by Helen Harper
‘I was discussing the vampires’ situation with Theo,’ he said, surprising me. ‘We’ve decided to create covered walkways so they feel more comfortable coming out during the day. They didn’t used to be affected by sunlight, not until all the magic shit occurred. It’s made them more powerful and more vulnerable at the same time. If we can bring them into the community more often, they’ll feel less separate.’ He paused. ‘And less likely to go out and commit murder.’
I shifted uncomfortably. Monroe was no fool and he gave me a sharp look. ‘What is it?’
‘I have a theory,’ I said. ‘One you’re not going to like.’
His expression grew grim. ‘Go on then.’
‘A vampire’s natural instinct is to drink blood. A wolf’s natural instinct is to hunt. What if the magic in the air is merely amplifying those instincts? What if neither Philip nor Maggie could help what they did?’ I started to warm to my topic. ‘It’s like the old fable of the scorpion and the frog.’
Monroe’s eyes narrowed slightly. ‘The frog carries the scorpion across a river to save it and the scorpion stings the frog, drowning them both, because that’s its natural instinct. That’s what you mean?’
‘Yeah. Vampires will kill humans because they need their blood.’
‘And werewolves will attack because they can’t help it. It’s not logic, it’s just base need.’
I was relieved that he understood what I was getting at and wasn’t upset by it. I bobbed my head enthusiastically. ‘Yep.’
‘If that’s true,’ he said softly, ‘it seems to me that you’ve created your own reasons for isolationism to continue rather than to stop.’
Hang on a minute. ‘That’s not what I meant!’ I protested.
‘It’s true, though. If we can’t stop ourselves then you have to stay away to keep yourselves safe.’ His mouth tightened. ‘Perhaps you’re right. All the humans should be kept away from the supernaturals.’ He stepped back from me, seemingly already implementing the policy.
‘I was not suggesting that!’ I glared at him. ‘I was only floating an idea!’
‘A valid one.’ His expression had closed off. Shit, me and my big mouth. Why hadn’t I kept my daft theory to myself?
Monroe crossed his arms over his chest, forming yet another barrier between us. ‘If your idea is correct, there will be more deaths. Things will get worse.’
‘Not necessarily,’ I began. ‘If my idea is correct, we can work together to find ways to curb those natural instincts and let off steam. Knowledge is power, Monroe. Forewarned is forearmed. You can’t use this as a reason to hide away even more – you said yourself that it would be better if we were all together!’
He scratched his chin and his features tightened in pain. ‘I’m a wolf, Charley. If my natural instinct is to hunt and to kill and to be a predator, what if you become my prey? What if I can’t help myself and I hurt you?’ His voice lowered to a whisper. ‘What if I killed you? I have enough deaths on my conscience as it is.’
‘You wouldn’t do that. You wouldn’t hurt me.’
‘You don’t know that,’ he said flatly. He looked away. ‘I was thinking about therapy. Proper therapy. I thought I could speak to someone professionally then I might be able to sort myself out and be worthy of you. Of this life. I’m tired of fighting myself.’ His voice grew more strained. ‘Maybe I don’t have any choice, though. Maybe the only course of action is to stay away from you for good.’
Fucking hell. In the space of a minute we seemed to have gone from the idea of a happier future for everyone to utter hell. ‘Monroe,’ I said, ‘I think we need to talk about this a little more before either of us jump to any conclusions or do anything we might regret.’
The door slammed open and there was the sound of running feet. ‘Charley!’ Lizzy whirled into the room. ‘You have to come now!’
I shook my head. I couldn’t deal with squabbles over rations or water or whatever else was going on right now. ‘Someone else will have to deal with it, Lizzy. I’m busy.’
‘‘It has to be you. She demanded it was you. I don’t know what’s going on but if you don’t come now, someone is going to get hurt. Some green-skinned woman is going absolutely nuts. Green skin! She’s kicking off at the barricade and yelling for you. You’ve to get there now. John’s got a gun and he’s pointing it at her. She’s got some kind of sword. There’s—’
I was already out of the door and running. Monroe was beside me and overtook me in a heartbeat. He didn’t shift into his werewolf form, but I knew from the magic buzzing underneath my own skin that he would in an instant if the situation called for it.
We sprinted towards the noise. There was a lot of shouting and screaming going on. Some people were ducking into their houses for safety; others were running with us to try and help out.
‘Charley! Enchantress! If I don’t see you in the next sixty seconds, I am not going to be responsible for my actions!’
Monroe slammed through the crowd, ignoring the people he shoved to the side, and I followed him through the ensuing gap. There, standing on the roof of a battered-looking van, stood Alora the bogle. Gone was the calm, queenly figure I’d met the other day – now she was a creature of absolute fury. It didn’t help that she was brandishing a lethal-looking sword with her right hand, which gleamed as it caught the sunlight. She was also holding a furious Anna by a hank of her hair with her left hand.
‘I’ll cut her head off if any of you come any closer!’ Alora spat. ‘And more of my kind will follow after me!’
‘Charlotte’s here,’ Monroe said, his voice raised. ‘I’m here. What’s the problem? What’s happened?’
Alora’s wild eyes turned in our direction but she didn’t relax at the sight of us. If anything, her fury grew. She twisted her hand, pulling sharply at Anna’s hair and forcing the policewoman’s neck into an unnatural and painful position. Anna didn’t make a sound, but I could see from the grimace on her face how much the action hurt.
‘One thing,’ Alora spat. ‘We only asked you to do one thing. We accepted the mermaid’s intrusion. We spoke politely. We came to an understanding. Or so I thought.’
I shook my head in desperate confusion. ‘I don’t understand,’ I said. ‘What’s happened?’
I wasn’t sure she’d heard me because she merely continued with her tirade. ‘Did you want them to die? Were you trying to get rid of them? Is that what it was? Or were you trying to hurt us because we refused to trade? We were never a threat to you. What you’ve done was completely unnecessary. I thought you were a decent person but you’re nothing more than a bloodthirsty bitch.’
I flinched. The vicious hatred in her tone was nothing I hadn’t experienced before, but as far as I could tell she was teetering on the edge of sanity. I had to prioritise. Monroe was right – safety first.
When I spoke again, I sounded far calmer than I felt. ‘Everyone get back inside and stay there.’
For a second no one moved then Monroe lifted his head and howled. Before he’d finished, they’d all scattered, guns and all. At least now we’d have some breathing space. A fraction of a second of breathing space.
‘You might think you’re protecting them,’ Alora snarled. ‘But you can’t protect them all. Not after what you’ve done.’ As if to add weight to her words, she tightened her hold on Anna’s hair. Shit. Whatever was going on here, it wasn’t good.
I held up my palms to indicate that I wasn’t fighting her. Not yet, anyway. ‘I don’t know what I’ve done. Believe me, Alora, I don’t know what’s wrong. You have to explain what the problem is.’
‘She’s right,’ Monroe said. ‘We don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘You wouldn’t know because she’s probably stabbed you in the back as well,’ Alora said to him. ‘They were human. We know this was her doing, not yours. If this was down to you, you’d have sent wolves.’
Dread spread through me, its icy tentacles snaking through my veins and squeezing at my heart.
‘Who are you talking about?’ I asked. ‘You have to tell us what happened.’
Alora gazed at me. For a strange moment, it felt as if her eyes were searing into my soul. ‘So,’ she said, more softly, ‘you didn’t send them after all.’ Her mouth tightened. ‘It doesn’t matter. They could only have known of our existence because you told them. How long did it take for you to break your promise to keep quiet about us? Was it days? Or merely hours?’
‘I…’ I didn’t know what to say. ‘Alora, I didn’t tell anyone. I mentioned the mermaid, I did explain about Nimue, but I didn’t tell anyone about you or the other bogles. I promise.’
‘This was an accident?’ Her words were calm but her expression was not. ‘I find that hard to believe.’
I gestured helplessly. ‘I still don’t know what you’re talking about.’
Alora bared her teeth and waved her sword menacingly in the air. ‘Then,’ she said, ‘come and see for yourselves.’
Chapter Twenty
Monroe and I went with her. Alora released Anna, whose venomous rage at being held hostage even if for a short while, was barely contained. I only just managed to persuade her to stay behind for the good of everyone else. Given the vicious looks and bristling tension I was still receiving from Alora, the fewer of us who walked into the bogles’ territory the better.
Alora was calmer now but she still held onto her sword, ready to wield the pointy end at me at any given moment. I kept a wary eye on her while Monroe drove, wondering if I could defend myself against the unmitigated fury that still bubbled beneath her suddenly serene exterior.
‘You have to understand,’ she said, continuing to finger the edge of the blade, ‘that things have not been easy for us. Even before the apocalypse, we had to be careful. Our skin was not so green then and it was easier to hide, but we were still magical beings in a non-magical landscape.’ She jerked her head at Monroe. ‘He will have a better idea of what we went through. His experience will have been similar. But his kind have always had their own power. Ours was insignificant.’ She smiled without humour. ‘Not any longer. Despite all the tribulations of the apocalypse, we are now in a very different position.’ Her eyes fixed on mine. ‘Now we can defend ourselves properly.’
I licked my lips. ‘You certainly look like you know how to use a sword.’
She shrugged. ‘It’s a traditional weapon of our kind. We put it to good use against the faeries when they attacked us. They learnt of our skills, ones we’d won by hard work and practice rather than mere magic.’
‘You were attacked by faeries?’
‘Some of them.’ She sniffed. ‘Perhaps you’ve heard of Rubus. He was the faery who wanted to use a little magical sphere to transport his species away from this place. He didn’t care what would happen to this world after he used it. He sent some of his minions to us when he was looking for the sphere. They killed several of us – but we killed more of them and Rubus got his comeuppance in the end.’
I shot a glance at Monroe, whose hands had tightened round the steering wheel. I knew that his whole pack had been destroyed because of this Rubus and I felt a surge of sudden, unexpected hatred for the now-dead faery. He was lucky he was dead, otherwise he’d have had me to answer to.
In that instant, I knew I was capable of terrible things. Anna was right: under certain circumstances, anyone was capable of anything.
Alora seemed to understand what we were thinking and her tension eased somewhat as she continued. ‘Those faeries’ actions are the main reason we did not wish to be part of what you were establishing. Not until we’d recovered ourselves. And not until your own problems were settled.’ Her hands clenched. ‘But now the issue has been forced.’
My answer was quiet. ‘It was not us who forced the issue.’ I paused. ‘Not deliberately, anyway.’
Alora’s lip curled. ‘We shall see about that.’
She didn’t speak again until we reached the outskirts of her neighbourhood. She turned the blade in her lap over and over again; I couldn’t tell if she did it absently-mindedly or whether it was a reminder that she was still a threat. Either way, I was well aware that I was walking into a complex and dangerous situation.
I was glad that Monroe was there, too. His presence was reassuring, even though Alora seemed to feel some kind of kinship with him because of his lupine nature.
She directed Monroe to park at a corner. As far as I could tell, we were at least a few hundred metres away from any inhabited buildings. That made a certain sense; if Alora really believed that I was the devil incarnate, inviting me to stroll along her pavements and pop in for tea probably wasn’t her intention.
‘We haven’t touched his body,’ she said in a perfunctory manner.
I stiffened. Until now, there had been no mention of a death. I wasn’t sure I could cope with another corpse.
Alora got out of the car and waved the sword at me, indicating that I was to follow. I exchanged a glance with Monroe and steeled myself. It appeared that I didn’t have much of a choice.
Girding myself, I climbed out of the car and followed her. Monroe walked abreast with me, his hand brushing against mine to remind me that he was there to help. We rounded the next corner and were confronted with a row of angry, green-skinned bogles. No prizes for guessing where the body was.
My mouth felt painfully dry and I wished I’d brought a bottle of water with me, even though Alora had demanded we leave immediately. It didn’t help that each and every bogle was sending me death looks. My skin prickled and I felt the uncomfortable weight of being despised settle across my shoulders. It wasn’t much fun; no wonder the vampires tended to be so snarky. This sort of attitude could really get a person down – and I’d only been on the receiving end of it for a flicker of time.
‘Are you okay?’ Monroe murmured under his breath.
I nodded. ‘Are you?’ The last thing anyone needed was for him to transform or snarl or generally act like an alpha male. So far he was being calm and controlled. That was good. I could take my lead from that.
‘I’m fine. Do you know who we’re likely to find up here?’
‘Not a scooby.’ The dead body was human, though; Alora had been adamant about that. I prayed he would be a complete stranger. If only wishing could make it so.
As we reached the bogles, a cold gust of wind swirled up, catching my hair and making me shiver. Alora gestured at the crowd and they shuffled to the side, revealing the prone figure of a man on the ground. He was face down but, from the unnatural angle of his neck, it was obvious that he was dead.
‘We pay attention to our surroundings,’ Alora said in a clear voice. ‘We have watchers all over this area and we know when someone is approaching.’ She looked at us. ‘You know that yourselves, from your own visit.’
I spotted Malbus in the group of bogles, the one who’d come across us at Boggart Hole. He was glaring at me with far more hatred than the others. I didn’t blame him; when he’d appeared, I’d tried to use humour to defuse the situation. Now we were confronted with a corpse, that pathetic humour seemed like a slap in the face of every bogle. There wasn’t much that was funny about sudden death. The way things had been going for me lately, I was starting to think that should be etched on my gravestone.
Alora continued. ‘He was making a beeline here. He was coming for us.’ She jabbed her finger at one of the other bogles who nodded and darted forward, holding out a gun by her thumb and forefinger. ‘And he was carrying this.’
I sucked in a breath. I didn’t know a great deal about guns but this one certainly looked lethal.
Monroe held out his hand. ‘May I?’
The bogle looked at Alora. She jerked her head and the gun was handed over to Monroe. ‘It’s already been unloaded,’ she said, flicking her eyes to me. ‘In case you were wondering.’
As a matter of fact, I hadn’t been; I was too dismayed at the sight of the weapon. It wasn’t a toy or an antique or a mere curiosity, it was an object designed for only one thing �
�� and that was to kill.
There was a tradition and an art to the swords that the bogles carried, something graceful and beautiful about them despite their lethal nature. Even the guns that I’d confronted when soldiers had entered Manchester to start the evacuations and when Max had tried to take over the city had been of a utilitarian mundanity. The gun that Monroe was holding was a different beast altogether.
If you think it was strange to attach so much to a mere object that was rendered useless by its lack of bullets, that’s because you didn’t see what I was seeing. You could call it inexperience or innocence: to me it was downright common sense. I recoiled when Monroe offered it to me. No, thank you.
‘The bag,’ Alora murmured.
Another bogle stepped forward and held out a backpack. He unzipped it and Monroe and I peered inside. It contained at least three more handguns and an array of grenades. Shit. The dead guy had meant serious business.
‘Wait,’ I said suddenly, as a thought struck me. ‘When you came to us, you said “they”. You said they were human. Where are the others?’
Alora pointed at a short bogle with thinning hair that looked incongruous on such a young face. He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing, and lifted up his chin. I noted the bandages on his arm and his leg and the fresh blood seeping from underneath them. ‘They came in from the south,’ he squeaked. He cleared his throat and tried again. ‘They came in from the south by Winner Street. There were two of them. Him and,’ he hesitated, ‘another one.’
‘Where is the other one now?’ Monroe growled.
‘She spotted me before I got too close. She said something to this one and then she ran. Then he started shooting.’
Bloody hell. ‘What did she look like?’
‘It was still dark. I didn’t get a look at her face,’ he whispered.
