Read Hell's Teeth (Phoebe Harkness Book 1) for Free Online Page B

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.

 
    8
     
    Driving home in the snow, I wondered how much of the night’s events would actually air on the DataStream. As I later discovered, very little.
    Cabal had taken power for a reason in our brave new world. Building order out of the chaotic and tremendous shit-storm of a war we had created