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

doubt it. But we’re close enough to your neighbourhood for anyone with this amount of firepower to have been prepared for someone like you beforehand. They would have been ready for an ambush – but they weren’t expecting you to be here.’ I felt an odd measure of relief but it was short-lived.

‘Who did you tell, Charlotte?’ Monroe asked. ‘Who knew about Nimue?’

I didn’t want to answer. I didn’t want to say the word. But I didn’t have a choice. ‘Julie.’ I closed my eyes, feeling a throb of pain. ‘I told Julie.’

Chapter Twenty-One

We took the nameless man’s body with us, folding him into the back seat of the car like an unpleasant gift.

I smacked the dashboard over and over and over again as we drove away. ‘This was my fault. I should have listened to you from the start. I welcomed Julie in, even though I knew what she’d done before. I welcomed that man in too. They were with me. They were fucking with me. I let this happen.’ I raised my hand to punch the window.

Monroe slammed on the brakes and brought the car to a screeching halt. ‘Stop it.’ He didn’t raise his voice but his words were imbued with command. ‘You didn’t do this. You didn’t encourage it. You weren’t the one who came here with those weapons. This is not your fault.’

‘You said it.’ I shook my head. ‘You said that to invite all and sundry into the same community was to accept that bad things were going to happen. I was prepared to deal with those consequences – but not like this. Not someone I thought was a friend coming to a peaceful group of people and opening fire on them! Not hunting down a mermaid for no apparent reason! This isn’t like Philip or Maggie, this isn’t the magic affecting someone’s base instincts. This is someone coming out here with guns and grenades and planning to kill.’

A muscle throbbed in Monroe’s jaw. ‘They’d have done it anyway. Whether they were a part of your community or not, they’d still have done this. You’re the one who keeps talking about free will. This was the result of their free will. If Julie did this…’

‘If?’

‘So far the evidence is circumstantial. Maybe she mentioned Nimue to someone else. Maybe this wasn’t her.’

I stared at him. He hated Julie; he always had. A single tear leaked out of my eye because even now Monroe was trying to make me feel better.

I desperately wanted to cling to the thought that Julie was innocent. I desperately wanted someone else to be responsible for this, but I knew the odds. If I were going to gamble on who was responsible, I’d gamble on it being Julie.

My head dropped. Vampire or not, I’d thought I could trust her. ‘She almost destroyed the whole world,’ I mumbled. ‘Why wouldn’t she try and destroy everything else we’ve been working for?’

Monroe grabbed my hand and held it. ‘Whether this was her or not, it doesn’t make it your fault. You’re not responsible for her actions.’

I felt responsible. ‘You knew this would happen. You saw it coming a mile off.’

‘No,’ he said, ‘I didn’t.’ He sighed. ‘Let’s find Julie first and see what she has to say. She deserves that much.’

I looked at him balefully. ‘Fine,’ I said eventually. ‘Drive. Drive as fast as you fucking can.’

Monroe did as I asked and we made it across the city to the south in record time. People were standing in the streets, eyes wide, as Monroe stopped the car and we jumped out.

Lizzy and Anna wasted no time in pushing through to us.

‘What happened? What on earth’s going on?’ Anna asked.

‘Are you alright?’ Lizzy’s nostrils flared and she glanced at the car. ‘Jesus. Is that a dead body?’

‘It is.’ I smiled grimly. ‘He deserved it.’ I looked at the crowd. ‘Where’s Julie?’

Anna frowned. ‘I haven’t seen her today.’

‘Me neither,’ Lizzy said. ‘But I think Cath said something about getting hold of her in the north for a tour. She spends enough time there that she knows the place inside and out.’

Cath. I had a flash of freezing terror that Julie would hurt her. No. Julie had made considerable effort with the bogles to run away and keep her identity hidden. She wouldn’t hurt Cath, not when other people knew they were together.

I clambered on top of a car that formed part of our makeshift barricade and raised my voice. ‘Listen up!’ I yelled. ‘Something terrible happened this morning. Another community was attacked…’

Almost immediately my words were drowned out by gasps and calls of dismay. ‘Are we in danger?’

‘Who was it?’

‘It was the vampires!’

‘It was the werewolves!’

I didn’t have the patience for this. ‘It was us,’ I yelled. ‘People from our community did this! People we know went out with the sole intention of hurting others!’

The crowd fell silent, shock written across many of the faces that I knew well – and many of the faces that I didn’t. Some seemed disbelieving, others merely horrified.

‘We’re supposed to be pulling together!’ I yelled, my frustration and anger overtaking me in a tsunami of emotions. ‘We’re supposed to be looking out for each other! Not killing! Not hurting! Things are hard enough as it is, without us turning on ourselves!’

A woman piped up from the back of the crowd. ‘But nobody’s died here. It’s the other communities that have had deaths – the ones where those magical freaks hang out. Maybe they deserved it!’

A strange stillness overtook me. I swivelled round, picking out her face. She whitened slightly but held her ground. Part of me admired her; at least she was saying what she thought. Judging from the expressions on some of the other faces, there were plenty of people who agreed with her. This was what people did. They told themselves what they needed to hear in order to believe that they were right. The trouble was that there was nothing more dangerous than the