by Helen Harper
At the sound of his voice, whatever was hiding behind the boxes jumped. There was a further rustling sound and another high-pitched squeak. I shot Monroe a warning look and edged toward the boxes. ‘Hey,’ I cooed softly.
There was another faint scuffling sound. Maybe it was a cat. Maybe the shadow beast had kept a pet. I hoped that was all it was; if it was a small human child, I didn’t know what I would do.
I tried again. ‘Hello. I’m Charley.’
Monroe rolled his eyes. ‘This is a really bad idea.’
I ignored his downbeat attitude. ‘What can you smell?’
‘Nothing.’ He shrugged. ‘I mean, nothing new. It smells the same as the monster we just killed.’
Oh. I bit my lip as I realised that I had a good idea what might be making the noise. It would explain why we’d been attacked in broad daylight by a single shadow beast. Shit. A wash of heavy guilt flooded me.
‘Monroe,’ I whispered, ‘I think we should…’
The boxes flew apart and a tiny black creature came barrelling out towards us at full speed. Monroe leapt protectively in front of me. He needn’t have bothered. The mini shadow beast came to a skidding halt in front of his feet and started to hiss. I stepped out from behind Monroe and crouched down.
The little creature puffed up to around twice its previous size and glared at me.
‘Aw,’ I said, ‘it’s only a baby!’
‘A monster baby.’ Monroe tsked. ‘Leave it alone and let’s get out of here.’
The monster baby in question jumped from side to side, abandoning its hissing in favour of squeaky growls. It raised a little paw to swipe at Monroe.
Monroe looked straight in its eyes. The tiny beast thought better of its actions and lowered its paw again.
‘We can’t abandon it,’ I said.
Monroe folded his arms. ‘You cannot be serious.’
‘We killed its mother.’
‘Its mother was trying to kill us,’ he reminded me.
I kept my eyes on the baby. ‘Only because it was trying to protect its offspring. Any mother would do the same.’
‘Charlotte…’ He sighed. ‘It might be cute now but we both know what it will grow into. And look at it. It can’t wait to attack.’
As if wanting to agree with Monroe, the little creature finally made up its mind and lunged at his leg, sinking in its teeth. Monroe yelped and shook it off, sending it flying into the pile of boxes.
‘Don’t hurt it!’ I exclaimed. I darted forward and reached down, picking it up and cradling it against my chest. Its body felt as strangely insubstantial as its parent’s had. I took care not to poke my hands too deep inside it and held it as if it were a piece of fragile bone china. The creature turned its jet-black eyes on me and let out a whimper. ‘It’s trembling,’ I said. ‘The poor thing is terrified.’
‘We can’t take it with us, Charlotte. It’s a magical, murderous beast. It’s not a kitten.’
I stroked its back. The little thing continued to whimper but I could feel its shaking starting to subside. ‘If we leave it here,’ I told him, ‘it will die.’
‘How is that a bad thing?’ he enquired.
‘Monroe!’ I scolded. ‘Everything deserves a chance at life.’
‘It will kill us in our sleep.’
It opened its little jaws and grabbed my finger then started desperately to suckle. ‘We don’t have to keep it for good,’ I said. ‘We can take it with us until we can think of a better alternative.’
‘It’s a monster. Your desire to protect others cannot possibly extend to this … this … thing.’
I gently pulled my finger out of its mouth and held it up. ‘I’m going to call it Lucifer,’ I said. ‘Lucy for short.’ I turned and glanced at Monroe.
He raised his eyes heavenward. ‘This is ridiculous.’
‘We can’t leave it here to starve.’
‘You don’t know what it eats! Apart from us, of course. It wants to eat us.’
I shrugged and gave him my best smile. ‘We’ll work something out.’
He sniffed. ‘You’ll regret this.’
I grinned. ‘Probably.’ I stroked Lucy some more and was rewarded with the tiniest purr.
Monroe ran a hand through his hair. ‘Heaven help us.’
Chapter Two
There were two people manning the shiny steel barricade to our new enclave when Monroe and I returned. Ostensibly the barricade, which had been built and re-built several times over the last months, was there to keep monsters like the shadow beast out. In truth, such creatures never attacked our homestead, such as it was, but the barricade – and the guards – made everyone feel safer.
The majority of Manchester’s surviving citizens who had decided to remain in the city following the magical apocalypse now lived here. After the threat of our homegrown serial killer, a wannabe therapist called Albert, had been extinguished, we’d finally grubbed together to stay close to each other – vampires, humans and werewolves. It wasn’t just for safety; as time had gone on, I like to think that we’d realised the benefits of living together. We learned from each other and integrated as best as we could. These days, magical Manchester was far more of a melting pot than a salad bowl.
Naturally, there remained a few lonesome figures who preferred to stay alone outside our enclave for personal reasons. The bogles chose to keep away from the rest of us, although they were opening up and gradually becoming more friendly. And there was always Timmons’ Travotel a few miles away, which catered for a few permanent guests as well as those who fancied a brief holiday.
Finding a new way to live was proving a slow process but I had no doubt that it was worth it. In theory, we only had good things to look forward to and a stable society to work with. In theory.
To my knowledge, since the main evacuations almost a year ago, no one else had voluntarily left the city. These days Manchester was surrounded by a twenty-foot steel wall, erected by the British Army in an attempt to contain the magic within. However, we still controlled the single door that led to the outside world and we could walk out if we wanted to. No one entered; no one left. If any of us did walk out that way we faced months, maybe years, of quarantine. We knew how fearful the rest of the world would be of our magic so if we left, we’d never be able to re-enter. The people on the other side of the wall would see to that.
I waved at Felicity and Theo. ‘Hey, guys,’ I said cheerfully. ‘How’s border duty?’
Felicity looked irritated. ‘Same old same old.’ She held up her clipboard in a perfunctory manner. ‘Eighteen souls have gone out. Fifteen souls have come in. Nothing else has happened.’
Theo smiled. ‘Now that’s not true,’ he chided. ‘We witnessed a highly entertaining argument between your friend Julie and the barman at the Blood and Bones. What’s his name? Carter?’
I stiffened. Julie had a tempestuous relationship with the other vampires stemming from her pre-apocalyptic career as a TV soap actress. I’d thought all that was over and things had calmed down, but with Julie you could never be entirely sure. What I did know was that her drinking had been growing out of control lately. She was more likely to be half cut on booze than not these days. Whether that was because of her guilt about what she’d done in the past or simply that her years of downing gin without consequence were catching up on her I couldn’t say for sure. Either way, her behaviour was growing more and more unpredictable.
My worried expression must have registered with Theo because his grin widened. ‘Apparently she thinks that he should be stocking sloe gin now that supplies of normal gin are starting to run out. He says that sloe gin is devil’s work, it’s his bar and he’ll stock what the hell he wants to.’
I breathed out. It was nothing serious then. That was good.
Felicity stared at me. ‘Your body is bulging rather dramatically, Charley. And what the hell is that smell?’
Monroe tutted. ‘Smell, indeed. She’s taken it upon to herself to become a monster rescuer. Sh
e’s crazy.’
‘She,’ I said pointedly, ‘is standing right here.’
This time it was Theo and Felicity’s turn to look wary. ‘You have a monster inside your jacket?’ Theo asked. ‘Charley, you know I respect you but we can’t let you come in if you’re harbouring a beastie.’
Felicity crossed her arms. ‘What he said.’
‘It’s just a baby,’ I said. ‘We killed its mother and now it’s all alone. I’m only looking after it until we can come up with a better alternative. It’s too small to hurt anyone.’
‘It hurt me,’ Monroe muttered.
I punched him lightly on the arm. ‘You’re fine. Besides, it was only a little nibble.’
‘I’ll give you a little nibble,’ he growled.
Mmm. ‘Go on then.’
Monroe’s eyes darkened with sudden desire and he leaned forward, seemingly forgetting that we were in company.
Theo cleared his throat. ‘Uh, guys?’
I let my eyes linger on Monroe for one more second, the unspoken, heady promise of later hanging between us, before I returned my attention to Theo and Felicity. ‘It’s not going to hurt anyone,’ I repeated.
‘What kind of monster is it?’ Felicity asked.
‘Shadow beast.’
She recoiled. ‘And you’ve brought it here? Fucking hell, Charley. You definitely can’t bring it in. You need to get rid of it now.’
Just then, the shadow beast in question began to wriggle. Seemingly sensing that it was the topic of conversation, it burrowed upwards until its head appeared at the top of my zipped-up jacket. Its questing nose twitched and it blinked sleepily at the pair of them.
Felicity gasped. ‘Oh. My. God.’
‘Have you ever seen anything so cute?’ Theo breathed.
I threw Monroe a triumphant look and scooped Lucy out. Felicity immediately reached forward. ‘Can I stroke him? Or is it a her?’
I shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I’ve called it Lucy, which is short for Lucifer. It covers all bases.’
Theo cocked his head. ‘Definitely a her.’
‘How do you know?’ I asked.
‘Look at those eyelashes. It has to be a girl.’
Felicity was unable to contain herself any longer. She gently took Lucy from me and held her in both hands, raising her up to look at her properly. ‘She’s so precious. And she feels so strange. Soft and squidgy and … adorable.’
Lucy, who was clearly growing more and more relaxed by the second, let out a little burble and rubbed her head against Felicity’s fingers.
Monroe remained unimpressed. ‘What happened to “you need to get rid of it now”?’
‘She’s a baby,’ Theo chided. ‘Lucy needs our help.’
‘Lucifer,’ Monroe said flatly, ‘will grow to the size of a five-storey house and will try to eat us.’
‘We can train her,’ I said confidently.
Felicity reluctantly passed her back. ‘You are going to have to be careful.’
I nodded. ‘We’ll keep her caged at night time. She won’t be roaming free around the streets. And as soon as she’s big enough to look after herself, I’ll release her back into the wilds of the city.’
‘We’ll have to report her to the others,’ Theo added. ‘Now that I’ve met her though, I don’t see how she can be a problem.’
Monroe grunted. ‘Wait until you’ve been swallowed whole. It’ll be a problem then.’
‘Twenty to one,’ I said happily. ‘Twenty to one that there are no problems with Lucy ever.’ I was lying through my teeth. The odds were more like two to one but I wasn’t about to say that to Monroe. I wasn’t a complete idiot.
***
‘So where is the beast now?’ Julian asked, looking even less impressed than Monroe.
‘I got a cage from Jodie,’ I told him. ‘She had it hanging around from the time when she was looking after that litter of hell-hound puppies we found out by Old Trafford. She’s babysitting Lucy as we speak.’ She was also feeding her tinned meat from my own meagre rations. Neither Julian nor Monroe needed to know that.
Julian rubbed his chin. ‘It might be a good thing,’ he eventually said aloud. ‘If we can tame one of the shadow beasts, we might have less trouble with the others in future.’
I brightened. ‘Exactly! Good thinking!’
‘It’s too much of a risk though, Charley. We have enough on our plates as it is.’ He grimaced. ‘Actually, we don’t have enough on our plates. That’s the problem. We can’t feed her as well as everyone else. I expect this Lucy creature to be gone by the end of the week. We can’t put others in danger, no matter how cute she might happen to be.’
‘She’s pretty cute,’ I said. He looked at me and I sighed. ‘Fine,’ I said. ‘I’ll see if I can scout out where the other shadow beasts are nesting. I can drop Lucy off with them and maybe they’ll act as surrogate parents.’
As reluctant as I felt, I knew it was for the best in the long run. I was lucky that I’d managed to persuade him to let me keep Lucy at all. Julian, one of the alpha werewolves, had an instinct for the day-to-day mundanities of keeping a community running smoothly. Truth be told, he did a far better job of keeping things running here than I’d ever done on my own in the south.
Monroe was happy to delegate most of the dull but important stuff to his old friend while we were occupied with clearing out the rest of the city from apocalyptic debris and untold threats. It was an odd system – but it seemed to work. I was far happier these days. The stress of leadership had never suited me.
‘On the plus side,’ Monroe said, ‘and changing the subject, when we were out we came across a couple of old warehouses that still have food in them. Lots of rice, in fact. Enough to keep us going for another few months when you combine it with our other supplies and proper rationing. It won’t exactly be a balanced diet but it’s better than nothing. We’ve already arranged for it to be transported to the warehouse.’
‘It’ll bulk out the cabbages and carrots that we’ve managed to grow,’ Lizzy said cheerfully. ‘And I’ve heard that the strawberries are doing well.’
‘Great,’ Julian said, sounding as if it was anything but.
Lizzy’s expression was earnest. ‘We’re getting there,’ she said. ‘A lot of people have been putting their new magic skills to good use and helping with the crops. Within the embargo, of course,’ she added hastily. She was referring to the fact that we were trying to limit our use of magic to avoid overpowering the atmosphere with its after-effects. ‘We’ve filled the gardens in the enclave and swathes of them outside to capacity. It’s a long time since anyone has seen a chocolate bar or a good steak, but we’re doing alright. We’re not at starvation point – far from it. And I heard that the chickens we’ve rounded up have started laying a few eggs.’
‘The chickens need feeding too,’ Julian said, his dourness unabating.
‘We’ve got plenty of animal feed.’
He sighed. ‘Do we, though? It’s already August. We’ve stockpiled supplies for the winter but there’s not nearly enough, despite rationing and green fingers. The vampires are complaining that the blood they get tastes of cabbage. The werewolves are complaining that they’re not getting enough meat in their rations. The humans are lacking a lot of basic vitamins. No, we’re not going to starve but I wouldn’t say that we’re doing well.’ His voice was heavy.
I winced. I knew what it was like to try and keep everyone happy and feel like you were failing. I’d almost collapsed several times from the stress of it all. I was beyond glad that Julian was now overseeing these issues rather than me but it was still my problem. The growing lack of food was a problem for all of us.
Cath piped up from the corner where she’d been sitting quietly. ‘The docs asked me to tell you that we’re running low on antibiotics. We’ve had a lot of injuries over the last few months and we’ve stopped giving out the stronger stuff unless we really need to but…’ She gestured futilely. ‘We’ve done an estimate. If things contin
ue as they are, we’ll be completely out of stock by Christmas.’ That was only five months away.
It was clear that we were stuck in Manchester for the long haul. None of us wanted to leave; the magic’s pull was too strong for most of us to entertain that idea. All the same, the thought of being gnawed on by the beasties out there, or having an accident followed by a serious infection when there were no antibiotics, was indeed a sobering one.
‘We’ve got loads of paracetemol though,’ Cath continued, trying to appear more cheerful. ‘And there’s enough anti-histamine to last us for several years. The gardeners are working on natural remedies and a group are experimenting with magic as a healing tool. But you need to know that there might be shortages in the future.’
Julian ran a hand through his hair. ‘How many pregnancies are we at now?’
‘Sixty-eight.’
He swore.
‘It might be worth suggesting to expectant mothers that they leave,’ Monroe said.
I shot him a narrow look. ‘Yeah. Because all those female vampires and werewolves can’t wait to end up in quarantine on the other side of the wall while they are heavily pregnant. Not to mention what might happen to their magical babies once the rest of the world gets their hands on them. You know that I’ve missed a few periods here and there,’ I said. ‘Shall I get my bag packed just in case?’
Monroe’s face darkened. ‘You’re going nowhere. Not without me.’ I smiled slightly and he softened, putting up his hands. ‘It’s merely a suggestion. People need to know that the option is still open to them to leave if they wish.’ He hesitated. ‘Would you leave?’ he asked quietly. ‘If you were pregnant?’
‘Not unless the baby’s health was at risk,’ I said. ‘And not without you.’ I sighed. Everyone knew that leaving was an option – it had always been an option – but it meant turning our backs on Manchester, never to return. The longer we stayed in this new world, the more it felt like home. I didn’t want to leave and I didn’t think anyone else did either, but unless we solved these shortages we might not have a choice.
