Daemons of London Boxset (Books 1-3) The Bleeders, The Human Herders, The Purebloods

by Michaela Haze

  “That’s good to know.”

  I looked up to the stars in the sky, they weren’t that many out tonight and I wondered why I had never paid much attention to stars before.

  “Do you want to come to my house?” I asked as we walked.

  “If you want me to.” I couldn’t help but smile at his nervous tone. Virtually indestructible but scared of me getting the wrong message, a true gentleman.

  “You can come in for a cigarette or just for a quick talk before I go to bed if you like?” I said hopefully. Henry let a slow half-smile creep across his lips.

  “I’d like that,” he said. “You know Sophia, I don’t need to be invited it, that much is obvious since I trespassed in your house in the dead of night, and as you put it ‘scared the living shit out of you and dropped you down the stairs.’”

  I laughed.

  “I’m not drinking anything with caffeine in it,” Henry grimaced.

  “Coffee is the drink of the gods,” I muttered, wrinkling my nose. Henry stopped walking and turned to me, eying my house at the end of the street. He was crouched forward like a predator about to attack his prey. There was something dangerous, something was coming.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked. Henry shook his head and looked at me as if debating whether to run or proceed forward.

  “There is someone in your house…” he warned me in a low voice. I could hear the animalistic quality it had taken, no longer soft velvet but sharp and dangerous.

  “Who?”

  “They aren’t breaking anything, is there anyone that has your key?” he asked, his hand was on my shoulder about to push me behind him, for my protection.

  “Please come with me,” I begged in a tiny voice.

  “I will,” he promised. We walked in stony silence, a growing tension built in my chest as I reached for my key and pressed it into the lock.

  Henry grabbed my hand again. There was a figure behind the pebbled glass. My heart broke into a sprint and I considered running.

  “They’re human,” he whispered.

  “Well—humans aren’t exactly the scariest thing out there,” I muttered back. Henry laughed loosely, he knew I felt safe around him even though that was probably foolish.

  The door unlocked from the inside, and a woman stood on the threshold, bleach blonde hair and fake blushed cheeks. Her hands were on her hips, well-manicured and perfect. I pulled my vision from her cleavage to look at her face. Square jaw, middle parting, sharp feline features.

  “Hello mother,” I hissed. And then Henry burst out laughing.

  9.

  My mother smiled her perfect white smile. I ran my tongue over my teeth, reminded that my own were far from perfect. Why did women do their nails like that, long like talons? Her hair was platinum blonde with a perfect wave that could only be achieved by a professional. Julia Windermere hadn’t been in England for over a year but here she was, looking down at me on my own doorstep. Mother or not she had no right.

  “Stay,” I pleaded to Henry under my breath and in my peripheral, I caught the end of his nod. My mother, bane of my existence, thorn in my side, overgrown and selfish child—I did inherit a lot from her. I had gotten her looks, but unlike her apparently, I didn’t know what to do with mine.

  “Come in Henry,” I chirped as I took a step inside, pushing past my mother. She reached her hand across and sneered.

  “No men allowed in the house after dark,” she teased, her voice was false and coated in sugar. I shuddered. Henry hadn’t moved.

  “It’s my house—dad gave it to me not you,” I hissed.

  “Actually he gave it to Melanie. He would be spinning in his grave to see what you have been doing to it. It’s a ghost house,” my mother snarled.

  I pushed past her and looked back at Henry. He shook his head sadly and turned to walk away. Apparently, I would have to deal with my mother alone.

  When her violet eyes zeroed in like a gun seeking a target, I looked over her shoulder and my daemon was gone. Something inside me snapped. It felt like the bottom had dropped out of my stomach. I felt so alone. I didn’t realise how much of a life preserver Henry Blaire was, now in the face of my mother fear settled in. I could feel the pain, the angst, everything that hurt so much. It crawled up my spine and began to leech my personality. Any happiness that I may have felt a few minutes ago was gone.

  “You live in a ghost house!” my mother barked at me. “Get some furniture.”

  “Casper, get your ass down here! My mother’s here!” I shouted to the empty room before moving across my sparsely decorated living room and plopping down on the futon. I slipped my hand out under the sofa bed and grabbed the vodka, I took a swig and eyed my mother as she stood in front of me, her eyes narrowed into tiny slits.

  “What?” I asked, “What the hell did I do now?”

  “I came home a little early for Christmas,” she looked at the one small table and ran her manicured finger across it, collecting the dust and examining it.

  “Right—roughly translated as, your marriage is having problems,” I smiled bitterly.

  “Are you going to just sit there and drink, instead of having a proper conversation with me?” my mother asked harshly. I knew she had no intention of talking to me, not in a civil manner anyway. I crossed my arms over my chest and invited her to continue with a flick of my wrist.

  “You could at least use a shot glass, Fia. Or perhaps cocktails? Heaven knows there is nothing more unattractive than an alcoholic.”

  I growled at her, my anger bubbling out of my throat. “I’m not a fucking alcoholic!”

  My mother didn’t flinch, she advanced.

  There was silence as the air filled with stifling tension but I didn’t want to say anything to bait her. She had enough ammunition to drag me down to her level. She knew how powerful her words were.

  “I’m going to bed,” I whispered, pulling myself up. I caught myself from falling, dizzy from the vodka in my hands.

  My mother laughed and my need for sleep vanished. I walked past and shot an angry glance over my shoulder. She smirked, her arms wrapped around her skinny body. Her long bony fingers tapped absently at her hipbone and suddenly I got the feeling that something was wrong.

  It took everything for me not to run up the stairs and fly into my room. I hoped to God that she hadn’t gone in my room and decided that I needed new furniture. Or worse, that she had gotten all my old furniture from storage. I didn’t want shit like that.

  I hurried, I knew she hadn’t followed me and that was a relief. My mother was downstairs and my breathing was now ragged. I walked up to my room and the door was still open from when I had left for work. Nothing was amiss.

  Turning around, I wondered why she had smirked…what had she done? The empty upstairs hallway mocked me, teasing me like it knew something I didn’t.

  Slowly and numbly, I walked downstairs to confront my mother, one foot after the other, my limbs not cooperating.

  Then I saw it. Mel’s bedroom door was open. And the room was bare.

  The room was fucking bare.

  My mother had taken everything Melanie had owned. Stolen it. There was nothing but dusty floorboards. Her smell was gone. Her books were gone. That stupid fucking care-bear was gone.

  My heart had been ripped from my chest and stomped on by my mother’s six-inch heels. I started to shake, my hand clasped at the fabric over my chest as I took deep breaths.

  “How?” I gasped “Why?” I didn’t realise how long I had been on the floor when I heard my mother’s voice.

  “It was for the best,” she assured me bitterly. “I thought that since you got rid of everything else, there was only one room left to clear.” Her smile crept over her face, becoming a full grown smug grin. I leapt up and when she wouldn’t move, I shoved past her. Her hands flew up to protect her face, her sharp plastic nails wrapped around a tendril of my hair.

  “Don’t you fucking hit me!” she screamed, her voice rang out and almost busted my ear dr
ums. “I’m your mother!” Julia flicked her hand to dislodge my hair. It hurt like hell.

  I stood, shoulders squared, panting. All I could see was red. I looked down to my hands in disgust.

  “I would never hit you, how could you…? You’re my fucking mother. Even if you don’t understand the word!” I stared her straight in the eye.

  “You took her things!” I pointed a shaky finger directly at her. “You killed her, you killed her, the last bit of Mel left…and you took it. You stepped on it like dirt—you don’t respect me,” I spat. “And you didn’t respect her.”

  My mother didn’t look repentant. In fact, she looked like she was staring into the face of a small child. Disgust rose in my throat, coupled with a deep sense of profound loss.

  “I can’t believe we came out of such a selfish bitch,” I hissed, before running directly for the front door. She called after me, but I never wanted to see her again.

  I slammed my front door, Henry leant against the gate at the end of my front garden, his pale blue eyes concerned. His eyes travelled to my chest as if he could hear my angry heartbeat. I wiped my red stained blotchy face on the back of my sleeve. He opened his arms to me and it took all of my strength not to fling myself at him.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, but he must have known that whatever answer he received would be irrelevant, it was evident that I was not okay.

  His arms were still lifted, waiting for me. I wanted nothing but to sob into them. But running head first into the arms of a starving daemon…was not a good idea.

  “You can feel my emotions through my skin,” I said between a sob. “I don’t want you to feel this.”

  Henry shook his head sadly and took a step closer. “Give me your pain,” he pleaded. “I don’t want you to hurt. I’d burn at the stake a thousand years just to make sure you didn’t.”

  Without waiting for my reply, he locked his arms around me and held me. I buried my head in the crook of his neck and sobbed, heaving movements that rocked my frame.

  When I looked up I could see his lips in a thin line, holding in his own turmoil. We felt the pain together. He wouldn’t let me relieve him of it; he wouldn’t let me break out of the embrace.

  “Henry…” I sobbed; he unclenched his fingers though they weren’t hurting me and took an automatic step backwards. His face relaxed into a tight smile but I could still see the agony in his eyes. I wondered what it was like to feel someone else’s pain, maybe each person’s pain had a different flavour. If pain felt different, depending on the person

  “You’re not going back in there,” he stated. I shook my head and looked back down to the ground, fiddling with my hands.

  “Come back to my home,” Henry looked down to my stomach with a wry smile. “I’ll get you something to eat as well.”

  I nodded silently.

  That was how I ended up sitting in Henry Blaire’s living room, while he silently and quickly searched for something to drink in his kitchen. He was worse than a university student slash bachelor. He didn’t eat so why would there be food in his house?

  I sat in the black leather armchair, looking around the room once more. I remembered my experience as I sat on the opposite side, talking and pleading my case.

  The bookshelf in the corner of the room had nothing but reference books, but the one on the other wall had paperbacks. There was a framed University diploma on the wall next to a case of dead butterflies. I remembered that Henry had a phobia of them. Why would someone have something they feared placed on the wall like that?

  If Henry’s logic was anything like mine, he had it there to remind him that fear is an essential part of life.

  Maybe my fear of death and daemonism stemmed from my fear of change. I did not want to change into something unknown and different. I could live my life every day and then die—that was the plan.

  To make some whimsical change and become like Henry? He said it wasn’t possible for him…but it was for others to turn me. Would I want that gift?

  I was comfortable in my body—I didn’t want to become something that scared me. I knew Henry was afraid of what he could do, scared of what he had become, why would I want to be like that?

  Would I want to share his pain like he shared mine? He called himself a monster. I was already a monster—what would I become if I lost my soul too.

  I groaned and rested my head in between my knees.

  “I have that cup-of-soup stuff,” Henry said, holding a mug by the handle. “You just add hot water.”

  I nodded mutely and took it. It was warm but not scolding.

  “I heard what happened at your home. Was that your mother?” Henry whispered, incredulously.

  I shook with laughter, “Yes, that was mummy dearest. Ms. Julia Windermear, well she was Julia Taylor—but she got remarried.”

  “She looked like jail bait.”

  “It’s the Botox…” I mused. “But you shouldn’t be in the position to judge anyone on their age considering you don’t really count time; do you?”

  “It’s true, I don’t. I would be a crap off-license clerk,” Henry said playfully. “I’d sell alcohol to everyone.”

  I slapped my hand to my forehead. “I forgot my vodka,” I muttered.

  “You’ll just have to get drunk on me.” Henry winked. I rolled my eyes, despite my calm demeanour, my hands shook so much the red soup sloshed about and I had to put the mug down.

  I needed a drink—bad.

  It didn’t control me, I told myself, that was why I was different than other alcoholics. I was different because I wasn’t an alcoholic. I just drank. I was a person who drank. I wasn’t as bad as them…

  Henry moved over to sit next to me. His movement was so fast all I could hear was the air rip in two as he popped up next to me. He put his hand on mine hesitantly but ripped it back fiercely when we made contact. I felt as if I had pins and needles in my hand. I looked at him, my brow furrowed, not understanding if I should feel hurt or upset.

  His eyes were pale blue—flared and unrelenting. He was hungry and touching me had made it worse.

  “Is it always like that? You always want…”

  Henry swallowed the lump in his throat.

  “Do all of you think like that?” I wondered, referring to daemons on a grand scale. I kept my head down and took a sip of my soup. It was a pleasant temperature.

  “It’s the monster inside,” Henry told me tapping the side of his head and looking troubled. “He doesn’t think; he is the pale blue eyes, the strength…the predator. It’s like constantly having two trains of thought and hopping between the two.”

  I nodded inviting for him to continue, Henry looked at me and smiled weakly.

  “One says—I want to be me again, I am who I am, regardless of what I am. The other…is screaming non-stop to kill everybody. To steal their essence. Their blood means that I can be myself, keeps the monster behind bars for a short while. It is a selfish sacrifice. I used to believe it was the ultimate irony. Drinking blood to protect me from becoming nothing but a corpse - when that is all I am creating. More corpses.”

  “But—it doesn’t have to be like that, you could feed in small amounts?” I offered.

  “Right,” Henry snorted. Then he looked at me apologetically. “It doesn’t work that way, there are few of my kind that would be willing to make that sacrifice.”

  “Does it make you weaker?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “But you could live on it if you truly wished to; you could take little bits from strangers, people you meet, one night stands and nothing else?”

  Henry put his hands in his hair and let out an exuberant sigh. “You think I haven’t tried?”

  He muttered while ruffling his mahogany hair. I looked away denying him any eye contact. “It is not that easy.” I finished for him.

  We sat together, I was in the armchair and he leant on the side, my hands clasped around my soup. The room was cold because I was the only one that had a temperature to
heat it with.

  “That’s right…” I said to myself weakly. “If you gave up human blood then I would have to find another hit man.”

  I felt his cold hand on my shoulder, pulling me to look into his eyes. I did. Even when it became to the point where it would be rude, I didn’t look away. I felt blood flame on my cheeks and I bit the inside of my cheek to stop my blush.

  “I wouldn’t let you,” Henry whispered smiling proudly. “I wouldn’t let you take the risk. Besides, maybe you only like me because of the danger I represent. Maybe you’d fall in love with this other hit man and I would be left all alone in the cold.”

  “Well—you are cold.” I agreed before smiling cheekily and not saying anything else.

  “So you do not deny you might fall in love with another hit man?”

  My eyebrow crooked so only one was raised; A slow playful smile crept across Henry’s heart shaped face.

  “I’ve never been in love before,” I told him.

  “But you’ve had sex?” he said slowly.

  “Yes?” I asked, “and? Have you ever been in love before?”

  Henry thought for a second before smiling weakly. “Once,” he allowed.

  Before the unknown jealousy raged through my chest, I pressed myself to continue.

  “And have you had sex? Outside of the person you were in love with?” I asked.

  Henry’s perfect eyes darted to the soup I was holding and he gestured for me to keep drinking it. I sighed and held it to my mouth.

  “Yes. I had sex when I was human and it wasn’t with the person I was in love with. Fine,” He threw his hands up in a sigh of exasperation. “You win this round, Fia.”

  The mug froze on its way to my mouth; Henry leant over in an indiscernible movement.

  “Sophia? Did I say something wrong?” I shook my head.

  “No…you called me Fia,” I swallowed.

  “And you treat me like a human being,” Henry said sadly.

  Tears beaded behind my eyes and I reached over and let my hand sit weakly on his shoulder.

  “You are a man,” I said emphatically. “Human or not.”