Adrenaline pulsed through my mind and my fingers were numb from gripping the steering wheels.
My euphoria drained quickly when I caught a flash of blue and red lights in my wing mirror. Great. London Met Police. I groaned and sank down in the driver’s seat. My foot inched off the throttle and I allowed us to begin to coast to a more natural speed.
Vincent looked back and grinned. “Come on, Pet. Drive!” He grabbed the steering wheel and jarred it to the left just as a reached a four-way junction. The car turned at an unnatural angle and we flew around the corner, two wheels lifted for a brief second and landed back on the tarmac with a squeak and a thump.
My mouth gaped in shock. A laugh bubbled out of my mouth and I couldn’t stop it.
Vincent pulled the steering wheel again and we drove down a street that was ultimately too slim for the vehicle. The wing mirrors flew off in a flash of sparks, dragged off by the brick and deposited on the concrete of the pedestrian walkway.
I saw the police in the rear-view mirror, they had driven straight past the entrance of the alleyway.
Vincent pulled the handbrake on me and I was thankful for my seatbelt. My head flew forward as the airbag deposited. Vincent grabbed my shoulders and kicked the sunroof off. Before the car came to a stop, it left a squealing trail of burnt rubber on the cobblestones. Vincent held me close to him. He had moved us out of the vehicle so quickly that I wasn’t injured. The car was so tightly squeezed into the alleyway there wasn’t enough space for the doors to open.
My hands began to tremble and my heart raced. Vincent beamed down at me.
“Well done, Pet. That was quite fun.”
I smiled weakly and slapped his shoulder. “I’m not your pet.”
“Six more days, Pet.” He crooned as he dipped my legs down to the floor and allowed me to stand. My knees buckled like a newly birthed fawn. My lips quivered.
“We could have died.” I said.
“You could have died. But you didn’t.” Vincent said. He gripped my hand and pulled me down the street. The police sirens were getting louder and my head was swimming.
Without a word, he opened the industrial side door at the end of the alleyway. I blinked as my eyes adjusted from the harsh spring sunlight to the dim smoky lights of a Fold. Vincent strode forward, allowing my arm to fall loose by my side.
My hands still shook, adrenaline coursed through me. Even though I knew that the police could not find us in Purgatory.
I wondered briefly what had happened to create the Fold where we stood. What vicious act had caused a fold in the universe between earth and limbo. I forced my legs to follow Vincent who walked up to a nondescript door that was shielded by a bouncer and red velvet. Vincent nodded once and disappeared through the door.
I had followed before the door clicked shut. The bouncer said nothing.
The musky smell of arousal and the heavy tang of blood filled my nostrils immediately. My hand flew to my throat and even though I wore a thick hoodie, I felt cold. I didn’t know where to look. Vincent strode to the bar and waved a finger, promptly ordering another bottle of Krystal. When the Bartender popped the cork, and offered up two crystal champagne flutes, I reached over with shaking hands and took the deep green bottle and drained half of the bubbles without a word.
When my mouth went numb from the chilled alcohol, I allowed the bottle out of my grip. I’d walked into a daemon, human and whatever else, orgy.
I avoided eye contact and my violet eyes fell onto a woman with long raven hair, riding a man with red hair. When the man’s emerald eyes met mine over the woman’s sweat covered milky shoulder I jolted. It was Samuel. My cheeks flushed and I forced my expression to be impartial. I could see where he ended and she began.
I was not a prude by any means. I had watched porn before, but I had never seen a live show.
I had never connected the fact that Henry was a sex daemon, an incubus. Synonymous with the actual act of sex itself.
Samuel bared his teeth and thrust into the human woman, his grip on her shoulders was enough to leave bruises. Her head dipped, from an orgasm or from Samuel draining her, I had no idea.
“Do you like my club?” Vincent asked innocently. My eyes flickered from his twin brothers to his. Vincent took the bottle from my fingers and poured a glass of champagne. He held it out for me and I took it and drained it quickly. I licked my bottom lip.
“I thought El Dandy was yours.” I said. El Dandy was the club in the Fold between earth and Limbo nearest Camden.
“This is the original Rose mansion.” He said, shaking his head as he took a sip of bubbly. “It was especially sad what happened.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“I burnt it to the ground.” Vincent laughed.
I opened my mouth to reply when the smoky caress of sexual energy stroked the hollow of my throat. My hand flew to my collarbone and I looked around.
Samuel stood to my left, his shirt buttons were undone but at least his trousers were in place. I allowed my eyes to travel over his body slowly, in disgust I told myself.
Samuel smiled sardonically and I felt the magic release the grip around my neck. Samuel’s magic tasted like smoke. It was overpowering.
Vincent's touch was softer. I didn’t know if it was his own mental eccentricities that softened Vincent’s edges but Samuel was cruel. I felt it down to my bones.
“You’ll be a daemon in six days.” Samuel said, taking a sip from my ignored glass on the bar top. “Don’t act so ashamed.”
"Why did you call me here?" I asked, crossing my arms over my chest in indignation. Even though I was fully clothed it didn’t matter. The smell of sex filtered through the air, I could be naked for all the good it did. My body longed for daemonic energy, I wanted to feast on it. Was that what it meant to be a Vessel?
“We thought you deserved a reward for such a good job yesterday.” Vincent smirked.
Samuel said nothing.
“What’s the reward?” I asked, and immediately felt as if I had fallen into a trap.
Vincent nodded minutely to someone behind the bar and a few seconds later the bartender appeared with a frail daemon. A young woman with long blonde hair that tickled her waist. Her clothes were dirty but she was beautiful.
“Vinca has displeased us.” Samuel said with the curl of his lips. “Go on then.” He pointed to the girl who had sunk to the floor in a heap with a nudge of his jaw.
My brow furrowed. “What do you want me to do to her?”
“Do you know nothing, pet?” Vincent leant forward and stroked my chin. I shivered and took an immediate step backwards on impulse.
The red headed daemon didn’t seem bothered at all.
“Daemon’s feed on humans.” Samuel explained in slow mocking words. “Vessels feed on daemons. On magic.”
I blinked. I could feel the magic in the air as seeped through my lips and danced on my tongue, tempting me. I shook my head to clear my thoughts but it did little good.
“I’m human.” I said, my voice cracking.
“My dear, you’re the first Vessel I've met.” Vincent exclaimed excitedly. “Have a treat on us.”
My eyes flicked down to the daemon on the floor, her head was in her filthy hands as she sobbed.
I knelt down to the floor and gripped her wrist. I felt the rush of her darkness overpower my mind, my body and every inch of my existence. Vinca, the daemon, went slack.
I felt my soul flake like a burnt pastry. The last vestiges of who I was melted away, as I gripped her tightly to me. Vinca’s small body fit into my tall frame as I held her close and took everything she had to give.
Come to me, Child.
Come closer.
A thick and heavy voice drowned out all the others in my mind. The usual voices told me that I was going to hell. That I was a murderer.
But the new voice was different.
Everything else was muted apart from the booming presence of power. If only I could reach it. If only I could ge
t closer.
I was relieved and unused to the silence inside of my head. I slid down to the floor and took huge gulps of air.
The blonde daemon slumped onto the floor, her eyes were completely white with no irises. Her skin had shrivelled and rotted. She was a husk.
I raised my hand to my face, my skin glowed.
I felt good.
I felt connected to everything. I could feel a well of power in the distance, if only I could reach it.
“I didn’t know it would feel so good.” I whispered.
Vincent nodded in approval. I wondered briefly, why would I want to be a daemon if I could feel like I did at that moment.
What would it feel like to drain Damian like I had drained that frail daemon.
Dartmouth House was like a five-star hotel, the room that Vincent had put me in was fitted with an ensuite and a Queen sized four poster bed. The sheets were the most comfortable I had ever laid on in my life. Pure white silk.
I flicked on the television just in time to see the drone footage of a familiar Lamborghini Aventador weaving through the streets of London.
“The car chase took place at eleven this morning, where a significant amount of damage was caused, totalling hundreds of thousands of pounds of damage…”
I laughed to myself, wrapped in a plush robe. “…the criminals managed to escape the scene, leaving the stolen vehicle in a pedestrian walkway of an industrial estate…”
My laughter bubbled out of my chest and grew louder. It was so loud that it echoed off the duck egg blue walls and bounced back. Illustrating just how alone I was.
A flash of black caught my eye. It was a tiny black butterfly. It disappeared into a wisp of air.
My laughter cut off immediately and I started to feel sick.
Another piece of my soul.
A tear dripped down my cheek and I wiped it off with the back of my hand. I tried not to think about the wide eyes of the grubby frail daemon that I had drained. I had stolen her life. Her energy. Her magic.
I closed my eyes and thought about the voice that I had heard.
Come to me, Child.
12.
Vincent Rose texted me that afternoon with an address. It was for a house in Tottenham, in a safe area with good schools. (According to Rightmove.)
What he didn’t tell me, and that I quickly discovered as I waited outside of the terrace home, was that it was a squatter’s paradise. The pretty white exterior and its bay windows hid something sinister. I noticed ten suspicious people come and go, in the half an hour that I had stood on the pavement outside and smoked a cigarette.
I had given in and bought a pack of Lucky Stripes at the local off-license. It felt like an age since I had smoked. My hands shook and I needed something to keep them busy. It had been a while since I had felt the rush of nicotine, but my lungs welcomed the warmth.
Beatrix sat by my side, she perched on the red plastic bus shelter bench that was barely wide enough for to balance on without sliding off. An elderly lady with a trolley had been eying Trix’s tattooed sleeves for the past ten minutes and Trix had purposely taken off her leather jacket. My best friend made a show of flicking her hair over her shoulder every few minutes to deliberately show off her artwork. I tried not to laugh as the elderly woman made a disapproving cluck. Old people rarely changed.
“What does Vincent want you to do at a crack den?” Trix wondered out loud, twirling a tendril of her peach hair around her finger.
I shrugged. “Assuming he wants me to find someone.” I left out the implication that he probably wanted me to shoot someone in the neck with the tranq-gun in my handbag.
“Are you okay?” Trix’s change in tone caught my attention and I looked at her and sighed.
“Yes. You?”
Trix had used to be a junkie, but that was before I met her.
My older sister, Melanie, had died of a heroin overdose. Going into the heart of Addict paradise wasn’t going to be the healthiest exercise for our mental wellbeing.
“Why did you agree to come with me?” I asked, as I took a drag of my cigarette.
“Fancied seeing some of my old crew?” She said it as a question.
Trix was by my side for moral support. Not that she would ever say. I snorted and stood up, brushing the damp from the back of my thighs. My jeans stuck to my legs but the sun had come out and I would dry soon enough. Trix stood up too and plucked my cigarette from my hands and threw it into the disposal.
We walked across the street in the style of true Londoners. We barely looked as we walked into the road, expecting the traffic to stop for us. I wasn’t about to prolong my stay on the street by waiting around for the little green man.
We walked up to the door and I wondered briefly if we looked shiftier than the previous clientele that I had seen enter the building in the last hour. Trix seemed bored, as always, but I wondered if she was experiencing the same sickening feeling as I was. The memories, the familiarity of being in a situation with drugs.
I wondered if my best friend was ever tempted to go back to that lifestyle. I had never asked what she had been running from, and how she had fallen so deeply into that pit.
I raised my fist to knock on the door and Trix snorted, in a very unladylike fashion. She pushed against the front door and it opened without protest. She stepped through and I followed and closed the door carefully behind us. The energy in the area was heavy, subdued. The colours were muted. I walked down the hallway and peeked through the archway into the living room. The room had been stripped of anything that could have been sold long ago. The red fabric sofa had been slashed in several places and the stuffing poked through. A comatose girl slumped over, still alive as evidenced by the rise and fall of her chest.
I bit back the memories of Melanie. Squashed the questions that flashed across my mind. Did Henry find her murderers in a shit hole like this one?
No one energy signature caught my attention. Trix and I weaved through the house like spirits. The various people sprawled out on old mattresses in the bedrooms and slumped in the upstairs hallway paid us no mind.
My urge to complete Vincent’s request and to find someone revolted against my need to leave as quickly as possible.
Trix walked into one of the bedrooms as I checked out the bathroom. A man was slumped in the bathtub, his energy a feeble cough compared to an average person that I would pass on the street. I was unable to determine if I felt malicious towards him for his choices or pity for what he had become. As I debated, stood in a trance in bathroom worthy of Trainspotting, the man opened an eye and scratched his morning stubble.
“Melanie?” His eyes widened as if he had seen a ghost.
I guessed what thoughts then passed through his mind. My sister was long since dead. He probably thought I was a ghost.
My eyes widened and horror filtered through me. What was I doing in this shit hole? I spun on my heel and slammed the door of the bathroom shut. I gulped down air but still struggled to breathe. I ran to the exit.
Trix closed the front door softly behind me, having followed me out. She placed her hand on my shoulder and leant forward until her cheek was pressed against mine. Her touch offered comfort and I curled into her and weaved my arms around her shoulders.
She patted me once on the head. “Let’s go and forget the past.” Trix whispered as she took my hand and led me down the street.
Sarah-Belle was a Bleeder and I hated her. I had no idea why, I couldn’t pinpoint a logical reason but I just didn’t like her. Everything that she said grated on my nerves and made me bite my lip to focus on not screaming for her to ‘shut up!’
Sarah-Belle’s nickname was Bellend, and whilst she laughed when Trix and I called her that. She didn’t know it wasn’t meant in jest. It was an observation.
Bellend stood outside of Smoke and Mirrors, a Witching roof garden bar on an industrial estate in Camden. She waited anxiously, her fingers twitched as she fiddled with the lapel of her blazer. Bellend was good looki
ng an annoying way. Blonde hair that any peroxide bleach head would kill their own mother for and blue eyes like the sky.
“Trix…” Bellend groaned when we approached. She must have been waiting for us then. I hadn’t seen her since my stint in the asylum. Our eyes hovered over each other and Bellend didn’t ask where I had been so I didn’t say.
I crooked a brow at my best friend in question and she shrugged and walked past Sarah-Belle without a word. Bellend did not let it drop.
“You know I can’t go in unless I have a member of the Coven with me.” She groaned.
I rolled my eyes and I sensed Trix doing the same, but when I looked, her expression was void of emotion. She was much better at hiding her irritation than I was.
“She’s doing you a favour, Bellend.” I said, pointedly. “You came for a fix, right?”
Sarah-Belle’s baby blues flicked to me and then back to Trix and she wisely let the subject drop. Bellend could have gone to a daemon Fold two streets over and convince a daemon for some blood but they would probably want something sexual in trade.
I shivered when I remembered when I had been a Bleeder.
When I had actively sought blood from daemons to get high. I remembered the things that I had done, but I had stopped short of doing anything that I couldn’t live with the next morning.
But Sarah-Belle had pride. Sarah-Belle wanted the fix without the price.
We walked up the dark stairs to Smoke and Mirrors, a stark contrast to the bright daylight outside; red Hookah smoke swirled in the air. It had a tangible quality that was different to the smoke in my mind. The Hookah smoke was made up of dried daemon blood.
When Akim had brought a Shisha pipe back from Egypt one time, Trix and I had attempted to mix the potent tobacco and blood combination that Smoke and Mirrors sold on their rooftop bar. We were both too lazy to see the process through and ended up wasting a quart of Elite daemon blood.
The Human Herders (Daemons of London - Book 2) Page 12