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

I raised my eyes heavenward. Just think, a few hours ago I was sleeping blissfully without a care in the world. ‘We’re all here now,’ I said. ‘Let’s see what our combined brains can work out from Valerie’s body and the crime scene.’ Of course, the odds were that we’d discover absolutely nothing but we had to try.

We emerged at the third floor where Valerie’s room was located. At least the proximity to the place of her death meant that Cath and Julie lapsed into a respectful silence. I led the way to the room, although I was fairly certain that the scent of death was already in Julie’s nostrils and she knew exactly where we were going.

‘The fire door,’ Julie said. ‘Has it been open all this time?’

I glanced round and realised she was right. At the end of the hallway, close to the other staircase at the opposite end of the hotel, the fire exit leading to the outside world was ajar. I thought about it. ‘Yes,’ I said finally. ‘It was open when I came up here the first time.’ It was the perfect escape route for any intruder – vampire or otherwise.

‘Mmm,’ Julie murmured. ‘You can’t open those doors from the other side.’ She looked at me meaningfully. ‘If the murderer isn’t from inside the hotel, your corpse must have invited her killer in.’

I sighed. It did make sense, otherwise Timmons’ magic alarm would have gone off earlier. Unfortunately all that information did was widen our pool of suspects from several dozen to several thousand.

I steeled myself and walked into Valerie’s room, while Julie and Cath hesitated at the door. Cath let out a gasp. Julie remained more stoical but even her skin looked paler than normal.

We wouldn’t do Valerie any good by wringing our hands and retching. I swallowed and strode over to her body. ‘Don’t touch anything until Anna gives us the say so.’

‘Sure,’ Cath murmured. ‘We wouldn’t want to disturb the scene before the fingerprint technicians get here.’

I tutted at her. ‘We might not have the resources but that doesn’t mean we need to be stupid.’ I pointed at Valerie. ‘There are the puncture wounds. Julie, come here and tell me what you think.’

The vampire actress edged in with considerable reluctance. She moved round to my right side and peered at Valerie’s body. Cath came over and did the same.

‘Maybe,’ the teen said, sounding nervous for the first time, ‘I should check to make sure she’s really dead.’

‘She’s really dead,’ Julie snapped. ‘How many alive people do you know who look like that?’

I placed a warning hand on her shoulder. Cath was only trying to be useful in the face of a terrifying sight.

Julie shrugged me off but she did at least subside. ‘Yeah,’ she said finally. ‘Those puncture marks look vampire-like to me.’

‘You told me once,’ I said, ‘that you could never drink all the blood in a human’s body in one go. That there’s just too much. Was that the truth?’

‘Yes,’ she answered. ‘It’s a lot of liquid to chug down.’

I winced slightly at her choice of words but I didn’t interrupt.

‘Whoever did this,’ Julie continued, ‘must have spent quite some time with her.’ She shuffled round the other side of the bed and squatted down beside Valerie’s trailing hand. ‘You see the way her fingernails are cracked? She put up a fight. Our perpetrator is probably covered in scratches.’

‘How quickly do vampires heal?’ I asked.

Julie’s mouth flattened into a thin line. ‘These days? With all the magic floating in the air? Hours, at best. If you’re using attack wounds to find her killer, you’ll have to move quickly. Unless your Valerie here managed to score a life-threatening hit, whoever did this will have healed their scratches and cuts by noon.’ She paused. ‘And it’s light outside. Most vampires will be sleeping away the day by now.’

I absorbed this information with a sinking sensation. This was not going to be easy. ‘Do you know how many vampires there are in Manchester, Julie?’

She shook her head. ‘No.’ She looked away from me and towards Cath. ‘What are you staring at?’

Cath didn’t appear in the slightest bit intimidated. ‘I was checking you over,’ she said. ‘For scratches.’

Julie bared her teeth at the teen but without any real malice. She grabbed her blouse and started to unbutton it. ‘Would you like to check all over?’ she enquired. ‘I didn’t do this,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t do this. Frankly I don’t know of any vampire who could.’ She glanced at me. ‘If there were more puncture wounds, I’d have said there must have been more than one attacker.’

‘Unless,’ Cath said thoughtfully, ‘they were really hungry.’

‘Darling,’ Julie replied, ‘no one is that hungry.’

I twisted my fingers together and sighed. Pointless as it seemed, I’d have to go to the north as quickly as possible to see if I could find any vampires with tell-tale wounds who were wandering about in the morning sun without a care in the world.

‘Are there any other signs I should look out for?’ I asked. ‘With the vampire –or even vampires – who did this?’

Julie considered. ‘We do tend to become lethargic after a big, um, meal,’ she said. ‘And happy.’

So I was looking for a bloated, sleepy vamp with a cheesy grin and bloody scratches. And I only had about three hours to find them before their wounds healed. Great. I’d seen better odds on Pamela Anderson becoming the next James Bond.

I squared my shoulders and reminded myself that sometimes long shots paid off. I cast a last look at Valerie. ‘I’ve got this,’ I promised her quietly. ‘I’ll find the bastard who did this.’

Chapter Seven

I hadn’t visited the northern part of the city since Monroe and his supernatural cronies had settled in. It wasn’t out of a lack of desire to go there, it had simply been a matter of logistics and time. Even