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

he could have snuck in without us realising. Or sent someone else in to set the fire for him. Others have clearly been here without our knowledge.’

‘You really think he’s responsible?’

He looked at me. ‘You really think he isn’t?’

No, I didn’t. But it hadn’t occurred to me that he would be so desperate to control what happened within Manchester’s walls that he would be this destructive. Then again, I didn’t think it had occurred to anyone, even Monroe. ‘The crops?’ I asked dully.

‘For the first time,’ Monroe said, ‘we have reason to be glad we haven’t got large fields. The allotments are too spread out for them to all be destroyed. I suppose that Fab Barrett didn’t believe he could ruin them and explain it away.’ His jaw tightened; he turned away and punched the wall. Plaster flew off and, when he pulled back, there was a fist-sized hole. I didn’t comment. I wanted to do the same.

Our crops might be undamaged but there weren’t enough of them to sustain our entire population. Not by a long shot. ‘We allowed ourselves to trust him,’ Monroe snarled. ‘We shouldn’t have been so stupid.’

‘How could we have known? We weren’t caught napping, Monroe,’ I said. ‘We couldn’t have expected this. We’ve underestimated how much of a bastard Fab is.’ My insides twisted. I doubted even Julie had expected that this would happen. ‘My bet is that he wants us to become entirely dependent on him. If he’s our main source of food, we’ll have to do what he says.’

‘We could just leave,’ Theo pointed out.

‘Then he still wins. Manchester will be his.’ I screwed up my face. ‘I won’t let him force us out of our damned city. I’ll starve to death first.’

The others glanced at me. I could see the same determination in their faces but we all knew deep down that hunger would drive us out sooner or later. Thanks to pulling together to deal with the fire we’d recovered some things from the warehouse, but there were barely enough rations left for a couple weeks.

I pushed away my hair. ‘Have we found any more evidence of his spies?’

It was Julian who answered. ‘Timmons has been in touch. They’ve found evidence of one wanker who’d been watching the Travotel. He’s long gone now, though.’

I grimaced. ‘We should get word to them to be on their guard. They have their own supplies to watch.’

‘It’s already been done,’ he answered. He started to pace up and down. ‘We need proof that Fab Barrett sent someone in here to kill our chickens and destroy our supplies. If there were eagle-eyed bastards watching us before, there might still be some now. We have a large area to cover and we’ve not found anyone yet, but that doesn’t mean there’s no one out there. Whoever they are, if I find them I’m going to…’ He bared his teeth.

‘We can’t hurt them.’

Julian glowered. ‘They’re trying to starve us out.’

‘If we hurt them,’ I insisted, ‘we’re playing into Fab’s hands.’

Monroe cleared his throat. ‘Charlotte is right. Can we all agree, however, that we stop calling him Fab?’

‘Done.’ I tried to think. ‘We should locate this tunnel as well. We need to find how he’s been sneaking people into the city.’

‘If we can find any of these spy bastards, we can work on getting them to talk,’ Julian said.

‘We can’t hurt them,’ I reiterated.

‘I won’t kill them.’ He looked at us. ‘I won’t even hurt them if you think it’s important not to. But I can promise you that I’ll make them think twice before they try and cross us again.’

‘Compared to us,’ I agreed, ‘these guys are nothing. No matter what resources Fabian Barrett has to draw on, we’re a close-knit supernatural community. We’ve got this.’

Monroe gave me an approving nod. ‘Amen.’

We fanned out, sweeping away from the enclave. If any of Barrett’s spies were still here and watching, they would know what we were doing. They would know we were coming for them. Personally, I was counting on that. Some nervous anticipation would do them good, especially when they knew there were crews of vampires and werewolves out for them.

We didn’t know for sure how long they’d been watching us, but they had to know by now that attempting to splinter our community wouldn’t work. It would have once, but it wasn’t possible now. Equally, they had to be aware of what the vampires and werewolves were capable of, not to mention the humans. We all had magic now. Monroe had said it himself: at the end of the day, we all had the potential to be monsters. I had faith that none of us would really hurt any of the wankers when we came across them – but if they believed that we would, we might have some leverage.

All of the high buildings were a target. Anywhere that had a good view of our enclave, but which was far enough away for the spies to avoid detection, was suspect. The longer we spent checking each one, the more tense Lucy grew. Her uneasy chirrups from my backpack were becoming more frequent. I did my best to reassure her. It was hard to believe that a few days earlier her tiny black form had been our biggest threat. I snorted to myself. As if. I should have remembered that the biggest monsters were often the ones with the most disarming smiles.

‘The notes you found in Barrett’s tent,’ Monroe growled, as we stalked through the streets. ‘The ones scribbled down about how much he wanted to help us. He left them there deliberately. He knew that sooner or later someone would try and sneak inside. He was covering all bases.’

‘It’s like he’s thought of everything,’ I agreed. ‘He knows our weaknesses, knows this area, knows how to get what he wants…’

‘Whatever that may be.’

I nodded. ‘Whatever that may be. We’re holding a joker and he’s got all the aces.’

Monroe was silent for a moment. ‘Except,’