Paper Children (Phoebe Harkness Book 3)

by James Fahy

  To my right, several doors lined the empty corridor, all of them closed. I looked closer. No… not all. The furthest door was still closing, swinging shut softly on automated hinges. A green box light above the door with an illuminated stick man glowed dimly.

  A bathroom. My Oxford devil was hiding from me in the public toilets?

  I made my way towards the door, my pace slow now. If it was a bathroom, there would be no other exit from it. Which means I had the thing cornered. There was no need to run. I fingered my phone in my pocket, wondering whether to call for backup. But then… I wasn’t supposed to be here. How would I explain to Cloves and others that I snuck past a Cabal guard and eavesdropped on a strange meeting featuring almost half the board of Senior Cabal that I certainly had no business being part of? How had I come to be in this section of the library? And how had I known to be here in the first place?

  Far too many hows for my liking, none of which I think I’d be able to adequately answer.

  I shook my head, taking a deep breath and dropping my phone back into my pocket. Dammit Harkness, you are the official GO Liaison. Summon your inner Lara Croft and deal with this yourself.

  I pushed open the door. The bathroom inside was pitch black. Tentatively I reached an arm inside, feeling along the cold tile walls until I found the light switch with shaking fingers. Expecting any moment to have my arm ripped out of its socket.

  Nothing happened when I toggled the light switch. The room remained dark.

  Figures.

  Bringing my phone back out, I lit up the screen, using it as a flashlight as I made my way slowly and silently into the dark bathroom. There were no windows. My footsteps echoed oddly on the tile floor, flat and a little claustrophobic. The door slowly swung closed behind me on automatic hinges as I stepped away from it, further into the darkness.

  Swinging my makeshift torch around, and pretending not to notice how shaky the ghostly beam of light it exuded was, I took in the room. To my left was a row of washbasins. Sink and taps below an old and mottled line of mirrors which were covered in dust. This was an unused bathroom clearly. The walls and floor were subway tiled, a dark and shining green. The ceiling ahead was a suspended one, Styrofoam squares in a metal grid. There were several damp stains blooming up there.

  I had a feeling this whole floor was undergoing restoration of some kind. Probably why the conspirators, almost half of the entire Cabal board, had chosen to have their meeting here.

  Moving further into the bathroom, slowly and silently, feeling my heart thud against my chest, I slid the beam to my right. Four urinals, ancient and Victorian-looking, stood in a row. Several of them containing long dead and quite mummified flies. And further into the belly of the beast, three cubicles, all dark and silent and filled with shadows. Was a demon clown hiding in one of them? I inched forward. As with many public bathrooms, for ease of mopping, the walls and doors of the cubicles didn’t reach quite to the ground. There was a good four-inch gap. I dropped slowly into a crouch, directing my phone light beneath the stalls, expecting to see feet in one of them. Or maybe cloven hooves, who knows? There was nothing except what looked like a crumpled and ancient pile of toilet roll, fossilised against the grimy pedestal of the toilet.

  I stood again, and moved towards the first closed door.

  “If you’re in there,” I forced myself to say out loud. “You better be decent.” My voice sounded odd in the dark space, both muffled and echoing. “I know that Satan has a dark throne and all that, but that doesn’t mean I want to catch you sitting on it.”

  There was no reply, but the chemical and stale smell of the old bathroom was undercut by the other stench, cooked meat gone bad. Suppurating and sweet. It filled the back of my throat in here.

  I kicked the first door open. Much harder that I’d meant to. That’s adrenaline for you. It banged back against the wall and almost slammed completely shut again. But I had seen inside, the stall had been empty.

  Shuddering a little, I moved along. “What’s behind door number two?” I whispered, my voice shaking involuntarily, and kicked it open, holding the shining phone up before me like a crucifix warding off the undead in an old Hammer Horror movie.

  This stall was empty too. No monstrous demonic harlequin with a painted burned face There was nothing other than a very gross and very old log bobbing in the almost dry toilet bowl.

  “Ugh,” I recoiled. “We all float down here, right?” I muttered, unable to stop myself.

  That left door number three. I steeled myself. What the hell was I doing here? Chasing shadows in the dark. In the muffled, claustrophobic blackness of the bathroom, I could no longer hear the rain, but I caught the muffled sound of thunder again, sounding like a distant freight train. I couldn’t bring myself to kick the door open. I reached out and pushed it wide slowly. It grated and squeaked on its hinges, the beam of light from my torch wavering into the dim cubicle like my own personal patronus.

  The stall was deserted.

  Something directly behind me breathed on my neck. I felt my hair move with the draft of it. Before I could react, I was shoved forward, hard. Strong cracked hands sent me flying headlong into the cubicle. I lost my footing, stumbling blindly and falling. My head caught the porcelain bowl of the toilet with a hard crack, fierce enough to make a white-red flash go off behind my eyes. My phone had flown from my hands, skittering across the tiled floor away from the cubicles, its light whipping erratically around the bathroom as it tumbled over and over. Shadows and shapes leapt everywhere in agitation, before it came to rest, face down, light off.

  Gagging with agony, I struggled to get myself to my knees. The pain in my head was incredible, there was a deafening high ringing in my ears, and without the light, I was lost in complete blackness. Utter suffocating blindness. Nonetheless I felt the shadow of the thing behind me, filling the doorway as it followed me, lurching, into the cubicle. I heard its ragged, laboured breath as it reached down, searching for me in the dark, fingers brushing my coat.

  I may have screamed. I don’t remember. I thrashed around blindly, shaking off the sharp pain in my head and the fact that one side of my skull felt suddenly wet and warm. An animal-like urge for survival kicked in. Determined not to pass out, knowing full well that if I did, I would almost certainly never wake up again, I dropped and scurried backwards, pushing myself between the legs of the thing behind me. I felt it lean down and swipe for me as I struggled to reverse the hell out of the cubicle. Its hand caught my hair, and with a loud grunt I yanked free, feeling a handful of it tear away. I staggered to my knees, my outstretched hands feeling for the legs of my attacker now in front of me somewhere in the blackness, and shoved hard.

  I must have managed to knock the thing off balance, because I heard its heavy bulk tumble forward into the cubicle, smashing against the unseen toilet and from the sound of it, shattering the porcelain bowl completely.

  I scurried backwards on my butt, slipping on the tiles and fighting rising hysteria. Blinking blood out of my eyes. I don’t know why I kept them open at all. The view was the same either way, but panic kept them wide. I was hoping and praying that whatever the thing was, it couldn’t see in the dark any better than I could.

  It hadn’t cried out at it fell. No utterances, not even a growl. Almost as though it was a terrifying Halloween-dressed store dummy not a living thing at all. But scooting backwards, kicking my legs out in front to propel myself away until something hard crashed against my back, I heard the sounds of it struggling to its feet. The cubicle door banging as its bulk shifted around.

  I clawed my way up the surface behind me, the wall I had hit, forcing myself to my feet despite the dizziness and disorientation swimming through my head, trying to get my bearings. I felt the dip of a sink beneath my shaking fingers.

  So I was at the row of basins. I tried to hold my breath, though my heart felt as though it was going to explode in my chest. Shaking to my core, I inched along the bank of sunken basins. My head was incredibly woo
zy, partly from the impact of the toilet bowl and partly from the adrenaline flooding my system. But I had to be quiet. I had to find the door, or my phone. Any source of light or escape, or I was going to die in here. I shuffled along, pausing when I noticed that the noise from my assailant had stopped. Fresh fear rushed into me. Why couldn’t I hear it? Was it standing still? Or was it moving around, even now maybe headed straight towards me, invisible in the blackness?

  I could hear nothing but the soft drip of plumbing, and my heart exploding in my chest.

  I was struck with the sudden horrifying certainty that it could see me. It could see me just fine. I pictured that dark, leering face, grinning ear-to-ear with that psychotic smile. Black, empty shrivelled eyes trained on me as it stalked me through the room. My ears strained uselessly to hear. Anything. Any indication that would give me a hint where it was, or where I was.

  Silence reigned. The only sound was the blood roaring in my ears like an ocean, and my own torn breath, which despite my efforts I was unable to silence completely. The pain in my head was soaring. I felt blood trickle off my chin in the dark and trail down my neck like a stroking finger, disappearing beneath my collar.

  A noise came after a second or two, and for a moment I thought it was a growl, something low and long like a lion or tiger, before my frazzled brain registered that it was distant thunder overhead. There was still a city out there, although my own world had shrunk to the size of this pitch black, mouldering room.

  Although I couldn’t hear the demon-thing, I could smell it. The charred and greasy stench. I tried to orient myself. To focus. Where had the sinks stood in relation to the exit? To the urinals? It was hard to think straight. I was pretty sure I had a skull fracture.

  Daring to take a step away from the sinks, where my knuckles gripped the basin, took a lot of mental effort. It was my only point of reference in the black. Leaving it felt like stepping off a high ledge into a void. But I was compelled to move for two reasons. The smell had suddenly become stronger. My attacker was closer, I was certain of it. Seeking me out silently in the dark, like the world’s most deadly game of blind man’s bluff. And I had seen a small sliver of light, tiny, on the floor somewhere in front of me. I stumbled blindly forwards, almost immediately losing my balance and falling to my hands and knees. Abandoning stealth for speed, I crawled quickly forward. It was my phone. It had to be. It had landed face down on the floor and the screen had lit up. With every inch I moved and every passing second, I expected to be grabbed from behind, but I reached the phone, my hand clawing out unseen, scrabbling on the tile to grasp it.

  The light went out.

  My heart fell into my stomach. My hand slapped on bare tile. I was sure it was here. I flailed around on the floor for it. Sweeping my palms around the cold, damp tiles. Nothing.

  And then something did grab me. I felt fingers clamp around my wrist, as fast as a striking snake. Screaming, I tried to pull away but the thing was too strong. It held my wrist firmly in its hot, rough grasp. I could feel the demon crouching in front of me, even if I couldn’t see it, as it pulled me up to my knees, lifting me up by my arm, its fingers digging painfully into my flesh. I could imagine its leering, horribly grinning face so strongly in my panicked mind’s eye that I might as well be seeing it clearly for real. My whole body was shaking. This was the part where the victim begged, right? In all the horror movies. Please don’t kill me, let me go? That kind of thing, just before the sadistic killer, remorseless and utterly unmoved to pity, snapped their neck.

  Breathing heavily through my nose, I forced myself to look up, my bloodied jaw clenched. I knew I was staring it right in the face, its maddening visage only inches from mine, and was even grateful on some level that I couldn’t see it. Was it waiting for me to beg?

  “Fuck… you,” I hissed through gritted teeth.

  It twisted my wrist, forcing my palm upwards, and something dropped into my hand. My fingers closed around it automatically.

  The thing giggled. High and horribly gleeful. Then I felt it release my wrist, and a brush of moving air as it quickly moved away from me.

  My phone was in my hand. It had given me my phone. What the fuck?

  There was a clatter, somewhere high up above me. With shaking hands I fumbled with the phone, flicking it on, and light…blessed light…flooded the room. It seemed remarkably bright after the darkness, stabbing into my eyes.

  I stared around squinting. I was much closer to the door than I thought I had been. There was blood on the floor, spatters and trails of it smeared across the dark tile, and it took me a queasy moment to realise it was mine. My hand, which had been cradling my head, was slick with it.

  I swung the beam of light from my screen around wildly, throwing light and shadow off the gleaming tiles. There was nothing.

  I was alone.

  Remembering the clattering noise, I tilted the beam upwards, its skittering light roving over the mildewey, spotted ceiling. I half expected to see the vile thing hanging from the ceiling like a spider, some wall-crawling abomination from the Exorcist, ready to drop on me. But it was gone. One of the polystyrene tiles of the suspended ceiling was a black hole. It had gone out through the roof.

  I scuttled to the door, scrabbling for the handle, panicking that it was toying with me again. Giving me my phone, making me think I had a chance, but expecting black charred arms to grab me around the waist as I reached for the door. To pull me back into the darkness, for good this time. With that awful, high giggling laugh. Fooled you.

  Nothing stopped me. The door whooshed open, spilling the light of the corridor into my eyes. The wonderful, sane, safe corridor.

  I threw myself out of the bathroom like the proverbial bat out of hell, and had run halfway back down the corridor, rain-spattered windows flashing by on my right, before I realised I had done so. I had no thought in mind other than putting distance between myself and it.

  I didn’t remember doing it, but my fingers were dialling. I held the phone up to my head, feeling my legs give out as the pain in my aching head increased further, making me stagger and fall hard against the wall with my shoulder. The empty corridor lurched around me queasily. I felt like I was on a ship in a high storm.

  I didn’t even know who I’d called. Lucy? Griff? Someone to help me.

  To my own surprise as I slid down the wall, feeling my vision begin to dim at the edges, it was Veronica Cloves’ voice I heard echoing out of the phone.

  “Harkness? What is it? Why are you calling, I’m in the middle of-”

  “Head…” I managed, hearing how thick and slurred my own voice sounded. “Hit… my head. Come get me… hurry please.”

  She responded, sounding both angry and alarmed, but I didn’t know what she said, because the phone had slipped from my hand and clattered to the floor. I thought I heard thunder again, only it wasn’t stopping, just rolling on and on, getting louder. At the last moment I realised it was my own blood I could hear, roaring in my ears, before my mouth filled with the taste of tin, and the world slid out of focus.

  I fell into a blackness as haunted and absolute as the bathroom I had just escaped.

  Chapter 13

  “She looks quite peaceful when she’s sleeping.”

  “That’s because her mouth isn’t moving. She has a tongue like a viper that one, when she sets her mind to it.”

  My brain swam up from groggy darkness. Two voices, both men, and both familiar, though I couldn’t place them. Hell… I couldn’t even place me right now.

  “Don’t try and play so cool,” the first voice came again, still sounding some way off. It also sounded amused and playful. “Don’t pretend you don’t want a bite.”

  The second person blew air down their nose dismissively in response. I struggled to claw my way back to full awareness. It felt like swimming upwards. Struggling through thick dark treacle.

  “The good doctor is not on the menu.” This voice was much more familiar to me than the playful one. I could hear just
the barest hint of amusement in it.

  “Really… hmm.” His companion didn’t sound convinced. “You’ve never imagined it? How she would taste? Such a potent cocktail. Do you think she even knows herself, how unique she is? Pale virus, your blood, and of course daddy’s little elixir. More strength and power than-”

  “If you’re talking about me, can you please at least try not to make it sound like you’re choosing aperitifs,” I said, forcing my eyes open and revealing a very blurry room which was so bright it stung my eyes, making me immediately squeeze them closed again.

  Or at least, that’s what I thought I was going to say. What actually came out of my mouth was a garbled, zombie-like groan, which made me realise that wherever I was, they had some very strong painkillers and clearly I was not as compos-mentis as I thought.

  Crisp sheets shuffled under me as I tried to force myself into a sitting position. I opened my eyes again, more carefully this time.

  There was a medicinal smell in the air. Was I in hospital? My head hurt like hell, even through the haze of painkillers, as I blinked the blurriness away. My mouth felt filled with cotton balls and dry as a bone.

  The two figures were each standing in opposite corners of the room near the foot of my bed. One was dressed in what appeared to be an extremely expensive suit. Midnight black, over a black shirt, with a matching black tie which was only visible at all due to its slightly glossy texture. He leaned casually against the wall with his shoulder, arms folded. The silvery gleam of cufflinks caught the light. It was Allesandro.

  The vampire gave me a small, lopsided smile, watching me haul myself up the narrow bed into an upright position. His head tilted to one side with curiosity, which made his dark waves of hair fall around his collarbone, glossy in the light. I hadn’t seen him for so long, I’d actually forgotten how annoyingly good looking he was. You shouldn’t be allowed to pair lips like that with a jaw that could break rocks.