Phoebe Harkness Omnibus

by James Fahy

  “Are you telling me that our second murder victim, Knight, was working on translating an ancient text by a controversial 13th century alchemist who used to live right here where we found a faceless corpse?” I said. “And you told me at the club that he was working on this translation for a mystery private sponsor?”

  Allesandro nodded. “Edward Knight was reputed to be the absolute authority on ancient text at the Ashmolean Museum, remember? Perhaps even the only surviving authority who would be capable of making sense of this work. Of Bacon’s. It’s not so much a case of translating it you see, more decoding it. I told you he had come to me shortly before his death working on something private and difficult.”

  “But you’re no expert on ancient manuscripts, are you? As far as I know?” I said.

  “No, not at all,” Allesandro said. “I can read Latin, Italian and Ancient Greek, but so can anyone. Knight was the top of his game on ancient, long-lost languages and cyphers. Cuneiform, Minoan B…no, the reason he’d come to me to consult, is that he seemed to believe that this document hinted at GO nature, our origins perhaps. He was quite agitated when seeking an audience with me, as I told you. I only wish he hadn’t died before I had a chance to ask him more about it.”

  “What work are we talking about though?” I wanted to know. “What is this manuscript?”

  “That…” Allesandro smiled. “…is what we’re going to see. It’s here in New Oxford, at the Bodleian library. One of the most mysterious books in history.” He strode to his bike. “Tell me, Doctor, have you ever heard of the Voynich manuscript?” He beckoned me to follow. I shook my head helplessly.

  “No. Did Friar Bacon write it?” I asked.

  “No one knows for sure,” the vampire said, straddling the bike and patting the seat behind him invitingly. “But a lot of sources, according to the DataStream archives, say that he did. It’s a very strange document, as you’ll see for yourself. Hop on.”

  I climbed aboard the bike, lacing my fingers around the vampire’s waist. “Right now?” I said. “They won’t just let you stroll in the Bod any old evening and start pawing ancient books you know. These things are usually complicated. It can take months to get permission to view the right book. Especially if it’s old and valuable.”

  “Yes I know,” he said, passing me a spare helmet as he revved the engine. “Which is exactly why I don’t intend to ask.”

  21.

  Allesandro drives like a demon. The only other times I’d been on his bike had been when we were fleeing mercenaries or rushing me half-dead to the lab.

  There was no such emergency now, but still, he weaved in and out of the busy New Oxford traffic with the wild abandon achievable only by an immortal creature. Great fun for him, I’m sure, more than a little hair-raising for me. I clung to him like a skin graft and I swear he was laughing as we took some of the hairier corners.

  “The book has been around this long,” I hollered through my helmet. “I think it will wait a few minutes more for us! What’s the rush?!”

  He grinned at me over his shoulder, which I might have found more endearing if he wasn’t also slaloming between standing traffic. “Ah, the horns. What sweet music they make,” he quipped, yelling. I would have punched him if I’d dared leave go.

  “The Voynich manuscript, though, it’s something of an enigma,” he bellowed on, shifting slightly in his seat. I couldn’t see his face now that he was finally watching the road, but I got the distinct impression that he was enjoying terrifying me. He certainly wasn’t complaining that I was clinging tightly to him like a novelty backpack.

  “It’s an illustrated codex, written in an unknown writing system,” he continued as we tore around a corner, narrowly missing a bus, which blared its horn at us in alarm.

  “It’s been studied by countless professional cryptographers from all three World Wars. No one has ever succeeded in deciphering it. From what I’ve read, there have been hundreds of theories over the years, but no one has come close to definitively verifying the document’s meaning.”

  “You believe Edward Knight did though?” I yelled over the rushing wind.

  “That’s what we are going to find out.”

  We passed the High, making our way through the city toward the Bod, Oxford’s oldest library. Giant datascreens adorned the buildings here near the heart of the city, feeding an endless visual stream of Cabal-approved information to the general public day and night. It was the Cabal way. Give the people constant information. Show them their noble servants have nothing to hide. I used to find it reassuring. As we made our way through traffic I glanced up at one of the vast screens, dominating the side of what was once a department store. Poppy Merriweather’s face loomed large above us, her expression set in an affectation of studied journalistic gravitas. I couldn’t hear what the news report was concerning, but as we roared past, the footage cut to crowds of protesters outside the university where the students had been recently killed, and then to what also looked like a small riot outside of the Botanical. Pro-Tribal placards waved, police held people back in staunch lines and riot gear. There was a truck-mounted water riot-cannon looming in the street behind the crowds, a silent threat.

  Evidently friction was rising between the GO rights’ supporters, championing the cause of the soon to be homeless Tribals, and the weight of Marlin Scott’s industrial empire. Tensions were high all over the city: unrest at the Botanical, fear of terrorism at the Liver, paranoia and lockdown at Scott Towers and nervous bluebloods in Portmeadow. The whole city was going to hell in a hand basket.

  Griff had told me on the phone today that with all the pockets of trouble and tension popping up all over New Oxford, the police, even with Cabal Ghost support, were stretched too thin. In the slums of the Slade, criminals were apparently taking advantage of the moment. There was looting and more widespread crime than was usual even for that dark and dangerous part of the city.

  It was a powder keg. All we needed now was for news of the three Portmeadow deaths to leak, the details of those slaughters to find its way to the public’s near-hysterical ear, and it would be the touch-paper which plunged New Oxford into all-out inter-species war. The Mankind Movement would love the scandal of the animalistic murders. It would be all they needed to turn the people against the Tribals, and the Tribals would be sure to retaliate against the human purists. As for the vampire community, who knows? Would they make a move to assuage the tumult, or feast on the dying and try to seize power? I don’t know how confident Allesandro was in his ability to keep his clan and others in check, with his right to rule weakened by the lack of a ceremonial mate.

  I’d never considered, before trying this ambassador lark, what a delicate and dangerous balance we struck between the different GO factions and the humans of the city. And behind it all, patient and hungry outside our walls, just waiting for our brave new civilisation to fail and collapse, were the countless multitudes of the Pale.

  We were sitting on a time bomb here, and the fuse was getting shorter every day.

  The datascreens passed out of sight, and Allesandro’s bike weaved along a few less crowded streets.

  My vampire eventually brought us to a sudden halt south of the old Bodleian, and north of Saint Mary’s church. I climbed off the bike, my legs wobbly, and looked around. To the east, the rooftops of All Souls College loomed in the evening darkness, spiky and solemn silhouettes. To the west, Brasenose College. No rioting or protests in this studious area. Here, it was a quiet and peaceful evening, quite another world. A few straggling students on Pashleys were our only company, and none gave us more than a brief disapproving glance at our noisy motorised intrusion as they made their way home to digs.

  “Not the main Bod?” I asked, pulling my helmet off, and giving myself tremendous bike-hair in the process. We were not at the entrance to the building proper, the Bodleian library where I had met Oscar Scott at his father’s fundraiser the previous year.

  “The manuscript isn’t there, it’s in th
e Cam,” he told me, removing his own helmet and effortlessly shaking his perfect wavy hair into luscious curls around his alabaster face.

  Sometimes, I really hate vampires.

  The Cam, as he put it, is more formally known as the Radcliffe Camera. A vast neo-classical edifice, standing alone in its grounds like an errant dome blown from some ancient Italian city which has landed and taken root. I liked the Camera. It reared above us now, like a grand stone wedding cake. Pedimented projections and niches circled the ground floor. The central section above was divided into recessed bays by twin pairs of Corinthian columns, each of which was artfully lit by soft golden floodlights in the cool evening air, making the building shine before us. Above these windows, looming large over mezzanine openings, the defining feature of the Camera stood proud, a vast lanterned dome resting on an octagonal drum. The great stone bell of a building was part of the Bodleian Library proper, and a defining sight in its own right.

  I drank it in as Allesandro led me across the paving and gravel which surrounded the building. Parts of the city made me believe that the last civilisation got at least some things exactly right. For all its weighty stone and immensity, the building somehow seemed to float, lighter than air. It was a serene and austere marvel.

  “I’m not comfortable with breaking into the Cam, Allesandro,” I told him in a mock whisper.

  “Who said we were breaking in?” he replied. “I just said we weren’t going to ask permission. I called ahead.”

  As we reached the wide stone steps which led up to the building, the doors opened and a lady stepped out, smiling vaguely at us. She was a handsome black woman, somewhere in her sixties, wearing ultra-modern rimless spectacles and with long glossy hair tied in a neat plait, through which shot streaks of grey like delicate strands of lightning. She was wearing a very expensively cut trouser suit, and for some reason didn’t seem remotely surprised to see a vampire biker strolling up the lawns toward the doors in the moonlight.

  “Good evening, Miss Nelson,” Allesandro called out in greeting, skipping lightly up the steps and extending his hand in greeting.

  The woman, still looking a little bemused, raised her hand and shook his. “Um…good evening, Mr…?”

  “Harkness,” Allesandro said warmly. “We spoke on the phone earlier. I wished to view some of your protected items.”

  “Ah…yes.” The woman seemed frankly dazed. “Mr Harkness, yes, you were most persuasive. But as I told you on the telephone, it’s simply not possible to…”

  “Of course it’s possible, Miss Nelson.” Allesandro hadn’t let go of her hand, and was peering intently at her with that unwavering stare of his. “It’s perfectly possible, as I told you over the phone. You agreed with me, if you recall.”

  The librarian blinked rapidly a couple of times, as though trying to clear her eyes of an errant eyelash. “Yes, I know, I…I don’t know why I did that. I can’t explain it. It made perfect sense when I was speaking with you. Once you were off the phone, I realised it was quite impossible.” She adjusted her glasses, a little embarrassed. “I really don’t know what…what I was thinking. It’s all a little muddled, I’m afraid. I’m sorry you’ve made the journey for no…”

  “It’s not a problem, Hope. May I call you Hope?” Allesandro insisted lightly. He still gripped her hand, and I noticed his thumb was making small circles against the base of her palm, near her wrist,

  “Y-yes…of course. It’s not a problem,” she said, glazed. She was smiling at him, as though he were an old friend, but I noticed a bead of sweat leave her hairline and trickle down her temple.

  I suddenly realised what was happening. Why she seemed so confused. He was rolling her mind under his.

  I had seen vampires do this before. Squeeze their way into your head, force you to answer questions you didn’t want to answer, do things they wanted you to do. It was a kind of hypnotism. A battle of wills between your mind and theirs. A vampire had rolled my own mind once, and it hadn’t been a pleasant experience. But that had been Gio, old clan master and sadist. He had been a cruel and careless creature. He probably could have convinced me that it would be a wonderful idea to douse myself in petrol and light a match, and I would have done it happily.

  I’d no idea Allesandro had this skill also. Watching him convince this poor woman that it was perfectly fine for her to let us both, total strangers, into the closed library after hours and give us unparalleled access to its restricted works. Unlike my experience with Gio though, this was no forceful and brutal invasion, more like a seduction of the mind, which was the only reason I stayed my hand. As Alessandro pressed his will upon her, her resistance began to crumble and far from wanting to split her own head open to get away from him, as I had with Gio, she seemed relaxed and happy, if a little fuzzy around the edges. It was like watching a master hypnotist.

  Eventually, he released her hand.

  “You can show us to the manuscript personally, if you like,” he offered with a wide disarming smile. “I’m sure you could give us something of an insight.”

  Hope Nelson looked deeply honoured. “Oh absolutely, Mr Harkness, of course. Naturally…I’d be delighted.”

  She raised a hand in strictness. “However, as you may be aware, there is a tradition at the Bodleian. Before being granted access to the libraries, new readers are required to agree to a formal declaration.” She tittered a little, and I wondered if she was always a little eccentric, the way all the best librarians are, or if it was just due to her brain being vamp-scrambled. “It was traditionally an oral pledge, but these days it’s in the form of a letter which you must sign. We do still hold ceremonies where the oral pledge is used, but this is primarily for the new undergraduates,” she told us. “As you are visitors though, you need only to sign a form. We keep a stack of photocopies at the main desk. Silly tradition from the old world, I know, but if we don’t keep up traditions…well, what are we preserving then? If you’ll give me a moment, I’ll go and…”

  “There’s really no need, Hope,” Allesandro assured her. “I’m familiar with the oath. Do fidem me nullum librum vel instrumentum alaimve quam rem ad bibliothecam pertinentem,” he rattled off in a bubbling easy flow.

  I stared at the back of his head. He continued in this fashion a little more, rolling off a spiel of Latin I’m ashamed to say I couldn’t follow. It all sounded very formal, but then, Latin always does. He could be reciting a recipe for suet pudding for all I know.

  When he was done, he bowed respectfully.

  Miss Nelson, even through her happy, foggy haze, looked genuinely impressed.

  “Goodness,” she smiled. “The original Latin no less, wherever did you learn to speak so…”

  “At school,” he replied, a tiny hint of impatience creeping into his voice. “A long time ago.” He indicated the warm interior of the library behind her. “Shall we?”

  “Oh yes, yes, of course, if you’d like to both follow me.” She stepped inside, leading the way.

  “Where did you go to school?” I asked him in whisper.

  “Florence,” he replied. “Most of it’s still standing, I believe. They’re a walled city like us. Not much else in Italy survived the Pale Wars, as far as I’m aware. Rome fell, as Rome always seems to, and Venice burned like matchsticks in the swamp from what I heard. I’m glad Firenze is still holding out. Little patches of light in the global darkness.”

  I closed the library doors softly behind us, looking guiltily across the lawns to check no straggling students had seen us enter.

  “I didn’t know you could do that to people. Subjugate their minds.” Giovanni, the previous clan leader, had been old, even for a vampire. I hadn’t realised Allesandro’s skills were so strong, or so varied. Perhaps it was less to do with age and more with social position. Perks of being Clan Master – more than just your own personalised parking space at the vamp nightclubs.

  He didn’t reply.

  “Could you do that to me?” I pressed.

  “I d
on’t know,” he said simply. “I’ve never tried.”

  “Don’t,” I said flatly. “Ever. Or I swear to God I will stake you through the heart.”

  He snorted softly, amused.

  “And another thing…‘Mr Harkness’?”

  He shrugged. “She put me on the spot on the phone. You have no idea how hard it is to get inside somebody’s mind down a phone line. I had to think of something. I have no last name of my own.”

  “You don’t?” I was surprised. “Why not?”

  “Because, my dear doctor, I was an unwanted Roman bastard, sent off to Firenze to avoid bringing shame on my whore of a mother.”

  He smiled kindly at me sidelong. “I belonged to no family until I found my clan, and Tassoni.” He lowered his voice. “But don’t be fooled.” He grinned wickedly at me. “I’m still a bastard.”

  He strode off across the dark library after our willing hostess, and I followed quietly, realising how little I really knew about my vampire companion.

  22.

  The Radcliffe Camera was as grand and imposing within as from without, especially as the three of us were clearly the only people here after hours. Our footsteps echoed as we crossed the floor, the dark upper gallery looking down over us, and beyond that, the vast dome. There were few lights lit within, filling the huge space with shadows, and small cosy islands of illumination here and there.

  “The manuscript is down here, in the basement archives,” said our friendly librarian, leading us down a flight of stone steps and quite some way below ground level. I had never been below the Camera before. “Originally, this basement was an open arched arcade, with a vaulted stone ceiling. You can see Radcliffe’s own coat of arms in the centre of the roof down here.”

  It was much darker still down in the subterranean archives. Miss Nelson flicked a series of switches, and unromantic strip lighting flickered into life here and there. This did little to throw any actual useful light, and seemed instead only to help partition the gloom into distinct, ornate sections. Between the isolated pools of light, rows of bookcases stretched away through the stone archways in all directions. Lost in darkness.