Hell's Teeth (Phoebe Harkness Book 1) by James Fahy Read Free Book Online Page A

that’s been bothering to work at my place all night has been the one in the fridge for some reason.” Good old Lucy. She did insist on seeing the bright side of everything. “I’m just super-happy they made us sound good!”
    “They made themselves sound good, Lucy,” I sighed with a wan smile. “We’re still going to get it in the neck from Trevelyan tomorrow.”
    “If she even shows up,” Lucy pointed out.
    As it happens, our absent supervisor did show up in the lab. Just not quite the way we’d expected.

 
    9
     
    I should have guessed there was something wrong as soon as I stepped into the atrium at Blue Lab the next day.
    It was a crisp sunny morning. Bitterly cold, the kind of cold which gets inside your hat and gloves and lies there like dry ice under your clothing. The sun was bright, dazzling off the snow and making the quad at the college look like something from an old sentimental biscuit tin, the ancient buildings dark spikes against a shocking, cloud-free sky the colour of spearmint toothpaste. I had actually quite enjoyed the walk to work, crunching through the park and across the campus in my boots, but as soon as I was through the heavy vacuum-sealed doors and inside the unrelentingly modern interior, the atmosphere was somehow even chillier.
    Miranda, our day receptionist, was sitting at the check in desk, Mattie having clocked off for the night. She was a handsome, heavyset woman with a tumbling mass of dark curls, and always looked like she should be clucking around a bride at a giddy Greek wedding, but this morning, as I made my way into the circular atrium with its elevator lined walls, her demeanour was stiff and her face looked concerned.
    The reason for her discomfort was immediately apparent. Three men were standing by the desk, dark suits, close cropped hair, ramrod straight posture. Anonymous faces set in varying degrees of granite. Everything about them screamed secret service, or at least ex-military. The only thing missing were those twiddly little earpieces you always saw them wearing on TV. I didn’t know any of them, but I recognised them for what they were immediately. Here at the lab, we called them ghosts. They were basically Cabal security. Henchmen and bodyguards to the highest of the high, and lo and behold, as I squelched my way toward the desk, acutely aware I was leaving puddles of melting snow on the pristine floor as I advanced, I saw the fourth figure, previously screened by the ghosts. An older man, late fifties, solidly built, with short silvery hair, and a face which looked as though it had given up smiling long before the wars. I knew the face from TV. This was Leon Harrison. Servant Leon Harrison.
    “Dr Harkness,” Miranda said, her voice rather strained as she tried to appear breezy as always. “I was just about to try and call you. These … gentlemen are—”
    “Here to see you,” Servant Harrison cut in, silencing our secretary effectively. His voice was severe. “We need a moment of your time. I am—”
    “I know who you are,” I said, tugging my gloves off as I reached the desk for Miranda to DNA-check me in. She stared at my hand as though she didn’t have a clue what she was supposed to do. These guys had her really spooked. But, I suppose that’s the effect Ghosts have.
    “You’re Servant Harrison of the Cabal High Council,” I said, peering at Harrison and his silent goons. “I didn’t realise we warranted level two scrutiny here in the trenches, but still, I don’t think there’s a employee here who doesn’t know your face, sir.”
    To explain Harrison’s position in the food chain, he was basically a lion to Veronica Cloves’ hyena. The Cabal member who had all but roasted me at the lecture last night was a dangerously powerful woman in her own right, but she wouldn’t dare approach the half-eaten zebra until Harrison had filled his belly, licked his bloody muzzle and wandered off to sleep in the savannah. He looked rather