Shrill Dusk (City of Magic Book 1)

by Helen Harper

I opened my mouth to answer but, before I could, there was a howl of rage. I tilted my head and spotted the canal monster dropping the Jeep in a crumpled heap onto the bridge. I couldn’t say for sure because I hadn’t met any creatures like this one before, but it seemed to have a look of absolute disgust on its face.

  It crashed back down into the canal again, disappearing under the water apart from a single tentacle that remained raised for a brief moment in what I supposed was the slimy monster’s equivalent of giving me the middle finger.

  ‘You’ve also ruined my car,’ Monroe said, with an unamused sniff.

  I got to my feet, shuddering as I picked off what appeared to be a discarded condom. ‘It’s not yours,’ I reminded him. ‘We borrowed it.’

  A shape flew towards me. I held up my hands to ward off whatever new threat this was. I was too late.

  ‘Thank you,’ gasped an unfamiliar male voice, attacking me with a tight hug. ‘Thank you so much.’ The man pulled back, his hands cupping my face. He looked to be in his late fifties, with the sort of friendly features that should be cradling grandchildren, not soaking-wet, blue-haired women like me.

  Unfortunately for both of us, his skin was covered in a thin film that might have been river gunk but was probably monster saliva. That meant I was covered in it too. Ugh.

  ‘You’re amazing,’ he said.

  ‘It was nothing,’ I managed.

  Monroe snorted. ‘Can we please get a move on?’

  I ignored him. ‘Do you have somewhere to stay?’ I asked the man. ‘Somewhere safe to go?’

  ‘Oh yes.’ He nodded enthusiastically. ‘I have a room booked at a Travotel.’

  I stared at him. Maybe he’d been living in the canal for the last few days. There was no way any Travotels remained open. Who on earth needed a hotel room? If you didn’t live here, why would you stay?

  ‘You’re looking at me as if I’m crazy,’ the man said. ‘My house was burnt to the ground when the sky threw fire down on us. A lovely man called Mike Timmons offered me a room for free at his Travotel.’ He tapped the side of his nose.

  Monroe rolled his eyes and stalked away, his hands in his pockets.

  ‘Mr Timmons is the hotel manager, so he can do that sort of thing,’ the man burbled. ‘He’s really lovely. Very kind. Handsome, too. He’s got the greenest eyes you’ve ever seen. They’re pure emerald. It’s extraordinary.’

  Monroe froze and slowly turned around. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I’m staying at a Travotel.’ He beamed. ‘For free.’

  I didn’t manage to react quickly enough. Blame it on almost being drowned. Monroe lunged for the poor man, grabbed him by his sodden lapels and lifted him up into the air threateningly. ‘The manager,’ he growled. ‘Who is the Travotel manager?’

  You’d think that being half eaten and half drowned by a gigantic slime monster had been more than enough to terrify the poor man for a lifetime. With Monroe snarling at him with a face suffused with scorching red anger, the man shrank into himself and started shaking.

  ‘Timmons,’ he gasped. ‘Mike Timmons.’

  ‘Monroe,’ I said sharply. ‘Let him go!’

  ‘If this Timmons has got green eyes then—’

  ‘Then,’ I interrupted, ‘he might have interesting genes. Every person in the world with green eyes can’t be a faery.’

  ‘What the fuck would you know about it?’

  I shrugged. ‘Simple statistics. It’s not possible.’

  ‘F…f…faery?’ stammered the man. ‘But he’s a guy. He’s normal.’

  Monroe vibrated with fury. ‘I doubt that very much. Which Travotel?’

  The man swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing around alarmingly fashion. ‘City centre,’ he croaked. Monroe released him, and he dropped to the ground in a heap.

  Monroe spun round and sprinted back towards the bridge – and the Jeep. Shit.

  ‘Sorry,’ I apologised. ‘He’s having a bad week.’

  ‘Aren’t we all?’

  I didn’t have anything sensible to say so I simply patted the monster’s victim on the arm then took off after the insane werewolf.

  Chapter Sixteen

  ‘The fucking Jeep,’ Monroe took aim at it with his foot, ‘is fucking destroyed.’

  It did look rather like it had been in a multiple-vehicle pile-up. Or grasped between the jaws of a monster. ‘So we find another vehicle,’ I said calmly. ‘It shouldn’t be hard.’

  Monroe set his jaw. ‘You’re right.’ He turned his head, spotting a tiny Fiat packed to the brim with army-approved supplies that was leaving the football stadium and veering right towards us.

  In one explosive movement, Monroe transformed from blue-eyed poster boy to snarling wolf. It happened so quickly that I leapt backwards by about three feet. The Fiat slammed on its brakes and the three wide-eyed people who were piled on top of each other on the front seat started to scream.

  Great. This was great.

  I didn’t particularly want to face down Monroe’s wolf form in this sort of situation; I didn’t understand enough about what happened to Monroe the man when he turned. Lizzy had said she’d lost herself when she’d been a bunyip. If Monroe was more animal than human right now, I was literally throwing myself to the wolves. Unfortunately, he wasn’t leaving me with much choice.

  I jumped back into the fray, standing between Monroe and the car. ‘Stop that,’ I said sternly. ‘These poor people have been through enough. There are abandoned cars everywhere. We don’t need to take this one.’

  Monroe bared his teeth at me, pulling his lips back over his gums.

  I put my hands on my hips. ‘Is that supposed to scare me?’

  The driver of the Fiat, seeing her chance, put the car into reverse. The tyres squealed as the car shot backwards and away. Monroe’s muscles bunched up; for a second, I was sure he was going to spring after them. Then he shook himself, his long fur rippling. I blinked and once again the man stood in front of me.

  Naked. Of course.

  ‘You are a most infuriating woman.’

  I cocked my head at him. ‘Try and say that again without sounding patronising.’ I paused. ‘Aren’t you cold?’

  ‘Aren’t you? You’re the one who’s dripping wet.’ He raised his eyebrows suggestively. ‘Maybe in more ways than one.’

  I’d have been offended if I hadn’t been relieved firstly that he wasn’t tearing apart the departed Fiat, and secondly that he was displaying a flash of his former arrogant self. ‘I have a fine coating of monster saliva to insulate me,’ I said blithely. Then I shivered.

  ‘We need clothes,’ Monroe told me. ‘And a new car.’ He stalked back towards the stadium. ‘Come on.’

  I stared after him for a brief moment. Be thankful for what you’ve got, Charley, I told myself.

  I jogged off after him.

  ***

  Our new vehicle was a brick-red Smart car; it matched the Manchester United tops we had snagged from the team shop perfectly. Although it was a squeeze getting all of our supplies from the ruined Jeep to fit inside, the car was small enough to navigate the destroyed streets. Monroe gunned the engine and swerved round corners and obstacles as if we were in a Ferrari. The man was a law unto himself.

  ‘Turn right here,’ I instructed when we reached the crossroads that would lead us back home.

  He immediately turned left.

  ‘I said right.’

  ‘I heard you the first time. We’re not going back to your place yet.’

  I sighed. ‘The Travotel.’

  Monroe didn’t answer.

  ‘As I already said, because there’s a man left in the city who’s got green eyes—’

  ‘He’s a faery. This Timmons has to be a faery. It’s too much of a coincidence otherwise.’

  I grabbed the armrest to avoid being squashed against the door as Monroe slammed round another corner and sped up. ‘But I thought the perceived wisdom was that all the faeries had gone. You have to be prepared for the fact
that this guy is like the rest of us.’

  ‘A werewolf and a strange magic-wielder?’ he enquired.

  ‘Enchantress,’ I answered primly.

  ‘Whatever. Look,’ he said. ‘All the faeries who were at Castlefield vanished. I assume they returned to their homeland and left us to deal with the mess they’d created. It’s entirely possible, however, that any of them who weren’t at the final showdown weren’t included in the big send off. Mike Timmons is one of them. I know it. I can feel it.’

  I licked my lips. ‘If he is, what exactly are you going to do?’

  Monroe didn’t answer.

  ‘Jodie, Julie and Lizzy are out there,’ I reminded him. ‘We have to make the rendezvous with them or they’ll think something has gone drastically wrong.’

  ‘We’ve still got plenty of time.’

  ‘But…’

  ‘Please, Charlotte,’ Monroe said, in a tired voice. ‘Let me do this. I have to do this. I owe it to my pack to do this.’

  He was going to bulldoze his way in and threaten this Timmons bloke whether he had my permission or not. I’d have to hope that he managed to remain calm and didn’t rip the guy from limb to limb. Sadly, the odds were not in my favour. ‘Okay,’ I murmured. ‘But call me Charley. Only my brother called me Charlotte.’

  Monroe’s fingers tightened momentarily on the steering wheel. ‘You suit Charlotte.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I don’t.’ And that, I decided, was the end to the conversation.

  ***

  Despite Monroe’s best efforts, we couldn’t drive directly to the hotel. The closer we got to the city centre, the more cars blocked the roads. Every street was littered with abandoned vehicles. I could only imagine that the people here had tried to evacuate, got snarled up in their own traffic and boarded the army-issued buses instead to get themselves to safety. That was all very well for them, but it didn’t help our cause. Even the pavements were filled with cars.

  Monroe got as close as he could then stopped the car and pulled out the keys.

  ‘Leaving all these supplies here probably isn’t a good idea,’ I said.

  He grunted. ‘That didn’t bother you when you ran off to rescue that foolish drowning man.’

  ‘He wasn’t drowning, he was being eaten. And anyway, that was different.’

  ‘Was it?’ he asked softly. He didn’t wait for an answer but simply left the car and started walking instead.

  I got out and followed him. Soon both of us were forced to climb on top of car roofs and slide across them. It was far easier than trying to squeeze through the gaps left by the abandoned vehicles.

  This was quite possibly the most chilling sight I’d seen so far. From one end of the street to the other there weren’t any other people. Many of the shops had smashed windows where looters had attempted to steal things that they usually couldn’t afford. I couldn’t imagine what use a widescreen television or a state-of-the-art laptop could have now, but God loves a trier.

  If I hadn’t appreciated how deserted and eerie Manchester had become in the last two days, I was certainly learning now. The normally bustling city centre was dead; it was a genuine ghost town. Given what else had reared its ugly head, I hoped we wouldn’t have any real ghosts to deal with too.

  ‘We could have given him a lift,’ I called ahead, suddenly desperate to fill the burgeoning silence. My voice echoed down the empty street. ‘The man, I mean. If he’s carrying supplies back here, it’s not going to be easy for him.’

  ‘Don’t you think you did enough for him by saving his sorry arse?’ Monroe muttered. He jumped from the roof of a shiny brand-new BMW to the roof of a dilapidated twenty-year-old Nissan. The apocalypse apparently didn’t care about income brackets; here, everyone was equal.

  ‘I’m just saying.’ I slid down a windscreen, getting my football shirt snagged on a sharp metallic corner. By the time I’d untangled myself and caught up with Monroe, the Travotel was in sight.

  ‘He’s definitely a faery,’ Monroe said, pausing to look over the silent building.

  I glanced up and down its beige façade. There were no signs of life but it appeared untouched by fire, locusts or crazy tree roots. Then again, you could say the same about my house.

  ‘There’s no still no evidence of that.’

  Monroe sent me a narrow-eyed look of scepticism before marching off to the hotel entrance. Part of me hoped we’d find it locked up and nobody home. Unfortunately, the door opened easily.

  Outside, the lingering smell was of rot, decay and the end of things; inside there was the fragrance of cut roses, as if here life continued untouched. It was also spick and span, with a gleaming marble floor and tidy piles of newspapers from Tuesday. I flicked a look at the headlines. Manchester Madness! screamed one. Run For Your Lives shouted another. I suppressed the shudder that ran down my spine and ignored the look of triumph that Monroe sent me, as if a winged faery had appeared in a rainbow directly in front of us.

  ‘Still no real evidence,’ I murmured.

  Monroe snorted and strode up to the empty reception desk, slamming his hand – unnecessarily, I thought – onto the bell that was sitting there.

  A moment later, a man ambled out from a door to the side. He did indeed possess a set of startlingly green eyes, but that wasn’t what really surprised me about him. He had a pleasant, amiable expression and was wearing a neat grey suit complete with a name tag that stated that he was Michael Timmons. He positioned himself behind the reception desk with a cheery hello. He looked for all the world like a mild-mannered hotel manager, rather than someone who’d found themselves in the middle of a localised apocalypse in a near-deserted city that was under a barrage of magical interference.

  Clapping his hands together, he beamed at us. ‘Welcome to my humble hotel,’ he intoned. ‘Despite the unfortunate nature of current events, we do indeed remain open for business. Are you looking for a double room or two singles?’

  A growl emanated from deep in Monroe’s chest. ‘The unfortunate nature of current events?’ he spat. ‘You say that as if you and your kind are not wholly responsible for them.’

  If there had been any doubt remaining as to Timmons’ ethnicity, the ashen look that suddenly spread across his face was enough to dispel it. He coughed and cleared his throat. ‘P...pardon?’

  ‘You heard me.’ Monroe reached across the desk and grabbed Timmons’ arm. ‘You’re a faery.’

  Timmons didn’t try to pull away. ‘I…’ He straightened his shoulders and a defiant look came into his eyes. ‘I am. What of it?’

  I had the distinct impression that Monroe was about to implode right in front of my eyes. I hastily stepped forward, keeping my voice calm and even in a bid to prevent the situation escalating. ‘It appears,’ I said carefully, ‘that faeries are responsible for what has occurred across Manchester. You know,’ I added, in case the man was a complete idiot, ‘the apocalypse.’

  Timmons chuckled nervously. ‘It’s hardly an apocalypse. We’re all still here.’

  It was definitely the wrong thing to say. Monroe snapped, leaping over the desk and slamming Timmons against the wall, causing several framed certificates to wobble, fall and smash on the floor. ‘We are not all still here. People have died,’ he snarled.

  Uh-oh. This was not going well. ‘Monroe,’ I said. ‘Release Mr Timmons.’

  ‘Why are you still here?’ Monroe demanded, ignoring me completely. ‘Are there other faeries left in the city?’

  Timmons choked. ‘I can’t very well answer you like this,’ he whispered. ‘Let me go and I’ll tell you what I can.’

  I leaned over the desk and gently touched Monroe’s shoulder. ‘Mr Timmons is not going anywhere. We won’t let him. Let him go so he can talk properly.’

  I could see how much Monroe was struggling. A desperate part of him wanted to rip out the faery’s throat, but in the end he did as I asked and released him. Timmons fell to the ground with a thump. Monroe stood over him, his hands on his hips. ‘Go on
then,’ he spat. ‘Talk.’

  Timmons stood up and pointed with a shaking finger to some comfy chairs and a low table. ‘There.’

  Monroe let out a curt nod and followed him, all but stepping on his heels, as if at any minute Timmons was going to disappear in a puff of green smoke. We sat down. I could guarantee that none of us were even remotely comfortable.

  ‘The initial … troubles began,’ Timmons said, ‘because of a build up of magic in the atmosphere.’

  ‘Caused by you.’

  ‘Not me,’ he protested.

  ‘Caused by faeries.’

  Timmons shook his head. ‘We’re not the only magical beings in this demesne. There are others.’

  Monroe’s eyes flashed. ‘Caused mostly by faeries.’

  The hotel manager looked away. ‘Okay,’ he conceded, ‘caused mostly by us. But we also solved the problem.’

  Monroe folded his arms. ‘Let me guess. You banded together with the werewolves, sent the worst of the magic down an old wishing well, fought off the evil bad faery who was threatening to destroy the world, and then most of you pissed off back home.’

  ‘Uh…’ Timmons blinked. ‘How do you know all that? And if you know, why are asking me?’

  ‘Because I’m one of those werewolves,’ Monroe snapped. ‘The only werewolf left standing after we fought your battle for you.’

  Timmons looked as if he wished the earth would open up and swallow him. Given recent events, it wouldn’t have been altogether surprising – though it would have been rather inconvenient. At least, I acknowledged, Timmons wasn’t lying or avoiding the hard truth. ‘I’m sorry. That’s not what any of us wanted. Truly,’ he said.

  He seemed sincere. I tilted my head and watched him. ‘How many faeries are left in Manchester?’ I asked.

  He swallowed. ‘I think I’m the only one. There was a magical sphere. As far as I can tell, its power was triggered. It was supposed to send all the faeries back to Mag Mell, our own demesne, but it was also supposed to end this one for good. I don’t know why that didn’t happen but I can assure you I’m very glad it didn’t. And the other faeries will be too.’

  ‘The end of the world didn’t happen,’ Monroe growled, ‘because that insane faery Madrona swallowed the sphere.’