Phoebe Harkness Omnibus

by James Fahy

  My life at the moment is quite complicated enough, thanks, dealing with my secret knowledge of what happened in Cambridge and deciding what to do about that. Besides, I know he’ll just be after something. It pains me to say it, but Cloves is probably right. Vampires don’t think like we do. They always have an angle.

  When I got into the lab this morning, however, there was a delivery for me. I still don’t like opening anything delivered to the lab. I’m always worried it’s going to be teeth. It wasn’t though.

  It was a box of premium grade Peruvian cocoa. Almost impossible to get these days. It looked pretty damn expensive and for a horrible moment I thought it might be a wooing gift from the ever-determined Oscar. But there was a card inside the package, a little crumpled.

  It was a business card from Sanctum, the exact same one he’d slipped in my jacket back when we first met at the lecture, and on the reverse, still in very un-gothic biro, a telephone number and the words When you need me – A.

  Gio may have been right. We may have destroyed the old world, but we’re building something new here. It’s a brave new world, and I intend to live long enough to be part of it.

  Setting aside the gift I slid into my chair and fired up my workstation. There was an email from Cloves.

  Harkness,

  See attached. Am putting you on this, stat. Second in a row and I need to keep this out of the Datastream. My office asap. Everything else on hold.

  Succinct and friendly as always, I thought with a frown. I clicked on the attachment. A classified Cabal file. ‘Second violent murder in Portmeadow – victim unknown/ corpse unidentifiable, cause of death, violent assault/animal mauling.’

  My frown deepened. With a rising sense of foreboding I noticed there was a photo attachment. Hesitantly I clicked.

  It was messy. This wasn’t a person; this was shredded pork. I swallowed hard. What the hell did this have to do with me?

  Cloves handwritten notes scrawled under the crime scene photo explained everything in a single word.

  ‘Tribals.’

  I scooted my chair backwards, closing the gruesome picture file down. It seems Cloves intended to keep my role as paranormal Cabal snoop active. I pictured the screaming headlines if this went public. ‘Maniac Werewolf killer on loose in New Oxford!’ No wonder Cabal was keeping this out of the DataStream. It was one thing people being killed in New Oxford, but people being killed in Portmeadow New Oxford? That was Rich folk territory. Cloves clearly needed a link to the GO world here, and I’m her only choice.

  I grabbed my security pass and headed for the doors. If Cloves wants me to peek under every paranormal rock in the city that’s fine, I decided, but we’re going to discuss a pay rise.

  Book Two

  Crescent Moon

  James Fahy

  For Sam

  My name is Phoebe Harkness. I work in Blue Lab One at the Paratoxicology unit in the walled city of New Oxford, Britannia. Blue Lab tries to cure the monster virus our forefathers created in their somewhat over-enthusiastic attempts to bring about world peace (… that failed rather spectacularly). Thirty years after the war began, Blue Lab is where we work to win our humanity back, piece by piece.

  All I ever wanted was to be left to work with my lab rats, quietly making the world a better place. But fate has seen fit to give me a more interesting role. My day job may be curing paranormal diseases (including my own), but my Cabal supervisors have decided to draft me as an inter-species ambassador.

  Basically, when things go bump in the night, it’s now my job to find out why.

  Currently keeping me busy: a rash of murders in the prosperous Northern Sector, which, from the shredded corpses left behind, seem to point to the work of a brutal Tribal; a group of high-profile students that have also disappeared from the University Campus, right under Blue Lab’s nose, leaving only an enigmatic and desperate message behind and a lot of blood; and in other news, a body that was found in the river. No features, no fingerprints, no face.

  If it rains, it pours.

  I admit it: I’m out of my depth in the world of the Tribals. If I’m going to get to the bottom of the violent GO attacks in time to head off a full scale inter-species war within our walls, I’m going to need help.

  Unfortunately, I haven’t seen my dubious vampire contact in months. I’m going to have to bite the bullet and go back to Sanctum, the underworld club where things go bump-and-grind in the night. The trouble is, I don’t do well with vampires. They tend to try and kill me, quite a lot. This can ruin my mood for the whole day. But there’s at least one of them I almost trust. Perhaps he can help me understand the violence bubbling over in my city, and the message left scrawled in blood on the university walls:

  ‘Crescent Moon’

  1.

  “Everything leads back to bacon, Dr Harkness.”

  As surreal pearls of gastronomic wisdom go, this was the most random I’d heard in a while. The fact that it had been left in a deep, raspy voice on my answerphone added to the weird factor.

  Standing in the hallway of my dark flat, door keys still in hand, I frowned down at the machine and waved my hand over the sensor. The message played again. It made no more sense the second time around. Whoever had left it clearly had a passion for porcine product exceeding my own and a desperate urge to share their enthusiasm. Well, I reasoned, when you live in a walled city with the last remains of humanity, you’re going to come up against some oddballs from time to time. Maybe it was time I changed my number again.

  Kicking the outer door closed behind me, I deleted the message and played the rest as I carried my groceries into my tiny kitchen.

  “Hi…Phoebe, it’s Oscar,” the next message began. “Remember me? Well, of course you do, obviously, but um…anyway, I guess I’ve missed you again. Not sure if you got my invitation? Or my other messages? If you did…think about it, could be fun, right? Call me.”

  I rolled my eyes, setting my grocery bags down. I think I’d preferred the prank call. This was seven days in a row now that Oscar Scott had left a message for me. I’d changed my dialler security once already. How the hell he kept getting my new direct DataStream ID, I have no idea. I suppose when you’re a millionaire blueblood with infinite resources and too much leisure time, you can get things done.

  I hadn’t replied to any of his chirpy, hesitant messages. I had quite enough on my plate with work without a romantic stalker as well – even a super-rich one. And an invitation to a society formal didn’t exactly float my boat either. I neither hobbed nor nobbed as a rule, and I have no talent for quaffing champagne. I don’t think I’ve ever quaffed anything to be honest. The do was something his old man, the venerable and powerful Marlin Scott, was organising. Something to do with a new power-plant. One of those galas designed to shake the hefty wallets of the upper crust. And since my wallet was neither hefty nor crusty, I could only imagine that Oscar was working on the principle that misery loves company.

  This point was borne out by the fact that the formal invitation had been delivered to Blue Lab, my subterranean and extremely high-security workplace, with a ridiculously large bouquet of flowers and balloons. The lab had been invaded by vampires before now and I’d faced them with less horror. My team still teased me mercilessly. It was hard enough to get them to take me seriously at the best of times.

  The next message beeped as I put away milk and yoghurt, tucking a stray strand of blonde hair behind my ear. My eyes flicked up to the counter-top, where there lurked a small and ugly robotic creature, looking something partway between a steel kettle and a crab. It was a housework drone. Griff, my assistant, had bought it me for Christmas. Drones were part of our life in New Oxford. They did a lot of menial work, sweeping floors, buffing corridors, sometimes just scuttling around like small robotic dogs hoovering up debris. Any simple task a human didn’t want to do. Some of the other divisions at Blue Lab used them as rote, but I didn’t allow them in my sector. I liked the human touch. Call me old fashioned, but d
rones have always given me the creeps. It’s hard to relax when a tiny part of your mind suspects the toaster is plotting to kill you.

  So Griff’s present, the robocrab, had sat dormant, gathering dust on my kitchen counter for the last four months. I didn’t have the heart to throw it away. I hung the bananas off a leg.

  “Hi…Phoebe…” The next message wafted across to me from the lounge area.

  Oscar again, sounding a little desperate to be honest. “Sorry again, you know…for leaving so many messages – bit creepy, I know. But I forgot to mention, I kind of need to know by the weekend, if you’re free to come? Otherwise the old man is gonna fix me up with some stuffy old dowager or Christ knows what. Between you and me, I don’t want to spend the evening next to something smelling of lavender water and gin. So…call me, okay?” Ha ha! I knew it! “We can always bail afterwards, hang out at St Giles, have some fun? Think about it. Okay then…call me.”

  Jesus, the boy was relentless. And St Giles was the absolute last place I wanted to go. I avoided the vampire district when I could. It might be the most popular undead party strip in our city, but my experience with vampires hadn’t exactly endeared them to me.

  I clicked on the coffee pot, trying to shake the feeling that the robocrab was glowering at me for not letting it do this. It looked lovely with spaghetti hair. Shrugging out of my huge coat I wondered briefly if I could afford to put the heating on, just for a little while. It may be April, but spring was most definitely not in the air and it was cold out. Winter was still clinging to New Oxford, embedded in every stone, ancient and new.

  I honestly didn’t understand this. The constant messages. Oscar was a twenty year old playboy; college boy good looks, square jaw, floppy blonde hair, the works. Hell, all he was missing was a cricket jumper tied nonchalantly around his shoulders to complete the cliché. You could picture him posing in catalogues and pointing to distant yachts ironically. He had gold-digging socialites scrabbling for his attention left, right and centre, boys and girls alike. Why on earth he was so determined to get me to agree to a date, I had no idea. I’m just a lowly paratoxicologist. The most glamorous thing I usually wear is a lab coat. Not to mention I’m old enough to be his…well, slightly older sister, being thirtymumble and all. But still, I couldn’t help but smirk a little fondly. It’s been years since someone asked me to ‘hang out’.

  I honestly think it’s just a novelty to him. No one’s ever said no to him before. To him, I was a mystery wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a shapeless parka. Ah, the infatuations of youth.

  I unpacked vegetables while the machine beeped merrily onwards. I’d even managed to pick up dragonfruit at the market. This simple thing had made me ridiculously happy. In this day and age anything so exotic was almost unheard of. Trade wasn’t what it once was. I may have acted rashly in my excitement though, as I had absolutely no idea what to do with dragonfruit. I set it down carefully on the counter top, regarding it studiously from several angles.

  The next message on my machine was even less welcome.

  “Harkness…? Pick up.”

  Veronica Cloves, my supervisor at Blue Lab and all round Cabal super-bitch. Her voice cut through my peaceful apartment. It was like having a poltergeist enter your home. She sounded irritated. This was nothing unusual.

  “I know you’re there…Pick up the fucking phone.”

  I stared back at the machine. She was ruining my happy dragonfruit mood. I hadn’t been here actually. I’m fairly sure Cloves thinks that when lesser mortals aren’t doing her bidding they are stood on standby somewhere, waiting patiently for her next instructions like the drones. Well not me, I thought defiantly. I have a life, kind of. Some of us…some of us have to buy hummus.

  The following message was Cloves again, left an hour later and sounding only slightly more mollified. “Well, I guess you’re not there…you better not be anyway. And don’t think I buy that bullshit about losing your mobile. I’ve ordered a new one for you. And all BL1 phones are trackable by the DataStream mainframe. You think you can avoid me? Nice try. Call me the second you get this. And I mean the second.” Her voice sounded odd, almost worried, though she was hiding it under her usual snarl. “…There’s been another development.”

  I paused, gripping the hummus pot, one hand on the fridge door.

  Another? Shit.

  I think I liked my life better when no one ever called me and I could just slob in my pyjamas at the weekend watching old pre-war shows on the DataStream. Things had been so much simpler before I got involved with Genetic Others and Cabal.

  I was still halfway through season one of Dallas. It was anthropologically fascinating. Or so I guiltily tried to convince myself.

  Other citizens of New Oxford have simple lives. They come home, put their shopping away, trip over dusting drones and worry about bills, constant power brownouts, job security. Me? I get serial killers. I’m still not quite certain when exactly my life took this turn.

  I walked over and grabbed the phone and dialled Cloves’ direct number at the lab. After a couple of rings her assistant, Melanie, answered.

  “Mel, it’s Phoebe. Is the dragon there?”

  Melanie is a sweet woman, enviously well presented, good-natured and capable, yet seemingly doomed to work beneath superiors from hell. Maybe some kind of karmic payoff for past evils. She used to work for my old boss, now she worked for Cloves. It was a little like trading Lucifer for Satan. She actually tittered down the line.

  “No she’s not, and it’s a good job I don’t have you on speakerphone.” I heard what sounded suspiciously like crisps being crunched. “She left about two hours ago, but she had a message for when you called. She said you would.”

  “I’ll bet she did.”

  “I won’t repeat it word for word,” Melanie said, “but it was something along the lines of gently chastising you for being difficult to contact, and to tell you that she’s sent you a DataStream download. ‘The latest’, whatever that means. She said…” Melanie imitated Cloves’ sharp tones, “…‘tell her to light a fire under her arse and get there sharpish’.” Finger licking ensued.

  “Get where?” I asked, looking dolefully at my recently-shed parka. I didn’t want to go out again. I’d only just got home.

  I felt Melanie shrug down the line with the studied insouciance of all vague messengers everywhere. “Servant Cloves didn’t say. It was mainly spittle and swear words to be honest. I’m largely translating. I guess the info will be in the download she sent you?”

  “Guess so. Thanks, Mel.”

  “Look, I don’t know what’s going down, but she was not a happy bunny today.” She seemed to consider this for a moment. “More so than usual, I mean. Nothing wrong with your mad-scientist work is there, Doc?”

  I shook my head. “No, sadly this has absolutely nothing to do with my actual job. Getting to do my actual job would be a refreshing change, trust me. This is…a side project, I suppose.”

  “Okay then,” Melanie said. “Happy homework. And enjoy what’s left of your Sunday.”

  I hung up.

  I never used to have a workstation in my flat. I couldn’t afford one for a start, and I always kept work and home separate. I used to spend most of my waking hours at the lab, and come home just to crawl into my pit and sleep, so not much call for a Datascreen. Cloves, however, had insisted on its instalment.

  My job description, in her mind at least, is not simply to head the team researching a cure for the Pale virus overrunning our country, which is my life’s work, but also to kick over any stone under which a Genetic Others issue might be wriggling.

  Cabal, our draconian, totalitarian leaders (although they call themselves servants, thank you Orwell for the doublespeak), don’t have much interaction with the alternate genetic societies sharing our city. Cloves seems to think that I do. God knows why. I’ve only ever met six vampires, and five of them are dead – three by my own fair hand. Granted the one who’s still kicking around is a fairly influen
tial Clan Master, but I haven’t actually seen him in months. I’m hardly a sleeper agent.

  In fact, the few times I had seen Allesandro recently I had been asleep, but that’s a whole other issue.

  I ran a hand across the glossy screen of my super-sleek workstation, bringing the Datascreen to life. It was an expensive piece of tech. If I sold it, I could have paid my rent for the next year. Tempting.

  Cloves’ message was waiting for me, blinking demandingly in a corner. I flicked it, expanding the window, and my screen was filled with a succession of grainy images. The New Oxford skyline, old buildings I didn’t recognise, the river, a bridge – and then, the body.

  I’m not squeamish around corpses. I’d seen my fair share in med school, and recently more than I’d like outside of it too. I was expecting photos of a shredded, mauled corpse. There had been three murders so far. All committed in the most exclusive part of the city. Whoever was killing these people was vicious about it. The bodies that had turned up had been hardly recognisable. Torn up, chewed on, mangled.

  Cabal had managed to keep the savage murders under wraps until now, out of the public eye. Cabal were all about control, and information was the best currency. They aim to know everything, and three brutal killings by person or persons unknown was like grit in the eye.

  But it was only a matter of time before the free press got hold of it and panicked cries of a rampaging cannibal or rabid werewolf hit the DataStream and the general population went into full-blown panic mode. Full-blown panic in a walled city is not a good idea. I’m not saying I’m on board with Cabal secrecy policy, but at least I could understand their discretion.

  There was no actual proof yet, but Cloves had confided in me that she suspected it was a rogue Tribal. They liked to play with their food by all accounts. She, as a Cabal Servant, was being drip fed tidbits of information about the killings, only what she needed to know to do her job of course, and she in turn was passing information to me for my medical opinion as her right hand flunkie. It was a hierarchy of grudging information.