The Purebloods

by Michaela Haze

  Trix bristled by my side but folded her hands in her lap, a picture of demure and ladylike calm.

  “I heard you threw a little fit to Damian Cross,” Lillian smirked, her entire demeanour was unhurried, confident. “Wouldn’t feed on anyone but my Henry.”

  “He’s not your Henry,” I snarled.

  “You said that when we last met,” Lillian licked her bottom lip, “But here we are.” Her slim wrist flicked in Henry’s direction.

  I narrowed my eyes, confused. “We’ve never met. But I’ve heard plenty about you,”

  Lillian burst out laughing, “Oh, the mirth!” She slapped Henry’s shoulder, but he was as still as a marble. “She doesn’t remember, darling.”

  She stretched out the word ‘darling’, so it sounded like, ‘Dah-ha-leng.' What a pretentious twat. “Stop touching him,” I demanded.

  Lillian looked over her shoulder at Anna, and then around the booth—casually assessing the threat level. I remained seated and made a conscious effort to stay as still as possible, just in case my nervous sweating legs made the material squeak.

  I knew daemons could not sweat, but I wasn’t taking chances.

  Anna squared her shoulders again and appeared to grow in size. “Ms Blaire, please leave.” Her East London-accented words were clipped.

  “Anna Cross,” Lillian smirked. “Is it fun? Being a pet to the Purebloods?”

  “It’s better than the farce that you call the Elite Families,” Anna said gruffly. “Leave, Lillian.”

  Lillian shrugged and took a step backwards until her body had curled into Henry’s. A stab of envy rippled through me. She was short, with a pixie-like frame, the opposite to my willowy height which had always made me self-conscious. She fit against Henry like a woman should. Lillian rested her head on Henry’s shoulder and stroked the taut fabric of his grey t-shirt. Lillian’s hand dipped down until it hooked into the waistband of his black, form fitting jeans. Henry was marble, uncaring. Dead inside.

  “Stop touching him!” I roared, the pressure inside my throat built to an unbearable level and the harsh sound of bones cracking filled the booth.

  I had Lillian’s wrist in one hand, her throat in the other before I was conscious of my body moving. I felt her windpipe like a firm rubber hose; I knew she didn’t need to breathe, but it didn’t stop the skin of her throat expanding as she sucked in air like any breath might be her last.

  “I said, ‘stop touching him’.” My grip tightened, my anger flared until the edges of my vision went black. I wanted her pain; and her broken, beaten body on the floor. I wanted Lillian Blaire cowed like a submissive pet. I lifted her off the floor until her face was level with mine, her heeled feet dangled. Her emerald eyes rolled up to meet mine.

  “Leave Henry Blaire with me, and I might let you live,” I threatened.

  “You don’t remember what I did to you?” Lillian gasped, unable to speak properly around my clenched fist. “You pathetic worm!” The Elite daemon licked her lips and spat in my face.

  “I am stronger than you can comprehend.” Lillian hissed. Her saliva had hit my left eye and dropped onto my cheek. Not wanting to let go of Lillian’s body, I didn’t wipe it away.

  I smiled sardonically. “Trix?” My best friend had watched the entire exchange with a detached interest. “What do you think I should do?”

  Trix looked down to examine her violet painted nails for blemishes. When her hazel eyes flickered to mine, she shrugged. “Kill the caster, kill the curse.”

  I didn’t have to look at Lillian to know that she was scared. I felt her body trembling in my hands, I loved it.

  Without warning, a flash of pain ripped through my temporal lobe. It felt like someone was ripping through my skull, trying to get out. Asmodeus.

  Instead of taking control of my body, she guided me. Her presence lit up the muscles of my arms. I let go of Lillian’s wrist and placed my palm on her chest.

  I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply. I felt it, Lillian Blaire’s corrupt soul. The thin threads of power that connected her to Hell. To my power. I squeezed until my fingernails popped the first layer of skin and I felt the cool wash of blood on my fingertips. Lillian screamed and batted my arm like a mad woman. I pushed Lillian across the ground, and when she hit the wall, she was nothing but smoke.

  “That’s some serious power, Taylor.” Trix nodded to the smouldering dust where Lillian had stood a few seconds before. “You killed her.”

  My legs trembled and collapsed, the ground rushed to greet me. Anna’s cold and strong arms lifted me with ease.

  “I couldn’t kill her,” I said through chattering teeth. “Asmodeus stopped me.”

  My chin bashed against my chest, and even though I knew daemons couldn’t be sick, I thought I was going to vomit.

  I had used all my power, sending Lillian Blaire away to God knows where.

  Annabelle Cross, with Trix’s help, managed to manoeuvre a mannequin-like Henry into the back of the SUV. The driver must have seen some weird occurrences because he didn’t say a word as Trix positioned Henry’s arms on his lap in the back of the vehicle.

  I pinched the bridge of my nose and took deep breaths to try and will away the nausea. Despite the feeling of sickness, the curl of desire flicked up my inner thighs, and I knew if I put my hand between my legs I would be wet. If only for my body’s need for lust, life and sex.

  When I looked at Henry out of the corner of my eye, his angelic face was completely relaxed. His eyes were deep Lapiz lazuli blue, but his pupils remained fixed on an object in front of him that it seemed no one else could see.

  I wondered where his mind had gone. If he was trapped inside of his body was Lillian pawed at his crotch like a child with no concept of the word ‘no’. Maybe he had been pushed to the back of his brain, in a small little imaginary box that allowed him to drift away. Maybe he went somewhere dark, like Hell or Limbo.

  I groaned, and the upholstery squeaked as I leant against the headrest. I put my hand on Henry’s and felt comforted by his familiar crisp skin. When I breathed in deeply, he still smelt the same. I ached for him. Every facet of my body and soul belonged to him.

  With my Demon, Asmodeus, in charge of my body like a parent with shared custody.

  With his Demon, Lillian Blaire, in charge of his from Equinox until Solstice. I began to hope. Maybe it wasn’t such a strange thing for Henry and me to be soul-mates.

  At the end, when all the broken facets of ourselves lay on the floor. I knew Henry would accept what had happened to me as I would accept what happened to him.

  We were the only people that could put each other back together.

  My hand clenched over his as if I could will a reaction from him if I held tight enough. I could no longer produce tears, but it didn’t stop the tell-tale burn behind my eyes, even if no drops fell down my cheeks. I reached up and traced the skin on my cheeks, the pads of my fingers came away dry for what seemed like the first time in a long while.

  I didn’t know if I felt comforted by that. I had cried so many tears since I had met Henry.

  I had said I was done.

  Henry was still cursed, which meant that I hadn’t killed Lillian. She was still out there. My fists clenched and blood lust licked up my body like a flash in the pan.

  Darkness edged around my vision, and I knew that I needed to feed.

  “Take us to Carol Street, Camden,” Trix commanded the driver. I felt the seat shift as Anna sat down next to me in the back seat.

  We drove back to our old flat in silence.

  When we pulled up to the double yellow lines outside of the corner shop, Trix hopped out of the front passenger seat and opened the door to help manoeuvre Henry out. I blew a lock of hair out of my face.

  “You need to start thinking like Lillian,” Trix hovered behind me as I struggled to get Henry from the seat. He was made of ice, and completely vacant. I turned around, exasperated and put my hand on my hip.

  “And how exactly do I do that?” I
huffed, angrily.

  Trix’s lips twitched at my outburst of anger, and she turned pensive. Tapping her finger against her chin, she cleared her throat and said, “Henry, get out of the car.”

  As if he was an automaton, his joints unfurled stiffly, and he sat up and hooked his leg over the side of the vehicle. Henry stepped out without a word and closed the car door with a slam. Completely oblivious to his surroundings, I had to take an abrupt step back when he placed himself on the kerb. A regal statue, awaiting ordered.

  I couldn’t bring myself to look at his face. Instead, I kept my head tilted to the side. What had she done to him? I almost felt happy that I could no longer shed tears because with everything that had happened in the past few days would have depleted all the water in my body.

  “Do you think it only works for Witchlings?” I asked as Trix unlocked the front door to the flat.

  “Lillian isn’t a Witchling, Taylor,” Trix said.

  “Yeah,” I nodded. “But she used to be.”

  Trix directed Henry into the living room and made him sit on the sofa. I took the armchair opposite and leant forward, resting my elbows on my knees so that I could wait him out of the corner of my eye.

  I didn’t want to look at him and not have him return my gaze. Every time our eyes met, it was like lightening. My entire body jolted into focus, and I felt our connection pulled taut as if the universe wanted us close and connected.

  What if I looked into his Lapis Lazuli eyes, under his thick lashes that would make a mascara model jealous, and found nothing staring back at me. What if Henry had left his body behind?

  Or worse, what if he was still inside. Beating his fists bloody against the cage Lillian had trapped him inside of.

  “What do you want to do?” Trix opened a can of Coke and took a deep slug. She leant against the doorframe as if she didn’t want to encroach on our relationship.

  “I don’t know, but you don’t need to stand out there. Whatever’s going on with Henry isn’t contagious.” I pointed out, but my voice was weak.

  The Witchling shrugged. “You’re stronger than me now. Your body has changed to accommodate the Queen of the Seventh Circle of Hell. Even if she only moonlights, you have bigger cajones that I do right now.” Trix took another sip but stayed on the threshold of the room.

  I stood up and walked to the dirty window, to look out at the street. I blew out a breath, but instead of fogging the window, it froze. I drew a star. I didn’t want to turn around and face Henry again. Down on the street, Damian’s SUV had parked illegally on the double yellows, and Anna Cross stood outside like a benevolent guard with her arms crossed and her feet squared. She was dressed entirely in black.

  I pressed my forehead against the cool glass and sighed. Any idiot that passed would think that a celebrity had descended on our little hovel.

  “I honestly don’t know what I can do,” I murmured, “I’ve been able to make ice. That’s about it.”

  “What about orgasms?” Trix supplied helpfully.

  “I’m not feeling very generous right now,” I joked. ‘If I’m not getting any, why should I go handing out O’s like it’s going out of fashion?”

  My best friend let out a laugh that sounded like a goose. I couldn’t help but snort. On the rare occasions that she broke her stoicism, she always surprised me.

  My hands trembled, and it felt like I had gone too long without eating, even though that wasn’t the case. I still needed to feed. Beatrix Klein’s kiss had helped some, but I had no idea what I needed. If what Damian had said last night about our…encounter… was true, then why did I still need to feed the next day?

  I laid my hand on my chest; if I closed my eyes and felt inside of myself, I could feel the threads of power that connected everything through the dimensions. Woven into the thick tapestry of the world. I turned back to the window and focused on all the sounds around me. I had grown accustomed to tuning most of the world out, but I welcomed the noise if I would help me escape.

  I heard screaming rise from the street below. At first, I thought it was in my mind like it had been the past. I thought it might have been Melanie, waving her arms about like an idiot as she screamed about how I had killed her.

  I shivered. Melanie had killed herself, using heroin. She was an addict.

  I pressed my thumb to the pulse point on my wrist, but my heartbeat did not greet me.

  “You live inside your head, don’t you?” Trix said wryly. She had walked up to stand by my side without my hearing her. I had been so focused on thoughts of my sister and how her screams had haunted me for years.

  “Is that Sarah-Belle?” Trix snorted in laughter.

  My eyes followed the Witchling’s gaze to the street below, just in time to see Annabelle Cross grab Bellend by the waist and attempt to haul her away from our front door. Sarah-Belle lurched forward, despite the Elite daemon’s grip on her middle, with her arms spread out and her fingers hooked into claws like a feral cat. The blonde Bleeder shrieked as her arms flailed wildly.

  When we laughed, and Anna’s head snapped to the upstairs window. She cocked her brow as if to say, ‘Do you know this insane person?’

  I nodded, and Anna jumped away from Sarah-Belle and resumed her position by the SUV.

  Bellend looked at the demonic bodyguard, confused, and then flicked her long peroxide blonde hair over her shoulder as she swaggered to the front door. Sarah-Belle was ludicrous; she didn’t bother to knock on our front door. She let herself in. I heard the click-clack of her inappropriate high heels. They were the first thing I had noticed when I first met her as well. Louboutin’s that were so tall it looked like a strong wind would knock Bellend over. Just another reminder of why I didn’t like her. She flaunted her wealth as a big ‘fuck you’ to anyone else. Trix and I were survivors; we had been addicts. Huddled together in our Camden flat, as we held each other to stop the withdrawal shakes from taking over our bodies. Sarah-Belle was beneath all that. In another life, I imagined that her drug of choice would have been cocaine, that she concealed inside of a Catholic cross.

  “What the hell happened?” Sarah-Belle gasped and ran forward to pull Beatrix into a hug. The Witchling raised her arm’s limply. It looked like Trix was unsure what to do with her hands so she settled on keeping them by her side. Sarah’s blonde head disappeared into Trix’s shoulder and Bellend’s body started to shake with sobs.

  I rolled my eyes. Trix and I weren’t generally ‘big’ on physical contact that wasn’t sex. Being around daemons meant that every touch had several different meanings. You kept your hands close if you wanted to live another day. Sarah-Belle’s faux tears had successfully made Trix’s kidnapping and her disappearance all about her.

  It became apparent that Sarah-Belle didn’t even want a response to her question. She just wanted someone to stand there and soak up her tears. I cocked my head to the side, did all humans cry that much? Or was that just Sarah-Belle? Wringing her sadness out like a wet sponge.

  When the Bleeder broke her tight grasp on Trix’s shoulders, she turned to me for what would inevitably be an awkward greeting. Sarah-Belle knew that I didn’t like her. Even I knew that my hatred didn’t have much rational basis.

  Sarah-Belle’s eyes widened, and her mouth popped open like a gaping fish. “Why is there a statue on your sofa?” She stepped around my body like I was a piece of furniture and approached Henry’s still form like one would creep up on a cornered animal.

  I cleared my throat, “That’s Henry Blaire. My … boyfriend?”

  Sarah’s head whipped back to my face. “Is he one of those plastic love dolls?”

  I scoffed, “He’s a daemon.”

  “Not every active, is he?” Sarah-Belle reached out to touch him but then lowered her hand as if remembering where she was. Trix stepped forward and guided Sarah to the black stool she used when she had tattoo clients.

  “It’s complicated, Bellend.”

  Sarah-Belle nodded and sat down gracefully. She crossed her leg
s and reached into her pastel sky-blue handbag. She pulled out an iPhone, with a pentagram drawn on the back in red nail varnish. Sarah-Belle handed it to Trix.

  “You left this behind,” Bellend said sheepishly.

  Trix nodded stiffly, showing her thanks.

  Instead of asking what happened, Sarah-Belle pulled out her own phone and started to fiddle for a few seconds. She chewed her lip and brought up a mainstream news website. “Have you seen what’s been going on? It’s all over the news. I bloody told you it was going to get worse.”

  I walked over and hovered over to get a look at the screen. Apart from the text that was too small to read, all I could see was a red pixelated image.

  “What is that?” I cocked my head to the side.

  Sarah-Belle licked her lips nervously. “You know the Bleeders have been going missing? Well, now it’s the daemons as well. The ones that donate daemon blood, or sell it. It’s a conspiracy.”

  I nodded in understanding. “Who’s doing it? Do they know yet?”

  Trix took the phone and pinched the screen to get a better look at the article.

  “They call him the Satanic Slayer, apparently,” Beatrix said with a furrowed brow.

  “They are killing anyone that’s been dealing in daemon blood.” Sarah-Belle murmured, “they’ve been leaving them in prominent locations all over the city. The last one was found on Tower Bridge.”

  I shivered. “Why call him the Satanic Slayer?”

  “He lopped off the head, and the Hell Sigil was carved into the victim's forehead,” Trix answered, as her eyes skimmed the article.

  “How’d you know they’re dealing in daemon blood?” I asked.

  Sarah-Belle gave me a long-suffering look. “You can’t see through the pixel mash-up, but that’s Theo’s body.”

  Trix paled, and the phone dropped out of her hand. Without a word, she left the room. With my daemonic hearing, Trix stumbled into the bathroom and then heaved until her stomach emptied. I knotted my fingers together. It was easy to be emotionless when I had never met the guy, but that didn’t mean that I didn’t care about my best friend.