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

by Michaela Haze

  “I feel empty, Vincent.” I whispered in a small voice. I reached forward and grabbed his cheeks. I wasn’t physically attracted to him. His forest green eyes shone with a madness that reminded me too much of the asylum.

  It brought images of my own padded cell and the harsh hands of the Orderlies as they injected me with anti-psychotics.

  But something about Vincent Rose called to me. His power was overwhelming and the lurking voice inside of my head demanded it. Our lips were a breath apart.

  “You’re a Vessel…?” He murmured, speaking more to himself than to me.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “You should ask Haage.”

  “Haage left me.” I clarified dreamily. Lust poured from Vincent in spades and latched onto me. My head swam. My chest heaved and I struggled to focus. Damn incubi.

  “Curious.” Vincent leant forward, his cool breath fanned my lips and my tongue darted out and wet them.

  “Fill me.” I begged. “Fill me with your magic.”

  Without a word or permission, I leant forward and pushed my hands through his beautiful auburn hair. We did not kiss. I did not want his embrace. I opened my mouth, unable to control my actions. The energy of the room began to twist and curl, covering my skin and rushing over my tongue like delicious wine. I wanted his magic. The glow inside of him that made him a daemon; that gave him power. I opened my mouth and breathed deeply. I was ready to pull the magic from his bones like peeling a plaster from skin.

  The Hellhound gripped my torso and manhandled me away from the Elite daemon. The connection between Vincent and I broke like a rubber band. I recoiled from the painful snap.

  I woke from my lust filled daze.

  “What just happened?” I asked. All I could think about was Vincent, I could feel his essence as it crawled under my skin. Vincent wiped his hand across his brow even though there was no visible sweat. He swatted away a fawning succubus and straightened up, not wanting to appear weak.

  “You are a brilliant creature, Ms Taylor.” He smirked, satisfied. “I believe we can come to an arrangement.” His stance demanded respect, but I had felt the way his power had shifted and swept towards me. I knew he was weakened but I couldn’t grasp the logic behind my reasoning.

  My brow furrowed, “What kind of arrangement?”

  “Join my Herders, for one week.” His green eyes glinted and shifted to pale blue ice.

  “What’s in it for me?” I rearranged my skirt. “An arrangement is commonly beneficial to both parties.”

  “You and Haage have parted ways. And common sense dictates that if you have been given Pureblood and it has turned you into… that… then you do not have long left at all.” He brushed broken glass from his pinstripe suit and I looked down to realise we had broken the coffee table. “Corrupted by Pure Blood. Not human but not daemon. You will only survive so long.” He shrugged. “Join my Herders for a week. One week. Until the Equinox festival. And I personally will champion your ascension.”

  I thought about it for a long second. I didn’t need Henry. I could survive on my own.

  I extended my hand to shake on the deal. Vincent ignored my outstretched appendage and pulled my body towards his. Our lips smashed together in an odd dance of power. A sex daemon’s version of a handshake. A deep kiss. More confused than anything, I waited until he broke the contact with a bright smile.

  “Deal!” Vincent clapped his hands together and it was done.

  Beatrix Klein, my roommate, had been most peeved when I returned her PVC dress covered in blood. She had made me stand in the bathroom, with the dress hung on the shower rail, as I hosed the blood from the plastic using the shower head. The water ran red but Trix didn’t ask any questions. She turned around, pissed, and started setting up the living room for her next tattoo appointment. Vincent had given me a card with an address and I was due to meet him that afternoon.

  I watched as Trix pulled her peach coloured hair into a topknot. I noticed how a few baby hairs escaped, but she didn’t seem to care. She busied herself as I sipped my coffee.

  “Are you pissed off at me?” I asked.

  She snapped her lilac latex gloves onto one hand and grunted. “What makes you think that?”

  “You’re more…ragey than usual.”

  “Well, you would be ‘ragey’ too if your best friend whom you have sworn to protect decides to go flouncing off with some damn daemon in the middle of a nightclub.” Trix put her hand inside the other glove and paused long enough to shoot me a withering expression.

  I shrugged. “It was kind of a last-minute thing.”

  “You agreed to herd humans like a damn Biter?” She muttered. “I can protect you.”

  I flinched from her reaction. “It’s just a week.”

  “How many people?” Trix asked rhetorically.

  I swallowed bile and closed my eyes. “Ten.”

  “Since when have you become Ms Morally Grey. That’s always been my thing.” She said, her lip curled into a semblance of a smile.

  “Trix, I have no idea what happened. One second I was talking and then when he got too close, I leapt on him. I don’t know what I am doing, I am flying by the seat of my pants here.”

  “He’s an incubus, Taylor. Of course, you leapt on him. He’s chock full of the ole sex magicks.”

  I sighed and leant back as I stretched my legs. “Have you ever…?” I wondered.

  “In exchange for some daemon blood, on occasion.” She shrugged. We sat in silence for a few minutes as Trix prepped new needles for a client that would be due any minute. I had checked and it wasn’t anyone that I knew, and for that I was grateful.

  “You said that Vincent called Henry another name.” Trix stated. “What was it?”

  “Haage, I think.”

  Trix jarred out of a trance, as if she had remembered something important and dropped a sterilised tattoo needle packet to the floor. She jumped up from her stool and ran over to the bookcase and pulled out a thick bound book with a determined gleam in her eyes. I watched with my arms crossed over my chest, defensive.

  “I thought it was strange that Henry was interested in this. I just remembered.” Trix handed me the book. My hand ran over the black lettering, it looked as if it had been burnt into the cover. I heard whispers inside of my head, deep throaty voices that I didn’t recognise. They seemed to come directly from the book itself.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “It’s called the Key of Haage.” She answered, biting her lip. “I knew I remembered the name from somewhere.”

  “Haage was Henry’s name as a Pureblood.” I guessed in a whisper. “He didn’t even tell me his true name.”

  “I honestly don’t get it.” Trix pushed her hands through her hair and shot me a look that was akin to pity. “You’re strong. Fierce as fuck. This man makes you lose your mind. He’s been fucking with you ever since you were too grief-stricken to realise he was taking advantage.”

  Without a word and determined not to cry another tear in front of my best friend, I clenched the book to my chest and walked stiffly to my bedroom. I closed the door behind me, locked it, and sat on my bed. Without the portraits of Henry all around, I felt lonely. They had always watched over me when Henry wasn’t there. A comforting presence.

  He never loved you.

  Murderer.

  “Shut up.” I hissed under my breath, I didn’t need to look up to know that my sister had attached herself to my shoulder. I opened the book, keen for a distraction. Vincent had given me so much information, whether he had known that or not, and I was thankful. The first page had a large scrawling picture of a butterfly, identical to the one on my wrist. I did not recognise the species, but it was black and the white markings looked a little bit like screaming faces. I shivered and tried not to think about it.

  Haage, Ruler of thirty-three legions of Hell escaped soon after Lucifer fell.

  I snapped the book shut and placed it on the bed. I took another deep breath. The bo
ok was a can of worms that I was too afraid to open, but also too selfish to turn away from. Tentatively, I opened the book again to a page further along.

  Haage resided in the seventh circle of Hell. Lust.

  His dalliance with humans created the first Incubi and Succubae masters of the Blaire family. The resurgence of the name Blaire first appeared in Scotland in the twelfth century.

  I swallowed the lump in my throat.

  He wasn’t my daemon any more. Why did I even care?

  Although, Henry had marked me as his consort, he hadn’t done much to keep me around. He had slept with Lillian Blaire, and he had left me alone in a cold bed for her. Admittedly, I had done some questionable things in exchange for daemon blood when I was a Bleeder. I couldn’t exactly class what Henry had done as ‘Cheating’, but it still felt like a betrayal. He had left me. For her. Tears stung my eyes and I scrubbed my face with the back of my hand.

  I searched through the cramped black ink for a mention of Lillian Blaire but found nothing.

  Vincent Rose had mentioned that Haage had not been seen in a century so I could only assume that no one knew of the connection between Haage and Henry Blaire.

  I closed the book and crawled on top of my covers to rest my eyes. I buried my head in the pillow, searching for some remnant of Henry’s scent from when he had laid on my bed. But that had been one time, and weeks ago at that. I sighed and tried to squish the dull heartache to the bottom of my thoughts.

  You don’t need him anymore.

  No one can save you.

  If I ascended, as Vincent had promised, then I would belong to the Families. I would be outside of Damian’s reach. If I was a daemon, maybe Damian wouldn’t want me anymore for whatever nefarious purposes he had planned. I had changed since I had drunk his blood, but I had no idea what I had become. I felt as if hovered between human and daemon. I had tried to drain Vincent of his magic, the way a daemon would drain someone of their life-force. Without control. I had felt blind, lashing out in bloodlust.

  I wished I could go back to the simpler days, when I tended bar in Soho and my biggest stress was if the checkout girl at Spar thought I had an alcohol problem.

  Spoiler alert: I did. Addictive personality and all that.

  I heard the door open and the low voice that implied that Trix’s client had arrived. Without another word, I took my parka off the hook on the back of my bedroom door, and slipped out of the house. I clutched the paper with the address that Vincent had given me, as if it was my only hope.

  Part 2

  “Young girls are like helpless children in the hands of amorous men.”

  ― Michael Bassey Johnson, Trials Of A Damsel

  9.

  I got the tube to Charles Street in Mayfair; home to some of the swankiest venues and hotels in the city. St George flags hung from the side of buildings, along with the Union Jack. The fancy Victorian architecture was marred by the occasional bout of scaffolding. I walked, pulling my parka up to hide my face from the biting wind. I reached Dartmouth House quicker than I had expected to. I hadn’t considered that the Rose Family had such lavish lodgings in one of the most expensive parts of London Town. Or how they acquired such real estate.

  I walked up the concrete steps, past the roman pillars and knocked on the thick oak door. A few seconds later it creaked open enough for me to see a single eye and nothing else.

  I cleared my throat. “Sophia Taylor. Here for Vincent Rose.”

  “Use the employee entrance.” The voice was gruff, female, but dry as if it was seldom used.

  “Where’s that exactly?”

  “Black door on the left.” The front door slammed shut.

  I stood back, a bit offended that I couldn’t even use the main door. It was the 21st Century for Hell's sake. I stepped back and my eyes roamed the building with disinterest and impatience. The black door was about ten steps away. Why they couldn’t have just let me in, was beyond my comprehension. I knocked once on the ‘servants entrance’ and then chided myself. I was a badass bitch. I could knock harder than that.

  “Hellooooo” I called out.

  The door opened and the same eye peeked through the gap. I swore under my breath and smiled sweetly, curtseying.

  “Can I come in now?” I asked.

  The door opened further and allowed me enough space to walk through. I stepped onto the black and white marble tile, even though it was clearly a mudroom it screamed opulence. The door clicked shut quietly behind me and I glanced at the snooty woman that wouldn’t even let me use the front door. Stood at around the same height at me, that was where our similarities ended. She was plump with hair that flicked around her ears. Her face was pale but she looked as if she should have been the owner of a ruddy complexion that belonged on the Yorkshire Moors.

  She rubbed her hands on her trousers and gestured for me to follow her with the tilt of her chin.

  “You’re the opposite of every daemon I have ever met.” I noted casually as I stared at the back of her head as she led me through a nondescript door. “Matronly.”

  “You can tell I’m a daemon?” Clearly from Doncaster, I recognised the accent.

  “You don’t have any of the sparklies floating around you. You suck them all up.” I waved my hands in a vague motion. The matronly daemon held the door open for me, inviting me to walk past. She was giving me an odd look and she shook her head in such a minute motion that I wouldn’t have caught it if I hadn’t been half high on daemon blood and deliberately paranoid.

  “My name is Charlotte, I’m Master Rose’s housekeeper. If you need anything, you are to come to me.” She said, leading us down a hallway that deviated from the main house.

  “Anything?” I wondered wryly.

  “Yes.”

  “If I murder someone in the dead of night, are you clean-up crew?” I laughed.

  “Is that likely?” Charlotte rolled her eyes and continued walking.

  “Would you be prepared to clean up my messes if I told you it was?”

  We reached another door which led to a deep forest green room with oxblood furnishings. It looked like it belonged to an old gentlemen’s club. I was shocked there wasn’t a painting of dogs playing poker on the wall over the fireplace.

  Two people sat in the armchairs by the roaring fire.

  “Hello Vincent.” I called, wiggling my fingers in greeting. He smirked and did not seem to mind that I had tried to steal his essence through his mouth. I turned to the second person.

  “Hello second Vincent.” I said again, in the same manner. “Why do you have a scar?”

  The second Vincent looked almost the same as his counterpart except for a scar that ran from the bottom of his right eye to his jawline. It was a long dent in his face that implied it had been there long before the man had become a daemon.

  “Ms Taylor!” Unscarred Vincent rose and clasped my hands in his. “This is my brother, Samuel.”

  I nodded to Samuel. “That will be easier than calling you Second Vincent.” I noted.

  Samuel stood up without a word, looked at me from head to toe as if he disapproved of everything that I was.

  I put my hand on my hip. “Do I offend you, Samuel?”

  He grunted. “You’re the new Herder?”

  “Isn’t she delightful!?” Vincent clapped his hands together and exclaimed.

  Samuel looked from both of us and sighed heavily. “Do you know what being a Herder entails?”

  “I’m not stupid. I assume I will be Herding things. People.”

  Samuel snorted. “The term Human Herder is somewhat descriptive.”

  I walked over to the globe drinks cabinet, each country was a different shade of brown. I found the catch on the underside, exactly where it had been in my dad’s cabinet, and opened the globe to find an array of bottles. Without a word, I plucked a bottle of Whiskey and a crystal glass. The geometric design was dated, but the glass was heavy enough to imply that it was expensive.

  “Make yourself at hom
e.” Samuel spat and sat down in his chair with a huff.

  I poured the amber liquid slowly, holding his gaze and determined not to break it. It was fun to deliberately try and piss someone off. “I plan to.” My tone was disinterested, bored.

  I walked past Vincent and sat in his chair, it had an indent from where it had been used but the leather held no body heat. The redhead motioned for Charlotte to bring him another chair. I had no idea why they would only have two chairs if they were expecting company, but I guessed Elite daemons were used to making lowly humans stand.

  Samuel scoffed as I took a sip of whisky and smacked my lips to irritate him. It gave me a surge of childlike glee. If I had been in this situation three years ago, I would have been shaking like a leaf, unable to even have the gall to ask for a drink let alone take one.

  “You are a Human Herder.” Samuel pointed out. “An employee. Bottom of the rung.”

  I stared at him with laser precision. “Is that why you pulled the power play with the servant's entrance?” My voice was light, but I layered it with threat.

  I looked at Vincent. “Do you want me here? Or should I leave?” I asked.

  Vincent smirked at his brother and sat down in the chair that Charlotte had brought him.

  “Samuel, Ms Taylor has agreed to become a Herder for one week and in exchange she will become the newest member of the Rose family.” He knitted his fingers together and watched me carefully. I took another calculated sip of my drink.

  “And if you piss me off,” I shot Samuel a look. “I’ll drain you dry.”

  Daemons couldn’t go pale, but the way Samuel’s mouth moved implied that if he had any colour in his face, it would have seeped away.

  “She’s a Vessel?” Samuel looked at Vincent.

  “She is right here.” I said pointedly but he ignored me. “What is a Vessel anyway?”

  Vincent stood up and walked over to the oak bookcase that lined the wall by the door. He perused the shelves for a second, dragging his finger across the bindings until he found what he was looking for. He turned, with a bounce in his step as Samuel watched him with disdain.