Shrill Dusk (City of Magic Book 1)

by Helen Harper

  Chapter Ten

  You know ex-directory? Well, I was ex-directory and then some. The guy I’d won the house from was too embarrassed to broadcast the fact, and I kept my address as secret as possible – at least as far as my betting life went. I’d always made sure to stay off the radar; there was no telling what other gamblers with a grudge were capable of. Even without the likes of Max, it had seemed prudent to keep my address hidden. Obviously, the supermarket was local to me so the likelihood of being discovered by Max lingered over my head. Despite this, I was almost certain that he didn’t know where I lived.

  Once the girl and I and gone far enough to be sure that we weren’t being followed, I finally relaxed and changed our course for home. I was still looking over my shoulder, though; the last thing we needed was for Max to follow us home and start battering down my door.

  ‘What’s your name?’ I asked the girl, when I was sure we had no would-be trackers.

  When it came, her answer was so soft that it was barely audible even though there was no other sound apart from the trundling trolley wheels. ‘Cath.’

  ‘I’m Charley.’ I paused. ‘You’re coming home with me and then we’ll sort out what’s best for you. How did you end up with that bunch?’

  ‘Long story,’ she whispered. She fell silent again, the expression on her face indicating that she didn’t want to talk about it. I wasn’t going to push her. If she wanted to talk, she would talk.

  We wended our way through the silent streets. I was genuinely surprised when the first glow of sunrise appeared over the horizon; more time had passed than I’d realised. At least we were almost home. All in all, it had been a pretty successful trip.

  We’d turned into my street, with its stripped-bare trees and burnt-out cars, when my hackles rose. There was a pile of what looked like old clothing on my doorstep. I waved at Cath, indicating that she should stay put, left the trolleys and edged forward. It was only when I got close that I realised it wasn’t a pile of dirty rags at all: it was a person. It couldn’t be a coincidence that it was my doorstep they’d chosen to collapse upon. With my heart in my mouth, I tiptoed up and knelt down.

  Whoever it was, they were curled up into a tight ball with a threadbare blanket wrapped round them for warmth. I swallowed, hoping this wasn’t going to be a corpse. I took the edges of the blanket and gingerly peeled it away, noting the numerous dark bloodstains. This was not good. It was not good at all.

  It took a moment to register who it was. I stared at the dark red curls and the broad shoulders that were shivering almost delicately. My mind wouldn’t connect the dots. Then I gasped. Shit. It was Monroe.

  ‘Jesus, what the hell happened to you?’

  He moaned in answer. He had to be half dead. Cursing, I straightened up and opened the front door before beckoning to Cath, who was still waiting silently at the end of the street. ‘Help me get him inside!’ I called.

  She skittered over, her face almost as pale as mine probably was. What did this mean? Had he failed to stop the apocalypse? If that were true, why were we still here? And where were Madrona and the other werewolves?

  Cath took his feet while I took his head. Fortunately she was a lot stronger than she looked and together we carried him carefully through to the living room and laid him on the old – and sadly now badly ripped – Persian rug.

  ‘The kitchen’s through there,’ I pointed. ‘We need water and some clean cloths.’ And ideally a surgeon, an operating theatre and several gallons of donated blood. I hadn’t watched nearly enough episodes of Grey’s Anatomy for this shit.

  I carefully removed the blanket from his body. He was completely naked, although his modesty, such as it was, was protected by the amount of dried blood covering him. When Cath came back in with a bowl balanced in one hand and some clean tea towels in the other, I wasted no time in getting to work. I dipped the corner of a towel into the water and gently wiped away the worst of the gore to reveal angry-looking welts and several deep cuts. He must have lost an incredible amount of blood.

  I hissed under my breath, thanking the heavens that I’d had the foresight to pick up some basic first-aid supplies during my supermarket run. ‘Can you manage to bring the trolleys round, Cath?’ I asked. ‘There’s some antiseptic and painkillers in one of them that might help.’ Unless the poor bastard was bleeding internally, of course; I’d worry about that later.

  She nodded and left, probably glad to have something useful to do that didn’t involve getting beaten up or cleaning up someone else who’d been beaten up. I took advantage of her absence and leaned towards Monroe. ‘What happened? Is everything about to go to complete shit?’

  He groaned, his eyelids fluttering open. ‘You,’ he muttered. ‘You’re still here.’

  It was impossible to tell whether he was heartened or dismayed by that little fact. ‘Monroe,’ I said urgently, ‘is the sky about to fall in? Is the end of the world about to happen?’

  He shook his head weakly, a worrying green pallor on his skin. ‘She stopped it. Madrona stopped it.’

  A wave of relief flooded through me. It was over. Whoever she was – and whatever she was – Madrona had done what was needed and all the crazy shenanigans of the last few days would finally come to an end. The strange blue light that had exploded over the sky must have had something to do with it. I breathed out.

  But something still wasn’t making sense. I squinted out at the street then returned my gaze to Monroe’s crumpled form. ‘Then where is she? Does she know you’re here?’

  ‘She’s … gone,’ he croaked.

  I frowned. ‘Gone where?’

  His eyeballs rolled back into his skull and his head fell to the side as he lost consciousness again. I cursed, even though it was probably for the best given the state he was in.

  If Monroe was right about this end of the end-of-the-world business, at least the rest of us could relax. We weren’t all going to die. I sent a quick, silent prayer of gratitude to whoever might be listening and returned to cleaning up my patient as best as I could.

  When Cath returned, balancing several bandages and a bottle of antiseptic, she wasn’t alone. Lizzy was with her, her eyes clear but her face pale. I guessed she’d sobered up.

  When her gaze landed on Monroe, she let out a sharp cry. ‘It’s true then,’ she gasped.

  Watching Lizzy carefully, I got to my feet and took some gauze and bandages from Cath. ‘What’s true?’

  ‘I thought it was a dream. I thought maybe I’d imagined it, even though I can feel it here.’ She touched her chest.

  ‘Lizzy, tell me what it is. What’s true? What can you feel?’

  ‘The werewolves. They’re all dead.’ Her eyes turned glassy. ‘I don’t know how I know it but I do.’

  I sucked in a breath and glanced at Monroe. His chest was rising and falling but he remained comatose. ‘That’s why he’s here and why he’s alone,’ I half whispered. ‘The poor bastard.’

  I knelt down beside him again and poured a small amount of antiseptic out to start working on the worst of his wounds. He didn’t so much as flinch.

  ‘Help me out, Lizzy,’ I said. ‘We’ve got to clean him up as best as we can. There’s no one else who can help him.’

  ‘We’re going to need more than a few fucking plasters, Charley!’

  I paused and gave her a level look. ‘I’m open to suggestions.’

  Cath nervously put her hand up in the air.

  ‘We’re not in school,’ I told her. ‘You can speak.’

  ‘If you have a needle and thread,’ she said, ‘we can stitch him up. That should help.’

  Lizzy nodded. ‘I’ve got an old sewing kit.’

  I shrugged. ‘It’ll have to do.’

  Cath put her hand up again. ‘Um, did you say there were werewolves?’ she asked in a tiny voice.

  Lizzy and I exchanged looks. ‘Yeah.’

  ‘And is he a werewolf?’

  I licked my lips. ‘Yeah.’

  She eyed M
onroe for a moment. ‘Cool.’

  ‘I’ll go and get that sewing kit,’ Lizzy said faintly.

  I ran a hand through my hair. ‘Good plan.’

  ***

  Sewing up wounds on television looks so easy. Then again, those doctors and nurses have usually got proper surgical thread; all we had was a choice between bright pink or neon orange cotton. Even after sterilising the needles with boiling water and making sure Monroe’s wounds were properly clean, it still felt like we were playing doctors and endangering his life. It didn’t help when both Lizzy and I twice ripped through his skin and made matters worse rather than better. She had to stop twice to retch. I breathed through my nose and kept going, but it was still a close-run thing.

  It was only thanks to Cath’s presence that we managed to finish and that Monroe didn’t end up looking like a warped version of Frankenstein’s monster. Her stitches were neat and did what they were supposed to; my attempts were akin to those of a three year old on a fizzy-drink binge.

  ‘You’ve done this sort of thing before,’ I said, once we’d finished. She didn’t look a day older than seventeen. ‘Are you like Dougie Howser?’

  Cath leaned back on her haunches. ‘Who?’ she asked blankly. ‘I don’t know who that is. I’ve always wanted to be a doctor. I saw a dead body once and I was itching to see what was inside. I’ve practised doing stitches on oranges. It’s not much fun when there’s no actual gore to worry about, though. Not very realistic.’

  Lizzy, who was still looking somewhat green about the gills, muttered to herself, ‘Blood oranges. Betcha.’

  I smiled slightly. ‘Well, it makes you a handy person to have around, Cath. I still don’t know how you got mixed up with Max, but you’re very welcome to stay here with us if you want. Or we can find a way to get you out of the city and back to your family.’

  Cath’s expression closed off. ‘I don’t have any family.’ She drew her shoulders back and glared, as if expecting me to castigate her for losing them. When I reached over and squeezed her arm, she softened. ‘I’d like to stay here if I may.’

  ‘The more the merrier.’ I shrugged. ‘Before he passed out, Monroe said that this Madrona had stopped the apocalypse from happening. Maybe everything’s going to be alright now.’

  Lizzy twitched uncomfortably and scratched her side. ‘It doesn’t feel like everything’s going to be alright.’ She lifted up her T-shirt, revealing a patch of downy fur.

  I stiffened. ‘Are you…?’

  She shook her head. ‘I think I’ve got it under control for now. But I still feel prickly.’

  ‘Like the magic is still there.’

  She nodded.

  I sighed. ‘I feel the same.’

  Cath stared at her. ‘Are you a werewolf too?’

  ‘Not exactly.’

  She looked at me. ‘Are you a werewolf?’

  ‘I’m a normal human,’ I assured her. I sighed. ‘But, yeah, no matter what Monroe said, it does feel like nothing’s changed much. And the blue hue is really weird.’

  This time it was Lizzy’s turn to stare. ‘What blue hue?’

  ‘Go outside and have a look,’ I said. ‘It’s like everything has a blue veil over it.’

  She frowned and stood up, before going to peer out of the window. ‘I can’t see anything.’

  Cath joined her. ‘Neither can I. I didn’t notice anything like that when I was outside either. There was a flash of blue when we were running away from the supermarket, but it didn’t last long.’

  ‘You’re not looking properly.’ I pointed. ‘Check the moon. It’s not white. It’s more like … cerulean. You can see the colour clinging to the buildings as well, like some kind of fog.’ Neither of them said anything. ‘Come on!’ I urged. ‘You must be able to see it.’

  ‘No,’ Cath said. ‘I can’t see a thing.’

  ‘Me neither,’ Lizzy added. She chewed on her bottom lip. ‘Think about everything that’s happened, Charley. I don’t think you’re a normal human being at all. You’re really strong.’

  ‘You made everyone in the supermarket collapse,’ Cath agreed.

  ‘Not to mention that the rats avoided you, and the fire missed the house, and you stopped the trees from growing by shouting at them.’

  ‘It was that weird magical doodah thing that Madrona the faery planted on me,’ I argued. I didn’t put much force into my words, however. They were right: I was different now. I knew I was different. In the same way that Lizzy had instinctively known that the other werewolves had been killed, I knew that something fundamental had altered inside me. The question was what.

  I looked at the blue veil shrouding the night.

  ‘I met a dragon,’ I said hesitantly. ‘An actual honest-to-goodness, size-of-a-house, flying dragon.’

  ‘You realise that under any other circumstances, I’d be calling the men in white coats?’ Lizzy pointed out.

  I grinned slightly. ‘Yeah. Kinda nuts, huh? I think he was flying off to fight with Madrona. And probably with Monroe, too. He headed over to Castlefield. Maybe if I can find the dragon, I can get some answers.’ I glanced at the half-dead werewolf. ‘Until Monroe comes round, we’ve got no other way of finding out what’s happened. He said that Madrona had gone but I don’t know where.’ I shrugged. ‘Knowledge is power.’

  Lizzy wrinkled her nose. ‘Seems kinda risky to head out again.’

  My grin widened and my eyes danced. ‘It does, doesn’t it? But this is my kind of risk.’

  Chapter Eleven

  Despite my blasé words, I was rather nervous when I stepped out of the house again. I’d left Cath and Lizzy behind to put away our fresh supplies and keep an eye on Monroe, who hadn’t stirred since his stilted conversation with me. I’d swung a backpack over my shoulder after stuffing a bottle of water and a handful of muesli bars inside it. It was hardly the breakfast of champions, but it would do for now. Goodness knows how long I’d be out for. It was important to be at least semi-prepared.

  In the cold, harsh light of day, the city looked completely desolate. I might have managed to halt the crazy growth of the trees on my street but, without the cover of darkness I’d previously enjoyed, it was easy to see where warped Nature had taken over. There were houses with monstrous trees growing out of their roofs. The roads and pavements had massive fissures and gaping holes where gigantic roots had forced their way through. There were burst pipes, water gushing from some and sewage gurgling from others. The reek was so bad that I had to cover my mouth and nose with my hand.

  Of course, the trees weren’t the only things that had caused damage. The carcasses of thousands of dead locusts littered the streets and angry black pockmarks from the destructive fire rain were visible everywhere.

  Apart from the odd bird keening overhead and the occasional whirr of an army helicopter, there were no sounds. I supposed that was a good thing: it meant that Max and his army of spotty teenagers were far away. No doubt they were busy raiding other supermarkets and wholesalers. I pursed my lips. Once things returned to normal, he was not going to be cast in a favourable light. He’d get his comeuppance; I’d make sure of it.

  I was tempted to return to the supermarket to retrieve my neighbour’s bike but I didn’t want to bump into Max again if I could help it. I did, however, go into a nearby restaurant and divest of them of the loose cash in their abandoned till so that I could pay Max the money I owed him. It felt like it would be a futile gesture but it might help stave off any further conflict. I scribbled a note, including my name and currently defunct phone number, and left it by the cash register. I wasn’t really stealing their money, I was simply borrowing it. It wasn’t as if the restaurant owners were there to claim their takings.

  Once that little task was taken care of, I made a beeline for Castlefield – or went as directly as I could considering the small fires, blocked streets and abandoned cars that were in my way.

  It was already mid-morning by the time I reached the old Manchester suburb. Given the devastati
on I’d already seen, I thought I was prepared for whatever sights Castlefield would offer. What greeted my eyes was a scene far worse than my most vivid nightmares could have conjured up.

  ‘This can’t be happening,’ I whispered, gazing round in horror. The remnants of the old Roman fort that had stood here for centuries were still there – mostly. The usually perfectly manicured grass in front of them was blackened and scorched, with several large gouges scarring it as if Godzilla himself had indeed appeared and attacked the ground. A strange scent clung to the air, a mixture of blood and death and something indefinable that made my nostrils tickle.

  At one side, lying belly up, was a naked male corpse.

  With trepidation curling all the way down to my toes, I edged over to it. There was something strangely familiar about his slack face. I stared for a long moment, before realisation finally dawned.

  It was the eyes that I recognised. They might have been glazed and fixed open but they were definitely the same ones, on a far smaller scale, that had gazed at me from the dragon. There was no doubt in my mind that this was Liung, but he was no longer a dragon. And he was definitely dead.

  My stomach heaved and I only managed to turn away before I threw up.

  I was backing away, still feeling horribly queasy, when a flicker of movement in the trees caught my eye. I stiffened. What fresh new hell was this going to be? I squared my shoulders. I wasn’t running. No chance. I swerved round Liung’s body and stomped forward.

  I wasn’t sure what I expected, but it wasn’t two women carrying the limp body of a wolf. One of them, an older blonde lady who looked oddly familiar, was holding the wolf’s head while the other, a younger woman, held his legs. Both of them had blank, frozen features that twisted my heart.

  If the situation hadn’t been so serious, the way they both stopped and stared when they caught sight of me would have been comical. When it became clear that neither of them was going to speak, I drew closer.

  My eyes flicked down to the corpse of the wolf. It didn’t take a genius to work out that this one of Monroe’s werewolves. An odd, proprietary sensation came over me. I doubted Monroe would be happy at these two messing with the bodies of his men.