The Purebloods

by Michaela Haze

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. I don’t remember.”

  Damian traced my jawline with a smooth fingertip. “Can’t or won’t.”

  I swallowed the lump in my throat. It would be so easy to lean forward. So easy to say yes to him. Instead, Henry’s face flashed in my mind, and I grabbed the Pureblood by the shoulders and pushed him away.

  Henry Blaire was back in my room, alone. I was filled with a sense of shame so vast that I swore that it would span my existence.

  Damian stared at me and said nothing. Like I was a puzzle. Like it annoyed him that he found me intriguing. I left without a word.

  8.

  My scream reverberated across every surface of the room. The worst pain that I had ever felt coursed through me, even more excruciating than when I had been shot in the liver; when my life had been shot to Hell.

  Henry Blaire was gone.

  The only sign that he had ever been in the room was a wrinkle on the edge of the bed. My devastation slid over my vision, like a filter. I felt the energy signatures in the room before I was even aware of what I was doing. If it weren't for the whirling colours that pointed to Lillian’s presence, I would have blamed Damian. Maybe I would have thought that he had kept Asmodeus distracted last night so that Lillian would steal Henry away without interruption.

  Lillian. The snake.

  She had been in my room and touched my things. Taken Henry from right under my nose.

  The windows began to frost, drawing delicate patterns and snowflakes on the glass as the temperature of the room dropped. I felt the strings of Power through every muscle and bone in my body. It covered me like a second skin and connected me to something greater. As if Asmodeus’s eyes opened behind mine, I felt her presence in my mind.

  She stood on the edge of the room, even though I couldn’t look directly at her face, I noticed the writhing mass of the hundreds of thousand souls that made up her hair. The awkward wings of a raven and the flicker of an onyx butterfly. It was easier to focus on anything else but the immense desire to reach forward and cup her face.

  Bring her lips to mine…

  “Child,” Asmodeus laughed huskily. “You summoned me?”

  My fists clenched and I blinked away my arousal induced insanity. “Lillian has taken him.”

  “Haage?” The Queen nodded thoughtfully.

  I swallowed the lump in my throat and my pride. “Give me the power the fight her. To kill her.” I implored.

  Asmodeus smirked, her teeth were a blinding white light against a mass of squirming souls. “Do you wish to make a bargain?”

  My eyes narrowed. “You are the one hitchhiking in my body. You’re the one that should be begging me. Crawling on your knees, for me!” I snarled.

  “You implore the Queen of the Seventh Circle to act like your dog? Brave, aren’t you, Child?”

  My teeth chattered in anger, and I felt the same sorrow and rage that floored me when Henry had left me the first time. In a cold bed, with a cheque for ten thousand pounds. Alone. Used.

  He had taken my body and thrown our bond and relationship back in my face. I now knew that it was Lillian’s influence, he had left me to keep me safe. But I couldn’t rewrite three years of pain, as much as I could wish Henry was free of his curse.

  “What do you want me to do?” I asked, in a cool and measured tone.

  Asmodeus floated towards me, her body was lush with curves in a tight red second skin made of leather. She was smaller than Trix, which meant that I towered over her. Even at my height at five nine, I felt awed and inferior. My knees still trembled against her power, even if my body recognised it as something that connected us.

  She was familiar, and the way that my fingers ached to reach forward and touch her reminded me of the bond I had felt with my sister.

  Another wave of mourning swept over me when I was reminded that Melanie would no longer haunt my life, she was well and truly dead.

  “As much as I find your thoughts fascinating, I am unsure if you wish for me to give you Henry Blaire back? Or if you wish for me to resurrect your dead sister?”

  I choked, “You can do that?”

  Asmodeus cocked her head to the side and surveyed me. I caught a flash of her eyes through the writhing mass of souls and a sharp pain vibrated through my skull. Her eyes shone crimson red, like a roiling wave of fresh blood. Her lashes were thick but delicate.

  I gritted my teeth against the pain and forced my gaze to meet hers. It took every ounce of my mental strength to not wet myself and collapse in a puddle of arousal and fear.

  A strange but potent combination.

  “Is my sister happy? Wherever she is?” My words were a breath, but she still heard my voice.

  “Most dead are, yes.” The Queen replied with a shrug as if she didn’t care.

  My mind fought against my heart. Part of me hated the apparitions that screamed and cursed me for watching my sister kill herself with heroin, the other part of me remembered her bright smile. The other part of me knew that the visions were just products of my psychosis.

  I couldn’t focus. “Stop!” I growled and pressed the frozen palm of my hand to my forehead. As I fought through the pain, every thought and memory twisted as if Asmodeus was extracting it through pinched fingers out of my tear ducts with little effort.

  “If being in my presence is so vexing, how can you expect to handle my power?” Asmodeus laughed. “I could pour it into your skull until your brain melts, I suppose? But where is the fun in that?”

  “Give me enough to get Henry back and you can have whatever you want!” I screamed, my fists balled, and my stance widened as I pushed back.

  Asmodeus’s crimson eyes widened, and her smirk became a knife slash in her intangible face. “I will hold you to that, Sophia Daisy Taylor. A bargain.”

  “What do you want in exchange?” I asked, breathless.

  Asmodeus disappeared, her sensual laughter echoed through the stifling air of my empty room. The sound was the only clue that she had been there in the first place.

  That, and the scorch marks on the carpet.

  Damian sat a good measure of distance away from me, despite the fact we were at the same table. His legs were parted, swinging lazily off the chair. The Pureblood looked like he belonged on the front cover of a catalogue, dressed in nothing but surfer shorts.

  I ran my hands down the front of my skirt, the fabric had crinkled since I had sat down and although I understood why daemon’s like designer clothes, I thought of them as a bit pointless.

  There was a difference in the feel of the clothes, compared to my polyester-mix wardrobe staples, but I wasn’t about to admit that out loud, considering Damian had chosen my outfit.

  Damian surfer shorts were something that Henry wouldn’t have been seen dead in.

  “You don’t like being controlled,” Damian cracked his neck by wrenching it from side to side. He did not look at me as he spoke. “It’s only an outfit.”

  “I don’t see what was wrong with my clothes,” I huffed and crossed my legs.

  “Asmodeus dislikes them. Why else do you think you keep waking up naked?” His lips twitched into a smirk.

  “Nudity makes feeding…sex easier,” I offered as an explanation.

  “You can do a lot to a person without taking their clothes off,”

  I levelled him with a stare. “I don’t want to know what you do in your spare time,”

  Damian shrugged, “Considering that what I do in my own time directly involves the body that you are currently wearing, I thought you would care more.”

  I ignored him and pressed the imagined images that flashed unbidden to the front of my eyes away. I didn’t have any memory of the night before when Asmodeus had taken over my body, but that didn’t mean that I didn’t care.

  It was easier to deal with if I pushed it away and refused to address it for the moment.

  “You need to know how to control your new abilities,” Damian waved a hand in my direction. “I d
on’t want you to be caught out by the Witchlings; you may be immortal but if you can’t summon Magic you might as well be powerless.”

  I swallowed the feeling of shame that rose in my chest. “You can say it, I’m useless. That you wish that Asmodeus had just killed me and taken over.”

  Damian sighed heavily. “Yes, and?”

  I didn’t know what I expected to come from getting emotional with an ancient Pureblooded Hell creature.

  “What do I need to know?” I asked.

  Damian opened his mouth to speak, but the entire surface of the oak dining room table burst into flame. The embers reached for the chandelier on the ceiling, the roar was deafening.

  “Is that you?” I shouted over the crackling flames.

  “No.” Damian boomed back, he had stood up with his fists clenched by his side. “This is not my magic. This is the Witchlings, I can taste it.”

  I pushed my tongue against the roof of my mouth and noted the burning plastic smell that I associated with Beatrix Klein’s powers. The flames died as quickly as they had appeared, but the shadows on the wall rippled with Damian’s anger at the intrusion.

  My eyes flicked to the table surface and the words that were burnt into the lacquered surface.

  Your slight means War

  “What did you do?” I snarled, my fists were clenched.

  Damian shrugged, but his eyes flickered in annoyance. “I may have sent a gift,”

  I worked my jaw slowly, to stop my teeth from grinding together. “And?”

  Damian’s hazel eyes shot to mine, unrepentant and cold. I saw into the cavernous expanse of his history. His creation, his love and eventually his death. Fuelled by the new power that thrummed through my veins, my mind flickered through the next thirty seconds.

  My hand flew to my chest as I realised two things.

  I had the ability to see the future. And Damian was psychotic.

  “You sent a bomb?” I screamed in horror.

  9.

  Henry and Lillian stood on the Tower Bridge together. Most of the traffic was a mixture of pedestrians and horse-drawn vehicles. The occasional car rattled past, much to the fanfare of the woman walking with their hands looped with their well-dressed suitors.

  Lillian wore her ugly knitted shawl, hiding the lines of her delicate body. Henry was dressed in a pinstripe suit. His expression was aloof as he perused the humanity around them with an air of disgust.

  Across the water, I saw rows of white beds against the banks of the Thames. Separated from the water by only an iron railing. I watched, intrigued, as nurses clothed in starched, pressed uniforms hovered past each bed and laughed with the sick. The men sat up in the fresh balmy summer air, excited to be outside.

  That area of the embankment had been cleared of pedestrians. Through fear of something contagious, as the people were obviously sick, or perhaps foresight.

  “What do you want from me, child?” Henry asked, his delicate voice was haunted.

  Lillian moved from one foot to the other, as if she was nervous. “Consumption. Tell me, how do you cure the wretched disease?” She hissed, her sudden anger only made Henry smile.

  Henry did not answer her question but allowed his eyes to drift over to the hospital beds on the Bank. He leant against the iron railing and watched the sick for the longest time, as the water lapped the bridge below. A boat horn sounded, but nothing could break the peaceful silence between them.

  Lillian clasped her hands together and inhaled deeply. As if willing strength into her bones.

  “I need to know.” Her voice shook. “Can you give her blood?”

  “If you wish to kill her.” Henry rolled his shoulders, but his eyes never left the bed at the end of the row. A frail young woman inhabited it. “My blood will do nothing to aid in this situation. I suggest that you make the suitable arrangements and begin that human emotion, grief, I believe it’s called.”

  Lillian bit her lip so hard that she tore the delicate skin. Her face flushed red, and her clenched fists began to shake. Even then, she looked around as to not cause a scene as she advanced on Henry Blaire.

  “You are a callous, immoral, disgusting—” Lillian snarled.

  Henry held up his hand to halt her. “I am a creature of Hell, and nothing more.”

  The sound of trickling water pulled me back from the dark corner of my mind where I had been hidden away from the world. My skin was numb with cold, and the inside of my eyelids was illuminated with a pinkish glow from the harsh sunlight overhead. I felt the ripples of stagnant water as it lapped at my fingers.

  I pushed my hands down to gain purchase, but I was unable to grab onto anything. My body thrashed in the water, and it burnt my throat as I breathed it in. My eyes flew open, and I saw the slimy edge of the concrete. I paddled through the shallow water and grabbed hold of the ledge. When I lifted myself out of the water, I felt the sharp sting of brisk spring air and hissed a breath through my teeth. It wasn’t unpleasant, but jarring. I was completely naked.

  I looked over my shoulder, my long chestnut hair was plastered to my back in wet tangled tendrils. I recognised the statue of a turquoise mermaid, holding onto three writhing fish. I was in Trafalgar Square. Central London. The colours had been dull the last time I had seen them, but with my enhanced sight, I noticed that the water refracted the light and shone tiny rainbows that no one else could see.

  Crimson stained the fountain, I looked closely at my hands, but the water had washed off most of the evidence. The combined acrid smell of urine and the metallic tang of blood clung to my nostrils. My bitten fingernails had dried blood on them, the kind of staining that wouldn’t come out even if I scrubbed until my hands were raw.

  I didn’t remember how I had gotten to the fountain, my mind was blank. The last thing that I remembered was the ringing of my mobile phone alarm, warning me that Asmodeus was due to arrive.

  I wished I could have said that there was a fade to black moment, but there wasn’t. My consciousness was forcefully squeezed to the back of my mind, and everything hurt.

  It took a second for my eyes to register the chatter of hundreds of people and the blue flashing lights of the London Metropolitan Police.

  I looked down to the Trafalgar Square fountain and then up to the columns of the ancient Tate portrait gallery. I couldn’t have picked a more populated and central location to enjoy a nude jaunt.

  But it wasn’t me that they were all there to see. At least, it wasn’t just me.

  Floating in the centre of the dirty water was a man without a head.

  A paramedic placed a shiny blanket over my shoulders while they rummaged through their ambulance to find something for me to wear. I was surprised to find that my teeth didn’t chatter. I wondered if the lack of reaction to temperature was something that I could chalk up to the Queen of Hell that took over my body from 6 pm to 6 am every morning without paying rent.

  A police officer sidled up to the back of the ambulance as I sat on the floor, looking out of the open doors. I watched the body droop like a deflated balloon, the bloated arm swung from the gurney like a forlorn accessory, covered in a white sheet. The stretcher was pulled into an ivory tent by four different people in jumpsuits. The headless man was no longer visible, but it didn’t stop all the reporters and news stations from clambering at the yellow crime scene tape and trying to get a peek at what was going to be the next headline on the BBC news.

  A harsh light shone in my eyes, and I was checked for a concussion and found lacking.

  “Is there anyone that we can call for you?” the paramedic asked, she was a woman in her forties with a kind face.

  I bit the inside of my cheek and thought about talking. My throat stung with unspoken words, I didn’t even know if I could talk. It felt like my voice had been taken from overuse.

  We all heard the scream, and all the uniformed police officers and even the man with bug-eyed glasses that took water samples turned around to the source of the sound.

  What had
been a stressful morning at the scene of a crime quickly became a mad rush.

  An elderly man in a tweed jacket ran down the steps of the Tate portrait gallery, his silver comb-over stuck to his bald head with exertion. His portly torso heaved with strain.

  He pointed back at the gallery, the man looked like he was going to be sick.

  “The head!” He shouted.

  A wave of people took off up the limestone steps, clambering to see what the police would no doubt shut away when they got to the crime scene inside.

  The paramedic that was taking care of me ran forward and tucked the man inside of a silver blanket and brought him over to the ambulance. He seemed to be going into shock.

  Almost everyone had left to go and gawk at the severed head of the man in the fountain, while a select few stayed and collected evidence from where the body had been found. People had their phones out, filming the chaos.

  “There was something carved into his forehead. A message.” The elderly man whispered, his voice frail.

  “What did it say?” I croaked.

  “Give her back.”

  Even though Charing Cross police station was within walking distance of Trafalgar Square, I was led to the road around the back of the Tate Gallery. Still clothed in a crinkly metallic blanket, they cuffed me and led me away to the flashing red and blue lights of a police car.

  My hands rubbed together behind my back. I was not inclined to fight. What would have been the point?

  My nails were caked in blood, the edges marred by the dark and flaky substance.

  The forensics team had poked and prodded me since the head was found. Taking samples from every part of my body. Hair, saliva, and skin.

  I shivered against the cold, as I was manoeuvred into the backseat of the Police vehicle by a female officer. For all intents and purposes, I was a criminal being held on suspicion of murder.

  The drive to the station was short, but being in the confined space with humans was almost unbearable.