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

by Michaela Haze

  Was it wrong to want the outside of yourself to be pretty when the inside of yourself was dead and decaying?

  I always felt sick. I didn’t want to eat because I always felt sick. The only time I didn’t feel sick was when I dosed and now I couldn’t take the food when I dosed.

  My phone started ringing, I jumped when I realised I had been lost in my own thoughts.

  “Hello?”

  “Sophia?”

  I swallowed largely. “Chris Archer?”

  He sighed sleepily and I heard sheets ruffling, “Thank God. I was beginning to think you died… what are you doing with your life?”

  I chuckled nervously. “It’s three in the morning…sorry, I called. Um, yeah, I’m pretty good. You?”

  “Better than good now that you called Fia.” I flinched at the name Fia, I was Taylor now: everyone called me Taylor.

  “You said you had a favour to ask me?” I wondered.

  “Oh yeah—shit, I forgot,” Chris laughed sleepily. “But first where are you living, you have to answer some of my questions missy.”

  My hand flew to my stomach and I was reminded that he was human, and I wasn’t anymore, I was not a person, I was an empty vessel. Seeing Chris Archer would just remind me of the mask I had to put on for other people. The bleeders accepted me. Chris knew the old me.

  “I’m living in Camden,” I said.

  “You’re close then?” he sounded sad. “Why did you quit Bar Noir?”

  “If you remember Archer I didn’t quit. I just…stopped turning up.”

  “Yeah,” he agreed with a sad grunt.

  “Do you want to meet me?” I asked him, my hand flew to my mouth and I cursed under my breath when I realised I’d given him an opening into my life.

  “Yeah—that would be cool, for the favour and everything. Do you want to meet at Bar Noir?”

  “No!” I half shouted.

  “What about Adam’s Ribs? Next to the Rainforest Café?”

  I thought about that for a second. I would have to eat. “Tomorrow?” I asked in a high pitched unsure voice.

  “If that’s good for you.”

  I squinted and sighed. “Yeah—I mean, yes. That’s good. I’ll see you tomorrow at—,” I checked the time display on my phone as I held it away from my ear. “Well, anytime, you decide, I’m not good with time. I forget…”

  “Three?” He offered.

  “Um, Twelve? That way we could do lunch.” I murmured.

  “Sure Fia…I have to sleep now.”

  I laughed to myself. “Me too.” I lied. “See you tomorrow.”

  “Night.” Chris said and the dial tone rang in my ear.

  I didn’t need to sleep and I wasn’t over enthusiastic to meet him, I was nervous. What if he was the same? What if he hated me because I wasn’t the same? What if he looked into my eyes and knew I was a murderer?

  Fuck—I couldn’t go. I couldn’t meet Chris Archer, he knew me, he’d know.

  I fisted my hands in my hair and pulled it as I growled under my breath and sunk onto my futon in the corner of the room. I tried to control my breathing but it was getting more and more erratic. That was why I avoided people I knew. I was a killer, a fucking murderer, I couldn’t go back and bring them back to life—they didn’t deserve life anyway for what they did. I couldn’t shake the horrid feeling, dark and creeping, like my insides had died and rotted to mulch.

  You’re a killer…you’re worse than a daemon Sophia.

  My head flew around and looked for the source of the voice, it could have been my internal monologue but it rang in my ears like someone had just said it to me.

  It sounded like my voice but it wasn’t.

  It belonged to Melanie.

  Great—now I was going insane.

  One more thing I didn’t need.

  I walked to the ensuite bathroom connected to my shitty little room and hovered over the toilet for a few minutes, looking at the pooling of water in the porcelain bowl. I knelt slowly and pushed my hair back off my face.

  I grabbed the toothbrush from the side and shoved it down my throat. I kept it there as I dry heaved around the obstruction. I could feel the pain in the back of my throat from the force, it burned and stung. I tried to swallow but thought against it as I felt my stomach try to push its contents out.

  If I got rid of some of the blood I hadn’t processed, then I would be able to eat tomorrow—Chris wouldn’t know what was wrong with me.

  I worried that if I sat in the restaurant, people would look at me, they would look and know that I was stealing blood from daemons; shoving it in my veins…They’d know. When the contents of my stomach spewed out of my mouth it was nothing but yellow bile. The blood was already absorbed.

  Dinner would be a disaster tomorrow.

  I straightened myself up by flushing the toilet and walking back into my room. Sitting down on my bed, I pulled my sketchbook closer. This time, I used a pencil.

  16.

  I didn’t know where the restaurant was but I knew what it looked like. I knew the massive road that ran next to it, the giant blackened windows and the red neon sign that said ‘Adam’s ribs’ but I’d never actually gone in. I used to go to the rainforest café opposite as a child. I remembered my seventeen birthday when Melanie and I went to the bar and drank the emerald city cocktail—it was green, luminous and expensive.

  I got off the underground and allowed the familiar sights to drag me to my destination without too much thought. It was winter and I worried briefly that I should have called ahead for a table, but it was a Tuesday and the Christmas holidays hadn’t started yet—so even though the restaurant would be busy I hoped it wouldn’t be packed. I had dressed in a dark utility jacket cut to shape around my waist, even though the wind was bitter and the rain drizzled, I couldn’t feel it due to the cold blood in my veins.

  I pulled my hair back into a ponytail, showing off my defined jaw line. I looked at myself in the reflective glass as I walked down the street, I snorted to myself. Beautiful Bleeder.

  Vanity was never a sin I felt that I needed, there were others that I could pursue that would probably suit me better now that I had turned my back on the Lord.

  I walked into the restaurant at ten past twelve, fashionably late.

  “Hey, I’m looking for a Mr. Archer,” I asked the waiter behind the podium.

  He smiled at me and I could see the minute movements of his irises looking over my appearance.

  “Right this way,” He said happily. He stepped back and let me walk past him to the table; I could tell he was looking at my arse. I heard my name being called by a familiar voice and I smiled and waved when I saw that Chris had lifted himself out of his seat and was waving at me with all eyes on him.

  “Hey Archer,” I said shyly.

  Chris ruffled his dirty blonde hair and stuck out his hand as if he wanted to shake it. I looked at him oddly and he shrugged, leaning over to give me a hug. It was odd and uncomfortable as he maneuvered himself around the table. I let one of my arms raise and patted him on the back once. He shivered.

  “You’re cold Fia,” He said

  I shrugged “You know what they say, cold hands warm heart,”

  He snorted and we both sat down. The waiter nodded at us both and asked us if we wanted anything to drink.

  “I’ll have a cranberry juice, and my friend already has a drink,” I informed the man as he made a note on his small pad and whisked off.

  “Not drinking?” Chris asked.

  I shook my head. “I haven’t drunk in over a year.”

  He looked down at the menu as if it was the most engrossing literature he had ever read.

  “Is that why you left the bar? To get clean?”

  “Clean?” I laughed. “Clean is for junkies, but…in a way, I’m sober now, that’s all that counts.”

  I didn’t want to inform Chris that I was, in fact, a junkie of a different nature.

  “I’ve missed you,” My friend said sadly.


  “Yeah—I guess I missed you a bit,” I allowed. “Just a little bit.”

  Chris flipped the menu down and let it rest on the table.

  The waiter came back and placed my cranberry juice by my left wrist and I stroked the cool glass but didn’t drink it. My stomach would just push it up again and that wouldn’t be a friendly display.

  “Are you guys ready to order?” He asked us both with a smile.

  “Yes—,” I started to say but Chris raised his hand to stop me.

  I looked at him questionably.

  “What?”

  “Um, we are waiting for another member of our party to arrive so we’ll order in a minute,” Chris said calmly. In that second he looked like a different person.

  “Another person?” I queried.

  He shrugged and smiled.

  “The favour?” I asked.

  Chris nodded and folded his hands on the table. He looked over my shoulder at something and unbridled joy broke across his face. My heart started to panic and thump in my ears. I wasn’t ready to talk to anyone else. I swivelled around in my chair and expected some dark demon to materialise. But it was a heavily pregnant woman in a business suit waddling towards us.

  “Over here, Amy!” Chris bellowed. The pregnant woman grinned and walked over, sliding into the seat between both of us like a referee.

  I looked at the glowing woman with a pixie cut and a side fringe, it was natural black. She had dimples—dimples! She huffed as she slid into the seat with an odd delicacy.

  “Hello?” I said. It was a question.

  Chris laughed gently. “This is Amy Wise—well, now, she’s Amy Archer. This is my wife,” Chris said proudly. I swallowed and looked back to the pregnant person with open eyes.

  “Hi,” She said meekly as if she was checking out every facet of my appearance.

  I shook my head to banish thoughts from it, but it didn’t help.

  “How long have you been married?” I asked them both, it was to take attention away from me, and why I wasn’t eating and drinking.

  “Um, six months,” Chris offered.

  I smiled and crooked an eyebrow turning to his wife. “How far along are you Amy?”

  Chris scowled and his wife looked horrified.

  “Geez!” I said, flinging my hands up in surrender. “You know I’m joking Archer…” I corrected myself. “Archers.”

  Amy visibly relaxed. “I’m due in a few weeks,” She said in answer to my question.

  “Cool,” I picked up my glass and held it to my lips but didn’t drink the cool liquid. I just let it bump against my lips and slide back into the glass.

  “You’re really pretty,” Amy murmured with wide eyes. “I mean—beautiful.”

  I shook my head minutely and looked at her in wonder. “Thanks?”

  “I admit when Chris talked about you I thought I had big shoes to fill…” She blushed. “Have you considered modelling?”

  I knew it wasn’t me that was stunning; it was the daemon’s blood.

  “Nah, Sophia’s always been odd looking,” Chris said happily. “It’s the purple eyes.”

  “I don’t have ‘purple’ eyes. And yes, I’m odd looking, my mother and sister got all the pretty genes. I look too much like my father,” I explained to Amy. “And my eyes are violet, almost grey.” I said pointedly to Chris.

  “Oh gosh, you do have the oddest eye colour,” Amy squeaked.

  I looked down at the menu. “I think I’ll have a salad,” I said to change the flow of the conversation.

  I looked up and saw Amy reach for Chris’s hand. It was so slight, the way she reached for him and comforted him. He had found someone. Proof that life did indeed move quickly. I wondered to myself if I had never met Henry would I have settled for marrying my best friend. That could have been me, barefoot and pregnant.

  “I have something for you, Fia,” Chris said after a few minutes’ silence.

  “And what is that?” I smirked, looking at them both. My gaze hovered over Amy so she didn’t feel like she was being ignored.

  “Some post came to Bar Noir for you last week. It is the only letter we have had since you left, I thought it was weird. It has your phone number in the bottom corner, your new one,” Chris said as he scratched his stubbly chin. “That’s how I knew how to get hold of you.”

  “That’s strange,” I admitted, feeling goose bumps on my skin.

  “Postmark says Doncaster; you have any family that way?” Chris inquired.

  I shook my head, “Not that I know of.”

  I looked up and saw that Chris had pulled a white envelope out of his jacket. He held it out to me. My name and Bar Noir’s address was written in elegant script on the front. My hand shook as I reached forward for it. I took it and placed it next to my cutlery.

  “Thanks.”

  “Are you not going to open it?” Amy asked.

  Chris shot her a look for a few seconds but she just looked confused.

  “Nah,” I replied curtly.

  “So—the favour,” Amy said looking at Chris. “You have asked her, haven’t you?”

  “I wanted to wait until you came…we can ask together,” Chris said quietly.

  Amy ran her hands through her inky black hair just as Chris did the same they laughed at each other and their similarities; they really were made for each other. Even I could see that.

  “I’m so nervous,” Amy whispered to Chris, he responded with a simple. “Don’t be.”

  “So what is it you want to ask me?”

  Amy bounced on her chair. “I’ve just met you, but I feel it. You were Chris’s best friend for over ten years and I trust his judgement. I mean what better way than having a child to bring people closer together.” Her rant was rushed. I looked at her as she took a quick breath.

  “Will you be a godparent to our child?” She asked excitedly.

  They both looked at me expectantly.

  I wanted to vomit—I felt physically sick. I gripped the table. “I can’t,” I whispered.

  “Well—you wouldn’t have to do much, just come to the christening, and in case of—death,” Chris said quickly.

  Then he stopped, they both looked at me as I started breathing heavily, panting as I reached over and took my cranberry juice. I reached out to drink it but then I realised that I wouldn’t be able to. My trembling hands knocked over the glass and crimson liquid stained the tablecloth. I grabbed and started mopping the mess. It looked just like blood.

  If they died—and everybody dies—then I would be left with a child. I wasn’t even a person; I didn’t deserve to be given human life and I didn’t want or deserve that opportunity.

  Everyone dies and everyone leaves.

  “I’m sorry guys,” I murmured. I opened my purse and threw two fifty pound notes on the table. Chris gasped at the money. “Buy yourself a nice lunch…I can’t…I can’t…be…”

  I didn’t finish, I just turned on my heels and walked out of the restaurant, clutching the blank envelope. I slid it into my bag next to ‘The Bell Jar’, the book that I managed to save, the only thing I kept from my old house. I carried it everywhere with me.

  With that, I rushed out of the restaurant to get the first tube train back to my gritty flat.

  I was sat on a metal bench on the platform of Piccadilly Circus, watching train after train go past. I was assaulted by the overwhelming feeling that something was wrong. I took out the envelope as the wind from the passing train caused my hair to whip around my face. I leant my head against the soot covered tiles as I opened the letter. I turned the thick paper over in my hands and inside was another cheque. This one was from Mr. Graham Lavender But I knew that Henry had used that name.

  It was another cheque for ten thousand pounds, on the back was one sentence:

  Use this to hide. Don’t trust anyone. – H

  I folded the cheque and debated whether to throw it in the bin. When I turned it over there was little information that I could glean from it. Bank security w
as shit hot these days, I had no hope of finding any details from Halifax. I pocketed the cheque but kept the envelope close, surveying it for clues. It had a Christmas stamp, a virginal portrait of the Virgin Mary and a postmark from Doncaster of all places.

  A warning from Henry. If he cared he would have come back to give me the warning.

  Use this to hide? From what exactly? I didn’t want to hide; I had hidden enough. He had no right to leave and think that he could send me commands. It didn’t work that way.

  Maybe I’d cash the cheque, although I didn’t need the money—but if I took what money I had now I could live for the rest of my life without working. Bleeding daemons was risky work but well compensated.

  I stood up and walked towards the end of the platform.

  I could have thrown myself right into the electronics, and be nothing but a smear under a tube carriage. Enraging Londoners everywhere.

  How many people would come to my funeral? None. It had been easy to disappear, the people that used to be my friends, people I met throughout random pursuits wouldn’t come, they were superficial friends. Trix would pick the flowers or my mum. It would be a toss-up between something stupid like daisies, or if my mother had anything to say about it, I would be dressed in roses, in an open casket with a red dress and hooker make-up.

  I breathed deeply and knew that my thoughts were dark. What scared me was that one day I would be under a gravestone, or worse, burning flesh and fat reduced to ashes. I boarded the train to take me back to my Camden flat. Across from me, a loud Jamaican woman talked to passengers around her. I kept my head down and tried to not draw attention to myself. In London, people didn’t talk to each other in public for fear of being thought of as a crazy person. And people saw people who talked around them as pretty crazy.

  I stepped out of the station and hunched over lighting a fag, cupping my hand over it so the wind wouldn’t trouble me. I breathed in the heavy smoke and sighed, leaning into an alcove outside of Camden Town station.

  My phone rang—gosh, I was popular today. I thought sarcastically.