“Cattle farm?” I asked in a tiny voice.
Henry swallowed a lump in his throat and spoke without looking at me. “He is speaking of the world. William here likes to think of the world as his cattle farm—very much like Shakespeare thought of the world as his stage,” Henry’s voice was cold and his eyes never left William’s.
“The world is your oyster. So many people to eat, they don’t matter—they always make more.” William pointed out in a light-hearted fashion.
I exhaled the breath that I didn’t realise I was holding. Henry’s expression was frightening but it wasn’t directed at me, it was the Elite daemon that should have been scared. Henry looked like he wanted to use his teeth to rip off William’s head.
“My old friend,” Henry sighed; the hardness did not leave his eyes. “Do you remember your mother, your father? The people that satisfy your thirst have the connections that you have long since lost, the grief you are causing by taking life…”
“Oh, you killjoy,” William chuckled. “Please, let us not get into a moral debate in front of your precious child. Heaven forbid, if you cared that much for humanity then you would have let yourself wither a long time ago!”
Henry pulled his face into a half smile and relaxed, “she is not a child.” My daemon stated plainly.
“Technically she is a child, compared to us.” The Elite laughed.
“How old are you, William?” I asked, hoping I wasn’t interrupting.
“I am just over five hundred years old, give or take a few years. I was born to human parents, unlike many Elite royalty who are bred from within.”
“And he’s still fucking obsessed with tattoos,” Henry muttered. “Seriously; I swear there is no sicker hobby.” I clutched my hipbone with my crossed arm and held it subconsciously protecting my own tattoo from scrutiny.
“No, Sophia. That is not what I meant,” Henry seemed shocked at my offence. “It is merely William’s way of keeping up with society. As you know we hide and remain under society’s radar…but that would mean that William has to change his tattoos at least every twenty years as they begin to distort.”
“How do you change a tattoo? It’s for life,” I asked.
William laughed, “well dear—we have un-lives, so we’re different.”
“You’re a masochist,” Henry deadpanned, his eyes raking in disgust over William’s arms.
“You have to be if you’re going to live forever,” the Elite countered.
“He has been doing it for seventy years, he rips off his skin and it heals clean and gets a new tattoo when he feels like it,” Henry informed me.
“I have a rotation going on,” William said proudly, his tongue darted and smoothed over his teeth, the conversation didn’t seem to bother him one bit. It didn’t bother me either. If he healed from everything, how could ripping off your skin be such a big deal?
“Do you have any tattoos, Henry?” I said after a moment of thought. Henry shook his head and smiled at me.
“I never had a reason to,” he stated. “We still feel pain, even though we heal we still feel pain.”
“Coward,” William murmured under his breath. Both Henry and I snapped our heads in his direction and scowled. William Kain held his hands up in surrender.
“Hey, Blaire. Pardon me saying this, right?” William started; Henry cocked his eyebrow at the dark-haired Elite. “But I know you have almost as much money as I do…why don’t you just pay for Sophia here to get some new breasts?”
My eyes had widened in disbelief before I saw that his question was meant as sincere. I tried to stop the laugh that bubbled in my throat but I couldn’t hold it back.
“She’s perfect the way she is William,” Henry growled. The Elite straightened up at the threat and narrowed his eyes at Henry. I carefully placed my palm on the side of Henry’s face and he visibly relaxed, I swooned as the contact sucked my energy.
“I’m going to take Fia up to bed,” Henry informed William carefully. “I will be just outside the door.” He said as he turned to me. His eyes were worried, searching me for any signs of fear.
“I’ll sleep fine. Do you want to be in the room?” I asked cautiously. In the background, I could hear the snort that we earned from William.
“I better keep an eye on William here…” Henry said before turning in the Elite’s direction and sneering playfully. I smiled and let my hand rest on his face for a few seconds longer before I blushed and yanked my hand back. Henry’s expression mirrored mine, I had forgotten about the fact that he could feel my emotions through my skin.
“Let’s get you upstairs,” Henry sighed as he got up. William stayed seated and watched us out of the corner of his eye.
“Why do you even have a bed, Mon Amis?” the Elite asked.
Henry rolled his eyes and didn’t answer.
“To sleep in?” I bit back sarcastically before turning to walk up the stairs. I didn’t know William Kain so I couldn’t say I liked him very much. All I knew was that Henry was his friend so I would be civil. I thought Henry was light-hearted but in response to William’s personality that obviously wasn’t the case. I stopped on the stairs and Henry blurred in front of me.
“Are you alright, Sophia?” Henry asked, his voice layered with sincerity and concern. I shook my head and smiled to myself before pulling my fingers to my lips and placing them there gently as I imagined touching Henry’s lips earlier.
“I wish I could touch you more,” I breathed.
“If you touch me too much, you’ll die,” Henry warned.
I wasn’t a little girl anymore, but holding the skin that had been in contact with Henry’s lips just a while before was almost like an indirect kiss.
“I don’t want you to die,” Henry added. It was silly, but at that moment I was happy that Henry was by my side.
At some point in the night, I got up in search for a glass of water. In my dreamlike state, I could barely keep my eyes open. I registered the scratchy feeling in my throat and noted that it was still dark out. It must have been before seven o’clock in the morning—sleeping into the daylight hours was often a requirement of working nights.
I stumbled into the hallway and expected to see Henry, but I didn’t. I sleepily perched myself on the top stair and heard both he and William talking to themselves, I could just about make out their hushed conversation.
“You killed someone for her?”
“I had to, William. Have you seen the emotional turmoil that girl has been through because of those pricks? It isn’t just daemons that can hurt humans—humans do a pretty good job of destroying each other.”
I closed my eyes and leant against the wood of the banister.
“She paid you, right…?”
“Well, yes…” Henry started to say.
“Then I see no problem. It’s not like your falling in love with the girl.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat and I tried to steady my breathing.
“I…she is a client, and now, she is my friend.”
I wondered if he was just saying that because William was an Elite, but I didn’t want to stand around while they discussed me. I felt sick, like something dirty had crawled inside my chest. Eavesdropping was never one of my most favourite past times. I stood up quickly and walked to the bathroom, running the tap and taking a sip. I felt like an animal but I didn’t care. Wiping my mouth on the back of my hand, I walked back to bed and fell into restless sleep.
I felt cool hands on my cheeks, as I slowly sunk below the surface of the deep water. It wasn’t a dream, my lungs struggled for oxygen and I writhed in pain trying to find it. You know, that feeling when you’re falling and falling about to hit the concrete, about to die, and then suddenly you wake up. My eyes snapped open.
“You were having a nightmare—I was unsure whether to wake you. My touch seemed to be the only thing that stopped your turmoil.” Henry leant over the bed with both of his hands on my cheeks, his touch as gentle and as light as a feather, just the
fingertips, and no more. I looked up and smiled but he retracted his hands sheepishly. My skin ached with the sudden lack of contact.
“Yesterday…I was alone with William.” I informed him. Henry nodded robotically, I looked down to see his fists clenched. I continued. “He didn’t hurt me.”
Henry’s eyes flickered from Celestine to deep blue and he sighed with audible relief. “I would have killed him if he had done anything and I would have done it regardless of how long he has been my friend.”
I bit the inside of my cheek. “How is William different from you or other incubi?” I asked.
“Well, an Elite is bitten by a Pureblood.” Henry frowned, “A Pureblood is a monster and has never been human. The original daemons from the beginning of time. An Elite can bite a human to change them into a daemon. After that it seems that the blood is too weak to change a person, I am just a run of the mill daemon, I couldn’t turn someone if I tried.” Henry’s voice was barely audible but beautiful.
“It’s all about blood then?” I asked. “Figures.”
Henry leant back, running his hand through his hair. As he stretched, I saw a sliver of pale, pearl-like skin peek out from under his shirt. It was perfection, no blemishes or moles, even the hair looked shiny and soft as opposed to coarse like the typical snail trail.
“I was bitten by an Elite,” Henry said in a tiny voice. The way he spoke sounded like he had been violated. To me, a bite on the neck or anywhere else was inherently a sexual thing.
“How did it happen?” I asked.
Henry cleared his throat and his gaze met mine for a second. That glance gave me a window into the ancient pain that he was holding. If Henry could feel my emotions through my skin, I could sense his secrets the second I looked into his eyes.
“It was 1934. I was born in London around 1905, I remember little of my human life, I was a wastrel. A drunk.”
“Yes?” I urged him to continue.
“I had many women,” He chanced a look and I struggled to keep my face impassive because I wanted to hear the rest of his tale.
My heart wrenched and I did not entirely understand my jealousy towards women I had never even met. I was not normally a jealous person. Henry seemed to bring out many new feelings in me. I pursed my lips and waited for him to continue.
“I was at a bar, away from the City for work. My fiancée was waiting at home. The marriage was a family arrangement, a business dealing with our fathers. I don’t remember her face or even the faces of my family anymore,” his eyes glazed over before he broke out of his trance and looked at me. “They hoped if I were to marry, that I would become a better man.”
“Stellar plan.” I smiled.
“If I had gone back home that night, as I was supposed to, it wouldn’t have happened.”
“Would you have married her?”
“I would have had to. But pay mind that you weren’t alive yet.” Henry reached over and placed his hand next to mine, I could feel the cold and the surge of electricity even though we weren’t touching.
“I’ll try not to be jealous,” I assured him.
“Good because you needn’t be.”
I looked down to my hands and licked my bottom lip. “I want you to tell me the rest of the story,” I pleaded. Henry nodded sadly but didn’t pull his hand away.
“I was at the bar, she was there. She smelt like daisies. Like spring. She asked me if I would like to follow her outside,” he swallowed nervously. “I did. Women in those days were not often known for their whimsy, I thought she was a hooker. Even I, who found the profession unsavoury, would have begged her for her companionship.”
“What did she look like?”
Henry’s eyes darted over my face for a second and he looked away, “to my human eyes? All I remembered was her beauty.”
“And to daemon eyes?”
Henry shrugged, “I was too upset to notice her beauty after what she did to me.” He shivered and his hand cupped his throat as if it were a reflex.
“She stole my essence. Fed from me…like cattle. Drained my blood and left me to die. It was only when I started screaming did she notice that I was fighting. I was still alive. She told me she admired me. I remember her smearing blood into a circle around me but not much else. She said her name was Lillian Blaire, but it hadn’t always been.”
“You took her surname?” I asked, my voice shooting up an octave.
“There are six daemon families. Each with their own royalty. It just so happened that I was turned by the Blaire matriarch.” he said sadly.
“Apparently, I should be thankful that Lillian came back. If she hadn’t swapped her blood with me, instead of just biting me then it would have been a more painful death. I still remember the pain like ice crystallizing in my veins.”
“And so, you became immortal.” I murmured weakly.
“I’d rather be human, as you said yourself. We are meant to die,” Henry countered. “I’d like to just once put my hand on my chest and feel a heartbeat.”
Henry shook his head as if to erase the memories from it. “I guess complaining is futile,” He chuckled. “What’s done is done.”
“Yesterday…” I started.
“Yes?” Henry said, crooking an eyebrow,
I exhaled the breath I didn’t realise I was holding, “thank you.”
Determined not to go home and face my mother, I took a bus through Kensington. Skimmed Hyde Park, and decided to walk past the V&A museum to get to work. It was early morning and the commuters kept their heads down. Tourists dawdled but they were few and far between. The sun was just rising over the dirty concrete and sleek glass as the winter morning began.
Conscious of the fact I was wearing a white shirt that belonged to a man, and an absence of underwear, I decided to take my time and peruse the shops. The traffic was dreadful, causing a tailback all the way around the corner of Brompton Street. One of the many reasons why I never drove in Central.
I walked past the large Topshop and picked up some underwear. The Christmas displays were in full force but due to the commuter rush, not many people hovered to check them out. Curious by Harrods, the gold standard of Christmas windows, I allowed myself to be pulled in with other shoppers. Drifting aimlessly up and down the escalators, a wild thought hit me.
Buy something. It whispered. Go on.
My pink credit card, the colour chosen by my bank, began to burn a hole in my wallet. I walked through women’s fashion and picked up a black dress that was more than my entire wages for the month.
I didn’t care. If I was going to hell, I might as well.
I would have at least liked to have worn a designer dress once before I got sent to prison for killing Maylett and Parr.
When I walked from the shop with a fancy paper bag and a folded lace dress in golden tissue paper, I couldn’t help but smirk.
The street Bar Noir was on was just typical of the nicer part of Soho, although if you were so inclined you could watch porn for a fiver in the stall of a sex shop if you walked a stone’s throw away. I had grown accustomed to Chris Archer waiting for me outside and when there was no one I felt a pang of loneliness.
Maybe I should have been relieved. The human world had become much more taxing than the supernatural. The supernatural wasn’t a world of drugs, guns, human cruelty, it was defined by simplicity. Daemons borrowed life force. Henry was a daemon and he wanted me to be alive rather than dead. We had a sick but pure bond to one another.
I did not want to admit that I was attracted to him more so than any other man. I did not want to admit to the lust I felt or the concern that built up in my chest when he was not around.
If the blackened veins had taken Henry as well, my psychosis would have eaten me alive.
I looked both ways before sliding my key into the lock at the top of the door. As I opened the door, I walked over to the bar and checked the clock. As always—one hour until opening.
Doing the open shift, I got to the tedious part of counting
pennies and adding them to the tills. I didn’t understand why we had them as all the drinks at the bar ended in multiples of five. Shots were two pounds, pint of beer or lager depending on the brand was two fifty. No need for pennies. I shook my head as I used my fingers to count and slide the tiny copper coins over the edge of the desk and into my hand.
I heard the doorbell ring out front. I pressed the intercom in the office staff room, just by the computer, thinking it was my manager Gina coming to check up on me.
“Hello?”
“Hello, is this Ms. Taylor?” the gruff voice was familiar but I couldn’t place it.
“Yep, what do you want?”
“This is Detective Milligan; I’d like to speak to you for a second.”
My heart plummeted to my stomach, my hands became clammy and my blood turned cold.
“Of course,” I whispered. I took my finger off the intercom and slid off the chair. Each footstep was horrific. When I took a deep breath to calm myself, the exhalation sounded like a whimper.
When I got to the door, I caught the flash of red hair and I realised that I wasn’t having a nightmare. It was Detective Milligan of Metropolitan Police stood in the doorway. I opened the door a fraction.
“Come in,” I murmured, pulling the door back with a jolt as it caught. Milligan looked over me, probably noting the fact I was wearing a man’s t-shirt, my hair was scraped back showing the sharp edge of my jaw. He smiled weakly but I didn’t allow myself to relax, that would be foolish.
“What are you here for? Going to ask me out again?” I laughed nervously.
Milligan didn’t smile. His brow furrowed and his face was grim.
“I’m afraid not, Sophia. I’ve come to inform you of some news that I felt as if you should know.”
Daemons of London Boxset (Books 1-3) The Bleeders, The Human Herders, The Purebloods Page 13
