Was that all people viewed me as? Was my life nothing but a story to be told, not even real?
Nothing but a lie with prettily decorated words?
My life didn’t feel like that and my experiences certainly weren’t pretty. They were visceral and raw. I wanted Henry—I wanted to rip away his flesh until he was nothing but bones subject to decay and rot. But Henry would always be alive and he was constant, eternal.
I wanted to rip him down from the pedestal of my own making.
I knew Henry was real.
I didn’t want to believe he wasn’t because I loved him. I knew that even if he were ugly I would still love him. There was not a question anymore of how I could love a monster because I was a monster too, a murderer. No logic or idea could change anything in my life.
When you realise you love someone is when it is all over.
20.
I sat on the end of my bed, my pink slippers dangled from my foot as I tapped, tapped, tapped impatiently on the white linoleum floor. At two o’clock, I heard them talking outside of the door.
“She’s gotten so much better since she has been talking to you, Dr. Kanning. Before she didn’t notice much about the outside world, but yesterday she actively tried to retrieve something from the reception.”
I heard Dr. Kanning’s melodic chuckle from the other side of the door. I noticed that my Henry, the one that frequently stood behind me was not by my side, which caused my heartbeat to soar. The only Henry that I could reach was behind that door.
Dr. Kanning looked like my Henry, spoke like my Henry—but there was no way, and he said he wasn’t…he said he wasn’t…he didn’t know about daemons…he was human…
Pale…
Beautiful…
Human?
I waited impatiently as I heard the swipe of a card key. I sat on my hands to keep from fidgeting.
“Good afternoon Fia,” Dr. Kanning smiled politely with his clipboard under his arm.
My eyes widened as I took in his appearance. Why did reality seem as completely skewed as my dreams were, my episodes—what was real and what wasn’t? How did I know that I wasn’t somehow layering my delusion, my memories of Henry over this doctor?
Maybe in wanting Henry so much, my mind had slipped off the cliff face and projected him upon this man. Maybe it was because he had brown hair…brown hair that matched Henry’s dark rich mahogany like melted chocolate with reddish undertones.
Those Celestine eyes.
The door closed behind the doctor and he sat on the indestructible chair—it was hard and black and I knew it couldn’t be comfortable but I had never questioned before how he had sat still for so long.
“Are you going to tell me the rest of your story Fia?” He asked gently. His tone wasn’t patronising as I would have expected it to be. His voice seemed loving, sincere with an underlying sadness.
“If you tell me yours, Henry,” I said graciously.
He looked taken aback for a few seconds and blinked at me before a smile appeared on his lips. “We are not here to talk about me,” He smiled, “Only about you. As I said in the first session this is about—a review of your diagnosis.”
“Save it,” I whispered.
“Save what?” He replied gently.
I swallowed a large breath of air and turned to scowl at the doctor. “You’re a doctor,”
Henry nodded.
“But you are not a doctor at this hospital,” I continued.
“What makes you think that?” Henry said, clearly angry by the situation.
I shrugged, “Maybe I’m just confused. After all, I am crazy.”
“Never—,” He breathed, “Never say you’re crazy…please explain why you are suspicious of me, is it something the voices said? Something the Henry behind you is saying, shouting? Or the people that argue?”
I shook my head and bit the inside of my cheek.
He thought that it was because of my illness—my inner paranoid schizophrenic. Maybe it was, but I heard those people talking. I knew I did.
“Prove it,” I muttered.
Dr. Kanning ran his fingers through his mahogany tresses and looked at me from behind thick-rimmed glasses. “Prove what?” He said lightly.
I swallowed the lump in my throat and folded my hands on my lap as I tried to stay calm.
“Prove that you’re a doctor at this hospital. Tomorrow—when you come to the appointment, I want you to complete the task that I couldn’t finish yesterday.”
“What task was that, Fia? I heard that you had to be escorted from the reception area,” Henry smiled but there was something dark behind his expression.
“I want you to go into the office…the filing area. If you are a doctor then you should be able to do that,” I said smugly. “I want you to search my belongings…”
“I can’t give them to you.”
“I didn’t ask you to,” I bit back, “I want you to make a list of everything that was on my person—which should be in that envelope in my file—everything that was found on me when I was discovered in the forest and brought here.”
“A list? That is all you want to prove that I am a doctor? Why do you need that list?”
I sighed lightly and leant back on my bed, propping myself up on my hands and turning away so I couldn’t see his face. Fat tears streamed down my cheeks and over my pulled down lips.
“I need it okay, you have to trust me,” I whimpered.
Henry, the doctor, nodded once. I didn’t say anything else; I just sat in silence and sobbed quietly into my hands. After a few minutes, Henry walked to the door and opened it silently, taking one long look at me before leaving me alone.
I was the story teller but was my story real?
I waited and waited in my room for Dr. Kanning but he never came. I sat alone, staring at the wall, waiting for my reassurance that Henry had promised to deliver to me. Maybe he wouldn’t come back.
Maybe he was living viciously through me and my ‘stories.’ I didn’t know. They didn’t feel like stories to me. It was my life, it was events that I had been through, that had sickened, wasted and turned me cynical.
I waited for hours. By five in the evening when Henry still didn’t come, I gave up.
I opened my door slowly. Dr. Mavis walked by with another patient, a girl who looked younger than me with short black hair and a downcast expression.
“Fia, how are you today?” Dr. Mavis asked politely when I stood to watch her. As if snapped into motion, I considered asking about Henry. But I didn’t.
“Are we allowed in the garden during spring?” I asked in a tight voice.
Dr. Mavis placed her finger to her chin. “Yes, Fia…I suppose. It is fenced off, but it would be terribly cold and I wouldn’t suggest going out there after dark,” The woman replied.
I nodded and looked to my slippers, shifting my weight uncomfortably.
“Did Dr. Kanning come to see you today?” I asked her.
Dr. Mavis smiled sadly at me, I detected pity and I didn’t like it.
“He talks about you, you know?” Dr. Mavis said. “He watched you from the minute he set foot in this place. You were the only thing he was interested in and that is saying something.”
I nodded silently and felt the sting of betrayal in my chest as if I was just a pawn.
One part of me worried that Dr. Kanning, the man who never ate anything or slept, was human and that I loved him. But in that love, I was only going to damage myself further.
“I’m going to the garden,” I informed Dr. Mavis, “They will let me out there, won’t they?”
Dr Mavis nodded. “Yes. They will.”
I walked swiftly to the other end of the corridor, allowing the door to swing shut with a bang. I got in the elevator and fidgeted as the numbers on the tiny screen gradually decreased. When I got to the reception I waved.
“Hello, Marla!” I beamed.
She flinched but smiled back as I skipped out of the door in my pyjamas.
; It was cold and the skies were grey and drizzling. My slippers flapped against my heel as I kept to the path. I noticed the high fence with the barbed wire at the top like a prison. I forwent the path and walked up the muddy slope to the hills. The Tranquil Hill grounds were expansive and I couldn’t see another building for miles.
When my feet slipped on the mud, I bent down and removed my slippers. I threw them back to the concrete path but I did not check to see if they made it or not. I walked past the picnic tables and walked and walked until I could only just see the lights from the mental health facility.
It was cold and it was getting dark but I didn’t care.
I kept walking. I slogged my way through the wet grass until I reached the top of the largest hill. I could still see the building I lived in, the tiny lights in rows demonstrating the floors.
It looked so innocent, like mansion…not a house for people like me.
I looked down to the mud below my feet and suddenly it made perfect sense.
I started to dig a small grave.
A grave for the old me, for my insanity, for my dark thoughts, my grave for Melanie, Parr, and Maylett.
I bent down stiffly and dug my hands into the soil. I pulled roughly at the grass and chucked it to one side before my animosity took over and I pulled the dirt in handfuls and threw it over my shoulder. Digging deeper, trying to fashion a small hole, as mud collapsed and filled my grave with mud and water. It started to rain maliciously. My head felt like it would freeze and my fingers went numb, but I kept digging.
It was hard work. I stood up and looked down at my hard work. I wondered if the dirt would drag me down if I stood in the grave. But the grave wasn’t for me.
Not yet.
“What are you doing?” Henry’s voice came from behind me.
I turned around, at first I thought that he was an illusion but then I saw his white scrubs. The mud smeared up the trouser legs from walking up this tenacious hill. I blinked as the harsh stream of rain thrashed against both of us. His mahogany hair had darkened and plastered itself to his face. I pushed mine back haphazardly and licked the rain from my top lip.
“You didn’t come. Today…you left me alone,” I said.
He nodded, eyes concentrating on nothing but my face. “Why are you building a hole?” He shouted over the sound of harsh rain.
I shrugged and laughed freely. “It’s a grave.”
We stood in silence for a second. The water cascaded over Henry’s lips and he swallowed some of it and blinked it away, I could see the droplets linger on his eyelashes. It was cold here—my skin numbed against the thumping downpour but Henry did not shiver or flinch.
My pyjamas were soaked to the skin.
“I got something for you,” Henry said.
I looked at him and waited. I expected him to pull a waterlogged list from his pocket but he didn’t. He stood across from me. “I had to come and find you,” The doctor murmured; his voice strained. “You’re a compulsion, the very notion of you in my life makes little sense.”
I said nothing. I didn’t know whether he was real or fake, the product of the voices or my delusions—I didn’t know anything other than the fact that he was in front of me.
With a slow and deliberate movement, Henry held out his balled fist. I looked at it curiously before my stomach fell to my knees. He opened his fingers and let, whatever it was it, fall and dangle from his wrist.
It was the vial, my necklace. The one that was meant to be broken on the floor of the Bed and Breakfast. I wasn’t insane—I wasn’t a paranoid schizophrenic, not by any technical definition anyway. I started to cry but the tears from my eyes mingled with the rain.
“How…did you get it? If you’re a patient…Dr. Kanning?”
Henry. I wanted more than anything to believe the man in front of me was my beloved. Dr. Kanning smiled wryly and surveyed the small silver vial attached to the little chain.
“I’m fast,” He said dryly. “You never asked me for my first name…I’ve known you…for a while…since you were here you never asked me once,” He smiled.
He took a step forward and I swallowed largely, tasting the rain and the scent of moist earth. He handed me the vial. “What was the grave for?” He wondered as he took my hand, in the rain he was cold—like ice.
“My insanity, my insecurities…I don’t want to live like this,” I said as I looked down into the small wet hole in the earth. “It was the pureblood that ruined me. It was my addictions that ruined me.”
Henry nodded and looked down into the earth as well. I fingered the small chain before dropping it into the earth. Henry bent down for me and quickly moved the mud over the hole, his alabaster hands were covered in wet brown now. It was the blood that was killing my mind.
“I want to become a daemon,” I said, “We have to find someone that can change me; it is the only way I can get my mind back, Dr. Kanning.”
Henry’s eyes widened, his pale blue irises locked onto mine.
“You want to live forever?” He whispered.
I nodded slowly and as he straightened his back, I placed my own muddy hands to his face lightly tracing his features. His skin was like perfect pristine marble…it was just as cold and just as eternal.
“I waited so long for you to say that,” He smiled sadly.
I closed my eyes and allowed myself this one last addiction as I buried the rest in the small dirt grave on the hill.
The story continues in:
The Human Herders
DAEMONS OF LONDON – BOOK 2
The asylum is gone and all that remains is ash. The Purebloods have come to claim what they believe is theirs, Sophia Taylor.
On the run, Fia learns more about the seedy demonic underbelly of London and The Human Herders,
who cultivate ‘food’ for the Elite. It was all a game to them. Everything has been leading to this.
The Human Herders
By Michaela Haze
DAEMONS OF LONDON – BOOK 2
THE HUMAN HERDERS
Originally published in the United Stated/ United Kingdom in 2017 by
DIRTY JEANS PUBLISHING LTD
www.michaelahaze.com
Copyright © Michaela Haysman 2017
This book is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and all characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
A note from Michaela Haze:
I hope you enjoy the long-awaited sequel to The Bleeders,
Please leave a review on amazon/Goodreads if you like it!
Hopefully you will forgive any typos, as it’s just me on my own.
Part 1
“Do not try to find out—we’re forbidden to know—what end the gods have in store for me or for you.”
-Horace, Roman Poet (65-8 BC)
1.
Group therapy was fucking tragic.
The chairs were plastic and uncomfortable, and I had been sat in the little circle for over fifteen minutes while Dr Mavis and the other crazies drifted in to fill the group. My arse was numb. The only saving grace was that Henry sat on the opposite side of the circle. As if reading my thoughts, he wiggled his fingers to give me a small wave.
Henry was an incubus and my dirty little secret at the asylum.
He was the only one that knew why I was in the Tranquil Hill Mental Health Facility, enjoying the full benefit of anti-psychosis meds with the occasional bout of ECT. Henry and I had met and fallen in love over three years ago when I had hired him to murder the two men that pumped my sister Melanie full of heroin; the drug that ultimately killed her.
Henry had left me after he had killed Parr and Maylett, but not without giving me a taste of his blood. That action led to my occupation as a Bleeder, albeit for a short period.
The Bleeders were humans that drank daemon blood. It was addictive, with the capability t
o make you smart, beautiful and powerful.
I had no idea that Henry had also marked me as his soulmate, meaning he had secured my death sentence. Humans were not supposed to know about daemons.
The Purebloods, or Damian, a blonde Abercrombie and Fitch wannabe, tanned and out of place in the soggy UK, had found me and given me his blood.
What doesn’t kill you, makes you insane; as the saying goes.
Damian’s blood had led to my downfall; it was also why I had donned a pair of pyjamas and matted hair and started cotching with the mentally unwell.
Henry had spent the first month of his stay pretending to be my doctor. I had been too far gone then, but Henry had pulled me back from the brink of my insanity.
A slight girl with bright pink hair slid into the seat next to my daemon. I had seen her before in the group therapy circle. Her hands rubbed down her left side as if she was counting her rib bones. Her lips were cracked and puffy, and she wore a full face of makeup. Her name was Dany, and she was Anorexic.
I was the token Paranoid Schizophrenic of the group. Nodding over to Henry, who was the Manic Depressive. An absolutely acceptable diagnosis for someone that didn’t eat and sleep.
Dr Mavis was the optimist. It wasn’t a medical condition, but it should have been.
I tapped my foot against the metal leg of my chair, watching the whorls of smoke and energy around the room with detached interest. Since I had drunk the Pure blood, I could sense auras and see the energy in the air like swirling coloured dust motes. I rarely paid attention to it, having initially thought it was a side effect of my mental illness rather than an enhancement. Dany’s energy was a mess of spiky pinks and grey. She was hungry, I could feel it as if the sensation pressed against my own skin. She would have to finish her lunch if she wanted Facebook privileges; a condition set that was supposed to aid in her recovery.
Daemons of London Boxset (Books 1-3) The Bleeders, The Human Herders, The Purebloods Page 24