Phoebe Harkness Omnibus

by James Fahy

  “You can go,” Kane said to her, without looking at her.

  “She’s more than she seems, Kane,” Sofia said in a low voice. “I don’t trust her. They said they were sending humans.”

  Kane’s head whipped around to face the woman. It was the first fast movement I had seen this man-mountain make. “Do you think I cannot trust my own nose?” he growled at her, his voice still quiet. I got the impression he very rarely had to raise it. “What can you tell me that I do not know for myself, child?”

  Sofia backed away like a scolded puppy. If she’d had a tail, it would have been between her legs. “The other is harmless,” she said through gritted teeth. “He stinks of fear.” She stopped looking stoically at the floor for a moment and her eyes shot up so that she was glaring at Griff challengingly through the long red curtain of her hair. “And he wants to mate. Simple creatures,” she added, humour creeping into her voice.

  Kane growled. I’d never heard a man growl before. I would imagine it would sound ridiculous, but then I had to remind myself, this wasn’t a man. The noise came like low thunder in his chest, very slow and long. A clear warning. His lip had curled back in a sneer, his teeth long and white.

  Sofia took the hint. With one final unpleasant look at us both through her smoky eyes, she bowed to Kane and turned to leave, slinking away into the shadows beneath the trees like a stalking predator.

  When she had gone, Kane slowly turned back to face us. “Forgive her rudeness,” he said with a tired smile. “She’s young, and she doesn’t trust others. You’re here because I agreed to it, yes? Better you than Scott, whoever you are. I am not sure whether he would have been able to leave here in one piece.” He saw my raised eyebrows and waved a large hand in the air. “My people are passionate. I can control them, that’s my job. I keep order amongst those of us who are wild. But they still have their own minds, their own opinions. It is not always a simple task. And feeling about Scott run deep in Tribal parts. Very deep. The man is a parasite on this city.”

  He reached across to stop the music on the gramophone, the better that we could talk. I raised a hand to stop him.

  “Please don’t, on my account,” I said. “I don’t mind the music. It’s been a long time since I heard anything that wasn’t piped electronically from the DataStream.”

  Kane smiled. “You enjoy?” he asked. He seemed pleased to have encountered a music lover. “Prokofiev. I am a large fan. Do you know he wrote this piece with children in mind? To teach them rhythm and mathematics.”

  ‘You’re a large everything,’ I managed not to say. Music soothes the savage beast? Instead I smiled. “Peter and the Wolf,” I nodded. I listened for a few bars. “How apt. He was a Russian composer, wasn’t he? From the old world, pre-war I mean. I couldn’t help notice your accent, is that where you are from too?”

  Kane leaned back in his chair. “I have no nation. None of us do. There is only…” He looked around at the vast wild space of the glasshouse, “…the pack. Our family, and our lands.” He looked closely at myself and Griff. “The lands which Marlon Scott wishes to take from us. The lands which you have come to try to convince me to give up.”

  “That’s not why I’m here,” I corrected him firmly. “I’m just a spokesperson, here on behalf of Cabal, not Scott Enterprises. All Cabal wants is a resolution between the two sides. They sent me because they want to know your thoughts. You deserve a say in things.”

  “You say ‘they’, Doctor Harkness,” Kane said with thoughtful eyes. “Are you not Cabal yourself?”

  “Technically no,” I said. “Cabal oversee everything in New Oxford, but my work is at Blue Lab. I’m a toxicologist. Cabal felt I would be a good…independent consultant…I suppose.”

  “Freelance?” Kane seemed to find this amusing. He clearly thought of me as an amateur sent into the underworld, which I suppose I was. “And how are you finding it, Doctor, being the face of the human world here in uncharted waters? I hope you are not finding it too exciting, if what you are used to is science and logic.” His nostrils flared slightly. “Although from the fact you smell of smoke and fire, I think perhaps you have already had excitement today, yes?”

  I bristled. He seemed to find this too amusing. “As it happens, someone tried very hard to stop this meeting going ahead today,” I said. “Unless you already know something about that?”

  Kane tilted his head to one side, peering at me intently, weighing me up. I wondered if I’d been too blunt. I didn’t want to come right out and accuse him of trying to kill me, but I got the impression that Tribals were straight talkers, to an extent. I might earn more trust by being as blunt with them as they were with me.

  “A car bomb, I understand.” He stroked his chin thoughtfully, the slight rasp of stubble against his fingers. “News travels fast, Doctor. I do not doubt it is already on your DataStream. The media circus as you say, chattering like chickens. But Tribals see and hear much also, and our word travels faster. Yes, I am aware you were almost killed today.” He tilted his head, peering at me very intensely, as though trying to figure me out. “And yet still you are here. You dust off your knees, yes, and get back onto the horse.” He looked at Griff briefly. “Your friend, she is one tough cookie.”

  I couldn’t see Griff’s face, as he was standing behind me, but I felt him rest his hand on my shoulder and give it a gentle squeeze. I think it was meant to be reassuring. “Doctor Harkness is the most capable person I know,” Griff said simply.

  “Some people might wonder if the bomb was a message from the Tribals,” I said to Kane. “A warning? That’s going to be one of the theories flying around the news channels already.”

  “I appreciate your candour. But do not look to my people for that,” Kane said, his amber eyes lowering to mine once more. “I agreed to this meeting. I had no reason to stop it. Explosions are not our style. Trust me, if my people intended to kill you, it would be up close, and a lot messier than fire and smoke.”

  “That’s wonderfully reassuring,” I replied.

  “This is interesting to me.” He leaned forward conspiratorially. “Perhaps you should be asking these questions of Scott? He has more reason for you not to meet with me. He would not want you going back to Cabal with any news which may not support his claim for my land.”

  The thought hadn’t crossed my mind until now. If it hadn’t been the Tribals trying to kill me, it had to be someone else. And who had the other people in the car been? I hadn’t had any time to process the events. I didn’t wholly like this man’s playful tone though, for all his protests of innocence and genial manner, I felt as though he was toying around for his own amusement.

  “If anything useful is going to come of this meeting, Mr Kane,” I said, “it’s important that you are straight with me. If any trust is to be built between my people and yours.” This kind of official liaison between human and Tribal was unprecedented. I didn’t want to fuck it up.

  “Trust…” Kane smiled, for the first time seeming genuinely amused. It changed the shape of his face. For a moment he was actually attractive. I could picture him younger, before the cares of his alpha status had settled on his shoulder.

  “Trust,” he said again, rolling the word around his mouth like an unfamiliar taste. “And will you be straight with me also?” he asked. “I am not fond of secrets and half-truths. Sofia spoke out of turn, but she did not lie.”

  Griff snorted behind me, folding his arms defensively. “No offence, but she was wrong. I don’t want to mate with her. Whatever pheromones she thinks she’s smelling on me, her radar is off.”

  Kane looked at him for the first time with narrowed eyes. “She didn’t mean with her, human boy,” he said simply.

  I heard Griff splutter behind me, and I decided to rescue him, and myself, by hastily changing the subject.

  “She also said I was more than I seem?” I said. “Meaning what exactly?”

  “You are…interesting, Doctor,” Kane said. He rested his elbows on the arms of t
he chair and steepled his fingers under his chin, studying me. “You look like one of them, like a human, but the nose…” He tapped his with a long finger. “…It does not lie. You smell of…more.”

  “‘I smell of more’,” I repeated, deadpan.

  Kane nodded slowly. “You smell of death,” he rumbled quietly. “Like the monsters outside the walls. The boogeymen your people made. Angry death hiding just under your skin, Doctor. Like a nest of fire ants. You hide it well, very well, but it is there. Anger and strength, and hunger. It is most intriguing to me.”

  I could feel blood rush to my face. There was no way this Tribal could sense my ‘condition’. I had dosed on Epsilon before heading to Cabal this morning. Even by our newly revised schedule, I had plenty of time before I needed to re-medicate. “I can assure you I’m human,” I said slowly, trying not to shuffle in my seat. “We test every day, all of us at the lab. It’s standard practise. If I was anything…more, I would be the first to know. The ‘death’ you so charmingly say I smell of is most likely my close run in with my own earlier today.”

  Kane shrugged his massive shoulders, as though to say it was all the same to him if I was a rainbow unicorn who pooped marshmallows. He wasn’t buying what I was selling, and I couldn’t blame him. I’m a terrible liar.

  Way to build trust, Phoebe.

  “Your tests, they only find the things they are testing for,” he said. “There are more things in Heaven and Earth than you have dreamt of…”

  “Shakespeare, Hamlet,” I said, a little impatiently. “Yes, I know.” I wanted to steer the subject away from this. “I have to admit, Mr Kane, quoting the bard, Russian composers, and the writings of a Roman emperor. You are not as I expected either.”

  “Perhaps you thought to find me chewing on a raw rabbit, no?” Kane’s face crinkled into his grimace-smile again. “A violent angry beast? Then let us both be pleasantly intrigued by the other then. I am not often surprised, it is quite refreshing.”

  He leaned back, spreading his hands palms upwards, the chair creaking in protest. “Although yes, I am in truth a beast. We all are here, it is our very nature. We cannot deny it, and would not want to. But to be a beast is not to be a savage. A man can be an artist in any field, a painter, a sculptor, a chef…or in bloodshed. And I have made many masterpieces in my time. I have painted many canvasses red. But still, I am no savage.”

  “So I understand,” I replied quietly. Was he trying to intimidate me? Casually reminding me of the many incidents of alleged violence laid at his door? Maybe he couldn’t help it; he was an alpha after all. I could smell him from where I sat. He smelled like wood shavings and well-treated leather, with a hint of some dark spice underneath. It wasn’t unpleasant. I wondered if he was exuding pheromones deliberately, perhaps to make me more compliant. Could they do that? I had no idea. We know so little about the Tribals.

  “But I’m not here to discuss your past exploits, Mr Kane,” I continued. “My only interest is in the power plant and the proposal by Marlin Scott to buy the grounds.”

  “These lands are mine,” Kane said, quietly but firmly. “Scott is a man who makes deals with devils and believes that money and power will deliver him all he wants, with no opposition.”

  He gestured to the glass walls of the greenhouse, and the settlement beyond. “I have forty families here. My people, who look to me for protection, for guidance and safety in a world which cried out for their help when it was dying, and now wants to sweep them aside when they are no longer ‘convenient’. They look to me for a home. To make for them a place in this new world. Scott will find opposition to his plans.”

  “Off the record, Marlin Scott is an arrogant and entitled arse, yes,” I said. “But you say he makes deals with devils?” I was hoping he wasn’t referring to the Pale. Scott and my father had worked together on the project. Very few people other than myself knew this, but everyone knew how it had ended.

  “The hooded ones. The silent ones. He took their power, he built the wall.”

  “You’re referring to the Bonewalkers?” Griff asked, incredulous. “The wall is a pretty damn good idea if you ask me. Without it, we’d all be dead.” He had a point. Scott and the Bonewalkers had made the wall which surrounded our city, our one defence against the death waiting outside. It was part technology, part Bonewalker magic. He had saved us all. The wall was maintained by the Bonewalkers. They patrolled its edge silently and continuously. The ultimate ward. Nothing got in or out of the city without their say so. Scott had made his fortune this way.

  “Power is never given freely,” Kane said to me. “Do you imagine they helped Scott in his endeavours out of the goodness of their hearts? The silent ones.” He shook himself a little. It was odd to see a man of his impressive bearing look ruffled. Even his voice was superstitiously low. “No one knows what they think, what they want. But power comes with a price, and Scott cares nothing for that. He got what he wanted. He has wealth, he has power, and one day…he will have to pay the price. And I can bet you that the price will be high, Doctor. The Bonewalkers as you call them, the devils, the djinn…they will want.”

  “There is nowhere else in New Oxford where the proposed new plant could be built,” I said as even-handedly as I could. I didn’t want to get into a conversation about the Bonewalkers. I had only ever met one. It had tried to kill me, then saved my life, then tried to kill me again – although I had no idea how much of any of these actions were carried out under its own free will. I had little to no handle on these GOs. “I can understand the need for the proposed plant, here at the Botanical, if the power crisis is going to be solved. What if Cabal could offer to relocate your people? Would that offer a feasible solution?”

  Kane sneered, standing. I hadn’t realised how massive he was; he just kept going up. “Relocate to where?” he said. “To outside the walls? Throw my people back into the wild where we came from? It is not safe there for us now. Your monsters cover this land like a plague. We have children here. And why should we leave? We fought for this city. We died for it – for you.”

  I shook my head, standing also. Kane had stalked out of the circle of his strange open plan office and toward the distant window-walls. I followed him doggedly. “No, that’s not what I mean,” I said. “I mean homes, actual houses, within the city. I don’t know why you have to be separate from…”

  Kane stopped mid-step and turned to face me, looking at me as though I was mad.

  “You mean integrate?” he said, his deep voice incredulous. “Live side by side with humans?” He laughed, genuinely laughed. I narrowed my eyes, waiting for him to stop.

  “Doctor, we are not people to your kind,” he said. “We have no rights. Not only us, but the others you place us together with in your minds. The vampires, the Bonewalkers, we can work, yes, but we cannot vote. We have no say in the world we all live in. We have no…voice. We could live amongst you, but we cannot own anything. Why would we want that? To live in your shadows, grateful for the scraps you drop from your table and be expected to wag our tails happily while you congratulate yourselves on how ‘tolerant’ you are.”

  “I didn’t mean…”

  “Perhaps you would find it easier than I do to explain to the children who live here, the Tribal children, why they cannot go to school with the human children? Why, if they fall sick, they must rely on what medication we can provide ourselves, while your human children receive the best private care? Why your children are worth more than ours?”

  His eyes flashed at me. “Integrate.” He spat the word as though it were filthy. “Your species does not have a good track record of this, Doctor. Even when it tries. Separate bathrooms for different races, different water coolers to drink from. Careers open only to some. Yes, of course you are happy to share your shining wonderful world, but only the parts you don’t mind sharing. And they call us animals.”

  “Look, I didn’t come here to discuss GO rights,” I said, my hands raised trying to soothe him. “I’m not a Mankin
d Movement supporter or a GO rights protester. I’m…well, I’m neutral, in my capacity as Cabal ambassador.”

  Kane turned his back on me, his air dismissive. “Ah yes Doctor, best not to get involved, yes? To not choose a side, to do nothing…indeed. The hymn sheet of Cabal.” He chuckled humourlessly. “Except that all that is required in this world for evil to triumph, is for good people to do nothing.”

  In truth, I had no idea if Tribals could integrate into human society. I liked to think so, but perhaps I was being too naïve. There was so much fear and distrust, on both sides. The vampires had a different handle on things. They didn’t try to integrate. They lived and walked amongst us, but they revelled in their otherness. They had made themselves a diversion for humans, a glittering entertainment, and this is how they survived. They owned entertainment, they owned the nightlife. They had groupies for God’s sake. It had been a clever move, to make themselves nocturnal celebrities.

  Tribals were different.

  “Before the wars with the Pale,” I said, “back when the world didn’t know about GOs, there must have been many Tribals living amongst humans. You integrated then, surely?”

  The alpha leader looked back at me. His face was difficult to read in the shadows. “Before the Emergence, you mean,” he said quietly, his tone sombre. “Oh yes, Doctor. We have lived alongside you since ancient times, but always we have been hidden, living in the shadows, not daring to show our true nature. And now that we have, now that we have stepped into the light, we see how the world wishes to treat us. Are you suggesting that we should crawl back into hiding? That we pass ourselves off as humans as once we did? Pretend to be what we are not? Deny ourselves? All to make things…easier…for everyone else, I assume. Perhaps we could take your idea a little further back, and you could suggest to Cabal that all homosexual humans go back to pretending to not love one another, to deny their natures and live a miserable lie so as not to upset society. It was once that way amongst your kind, insane as now it sounds. Or maybe non-white human folk could go back to being slaves and property, which would make things simpler still.”