy dubstep.

  Chapter 4

  The last time I’d been to Sanctum, it had been quite an intimidating experience. A vaulted underground club, vast in proportion, styled after the grand cellar of some gothic castle, all dry ice, huge video screens and thrashing human bodies dressed in leather and sweat, with the occasional actual vampire moving through the crowds like silent sharks in shoals of happy and clueless fish. The club is accessed via a wide spiral staircase leading down from the pub above. There are plenty of gantries and walkways; it’s like a heavy metal construction site down here. Like Whitby Abbey undergoing renovations during a hardcore rave. It was packed to the rafters as Lucy and I pushed our way down the stairs and into the crowds, but if anything, it was an even more surreal sight that usual.

  “This is out of this world!” Lucy bellowed half an inch from my ear. I just about heard her over the throbbing music which was drumming against my head and pounding in my ribcage.

  That’s one way to describe it, I had to agree. The entirety of the club was decked out for Fangfest week celebrations. It looked very impressive. Scarlet pennants and swathes everywhere, countless pumpkin lights blazing orange neon from the vaulted stone ceiling like a Halloween-starry sky. But the people were the oddest feature. Every vampire working at the club was dressed for carnival. There were tightrope-walking vampires in skin-hugging silver leotards striding high above the dance floor on wires. There were stilt-walking vampires in striped clothing looming over the humans, great preying-mantis legs weaving through the crowds with trays of drinks and ruffled collars beneath grease-painted faces, and altogether too many shirtless vampires in stylised clown makeup for my liking.

  Vampires and clowns, I thought with a shiver. What a bloody combination. And I thought clowns were traditionally supposed to look… well… clownish. Buffoons in oversized pants, big red noses, that kind of thing?

  Only vampires could manage to make it looks sleazy.

  These clowns were more elegant harlequins than Bozo. Black and white diamond costumes that covered as little as possible of hard and glistening white skin. Every club member of Sanctum’s clan, male and female alike, had teardrop-painted faces and red greasepaint smiles beneath eyes that flashed in the dark strobing nightclub, like cats-eyes lighting up on a dark motorway. Welcome to Satan’s own circus, the big-top of Sanctum, where every entertainer is a gigolo juggler, waiting to gnaw on your neck for the right price.

  I swear I saw a hen party. It always seemed to me like watching animals dancing in the slaughterhouse. At least pigs and sheep have the good sense to panic. Helsings just order more drinks.

  “They’re really getting into the spirit of things aren’t they?” Lucy guided me expertly through the gyrating crowds towards a dark bar. I made a mental note to ask her later where she had found the time to go out and buy a cat suit. She looked like a spy, except for the glow in the dark phosphorous mardi-gras beads she wore draped around her neck.

  The bartender, a tall and stone-faced vampire whose face had been expertly painted to look like a skull glanced at us and moved towards the cocktails as Lucy ordered.

  “You don’t think it’s a bit, well, poor taste?” I yelled to her over the music. “You know, creatures of the night dressing up for Halloween? It seems a little redundant don’t you think? Vampires are scary enough all on their own.”

  “Vampires are not scary!” Lucy giggled. “They’re hot.” She leaned back on the bar, peering out across the dancefloor. “Check out that one. Pecs of sculpted marble, yum.”

  I followed her stare to a spot on the dancefloor where a vampire dressed like a circus ringmaster was holding court amidst a trio of admirers. His face was half hidden by a cocked top hat, long dreadlocks cascading down his back. He looked like a smouldering Baron Samedi. The human Helsings jostled for his attention. Two female, one male, all shamelessly doe-eyed and entranced. I wondered briefly if he was rolling their minds. They can do that, the stronger ones, push your mind and will down under theirs. It’s like psychic dominance. Just one of many vampire talents. After a brief moment’s observation, I decided that he wasn’t. They were just all extremely into him. I wasn’t. Solid marble pecs or not, vampires worried me. I’d had too many of them try to bite my face off in my time. I reminded myself why I’d allowed myself to be dragged here.

  “Where do we find this pigeon guy?” I shouted at Lucy, as she passed me a martini glass full of something very fizzy and cloudy.

  “Dove, not pigeon,” she corrected, noticing my smirk and knowing full well I was needling her. “And I’m sure we’ll know him when we see him. Just relax for once, Doc.”

  I took her advice – or tried to. The fizzy drink helped. I had no idea what it was. Some dangerous concoction which had a lot of rum in it and an extremely rude name, but after two or three of them, it certainly took the edge off. Lucy went off to dance, weaving away and blending with the Helsing crowd effortlessly. I still struggled to marry the two images of Lucy I held in my mind. By day she was my loveable and geeky lab assistant. She wore dungarees on occasion without any irony at all. She tied her hair up with a biro, and worried about ordering soy milk at Starbucks in case the barista thought she was being too attention-seeking. But by night she was in her element, here in the darkness with the other wild children, dancing like a lunatic and hoping to bump into an actual bloodsucker like everyone else who had paid to get in here.

  A couple of guys tried to buy me drinks, and one of them was actually good looking, if a little worse for wear. He looked respectable, like he might be a med-student or something of that ilk. All jawline and wide open smile. I put his slight wooziness down to one too many drinks, until I noticed the puncture marks on his neck, fresh and a little angry, like careful love bites, and realised he wasn’t drunk, he was drained. You can have that, in the private booths, if you have enough to pay for it that is.

  I made my excuses and wandered off into the crowd, drink in hand, trying not to feel all my skin crawl off.

  I was halfway across the dance-floor, bumped and grinded from gaggle to group, when a hand fell on my shoulder. Suspecting it to be the drunk-drained man from the bar, I turned with a semi-polite refusal to dance already half formed on my lips, only to find myself faced with a vampire.

  She was tall, Asian features with a bob of snow-white hair and a ridiculously fashionable fringe. Her hair silently mocked my own for falling short of uber-chic undead styling. She, like most other vampires here tonight, was also wearing a Fangfest Halloween harlequin mask. It made her look a little like an undead superhero.

  “Doctor Phoebe Harkness,” she said, her cool hand still on my shoulder.

  I was surprised and a little unnerved that she knew who I was, but I hid it well I think.

  “In the flesh,” I replied, immediately regretting using that word in front of what may well be a very hungry predator. “Look, if you’re… working… I’m not buying tonight. Not that you’re not impressive and all, but I’m really just here to-”

  “We know why you’re here, Doctor,” the vampire replied, her eyes narrowed at me through the mask. She glanced over her shoulder and I followed her gaze. Standing by the wall, beside a tall dark pair of double-doors which I knew from previous experience led into the private rooms of the club, there was a woman. Human, but trying her very best to look vampiric. She was even wearing a shawl, like a gothic Stevie Nicks. I knew her. Elise, Helsing of the highest order and resident Renfield to Sanctum. Clearly it had been her who had sent this vampire over to ‘fetch’ me.

  “Dove will speak with you in private.” The vampire looked back to me, politely. “He doesn’t want to be out on the floor tonight. He’s already fed, and all the humans…” She glanced around at the people dancing in the darkness. “…It can turn your stomach when you’re full. You understand.”

  I didn’t relish the idea of being led away from the relative safety of this
more public space, but this was what I had come for, after all. I had been hoping to speak to this steward of Sanctum or whatever he was, out in the open, or at least in a booth, with lots of witnesses, but it seemed he had other plans. I nodded and followed the white-haired vampire back through the crowds towards the doors and Elise, into the lion’s den.

  I wasn’t sure what I was expecting. Allesandro’s old ‘office’ had been decked out like a high class Parisian boudoir, but there was an altogether different atmosphere as I was led down a velvet-walled back corridor, flanked in front and behind by Elise and the unnamed vampire woman. The doors to the club hissed closed behind me, cutting off the majority of the noise with surprising efficiency, reducing the music to nothing more than a deep and constant heartbeat which seemed to thud softly through the padded walls.

  I studied Elise in front of me as we walked. I’m pretty good at body language, and I could tell one thing. She was not a happy bunny. Last time we’d met she had been all swish-tailed and smug swagger. But now she seemed almost demure. Shoulders a little hunched, defensive. She hadn’t greeted me, hadn’t even made eye contact.

  She’s scared, I thought with interest. But what of? This is her Helsing kingdom, right? Even if her king is currently missing.

  We paused at a set of red doors at the far end of the corridor, Elise’s hand splayed on them as she addressed me for the first time without turning. “I’d advise you to be polite,” she said quietly. There was none of her familiar sneer, it actually sounded like a fair warning.

  Before I could respond, she pushed the door open and, my return route blocked by white-bob-superhero vamp, I followed her within.

  The room beyond looked like an opium den. The air was heavy with incense smoke, and lowly lit with closed red lanterns here and there. It was full of people, mainly vampires. They lounged here and there, some on low roman-style sofas, some simply on the floor, against walls. Many of them were feeding, human Helsings draped across their laps, embraced like lovers and in varying states of ecstatic near-unconsciousness as the vampires nuzzled at their throats, drinking hungrily. Everywhere were the quiet moans and sighs of drug addicts getting off on their fix, and the equally hungry noises of vampires gorging themselves at leisure. It was like stumbling into an orgy. The doors closed softly behind me as I tried pointedly to find somewhere to look in the dimly lit confusion that didn’t involve one pleasure of the flesh or another. Two Helsing girls knelt with their heads in the lap of a reclining vampire who was busy drinking from the throat of another sitting beside him.