by Helen Harper
I rolled my eyes. ‘I didn’t want to worry you unnecessarily. Besides, I’m not the only one keeping secrets around here. Are you ever going to tell us what happened between you and Fab?’
‘Nothing happened. Stop changing the subject.’
‘Julie…’
Her lips pursed. ‘Just because I used to live in the public eye doesn’t mean that everything I did was for public consumption. As I’m sure I’ve already said, he won’t remember me. And my opinion of Fabian Barrett has absolutely no bearing on whatever else is going on here.’
Suddenly I knew exactly what had happened. The little hints about her dislike of him, coupled with her desire not to talk about it, should have made it obvious. ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘I get it. Okay.’
Lizzy frowned. ‘I don’t get it. What are you talking about?’
I waved a hand. ‘It’s not important.’
‘If it’s not important then you can tell me about it.’
‘But…’
Julie tutted. ‘For goodness’ sake. My old friends were never this tiresome.’
‘Your old friends,’ Lizzy pointed out, ‘didn’t know that you drank blood or that you’re over two hundred years old.’
‘They would have been jealous.’ Julie took another long gulp of her alleged water. ‘But fine.’ She sighed. ‘If you must keep insisting then I’ll tell you. I met Fabian Barrett at a cocktail party a few years ago. He was about my age in appearance – and as far as he knew. I was under the impression that it might do both of our reputations some good to be seen in public together. I’ve often had little dalliances with such men. It passes the nights rather pleasantly and it keeps my name in the gossip rags. I suggested as much to him in a quiet corner.’
‘You don’t have to talk about this, Julie.’
She looked at me. ‘Now I’ve started I may as well finish. He laughed in my face. He told me he’d never be seen out with such an old hag. He could do far better than a mere soap actress, and he certainly wouldn’t go near one with saggy tits and more wrinkles than a Sharpei.’
Although it was what I’d been expecting, the cruelty in the details left me stunned. ‘What a fucking wanker.’
‘My thoughts exactly, darling. First of all, I’m not merely a soap actress, I’m virtually a national treasure. I don’t have wrinkles and my breasts are incredibly pert.’ Her mouth tightened. It was clear that despite her protests, Fab’s words still rankled.
The look of horrified incredulity on Lizzy’s face was matched only by her tone. ‘He can’t get away with that. To treat you like that? And talk to you that way? You should confront him. Publicly. Remind him what he said to you and show everyone else that, billionaire saviour or not, he’s a tosser.’
Julie’s hands tightened around her little hip flask until her knuckles were white. ‘You’re forgetting how long it’s taken me to get people to stop treating me like I’m carrying the plague. There are still plenty of vampires out there who hate me for being an actress on television. And there are plenty of humans who despise me for almost causing the end of the world. No one’s going to care that Fabian Barrett was once mean to me, they’ll think that his instincts were spot on. What he said to me doesn’t mean his intentions in coming here aren’t genuine.’ She gestured at me. ‘As you’ve discovered, Charley, he’s here to help. There’s nothing I can say or do to stop that. I’ll simply stay away from the man and let him be the hero everyone wants him to be.’
Lizzy grimaced. ‘Well, for what it’s worth, I’m not going to forget that he was a prick.’
Julie smiled. ‘That’s kind of you.’
Lizzy nodded and strode away. Her anger was evident in her bulging spine as she fought to regain control of her animal. I might not be able to shapeshift but I felt something similar and I clenched and unclenched my fists as Julie and I walked in silence towards the barricade.
Just before she peeled away to head into the Blood and Bones, I paused and stretched out my fingers, cracking my knuckles. ‘So what are you really going to do?’ I asked.
‘I have no idea what you mean, darling.’
I looked at her. ‘I know you. You’ll get your revenge on him one way or another. What are you planning?’
She smiled faintly. ‘Nothing concrete yet.’ She leaned in. ‘But believe me, Charley, it will be spectacular.’ And with that, she whirled away.
***
I normally prided myself on being able to maintain an effective poker face. Given what I’d learned inside Fab’s tent, it should have been easy but the humiliation he’d doled out to Julie, even if it was in the past, was making it hard for me to smile at him.
‘It’s quite extraordinary what you’ve all achieved,’ he said. ‘You should be very proud of yourselves. You don’t have strangers visiting the city any more and yet you still have a working hotel. With clean sheets.’
I wondered what he’d been expecting. Urine-stained linen, perhaps? ‘Yes. Timmons has always done an excellent job of maintaining the hotel. If only his head office knew.’
‘Oh, have no fear on that score. I will make sure they are informed. The Chief Executive of Travotel will listen to me.’
The assured self-confidence in his voice made me want to gag. ‘You have a lot of friends in high places.’
He nodded. ‘Most certainly.’ He met my eyes. ‘I’m Fab Barrett. It might sound cocky but I don’t believe in modesty for modesty’s sake. I’ve worked hard to get where I am. It’s because of that, in fact, that I’m in a position to help all of you out.’
Monroe strode up, placing a possessive arm round my waist. I made more of it than I should have done, leaning into him. ‘How are you going to help us?’ I asked. With any luck, this was where Fab would tell us that he’d leave immediately with his guards and hazmat suits and tent in tow, arrange for supplies to be sent in to us and then never darken our door again. Given what I knew of Julie, it would probably be his safest option.
‘I’m leaving straight away,’ he said.
My insides did a happy little dance. And we all lived happily ever after. ‘Are you? That’s a shame.’
‘Oh, don’t worry, Charley,’ he said. ‘I’ll be back soon enough.’
Damn it.
Monroe raised his eyebrows. ‘Oh?’
Fab’s expression grew serious. ‘You’ve all been very kind. And I meant it when I said that you’ve done a fantastic job with your community. You’re doing everything you can to make this enclave sustainable for the future – but we all know it’s not enough. Even with rationing, your supplies are running out at a tremendous pace. Before coming here I’d thought that I would sweep you all up and rescue you by taking you out of Manchester. Now I know that you don’t want to leave but, if you don’t get what you need, starvation will eventually force you out. I don’t want that to happen. I’m on your side and I’m going to help you. I will get hold of the immediate supplies you require.’ He reached out and patted me on the shoulder. ‘You’ll never have to worry again.’
I breathed out. Regardless of how he’d treated Julie, and some of his stranger comments over the last day or two, he was giving us what we wanted. No: he was giving us what we needed. I should be feeling happier – but I couldn’t shake off my feelings of mistrust.
‘That’s so very generous,’ I said. ‘You’re fab, Fab.’
He smiled in acknowledgment. ‘I do what I can.’
I scratched my head. ‘But won’t you be placed in quarantine when you leave? And prevented from returning?’
He gestured at himself. ‘I told you before. The suits mean that we’re safe.’ He laughed. ‘Although I have to admit that I’ll be glad when I can take it off for good. We’ve been able to strip down when we’re in the tent, but that’s only for a few hours. These things are remarkably cumbersome. Still,’ he smiled sadly, ‘it means we’ve been protected from the magic. I wish I could say the same for all of you.’
I tried not to tense too obviously but it wasn’t easy. I was absolute
ly certain that he was talking out his arse about the long-term effects of the magic; it was making us stronger, not weaker. Any idiot could see that. Maybe that was it; maybe what bugged me about him was that he was simply an idiot. I couldn’t blame him for that. Not really.
Fab continued. ‘I heard that there was a rat issue. Thank goodness you were able to help out. That could have been nasty.’ He smiled again. ‘I also heard that it was that soap actress, Julie Chivers, who was attacked. I wondered if she was here. She’s been missing since the Plague began and a lot of people on the outside have been worried about her. I met her once, in fact. She’s a lovely lady. A bit self-obsessed, perhaps, and prone to tall tales and exaggeration. But nice, nonetheless.’
‘I couldn’t say,’ I said, itching to slap him hard. ‘I don’t know her very well.’
‘I don’t suppose there’s much call for famous actresses in Manchester these days.’ Fab’s expression was benign. Bastard. ‘In any case, I shouldn’t be gone for long. Two days, or perhaps three at the most. It will depend on how much time it takes to get the supplies together.’
‘We’re very grateful for everything that you’re doing.’ Monroe said before nudging me.
I coughed. ‘Yes. Very grateful. Thank you so much.’
Fab bowed. ‘It’s the very least I can do.’
***
‘I’m not sure that I’ve seen you this angry since the days of Albert the psychotic manipulator,’ Monroe remarked.
‘When we first met,’ I told him, ‘you were arrogant and wankerish.’
Monroe pulled away. ‘Wankerish?’
I nodded my head. ‘It’s a word.’
‘Says who?’
‘Me.’ I tucked a stray blue curl behind my ear. ‘You were arrogant and wankerish. But you weren’t nasty.’
Monroe’s face was a mask. ‘What exactly are you getting at, Charlotte?’
‘Fab was nasty to Julie. Unnecessarily nasty.’ I told him what had happened between them.
‘That was a horrible thing to do,’ he agreed. ‘But you can’t take a snapshot of one moment in a person’s life and judge them from it. If you do, Julie is the person who almost ended the entire world. I’m the person who led a werewolf pack to their death.’ He hesitated.
I filled in the gap for him. ‘I’m the person whose little brother burned to death while I was kissing a boy.’ I nodded. ‘I hear what you’re saying. But all those incidents were out of our control in some way. They weren’t deliberately nasty.’
Monroe’s eyes met mine. ‘Are you telling me you’ve never had a bad day and said something horrible to someone for no reason other than the shit that was going on in your own head?’
I looked away. ‘Not that horrible. And you’d better not be excusing his behaviour.’
‘I’m not. If it were up to me, we’d already have thrown Fab out on his ear. But…’
I sighed. There was always a but. ‘But we still need him,’ I finished.
Monroe nodded. ‘The smart thing to do is to tiptoe round him so we don’t piss him off. Maybe we need to accept him for who he is and what he can offer, and stop worrying about the other stuff. We have no actual proof of anything. He could be completely innocent. His mouth runs away with him but that doesn’t make him the devil.’
I swung my head slowly towards him. It was usually me who stood up for others in the face of evidence to the contrary. It was most unlike Monroe to do the same. ‘No,’ I said slowly. ‘That doesn’t make him the devil. But it does make you the devil’s advocate,’ I accused.
He flashed me a sudden, heart-stopping grin. ‘Guilty as charged.’ He squinted. ‘We have no evidence other than hearsay that Barrett is anything other than an honest man who’s actually here to help us. He’s admitted that it’s not out of the goodness of his heart but because he wants his name to go down in history. That’s doesn’t make him evil.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘And yet…’
Monroe nodded. ‘And yet even without half a building almost collapsing on top of you, and what you overheard from those guards, there’s something else about him that’s not quite right.’
I was beyond glad that we were on the same page. ‘We’re probably being ridiculously unfair to the man. I thought when he arrived that we could manipulate him into doing what we needed. Instead I can’t shake the feeling that he’s up to far more than he’s letting on and we’re the ones being played.’
Monroe leaned in and cupped my face. ‘He was perfectly amiable when we were out today, and the notes you found in his tent were nothing but kind and selfless. If he brings in the supplies that he’s promised, maybe we should let things be. He’s an eccentric billionaire. There must be all sorts of weird shit going on in his head. We’re worrying about nothing.’
My lips brushed against his. I was no longer sure whether he was trying to convince me of Fab’s innocence or I was trying to convince him. ‘There’s certainly a lot of weird shit going on in my head,’ I told him. ‘Especially when you’re this close to me. Maybe I should ask Fab to add some whipped cream to that supply list.’
‘I don’t need whipped cream,’ Monroe murmured. ‘I’ve already got the cherry.’
I grinned. ‘Come on. Let’s find Lucy and get back home. After the stress of today, you and I need a little alone time.’
Monroe’s eyes gleamed. ‘We’d better hurry.’
I took his hand, half tempted to leave Lucy on her own for another hour or two and enjoy a bit of Monroe-and-me time. It wasn’t fair to her, though; she’d played her part in getting the rats to come to us after all.
I led Monroe to the house where Julie had deposited Lucy before our rodent deception. She was curled up in the cage, fast asleep. I’d barely taken a step into the room when she opened one eye, registered my presence and bounced up to her feet, squeaking with excitement.
I beamed. ‘Hey, little one.’
‘Charlotte.’ Monroe’s voice was strained. Alarmed, I turned and immediately noticed the flickering light emanating from the television set in the corner.
My mouth dropped. This was Lucy’s doing. It had to be. It had happened with the radio and now it was happening with the television. I hadn’t seen a working television set for a year.
I inched towards it to get a better view. The last thing I wanted was to disturb either Lucy or the television signal. I stared agog at the screen.
‘It’s some sort of quiz show,’ Monroe whispered.
‘We don’t need a quiz show. We need the news.’
He gazed at the images as the quiz-show contestants beamed widely and hugged each other. I guessed they’d just won something. ‘And sound,’ he added grimly.
From the corner, Lucy continued to squeak. She kept raising her paws and clawing at the cage, rattling the metal bars. ‘Look for a remote control,’ I said. ‘I’ll keep Lucy entertained so we don’t lose the signal. It must be her excitement that’s linking to the electricity.’
For a moment Monroe didn’t move. ‘If I wasn’t seeing this for myself, I’m not sure I’d believe it.’ He shook himself. ‘Remote control.’ He spun round and started searching among the detritus of the long-since abandoned house.
I crouched down by the cage. ‘Lucy! Lucy, Lucy!’
The little shadow beast continued to jump around. I reached out with one finger and she made as if to grab it. I pulled my finger back and grinned at her then I tried it again. This game would only keep her entertained for so long.
The bare light bulb over our heads started to flicker on and off like a crazed Morse Code signal. I started on peek-a-boo, covering my face with my hands, snatching them away and cooing at Lucy. She burbled and jumped, crashing her entire body against the cage on several occasions.
‘Try the sofa,’ I said through gritted teeth. ‘Behind the cushions.’
Monroe abandoned his scrabble through a pile of old magazines and yanked the cushions away.
‘Anything?’ I asked.
He hissed. ‘Nothin
g.’ He got down on his belly and peered underneath the sofa; when I heard his sharp intake of breath, I knew he’d hit the jackpot. He stretched out one long arm and crowed when he pulled it out.
Lucy turned in his direction, hesitating. Both the overhead light and the television switched off. Fuck.
I reached between the bars of the cage once more. Lucy chirruped but she was already bored with that game. I poked her gently but she wasn’t playing ball.
‘Charlotte…’
I grimaced. ‘I know. I’ll have to take her out of the cage. If it turns on again, we won’t have long before she settles herself and the TV stops working. Be ready.’
Monroe was already back on his feet, pointing the remote at the television. ‘I’m ready.’
I swallowed and nodded, then I started to unclip the cage door.
Aware that she was moments away from freedom, Lucy began squeaking again. The light turned itself on. And the television. I heard a quiet click as Monroe tried to change the channel. I reached in for Lucy, whose excitement was now uncontainable.
Then the announcer’s voice filled the air. ‘Day 323 of the Manchester siege. There has been no word as yet from Fabian Barrett, who entered the lost city just two days ago searching for any remaining survivors. The Prime Minister is adamant that all precautions have been taken for his safety. Under no circumstances is anyone else to attempt to approach the border walls sealing Manchester from the rest of the country. Sources continue to indicate that there is only a slim chance that anyone remains alive inside the walls, but Fabian Barrett…’
Lucy nuzzled against me and sighed happily – and the television clicked off.
I tried everything. I tickled her, I held her up in the air and bounced her about, but the moment was gone. Again.
Chapter Nineteen
I was finding it hard to concentrate on what Fab was saying. He was waxing lyrical about all the things he was planning to bring in to help us. But he’d been doing the same for the past hour and, even without thinking about my various plans to get Lucy to engage with either a television or a radio again, I’d have zoned out. It didn’t seem to matter to him. As long as I kept up the pretence of listening, with occasional mmmms and hmmmms and yeahs, he thought that I was hanging on his every word.