Phoebe Harkness Omnibus

by James Fahy

  Veronica Cloves had, of course, ignored this advice in her efforts to shake Gio’s goons. Probably in the steely certainly that there was nobody – no desperate gun-toting gang member, no drug-crazed head case, rogue blood-lusting vampire or wandering hungry tribal – who was scarier or more pissed off than she was.

  And so now, we headed there too, venturing into the south east sector. I clung to the back of Allesandro’s bike as we raced to the corner of Old Road, Windmill and the Slade. We were just on the borders of the poor, overcrowded sector, north of the aptly-named Boundary Brook.

  Griff and Lucy had insisted on coming with us at first but I had refused as I needed them back in the lab. Griff was now busy duplicating fresh batches of the revised Epsilon, the retardant which was keeping Brad the rat in the land of the cohesive and reasonable – and now, me too.

  I’d decided it was a very good idea to lay a stock of Epsilon aside. A lot of it. I didn’t want to miss a dose and devolve, especially not into what I now knew was a half-human, half-vampire ghoul. If Tassoni the alpha and omega of every Pale did indeed rise, I would rather be fighting against him and his crusade to end humanity for good, than fighting for him. I planned to stay human.

  Lucy had been given the task of cleaning the lab, and by that I don’t mean hoovering up and dusting with Pledge. I meant deep clean. We had to remove all traces of Allesandro’s presence there. More than merely our careers were on the line if it was discovered a GO had breached Blue Lab with such ease.

  My own hide was at risk as well if they figured out he had gone there to save me from my very own mutant zombie plague. If that fact got out, I would be lucky to find myself locked in one of the cells on the MA levels and observed for the rest of my days.

  Besides, I had reasoned. Four of us wouldn’t all fit on the bike. It would look ridiculous.

  Griff has suggested we could take his car. Allesandro had laughed, rather unkindly I thought. At least he had the good grace to look guilty for laughing afterwards.

  Getting out of Blue Lab without suspicion had been easy enough. We had shut down the ultraviolet corridor of course, at least until Allesandro and I were at the far end of it. Any problems I might have had getting the vampire out through the atrium were solved by the fact that he looked remarkably human.

  You just didn’t get vampires with deep golden tans – never. They were whiter than the palest human, all of them. Still wearing his closely-buttoned lab coat and hurrying out by my side, his head down, Allesandro didn’t draw anything but the most cursory of glances from anyone we passed. As far as anyone could tell, he was just a perfectly normal, perfectly human, rather unusually beautiful doctor.

  As we passed reception, Miranda, the day shift receptionist had called after me.

  “Oh, Doctor Harkness! I had no idea you were in. A lady has called several times for you today, a Ms Cloves?”

  I saw her giving Allesandro a none-too-subtle once over, her curiosity clearly piqued as we marched by.

  “I would have put her through to the lab, only when I came on shift to relieve Mattie this morning, he told me it was just your team down there. I didn’t know you had checked in today.”

  “Thanks Miranda.”

  I had not stopped walking, gripping Doctor Sun-Kissed-Vampire by the elbow and pretty much dragging him towards the main doors, and freedom.

  “I got her message. I’ve been pulling kind of an all-nighter down there. Haven’t even been out for coffee yet, just drinking the swill down there, need a Starbucks. Bye!”

  We had pushed through the whooshing heavy doors into the cold evening air before she could answer.

  Allesandro had no idea how the gunfight between the vampires and the Cabal ghosts had gone after we left for Blue Lab, no more than I did. We’d had rather more pressing matters on our minds at the time.

  Now, as the bike purred along the edge of the slum sector, making its slow and careful way down the Slade, I realised I would very much like to know how that had panned out.

  Had Gio and the rest been captured? Were they in police custody right now? Or had they gotten away? And, if so, how? Was I right about the Bonewalker? Was it working for Gio, had it gone back and poofed them out of there to safely?

  The fact that Cloves had been chased from her apartment suggested they were still at large and very active, currently out there combing the city for her and the now unscrambled files she carried, and no doubt also looking for me too.

  I wondered if the media had descended on Carfax yet; if in the aftermath of last night’s events the police had found the bodies, Trevelyan’s and Coleman’s. Had they found the Pale? Was Oscar still alive?

  I hoped Cloves would have some answers for me. I hadn’t liked the ones Allesandro had given me so far. You don’t really think you can get worse than ‘serial killer’, but I had discovered when you got to ‘apocalypse-inciting vampire cult raising the dead’, you know you were wrong.

  Lesson one of dealing with Gos: things can always get worse. I was consciously not dwelling on the fact that Allesandro and Cloves had swapped numbers at some point. The vampire hadn’t elaborated and despite an oddly possessive grumble in the back of my mind, it was really none of my business how, why or when the two had become bosom buddies.

  “What was the name of this place?” I asked Allesandro, to take my mind off it as we cruised down the street.

  The main strand of the Slade was a hubbub of tiny shops, cut price laundrettes, grimy bars and pretty unwholesome-looking shops. It was only just close to 7pm but everywhere there were metal roller shutters, every one of them covered in gang-tag graffiti, the people of the district presenting a closed and armoured face to the world outside.

  Metal grills fortified many of the tiny shops. There were few people on the littered streets. Some tough-looking youths lounging listlessly on corners, their faces lost behind hooded sweatshirts. An old derelict woman aimlessly pushing a shopping cart along the broken flagstones of the pavement. It seemed to be piled high with bin bags.

  “Sal’s Chicken Kitchen,” the vampire replied, scanning the seedy-looking establishments to the left and right as the bike purred along like a panther.

  I felt very conspicuous. We were the only vehicle on the road. And it was being driven by a bare-chested vampire in a flapping white lab coat.

  Undercover – clearly not my forte.

  “There,” I took my hand from around his waist and pointed.

  A filthy-windowed diner slid by on the right, with the name spelled out in tired stencilling. It looked as worn down as the rest of the neighbourhood. We could see a few shadowy figures inside, the windows obscured with steamy condensation that ran down the glass.

  As we pulled up in front, the door opened with a jangle and Veronica Cloves appeared, looking harassed and deeply unhappy. She was wearing a long black trench coat, like a Russian spy, wrapped tightly against the night. Underneath it, I saw, she was still dressed in her sparkling jet gown from the fundraiser the night before.

  Fantastic, I thought, very low key. I’m sure she was blending in fine here with the local residents. At least she had lost the fascinator.

  She hurried over as I jumped down off the bike, giving Allesandro a startled double take.

  “Well, fuck me,” she muttered unhappily. “I’ve been chased all over the goddamn city today by assholes in black vans, trying to get hold of you two, and here you seem to have had a spa day. Nice tan.”

  “Long story,” I said.

  She shook her head dismissively.

  “Not interested. Follow me,” she said. “I don’t want to be out on the street. Those goons are still cruising around.”

  She led us down the side of the grimy diner, into a cluttered and litter strewn alleyway. We huddled under a fire escape behind a large stinking dumpster, startling a very displeased and feral-looking cat, which leapt away with a hiss.

  “You were a pain in my arse before,” Cloves spat. “But telling a psychotic vampire where I lived?”r />
  “I know, I’m sorry,” I replied. I genuinely was. “In my defence, they made me. It’s hard to say no to them when they want you to cooperate. How did they get to you? I thought your building was warded?”

  I remembered her telling me as much. The Cabal had dealings with a Bonewalker. The Liver Building was warded strongly also. Blue Lab couldn’t afford warding. We were run by Cabal but only partially funded by them, hence our own defences: the ultraviolet corridor, the morning check-ins.

  “It is. However, that’s only good against Gos,” she responded. “Your charmless friends have a squad of hired humans on the books.”

  She looked like she had a bad taste in her mouth, shaking her head in disbelief.

  “Humans working for vampires … What next?”

  “You managed to get out, though, with the files?”

  She nodded. “After the fun and games at the fundraiser, and once your new pal here had found me and strong-armed me into locating you and tipping the police to Carfax, I picked them up and took them home. Those arseholes were waiting for me. I didn’t even get into the parking lot. They must have torn my place apart looking for the files.”

  She looked furious. I could tell the thought of grubby-booted guns for hire traipsing all over her ridiculously expensive and immaculate penthouse was causing her almost physical pain.

  “You went back to the fundraiser to get Cloves help?” I asked Allesandro. “After we came off the bike, I mean?”

  “I knew she would be able to track you,” Allesandro shrugged, his face shadowy in the alleyway. “It’s what her people do. She was my best chance to find where Gio was talking you.”

  Cloves glowered at him. “You promised to bring her straight to me.” She looked as though she was about to slap him. Instead she turned to me. “You wonder why I advise you not to trust them?” she said. “My arse is on the line if I lose sight of you. Harrison put you under me in this ridiculous little shenanigan. You’re my responsibility, so when tall, gold and pulse-less here turns up, right in the middle of my post-riot media spin, what choice did I have? I even dispatched a fleet of Cabal Ghost agents to follow him to you. God knows how much shit that’s gotten me in.”

  “We couldn’t go anywhere after we escaped,” I said, carefully editing the truth. “We had to lie low for a while. I was injured, and Allesandro, well, the sun was coming up, so we holed up for the day.”

  Cloves looked me over sceptically. “You don’t look injured,” she accused menacingly. “In fact you look pretty bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for a kidnap victim. Manage to get eight hours beauty sleep, did you?”

  I didn’t want to mention drinking Allesandro’s blood. The memory of it was quite intimate, primal almost. I doubted Cloves would approve, I wasn’t really sure I approved myself.

  “Never mind me, what happened when you got back to your place?” I changed the subject, deliberately not looking at Allesandro, though I could feel his eyes on me in the dark alleyway.

  Cloves’ face twisted into a grimace of irritation.

  “They saw me coming. The bastards were lying in wait for me,” she explained. “I figured out they were bad news, that my location had been compromised, so I got the hell out of there, but they’re relentless. I’ve been dodging them but everywhere I tried to go, they were there. I managed to lose them near the Boundary Brook. Had to abandon my goddamn car though. It’s hardly an inconspicuous ride.”

  She looked livid at this.

  “I’ve been lying low in the slums since then; in the fucking slums! Trying to get hold of your sorry arse.”

  “Why didn’t you call for backup?” I asked. “Surely Leon Harrison would send some ghosts to pick you up, bring you back safely to HQ?”

  Cloves stared at me, hands on her hips.

  “Harkness, do you have any idea how it would sound if I called in to my superior and told him that not only had my brief to use you to discreetly gather information gone horribly, horribly wrong, but that I had also lost you, had no idea where you were, and had – without Cabal sanction – dispatched a ghost squad to aid the police and a random GO in what turned into a shooting match in the middle of one of New Oxford’s venerable churches?”

  She sighed.

  “I have my reputation as a Servant to consider. I don’t think the higher powers would be best pleased with me declaring war on a pack of GOs when we are supposed to be, above all, diplomats.”

  “What happened at Carfax?” I asked. “Allesandro and I got out and … got the hell away from there. I have no idea what went down after that.”

  Cloves snorted.

  “You’ve clearly not seen the DataStream today then,” she said. “It’s headline news. We’ve managed to spin it so that officially the police were involved with a gang war incident, unrelated to any of the events at the fundraiser, which is the main story on everyone’s lips right now anyway. I’ve kept the Cabal out of the picture as much as I can. All the media knows is that there was police involvement, and that arrests were made. The good people of New Oxford can sleep soundly in their beds. Nothing on their minds but crop circles.”

  “Is that true?” I asked hopefully. “Arrests?”

  Cloves gave me a look of withering scorn.

  “Of course it’s not true, you idiot,” she snapped. “Our men had your kidnappers cornered in there, like rats in a hole, but then they just vanished into thin air.”

  She peered at Allesandro suspiciously.

  “Can you actually do that,” she demanded, “turn into mist or whatever? We lost them. The church was empty.”

  Allesandro shook his head.

  “No. We can’t do that,” he glanced over at me. “Not on our own anyway.”

  I saw what he was thinking.

  “These guys are working with a Bonewalker,” I said to Cloves. “We kind of forced it to get us out of there. It had disappeared afterwards. My guess is that it went back for its pals. That’s how they got away. It’s how they were able to send people for you. God knows where they are now.”

  “Well, there’s a police warrant out on Di Medica right now,” Cloves said. “I doubt he’ll head back to the club. He’s probably out there looking for you again, while his goon squad chase my arse around.”

  “Cloves, you said you had the files,” I interrupted, trying to get her to focus. “What’s in them?”

  She looked at Allesandro suspiciously.

  “How much do you know?” She asked him directly.

  “He knows everything,” I answered for him, “and now so do I. Unlike you and everybody else, he’s the one person so far who hasn’t kept things from me. I know about the Pale, Cloves, what they really are, where they came from. I know about Tassoni…”

  I watched her reaction and stepped towards her.

  “And I think you do too.”

  Cloves was tight lipped.

  “Well, you have done your homework, haven’t you?” She said. “Yes, Subject One, the father of the cursed race we created, was spliced from humans and a vampire. That’s hardly public knowledge. Let’s keep it that way.”

  She looked to Allesandro, her eyes narrowed.

  “How do you know about Subject One?”

  “He was my clan master before the Pale.”

  “Well that certainly makes you super trustworthy then,” she snorted sarcastically.

  “I’m not part of Gio’s Sacrament,” the vampire growled back. “He and the others, they took those people and want those files because they believe they can bring Tassoni back from the dead. They want to reignite the apocalypse, bringing the Pale down on humanity in one final fell swoop.”

  “Sacrament?” Cloves looked at me, eyebrows raised. “Back from the dead? I’m lost. How about you share what you know with the rest of the class?”

  I flicked a thumb at Allesandro.

  “He’ll fill you in,” I said, “while I look at what was on these files.”

  Cloves gave the vampire a look of undisguised distaste.


  “I don’t trust him,” she spat. “He’s one of their kind.”

  The vampire loomed over her.

  “I don’t trust you either,” he said. “You’re a shady government spook. It’s practically your job to lie to people.”

  “Only the general public, dead man walking,” she sneered. “I might spin the truth, but only the unpalatable parts.”

  “Which is pretty much everything these days,” he countered.

  “Children!” I snapped, glaring at them. “We don’t have time for this.”

  They both peered at me sulkily, openly hostile.

  “You,” I said to Cloves, “practically threw me at him for information. He gave it to me, mission accomplished. And you,” I stared at the vampire, “you didn’t have any problem going to her to help find me. So for God’s sake, play nice and give me the damn files.”

  I had had enough. Enough attempts on my life, enough dead bodies, enough with monsters trying to eat my face. I wanted to go home to my tiny messy flat and drink hot chocolate and not worry about any of this. Instead I was hiding in an alleyway in the most dangerous part of town with two very unlikely companions, not to mention the fact that I was infected with a mutagen virus which could at any moment turn me into a ravening monster.

  Cloves stared me down for a moment and then sighed heavily. She reached into her Russian spy trench coat and withdrew a DataScreen, handheld and portable, which she dropped into my open palm.

  “You’re not going to like what’s on there, Harkness,” she said ominously. “Trevelyan didn’t. It’s a scientific log. Most of the entries were damaged beyond repair. There are gaps, but there’s enough that was salvageable.”

  I leaned against the wall behind the dumpster, loading the data and watching the screen flicker into life before me. Its light reflected coldly on my face as Allesandro and Cloves stepped away, giving me space. The vampire began to fill in Servant Cloves on Gio’s vendetta, but I wasn’t listening. The file menu appeared.