Shrill Dusk (City of Magic Book 1)

by Helen Harper

  ‘Just get it!’

  She spun round and ran inside. I turned back to the street. Smoke was rising at a tremendous rate from the burning house but, to my untrained eye, it looked as if the fire was being extinguished. That didn’t mean I wasn’t going to do everything I could to help, even if it was a distance away.

  I eyed the road. With the amount of fire rain dripping down from the orange-tinged clouds, the chances I’d make it to the building unscathed – let alone be in a position to help out – were probably about eighteen to one. I’d had worse odds.

  I was planning the optimal route to avoid the worst of the flames when, from somewhere closer to hand, there was a faint voice. I stiffened before straining to catch it.

  ‘Help. Help me.’

  My limbs went rigid. It sounded like a kid. ‘Where are you?’ I bellowed.

  There was a momentary pause, which only intensified my terror. With slightly more strength than before, the voice called out, ‘Here! I’m here!’

  A hand waved from beneath one of the parked cars a few houses further up, narrowly avoiding several fiery droplets.

  ‘I see you!’ I shouted. ‘Don’t move! I’ll come and get you!’

  Lizzy nudged me from behind, the battered silver tea tray in her hand. I took it from her, pleased for the first time that it was one of the few objects that had been left behind in the house when I’d taken possession of it. With handles on either side, it would work perfectly as a mobile shelter. I flipped it round and held it over my head.

  ‘Charley,’ Lizzy said, her voice shaking, ‘I really don’t think…’

  I didn’t wait to hear what she wasn’t thinking but darted forward, tings of sound above my head as the fiery rain hit the tray. In retrospect, using a metallic tray that conducted heat probably wasn’t the greatest idea in the world – I could already feel the heat permeating through to my fingers – but there wasn’t much time to find a fire-retardant blanket. The pain encouraged me to move even faster.

  As soon as I reached the car, I ducked down and stuck my hand out. ‘Come with me,’ I urged.

  ‘But the fire…’

  ‘It’s okay.’ I cast a nervous glance around. The strange flames were still falling and there was no indication that they were going to stop. I was no mechanic, but I doubted that petrol-fuelled cars and fire were ever going to be a good combination. The faster the kid got away from this vehicle the better. ‘I’ll get you to safety,’ I promised.

  There was a slight groan and shuffle and a head emerged. Rather than the child I’d anticipated, it was a petite older woman who scooted out. She hugged me tightly while I continued to hold the tray aloft. Some of the tension in my stomach eased. Part of me had expected to see Joshua’s chubby face gazing up at me, even though I knew that wasn’t possible. The fact that this wasn’t a kid meant I could stop worrying about old nightmares and stay focused on the nightmare happening right now.

  ‘Stay right there with your arms round me,’ I instructed.

  ‘Mmmhmmm,’ she said into my shoulder. I could feel her trembling. Somehow I didn’t think she was going to move from my side without considerable persuasion.

  The skin on my fingers was starting to hurt with the heat from the tray. I adjusted my grip slightly. There wasn’t far to go, and my house still appeared to have a strange fire-free arc around it. It was about all I had to bank on. I sent up a silent prayer to whoever was listening that things would stay that way and started to move.

  It wasn’t easy. The small woman was attached to me like a limpet. Her eyes were screwed shut and she was letting out a long, continuous moan. We shuffled forward while my fingers grew hotter and hotter and Lizzy, who was watching us from the doorstep, grew paler and paler.

  Fire spattered onto the tarmac, hissing and melting tar on the road. Screams were continuing up and down the street but, when I angled my head right, the house that had been burning was still standing. Plumes of dark, angry-looking smoke continued to billow out, but I couldn’t see any flames and it seemed as if the smoke as well as the fire were starting to dissipate.

  The people who’d run over to help were sheltering and no longer frantically trying to help. That had to be a good thing; it freed me up to help others who were sheltering like the petite woman.

  Unsurprisingly, she was oblivious to anything but her own situation. Her moans were growing even more high-pitched and shaky.

  ‘Eight more steps,’ I gasped, unsure if she could hear me.

  She stumbled. I hauled her upright with one hand while continuing to balance the tray above us like a bizarre umbrella.

  ‘Come on! We can do this!’

  ‘It’s too hot,’ she groaned. ‘I can’t…’

  ‘You can.’ I pushed her up the doorstep and into Lizzy’s waiting arms. ‘You did.’

  Tears ran down her face, creating pale trails against the grime. I gave a Lizzy a meaningful glance and spun round. Even if the fire at the house had been contained, there would be more like her out there, more people in danger of being burned alive.

  ‘Charley, no! You can’t go out there again!’

  I set my mouth into a grim line. ‘I have to.’ I shook my hands as if to get rid of the searing heat on my fingertips and stepped through the door once more. Left or right?

  Without any warning, the light changed. The amber glow that had suffused everything vanished completely. It occurred so abruptly that it seemed impossible that it was a natural phenomenon. Someone, somewhere, had done something, although I had no clue what.

  Almost immediately ragged cheers floated up the street. I peered round. The fiery raindrops had definitely stopped. As if by some strange magical force, the clouds looked the same as they always did. Whatever hellish shit had occurred, it appeared to be over.

  Chapter Four

  I couldn’t have told you what time it was when I woke up again but at least it was dark. The silence outside was immensely gratifying. Groggily, I rubbed my eyes and padded out of my room and downstairs. My fingertips still stung; when I glanced down at them, I saw that angry blisters had formed. I grimaced. I’d been hoping that I’d had a bad nightmare caused by over-tiredness. I should have known better.

  Lizzy poked her head out of the kitchen. I wiggled my hands at her, palms facing outwards with the blisters visible. ‘It wasn’t a dream then,’ I said.

  She didn’t smile. ‘No, it wasn’t.’

  I tilted my head and listened. I could hear the hum of voices from the television in the living room but nothing beyond that. ‘The woman?’

  Lizzy shrugged. ‘When you disappeared upstairs again and didn’t reappear, she left. She told me to say thanks.’ She squinted at me. ‘I went to check on you and you were dead to the world. And,’ she added, ‘snoring like a pig.’

  I couldn’t even remember going back to bed but I felt refreshed so it must have done me good, and I was pretty certain I only snored when I was really knackered. It must have been some sort of adrenaline surge that had knocked me out. I cricked my neck and sighed. ‘Has anything else freaky happened?’

  Lizzy bit her lip. ‘No. But the army are rolling in to help restore order.’

  That was something; at least some bigwig somewhere had realised that we needed help before the entire city went into meltdown. I nodded and wandered past her. Coffee. I needed coffee.

  Lizzy watched me for a moment or two as I bustled round, seeking out a cracked mug and flicking on the kettle. ‘You know,’ she said eventually, ‘Ellen said she was going to leave. The city, I mean.’

  I threw in a scoop of instant coffee and several sugars. I deserved them. ‘Who’s Ellen?’ I asked.

  ‘The woman you were asking about. The one you saved.’

  ‘Oh.’ I gazed unseeingly at the cracked tiles, still not fully awake.

  ‘Martial law has been imposed. The army are telling everyone to stay indoors for now, but a couple of the worst-hit suburbs are being evacuated and the roads are filled with cars heading out. It was
on the radio. Lots of people are leaving the city or planning to as soon as they can.’ There was a pause. ‘Maybe we should leave too.’

  I blinked, startled out of my coffee reverie, and turned towards her. ‘Leave? Whatever for?’

  Lizzy twisted her hands together and avoided my gaze. ‘All this stuff is only happening here, Charley. It’s only in Manchester. We don’t know what’s going to happen next. If we leave…’ Her voice trailed off.

  ‘This is my home.’

  ‘I know that.’

  ‘I worked too hard to get this place and to build up a life for myself. I don’t have anywhere else to go.’

  ‘There’s always your parents.’

  I let out a derisive snort. That wasn’t an option. ‘I’m not leaving.’ I set my jaw. ‘Besides, nothing else will happen.’

  ‘Charley,’ Lizzy said in a half-strangled whisper, ‘the sky was on fire.’

  I peered out of the darkened window. ‘But it’s not now.’ I flashed her a sunny grin. ‘It’ll give us something to tell our grandkids. The day the world turned upside down and then turned itself right again.’

  She rolled her eyes. ‘You don’t always have to look on the bright side.’

  ‘And you,’ I said gently, ‘don’t have to stay here because of me.’

  ‘Yeah.’ She pushed herself away from the wall and opened a cupboard to take out a battered, sticky tube of ointment before walking over to me and taking my hands. With great care she rubbed a small amount onto my burns. ‘You need someone to look after you.’

  I laughed. I’d been picking up the pieces after Lizzy for months since she’d moved in. The idea that she needed to look after me was more than amusing. ‘If you say so,’ I murmured.

  She had the grace to blush. ‘We should talk about what happened. It must have brought up memories of Joshua and…’

  I pulled away. I didn’t have many regrets but telling Lizzy what had happened that terrible night was one of them. It had been a moment of weakness brought on by too much wine. It wouldn’t happen again. ‘I don’t want to talk about him.’

  ‘The fire though…’

  I crossed my arms over my chest and glared. ‘No. Joshua is off limits.’

  She nodded. ‘Okay, okay. I’m sorry.’ She ran a hand through her blonde hair. ‘Then maybe we should talk about why this was the only place that wasn’t touched by the fire. If you check the street, every house has been damaged apart from this one.’

  ‘The one that was burning,’ I said instantly. ‘Is it alright?’

  ‘No one was inside and the fire was put out quickly. It’s okay.’

  Giving a nod that was both relieved and satisfied in equal measures, considering I’d crashed out before checking the house properly myself, I returned my attention to the kettle and poured hot water into my mug. ‘Want some?’ I asked.

  Lizzy shook her head. ‘No.’ She opened another cupboard and pulled out a family-sized bag of crisps. She has a prodigious appetite; I knew from experience that within minutes there wouldn’t even be any crumbs left.

  ‘It’s not the house,’ I said, once I’d taken a mouthful of coffee. I told her about what had happened with the rats and how they’d avoided coming near me when they were so keen to munch on everyone else.

  Lizzy’s eyes went wide. ‘It’s you. The weird shit is avoiding you.’

  ‘Nope.’ I wrinkled my nose. ‘It’s nothing to do with me because the fire rain didn’t avoid me when I went to help that woman. It was only avoiding the house.’

  ‘That’s still pretty damned weird.’

  ‘I don’t think that’s the weirdest that’s happened recently,’ I said drily.

  ‘No. In fact…’

  Lizzy was interrupted by enormous creaking sound from outside. The bag of crisps fell from her hands and we stared at each other. ‘Now what?’ she whispered.

  I put the mug carefully to one side. ‘Let’s go and find out.’

  ***

  I suppose that in the great scheme of things this next calamity was less worrisome than it could have been. If you were a squirrel.

  One of the bonuses about living in a better-heeled part of Manchester is that my street has pretty cherry trees dotted along it. The council likes to keep its wealthier residents happy with something vaguely natural to appreciate as they count their coins. Having said that, the blossom in spring, which has the unfortunate habit of drifting down onto shiny cars and clogging up drains and gutters, is a source of contention.

  The trees were looking worse for wear after the fire rain episode, with most of their leaves stripped away. I suspected that delighted several of my neighbours. They wouldn’t be smiling now, though.

  As Lizzy and I watched, mouths wide open, the trees up and down the street were visibly growing. And I’m not talking about a few extra leaves sprouting; branches were extending and trunks were burgeoning outwards.

  ‘Charley,’ Lizzy said faintly, ‘are you seeing what I’m seeing?’

  Before I could answer her, there was a loud cracking sound from the pavement on the opposite side of the street and the cement began to break open. From seemingly out of nowhere, a root burst through.

  I licked my lips. ‘Uh.’ It was hardly my most eloquent moment but that was the best comment I could produce at the time.

  ‘This is crazy,’ she said. ‘What do we do? Why are they growing so much? We need to make it stop! Charley…’

  Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted one of the trees extend a branch towards the bedroom window of the Peters, a young family a few doors down. Without even thinking, I yelled out in alarm, ‘Stop!’

  There was a rippling shudder down its trunk. Every tree, every branch and every damn twig in sight seemed to shake and tremble and, for one bizarre moment, it felt as if they were all staring at me. I shook myself. That was nuts. Trees didn’t have eyes and they weren’t sentient. Then again, they didn’t grow at a rate of knots either.

  ‘Charley.’ Lizzy’s voice was barely audible. She turned and looked at me with wide, frightened eyes. ‘They did what you said. They stopped growing.’

  ‘Coincidence,’ I muttered. It had to be. Nothing else made any sense.

  ‘A coincidence like the rats avoiding you? And the fire rain avoiding the house?’ She blinked at me. ‘Is there something you’re not telling me? Are you some kind of sorcerer?’

  ‘My parents are dentists. I’m a cleaner.’ I hesitated. ‘And a gambler. If I had any weird-arse power, I’d be a hell of a lot luckier than I am.’

  Her fingers twitched. ‘I thought you always said that luck was for losers, that you focus on facts and reality and research in order to win. Maybe you’re actually some kind of witch and you don’t realise it.’

  We stared at each other for a long moment then burst out laughing. It only took a second or two before we were both verging on the hysterical. ‘Maybe,’ I gasped, ‘I could turn Maximillian Stone into a frog.’

  ‘And conjure up lots of gold.’ Lizzy wiped tears away from her eyes. ‘Although right now I’d give my left arm for some proper Vegemite.’

  ‘Forget Vegemite,’ I told her. ‘I want to magic up some better coffee than this instant crap.’

  ‘Forget Vegemite? You heathen!’ If there was one thing in this world that Lizzy loved, it was the Aussie spread that looked like tar and tasted even worse. Her shoulders continued to shake with laughter and she spun round and headed for the large cupboard in the corner. ‘We need a broomstick,’ she declared, in between wheezes. ‘To be certain.’

  ‘Flying sounds like fun. I need a cat, though.’ Laughing about it all was far better than watching the trees overtake our street.

  What we’d been seeing was no doubt some kind of hallucination. Maybe I’d been poisoned with a magic mushroom and it was all a trippy dream. But that would mean I was hallucinating Lizzy as well. I opened my mouth to tell her this, choking back the giggles. That was when her back rippled and a strange lump travelled down her spine, as if a mouse
was caught inside her blouse and was trying to escape.

  I rubbed my eyes.

  ‘We don’t have a broomstick,’ she declared. ‘But there is that fusty old vacuum cleaner.’ Her voice sounded strange – metallic and disembodied.

  ‘Uh, Lizzy?’ I stared at her back. Another lump appeared, zigzagging across her shoulders. I swallowed.

  She turned round, holding the decrepit vacuum by the handle. ‘What?’

  I stopped breathing. Hair was sprouting all over her face. This wasn’t a faint moustache that needed a quick wax; wiry golden locks were springing out across her chin, nose, forehead, cheeks…

  Noting my alarm, she hesitated. ‘What is it?’

  I raised a shaky hand and pointed. ‘You … you’re growing hair.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean.’ She glanced down at her hands. Hair was appearing there as well. With trembling fingers, she pulled up the sleeve of her blouse. We both stared at the golden down for a brief second before Lizzy screamed, dropped the vacuum cleaner and sprinted for the door.

  I ran after her.

  She darted into the living room, slamming the door shut in my face. ‘No, Charley! You can’t come in!’

  I rattled the doorknob. ‘Lizzy! You need to let me help you! You need to—’

  There was a sudden guttural roar that seemed to shake the very foundations of the house. The door opened and there, staring at me with glittering, furious eyes, was a furry monster. Two massive curved horns spiralled from its head and it had a large, deformed muzzle.

  ‘Lizzy!’

  The creature that I assumed had been Lizzy a moment earlier screeched in my face. The reek of her breath almost made me retch; I probably would have fainted from the smell if she hadn’t suddenly lunged forward, razor-sharp claws extending towards my face.

  I reacted without thinking, yanking myself back and heaving the door closed again. There was a loud thump as she threw herself against it, once, twice, three times. Then I heard several thuds as she moved away and the sound of fabric ripping and furniture breaking. Deckchairs, at least.

  I swallowed, all my earlier humour having vanished. Forget that I could apparently command trees; my housemate had transformed into a vicious creature that wanted nothing more than to slice open my face. And, given the sharp teeth I’d caught a fleeting glimpse of when I’d narrowly managed to avoid being knocked out by the fumes of her breath, eat me as well.