Page 76 of Skulk of Foxes
‘Sorry!’ I rolled off her. ‘I wasn’t trying to hurt you! I just wanted to get the sphere…’ My voice trailed off as Julie kicked the sphere away.
It was glowing. Blue light bounced off of it, casting a tremendous haze into the air.
‘I didn’t do anything,’ she stammered. ‘I didn’t set it off. I didn’t mean to! Stop it, Mads. You have to do something!’
I shielded my eyes and sprang towards it. Morgan did the same but I pushed him back. Feeling the sphere burn through the skin on my fingers, I grabbed it and covered it. ‘Stop!’ I yelled at it. ‘Stop that!’
Unfortunately, the magic paid me no attention. Despite my attempts to cover it, the light increased. Even Lunaria paused in ministering to Rubus’s corpse to stare, while his bedraggled group of blood-soaked minions gaped.
‘We’re going home,’ one of them whispered.
Not if I had anything to do with it. ‘Tell me what to do!’ I shouted, rounding on Morgan.
He shook his head, growing horror in his eyes. ‘I don’t know! I don’t know how to stop it!’
‘Destroy it,’ whispered Monroe, from where he lay on the ground. ‘Stamp on it. Use your own magic. Just do something.’
He was right. I flung the sphere to the ground before bringing my foot crashing down on top of it. Nothing happened. If anything, the freaky blue light only intensified. I raised my hands and sent a jet of magic towards it in a bid to cancel it out but again my efforts only seemed to make things worse. It was as if the entire city of Manchester was now bathed in the blue magical glow.
‘Look,’ Julie whispered.
I turned and followed her gaze. There, just beyond the Roman fort, a ghostly horde of people suddenly became visible. Fey: lots of them. They were just beyond the border with Mag Mell and they were watching us. Some appeared to be shouting, although their words were inaudible, and most of them were gesticulating frantically.
‘What are they saying?’ I screeched at Morgan.
‘Destroy it. They want us to destroy the sphere.’
I rolled my eyes. ‘I’m fucking trying.’ I turned back and gazed in frustration at the tiny ball of chaos. Then, without thinking, I snatched it up again and swallowed it.
Morgan stared at me. ‘What the hell have you done?’
I retched. That was harder than I thought it would be.
A strange heat spread through my chest and down into my stomach, like the world’s worst case of indigestion. I’d already thought this would be a bad idea when I’d considered it back in the police station several days ago. Now I knew it was. I opened my mouth but no words came out. It felt as if I were burning from the inside out.
Julie’s mouth dropped open. ‘Your eyes are blue,’ she said. ‘And your fingers…’
I looked down. Blue light shone from each digit. The magic was growing; it was inside me but it was still growing and there was nothing I could to stop it. The heat was getting more and more extreme. I was going to explode.
I reached out and grabbed Morgan’s hand, squeezing it tightly. ‘I’m sorry,’ I whispered. ‘I’m so sorry.’ Never had an apology been so weak or so insignificant. The world was ending and all I could do was mumble that I was sorry. Gasbudlikins.
I squeezed my eyes shut. I really was very, very sorry. The Madhatter had really fucked things up this time.
Chapter Twenty-Two
There was a lot of screaming. Of course, that was probably fitting for the end of the world but it was hurting my ears. I hoped that it would be over quickly and the people here wouldn’t suffer too much.
Then Morgan leaned over and I felt his lips brush against mine. I opened my eyes and blinked. ‘We’re home,’ he said, cupping my face in his hands. ‘We’re in Mag Mell.’
The screaming continued. All around us, Fey were hugging Fey. What I was hearing were not screams of fear or pain or horror, I realised rather belatedly. Quite the opposite: everyone seemed utterly delighted.
I stared at Morgan in horror. ‘It’s happened,’ I whispered. ‘The human demesne ... the world…’
An elderly Fey man pulled me from Morgan and hugged me tight. ‘You did it, Madrona! I knew you would!’ He squeezed me. ‘You have no idea how much I’ve missed you. To not know how you were or what was happening…’ He sniffed. ‘It’s been so hard.’
‘I caused the apocalypse,’ I mumbled into his shoulder. I didn’t know who this guy was but right now I desperately needed the hug. All those people, all dead.
‘No, you darling girl! You stopped it!’
