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

Jodie laughed coldly. ‘You don’t know as much as you’re pretending to, do you? There was a sphere, a magical sphere which—’

‘I know about the sphere,’ I interrupted. ‘What happened to it?’

Jodie’s lip curled and she pointed at Julie in disgust. ‘She set it off. We were all a whisker away from being blown to magical oblivion when Madrona swallowed it. Then all the damn faeries vanished. I doubt they’ll be back.’

I swallowed. ‘So Monroe was right? There’s no more apocalypse?’ I released a long breath. ‘We’re all going to back to normal.’ No more dragons or werewolves or vampires or crazy magic shit. Praise be.

Unfortunately, Julie was shaking her head. ‘The magic is still here. Obviously there’s not enough of it to destroy the world but it’s all around us. I can feel it.’ She rubbed her arms. ‘I still have my power.’ There was a quiet satisfaction in her tone, despite the anguish in her expression.

Jodie glared at her. ‘Congratulations. The world is ruined but we can all rest easy because you’re still strong.’

There was a flash of anger in Julie’s eyes. Before the pair of them came to blows, I stepped in. ‘Actually, I’m almost certain that only Manchester is affected. Everyone has been evacuated by the army but there are still helicopters hovering overhead.’

‘The magic is still here,’ Julie said. ‘It’s staying, no matter what else happens.’

‘Great,’ Jodie replied sarcastically. ‘Well done you.’

Julie flinched.

‘Why did you … set off the sphere?’ I asked.

‘Because,’ Jodie answered for her, ‘she’s a selfish bitch who decided she liked being an all-powerful vampire instead of a weak-arsed woman who needs to drink blood to survive. She wanted there to be magic. She didn’t care if the rest of us died in the process.’

Huh. When Julie didn’t answer immediately, I figured that Jodie must be telling the truth. It was no wonder I had a headache coming on.

‘I’m sorry,’ Julie said eventually. ‘I know it sounds feeble but it’s true.’ She waved a hand in the air. ‘Call it bloodlust or insanity or sheer nastiness. People have been hunting my kind of centuries and for once I decided to fight back.’ At that, Jodie snorted derisively. Julie flinched. ‘I was wrong. I…’ her voice faltered. ‘I’m sorry.’ Then she sniffed. ‘Besides, things aren’t so bad. The worst of the magic is safely down that well in the Arndale Centre. Manchester will be okay.’

‘Does it look okay to you?’ Jodie snapped.

‘What do you mean?’ I asked. ‘What well in the Arndale Centre?’

Jodie glanced at me. ‘All the freaky shit started happening because faeries like Madrona were using too much magic and it was building up in the atmosphere. They forced the magic in the air down an old wishing well in the Arndale Centre to get everything back to normal. It would have all been fine if Julie hadn’t grabbed the sphere, set it off and made everything ten times worse. If Madrona hadn’t taken the sphere when she did and swallowed it, the whole world would have imploded. And it would all have been Julie’s fault.’ Her voice was rising. Given what she was telling me, I wasn’t surprised.

I bit my lip. ‘Did you kill all the werewolves?’

Julie blanched. ‘No. Bloody hell, darling, no. That was another mad faery. The wolves were trying to stop him from using the sphere, so he stopped them first by killing them. Their deaths were nothing to do with me. You have to tell Monroe that.’

I absorbed her words, matching them against everything I already knew. ‘So if I’ve understood everything correctly, there were all these faeries who happened to drop by Manchester. They were using too much magic, and that’s why there were rats and fiery rain and crazy-arse trees. Then there was some kind fight between a bunch of these faeries that involved magic and the sphere thing. If it had gone badly, we would have died – but it didn’t. The fight’s over and the faeries have gone. Instead of normality, however, we’re still left with all this magic hanging around.’ Not to mention the other supernatural creatures that were appearing all over the place.

‘You’ve got it in a nutshell,’ Jodie said tiredly. ‘Madrona stopped the worst of it but she didn’t stop it quickly enough for Manchester not to be affected. Right now we’re trying to tidy things up here and bury the dead.’ She pointed. I saw several more dead wolves lying in an incongruously neat row. ‘After that,’ she shrugged, ‘who the hell knows?’

I blew air out between my teeth. ‘Who indeed?’ I murmured. I took my backpack off and reached inside it. Jodie and Julie stiffened and Julie actually bared her fangs. I’d never seen her do that on television.

‘Muesli bar?’ I enquired, taking them out and holding them towards the women. It was a strange peace offering but it might do the trick.

‘No thanks, darling,’ Julie said. Her eyes drifted towards my exposed neck. ‘I’d take a quick sip of you though.’

Although I had no real fear that she’d carry out her wish, I reacted instinctively, putting out my hands to ward her off. She staggered backwards, letting out a small cry, then she stared at me. ‘That’s a werewolf. I’m a vampire. She’s a human.’ She blinked. ‘But what the hell are you?’

Jodie reached out and took one of the bars, unwrapped it and started to munch. ‘Someone I want to get to know better, that’s for sure.’

Chapter Twelve

Jodie and I took the rest of the muesli bars and headed out beyond the trees to eat them while Julie remained under the leafy cover, apparently afraid of the sunlight.

‘So what you’re saying,’ Jodie mused, through a mouthful of raisins and oats, ‘is that you spent the night with the sphere. You slept with it.’

I shrugged. ‘Yeah.’

She eyed me. ‘The magic contained within it must have rubbed off on you. Got inside your system or something.’

‘That doesn’t make sense.’

‘What