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

The woman smiled faintly. ‘Thank you, Malbus,’ she said. ‘You may go now.’

Malbus twitched but remained where he was.

‘You did a good job,’ she told him. ‘You should be proud of yourself.’ She reached out and patted his arm.

He dropped his head, suddenly abashed, then he trotted off. I wondered if that sort of praise would work with my community – I needed some way of keeping my inhabitants at bay when the need arose.

‘I am Alora,’ she said. ‘You are Monroe and you,’ she nodded at me, ‘are Charley.’ She smiled at me. ‘You’ve been having a hard time lately.’

‘I…’ Her gentleness was so unexpected that I suddenly found myself blinking back tears. ‘I’m not a hothead,’ I blurted out. Not normally anyway.

Her expression softened further. ‘I know.’ She took a step back and her demeanour altered, becoming businesslike and professional. I had the distinct impression of someone who was steel sheathed in marshmallow. We had to tread very carefully indeed. ‘Tell me,’ Alora said, ‘what are you doing here?’

Monroe and I glanced at each other. He ran a hand through his hair and straightened his shoulders. ‘We were helping someone out,’ he said. ‘Relocating them to the lake.’

‘A water being, I assume?’ she enquired. ‘Because of the blood from the taps?’

Damn. This woman didn’t miss a trick. ‘Yes.’

‘Thank you for sorting that out. It has saved us a job.’ She knit her fingers together. ‘What manner of being was it?’

I licked my lips. ‘Uh, it was a mermaid. It is a mermaid. Her name is Nimue.’

I wanted to explain that she wasn’t necessarily a friendly mermaid who would sing happy songs and befriend children, but Alora was ahead of me. She tutted. ‘A mermaid? And you brought such a dangerous creature here? To this place?’ She glared at both of us. ‘We have children. Don’t you know how dangerous mermaids are?’

I swallowed. ‘She’s not all that bad.’ I had no idea why I was sticking up for Nimue. We were hardly bosom buddies.

Alora snorted. ‘That’s easy for you to say. She’s not your new neighbour.’

Monroe interjected. ‘We didn’t know you were here. We wouldn’t have brought the mermaid here if we’d known. To relocate her again might prove … difficult. If we could leave her for a couple of weeks and then reassess the situation…’

‘Yes, yes.’ Alora waved a hand in the air. ‘I know what mermaids are like. We’ll stay away from the lake and leave her in peace for the time being. If she causes problems, however, we will expect you to deal with them.’

This was going far better than I could have hoped. ‘Yes.’ I nodded vigorously. ‘We will.’

‘Good.’ She gave a satisfied nod. ‘You will tell no one about our existence here. We have no desire to get mixed up with your shenanigans.’ Her eyes hardened. ‘We’ve had enough trouble from other species as it is.’

‘What—’ I cleared my throat and hoped I wasn’t being too forward. ‘What species are you?’

Alora gave me a look to suggest I was particularly dim-witted. She might well have been right. ‘Bogles, of course.’

‘Of course.’ What on earth was a bogle?

She seemed to recognise my confusion because she smiled slightly. ‘We’ve been here for a long time. We were completely assimilated into Manchester, but before the apocalypse we had some trouble with the faeries.’

Monroe growled. ‘Didn’t we all?’

She shot him a look of sympathy, which made me think she knew exactly what had occurred with Monroe and his pack of werewolves. ‘We mean you no harm. Leave us in peace to continue with our lives and we will do the same to you. That is why we would appreciate you keeping our presence a secret.’

‘You’re magical,’ I began. ‘You have knowledge that we don’t. We have supplies and manpower. Perhaps we can trade or—’

‘No.’ Alora’s tone brooked no argument. ‘We are managing perfectly well on our own, thank you.’ She looked me up and down. ‘The tension you hold within you is palpable. We do not require those sorts of problems.’ She held my eyes and grimaced. ‘I do not wish to be impolite, and please understand that is not my intention. The world at large may have been saved from magic but in Manchester things remain difficult. We are only trying to survive as best we can. Maybe things will be different in the future.’

She appeared implacable and I knew there would be no changing her mind. All we could do was respect her wishes. The bogles had remained out of sight and unknown to all of us for this long. They had their reasons, even if I didn’t fully understand them.

‘Okay.’ I touched Monroe’s hand. ‘We will do as you ask. If you are amenable, Monroe and I will return in a week’s time. If the situation with Nimue, the mermaid, is untenable then we will try and move her again.’

Alora inclined her head. ‘I appreciate that.’ She smiled. ‘Who knows? Maybe she’s one of those rare mermaids who isn’t a bloodthirsty bitch.’

I had my doubts about that. I forced a smile. ‘We should go.’

‘Charlotte.’ Alora’s use of my full name made my head jerk up. ‘You have a lot of power within you. Magic can be a difficult thing to manage. Such a surge within a human body … it is no wonder that you are feeling ill effects. You should take care. Be kind to yourself.’ She glanced at Monroe. ‘Make sure others are kind to you also.’

I opened my mouth, desperate to ask her more. She seemed to know more about me than I knew about myself. But Alora had already turned on her heel and was walking up the path to her house.

Monroe shook his head, his words a low warning intended for my ears only. ‘Leave it for now, Charlotte. There is pain in this community. In time we can approach them again but if we force the issue today we will only make things more difficult.’

The lupine bastard was right