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 to 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.
Pete sat two seats away from me, fiddling with his fingers and avoiding eye contact. I had no idea what his illness was, but he stank of corruption. Death. No one else seemed to sense the animal souls that clung to him like a lingering smell, only Henry could sense what I could. Last time I had checked, killing cats didn’t get you locked in an asylum. So, I wondered what fucked up thing Pete had done to wind up at Tranquil Hill.
The chairs around us began to fill as the clock on the wall inched closer to noon. An hour of baring our souls and then some nice bland food.
Dr Mavis welcomed everyone to the group and started off by complimenting us all on the progress we had made the week before. She introduced a new member with a generic face and a downtrodden expression.
My thighs squeezed together, and I put my hand up, like a teacher’s pet eager to begin. My eyes flickered to the new diamond ring on the doctor's finger.
“Mavis!” I squealed. “You got engaged?!” It was funny, but no one else seemed to get the joke.
The caramel haired doctor smiled demurely. “Yes, Sophia. Thanks for noticing. Does anyone else here have any good news?”
A few people spoke, but I had rattled the doctor enough to know that my job was done. I let my eyes trail over to Henry who’s own ice blue irises burned into mine. I felt heat creep up my breasts and neck. I felt hot. His mouth twitched at the sides, and I knew he could see that he was affecting me.
We eye-fucked while the group whined and moaned about how terrible it was to be crazy.
Someone cleared their throat, but I was too busy thinking about Henry Blaire naked.
“Henry?” Dr Mavis asked. “Do you have anything to say this week?”
My daemon looked uncomfortable as he ran his long fingers through his mahogany tresses. His deep blue eyes flashed to mine for a second, and his pink tongue darted out to wet his lips.
“Being in this environment is affecting me,” Henry admitted. “I feel that the atmosphere is appealing to my empathy.”
“What do you mean?” The doctor questioned.
“Being around the mentally unwell is making me mentally unwell.” He clarified.
Dr Mavis nodded but said nothing and moved on with the group.
My vision began to tilt, and the colours in the room grew brighter. My back went rigid, and I felt myself sliding off my chair, unable to control my body as it was racked with tremors. My lips began to move of their own accord. I was having an episode. Just fucking great.
My eyes rolled back into my head. I heard the doctor calling for help.
One word, repeated over and over, ripped from my mouth, and beyond my control. It left a sharp pain and the tang of blood in my throat.
Asmodeus. Asmodeus. Asmodeus.
I started to cough, and as quickly as it had come, the episode was gone.
Dr Mavis waved for the orderlies to hang back as she leant over my prone form. Henry held himself back from launching his body at mine, his arms locked around his chest tightly.
The energy of the room swirled with their concern, but Henry’s presence gobbled it up like a vacuum. He was a cool white star against a world of chaos.
An Incubus. He devoured. Everything.
I leapt to my feet, arms spread out to welcome the energy into my body.
“Henry, the swirls. The swirls are everywhere.”
Dark magic hung on the air, twisted and full of lust. The edge of my vision dimmed as the magic slid over my skin.
As if a dam had broken we launched ourselves at each other like starved hyenas. Our teeth mashed as our lips collided in a frenzy. I tugged his hand to my breast, blissfully uncaring about the circle of crazies that surrounded us in the middle of group therapy.
I felt the strong arms of two orderlies take m
e from Henry and I swung around, my fist hit meaty flesh, and I felt the crunch of bone. I looked at Henry to see that he was restrained as well, but he was not fighting and had gone limp.
The room filled with the Vermillion smoke of pain and anger as my cheek pressed against the cool floor. My pyjama bottoms were pulled down around my knees, and I felt the sharp prick of a syringe in my left bum cheek. One of the orderlies had a needle cap in his teeth. Sneaky bastard.
I opened my mouth to call him every name under the sun, but drool came out instead. Henry’s hand reached out for mine, but the drugs took me under.
My arse cheeks throbbed, bruised from the needle-happy orderlies. I felt the soothing numbness of the Haldol wash through my veins, bathing my body in an immense sense of calm. My cheek pressed against the scratchy fabric sheet of my bed, and I could smell the tang of my unwashed body. I curled deeper into the sanctity of my bed.
The light was brighter than it should have been. My head aches and my throat was dry. I quickly realised that my door was open. A shadow painted a dark figure onto the floor of my room, marring the light. I blinked up and saw Dany, the anorexic across the hall, leant against the door frame.
“How long have you been at Tranquil Hill?” She asked, crossing her arms over her chest.
“About a year.”
“What’s wrong with you?”
I laid back on the bed and began to laugh to myself, my throat was so dry that it came out as a cackle. “Nothing’s wrong with me. I’m fucking perfect.”
“Did your mum tell you that?” Dany asked, her lip twitched.
“No, but your mum does,” I said.
“My mum’s dead.”
“My mum’s a bitch. Have a trophy.”
“You’re a bitch, you know that?” Dany laughed without humour and looked down to her hands. For a brief second, I could have sworn she was hiding a smile.
“Listen, I’m not here to make friends.” I rolled over and leant on my elbows, staring up at her. Her energy was nervous, but her face didn’t show it. She couldn’t have been more than twenty years old.
“Didn’t look that way to me.” Dany laughed dryly. “Not when you started snogging Manic Depressive in the middle of therapy.”
“He’s mine,” I growled.
Dany lifted her hands up in surrender. “I just came to get you, it’s time for afternoon ‘play time.’ Whatever the hell that is.”
“It’s where they put us outside and leave us for an hour,” I informed her. I pushed my hand out in her direction, to grasp her energy; but I quickly retracted it when I realised what I was doing. I felt like I was hovering over my body as I cocked my head to the side, in a remarkably daemon-like gesture.
“You’re fucking creepy,” Dany remarked and turned on her heel and left.
I licked my dry lips; her energy still lingered in the room. I reached up to touch it, but it danced away. My body hummed with the need to feel it but it felt like I was grounded. No wings. Not able to fly.
First the visions and now a dark thirst for energy? What the fuck had happened to me.
I rubbed my palms into my eye sockets and groaned. I felt lucid, but that didn’t mean much. I still felt like me, but as always, I waited for the other shoe to drop. It was inevitable. For every lucid day, I would have many more delusional ones. The days when my mental illness won were not what I would call ‘fun.’
Tranquil Hill was all about routines. Wake up, breakfast, art class, group therapy, lunch. I had blanked out after the Haldol had coursed from my butt cheeks to my brain, rendering me unconscious. It had been a day since I had lost control of my body and had an episode. It had been so long since the last one that I had almost forgotten what it was like. Visions and strange voices had plagued me every day when I had first arrived at the Mental Health Facility, but they had eventually petered out.
I couldn’t remember how I had got back to my room, or what happened to Henry after I had left. I burst from my room with conviction. I didn’t care that an orderly in maroon scrubs stuck to me like glue. Thinking back on it, mouth-fucking in the middle of group therapy probably wouldn’t convince the doctors that I was sane and ready to become a functioning member of society again anytime soon.
The quad was a small concrete square with a basketball hoop, with a fountain and hopscotch painted on the grey stone. Fenced in and claustrophobic, it was used for daily exercise and general socialisation.
Floor three patients, of which I was one, had ground privileges. That meant that we could walk the estate unsupervised as long as we came back for meal times and group therapy. The prospect of being unsupervised seemed unlikely due to the Big Nosed orderly that watched me like a hawk as I strode onto the quad.
I had only ventured out once since I had arrived, and that had been to bury the necklace that Damian, the Pureblood, had foisted on me. The reason for my insanity.
Henry sat on the ledge of the fountain, trailing his porcelain hand into the murky grey water. He did not seem to care that the fountain was stagnant. The low sun did odd things to his skin, too pale, too perfect. I swallowed the lump in my throat and sat by his side. The ledge was cold, and my pyjama bottoms were thin. I could feel the stone through the fabric, cold and unrelenting.
“You had a vision during group therapy,” Henry's brow was furrowed. His beautiful face was always in a resting scowl, testing and severe.
“My mouth is dry from the Haldol, and my bum is sore from the orderlies.”
The corner of his lip twitched. “Are you alright?” Henry asked.
“No more insane than usual.”
We sat in silence for a few seconds, and I noted our surroundings. The scent of the fountain water, full of copper coins and algae. The thump of slippered feet on the hopscotch.
Henry’s voice made me jump. “We need to talk about the Purebloods. The visions and apparitions.” He said gravely.
I nodded stiffly but continued my perusal of the courtyard. I could feel the clammy thoughts of the other crazies. Pete's twitching need to wrap his hands around someone’s neck. Dany’s hunger and the power she felt for controlling it. The others were a dull roar of manic energy and lethargy.
Henry tasted like winter. Cold steel and menthol.
“You mentioned a daemon named Asmodeus. That is a name that I have not heard for many years.” Henry was concerned. He tried to hide it, but I saw a spark of feeling behind his eyes. Immense pain, helplessness.
I put my hand on top of Henry's and allowed my body heat to mingle with his absence of warmth. I relished the feeling of our skin touching.
“Since I drank the Pure blood, I can touch you without being drained,” I commented.
“You're avoiding my questions.” He blinked slowly, his finger twitched as if he wanted touch me. My throat constricted painfully.
“Asmodeus, right? Don’t remember. I heard my mouth speak when I didn’t mean to. If I could convince the doctors that I was sane. I wouldn’t be here.”
“Although I hate it and the energy from mental illness may be changing my own mind, we need to stay here for a while longer. If we remain here, I can protect you from the wrath of the Purebloods.”
“What do they want with me?” I asked meekly.
“I have no idea. At first, I thought it might be because you are human. But you are marked. It proves you're worthy of becoming a daemon. You could ascend with the right conditions.”
“But you couldn’t change me. Because you're not a Pureblood or an Elite.” I clarified.
“I don’t have the amount of dark magic needed inside of my veins to even attempt it without killing you.” His fists tightened. “Damian gave you his blood. He intended to kill you. No human can drink Pure blood. No human can encounter a Pureblooded creature from Hell. Not once but twice. No one has ever lived to tell about it.”
I swallowed the vivid memories and the hatred in my bones towards the Purebloods; for their part in the upheaval of my life. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Dan
y, with her pink hair, as she sat cross-legged on the other side of the quad, ripping out tufts of grass and dumping it at her feet. Henry and I remained in silence for a few more moments, listening to the sounds of movement. No one seemed to talk at the asylum. Except us. I could understand why, it wasn’t safe to be honest within the walls of the facility of an asylum.
“So, no escape plan?” I asked.
“For the time being, we need to lay low. Perhaps find the Blood Scratcher to ask her to Shroud you.”
A blood Scratcher was a Witchling tattoo artist that used daemon blood instead of ink, to infuse magic into the skin. As far as I knew, there was only one and I happened to be on a first name basis with her.
“I have no idea what a Shroud is.”
“A spell to hide you from the Purebloods,” Henry said unremarkably.
“I know the Scratcher,” I said, picking at the skin of my thumb. “Trix. She was my old roomie in Camden. You know, when you fucked and left me for a year.” I tried to keep my tone light.
“Where did you go?” I murmured. Henry’s jaw clenched.
“I was summoned by Lillian. If I had kept in contact with you, you would have been found and killed.”
“Trust me. I think that already happened.” I refused to meet Henry’s eyes. He opened his mouth and closed it again. He had so many things to say but just couldn’t. The pain in my chest made it hard to breathe.
“I loved you, and you left,” I said. “I still don’t know whether any of this is real.”
Henry reached forward and stroked the hollow of my throat. My breath hitched, and heat flooded the apex of my thighs. Despite how he had broken me, my body reacted to him. I wanted him so badly that I could almost taste him on my tongue. I licked my lips and Henry’s eyes darted to my mouth. Something coiled inside of my stomach and it took a second for me to realise that it was desire.
Sat in the courtyard of an asylum, broken and insane but I didn’t care. I reached up, and my hand met his as it cupped my chin. I closed my eyes and sighed. A throat cleared over both of us and we were cloaked in a shadow.
The Human Herders Page 1