Hell's Teeth (Phoebe Harkness Book 1) (3 page)

“This is mostly off topic,” Cloves said. “We are here to discuss the impact of your research. Not the questionable rights of various subhuman groups.”

“Subhuman?” another voice called out in the crowd. I inwardly winced. The social and societal rights of the Genetic Others was a hot topic at the moment. They lived among us, in our cities, in our communities. They held jobs, they had their own neighbourhoods, their own districts, but we knew so little about them. To many, they were fascinating; to others, they were monsters to be feared. The current debate in the media was whether Genetic Others should have the right to vote or to hold public office. It was hotly contested. Most people seemed to forget that without the help of these peoples, the Pale would have overwhelmed the world during the war. We would have been killed by our own creations if these creatures, once myths and legends, had not come to our aid.

“I’m sure there are many who would argue with the term ‘subhuman’, Servant Cloves of the Cabal.”

The voice was coming from the other side of the lecture theatre. A man. People craned their necks to see who was challenging the great and powerful Cabal. He was tall and pale, dressed in a simply cut black suit, the shirt beneath crisply white. His dark hair was shaggy and long, falling carelessly over his ears. His skin was only a few shades richer than his shirt, a pale ivory.

“Dr Harkness,” the man called, sounding confident and a little amused. “Tell me, do you see my people as a threat, or as a scientific curiosity?” His voice practically purred across the lecture theatre, as though it had been rolled in honey. It was loud enough to carry, to ensure that all present heard the question, but somehow crafted to seem like a soft whisper in my ear at the same time.

I stared for a few moments, utterly lost for words. He was one of them. I’d never seen one close up. New Oxford has a few districts, like most towns, for Genetic Others. They’re not officially ghettoised, but they keep to their own areas, and we keep to ours, for the most part. They had a killer nightlife – no pun intended – but I’d never really strayed into it.

I had my own reasons for that.

“You’re a…” I faltered.

“Genetic Other?” He grinned at me, entertained by my surprise; his smile was wide and white. “You can use the word ‘Vampire’ if you wish. Your people seem most fond of it. It does not offend.”

The crowd became louder and more agitated. Some of the people sitting close to the man practically climbed out of their seats in barely controlled panic, trying to get away from him. Others seemed to clamour to get a better view, as though he was a movie star. One of his kind in the midst of the Campus was very rare. One of his kind in the same room as several members of Cabal was absolutely unheard of.

Veronica Cloves was on her feet in the rows of chairs so quickly I swear to God she had viper in her DNA. I wondered vaguely if she had biomodifications. It wouldn’t surprise me. “This is a private function by invitation only,” she said coldly. “Not a three ring circus. Official Cabal business is being discussed this evening. The only people …
or
otherwise
… who should be in attendance are those by invitation. This is certainly no place for…”

“… for an undead bloodsucking vampire?” the man asked, cocking his head to one side, still looking faintly amused as his eyes flicked over to the woman on the other side of the lecture hall. “Perhaps not, Servant Cloves. But part of your audience here tonight are members of the public, chosen as per rote as with each of the presentations to ensure a representation of the vox populis. I am one of those. I applied for a seat, and was selected with my fellow guests.”

I could see Veronica Cloves’ jaw work for a moment, and knew that what she wanted to say was that the section of the public was meant to mean the human population, but of course she couldn’t say this. There was no box on the attendance forms to tick to indicate your species. There had never been any need for one. None of the Genetic Others had ever yet shown even the slightest interest in our affairs. They moved amongst us, lived amongst us now even, but they kept apart, like gypsy travellers in a foreign land. I found myself wondering why there was suddenly a change in that. What on earth was one of his kind doing here?

His eyes flicked dismissively away from Veronica Cloves and back to me. Even across this distance, they pinned me to the spot, a soft grey and piercing pair. I noted absently amidst my confusion that he was astonishingly beautiful. Not handsome, that word was too heavy handed, too gung ho American and plain. He didn’t look feminine in any way, despite the flowing dark hair – his jaw was too strong for that. But his features on the whole made him look like a Rossetti painting. I wondered how old he was. Some of them were hundreds of years.

“You haven’t answered my question, Doctor,” he smiled,

“Your question?” I heard myself say.

“Whether you see my kind, vampires, as a scientific curiosity or a threat.”

“I…” I faltered. “GO studies … that is, my area of expertise, is not … sociological,” I managed. “I work with blood. I’ve not had enough exposure to Genetic Others to form an opinion one way or another.”

This seemed to amuse him further. “By a happy coincidence I work with blood also,” he said, which got a nervous laugh from some of the media presence, who were lapping him up, capturing every moment of this on camera. He shook his head in mock disappointment. “But that is a shame, for you not to have been, as you say, exposed … to us.”

I felt myself flush. In my periphery, Cloves hovered. I dared not look over to see if she was glaring at me or the otherworldly creature stood in the audience. I don’t think I could have moved my head if I tried; his eyes held me trapped like a pinned insect. The part of my brain that never stopped being an analytical science geek, even when faced with supernatural creatures, wondered absently if it was some low level hypnosis. Were the GOs telepathic to some degree? I had never heard as much, not confirmed anyway.

“If you are to venture an opinion on a subject,” he purred, “… surely you have to know it first, to get under its skin? And please do call us vampires; it’s not a dirty word.”

His tone suggested, with little room for misinterpretation, that it
could
be, if the situation dictated.

A scoff from Veronica Cloves seemed to disagree most strongly. “Your name please, Mr…?” she demanded.

He didn’t even glance over at her. His eyes still trained on me, as though we were the only people in the auditorium. “I am Allesandro,” he told me.

What was he doing here? Except possibly trying to get me fired and my career completely destroyed?

As this thought passed through my head, something unreal happened. I could see his lips moving, addressing Cloves, but his words and the rest of the noise in the lecture hall, were utterly drowned out. It was suddenly as though I was watching a silent movie. His voice appeared simultaneously, right by my ear. As though he were standing right behind me on the stage, close enough to touch, whispering in my ear. “Allesandro,” he repeated. “It’s an old name from the old country, the Italian form of the Latin Alexandrius, in fact – it means defender of mankind. Fitting, no? Given what you were just saying to these fine people, about how we selflessly came to your aid in the wars.”

His voice was intimate, warm and utterly inside my head. I stared down from the stage, frozen to the spot, watching him engage in some kind of back and forth argument with the member of Cabal.

“To answer your questions,” his voice murmured inside my mind, sounding faintly amused, “… yes, we do have telepathic capabilities to some degree, amongst others. As you have no doubt figured out by now. You seem as smart as you are striking, Dr Harkness. Also yes, I do agree that the hideous woman you see me speaking to has had expensive work done to lift her face, and no, she did not pay enough for it. And ridiculous as she may appear, she is very, very dangerous. As for what I am doing here, I am here to warn you.”

“Warn me?” I whispered my lips barely moving, my voice low enough to not carry to the microphone. I felt like a rabbit caught in headlights. A bead of sweat rolled between my shoulder blades and down my spine beneath my suit jacket, like a traced fingertip.

“Do not confuse the words warn and threaten, Doctor,” the vampire whispered. “I mean you no harm … But terrible things are coming. And we vampires will need someone on your side of things if they are to be prevented.”

“What things?” I asked, certain now that I wasn’t even whispering, but equally sure that he could hear my words, even inside my own head, if I allowed it.

Down in the rows of seats, his eyes flicked from Veronica Cloves’ to mine briefly.

“You will need someone on our side of things too. You will see. I came here to find someone useful, from within your organisation.” He sounded pleased with himself. “To tell the truth, I am glad it is you, not that other woman, Trevelyan. You are far more … interesting.”

“What things are coming?” I asked again. Something brushed against me. For a moment I was certain he was standing right beside me, and that his arm had slid around my side, his fingertips brushing my hip. I jerked around instinctively, but there was no one on the stage with me of course. He was right where he had been all along, in the rows of seats, keeping the audience and the media entertained with whatever he was saying to Cloves.

My sudden movement seemed to capture everyone’s attention, and all eyes flicked onto me.
Great
, I thought wincingly. I just had a little seizure on stage by myself … smooth. My ears seemed to pop, and suddenly I could hear the room again. Allesandro’s voice was no longer in my ear but back in the audience, where his body, I think, had remained.

“… If the Cabal representative insists, however, I will of course bow to the wishes of the masses and remove myself from the hall. I came here through curiosity only,” he was saying, in a friendly and amiable way. “Much like the other, more human members of the public, I presume.”

Veronica Cloves smiled her tight media-friendly smile. “I think given that this is indeed primarily a meeting to discuss scientific results for the outcome of human led research for a human cause, it may well be appropriate for you to leave, Mr. Alexander.”

“Allesandro,” he corrected her gently. “No ‘x’. I understand.” He turned to the stage. “Dr Harkness, my apologies if I have in any way disturbed your presentation. My people may well, as you so rightly put, have been a help to mankind, but as we cannot yet vote or truly class ourselves at citizens, perhaps my curiosity into human affairs should be elsewhere.” He grinned, much for the sake of the media presence, and put his hand over his heart contritely. “I confess I have an unquenchable thirst for all things scientific.”

He bowed courteously, his hair tumbling forward, and just like that, he left. Leaving his row and walking without a backward glance the length of the auditorium, banging out of the double doors. At least half of the media crew followed him.

The room erupted into chatter and gossip. Veronica Cloves, her face a thinly disguised mask of white fury, shot me a look of death, and began calling for order.

7

“Holy fucking shitting crap!”

Such were the first words uttered to me by Lucy when I eventually appeared backstage, released from the presentation. The girl was practically jumping up and down on the balls of her feet.

“Did that really happen?” she squealed. “He was one of them, wasn’t he? I mean really? You got hit on by a GO?”

I grabbed her by the elbow as I unpinned my thankfully deactivated microphone and practically dragged her down the corridor, wanting nothing more than to get the hell out of the building before Veronica Cloves, or any one of the press or audience members, could find me.

“Can we just go? Please?” I almost begged. “Yes, it was a vampire, I mean, a GO, and no, he wasn’t bloody hitting on me. Jesus, could that have gone worse? In any way, shape or form? Vampires aside, I was just forced to report that in our ongoing quest to find a vaccine serum to reverse the effects of the Pale infection, our greatest success of the quarter has been to make a rat explode.”

Lucy was optimistic as always as we made our way through the college. “I don’t think Trevelyan could have done any better, Doc,” she assured me. “I mean, who knew one of them was going to turn up and cause a big scene. God, I was only listening from backstage, but the way he and that lady from Cabal were going at each other, GO rights here, legislation there, it was like the most polite and politically correct boxing match I’d ever seen. Talk about a bad atmosphere! I love her on the talk shows, she’s so sweet.”

I hadn’t heard a word of this exchange of course, but I could hardly tell Lucy that the reason for this was that I had a vampire whispering sweet nothings in my ear at the time and groping my…

At the memory, my hand went to my hip as I walked. To the pocket of my suit jacket. My fingers closed around something. A square of card. He must have slipped it into my pocket.

I tried not to process how he could have done that. How he could have been in two places at once, having two different conversations. I was just realising how little we knew about the Genetic Others, really. What else were they capable of?

I kept my hand clutched firmly around the card as we left the building and erupted into the blessedly icy night air of the car park. For some reason, I didn’t want to inspect it while Lucy was around. She didn’t notice anyway.

“God, he was lush though.” She was smirking as we walked to my car. “That voice too, I love an accent. You can see why people think the GOs are charming.”

“Not all of them,” I said blankly. “Don’t even get me started on the unsolved murder statistics in this city in the last ten years. The DataStream might insist on telling us everything’s happy and shiny, but talk to the police sometime.” I fumbled in my bag for my car keys while Lucy rearranged the folders she was carrying, hopping slightly from one foot to another in the cold.

She gave me a wary look. “Do you think Cabal are going to cut our funding?” she asked tentatively, referring to my not-so-amazing report on our complete lack of viable lab results.

Inwardly I did a kind of half hysterical laugh. Cut our funding? I’d be amazed if they didn’t shut us down completely. Frankly, I was half expecting to be summoned for questioning by the Cabal council themselves first thing in the morning to investigate any questionable relationships I might have with the Genetic Other society. I didn’t say this, of course. For the same reason I wasn’t sharing the card in my pocket with Lucy. I felt stupidly protective of her and Griff. They were my team.

“Of course not,” I lied. “Trevelyan will spin it. It’s the one thing she’s good at. When she gets back on the radar from wherever the hell she’s got to. We’ll be fine. Look I need to get home, it’s been a hell of a day, can we pick over the bones of the battlefield in the morning?” I pleaded.

Lucy agreed and retreated with good grace to her own car. I sat in mine, the heaters on full blast, slowly dissolving a porthole in the frost on the windscreen, and plucked the card from my pocket.

It was a business card. Plain white stock, very expensive thick card. On one side was simply a telephone number, printed, and beside it, a handwritten scrawl: ‘
when you need me – A
’.

I flipped the card over. The reverse showed a stylised raven, wings spread, looking like a Rorschach ink-blot. The script below was a single word, ‘
Sanctum
’, in spiky, gothic script.

I’d heard of the place – a nightclub, members only. In the GO district. I’d never been there. Didn’t plan to either.

‘Terrible things are coming’. Allesandro’s voice in my head again, but not telepathy this time, only memory. I slipped the card back into my pocket.

Starting the car, I reflected on my exceedingly unusual day. None of this would have been my problem if Vyvienne Trevelyan had just shown up and done her God damn job. I was going to find a way to make her suffer for this, I promised myself.

As it turned out, someone beat me to it.