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

Anna. While their faces showed the same glimmer of excitement and fear that we’d all felt at the news of the carrier pigeons, they didn’t have much to offer.

‘I missed any flocks of pigeons flying overhead,’ the faery said glumly. ‘I have something of an affinity with the natural world and perhaps I could have caught a few of them. But if they’ve already flapped their way across the city, there’s not much I can do.’

Anna nodded in agreement. ‘My dad used to keep pigeons,’ she said. ‘He raced them from time to time. If those birds are on their way home, wherever that may be, I doubt there will be any left in the skies above Manchester. They can move pretty speedily when they want to. We can go out searching, though. I can round up some of the more sprightly hotel residents on a scouting trip.’

Every little helped but it appeared that we were already on a losing streak as far as the birds were concerned. ‘Thanks,’ I said with a sigh. ‘I appreciate that.’

‘As for food,’ Timmons said, ‘our situation is much the same as yours. We’ve had to post round-the-clock guards in the garden to stop the mutated rats from invading it and munching on all our hard work. I’ve not seen any hell hounds myself but I imagine it’s only a matter of time.’

Anna grimaced. ‘Why do they have to keep bothering us?’ She looked at me. ‘What does that shadow-beast baby you’ve got out there actually eat?’

‘We’ve only had her for one night. So far she’s taken the milk we’ve given her but I don’t know about solids. I assume they’re carnivorous. We know they’re prepared to be cannibalistic and eat their own kind, but that might only be because circumstances demand it.’

‘That baby is the perfect opportunity to find out,’ Timmons said. ‘Try her on different kinds of food and see what happens. If she doesn’t die after munching on weeds, maybe we’ve found a solution to some of our gardening problems.’ He looked at Anna. ‘All those slugs are mighty irritating.’

The thought of feeding Lucy slugs turned my stomach. ‘I’m not sure experimenting on animals is the way to go.’

‘We’re coping now,’ Timmons said quietly. ‘But things won’t continue this way for long.’

I knew that; we all knew that. I tugged at my hair, wrapping a blue curl tightly round my little finger. Even blue-hair dye was going to become scarce and I was pretty certain I was the only one in the city who used it. Talk about first-apocalyptic-world problems.

‘There’s a simple solution to all this, you know, darlings,’ Julie drawled. She bared her teeth in a fangy smile. ‘We all have plenty of blood. It’s tastier than you might think.’

I rolled my eyes. ‘Yeah, yeah.’ We needed some out-of-the-box thinking but I reckoned that was a step too far.

Jodie glared at Julie, opening her mouth to begin another round of bickering, but just then Lizzy sprang up. Her eyes were wide and, disturbingly, her two coiled bunyip horns were beginning to spring from her head. Uh oh.

‘What is it?’ I asked, alarmed.

She swung her head towards the main door. ‘Can’t you hear that?’

I couldn’t hear a damn thing. I tilted my head and listened. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Timmons, however, was also on his feet. ‘Unbelievable,’ he murmured. He started running towards the door, moving faster than I’d ever seen him. Lizzy followed, despite her body continuing to contort and shift as it did during times of stress. She didn’t yet have a full grip on her bunyip self.

I raced after them, yelling to the others to stay put. The glass door leading to the Travotel car park crashed open as Timmons grabbed it. As soon as it was open, I could hear what they were talking about. Music, actual honest-to-goodness music. And this wasn’t some lairy werewolf singing his way home, it was a proper tune with drums, keyboards and a catchy beat. It wasn’t a song I’d heard before but that voice was familiar. My steps faltered. Beyoncé, I thought. That’s Beyoncé.

Unsurprisingly, Queen Bey wasn’t holding an impromptu concert in the deserted Travotel car park. The song was coming from the rusty car into which I’d tossed Lucy. The windows were fogged up but I thought I caught a glimpse of the little shadow beast jumping around inside.

Timmons’ mouth dropped open. Lizzy was on all fours, ripped shreds of her clothes scattered behind her and her golden fur bristling. She also had a look of comical astonishment on her face. I shook off my shock and walked towards the car. Just as the song ended, a voice could be heard. ‘Well,’ burbled a young-sounding man, ‘there you have it, folks. That’s Beyoncé’s latest release and it’s fair to say that she has smashed it.’

That was the radio. That was the goddamned, fucking radio. The car was picking up a signal from who knows where. I’d not heard anything like it since last year, since the first apocalyptic attack. I gaped. Then I gaped some more. Un-freaking-believable.

Lucy seemed to have stopped bouncing around. As far as I could tell, she was unimpressed at the loss of the music. Tiny milk cartons began hitting the car windows, splattering blobs of UHT all over the interior. I found my feet and moved towards the vehicle.

‘It’s not only Beyoncé that we have to discuss today, of course. There’s bigger news in the pipeline and you’re going to hear it first. Hang on to your hats, Britain. Tech tycoon Fabian Barrett has announced that he is making plans to contact the Manchester survivors, if there are any, and enter the city. He’s said that he has several initiatives underway. If they work, it will be the first time anyone has tried to get inside Manchester since it was evacuated all those months ago. We don’t know if anyone is still alive in there but if you are and you are listening,