“We’ll talk in the morning,” I promised.
I looked over to the flattop by the porcelain sink and saw my envelope from earlier.
“Fuck off,” I whispered when Akim banged the door again. I brought the envelope onto my lap and reached into my pocket, getting out my phone.
“Seriously!” I barked, knowing he was still out there. “If you don’t stop banging, and if you don’t get out of my room I will personally make sure that you never dose with blood again.”
With that threat in the air and the fact that I would commit to it, I heard Akim shuffle out. He wasn’t scared of me, which irked me greatly.
I searched for information on Doncaster, tracing the postmark of the envelope.
Was Henry Blaire, Andrew Eaton or Graham Lavender living in Doncaster? There was…oh…I tried not to think about him, it was too…numbing.
Doncaster, over three hours’ drive from where I lived.
I could see him again. I would just have to find him.
I pushed myself off the floor and pressed my ear against the door. Akim was in the living room. I leapt to my feet and ripped the door open, still holding the envelope, I was going to find him. Henry Blaire.
I grabbed my unfashionable parka, dirty navy canvas, and pulled it from the hook on the back of my door. I pulled the dress over my head and pulled on a pair of jeans and a checked shirt, a pair of suede boots over bare feet. The envelope stuffed in my pocket.
“Taylor?” I heard Akim call again. “Are you going out?”
“Fuck,” I whispered under my breath. I grabbed my car keys and one pair of underwear and stuffed them in my back pocket.
I heard Akim walk slowly from the living room. He was doing it as human speed which was lucky for me. He wanted the blood around my neck. I knew that. What would he do for it? He was a bleeder; I was a bleeder—I knew for a fact we couldn’t be trusted. Keep your friends close and your enemies’ closer, right?
“I’m popping to the shops,” I called as I rushed to the door.
I turned around, pulling the ugly jacket on and zipping it right to the top, over my necklace.
He looked worried. Akim looked at me like if I walked out of that door then I wouldn’t be coming back.
“I’ll be back in a minute,” I lied.
He nodded silently, scrutinizing me with his eyes.
I turned around and opened the door and closed it behind me. I walked around the corner, my boots clacking against the pavement as I looked over my shoulder. My adrenaline pumped around my body and my breath came out in a fog in front of me.
Every step was one further away from this life, the bleeders, Akim. He’d take my vial. He’d take the blood—he’d kill me for it before I killed him. I drew their deaths because they would happen, it wasn’t me wanting to bring about their deaths prematurely.
I would find Henry—I’d find out why he left me and close that festering sore.
I unlocked the old rusted metal door of the garage and pulled it up in one jolting movement to get to my Audi TT circa 2002, an oldie but a goodie. I squeezed on the right-hand side and unlocked the car. I slid in, gripping the steering wheel, and took a moment to compose myself.
I was on the motorway for over two hours before I felt my stomach freeze and drop to my legs. I felt as if my intestines had gone cold and turned to writhing snakes. I wanted to scream, but it was locked on my lips. The tremors were back in my hands.
I was normal…again. Or I would be soon. The daemon blood was wearing off.
I tapped the steering wheel as I listened to some stupid club music night on the radio.
Each tap, little finger, index finger… every tap a formation. I looked out in frustration. I would be at my destination soon. For the first time in three days, I could feel a heaviness like weights sleeping on my eyelids. I drove over the bridge and into Doncaster; I turned off on a roundabout with black horses implanted against the red brick.
It was when I reached the shopping centre, human and alone, did I realise I had nowhere to go. If Henry wanted to hide from me, he could. It was on his shoulders whether he came to find me. What if he never existed?
No—I knew he existed. I loved him, too much, too unhealthily for this to be some fake or superficial feeling.
I sat on a bench in the middle of the shopping centre. My body was ripe and unwashed, my hair was matted, people looked at me as I sat on that bench and watched the linoleum white hard floor in front of me.
What was I expecting?
To see him? Running halfway across the country. You’re pathetic.
The logical side of me was buried deep as I shifted and looked around the crowds of people frantically—couples holding hands, families Christmas shopping…no daemons—no angels. No saviours or beauty too exquisite for the human form.
“The shopping centre will close in half an hour,” A voice boomed over the empty halls. My head snapped up. It was eight in the evening.
I’d been standing here…numb…for so long. I didn’t even feel human unless I pumped shit into my system. I needed a place to sleep for the night.
The only time I felt like I was alive was when I ran after Henry. Every time I drank blood, I was holding my hands up to him, begging him to come back.
PRESENT DAY
The doctor, Henry, pushed his thick rimmed glasses up his nose and tilted his head to one side. “And you waited there for how long?” He asked me casually.
I laughed but it came out half way between a giggle and a strangled sigh. “I waited…all my life for Henry,” I said. He shook his head and smiled, peering at me with his pale blue eyes.
“I was in the shopping centre for just over several hours. In the cold.”
Henry looked over his notes again. “Can you describe to me how you were feeling?” He asked gently.
I feel so upset, I wish you’d stop talking…I wish you’d stop putting me on this pedestal…it’s so fucking high up here…everyone looks like ants…I can’t…
“Shut the fuck up Mel! I don’t want to hear you right now!” I barked to the corner before turning my head sharply back into the direction of the seated man. My outburst did not come without surprise but he made no note on his paper. I wondered why.
“The Elites, the purebloods…there was a reason I told you to hide. I wanted you to hide from yourself, you were killing yourself—I would go to hell a thousand times over if you came with me Fia.”
“Well,” I chuckled. “I do apologise for the pauses, it tends to get hard to continue on a straight…train of thought,” I admitted sheepishly.
“You don’t need to apologise to me,” Henry said. “You know we have all the time in the world.”
“Right,” I bit back, “All the time in the world? Ha.”
There was a beat of silence and I watched the doctor. Suddenly my heart dropped.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I don’t mean to be…hostile…but, Henry, it hurts. Why did you leave me? Why? Was I not good enough for you? Is it because I’m not human?”
I stifled a sob and pressed my arm to my mouth to try and silence myself.
“I just want to…feel.” I shuddered and held out my hands—they were nothing but flesh. My heart was a dead weight. All I wanted was to be alone. I wasn’t here by choice.
“Not human, Fia?” Henry queried. “Are you a daemon as well?”
I shook my head furiously.
“No…I’m worse…I’m…nothing,” I said.
I drove the small lanes around Doncaster, through small villages and fields on one long winding road through when I decided to stop at a small village B&B. As I pulled into the car park around the back, I noticed an old well in the centre of the concrete, covered with a large rotting circle of wood. I wondered if there was any water in there…probably not.
The B&B was on the edge of a field which led into a small patch of forest.
It looked presentable, but that was not why I wanted a room in that establishment. It was cold and I wa
s tired. I needed to be away from the town centre for at least a few hours before I began to lose my mind.
I walked through the tiny reception, the ceilings were Tudor with dark beams against ivory walls. I looked around for a few seconds at the dated magazines on the clear coffee table.
“Ay up, can I help you?” A woman called over from behind the counter. I had walked right past her without even noticing her existence. I turned around awkwardly.
“Oh yes,” I smiled. “I would like to book a room for the evening.”
I looked the woman over just once. Her mascara was so thick that her eyelashes looked like tiny black maggots above and below her eyes. I swallowed in disgust and tried to focus on something else.
Luckily they had a room left. It seemed as if I was the only one staying in this tiny dump.
I walked into the room using the key attached to a wedge of wood. It was dark and silent as my trembling hands flicked on the light. I walked over to the bed and threw my head back. I saw a line of black mould hidden partially by the bed. It was disgusting, but I knew I wouldn’t complain—I rarely did. I swivelled around so that my feet were by the mould instead of my head.
I closed my eyes.
“I told you! But you never listen…!”
“How can I listen to you, stupid bitch? You never tell me anything!”
“Sophia knows…you pretend she doesn’t, but you told her!”
“She guessed.”
Voice chattered and their volume increased like the roar of an engine. Was someone arguing outside of the door? I rubbed my eyes with the heels of my palms and sighed. I walked over to the door and peered into the hallway. No one was there, it was empty.
Shaking my head to myself, I wondered where the arguing was coming from, it may have been someone else’s room but I didn’t want to pry. My shaking had increased, I was alone.
“Sometimes I wish you didn’t put me on a pedestal,” A voice behind me whispered.
I turned around and pressed my back against the door.
Melanie stood in front of me. I recognised her voice as the one I had heard in the corridor. My heart began to race and sweat beaded on my forehead. Was it Damian playing tricks on me? Dressed normally, she stood and stared as if she did this kind of thing every day.
I knew she wasn’t real.
“I know you’re not real,” I said.
I put my hands over my ears. I only heard…things, that I shouldn’t after I had dosed with daemon blood. It was an after effect.
“I am here,” She whispered. “Calm down. Aren’t you happy to see me?”
“No,” I replied simply and walked over to the bathroom and turned on the tap. I stood over the sink and splashed water on my face. When I looked in the mirror there was no one beside me, but I felt her presence, standing right there.
It felt like I was being spied on.
“So, you came here for Henry,” Melanie stated.
I looked at her and nodded slowly.
“Pity—I used to be the one you cried over. No one else cried over me, though, or even if they did, they never showed it. Apparently, it was my own fault.”
“It wasn’t,” I said.
Melanie crossed her hands over her chest. I turned around but she moved without hesitation and sat in the bathtub.
“You used to like seeing me,” She said.
I stifled a sob. “It hurts Mel.”
And it did hurt. Emotional pain clawed at my throat from the inside, rising from where my heart should be. I couldn’t feel happiness; I couldn’t feel anything other than blame and anger for all the fucked-up events in my life.
Logically I knew that I was to blame for where I had ended up—I fucking killed people to get here, but…deep down, I had blamed everyone else. It became one giant line of people that had little or everything to do with this. I blamed Robert Parr, I blamed Maylett, and I blamed Henry and William. I even blamed Chris because he had managed to live a nice life. I was poison and I ate through everything that mattered to me.
I needed daemon blood. It was the thing I needed most, blind desperation.
The only thing I had on me was the pureblood—there was a chance it would be too strong, perhaps I would go insane, maybe I wouldn’t be able to handle it. I didn’t care anymore.
“Running away from your problems?” Melanie chuckled.
“No,” I muttered. “I’m fucking solving them. With this, I can find Henry…I don’t have to sleep and dream about you anymore!”
“You know your dreams...you know you can’t escape them for a reason.” She sang.
I laughed hysterically and I unhooked the vial from around my neck, I placed it on the counter.
“I can’t escape them because you were fucking murdered!” I shouted.
Melanie looked at me, her eyes travelled from my flushed angry face down to the small vial on the counter. I reached for it.
But it was too late.
My shaking hands pushed it off the side and it smashed on the floor into a million tiny facets of glass, sprinkling the thick syrupy blood onto the floor.
“Fuck,” I hissed. I bent down and tried to pick up the small pieces of glass first. My mouth watered, I needed the blood, my hands tingled as the glass slivered through my fingers.
“Go on. Lick it off the floor,” Mel cooed.
I shuddered. The floor was disgusting, black mould between the tiles. Thousands of people had probably walked over it, fucked on it. It didn’t look like it had seen bleach in years and the tiles which weren’t marred with blood seemed to be coated with a thin layer of fur.
“Lick it. Lick it,” She sang.
I dry heaved as I thought licking the blood off the floor. Glorious, powerful and wrong. I had pride…I wouldn’t be licking Pureblood off the floor anytime soon.
I sat up and looked in the mirror, my face was bone white and a light sheen of sweat coated my brow—I almost looked like a daemon. I ran out of the hotel door. I grabbed my purse.
I had to find a daemon, to bleed. I had to find one fast.
18.
I was in a fucking village. Why didn’t I stay in London? My phone had run out of battery so I couldn’t even Google if there were any Folds in the area. I could always ask if there had been any instances of mass death, but that would draw attention. But then again…I had heard some daemons liked villages, especially forests if they were nomadic. I walked up the high street, past the corner shops and off-licences, the street lights flickered and the sound of revelry from the local pubs drifted into the empty streets.
I skulked around the streets like a fucking stalker. Goose pimples rose on my arms, I clutched myself tighter.
“Go back,” Mel instructed calmly, “Go back and lap it up—you won’t find anything else this far out.”
“I’m looking,” I murmured under my breath. I walked past a pub nestled in the middle of a road junction. My feet hit the pavement of the country lane, there was no path but no cars came by. The streetlights grew few and far between. No civilisation. I walked down the dark lane. My gait affected by the lack of daemon blood, stumbling as if drunk. My heart felt heavy, my stomach was frozen, it took all I had to blink back tears. I fought the scream built in my chest.
The trees bent overhead like a canopy, enclosing the small dark road, the river faded out as a cobbled wall blocked it from view and I kept walking. The single road had no cars. It looped around, going in circles.
I kept my head down and Mel tottered along beside me. There was a flash in my peripheral, I saw Henry in the middle of the road. Pale in the moonlight, his doe-like eyes widened in fear, his mahogany hair looked black in the darkness. I stepped forward and reached out. He didn’t move but no matter how near I got to him but my hand never touched him.
“You’re not real,” I stated. My tears came hard and fast, fat and gleaming. “You’re not real.”
“You need to stop listening to Melanie,” Henry told me. “You need to understand, you’re better than this.�
�
I shook my head and tried to walk past him. “I’m not.”
I wasn’t better than this. I turned around, Henry and Melanie were behind me, like the devil on both of my shoulders. I started to run, my feet fumbled awkwardly like a baby fawn. My lungs wheezed in protest but I kept running, back to my hotel.
Back to the bathroom floor.
Back to that fucking mess.
Back to my addiction.
I wasn’t good enough for anything else.
I wanted to die, to never have existed, I only caused pain to everyone around me. I wanted to fall into cold water and let the blackness take over. But I was scared—what if death was worse than this? What if death was eternal purgatory like a daemon? I wasn’t sure.
All I could do was lick every inch of that bathroom floor until the voices stopped.
“Faster, faster, faster. That’s my girl….” Melanie laughed.
“You don’t have to do this Fia,” Henry said.
I clenched my fists until my jagged fingernails dug into my palms. I rounded the corner and I threw the door open to the B&B. I ran past the woman in the reception to get to my room, up the narrow wooden staircase. My door was open, ajar. I pushed it and walked in slowly, I turned into the open doorway of the bathroom.
It was clean.
The floor was fucking clean.
Every inch of the tiles had been wiped and bleached. I could still pick up the scent of ammonia and peroxide. My precious…my…blood…it ran cold…I clasped the fabric of my shirt over my heart and slumped against the closed door to my hotel room.
It was gone.
I wanted to lean down on all fours and scoop up that thick blood with my hands, I’d dive through mud and dirt to get to it, I’d even put needles in my skin—I didn’t care. I just wanted it inside my body.
But it was gone.
Like me—I was nothing but a whisper of a human.
That night was the longest of my life. Every second moved infinitely and no matter what, the clock didn’t inch forward. It was as if I wished my life away but it wasn’t happening. I was stuck in a constant state of non-movement.
Daemons of London Boxset (Books 1-3) The Bleeders, The Human Herders, The Purebloods Page 21
