Daemons of London Boxset (Books 1-3) The Bleeders, The Human Herders, The Purebloods

by Michaela Haze

  “What you had was something we define medically, as an episode of Acute Psychosis,” The scowling woman waved her hand dismissively. “It is normally induced by mental illness such as schizophrenia and clinical depression, manic depression—bipolar. It can also be caused by trauma,” She said with a flourish of the wrist and she leant back to watch my reaction as if entertained.

  “Well—no such trauma,” I said with a resigned sigh. “Does that mean…I’m sick?” I cleared my throat as it clouded with tears. “I’m ill…mentally ill?”

  “That is what we are here to find out,” Dr. Patel informed me over the orchestra of scratching pencils. I felt Henry’s hand on my shoulder, his presence rather than ice pressed against my skin. I didn’t look up. I needed to know something.

  “I…I’m scared that you guys will think I’m crazy,” I admitted.

  “We are not making judgements.” The kind woman told me. “No one is ‘crazy,’ we just need to talk about what happened during your episode.”

  “I thought I controlled the fucking trees,” I hissed through clenched teeth. “Now tell me that isn’t crazy.”

  Dr. Patel kept a serious expression before turning raptly back to his clipboard. “It is common during psychosis to experience the strange—that is the reason it is so upsetting,” He said.

  I nodded. “Well, it certainly was strange,” I snapped.

  I growled but it turned into a sigh and my chin rested on my chest.

  The scratching of pencils seemed to circle me. I was definitely insane.

  “There is a man in the room,” I said slowly. “I know he’s not there…can you see him?”

  All the doctors looked up simultaneously.

  “Where is the man Sophia?” The kind woman asked.

  I looked over my shoulder. Henry shook his head, incredibly slowly.

  Please don’t.

  “He’s there…” I whispered.

  “Do you know him?” Dr. Patel asked me.

  I laughed gently and nodded but I didn’t say anything else.

  I knew what I was admitting to.

  I was diagnosed as a Paranoid Schizophrenic but that wasn’t who I was.

  I was Fia. Sophia Taylor. Although, my second name made me flinch as it was what the bleeders knew me as. With my pale red-rimmed eyes, washed out skin, greasy mouse brown hair, I was no longer a beautiful bleeder, or a grief-stricken barmaid. I was sick with something intangible, the heavy burden of mental illness.

  Taking the medication was like living under the surface of my own skin, clawing at the outer plastic covering but never getting anywhere. As if the rope that connected me to my personality had been severed. Cut directly in half.

  I couldn’t feel myself. I was nothing—it was all nothing.

  With my medication and six sessions of CBT, they told me I could go home. I was safe to go home but I wasn’t me anymore. That was when I stopped taking my medication. I hadn’t been cured, I would never be me again.

  I couldn’t draw Henry when I was on my pills. He didn’t talk to me when the fog from the pills descended …it was almost as if he didn’t exist.

  I began to believe he didn’t exist.

  So, I stopped taking the pills.

  PRESENT DAY

  I took a deep breath and relaxed into a smile as the Henry in front of me crossed his legs. I could have been wrong—I most certainly was wrong; I couldn’t bring myself to hope. Hope is the prelude to disappointment. Henry, the Henry in front of me, was Dr. Kanning. He wasn’t my Henry, no matter how he looked, acted or spoke like my love, my addiction.

  “And, then, when I didn’t take my pills, they sent me here…padded cells…and crappy food,” I said with a grin.

  “Do you not like it here at Tranquil Hill mental health unit then Fia?” Henry asked gently. His eyes had emotion behind them, a mixture of fervour and resolution.

  Maybe I was becoming a psychopath. Apparently, they couldn’t tell the difference between anger and sadness, or emotions in general.

  “As I said in our first session Henry, the reason I am here…it is not because I’m crazy. You asked me in our first session, and I quote—,” I declared. “Why are you here if your illness is not the case?”

  Dr. Kanning nodded. The Henry behind me stood in stony silence, his face was beyond angry, his eyes closed and his jaw tight. I had just told another human—but he wasn’t human, he was Henry—about daemons, the purebloods, the Elites, that stupid hierarchy. I had been a bleeder, but not anymore…I was cattle, sat in a cell.

  The Elites, the Daemons, and their silly laws, couldn’t get me in here. In Tranquil Hill, everything I said was categorized as the rambling nonsense of insanity anyway. But Henry behind me, the angel on my shoulders was not only scared but enraged, because I had just told the doctor, if he believed me then he would have to die if the Elites found out.

  “Thoughts on a tangent,” I explained.

  “Take all the time you need Fia,” Doctor Henry murmured in his beautiful voice.

  You know little sister…I need a favour from you, pedestal, that’s your problem! That’s always your problem! Favour…please?

  “Melanie is asking me to do something. I don’t want to give into that delusion,” I said sadly. “She gets ideas into her head. And…she lies, often, spiteful, that’s her.”

  “Does Melanie talk to you a lot?”

  I licked my lips and contemplated the answer. “No—not as often as she used to. In fact, she’s more like a voice in my head, an internal monologue rather than a visual manifestation,” I mumbled, “There is nothing disgusting and I don’t have episodes anymore.”

  “Your last reported one was over three months ago. The odd thing was that even when you were on the medication to prevent your episodes, they still happened, the only thing the medication succeeded in doing was illuminating your drive.”

  “My drive?” I asked.

  “To exist…live…your personality.” Dr. Kanning said.

  I nodded and watched my Henry, he hovered at my shoulder like a marble sculpture, still and frozen. The doctor caught me looking over my shoulder, he shifted his weight and crossed his legs in the other direction. I chuckled under my breath.

  “The favour…well…I’ll have to see if I can do it by myself, doctor,” I told him.

  “It wouldn’t be anything illegal, would it Fia?” Henry said, crooking an eyebrow in amusement.

  “You certainly aren’t like other doctors…” I laughed.

  My lucidity quickly ended as my world crashed down around my shoulders into little pieces. Something occurred to me. I felt lighter, I didn’t feel as crazy or as pent up as I normally did. My words were out in the universe, floating around. Free.

  “Are you going to arrest me?” I asked.

  Henry looked curious, “I can’t Fia, I’m not a policeman.”

  “But…” I spluttered, “I’m a murderer.” I looked around the room, as if for the first time, to check for cameras, “You could easily have me put in prison for the things I have done.”

  Dr. Kanning and I sat in silence. My words echoed off the walls as he took a deep breath and said the thing I would least expect.

  “I’m not going to tell anyone; I know it is unprofessional. But what would I achieve, let’s just say I am cutting out the middle man here. If you were ever sent to trial, you would just end up back here anyway.” He explained. “Have you ever seen One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest?”

  I shook my head but he didn’t elaborate.

  “You, Henry…if you were a doctor, you would have to write it up in your notes, it would have to go in the file anyway, everything you have written today would have to go in a file.”

  I looked over Dr. Kanning’s white coat and began to get the feeling that I having a surrealist episode but I couldn’t be sure. Reality was vague but unreality was weird as hell.

  “You don’t have a doctor’s badge,” I noted.

  Dr. Kanning, Henry, laughed and tucked his clipbo
ard under his arm.

  A knock from my outside the door made me jump. My hand flew to my chest and I watched through the small pebbled glass window for Dr. Mavis.

  “Dr. Kanning. Your session is finished for the day,” Her voice informed him.

  The doctor smiled politely and sat up. “Good luck with your task, Fia,” Dr. Henry said as he turned to me before closing the door.

  I crawled back onto the bed, left alone to my nightmares.

  Tranquil Hill was an odd facility. When I was moved from Doncaster Royal Hospital, further north than the Tranquil Hill unit, I expected a hospital. White bars, white carpeting, and people in white suits, rocking backward and forwards and muttering to themselves.

  The building was more like an old manor house, with a long gravel drive and Roman pillars out front. Acres of land stretched out and a circular fence enclosed us in.

  Somehow my wardrobe had become pyjamas. I liked them, they were grey with tiny purple paw prints. I didn’t know where the pyjamas had come from—the facility had given them to me and I didn’t ask questions.

  The rooms weren’t locked during the day as they had a freedom policy. So that we didn’t feel like prisoners. I didn’t often journey out of my room on floor five. Floor five was home to the more sedate of us. Ward three housed the dangerous nut-jobs. I was initially on the third floor until it was obvious I wasn’t a danger to anyone but myself.

  I looked both ways down the corridor. Nurses wore scrubs and Care-workers walked with purpose. I stepped out of the room and noticed frost on the windows and the beginnings of green trees. My life had been trapped in winter for so long but it was spring now.

  I walked to the sign by the elevator and ran my finger down the grooves of the letters. The reception and administration office was on the first floor. I pressed the button and waited, keeping my head down as if someone would accost me simply for leaving my room.

  I was entrapped by the system. As soon I had admitted to a doctor that I was not one hundred percent peachy keen, they would never let me go. Trapped forever in the mental health programmes. The elevator dinged and I hopped in. Luckily it was empty. I smiled to myself.

  I hurried to the small desk at the front of the building. There was a clear Perspex wall separating the office from the reception desk.

  “Hello,” I smiled politely. I hoped that my grin did not come across as too sardonic.

  “Yes? Can I help you?” The woman behind the counter replied. She took in my appearance and stiffened visibly. She kept her eyes trained forward as if trying to condition herself not to be scared. Couldn’t blame her really—I could have been a level three nut-job. Only I knew that I wasn’t. Oh, and the fact that that unit had a lock.

  I shivered, looking at the woman’s mascara, even though it wasn’t that thick.

  “You certainly can…Marla,” I said as I looked at her name badge, “I am a patient here.”

  Marla stayed silent so I continued.

  “This is the first time I have been to reception, so I don’t know how this works. But I have some belongings that were taken upon my arrival that I need to see.”

  “I’m sorry Miss…?”

  “Miss Taylor,” I flinched at my own name.

  Marla swallowed the lump in her throat. I thought I was doing a good job at being normal, even if my expression was slightly dazed. However, I felt like I was floating above this conversation rather than participating in it.

  “Well, Miss Taylor. I’m sorry but the only way you can get your belongings back is when you are discharged from the unit and the doctor says you can leave—I really am sorry, but I won’t be able to help you,” The young girl said.

  I shook my head and beamed fiercely. “Oh no! That’s the thing, Marla! I don’t need my things. I need you to do something for me. I need you to find them—when you find them I need you to make a note of what is there…or maybe a photo? Could you take a photo and give it to me?”

  My voice babbled and rushed as I asked this favour.

  Marla furrowed her brow. “I’m just going to call someone, to make sure that it’s alright if I do that,” She said nervously.

  I nodded fervently and waited, rocking backward and forwards. I looked at the ceiling to take my mind off the situation for a few seconds. If I had the picture, then maybe Mel would shut up.

  You need to go to the desk and get your things yourself—throw yourself over there. Through the plastic, take the chair…oh, it’s not so easy with plastic…I wish it were glass.

  Take your things, they are yours after all.

  Dr. Mavis and three orderlies met me in the reception area and escorted me back to my room. They found my request odd and thought I was having an episode as I had never been out of my room for anything other than meal times before.

  But I needed to be sure. I needed to know if all of this was real. There was only one way to find out, and that was by finding everything the doctors took from my body when I was first admitted. Only then would I know the truth.

  Level five had a plain corridor with a royal blue carpet and large, bright windows. I wondered briefly if they were made of Perspex but I doubted it, the old building with its brilliant interior was probably boxed in by old-fashioned glass. The bars weren’t outside, but the windows were separated by tiny striped panels. No window opened a large amount; I could barely put my hand out of the window without twisting my palm into a claw.

  I hovered at the end of the corridor, one of the doctors talked to the patient in the end room, but I couldn’t hear anything specific—just mumbling. I balanced on the radiator which was housed in a white wooden box as it was the warmest spot. I pressed against the wall, looking forlornly to the hillside and the greenery covered in speckled frost.

  The nurse’s station was just around the corner from where I sat but I was in a blind spot. I leisurely sprawled like a cat on a hot day as I contemplated the events that had led me to this point.

  I needed to know if it was real. That my mind hadn’t blocked itself or fabricated things to protect me.

  “The boy, well, we call him the boy, his appointment with Miss Taylor is around two o’clock every day,” A large built woman told a spindly male nurse who leant on the counter.

  The woman had her hair tied back in a ponytail; I noticed as I leant away from the wall I was against that she had long manicured fingernails. No rings.

  It was my own name the piqued my interest.

  “Why? Why would they let two patients spend that much time together?” The willowy boy asked.

  “He’s about thirty, he used to be a doctor, but he never eats and he never sleeps…they noticed that he improved greatly when he talked to a specific patient. It was a request pulled in by the higher ups,” The male nurse furrowed his brow.

  “I was just letting you know,” The large woman said, “Because I won’t be on shift when Dr. Mavis brings him to her room tomorrow.”

  “Oh,” He said simply. I wanted to hear more. Luckily so did the male nurse. “So, the two patients? Does the girl even realise what is happening when he visits? I’ve met her, she’s pretty unresponsive,” He said with deep thought.

  I closed my eyes and rested the back of my head against the wall. Was I unresponsive? Or just uninterested in life? I needed help to live.

  “They don’t have a clue. It’s quite a story, though. The other nurses…” The built woman chuckled gently, “They call it a love story between the storyteller and the boy who doesn’t sleep.”

  “Storyteller?” The boy asked.

  Yes, that was the part I was most interested in as well.

  The large woman laughed and I was instantly struck by how grating her voice was, it made me want to claw my skin off. Not that I would—I wasn’t crazy.

  “Apparently mixing the two of them together has done wonders. Dr. Mavis claims to be the mastermind behind it—but I think the boy suggested it,” The woman said.

  “Why do people call him the boy?” The other nurse asked.
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br />   “Have you seen that patient? I swear he looks like an angel—I just want to eat him up,” She giggled.

  Are you going to let her talk about your Henry like that? Melanie asked and she sounded angry.

  Of course, he looks like an angel, he is an angel. I resolved internally, trying to ignore my sister—she was dead, her baby was dead…I tried not to think about the air raid siren-like crying that rang out as I ran from the hotel room.

  That’s your problem, you put people on pedestals, you use your inferiority complex to push people to the edge by placing them so high…My sister mused in my head.

  The contents of my stomach pushed into my throat and I felt the distinct need to breathe deeply as I tried to swallow the horrible lump in my throat. I turned my attention back to the window. I was resigned; I knew I was normal, I knew that I wasn’t just a storyteller, whatever that meant. I pushed myself off the window ledge and trudged back to my room.

  Tomorrow when Dr. Kanning came to see me, for an appointment, I would ask him if he was just as crazy as me. It did not matter, when a doctor came as a patient it was easy to be misled—I was misled. He didn’t work at the facility. However, he told me he was here to help review my diagnosis; was that purely for his own skewed mental illness’s need to satisfy and solve puzzles?

  A puzzle, like how despite the fact I took the pills, my insanity still stuck like a superglued glove. My episodes still came when I was on the medication. Why would Dr. Kanning feel the need to occupy his time in a strait jacket with my twisted notions?

  I busied myself with listening to the footsteps outside of my door. I swung my leg limply off the side of my bed. The light filtered in through the panelled windows and shadows danced around the room.

  I slipped into sleep after about ten minutes but my dreams were swirling clouds of nothingness. I became restless as I woke up throughout the night.

  He was the boy that never slept or ate anything—and I was the girl who told stories.