Phoebe Harkness Omnibus

by James Fahy

  19.

  My unlikely Tribal companion had the decency to drive me back to my flat, although part of me worried slightly that in doing so, the Tribals now knew where I lived. I still wasn’t sure just how involved I wanted to get with these people. I was grateful for the ride nonetheless. All I wanted was sleep. We parted ways, she presumably to report back to Kane what scant information we had gained from the vampires.

  My answerphone was blinking at me as I let myself in. I ignored it. No doubt more harassing messages from Cloves. She would have read the report on our corpse by now. It was too late at night to care. I fixed myself a coffee, took a dose of Epsilon, and checked on Brad the rat.

  He needed a shot too. I tried not to worry too much about our shared problem. Medicating was only a short term solution, I couldn’t just keep upping the dosage forever. I had to find another answer, but not tonight. I just wanted to sleep before the damned sun came up.

  I fell into bed exhausted, my mind whirring with unwanted questions about serial killers, kidnapped students, missing Tribals and vampires, the plague in Blue Lab’s basement, and, behind it all, the friendly smile of the fresh-faced man who seemed to be turning up everywhere, Chase Pargate. Was he our killer? Did he leave the surreal message for me about bacon which had seemed to click a tumbler in Allesandro’s mind? I prayed as I fell asleep that I wouldn’t dream tonight. It was the last thing I needed and the last thing I thought.

  20.

  The following evening, I found myself standing wrapped in my white parka on Folly Bridge once more, where this whole mess had started, my hands thrust into my pockets against the cool air, watching the sun set over the beautiful spires of the city. I’d spent much of the day sleeping. I was becoming as nocturnal as most GOs it seemed. But I’d had a busy couple of days, I reasoned, and deserved a little exhausted downtime. Other than tending to Brad the rat, I had largely been left alone. Griff had called to tell me in no uncertain terms not to come into the lab. He and Lucy were handling everything, and I still needed my rest. I hadn’t argued much. My answerphone message hadn’t been from Cloves at all as it turned out, but from Oscar, asking politely after my health and apologising for what happened at the party. He made it perfectly clear, without actually saying as much, that the events at Scott Towers would not be made public knowledge, and he felt awful that I was involved in the strange robbery. His father had security looking into every avenue. Scott Senior suspected industrial espionage apparently, some other rival corporation after his secrets. Oscar didn’t know what to make of it himself, although he hadn’t told dear old dad that the charming thief had been ‘hired’ on his son’s own instruction. Might be a bit awkward that, especially if he’d had to explain to Scott the Elder exactly where and how they'd met. Oscar told me he’d like me to call so he could make it up to me. I almost called him back there and then. Perhaps I could get more information out of him now that I knew he and two of our three victims were visitors to the vampire district. There was a link at last. A tenuous one, but better than nothing. But I’d put it off for today. I wanted to wait and meet with Allesandro first, and find out what on earth he thought he knew that had to do with bacon.

  I shivered in the cool air, leaning on the stones of the bridge and looking down at the dark waters of the Isis passing below. Perhaps our killer was a butcher? Hadn’t that been one of the theories about the original Jack the Ripper? That he was someone with a basic understanding of butchery and anatomy?

  The three Portmeadow corpses flashed through my mind, and the bloodbath at the university too. Hmm. Maybe less of a knowledge, more of an enthusiasm…

  The sun had set only ten minutes before I heard the roar of a motorbike and Allesandro appeared, looking far less like a fan-fiction Lestat wannabe, thank God, and much more like his usual self in biker leathers and boots. He parked his bike illegally on the pavement and strolled over to me, smiling warmly.

  “Good to see you in private at last, Doctor,” he said. I got the impression he wanted to bend and kiss my hand but I had them both thrust firmly in my pockets against the cold. “Apologies for the cloak and dagger nonsense at the club last night, but there’s little love lost between myself and Kane. If I have any help to give, I don’t mind sharing, but only to you.”

  “Very generous,” I nodded. “And what’s in it for you this time, I wonder?”

  His lips tightened a fraction. “Perhaps I merely want to help you, did you consider that? I think we would make a good union, don’t you? I am after all, in need of a clan mate.”

  I balked a little. “You’re not serious?” I said. “I’m not your clan-mate, Allesandro. I don’t even really know what that means. But I have no desire whatsoever to sit by your right hand and rule your little vampire kingdom. You can get that idea right out of your head, thanks.”

  He shrugged casually. “My clan is putting pressure on me,” he said with a sigh. “I need to settle down apparently. Now that I’m leader. Responsibility, expectations. I have suitors clamouring.”

  “Bully for you,” I said. “Sounds absolutely awful. What about your Elise? She seems…eager.”

  He stowed his bike helmet on the handlebars. “Indeed, that’s certainly one way to describe it. But you and I, we have a bond. We’re already connected. She finds it quite vexing.” The streetlights had not yet flickered on, and I couldn’t clearly see his expression in the twilight. As usual, I suspected he looked faintly amused.

  “I cannot help it any more than you can, Doctor,” he said, sidling closer to me.

  “I don’t know what you mean by this bond,” I replied, a little agitated, backing away. “All because I drank your blood? Is this why I’ve been having these stupid dreams?”

  He stopped moving, looking at me with interest.

  “You’ve been having dreams?” he questioned.

  “Yes,” I said. “Not on purpose,” I added defensively. “You keep popping up like a bad penny.” Oh, Freud… “And I’ve seen you while I’m awake as well. Are you telling me you’re not doing this deliberately? Another of your mind tricks I don’t know about yet?”

  Allesandro held his hands up in innocence. “I had no idea it was so strong,” he said. “I swear to you, good Doctor, I would never…invade you, not without invitation.”

  “Well…” I paused awkwardly. “Whatever this ‘bond’ is, you can just stop it, okay? Break it, or whatever. I thought I was losing my mind, having a psychotic break or something. I just don’t need this crap right now.”

  He looked apologetic. “I don’t know how to stop it, I’m afraid. I’ve never formed a bond with a human before.”

  I was a little taken aback by this. “Seriously?”

  He nodded. “In all my long years, Doctor.”

  “Why won’t you call me Phoebe?” I asked quietly, looking over the river. It was difficult to look directly at Allesandro for any length of time. I’d never known anyone before who could give you his full attention like this. It embarrassed me.

  He didn’t immediately answer.

  “I will, when you really want me to,” he replied cryptically. He joined me at the bridge and we stared across Oxford together for a few, surprisingly comfortable, moments of silence.

  “There are benefits to…strengthening the bond,” he said carefully. I turned my head to stare at him. It sounded like a sales pitch. Here it comes…

  “I know you are…ill,” he said simply, noting my expression. “You were bitten, you carry the Pale virus. It only didn’t kill you because of your science and my blood. But it is winning inside you, little by little. It is only a matter of time before it takes you completely.” His grey eyes searched mine. They were deep and troubled. “I can stop it, if you will let me.”

  “How?” I asked, not daring to hope he might be telling the truth.

  “Take my blood again,” he said simply. “The virus cannot hurt me. You know from your own research that vampire blood has myriad healing properties, boons if you will, for humans. The reason
you are getting worse is that it has been so long since I was inside you.”

  “I wish you’d stop phrasing it like that,” I muttered. He smirked.

  “As you wish…since my blood pumped thorough your veins, then.”

  I looked away. “Nerd,” I said with a small cough and a grin I couldn’t suppress.

  “If you take my blood again, it will beat your virus down. You would only have to drink once every few months. No more daily dosing to stave off your inner demons. I can feel your emotions, pain, elation. You missed a dose when you were unconscious. I felt your wrath. What are you up to now, four injections a day? Five? I offer this way out freely to you. And it is not an offer my kind lightly make.”

  The irony of his offer was not lost on me. I would become like them, depending on blood to survive, like a vampire but not a vampire. Would I be better off? The thought gave me shivers. And not all of them were bad shivers, which worried me a lot.

  “Thanks but no thanks,” I said finally. “If I get how this works, the more blood I take from you, the stronger this magical vampire bond thing gets?”

  He shrugged a little.

  “Then I’d rather not. Like I said, I have quite enough on my plate at the moment without becoming a vampire queen. It’s bad enough that you can apparently feel it every time I stub my toe or, well, whatever.” I was exasperated. “Can’t you make a bond with your little follower, instead?”

  He tucked a stray lock of dark hair behind his ear, sighing. “You seem to have quite a bee in your bonnet about dear Elise,” he said. He actually sounded frustrated with me.

  My face burned. “Look, if you’ve got me out here on false pretences, to seduce me with the glamorous offer of becoming the next Vampirella instead of dying from the Pale virus, then thanks for the compliment…and I do appreciate the offer…but you’re wasting both our time. It’s not going to happen.” I thrust my hands deeper into my rustling parka. “I didn’t show up here to talk about me. You said you could help me with this case. Can you, or not?”

  The vampire drummed his pale fingers on the stone of the bridge. “You really are the most infuriating of creatures,” he said. “But I am truly glad to see you nonetheless. No pretences.”

  “Why did you want to meet here at the bridge?”

  “You know what this bridge is?” he asked. “Perhaps it was just serendipity that your enigmatic dead girl washed up here. The body could have been dumped in the river anywhere in the city after all, but I don’t think so.” He shook his head. “When you told me of Folly Bridge, and then of your heavy-breathing caller, it started to connect together.”

  “What connected together?” I was confused. “And with what? Honestly, you’re like a pasty sphinx. And you call me infuriating?”

  “With Edward Knight, the museum archivist, translator of lost texts, and recent slaughterhouse chowder,” he said. “Tell me, Doctor, do you know much about Bacon?”

  I blinked at him, utterly lost now. “It’s…delicious?” I ventured.

  He flashed me a grin in the gloom. I noticed that unlike mine, his breath wasn’t leaving frozen clouds in the cool evening air. It was so easy to forget he wasn’t human if I wasn’t careful.

  “Not the pork product, Doctor,” he clarified. “The person.”

  I fumbled around. I hadn’t been expecting a test. “Francis Bacon?” I guessed, helplessly. “You mean the philosopher? Um, he was the father of empiricism, basically designed the scientific method? Seventeenth century I think?”

  “Nice, but wrong Bacon I’m afraid,” Allesandro replied. “Try again.”

  I searched my mind. “Um…there’s another Francis Bacon. Twentieth century artist. Irish I think? Pretty graphic and raw, although I don’t know if any of his works survived the war.” I shrugged. “He painted a lot of screaming figures, scary faces, and a burning pope?”

  “Wrong Bacon again,” he said. “Neither of those gentlemen have ties to where we’re standing.”

  “Oh for God’s sake, how many people can be called Bacon?” I said irritably. “It’s a ridiculous name.”

  Allesandro pointed across the bridge.

  “This bridge, so history says…” he said, “…stands at the site of the ford of the river over which oxen could originally be driven, before the town itself was even here. It’s what gives the city its name of Oxford.”

  “Ye………s,” I said, deadpan.

  “It’s old, Doctor, that’s my point. Even for this city, it’s old. The first stone bridge was built here around 1085, but there was a wooden one even before that, way back in the time of Ethelred of Wessex. You can still see remains of the original Saxon bridge underneath this one. If you’re not too busy looking for corpses that is.”

  “I’m delighted you’re a history buff,” I said. “And the link to Bacon is?”

  “In the thirteenth century,” he continued, ignoring my sarcasm. “The alchemist known as Roger Bacon lived and worked here, in what was called Friar Bacon’s study. The building itself stood across the north end of the bridge just here, until it was demolished in 1779 to widen up the road. And here it was that he studied many…mysteries.”

  “Roger Bacon? An alchemist?” I frowned. I was a little ashamed to say I’d never heard of him.

  “Famous enough,” the vampire nodded. “There are records that Samuel Pepys visited sometime in sixteen sixty something. Bacon was quite the celebrity.”

  I was wondering where this was going.

  “And what…” I asked patiently, “…does a 13th century alchemist have to do with our recent killings, missing students and a super-diseased corpse?”

  “Indeed,” he said. “Well, he was an interesting man. Your mystery caller obviously thinks so too. Someone’s on the same track as us. After you left last night, I did a little research of my own into the friar.” He must have noticed my look of surprise. “I don’t just lounge around in lace shirts listening to Chopin all the time you know,” he teased. “I know my way around a DataStream archive.”

  “Really? I wouldn’t have thought you were techno-savvy. People generally don’t move with the times, even in a human lifetime.”

  “Well, I’m not like normal people.” He smiled at me smugly.

  “You got Elise to help you, didn’t you?”

  His face froze.

  “Smooth, grandad.”

  “When I was born, the abacus was the height of innovation. And it’s not like they build data pads for vampires. I broke two of them just trying to turn the damned things on,” he huffed.

  “So tell me about Bacon, cyber-scholar,” I smiled, relenting.

  He scowled. “Born in 1214 or thereabouts, he was a philosopher and Franciscan friar, who placed a lot of emphasis in his studies on nature through empirical methods,” Allesandro told me, warming to his audience of one. “Bacon was well ahead of his time, some credit him as one of the earliest European advocates of what we now call the modern scientific method. He was inspired by Aristotle and Arabic scholarship, a true visionary. He was awarded the accolade of Doctor Miribilis, although not until well after his death. It means…”

  “‘Wonderful teacher’,” I interjected impatiently. He nodded.

  “Bacon studied right here at Oxford. Indeed, he may have been a disciple of Grosseteste. He became a Master, lecturing on philosophy, amongst other things. Sometime around the late 1230s, he upped sticks and left Britannia, or Britain, as it was called back then. It’s known he lectured a while at the University of Paris. There’s a gap in the history after that. We don’t really know what he was doing or where he was between 1247 and 1256.” He shrugged gracefully. “No one knows what he was up to, or where he went, or why.” He held up a finger. “But what we do know is that after that date, when Bacon resurfaces in history, he became a Franciscan friar and no longer held a teaching post. There was a Franciscan statute at the time which prohibited friars from publishing books or pamphlets without prior approval, so his alchemical and philosophical activities wou
ld have been restrained.”

  “So you’re telling me he gave up science, alchemy and philosophy for a simple religious life instead?” I asked. “Quite a conversion.”

  The vampire shook his head.

  “Not a chance. Bacon was still prolific. Obsessed with alchemy, with science and thought. Luckily for this man of God, who was a scientist at heart, he got around the religious restrictions, largely due to his acquaintance with Cardinal Guy Le Gros de Foulques, who went on, as you may know, to become Pope Clement IV.”

  “I’m not that up on Popes,” I admitted.

  “Well, Pope Clement issued a mandate ordering Bacon to write to him concerning the place of philosophy within the church,” the vampire told me. “Bacon sent the Pope his master work, which contained his views on how to blend Aristotle’s philosophy and science into a new theology. It was a radical idea at the time. More interestingly to the two of us, however, is that along with this magnum opus, Bacon also sent the Pope other studies he was working on, including various studies on alchemy and astrology.”

  “Good to have the Pope’s ear if you want to be a free-thinking alchemist working within the church, I suppose,” I allowed. “Not that I’m not interested in all this, I am I swear, but where is this going, Allesandro?”

  He held up a finger, begging my patience. “Bacon lost his papal protector when the pontiff died in 1268. The change of management meant a change in climate. Bacon was no longer as free to act as he wanted. Some records hold that he was put under house arrest for a time, right here in the Folly, for unknown reasons.” The vampire gave me a significant look. I felt like I was on one of those walking city ghost tours. “What we are concerned with, my good Doctor, is a book which is sometimes attributed to him. Something this strange and mysterious figure with such a colourful and influential past may have written whilst stuck here.”

  “A…book?” I was surprised.

  “A manuscript in fact, which I believe our dismembered professor, Edward Knight, was attempting to translate.”