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

‘It wasn’t claustrophobia.’ She glared, although it seemed to be directed at herself rather than at me. ‘The magic makes us strong but it’s also an unknown quantity. What if we come to rely on it too much and then it vanishes? What if there’s another magical surge and it overtakes us? We have a balance right now but things might not stay that way.’

‘There’s a lot to worry about,’ I said quietly.

‘Yeah.’ Her head dropped. ‘I wasn’t feeling right. I couldn’t sleep.’ She touched her temples. ‘I’ve been getting headaches. I’ve been…’ she struggled for the right words ‘…just not right.’

I wanted to hug her, and I probably would have if Anna hadn’t spoken up. There was a reason why she was the professional and I was the amateur. ‘It must be really hard. Is there anyone else you’ve been able to talk to? Maybe not in your pack. Maybe you found someone outside your pack. Someone who’s not a werewolf.’

Maggie’s expression changed almost imperceptibly. It wasn’t much, merely a faint tightening around the corners of her mouth, but it was enough. I knew we had her and I knew we were on the right track.

Anna knew it too. ‘Maggie?’ she asked gently. ‘Was there someone you found to talk to?’

Maggie balled up her fists and her knuckles whitened. ‘I’m not ashamed of it,’ she declared defiantly. ‘I’m not ashamed of going to therapy. It’s better to talk things through, to get help when you need it. It takes a strong person to ask for help. It’s not a weakness.’

I did my best to batten down my exultation at her admission. ‘No,’ I said. ‘Asking for help is not a weakness. Going to therapy is a good idea.’

Maggie blinked. Perhaps she’d expected us to laugh at her.

This was what we’d come to. By focusing on physical rather than emotional survival, we’d allowed this to happen. We’d allowed this bastard of a counsellor to sneak in and destroy our house of cards. We should have known better. All of us.

‘Maggie,’ Anna said, ‘who was the therapist you saw? Who did you talk to?’

‘A human guy,’ she muttered. ‘I didn’t want someone who lived here and I found a human guy who had a lot of experience. He was nice. Gentle. We met at an abandoned café in the city centre, not far from the Travotel.’

My bubble burst. We weren’t looking for a man. The bogles had been certain that Craig Featherstone’s companion was female. This couldn’t be another dead end, it just couldn’t be. Unfortunately it seemed that it was.

‘He knew what he was doing,’ Maggie said, registering my expression. ‘He was great at hypnotherapy!’

I stopped breathing. Anna knelt down beside me and fixed her eyes on Maggie. ‘This is important,’ she said. ‘Who is he? What’s his name?’

‘I don’t know his last name,’ she said. ‘I just called him Albert.’

‘White hair? Bushy eyebrows?’

Maggie nodded.

‘He’s quite old,’ Anna said, half to herself and half to me. ‘He won’t have a lot of physical strength. He’d need help if he wanted to actually hurt someone. Or kill them.’

‘What?’ Maggie squeaked.

I exchanged a look with Anna. ‘Sometimes,’ I said quietly, ‘he wears a kilt which, in the darkness, could be mistaken for a skirt. He could be mistaken for a woman.’ Then I thought of something else and I could have slapped myself. ‘He was there.’ I swore. ‘When I told Julie about Nimue the mermaid, Albert was there too.’ I slammed my hand onto the floor.

‘I think,’ Anna said, ‘we’ve found our guy.’

Chapter Twenty-Six

Albert was just one man – and a man in his seventies, at that. For all the power that he’d wielded over others, he wouldn’t be a physical match for Anna or me. All the same, we approached the café where he held his sessions stealthily. Although it was in a central location, it was tucked away down one of the side streets where there was less chance of any passers-by growing too curious.

It bothered me that the café’s door openly displayed a poster that included the outline of a man with a swirl for a brain. I might not have passed directly in front of it but I’d been in the vicinity of this place on more than one occasion in the last few days.

Anna produced a baton and a set of handcuffs. ‘You should let me handle this,’ she advised. ‘Unless he tries any freaky magic hypnotherapy stuff. Then you can let rip with your own powers.’

Somehow I doubted that Albert worked like that. I reckoned his clients were in a relaxed state and entirely willing to be hypnotised. He’d need a calm and therapeutic atmosphere in which to start; it wouldn’t be something he’d spring upon the unsuspecting. Then again, who knew what people were capable of these days?

I nodded agreement. With any luck, we’d bring Albert to his knees with a minimum of fuss. I knew that Monroe would be jealous I’d done this without him, but that was his fault for trying to shut me out.

Anna reached for the door handle. I drew in a deep breath. A moment later, she shoved open the door and started yelling, ‘Police! Nobody move!’

It wasn’t so long since Manchester had been turned on its head that we’d forgotten all our old habits. If Albert – and indeed anyone else – had been inside, they would have either frozen or made a run for it. When we burst in, however, nothing happened and nobody moved because nobody was there.

Anna sprang towards the back, checking both the kitchen and the small toilet. She came out shaking her head. I let out an inarticulate yell of frustration and kicked at a coffee table, sending the books on top of it onto the floor. Then I sat down on an overly-squishy sofa and was almost swallowed up by the cushions.

‘He’s probably at home,’ Anna said. ‘It’ll