City of Magic: The Complete Series by Helen Harper (book club recommendations TXT) 📕

‘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