City of Magic: The Complete Series

by Helen Harper

  He didn’t move for a long moment other than tapping his foot. Another nervous twitch, I supposed. ‘Fine,’ he said eventually. ‘You may take the sheet.’ He said it as if were granting me a great, personal boon rather than yielding to my lupine threat. Whatever. As long as I got what I needed.

  ‘Thank you.’ For the first time, I let myself smile. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Do you want to know so you can eliminate me from your enquiries?’ he mocked.

  ‘No,’ I shot. ‘I want to know because it’s polite to know who you’re talking to.’

  He smirked at me. ‘In that case,’ he said with a bow, ‘I am Theo.’

  ‘I’m Charley.’

  His smile grew. ‘I know.’ He permitted me one last flash of his fangs. ‘I’ll be seeing you around, Charley.’

  ‘I can’t wait.’ With slow, measured steps so as not to give away my anxiety, I walked away from the vampire barricade. Unsurprisingly, the werewolves were still waiting for me just beyond.

  ‘Oh, and Charley?’ Theo called out. ‘A vampire didn’t do this. Not in the way that you think, anyway. It would be far too difficult to suck dry an entire human body. Your killer is someone entirely different.’

  I wasn’t convinced by that, even though Julie had already suggested the same thing. But I would keep an open mind. For now.

  Chapter Eight

  ‘You should have gone to see all the vampires with your own eyes,’ Felicity said. ‘It’s the only way to be sure.’

  ‘Sure of what?’ I enquired. ‘The perpetrator could have sneaked out before I reached him. He could be living elsewhere. He could be hiding in a hole somewhere. Hell, he could already have healed. There are hundreds of vampires living there and realistically we can’t wake them all. Besides, I believe Theo when he says no one passed him with any scratches on their face. We won’t find the culprit that way.’ I waved the piece of paper in her face. ‘I’m more interested in the names of the nine vampires who haven’t returned home yet.’ And indeed whether Valerie’s murder had been carried out for no other reason than to give the vampires an even worse reputation than they already possessed.

  ‘They need to learn their place,’ she said. ‘If they want to be part of this community, they need to toe the line.’

  I gaped at her. In that moment, I wasn’t capable of anything else.

  ‘What?’ she asked.

  ‘You’re talking about them like they’re second-class citizens.’

  ‘They’re not second-class citizens.’

  ‘Good,’ I said, ‘because—’

  ‘They’re undead. They don’t count as citizens.’

  Good grief. I passed a hand over my face. ‘They’re not undead.’ I had been through all this with Julie and she’d explained it to me very clearly. ‘That’s propaganda put about by the sort of people who hunted their kind to near extinction.’

  ‘Who told you that?’ she enquired. ‘A vampire?’ She rolled her eyes. ‘They drink blood. Human blood. They killed that woman. I’m not saying we should throw them out on their ear, I’m just saying that they need to play ball.’

  ‘And do things the werewolf way?’

  ‘If it ain’t broke…’ She moved away and started muttering to the rest of the group, flicking the odd glance in my direction to suggest that I was a derisible creature who belonged with the vampires because I’d dared to suggest that they weren’t necessarily all evil.

  I watched her. No wonder the vamps had shut themselves away with their own guards and their own barriers. This was not a good situation. Felicity’s beliefs were deeply embedded. I wasn’t going to change any hearts and minds on my own – I needed a werewolf to sort things out because, as far as I could tell, the only person a werewolf would listen to was another werewolf.

  While the group continued to gab about what to tell Julian and how to find the nine missing vampires, I whirled round and marched away. Julian had told me I could find Monroe over to the east of the square. Somehow, I suspected I’d have more leverage with him than with Julian. Besides, it wasn’t yet noon: I reckoned there was still the teeniest tiny chance I could stumble across a vampire with the marks of Valerie’s fingernails across his face. The longer the culprit ran free, the worse things would get for the vamps.

  Although I walked quickly, I still half expected Felicity and the rest of the werewolves to catch up and continue their escort. Apparently, however, they’d decided I was no longer worth the effort because I was left in peace. Relatively speaking.

  I passed various people of all manner of ethnicities – and all of them stared at me. I suppose it was the blue hair that gave me away. It was an odd sensation being a minor celebrity; maybe I should have offered to hand out autographs. I wondered if this was how Julie felt, given her career as a soap actress.

  There was something ego-boosting about the attention, I reflected as I trotted on. If you are treated as special, you start to believe that you are; it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. I wondered if the reverse could also be true: if everyone believed that vampires were stone-cold killers, would they become stone-cold killers? I pondered and then discarded the idea. As a gambler, I was well aware that the smallest, weakest players could rise up against all odds and defeat expectations to win the day. I grinned to myself. At the end of the day, gambling had an answer for everything.

  I veered round a corner, suddenly aware of a loud babble of voices nearby. Where there were people, there would be vampires – and maybe even Monroe. I adjusted my course slightly until a large group, which appeared to have arranged itself into a circle, came into view. So what on earth was going on here?

  I walked over to the crowd and pushed myself onto my tiptoes to peer over the tops of various heads. Unfortunately for me, I appeared to be very short in comparison to other supernatural beings and I couldn’t see much except for a flying fist somewhere deep within the circle. I edged round to get a better view but, before I could see much, a werewolf sidled up to me with glinting brown eyes.

  ‘Hundred to one he slams all three of them to the ground,’ he said in an undertone.

  I couldn’t suppress the thrill that ran through me at the prospect of my first real bet in months. Obviously I wasn’t going to take it until I knew more about what was going on, and such high odds immediately made me wary. All the same, this was the life I loved. I didn’t want to be the de facto leader of a bedraggled, whining community in an almost abandoned city that was suffused with dangerous magic; I wanted to be a fun-loving gambler who took unnecessary risks and didn’t worry too much about the consequences.

  ‘I can’t see much to make a judgment,’ I admitted to my new buddy.

  ‘There’s three of them,’ the wolf purred. ‘Young, strong, agile wolves the lot of them. He’s got the experience. They’ve got the enthusiasm.’

  On my other side there was a derisive snort. ‘Enthusiasm is something he’s definitely lacking. He’s been beaten in every fight he’s had since Halloween because he’s got no enthusiasm. He wants to be beaten.’

  ‘Yeah,’ another interrupted, ‘but I heard he’s on borrowed time. A little birdie told me that Julian wants him out. In fact…’

  I moved away. I suddenly knew exactly who they were talking about and I was not a happy little enchantress at all. So this was why Monroe was covered in bruises and too busy to hang around the Travotel with me. I grimaced. I had to see this with my own eyes.

  Ignoring the tightly bunched spectators, I nudged my way through. Some lanky guy aimed an elbow at my face as I disturbed him. I didn’t think: I zapped out a bolt of magic and sent him stumbling back into others. They shoved him, yelling expletives. The scuffle gave me enough room to squeeze through to the front. What I saw there made me want to retch.

  Monroe was facing off against three others who seemed to be working as a team to attack him. They were grunting and hissing, darting forward with jabs and kicks. Blood was streaming from a cut above his eye and his right ear had swollen to the size o
f a golf ball. I couldn’t call Monroe a fighter because he wasn’t fighting. He was barely defending himself, he just let them continue taking shot after shot. Every time another punch landed, the crowd cheered. Only a few people seemed to be on his side.

  I stared, aghast. How could anyone allow this to happen? I knew that Monroe was in self-destructive mode as a result of his guilt-driven grief, but this was far worse than anything I could have imagined. This wasn’t a fight. This was torture.

  When the dark-haired werewolf nearest to me kicked Monroe in the ribs brutally enough to make his legs give way, I couldn’t take it any more. I stepped forward as Monroe fell to his knees. Someone grabbed at my shirt, ready to haul me back. Monroe’s pain-glazed eyes registered the movement and he raised his head, shock appearing on his face when he saw me.

  I brushed off the annoyance from behind and opened my mouth but Monroe shook his head. Screw him: I wasn’t about to stand by and let him be beaten to a pulp. It would have been one thing if he was actually participating but he wasn’t. He wasn’t trying to win; all he wanted was to get hurt to hide the real pain he was feeling inside.

  I tilted my chin and raised my voice. ‘You have to stop!’

  My words were immediately drowned out by the roar of the watching crowd. As soon as I started to speak, Monroe staggered back up to his feet. He deliberately moved to rejoin the fray to make sure that I wasn’t heard. His eyes held mine for a second, imploring me to keep out of the fight and keep my mouth shut. No chance. I’d use my magic to scream my way through this, if need be. This shouldn’t be happening.

  Monroe blinked, as if recognising what I was about to do. It wasn’t resignation in his face, however: it was determination. He spun round, his leg kicking out at the three young pups. In the time it took me to draw breath, all three of them had collapsed. The middle wolf groaned and rose to meet Monroe once again. All he received for his efforts was a punch to the side of his head.

  I hissed through my teeth, still sickened at what was going on. Monroe had let himself be used as a punchbag and was only fighting back because he knew I was going to interrupt. I watched for another short moment, then I turned away and pushed my way through the nauseating, voyeuristic spectators.

  Julian was standing against a wall, his arms folded and his expression closed. I stalked up to him and jabbed him in the chest. ‘What kind of fucking place are you lot running here? How can you let this sort of thing go on?’ My fury was transcending just about every other coherent thought.

  ‘I’m not in charge here,’ he answered.

  ‘It looks to me like you’re in fucking charge!’

  ‘You’d be surprised.’ A muscle throbbed in his jaw. ‘Even with Monroe in the state that he’s in, people around here will still flock to his cause before they’ll flock to mine.’

  ‘The only thing people are flocking to is his demise! If he carries on like this, he’ll end up being killed! He’s grieving, Julian. He wants to be hurt. He needs help, not a fucking fist in his face!

  ‘Charlotte,’ Monroe drawled, his Scottish accent lilting through the air as he suddenly appeared next to us, ‘don’t blame Julian. He’s been trying to stop me fighting. He’s threatened to throw me out.’ He hawked up bloody phlegm and spat it on the ground. ‘Not that he could.’

  Julian pushed himself off the wall. ‘Listen to her,’ he said. ‘You’re on a collision course with hell. This is not sustainable.’ He started to walk away. ‘And I will throw you out if it’s for the good of the community.’

  ‘He won’t,’ Monroe said to me, wiping the last of the blood from his mouth. ‘He can’t.’

  ‘You fucking idiot,’ I told him. ‘You absolute piece of shit.’

  If Monroe was taken aback by my language, he didn’t show it. ‘What? I won the fight. I won it for you, Charlotte. Isn’t that what you wanted?’

  I shook my head in despair. ‘I knew you’d been fighting, I just didn’t think it was like this.’ My voice dropped to a whisper. ‘What are you doing to yourself, Monroe?’

  He stepped forward, leaning down until we were virtually nose to nose. ‘This is who I am, Charlotte. I’m a wolf. A predator.’ He bared his teeth. ‘And I’m fucked up. You’d do better to stay away from me.’

  I drew myself up and eyeballed him. Monroe was not going to intimidate me; I wasn’t going to let him. ‘You’re the one who keeps coming to me, not the other way around. You need to pull yourself together.’

  ‘Do I?’ he asked, his tone dangerously silky. ‘Do I really, Charlotte?’

  I stared at him. He was still high on adrenaline from the fight. This wasn’t the real Monroe. This wasn’t the guy I knew. Not deep down. I inhaled and pulled away slightly. ‘You’re hurting,’ I said, more gently. ‘But you’re not a bad person, Monroe. You don’t deserve this. You don’t deserve to be hurt.’

  His response was flat. ‘I’m an arsehole.’

  ‘Right now,’ I answered, ‘you’re acting like an arsehole. But you’re not really like that. Arseholes don’t force the people they know to take a holiday before they collapse. Arseholes don’t help vicious mermaids to relocate. You have to stop punishing yourself for things that aren’t your fault and that can’t be changed.’

  I’d been expecting Monroe to argue or to storm off. What I didn’t expect was the sudden sheen of tears in his eyes. ‘Charlotte,’ he said, ‘I—’

  A hooded figure collided with him, stumbling against him and interrupting whatever he’d been about to say. Monroe snarled and snatched at the figure’s arm. ‘Watch where you’re going!’

  There wasn’t any answer. The man – or woman – staggered off, drawing away from Monroe’s grip before spinning round. ‘Vampires,’ Monroe hissed. ‘They shouldn’t be out at this time of day. Not with the sun as high as it is.’

  Damn it, I hadn’t got a glimpse of the vamp’s face. Was it one of the nine who’d not returned home this morning? Or was it simply a stray vampire who’d wanted to watch Monroe’s fight and lay a bet or two? I twisted my head, trying to make out its shadowed features.

  ‘Charlotte?’ Monroe’s voice was different now. ‘What is it?’

  I looked at him then I looked at the retreating vampire. I gritted my teeth. ‘Sorry,’ I murmured. ‘This won’t take long.’ I jogged away from Monroe towards the vamp, who saw me coming and picked up the pace.

  ‘Wait!’ I shouted. ‘I just want to see your face!’

  The vampire started to run. I cursed. Feeling my fingers tingle, I used my left hand to send a tiny zigzag of magic towards the ground, making the vampire stumble and trip. I scurried forward and used my right hand to pull back the creature’s hood. She howled in pain, immediately throwing up her hands to protect her face from the sun. Her unblemished, unscratched face. I slammed my palm against the nearby wall, ignoring the pain it gave me, then I reached down and helped the vampire up to her feet.

  ‘Sorry,’ I muttered. ‘I’m looking for someone else.’

  She didn’t answer; all she did was turn and run away from me as fast as her legs would carry her.

  Monroe appeared by my side. He tilted his head towards me and raised his eyebrows. ‘I think there’s something you need to tell me,’ he said.

  Chapter Nine

  For reasons that didn’t entirely make sense, other than ego coupled with the joy of having something else to focus on, Monroe was incredibly pissed off that I’d not come to him first.

  ‘I could have immediately set up a task force to find this vampire,’ he said.

  I tapped my foot. ‘A task force? You’re not the President of the United States.’ At the moment, he wasn’t really even the leader of the north. To all intents and purposes, that appeared to be Julian. ‘Besides, time was of the essence. I needed to move and find him as quickly as possible. I couldn’t worry about finding you at the same time.’

  ‘Except,’ Monroe pointed out, his earlier pain locked away again where I couldn’t see it, ‘you did find me. And you’ve not yet foun
d the murdering vamp responsible for Valerie’s death.’

  I gazed heavenward. Enough already. ‘Not to mention that I’m wasting time having this argument with you.’

  He looked at me calmly. ‘Then let’s get a move on. Let me see the list.’

  I handed it over, pointing at the nine names. ‘These are the ones who didn’t clock back into the vampire ghetto after last night. That doesn’t necessarily mean they have anything to do with Valerie’s murder but…’

  ‘But they’re a good place to start.’ He nodded. ‘As a minor point to be aware of, though, we don’t call it a ghetto.’

  It was a ghetto as far as I could see. All the same, I just shrugged; semantics weren’t worth arguing over. Not right now.

  Monroe jabbed at one of the names. ‘You can rule this one out. You accosted her five minutes ago.’ His finger trailed down the list. ‘These two will be in the Blood and Bones. It’s only round the corner.’

  ‘Blood and Bones?’

  ‘One of the pubs.’

  ‘Charming name.’ I paused. ‘How do you know they’ll be there? And how do you know them in the first place?’

  There was a beat before he answered. ‘I might be falling apart with far more drama than you’ve managed, but I still know who lives here and what their proclivities are.’

  I blinked. ‘What? Everyone?’ How many residents were there in the north? It had to be several thousand at least.

  ‘It seems prudent to know the people here and who they are, considering the safety measures that are important to keep us all breathing in this new world.’

  Of course it did. Monroe had set up here in the north with the proviso that everyone who came with him followed his rules. It made a sort of sense that he’d take time to get to know them all, but it was still a remarkable feat. I knew the faces of many of my community members but I couldn’t have confidently stated their names or what they liked to do in their spare time. And I was aware that I didn’t know everyone. ‘You realise,’ I told him, ‘that makes you some kind of eidetic genius?’ A gambler like me would love to have that sort of skill.