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

camps are being built as we speak. You can stay there or contact family who live out of the area. By this time tomorrow, there will not be a living soul left in Manchester.’

Somehow I doubted that. I crossed my arms. ‘You can’t make me go.’

The soldier’s expression hardened. ‘This is for your own good.’

Anna tilted up her chin. ‘I’m with the police.’

The soldier shrugged. ‘They’re being evacuated once everyone else has gone. All emergency services are convening near the main library in the city centre.’

Anna shot me a look. ‘I have to go. I have to be there and do my job.’ She glanced after Mulroney who after a seeming moment of indecision was now running towards the nearest bus. ‘Regardless of what anyone else chooses to do.’

I nodded. ‘Take care of yourself. Thank you for what you’ve done.’

She gave a short, humourless laugh. ‘I don’t think I’ve done much at all.’

‘You came,’ I said quietly. ‘You came when I called. That was enough.’

She offered me a small smile. ‘You should leave, you know. It’s the only way to be safe.’

‘Mmm.’ I knew she was right. I knew the sensible thing would be to get the hell out of this city before it fell on top of us.

I couldn’t explain it but I wanted to stay. It wasn’t just that this was my home; oddly, it felt like I had to be here.

‘Get a move on!’ the soldier barked, before turning away to direct others towards the waiting buses. She was obviously both irritated and tired with my delaying.

I gave Anna a brief farewell wave and went over to Lizzy. ‘You should go,’ I told her. ‘You can get out of the city, go to London and catch the first plane back to Brisbane.’

She took in a deep breath. ‘And what if I change into that bunyip thing again in mid-flight?’

‘You won’t,’ I said, sounding far more confident than I felt.

‘I might.’ She sighed and pushed back her hair. ‘After what happened, I think I should stay. If I can find that Scottish man again, maybe he can help me make sure I can control myself. Until I know I can, I have to stay here otherwise I’ll be a danger.’

‘Well,’ I said carefully, ‘only if you’re sure. Not that I think Monroe will be able to help. He’s probably not even alive.’

‘The wolves are fine,’ Lizzy said with such quiet certainty that I stared at her. She shrugged her shoulders. ‘I can’t explain how I know. I just know.’

‘It doesn’t surprise me,’ I muttered. ‘That Monroe is like a cockroach. He’ll probably survive a nuclear holocaust.’

Lizzy’s eyes flashed with amusement, making her look like her old self again. ‘You like him,’ she said.

‘He’s an arrogant bastard.’

‘You still like him.’

I glared at her and she laughed. ‘When he looked at me,’ she said, ‘when I was that – animal, all I could think was that I wanted to do what he told me. There was very little of me left in there, like I’d taken too many sedatives or something and my brain wasn’t working properly. But when he was there I knew that I wanted to please him and come back to what I was.’ She cleared her throat awkwardly. ‘To who I was. He had this strange, magnetic pull about him.’

‘You presented him with your belly,’ I informed her.

She giggled. ‘I couldn’t help it.’ She nudged me. ‘I know you wanted to do the same.’

‘I most definitely did not,’ I huffed. ‘He’s all yours.’

Before Lizzy could call me on the lie, the soldier marched back to us. ‘The buses are waiting to leave! We’ve still got several streets to clear. Get a move on.’

Lizzy and I exchanged glances. ‘We’re not moving.’

She glowered. ‘I don’t have time for this.’ She reached out, grabbed our arms and started pulling. Lizzy snarled, a worryingly animal sound, while I reacted without thinking and raised my hands to ward off the soldier. She flew backwards, at least twelve feet through the air, before landing in the middle of the road with a thud. I winced. That looked like it had hurt.

‘Suit yourselves!’ the woman shouted, scrambling to her feet and backing off. ‘But if you die, don’t blame the government!’

‘Sounds fair enough,’ Lizzy murmured.

I gave a half smile and nodded. ‘At least with everyone else gone, it’ll be easier to find a parking spot.’ I arched a glance at her. ‘Did you do that? Throw her off like that?’

We watched the soldier limp away. ‘Charley,’ Lizzy said quietly, ‘I’m pretty certain that was you.’

The electricity was out, the phones were down, and it felt like years since the internet had worked. Perhaps staying put in Manchester wasn’t such a grand idea after all. At least the cooker ran off gas, so we could still boil water for tea and coffee. Naturally, however, Lizzy and I ignored caffeine in favour of sitting together and polishing off a dusty bottle of single malt whisky that I’d won betting on an illegal boxing match aeons ago. By the time we’d concocted a semi-decent survival plan – at least for the short term – it was already night again.

‘We could wait until tomorrow,’ Lizzy suggested with a yawn. ‘I’m exhausted. Something feels different. It’s like I’m less on edge, less likely to burst out in fur at any moment. In fact, I feel that even if I do transform again, I’ll be more able to control it.’

‘No,’ I said, adamant that we couldn’t wait, even though I could also sense that something had changed in the atmosphere. There was some indefinable lessening of pressure, as if the magic that Monroe had spoken about had been released and had already dissipated into nothing. But at this point I wasn’t counting on a damn thing, especially my own senses. ‘Tomorrow might be too late. We’re not going to be the only ones here. I’ve been thinking about it and I reckon one in twenty will have