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

The woman tapped my shoulder, interrupting my reverie. Curious as to what she wanted, I took out my earphones and glanced at her.

‘Cool hair,’ she told me.

I grinned at her. It was normally only children who remarked upon my brilliant-blue hue. ‘Thanks. I love blue.’ And then, because I couldn’t help myself, I added, ‘Did you know that it’s been proved that weight lifters can lift heavier weights in blue-painted gyms?’ It was true. Plus, it was useful to know; I’d won a decent-sized bet thanks to that particular fact.

I laughed and flexed my biceps, amused by the woman’s dumbfounded – and discomfited – expression. She really did look stressed. She didn’t have the air of a criminal about her, but I’d never seen her here before. Perhaps she was a new detective. Deciding to put her at ease, I tapped my nose. ‘I’ll let you into a secret about my hair.’ I paused. ‘It’s not natural.’

She laughed loudly, like someone who’s been told a joke that’s not really funny but who’s trying to ingratiate themselves. Interesting. It was a rare day when my cleaning apron encouraged that sort of behaviour. Then she stumbled slightly, as if thrown by her own hilarity. I put out a hand instinctively to steady her.

‘I’m so sorry! I’m hopelessly clumsy!’ she said. Her words were strangely accented as if she hailed from a different continent despite her obvious fluency in English. Regardless, her smile remained friendly and her demeanour was suddenly less stressed. Perhaps my lame comment about my hair had relaxed her more than I’d realised.

‘Don’t worry about it,’ I said.

Her eyes drifted down to my name tag and she nodded oddly before leaving. Yeah, I get that a lot. I only work for Pixie Dust Cleaning Services, however; I’m not responsible for the name.

I finished up, locking away my mop and brushes in the closet. As I strolled towards the front door of police station, a wave of dizziness overtook me. Man, I really was tired. I blinked away my fatigue, only belatedly noticing the wall of wide-eyed police officers gazing out into the street. That was unusual.

I shuffled to the side and attempted to gain my own vantage point. Try as I might, I couldn’t edge my way through. Beyond the fact that the sky appeared extremely dark for the time of day, I couldn’t see a thing.

‘What’s going on?’

Anna Jones, one of the friendlier officers, glanced at me. ‘First of all,’ she muttered, ‘it was some sort of gang shit. As we were about to go out and stop it, that storm blew in out of nowhere and…’ She shook her head, her face pale.

‘And what?’

She didn’t answer. I frowned. If there was one thing I prided myself on, it was being in the know; it wasn’t being trapped behind twenty-odd police officers with nothing but broad shoulders and worried faces.

I straightened my posture and did the only sensible thing.

‘Charley, wait!’

I ignored DC Jones and pushed my way to the front, nudging the array of stiff-backed coppers out of my path. One or two of them tutted but most were too focused on what was going on outside to care. It was only when I elbowed in front of the podgy desk clerk that I realised why no one was venturing out and why everyone was staring.

My first thought was that there was a flood, that a nearby river had burst its banks, but the undulating river of brown wasn’t water. When I looked more closely, my stomach turned and dread flashed through me. Rats. Hundreds of them. In fact, scratch that – there had to be thousands. Even with the dark skies, it was possible to see their tails and the teeth.

‘We’re getting calls in from all over the city,’ someone said. ‘We have to do something.’

‘You got the number for the Pied Piper?’ came the reply. ‘What the hell are we supposed to do?’

I blocked out the responding mutters and murmurs and continued to gape. Sure, I knew the old adage that you were never more than a metre away from a rat, but I’d never realised that there were so many in the city. Where were they going? And, more to the point, where had they come from?

I heard a plaintive scream. My eyes flicked to the left and I spotted a figure halfway up a nearby lamppost. More rats were swarming at the bottom of it, leaping upwards as if attempting to spring upwards and eat the person. They were getting closer, their bodies creating an ever-growing mountain that was enabling them to scrabble upwards with unerring accuracy.

I didn’t stop to think. I had to do something. I flung open the door and ran out, ignoring the screams behind me as several rats sneaked into the police station.

Part of me expected to tread upon several of the creatures as soon as I reached the pavement. Instead, they seemed afraid of me, moving round me as if I were an immutable force that they dared not get close to. With a brief yelp of relief, I jogged across the road towards the helpless lamppost clinger. The rats parted for me, in a manner akin to the Red Sea and Moses.

Halfway across, I turned and yelled back. ‘It’s okay! They’re not trying to attack!’

Some of the watching police had obviously already recognised this and were edging out of the building to help. Unfortunately, they weren’t having the same good fortune that I was; in seconds, rats were swarming up their legs, squealing in triumph. As I stared, the officers retreated back to the relative safety of the police station.

For a moment I stood immobile in the middle of the road, the skittering of the rats’ tiny feet roaring round me. I half expected to be overwhelmed at any moment. A questing pink nose edged towards me, bravely pushing into the gap at my feet, then