Paper Children

by James Fahy

  “They’ve gone public!” she hissed. “Cunningham Bowls and Winterbourne! I’ve just got a news alert, they’re on channel five right now with Poppy motherfucking Merriweather, telling all of New Oxford about their kidnapped brats! They couldn’t give us one more god-damn day?”

  This was bad news. Very bad. All over the city, people would be only now hearing about the disappearance of two bright-eyed innocents at the hands of a vicious and violent Genetic Other, interviews with the parents, both of who were rabid Mankind Movement supporters themselves. And today of all days, when in two hours, as soon as the sun set, the streets were due to be filled with vampires.

  I pulled out my own phone, staring at Cloves, clueless as to what to say. There would be riots, surely? Anti GOs, angry already about the Fangfest even being allowed to happen, were going to be pushed right over the edge by this. Dove would have to call off the parade. Wouldn’t he? What if he didn’t?

  My phone told me Oscar was calling. I peered at it in confusion, my mind still reeling from Cloves’ announcement. I hit the answer button, lifting it to my ear. I automatically assumed he was calling to tell me he was watching the news right now and that the smoking, demonic cat was well and truly out of the bag. But I was wrong. It was worse.

  “It got her,” Oscar’s voice sounded shaky and out of breath. In the background I could hear someone crying, a little hysterically. It sounded like Lucy.

  “Oscar?” I said, my voice hollow. My heart had just dropped into my stomach.

  Cloves was staring at me across the office, her own phone still gripped so hard with anger her knuckles were white.

  “I… I don’t know how it got in…” Oscar sounded breathless, shaken, he was babbling. “I don’t know, it was just here… it… the old man. It killed him. It killed everyone… and it’s taken the girl. That fucking monster. What the hell is that thing?”

  I turned and stared out of the window, wide-eyed, as though I had some kind of magical superpower to see all the way across the city to Scott Towers from Coldwater’s lofty office. “Oscar… calm down,” I heard myself say, feeling anything but calm myself.

  “Phoebe… I think… I think my bodyguards are dead. Lucy and I are locked in. I have a panic room, but, Jesus…it just swept the kid away from us. It laughed at us.”

  Staring out across the city, with thin sunbeams streaking down through the clouds like amber, Halloween shards, I felt almost as if I could hear the high, giggling laughter myself.

  Chapter 28

  The Drive from Cabal HQ across the city to Scott Towers, a vast bulbous skyscraper in Portmeadow which in a previous incarnation had been known affectionately as the Gherkin, should have taken thirty minutes at least. Cloves made in in fifteen, screaming through the streets in her acid yellow Ferrari.

  We had fled the Liver, unchallenged thank God, leaving nothing out of place. There were already people in the streets, many more than could be accounted for by the usual afternoon rush. Gathered around the huge Datascreens that covered the sides of many of our city’s buildings. Every one we passed showed the same images. Poppy Merriweather, looking stern from across her news desk, breaking the scoop to an already jittery city. Two innocent girls, snatched from their homes, exclusive statements with both sets of parents. There was footage of the Cunningham Bowls’ house, footage of the bridge where little Cora Winterbourne was snatched, interspersed with family photos of both girls. It was all very sensational. And it was going to cause an outrage.

  Cloves’ phone was ringing off the hook. So was mine. We both ignored them. Press, desperately trying to speak to the GO Liaison no doubt, in the wake of this ‘shocking and tragic turn of events’.

  “Idiots!” Cloves hissed on more than one occasion, incandescent as she tore through back streets and suburbia at alarming speeds. “They’ve lit the bloody fuse now. Heads are going to roll for this, Harkness.”

  Oscar buzzed us straight in as we reached Scott Towers, Cloves leaving her car angled terribly right outside the doors to the huge tower mansion, where it had skidded into a side slide on the gravel turning circle of the grounds.

  The last time I had been here, it had been for an evening masquerade party, where I had met Chase Pargate stealing information about Oscar’s father from right under his nose. The spotless, art deco lobby had been softly lit and glowing gold. Filled with guests, warm candlelight and champagne. It looked conversely cold and bare in the bright early-afternoon daylight, our shoes clacking and echoing across the marble of the lobby as we made our way to the elevators.

  There was a dead man slumped against the doors. Scott security by the look of his uniform. He looked as though he had been hit hard and fast. My guess was that he had been thrown across the lobby and had slid down the wall, judging by the smear of blood he had left behind on the pristine marble. He had a gory hole in his chest. I checked him anyway, while Cloves jabbed to summon the elevator.

  “He’s very dead,” I took my fingers away from his neck. “Old smoky punched a hole right through this guy.”

  We rode the elevator up. Scott Towers was not only Oscar’s home, but the workplace of the entire Scott empire. Labs, offices, everything contained in one building. The personal living quarters were only a few floors near the peak of the tower. When we’d brought Lucy and the civilians here, we’d thought they would be safe. Oscar had closed the business, sent everyone home, thank God. There had been no one in the tower except them and his personal team of bodyguards, of which there were at least twenty.

  Nineteen, I corrected myself, glancing down at the blood on my fingertips from the guard at the elevator.

  Cloves was playing a continuous stream of the news on her handheld DataPad as we ascended.

  “So far, we have been unable to reach the Genetic Other Liaison Ambassador for comment, and Cabal have yet to issue any official statement regarding these disappearances,” said the reporter, standing on scene outside Cabal HQ compound doors, which were closed tight.

  “Shit,” Cloves muttered. “I need to be dealing with this.”

  “You need to be dealing with this right here!” I jabbed my finger upwards as the elevator pulled us onwards into the sky.

  The news cut back to the main desk anchor, Merriweather. “Theories are now circulating that the Mankind Movement itself has been deliberately targeted, and that these kidnappings may well be the work of militant GO supporters, angry themselves at the MM’s vocal opposition of the week-long celebration of the Genetic Others, which is due to culminate tonight, with a parade procession through the streets of New Oxford. The question everyone wants to know now, is whether this event, starting at sundown at St Giles in the vampire district, and culminating at the Sheldonian Theatre, will now be cancelled in the wake of these worrying developments.”

  The screen cut to an exterior shot of the Eagle and Child pub, the entrance to Sanctum, where a Helsing who I vaguely recognised at staff of some kind there, was making a statement in front of thirty or so frantically thrust microphones. Speaking for the vampires who, of course, wouldn’t come out themselves until the sun had set.

  He was reading from a sheet of paper.

  “I would like to relay the message from the steward of Sanctum, Dove, that despite the crimes currently hitting the headlines today, the Fangfest parade will still go ahead as planned,” he said.

  There was a flurry of questions from every reporter present, all overlapping one another. Some seemed downright outraged. The Helsing representative held up his hands, talking over them. “The GO community sympathises with these families in question, and our thoughts go out to the parents of these missing children, but we firmly deny any involvement in their abduction and indeed have our theories that this could potentially be a stunt by an extreme fringe anti-vampire MM faction, deliberately designed to whip up hate and prejudice in an effort to silence our right to be heard and seen.” He lowered his hands. “Dove of Sanctum would like it known that he still fully intended to lead our people out of the sha
dows, and into the streets, and that GOs will not be pressured back into the darkness with rumours of foul play. There is no room left for prejudice. The festival will not be sabotaged by those people who do not feel we have a right to walk freely amongst the humans, a right to a voice.”

  Camera bulbs were flashing and popping constantly in his face. “Fangfest is, and always has been, a celebration of our two peoples coming together, as they should. It will not, under and circumstances, be cancelled.”

  He turned over the sheet, still ignoring the barrage of questions being thrown at him, and cleared his throat.

  “We would also bring to your attention that, as well as other scare tactics brought on to dissuade any forward-thinking vampire from encouraging free discourse between the species, we have also recently suffered losses ourselves. Yes, it is true, and worrying to hear that these two young girls have been taken from their homes, but even within our own community, no less that twenty vampires have been executed in the past month. On the streets and on the rooftops, victims themselves of persons unknown.” He looked directly at the camera.

  “We will expect and hope for the full support and cooperation of Cabal in bringing to justice whatever lynch mob feels they have the right to snuff out vampire lives, and we will not have our message obliterated by those who would seek to silence us, not even if it brings these losses. We send thanks to the many, many GO supporters out there who constantly campaign for our rights, and our visibility, and we will hope to see you at the festival this evening. That is all, thank you.”

  “Holy shitballs,” I whispered, as the elevator finally dinged at the top of Scott Towers. “Dove has gone public about the vampire killings? Why the hell would he do that?”

  It was the worst possible timing. And twenty? Even with the one’s we had seen, I’d had no idea that’s how many vampires had been torn apart. I found myself fervently wishing Allesandro was still around. Now, more than ever, the vampires of Sanctum needed a strong leader. I just wasn’t convinced that was Dove.

  The lift doors swished opened, spilling us out onto the luxurious oculus of Scott Towers, a vast penthouse floor with panoramic windows all around and above in a diamond-paned spider web. Oscar had made this floor his home, a billionaire’s playground, and it was decorated like an overgrown frat boy’s dorm, with everything from pinball machines to table-football. I’m fairly sure the scattered corpses were a new addition though.

  There were quite a few. Strewn around the large room like discarded party poppers. All suited, all security, and all seemingly dead.

  “What a fucking mess,” Cloves whispered, surveying the scene of carnage as we stepped into the penthouse. Two of the bodyguards were sprawled on the sofa, looking as though they had been cast across the room and landed there. There was another lying face down in a pool of blood right before us, arm outstretched as though she had been trying to escape, reaching for the elevator. I spotted more lying in the kitchen area, two further broken bodies over by the east windows, where the slanting afternoon light was growing rosier and richer with every passing minute. The air smelled nauseatingly of cooked meat.

  A door opened across the room from us, and Oscar Scott emerged, holding a gun at arm’s length.

  “Pheebs!” he cried with relief, lowering it at once and coming into the room. Lucy appeared behind him.

  “You’re both okay” I made my way through the carnage of Oscar’s staff.

  “It didn’t hurt us,” Lucy told me. “We didn’t even know it was here until we heard the gunfire, Doc. Oscar’s people tried…” She waved a very shaky hand around the room. “Well… they tried…”

  “Where is the Dean of Christchurch?” Cloves asked, business-like.

  Oscar indicated away to a raised area of the large room, where a body lay face down close to a sleek white grand piano which was pebble-dashed with a spray of blood.

  “We were downstairs,” Oscar said. “Only one floor. I don’t know how that thing got in, it just tore through everyone. We thought the girl and the old man would be safe up here. I mean, they had nineteen of my personal staff up here with them.” He had calmed down a lot from on the phone earlier, but he was still white as a ghost and looked shell-shocked. “It’s not right is it?” he babbled. “It was broad daylight. It was the middle of the day. Everyone knows the rules, everyone Pheebs. Monsters come out at night. That’s the deal. They get you when you wander off on your own. That’s the other deal. Not when you’re in a group of twenty! Its… it’s against the rules.”

  “This isn’t a movie, Oscar,” I patted his shoulder. “It came for the girl. You couldn’t have known it would be so…” I trailed off, looking around at the bloodstained bachelor pad. “…determined.”

  “Why were you two not up here?” Cloves glared at him.

  Lucy looked a little sheepish. “Just… privacy,” she said a little awkwardly. “Oscar was giving me a tour.” I stared at her, then at Oscar. Oh for fuck’s sake.

  “Seriously Lucy,” I muttered, pinching the bridge of my nose.

  “We’d all been cooped up in here since yesterday,” Oscar babbled defensively. “She was upset, you know, about what happened to your team, about being attacked at Christchurch too.”

  “You’re supposed to give someone a shoulder to cry on, Oscar, when they’re upset,” I said. “Not… oh Jesus, never mind, it’s not the important point right now. Tell us everything.”

  “No,” Cloves interrupted sharply. She flicked a finger at me. “Tell Harkness everything. I have to make a statement live to Poppy fucking Merribitch now, and I mean right now, or the whole of Cabal is going to come down on my head like the Old Testament. I’m supposed to be the calm, reassuring public face of our organisation. A second’s more radio silence from me and there really will be riots and pitchforks in the goddamn streets!”

  “You don’t look calm and reassuring right this minute,” I pointed out, dodging her spittle. She glared at me.

  “Do I have any blood on my face?” she checked. I shook my head.

  “Good.” She swept past us, stalked over to the large sofa, and with no ceremony, tipped the bodies of the two security guards onto the floor in front of it. They fell heavily into a crumpled heap of broken, intertwining limbs as she fussily brushed off the sofa cushions and sat down.

  We all stared as she set up her mobile datascreen, propped up on the table before her, checking her hair, and adjusting the lapels of her jacket.

  “I’ve just sent the news a live link request. I’m going to do as much damage control as I can, while I can. You three? Go somewhere else, figure this out. And Harkness,” she barked at me. “If you leave this building, you damn well text me where. If you disappear on me, I will hang you by your own intestines.”

  She looked like some kind of deranged serial killer, sitting perched on the sofa, pop-eyed and stiff, with the two dead bodies before her. I watched her adjust the cropping on her screen to make sure they were not in frame, and quickly check over her shoulder to ensure there was no blood or death smeared around visible in the background.

  Seemingly satisfied, she cleared her throat and flicked her screen. I heard Poppy Merriweather’s voice, tinny through the screen “-joined now by Veronica Cloves of Cabal. Thanks so much for taking the time, Veronica,”

  Cloves had morphed, magically, with nothing more than an expert relaxing of her shoulders, slight tilt of the head and bright, warm smile, into the well-loved and reassuring media celebrity the city knew her as.

  “Thank you, Poppy, darling,” she said sweetly. “As you can imagine, I’ve been in demand all morning, but I’ve always got time for you.”

  “Servant Cloves,” Merriweather’s voice came with journalistic gravitas. “In light of what we’re learning today, the people of New Oxford are very uneasy. What reassurances can you give? What is Cabal’s message to the people of the city?”

  I watched as Veronica Cloves sat, relaxed and smiling, hands laced demurely in her lap and every inch the wholes
ome family-friendly darling, as just out of shot, her crossed legs rested one spiked heel on a tumbled jumble of broken corpses.

  “I can assure you all,” she said smoothly, in soothing tones. “That everything is in hand. There is absolutely, no cause for alarm.”

  We left Cloves to smother the fire, and Oscar, Lucy and I slunk away out through glass doors and onto a wide balcony which curved around the highest part of the tower like the rings of Saturn. The view from up here was both dizzying and breath-taking. The city was laid out all around us below, glowing softly in the reflected light from the diffused clouds, which were growing ever more golden.

  “It’s not long until sunset,” I complained, looking out over the spires and towers below me from Oscar’s lofty kingdom. The wind was cold and high up here, whipping my hair about my head in playful flurries with its cool October fingers. Why could these things never happen in the middle of the summer? When we had more daytime and far less night? I felt like all the sand was running out of the hourglass.

  “Tell me what happened,” I said to Lucy.

  She looked horrified and flustered. “We didn’t think leaving them alone for a while… we were just getting along, and, well, Oscar wanted to give me a tour that’s all… his private suite.”

  “And how was the private suite?” I asked, not really paying attention. I was trying to watch Cloves through the glass at the same time, watching her smooth the ruffled feathers of a frightened and outraged city. I was trying to get the charred smell of the child-snatcher out of my nose, musing on Coldwater’s cloak and dagger operations, and worrying about Dove’s parade all at the same time. My mind was everywhere.

  “Surprisingly impressive,” Lucy replied with raised eyebrows.

  I shot my attention back to her. “The girl,” I said, trying not to snap. I glared at Oscar. “You and I are going to have words later. What happened with the girl?”

  “It was so fast!” Lucy sounded miserable. “I mean, nothing, all night, we’d all been holed up her ever since you left on your little secret expedition. I thought… I thought we were safe here. All the security, all the guards. This place is supposed to be hard to get into.”