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

I held my breath. Come on, Lucy. We need you to do this. I crossed my fingers tightly.

The room was so quiet that I fancied I could have heard a spider spinning its web in the far corner. With slow, deliberate movements, Lizzy bent over. She licked her lips and, with a flourish, whipped off the cover.

Lucy squeaked.

‘Hey, sweetie!’ I injected as much enthusiasm as I could into my voice. ‘It’s amazing to see you!’

The little shadow beast burbled and began to bounce. One of the radios crackled. There was a brief flicker of light from the television. Unfortunately, one of the younger werewolves also used that moment to cough. Lucy froze then she slowly turned, her black pupils dilating with fear when she realised how many people were staring at her. Fuck. Her squeaks became whimpers of confusion.

I screwed up my face, knelt down and drew her out of the cage. Her body was trembling. I already knew this wasn’t going to work. I shook my head in dismay. ‘There are too many people. She’s not excited, she’s freaked out.’

The television screen was depressingly blank and there wasn’t a sound coming from any of the radios. Not now.

‘Everyone out,’ Monroe ordered.

‘It’s too late. We’ve lost the moment.’ Glumly, I scratched Lucy under her chin and held her close in a bid to calm her down. ‘We’ll have to try again later.’

‘It’s fine,’ he said, to appease everyone’s disappointment as much as to make me feel better. ‘We’ve got plenty of time. In fact…’ He hesitated. His nostrils flared and he lifted his head a fraction higher.

I glanced round. The other werewolves were doing the same. ‘What?’ I asked. ‘What is it?’

He looked at me. ‘Fire.’

My stomach dropped. I stared at him in horror, needing further confirmation. It wasn’t that I didn’t believe him, it was that I desperately didn’t want to.

‘A big fire,’ he said.

Sudden bone shaking fear ran through me. There wasn’t time to let it overcome me though. I spun round and sprinted for the door, barely a step behind Monroe. Unfortunately, everyone else did the same. With all the pushing and shoving, it took far more time to get outside than it should have. The alarm bell by the barricade was already ringing and there were shouts and screams coming from all corners of the enclave.

Monroe had been right about one thing: it was definitely a big fire. The billowing dark smoke and sickening orange glow could probably be seen for miles. I stood and stared, frozen to the spot.

‘You know where that’s coming from,’ Julie said dully, before taking a swig from her hip flask.

We all knew. The fire had hit our main supply warehouse.

Monroe was already running down the street, drawing away from me. Others followed in his wake. I tried to unfreeze myself, to make myself run with them but I was rooted to the spot. It felt like I couldn’t move.

Not fire. Not again.

I reached across and snatched Julie’s hip flask. She didn’t protest. I took a long gulp and passed it back to her. The gin burned my throat but I didn’t care. More than that would be burned by the end of this night.

I shivered. And then I ran too.

The building we used to store the majority of our supplies was a disused gym over on the north-eastern corner of the enclave. Its walls were made of sturdy brick but that didn’t seem to be making a difference to the fire, which was whipping through the structure as if it were kindling. The sound of shattering glass as the windows blew out was barely audible over the roar of the flames. Fire had already reached the upper level and was licking through charred holes that were appearing with astonishing swiftness in the roof.

I swallowed hard. There was nothing quite like the smell of fire; it was both alluring and dangerous.

Lizzy appeared next to me, her face white even with the glow of the flames upon her skin. ‘No one would have been inside,’ she said. ‘Not at this hour.’

It was scant comfort. We needed the food within those walls. My mouth flattened grimly. Maybe we didn’t have to lose it all. Any hoses we had were already out by the main fields and allotments and retrieving them would take too long. They probably wouldn’t stretch half the distance that we needed them to. But there were other ways.

I raised my chin and yelled. ‘We need a chain!’ I pointed to the hospital, the nearest building to this one. ‘From there to here. And as many fucking buckets as you can find!’ My eyes met Monroe’s across the flickering light.

He nodded. ‘Wolves,’ he snarled. ‘Get buckets, pots, anything that will carry water.’

People scattered, leaping to his command. From his side, Julian spoke up. ‘Humans and vampires, start a chain. We can pass the buckets from one person to another. The vampires will be more able to stand the heat. They can take up positions closest to the warehouse.’ He looked at me. ‘It’s not rained for five weeks. Will there be enough water in the reservoir?’

I knew what he was asking. We didn’t just need water to douse the flames; we would need it afterwards too. To drink. To live. I’d checked on the water levels just three weeks ago. ‘We should be okay,’ I told him. ‘If not, we’ll have to get water from other sources until it rains again.’

It was a risk but a calculated one. There were other streams, lakes and small rivers within the city. There was even the murky canal, if we grew truly desperate.

Julian didn’t ask twice, he simply offered a sharp nod and started shoving the nearest people into line.

I knew without trying that magic wouldn’t extinguish these flames. Many of us had experimented before and it wasn’t possible. What I could do was help to transport water – though not with buckets.

I leaned back and scanned the burning building.