Shrill Dusk (City of Magic Book 1)

by Helen Harper

  ‘The phone’s dead,’ Lizzy said. ‘I already tried.’

  ‘Then these two better get their damned radios working again.’ The odds on that seemed astronomical but if I didn’t do something right now, Mulroney would. And I trusted me more than I trusted him.

  I threw open the door and stepped out. ‘I have what you want!’ I shouted, raising my voice as loudly as I could.

  In the end, my yelling didn’t matter. My words were swallowed up in a sudden buzzing roar. The sky darkened again and, out of nowhere, insects swarmed past, flying through the air with vengeful intent. I yelped and ran back inside.

  The sound was immense. I’d thought that the fighting was bad enough, but it was nothing on these creatures.

  ‘What the fuck are those?’ Mulroney shouted.

  ‘Some kind of flying insect.’ I could barely hear myself speak. ‘I’ve never seen anything like them before.’

  From upstairs there was the sound of crashing furniture. My stomach dropped. My bedroom window was wide open. If those things were inside… I swallowed. Panicking, I pushed past Mulroney, Anna and Lizzy and ran, taking the steps three at a time.

  My room was filled with them. The cloud was so dark and so dense that I couldn’t see the wall opposite. Trying to contain the problem, I slammed the bedroom door shut behind me and started waving my arms around frantically in a bid to get the bastards to fly back out again. The house creaked and groaned, as if the insects inside were too much for it to bear. ‘I’m trying,’ I muttered. ‘I’m trying.’

  Deciding that I needed something to flap, I threw myself towards the bed, my fingers scrabbling for a pillow or a sheet or something. I rolled, my eyes squeezed shut to protect my vision. When I opened one eye again, feeling the soft mattress underneath me, I realised I was safe. The insects were circling round the bed rather than flying over it.

  Of course. Whatever that sphere thing was that Madrona had taken back, it must have been in the pocket of my cleaning apron – my cleaning apron that was now screwed up on a corner of the bed. The magic, which had been contained within the mysterious object, was obviously still lingering in the atmosphere. At least it meant I had an insect-free oasis to start from.

  Grabbing the nearest pillow, I whacked at the air – and the insects – hoping that I could encourage them to get the hell out of my damned house. ‘Leave!’ I screeched. ‘Get back to where you came from.’

  The buzzing sound rose furiously, as if they were pissed off at me. They could be as angry as they wanted to be; I was here first. And there was no way I was leaving.

  I thrust the pillow out again and again, my movements growing more frantic. ‘Get out! Get out! Get the fuck out!’ But several of the beasties caught the edge of the fabric and, before I knew it, the pillow was being ripped out of my hands. I gave an inarticulate cry of frustration and threw out my hands to snatch it again. The wee flying bastards darted away from me.

  Pausing long enough to remember the rats, I tried the same movement again but again the insects zoomed away, continuing their vicious buzzing as if to spite me. I drew in a breath and threw myself forward. ‘Leave!’ I flapped my arms towards the window. There was no chance this was ever going to work.

  Except it did.

  Little by little, the creatures started to dissipate, escaping out of the window to freedom. Even the buzzing seemed to subside. In seconds, the room was all but empty, apart from the odd one or two that were trapped under furniture or in the folds of my laundry pile.

  I didn’t waste any time; I ran to the window and pushed it shut, sealing the house against the world. Then, panting, I hunkered down and grabbed hold of one of the insects, pinching it between my finger and thumb and staring at it.

  The bedroom door swung open. Lizzy stood there, her skin as pale as before but with a calmer expression in her eyes. ‘They’ve gone,’ she said. ‘As quickly as they arrived, they’ve gone.’

  ‘Good,’ I said grimly. I held the insect up for her to see.

  Lizzy peered closer. ‘It’s a locust.’

  I blinked. ‘Seriously? A locust? Here?’

  She shifted her weight uneasily. ‘I’m not saying it makes any sense, Charley. I’m saying that’s what that is. I’ve seen them before. Besides, I turned into a monster. That doesn’t make any sense either.’

  ‘You weren’t a monster,’ I told her. ‘You were a bunyip.’ I hesitated. ‘You are a bunyip.’ Whatever that was.

  Lizzy blanched but I had to hand it to her; she was acting impressively stoic about it all. I reached over and gave her a quick, tight hug. ‘Don’t worry,’ I murmured. ‘We’ll deal with it.’

  She sniffed. ‘I’m so glad you’re my friend.’

  I pulled back and grinned at her. ‘Always.’

  I walked over the window, opening it a fraction before tossing the locust out. As I did so, I spotted the trees, now stripped bare of all their foliage. Despite their crazy growing streak earlier, there wasn’t a single leaf or patch of green to be seen. Damn. Those things really were locusts. A whole plague of them.

  I rubbed my chin thoughtfully. Madrona’s magical object, whatever it was, might have gone with her but apparently some of its essence remained – otherwise how could I have herded the locusts out?

  I ran my hands up and down my arms; I felt the same as I always had. I glanced in the nearby mirror; I looked the same as I always had. And yet… I bit my lip. Maybe there was even more going on here than met the eye.

  Lizzy raised a questioning eyebrow in my direction.

  ‘Come on,’ I said grimly. ‘Let’s see what’s going on outside.’

  Chapter Eight

  My once-sleepy street looked like a war zone, and not just because of the skeleton trees and the thin layer of dead locusts that crunched underfoot as I gingerly walked down the road. There were lumps of fallen stone and gaping holes in several of the houses. At least two of the cars parked at the far end of the street were burning, dark smoke spiralling upwards from them. And there were bodies, several of them.

  Anna and Mulroney were already checking them over. Each time they reached a prone, unmoving person and checked for a pulse, their expressions grew grimmer. My stomach churned. The other stuff I could deal with but corpses were entirely different.

  I skedaddled to the side of the road and retched violently. By the time I was done and wiping my mouth with the back of my hand, Anna was next to me. ‘They’ve all got green eyes,’ she said, her jaw set and her eyes expressionless. ‘Every single one of them. Just like Madrona Hatter.’

  ‘So they’re all faeries then.’

  Her mouth turned down. ‘Whatever faeries are.’

  We gazed at each other for a long moment. ‘What’s happening here?’ I whispered. ‘What on earth is going on?’

  She shook her head dully and turned away. I pinched the bridge of my nose and glanced upwards. The sky was clear, but something seemed to have changed. When I looked around, it appeared that everything possessed a faint blue aura.

  ‘Maybe the world really is ending,’ Anna said, pulling her hair out of its tight bun and giving it a good shake. ‘Maybe this is it.’

  ‘No,’ I said slowly. ‘It’s different, I’ll give you that. But I don’t think this is the end.’ I didn’t want to say it because it felt like a line from a cheesy film, but I had the distinct sensation that this was actually the beginning.

  Mulroney stood up from the last body and wiped his forehead. He looked rather green himself – and entirely out of his depth. We all were. I beckoned him over as we heard a distant rumbling sound a few streets away.

  ‘Now what?’ he muttered.

  A head popped out from the upper window of one of the grander houses and I spotted one of my neighbours. He looked completely terrified and I didn’t blame him. ‘What’s going on?’ he called, an audible tremor in his voice.

  ‘Stay inside!’ Mulroney shouted back. ‘We’re the police! You’ll be fine! Stay inside until you’re told otherwise!’ />
  Anna’s expression was a perfect picture of disbelieving scepticism. ‘You’ll be fine? We have no idea what’s at the end of that street. Given what else has happened, it could be freaking Godzilla.’

  I flexed my fingers. ‘Bring it on. At least then we’ll have something proper to fight.’ And I could test myself again to see if I really did have some strange magic flowing around me.

  The noise grew louder and all three of us turned to face it. Lizzy stepped into the street to join us but I waved her back. It wasn’t that I didn’t welcome her company but I didn’t want her to do anything, or be anywhere, that might encourage her to change into a furry bunyip again.

  There was neither sight nor sign of Madrona and Monroe. Now they had what they’d come for, we’d probably never see them again. If they were still alive. Whatever, we were most definitely on our own.

  The rumbling grew louder. Mulroney reached out and grabbed my hand, squeezing it hard. I don’t think he realised what he was doing because, when I glanced at him, he reddened and dropped it like a hot stone.

  ‘One problem at a time,’ I murmured. ‘Whatever this is, we’ll deal with it.’

  What appeared was indeed a dull green colour but it certainly wasn’t Godzilla. I blinked at the tank as it trundled towards us, knocking off the few remaining wing mirrors on the cars that had so far been untouched by recent events. For one stupid moment, my brain went into shutdown. How were we going to fight a tank? We’d never pierce the armour. Then I saw the soldiers running in formation beside it and the buses following it.

  ‘This area is being evacuated!’ boomed a loudspeaker. ‘Do not collect your belongings. Leave your houses and get on the buses if you do not have transportation of your own. We will take you to safety.’

  For a moment, nothing happened. The loudspeaker bellowed again, repeating what it had said word for word. Then doors opened up and down the street, and people came running out at speeds that suggested they were afraid the sky was about to fall down on their heads. Frankly, that wouldn’t have surprised me.

  Anna, Mulroney and I remained where we were and watched. Most people were carrying something; although they’d been hiding inside, they hadn’t been twiddling their thumbs. There were suitcases and teddy bears and cardboard boxes brimming with belongings. I saw old Mrs Foxstone trot out with a gigantic china vase that was almost taller than she was.

  ‘Leave your belongings behind!’ the loudspeaker repeated.

  Several soldiers peeled away and started directing my neighbours, pointing at the suitcases and boxes and ordering them to be dumped. Most people gave in without a fight, as if the energy to care about anything apart from their own lives had been drained from them. They clambered onto the waiting buses with barely a whimper. Others were less keen to leave their precious items behind and clutched onto them for dear life. I saw one fresh-faced soldier, who could barely have been out of cadet school, wrestle a large bag from someone before throwing in unceremoniously on the pavement. Clearly, the troops didn’t think there was any time to waste.

  A woman, dressed head to toe in camouflage gear, trotted up to us. ‘Onto the first bus,’ she ordered.

  Mulroney started forward. I glanced at Lizzy, who was continuing to watch the proceedings, then I shook my head. ‘I’m staying.’

  ‘You can’t stay. Your lives are in danger. We’ve set up an exclusion zone twenty miles out of the city. Emergency camps are being built as we speak. You can stay there or contact family who live out of the area. By this time tomorrow, there will not be a living soul left in Manchester.’

  Somehow I doubted that. I crossed my arms. ‘You can’t make me go.’

  The soldier’s expression hardened. ‘This is for your own good.’

  Anna tilted up her chin. ‘I’m with the police.’

  The soldier shrugged. ‘They’re being evacuated once everyone else has gone. All emergency services are convening near the main library in the city centre.’

  Anna shot me a look. ‘I have to go. I have to be there and do my job.’ She glanced after Mulroney who after a seeming moment of indecision was now running towards the nearest bus. ‘Regardless of what anyone else chooses to do.’

  I nodded. ‘Take care of yourself. Thank you for what you’ve done.’

  She gave a short, humourless laugh. ‘I don’t think I’ve done much at all.’

  ‘You came,’ I said quietly. ‘You came when I called. That was enough.’

  She offered me a small smile. ‘You should leave, you know. It’s the only way to be safe.’

  ‘Mmm.’ I knew she was right. I knew the sensible thing would be to get the hell out of this city before it fell on top of us.

  I couldn’t explain it but I wanted to stay. It wasn’t just that this was my home; oddly, it felt like I had to be here.

  ‘Get a move on!’ the soldier barked, before turning away to direct others towards the waiting buses. She was obviously both irritated and tired with my delaying.

  I gave Anna a brief farewell wave and went over to Lizzy. ‘You should go,’ I told her. ‘You can get out of the city, go to London and catch the first plane back to Brisbane.’

  She took in a deep breath. ‘And what if I change into that bunyip thing again in mid-flight?’

  ‘You won’t,’ I said, sounding far more confident than I felt.

  ‘I might.’ She sighed and pushed back her hair. ‘After what happened, I think I should stay. If I can find that Scottish man again, maybe he can help me make sure I can control myself. Until I know I can, I have to stay here otherwise I’ll be a danger.’

  ‘Well,’ I said carefully, ‘only if you’re sure. Not that I think Monroe will be able to help. He’s probably not even alive.’

  ‘The wolves are fine,’ Lizzy said with such quiet certainty that I stared at her. She shrugged her shoulders. ‘I can’t explain how I know. I just know.’

  ‘It doesn’t surprise me,’ I muttered. ‘That Monroe is like a cockroach. He’ll probably survive a nuclear holocaust.’

  Lizzy’s eyes flashed with amusement, making her look like her old self again. ‘You like him,’ she said.

  ‘He’s an arrogant bastard.’

  ‘You still like him.’

  I glared at her and she laughed. ‘When he looked at me,’ she said, ‘when I was that – animal, all I could think was that I wanted to do what he told me. There was very little of me left in there, like I’d taken too many sedatives or something and my brain wasn’t working properly. But when he was there I knew that I wanted to please him and come back to what I was.’ She cleared her throat awkwardly. ‘To who I was. He had this strange, magnetic pull about him.’

  ‘You presented him with your belly,’ I informed her.

  She giggled. ‘I couldn’t help it.’ She nudged me. ‘I know you wanted to do the same.’

  ‘I most definitely did not,’ I huffed. ‘He’s all yours.’

  Before Lizzy could call me on the lie, the soldier marched back to us. ‘The buses are waiting to leave! We’ve still got several streets to clear. Get a move on.’

  Lizzy and I exchanged glances. ‘We’re not moving.’

  She glowered. ‘I don’t have time for this.’ She reached out, grabbed our arms and started pulling. Lizzy snarled, a worryingly animal sound, while I reacted without thinking and raised my hands to ward off the soldier. She flew backwards, at least twelve feet through the air, before landing in the middle of the road with a thud. I winced. That looked like it had hurt.

  ‘Suit yourselves!’ the woman shouted, scrambling to her feet and backing off. ‘But if you die, don’t blame the government!’

  ‘Sounds fair enough,’ Lizzy murmured.

  I gave a half smile and nodded. ‘At least with everyone else gone, it’ll be easier to find a parking spot.’ I arched a glance at her. ‘Did you do that? Throw her off like that?’

  We watched the soldier limp away. ‘Charley,’ Lizzy said quietly, ‘I’m pretty certain that was you.’
r />   ***

  The electricity was out, the phones were down, and it felt like years since the internet had worked. Perhaps staying put in Manchester wasn’t such a grand idea after all. At least the cooker ran off gas, so we could still boil water for tea and coffee. Naturally, however, Lizzy and I ignored caffeine in favour of sitting together and polishing off a dusty bottle of single malt whisky that I’d won betting on an illegal boxing match aeons ago. By the time we’d concocted a semi-decent survival plan – at least for the short term – it was already night again.

  ‘We could wait until tomorrow,’ Lizzy suggested with a yawn. ‘I’m exhausted. Something feels different. It’s like I’m less on edge, less likely to burst out in fur at any moment. In fact, I feel that even if I do transform again, I’ll be more able to control it.’

  ‘No,’ I said, adamant that we couldn’t wait, even though I could also sense that something had changed in the atmosphere. There was some indefinable lessening of pressure, as if the magic that Monroe had spoken about had been released and had already dissipated into nothing. But at this point I wasn’t counting on a damn thing, especially my own senses. ‘Tomorrow might be too late. We’re not going to be the only ones here. I’ve been thinking about it and I reckon one in twenty will have ignored the evacuation orders and stayed put.’ I waggled my finger. ‘That’s a hell of a lot of people we have to compete with. The sooner we get out there and get the supplies we need, the better.’

  ‘Okay, yes, you’re right.’ Lizzy yawned again and pushed herself up off the floor, where we now had to sit because her bunyip form had destroyed all the deckchairs. ‘I’ll go find my shoes.’

  I drained the last of my glass and got up, feeling incredibly woozy. Perhaps the whisky hadn’t been such a good idea. All the same, it had provided a pleasant numbing effect. It would make our shopping trip more interesting, if nothing else.

  I poked around, finally locating my jacket, then I called up after Lizzy. ‘Hey! Come on!’

  There was no answer. Normally, that wouldn’t give me any cause for alarm but, given what had happened to her earlier, it made my blood freeze. I cocked my head, listening carefully. There weren’t any sounds of snarling or wanton furniture destruction. Crossing my fingers tightly, I tiptoed up the stairs. Please don’t be furry, I prayed. Please be Lizzy.