Hell's Teeth (Phoebe Harkness Book 1) (17 page)

“Because, you know, I’ve got nothing better to do with my day than pick up my absent boss’ dry-cleaning tickets and cinema stubs. Did the Cabal guys send you down too?”

I nodded again, it seemed the safest route. In a moment of inspiration I brandished Trevelyan’s swipe card.

“Can you
believe
she left this down here?” I said, trying my best to sound incredulous. “She doesn’t even know it but I’m saving her ass picking it up for her. If they even find out upstairs that she left this thing lying around, that would be…” I paused for dramatic effect, “…
it.
”

I raised my eyebrows, trying to look disapproving. Sweat was pouring down my back.

“Oh my God,” Melanie looked shocked. “Her
swipe
? That’s not like her.”

“I know, right? I have to admit though,” I added conspiratorially, “I quite like the idea of the boss lady owing me a favour, so please for the love of God, don’t mention to anyone I was down here getting this. She asked me to be
discreet
.”

She shook her head.

“God, no, of course not. Wow!”

We walked to the elevator together.

“I don’t know what’s got into her lately,” Melanie sighed. “Taking off at a moment’s notice like this, leaving things lying around.”

She smiled and shook her head ruefully.

“It’s a good job she has dogsbodies like you and me, eh Doctor, picking up after her?”

We entered the lift and she hit the button for the atrium. I watched the doors slide closed gratefully. I could not get away from the MA Level and its horrors fast enough.

“Well,” I reasoned as we ascended, “between you and me, she’s been under a lot of stress what with the quarterly R&D. I just think maybe she needs a little time off.”

I glanced at the box file Melanie was carrying.

“So that’s all the personal junk she left down there?”

She nodded.

“Hey,” I tried to sound as light and casual as possible. “I have to swing by her place anyway to drop off her swipe, why don’t you let me take those too? Saves you a job.”

Melanie peered at me.

“But I figured the Cabal guys would want to look over it?”

“What, Trevelyan’s lunch receipts and handwritten notes?” I said dismissively. “I highly doubt it. Not when everything is backed up on DataStream these days. They probably just don’t want personal effects down there cluttering up the labs. It’s hardly professional.”

The lift doors opened, and we were back on ground level in the brightly lit circular atrium where no violent monsters were trying to eat me. Bliss.

Melanie looked unconvinced.

“I have the Cabal guys sniffing around too,” I said. “While our mutual captain is away, I’m reporting in to Veronica Cloves, if you can believe it. I’ll run the details past her for you.”

Melanie looked impressed, as though I’d mentioned her favourite celebrity.

“Really?
The
Veronica Cloves? Wow. I’ve seen her on the DataStream. She seems so lovely.”

“She’s a gem,” I said, deadpan.

I held my hand out for the box file.

“Well … if you’re sure it’s no trouble,” Melanie smiled. “To be honest, I have
so
much
to do. She’s really left me in the lurch running off like this. I’m tempted to tell you to give her a piece of my mind when you see her, but you know … she’s still my boss.”

She handed me the file and I tried to keep the relief off my face.

“Mine too,” I said, in a world-weary show of camaraderie.

I really,
really
needed Melanie to go away now. I was still trembling and I was fairly certain that I was going to throw up on her shoes.

I spotted Griff walking toward us from the main entrance, bundled in his large duffel coat and swamped by an enormous scarf, holding two large Styrofoam cups of coffee. He saw me and Melanie step out of the elevator, and a baffled look crossed his face.

I said goodbye to Melanie, patting her absently on the shoulder, before hurrying past the front desk to Griff who was still frowning at me, his cheeks red from the cold outside.

“You’re leaving again?” he said, confused. “But … I thought … Celebration coffees?”

I cradled the box file under one arm, grabbing his elbow with my free hand and spinning him around.

“Change of plan,” I said. “I’m going on a field trip and you’re coming with me.”

I dragged him back towards the entrance.

“But you just
got
here
a half an hour ago. I thought … the lab…”

My hand gripping his elbow was knuckle-white.

“I have seen
quite
enough of Blue Lab for today. I need you to drive me. I walked in this morning.”

“Drive you where?” he spluttered, trying not to scold himself with a half-caf mochachino as the reinforced metal doors hissed open for us.

“Trevelyan’s,” I said.

20

Griff was clearly concerned with my behaviour but I forced him into his ancient Kia, and he obediently backed us out of the snowy quad while I opened the box file on my knee.

“You left your coat down in the lab,” he pointed out.

“Doesn’t matter,” I said distractedly.

I was leafing through the contents of the folder. Loose papers, biros, a couple of coffee house loyalty cards jingled around.

“Do you know where Trevelyan lived?” I muttered.

“You mean
lives
?” he corrected me. “No, I’ve no idea. Why?”

He glanced at me as we entered traffic. It had started to snow again, fitfully, and his windscreen wipers were squeaking across the glass.

“Listen Doc, you really are acting really strangely today, you know.”

“Aha!” I cried.

I held aloft what I had been hoping was in the box file: a set of door keys. I was also pleased to find that the dangling fob, when I inspected it, held the address of 24 Hart Street.

“Hart Street,” I said. “That’s over in Jericho, near the Harcourt Arms. Do you know it? We can be there in ten minutes.”

Griff was still peering at me oddly.

“Is this one of those situations where you say, ‘Drive, I’ll explain on the way’?” he asked hopefully.

“No,” I replied, looking out of the snowy window at the buildings of my city sliding by. “It’s one of those situations where I say, ‘Drive, because I’m your boss, and you have to do what I tell you to’.”

He frowned at me over his glasses, so I gave him a smile and patted his knee. Shaking his head, he drove us out of the quad.

Jericho was not far from the St John’s entrance to the campus but it still took us twenty minutes, not ten. This was partly because traffic was bad due to the snow. We of Britannia have survived monsters, wars and the apocalypse, but two inches of snow still bring the country to a standstill. Some things never change.

The main reason for our delay, though, was because Griff drove like an old lady.

Hart Street itself, I discovered when we pulled up, was an unprepossessing run of large and well maintained old-fashioned terrace houses. It overlooked a nice enough park, where several children were braving out the snow on swings and slides. It was a quiet neighbourhood.

“I thought she was away on holiday?” Griff asked as we parked and I got out of the car.

“No, she’s not on holiday,” I said, crossing the street.

I still had my lab shoes on and the snow was icy cold. I climbed the two stone steps up to the front door and tried the key, letting myself in.

“But … if she’s
not
gone away, shouldn’t we knock?” Griff asked, following me, his hands thrust into his pockets against the cold.

“She’s not here Griff, trust me,” I said. “That’s why
I’m
here. Just come inside will you?”

I had wondered to myself on the drive over whether Trevelyan had been taken from her home. She certainly hadn’t been kidnapped from the office. Security was usually pretty tight at Blue Lab (says the woman who had just broken into the Military Applications Level…)

Part of me expected to enter her house and find furniture overturned, crockery smashed, smears of blood on the walls, some sign of a struggle at least. But then I realised that as soon as her teeth had turned up at the lab, gift wrapped for our pleasure, Cabal’s Ghost agents would have been swarming all over her home address, looking for leads, clues, anything.

Cabal were the kind of people who covered their tracks, so there were no desk drawers half-tugged open, or wall-mounted paintings laid on the floor with their backs slashed open. Trevelyan’s place was pristine. They had probably hoovered and dusted when they had finished turning the place over.

The terraced house was surprisingly roomy inside. It was one of those converted town houses which have the entire first floor knocked through as one huge sitting room, with the kitchen downstairs in the cellar and five or six bedrooms upstairs. I wondered if the decor would give me more of a handle on the kind of person my boss had been.

To be honest, anything which gave me more of a clue as to my boss’ non-curricular interests would have been a godsend. I would have been happy to find Black Sabbath posters and black candles everywhere.

I was smack out of luck then.

The entire house was minimalist to a degree which made Veronica Cloves’ sky high impersonal penthouse look like a twee homespun craft fair.

I wondered briefly if I was the only person connected to Blue Lab who actually lived somewhere that looked lived in – okay, my place looked
very
lived in, I’ll admit – but as Griff followed me from room to room, he seemed to agree that it was all a bit … cold.

“Not that I would dare question your authority on why we’re sneaking around an empty house in the middle of the day looking in drawers and cupboards, but whatever it is you’re looking for, boss, I’m guessing it’s
not
decorating tips?”

I ignored him.

We checked the downstairs kitchen. There was food in the cupboards and the enormous chrome fridge, which at least proved that my supervisor ate and was a regular human, if not pleasant, but nothing of any real interest. There was a lot of bran though. Yep. She was definitely regular.

There were no post-it notes with scribbled shopping lists, no letters, no sign of personal living whatsoever beyond the absolute basic necessity. Who lives like this?

I headed upstairs, hoping to find more. Griff hesitated at the foot of the stairs.

“Look,” he called up to me. “Doc, if you don’t want to tell me what on earth is going on here then that’s your decision, but I think Trevelyan is going to do more than just
fire
you if you go rooting through her bedroom. What
are
you looking for? Her secret loveheart diary? This all feels a tiny bit illegal to me.”

I paused at the top of the stairs.

I owed Griff an explanation, I knew that. His bizarre complicity and evident loyalty at even agreeing to drive me over here and basically break into our boss’ home (okay, technically we had keys, but only because I’d stolen them) was touching, if a little worrying. But where would I start?

“Hey Griff, Trevelyan isn’t going to come back and catch us, don’t worry. I think she’s dead at the hands of a sadistic vampire who’s also the tooth fairy gone wrong. This guy has also now taken another girl and rearranged her smile too, and so I’m moonlighting for the big kahunas we all bow down to and trying to find out why. Oh, and did I already mention that I don’t think we’re working for the good guys, you and I? Blue Lab is quite literally keeping monsters in the basement.”

Yeah, I didn’t think so.

I didn’t have time to go through the five stages of acceptance with my lab assistant right now. I had just needed a ride here. I was still trying to process the fact that either the Cabal or whoever had sanctioned the Military Applications Division at Blue Lab had signed off on a minor act of genocide.

By
process
, I mean
temporarily
ignore
. One thing at a time, Phoebe. One thing at a time.

“I know this all seems weird,” I said to Griff, who was frowning up at me, his hand on the banister. “I swear I have a good reason to be here, it’s just … not easy to explain right now. You’ll have to trust me. Okay?”

He peered up at me with a worried expression in his big brown puppy dog eyes. I think he suspected his boss had gone off the deep end a little.

“It’ll just take a minute. You stay down there. See what’s on the DataStream or something,” I suggested, forcing a winning smile.

I turned and hurried the rest of the way upstairs before he could reply. I winced inwardly, realising that I had basically just acted like I was trailing a troublesome five year old. I had all but sat him at the kitchen counter with a carton of juice and some cartoons to keep him entertained while mommy was working.

As I made my way across the cream-coloured landing and found my boss’ bedroom door, however, I heard the DataStream come on downstairs and Griff beginning to idly flick through channels. Something about crop circles outside the city walls again. There was a lot of that going on lately. It was on the DataStream every other day. No one knew who was making them. Not people obviously. We didn’t step outside the walls. I wondered why Cabal would want everyone knowing about them, unless of course they were as clueless as the rest of us? Fishing for information, hoping someone watching would know something about it. Casting their net of enquiry over the DataStream in the hope of catching something wriggling?

I shook my head, shaking off the conspiracy theories. I’m a paranoid by nature, and it’s easy to get carried away. Much more likely they were just trying to keep everyone’s minds off real issues, such as the current energy crisis, the civil unease over the vampire GO rights movement, and the rumours of Tribals becoming more organised than mere packs. To my mind at least, the crop circle stories was the Cabal equivalent of following a segment on harsh new taxes with a human interest story about a water skiing budgie. Keep the masses entertained, distracted. Keep them happy.

I shook my head to clear it and reluctantly checked out Trevelyan’s love nest, leaving Griff to his Stream.

It was a spartan bedroom, like the rest of the house. The bed was neatly made. Wardrobes were built into the walls, a dresser by the window. There were no fluffy toys on the bedspread, no loved mementos of childhood. My boss was a single woman, it wouldn’t have surprised me if there had been.

I didn’t like being in here, in another woman’s bedroom. It made my skin crawl. There’s snooping and then there’s snooping. I’d happily hack into my supervisor’s secret work files but I drew the line at rummaging through her underwear drawers. I wasn’t here to discover her bra size, and I was worried in case I accidentally found some fluffy handcuffs or something.

I had already been surprised enough to find that chirpy, smiling Lucy was a closet vampire superfan, I didn’t need to know what Trevelyan got up to in her bedroom as well.

After a cursory sweep, I tried the guest bedrooms which similarly came up blank of anything of interest, and I ended up in the last second story room, which I discovered was an office.

I had no real idea what I was looking for, or why I had even come to her house in the first place. It had been opportunistic, I suppose, too tempting not to swipe the box file from the lovely and helpful Melanie and have a rummage.

My supervisor, prior to getting kidnapped and disfigured, had been deeply involved in the dubious MA Division as well as my own. She had my name as her bloody password. There had to be a reason why, and seeing as the only files she still had at Blue Lab were encrypted, I had hoped something might have turned up here too – something I could work with.

A search of the drawers and cupboards of the small upstairs office confirmed my suspicions. Someone had indeed been here before me on a clean-up operation. I knew this because every drawer and cupboard I opened was completely and thoroughly empty. There wasn’t even dust. What office contains no paperwork
at
all
? Thanks, Cabal.

Atop her desk, I fired up her home workstation, which was nowhere near as sleek and advanced as Veronica Cloves’ model, but as I had expected, the same clean sweep had passed through here too. The system was an empty shell. There wasn’t even a desktop background. No files at all. Even the recycle bin had been deleted. I hadn’t even known that was possible.

I mean, how do you
delete
the
recycle
bin
? Where do you drag it into? Itself?

As you can tell, I’m no Matrix-style hacker.

Frustrated, I turned to leave the room and give up this hopeless wild goose chase when something caught my eye.

The decor in this room was as impersonal as the rest of the house but it was obvious that Trevelyan spent more time in this office than any other room. It at least had her framed Blue Lab certificate on the wall, as well as her Doctorate in Applied Technical Engineering plus a few other academic achievements she was either proud of or, more likely, was required to display for reasons of competency.

It wasn’t these few framed personal items which I had noticed, though. I had my own certificates framed back at my place. It was a photograph which had caught my eye. Framed, mounted and almost hidden, placed as it was on the wall behind the door. I had almost missed it completely.

Crossing the office, I took the photo down off the wall. It was old, black and white, a formal pose of several people. It looked pre-wars to me.

There were five people in the photograph, all men standing in what was clearly a lab setting. They were holding champagne flutes and wearing white lab coats. The man on the far right was holding the bottle by the neck. They all looked young, mid-twenties to early thirties, and very pleased with themselves. Clearly, this was a commemorative photo. Some kind of graduation? Or the marking of a science team’s breakthrough?