Phoebe Harkness Omnibus

by James Fahy

  “You’re the vampire doctor, right? You’re in with the GO scene? Word is, you actually know one of them…like…intimately. And you killed all those terrorists? Everyone knows about it. In Cabal I mean, not the regular folks of New Oxford. I know it was all kept off the DataStream, but word gets out within the company right. You’re like a celebrity.”

  I blinked at him. A celebrity?

  “The…vampire…doctor?” I said through gritted teeth. Seriously? “And no, I don’t ‘know’ one of them, intimately or not.” He looked a little deflated. “I saw my fair share of vampires last year, and I didn’t single-handedly kill anyone. Most of what happened is classified, but let me assure you, none of it was glamorous. Who’re ‘they’ anyway?”

  He shrugged. “Everyone,” he muttered behind his mask, blinking at me with wide eyes. I noticed a few of the other forensics were stealing subtle sidelong glances at us too.

  Wow. Who knew I was becoming notorious? This was news to me. I patted Anderson on the shoulder as chummily as I could manage, rolled my eyes and looked back to Denison. “Can you show me why I’m here, Dee?” I implored. “Love to exchange war stories with an old lab pal, but corpses don’t wait around. What have we got? Do we know if it’s vampire?”

  Denison shook his head. “If we knew what we had, GO or otherwise, we wouldn’t need you.” I joined him on my haunches, trying not to dip my butt in the river water. “If it is GO, it’s something new, nothing we’ve ever seen before.”

  He peeled back the sheet, and I leant over for a closer look at the corpse beneath.

  It was female, or had been, that much was clear. I would have set the age at maybe fifteen, no older. The skin was certainly pale enough to be vampire. Little to no UV exposure to encourage melanin. But there wasn’t the usual smell. I’ve always found vampires to smell slightly metallic, like a penny on the tongue. It’s not unpleasant, strictly speaking, but it is distinctive. There was no human smell either though. Drop a dead human girl in the river and wait for her to wash up and trust me, there’s usually a very definite smell. But here, nothing. The corpse looked impossibly fresh.

  “No decomposition,” I said. “No rigidity, no bloating, no discolouration. What is this Dee, a mannequin?” I was trying my hardest to ignore the fact that this was basically a dead child. The corpse lay face up, its head to the side. Not wanting to disturb the remains more than I had to, I scooted around in the water, my boots making sucking noises in the river mud, and leaned over to examine the face.

  It was true, and even more surreal in real life than in the photograph. You could make out the shape of the skull, the brow, the chin, and the cheekbones even, but there were no features. No eye sockets, mouth or nose, merely an obscenely blank absence, a canvas of perfect, unbroken skin on the faceless corpse. Goosebumps rose on my arms.

  “No hair at all?” I noticed. “It…she…appears to be bald. No eyebrows obviously, no body hair whatsoever.”

  “It’s hard to say from a preliminary look,” Denison nodded. “But if you ask my guess, this thing doesn’t have follicles. It’s not that she’s been shaved, plucked or waxed. It’s never had hair, I don’t think. Almost…reptilian?” He shrugged.

  “It looks like one of the Pale,” Anderson said unhelpfully behind me. He still sounded a little excited. I disliked Anderson already. “No it doesn’t,” I said dismissively. “I’ve met two of the Pale, and yes they are naked and bald and well…obviously pale, but they’re not remotely human. They didn’t look human to begin with, and they like…self-modification, scarification, self-mutilation.” This was one of the charming things about the immortal zombies we’d created who destroyed the world. Due to their inherent fury they generally bit their own lips off and looked like something out of a very bad nightmare. “This is just a girl without a face. Not a monster.”…I hoped. The corpse was creepy, yes, but it struck me more as something sad and haunting than something scary. Like something from a Japanese ghost story.

  “Some new kind of GO?” Denison asked. “Something we haven’t seen before?”

  I shrugged. GOs were as varied as can be. Vampires we knew about. Tribals too, and Bonewalkers, but there were other things out there, probably a lot of them, lurking in the shadows of our world who hadn’t yet come forward into the light to be counted. The woods within our city walls were filled with odd things.

  “I can’t tell anything from here,” I said. “Is this where the body was found? Nothing’s been moved?”

  “Just photographed, recorded and documented,” Denison said dutifully. “Everything tagged and ready to be bagged. Reports to be written and delivered to our higher ups, who no doubt will file them away somewhere safe to never be looked at again.”

  “Good,” I stood up. “Then bag and tag our face-free Ophelia, I want her in Blue Lab. My team needs to run full toxicology, an autopsy.”

  Denison nodded. “You’re the boss, Phoebe. I know you were always more comfortable in the lab than out at the scene, even in med-training. Nothing changes.” He stood up, pushing himself into a standing position with his hands on his knees. “So what’s the official story going to be then? Just a regular tragic suicide? Poor homeless girl? What spin is Cloves putting on this for the presses?”

  I looked down at the strange, oddly vulnerable-looking thing lying in the mud under the bridge. “No. The bridge is closed for repairs. That’s the story. There is no body. None of us were ever here.” I sighed, uncomfortable with myself. “No one died here at all.”

  4.

  It was full dark by the time I got to Blue Lab. I’d gone home first to change. Nobody wants river water sludge stinking up a perfectly pristine underground laboratory, do they? And it gave the forensics time to package up my enigmatic parcel and deliver it for me.

  Our base of operations is situated deep beneath the hallowed and ancient New Oxford University campus. The reasons are twofold. Firstly, security of course. Cabal work best away from prying eyes, and there are more divisions in our subterranean hive than I know about, doing God knows what in the name of ‘humanity’. And secondly, it’s easier, in theory, to contain should anything go wrong down there. I used to be naïve about Cabal’s less savoury interests, before I stumbled upon some of their dirtier secrets. Human testing, keeping live specimens of the Pale in here for experimentation, and the casual deliberate napalming of one of our own cities, the purging of Cambridge. You might think me a hypocrite for continuing to work here, but Cabal is a hydra, and the head with me in its jaws genuinely does have a benevolent goal in sight: a cure for the Pale virus. I figure I can do more good from within the beast than outside banging on the doors. I may have serious issues with Cabal’s goals and practices, but you can’t deny they have the best resources. And besides, I have my own history to piece together. When you discover, as I did, that your own father had a direct hand in the end of the world, you can’t help but feel a tiny bit of pressure to help put things right.

  Anyway, the whole place can shut down like a nuclear bunker if need be. It was designed to be maximum level security, GO-proof. This was proved rather spectacularly not to be the case last year when a bunch of renegade vampire cultists broke in and tried to end the world from one of our sub levels, using a ghoul and a Bonewalker. Since then, security has seriously tightened. Anything goes wrong at Blue Lab these days and we are instantly sealed off from the city above. Shadowy experiments, biological warfare, my own bloodwork lab, and the nice chap in the tuck shop, we’ll all be left to fend for ourselves. It’s a cheery thought.

  Through the doors and into the brightly lit, ultra-modern atrium, all glass walls and brushed chrome, I signed in at the main desk in the usual manner. Iris scans, fingerprints, and pinprick DNA test. Nominally to check that I’m really me, and not some deviant GO in disguise.

  My heart races these days when I run this test under the scrutiny of our desk guards. Things have been odd for me lately, but I still ping green on the scanners, which is proof enough I’m human for the go
od guys with the semi-automatics kept tastefully out of sight.

  I walked toward the elevators, skin prickling, and by the time I had descended to the lab level, beads of sweat had broken out on my forehead and my blouse was sticking to my back. And I was…hungry.

  I walked along the blue ultraviolet-lined corridor as quickly as possible, chewing at my lower lip unconsciously and making every effort not to look as though I was hurrying.

  Please just let Griff be there, please just let Griff be there. If the lab was full of forensics and other Cabal, or even worse, Cloves herself, I wouldn’t be able to get what I needed. This would be bad. I wasn’t sure how bad, but I wasn’t prepared to find out.

  The glass doors swished open at my approach and spat me into the calming sanctum of my lab. It was completely empty, save for the white-coated figure of my assistant, Griff, who was leaning intently over a covered gurney. I guessed it contained our enigmatic guest, but right this second I couldn’t care less.

  Thank God he was alone.

  “Hey Doc,” he said amiably, hearing me come in. “You know, I have to say, you bring me the most thoughtful gifts. I mean what even is this thing supposed…”

  He trailed off as he turned and caught sight of me, his warm and friendly puppy dog eyes widening in alarm. Great. I must look about as fabulous as I felt. I could feel anger rising in me unbidden, and tried to stop myself from glowering at him.

  “Jesus, Phoebe,” he whispered, dropping his clipboard onto the table. “You look…”

  “I know,” I snapped. “I need it.” I held my hand up in front of my face. My fingers were shaking more than a little.

  Griff hurried off to the back of the lab without a further word or question, for which I was amazingly grateful. God bless this man.

  “Roll up your sleeve.” I stumbled to a chair at one of the workstations. Christ, I felt hot, feverish. Everything was irritating me. My clothes, the lights, even Griff’s voice was setting my teeth on edge. This had come on so suddenly, in the short trip from signing in up top to making my way down to the lab.

  He reappeared, a large syringe in hand and a focussed frown on his face.

  “Why have you left it so long?” he asked, holding my wrist as I tapped my arm, teasing a vein to the surface. “Every twenty-four hours at this strength, that’s what we figured. You can’t afford to risk going longer.”

  “I didn’t,” I growled at him. He was being insufferable. I wanted to slap his face. I closed my eyes, willing calm on myself. “It hasn’t been twenty-four hours.”

  He stared at me, deeply worried. “How long, since you last stabilised?”

  “Will you just give me the fucking shot?” I yelled in his face, making him flinch in surprise. He rallied quickly, and gave me the shot, depressing the plunger and delivering 50cc of my own brand Epsilon serum into my bloodstream.

  I closed my eyes and flopped back in my chair. I swear I could feel the cool liquid flowing through my system like a peaceful wave. The angry redness at the corner of my vision retreated.

  We stayed that way a few seconds, while I brought my breathing under control. The growing anger was dissipating. I felt myself again.

  Slowly and rather shakily I opened my eyes. Griff was staring down at me, as open and innocent as an overgrown schoolboy.

  “Better?”

  I nodded.

  “Not feeling the urge to start hulking out on me? Slap me around, maybe bite my face off then?” he asked.

  I shook my head, still feeling a little woozy.

  “Shame,” he joked. “Might have been fun.” He was making light of the situation, but his face was worried and pale beneath his scruffy stubble.

  I looked down. He was still holding my wrist, the empty syringe in his other hand.

  “You can let go of my arm now, Griff,” I said hoarsely.

  He released me, and I smoothed my hair off my forehead, feeling wretched. “Look, I’m sorry, about snapping at you…” I began.

  “Forget it.” He turned, dumping the syringe in the hazmat tub. “How long has it been since you last stabilised? You looked as though you were about to flip completely just now.”

  I checked my watch. “Fourteen hours.” My heart sank. I could see my expression reflected in his.

  “That’s not good,” he said. “Either you’re building up immunity to the serum, or your…condition…is getting worse.” He watched me as I rolled down my sleeve. “How’s Brad?”

  “Brad is just fine,” I muttered. “It’s me I’m worried about.”

  Brad was the lab rat, deliberately infected with the Pale virus, amongst many others, in order to find a cure. He was the only one who had survived. He took the same serum I now injected into myself every twenty-four hours. During the events of the previous year I had come face to face with one of the Pale, been bitten, infected, and would have been dead were it not for the combined efforts of the vampire Allesandro, who’d had his own reasons for wanting to keep me alive, and my old prototype serum, designed to inhibit the degenerative effects of the Pale virus. Since then, I had been self-medicating. Every few days at first, but recently, as often as every twenty-four hours. Brad was my early warning system. As long as he was still alive and not a feral fluffy killing machine, I had nothing to worry about. So far, so gravy. I had moved Brad from the lab to my apartment. It was like having a pet.

  No one knew I carried the Pale virus. Well, except my close team, Griff and Lucy, and Allesandro himself, Clan Leader and would be suitor. I wasn’t sure what would happen if the world found out. No doubt I’d be locked away and examined. I’d already seen what happened to subjects of Cabal’s ‘studies’ first hand and had no intention of joining them.

  Was it irresponsible for me to be walking round with the virus coursing through me? Undoubtedly. Dangerous even, but I was the only person in all of New Oxford who was actually trying to find a cure. I couldn’t do that locked up. So far, taking a measured dose of Epsilon had worked, regulating my own dosage. This was the first time I’d found myself…losing coherence without warning. It was worrying to say the least. If injecting every twenty-four hours was no longer doing the trick—

  “We can’t keep this a secret forever,” Griff said, breaking my thoughts.

  “I know.” I didn’t want to talk about this. I know I was in denial, but tough cookies. As far as I was concerned, this was a problem for future Phoebe. If anything, it gave me an ever so slightly more personal need to complete my work, to develop a full cure. Call it the ideal motivation. “I know you don’t have to do this for me, Griff. It’s more than your job’s worth.”

  Probably more than his liberty was worth too. I’m sure Cabal would look just as unkindly on his involvement with my situation.

  He gave me an odd look. Sometimes I had no idea what he was thinking. Then he shrugged and passed to the water cooler to fetch me a cup. “It’s purely self-interest,” he smiled. “You get carted off and strapped to a table somewhere, and without you they’d close the lab down. I’d be out of a job anyway. I have to fund my rock and roll lifestyle somehow.”

  “I’ll monitor this,” I said. “I don’t think increasing the dosage is going to work. But maybe every twelve hours.”

  “Try it with Brad first,” he suggested. “Don’t want you overdosing on pacification drugs and slipping into a Zen coma.”

  I took the proffered water gratefully. Was that how the Pale felt all the time? I had been only starting to feel the anger building. They must exist in this state constantly: rage, bloodlust, the absolute hunger to damage and tear. And there were countless hordes of them, right outside our city walls, day and night, wanting to get in. It made me shiver. The wall was so steady, so impenetrable, and we lived our lives within it, sometimes it was too easy to forget what waited just outside. Thank God for the wall.

  “Of course I will,” I agreed. “Look, bag me up a batch, I’m low at home. If it’s going to be less than twenty-four hours, I’m going to have to devise a more discreet
version anyway. A smaller fix I can keep on me at all times, carry around, you know, in case I get caught off guard again.” I winced uncomfortably. “Wow, and now I sound like a junkie.”

  “Think of it more like carrying around an inhaler, in case of attacks,” Griff said helpfully. “Or an epi-pen, in case of an allergic reaction. There’s nothing wrong with controlling a medical condition. It’s a sensible precaution.”

  I didn’t want to talk about this anymore. There were other things to worry about. I glanced around.

  “Where’s Lucy?” I asked.

  Griff shrugged. “It’s the weekend, remember. She has a life.”

  “You’re here,” I countered.

  “I don’t,” he said with mock sadness. “And it’s not like we’re joined at the hip. I was enjoying my tiny one room pit of an apartment, settling in for a wild night of reading, maybe wearing a smoking jacket and puffing away on a pipe. You know, as us eligible bachelors do, but then the boss lady called and told me you’d need me here for this.”

  He flicked a thumb at the gurney behind me. “Faceless dead girl I mean, not keeping my supervisor human. She doesn’t know about your superpowers, as far as I know. How she got my number I will never know.”

  “Veronica Cloves has everyone’s number,” I said wearily. “Well, I’m glad you’re here anyway.” We crossed to the slab together and I pulled back the plastic sheet. The corpse of the faceless girl was even more surreal here in the lab than it had been under the bridge. At least you expect to find strange creatures under bridges. Here on the mortuary gurney, the blank-skulled body looked small and frail, oddly ethereal and extremely unsettling.

  “We’ll need a full autopsy.” I said. “But bloodwork also. I want to know everything we can know about who or what this thing is. And why it washed up in our river.”

  I should be used to working through the night. I spend more time here at the lab than I do at my apartment, but even so, my body was telling me it was close to dawn by the time Griff and I had finished the full autopsy and sent samples down to level eight for further testing.