The Human Herders

by Michaela Haze

  Melanie was troubled. For the first time since she started to haunt me, she wasn’t laughing manically or feeding my mental illness. She seemed like my sister again.

  “Don’t act like that.” I said, reaching for the shower gel. “It won’t make me do what you say.”

  Don’t give in… to Damian…Don’t give him…

  I finished my shower and ignored my sister’s harassment as she stood by my side and whispered nonsense in my ear like always. I towelled myself off and went back into Trix’s room.

  Something was wrong and I didn’t like it.

  Beatrix Klein rarely went out during the day, she preferred to go out at night. When I got back to her bedroom, I sat on her neatly made bed in a towel and sighed. Maybe I had just missed her.

  I allowed myself to flop down and imagined her face when she saw my body shaped crease in her freshly laundered tie-dye sheets.

  My phone began to ring and I stood up and went to the bedroom to answer it. It took a second for my ears to recognise the ringtone. Trix’s ID flashed on my screen.

  “Sophia?!” Sarah-Belle’s voice made me flinch.

  “Why do you have Trix’s phone?”

  “They’ve taken her!” She screamed.

  “Who?” My heart lodged in my throat.

  “Trix! He came…” Sarah-Belle sobbed.

  My phone slipped from my grasp and I rushed to pick it back up, my fingers were shaking.

  “He said to tell you, Damian says hello.” The phone went dead.

  That bastard!

  I felt a scream tumble from my throat. Anger burnt up my arms leaving pain over every inch of my skin.

  First Melanie. Then Trix.

  The familiar tang of grief began to cloud my mind and I couldn’t stop shaking. When would it end? I put my head in my hands. Footsteps padded in the hallway and I looked up to see my dead sister stood in the doorway with her arms crossed over her chest. She watched me with apprehension.

  It was all too much.

  I closed my eyes and bit my cheek hard enough to fill my mouth with the metallic taste of blood. Instead of grounding me, it pushed me under. Emotions begin to swirl inside my body like a tide.

  It had been so long since I had felt anything. I had yearned for it. I had felt disconnected from the world and my actions had gotten madder and madder in the pursuit for something I didn’t quite understand. All the little threads that connected me to my humanity, my feelings and other people, had been severed. Or so I had thought.

  When I thought about losing Trix, they had all flared to life.

  Maybe I didn’t want my soul anymore. If the tiny piece that was left, clinging to my body, was the cause of so much pain.

  I was no longer inside of my body but instead, I was pressed against my skin.

  I searched, desperately, for a way to enter my body. I poured my conscious over every inch of skin, every nook and cranny. I searched for a way back inside of the body I had been born with, but it was no longer mine.

  Every trait was familiar. The long brown hair that was more hassle than it was worth. The violet eyes. The tall and gangly frame.

  Everything that defined me, Sophia Taylor, was gone. It no longer belonged to me.

  I watched my body, filled to the brim with power. I felt a stab of jealousy. I could never look that free and confident. If anyone dared to look closely, they would see the uncertainty in my eyes even if I acted as if I owned the world.

  The body stood at the entrance to an alleyway that I didn’t recognise. My own lithe frame leant against the rough brick. The invader pulled my lips into an approving smile.

  From my outside position, I couldn’t see what my body stared at, at first. As my steps grew closer, I hovered like a cloud of dust, tethered to my skin but not allowed inside. There was a young girl in the alleyway, bundled up inside of a sleeping bag. Sleeping rough in the cold, in the middle of the city.

  My laughter rang out into the air of the alleyway, but it had warped. It had become deranged, something that I didn’t recognise. The girl in the sleeping bag was covered in filth, which was just as well, because I knew about the perverts that walked the streets. Henry had killed plenty of them. If being a bit dirty was the difference between being a victim and being left alone, I was on the homeless girl’s side.

  My body walked towards the girl, hips swaying with confidence that didn’t belong to me. Even when I was high as a kite on D, the insecurities of my childhood had always plagued me. Being the tallest woman always meant that my gait held an air of apology, a small hunch in the shoulders that sometimes meant I had to pull myself straight when I felt my body fall into familiar habits.

  “Do you want a warm meal?” My voice rang out, but it wasn’t mine. It was too pitch perfect.

  If I had passed my body on the street I wouldn’t have known that it used to belong to me.

  The girl’s head shot up and as if she remembered the dangers of strange women on the streets, her head bobbed back down as if to chastise herself. “What do you want?” She asked. Her voice was rough from disuse.

  My hand trailed along the brick as my body sashayed towards her. My frame was dressed up to the nines in a light blue silk ballgown with a slit up the thigh. I had never seen the dress before in my life.

  “You looked like you needed some help.” My body shrugged but a mischievous smile tugged at the corner of my lips.

  I wanted to scream at the girl to run. I vainly tried to squeeze back into my body but instead found my conscious pressed against my cold skin. Even outside of my body, I tasted the burning plastic at the back of my throat that hinted at Witching magic.

  The homeless girl was a Witching.

  Daemons and Witches relations were fraught enough. I couldn’t tell if the invader of my body was being so antagonistic on purpose.

  My body opened her small clutch and took out a silver pen. I quickly saw that it was the needle that Vincent had provided me with, to detain the cattle.

  My screamed were soundless and my pounding fists didn’t even exist. My body waved them off as if they were nothing more than a tickle on the nose.

  My body knelt and plunged the needle into the homeless girl’s neck.

  This girl wasn’t destined to become a daemon. She was destined to be used and spat back out.

  13.

  Consciousness trickled in slowly, like old florescent lighting. One by one the rows flickered on and struggled to remain lit. First my head began to ache. The kind of dull pain that crept up behind my eyes and slowly began to chip away at my mind. Then came the heavy feeling in my legs, as if my thighs were made of wood. I was unable to feel arms, only the weight of my lower appendages. I noticed that my feet were above the ground and it was only when I stood on my tippy toes like a ballerina that could I touch the floor. I was suspended from the ceiling, my wrists were in chains.

  My arms were the last thing that I noticed, simply because they were completely numb. My mouth felt like something had crawled inside of it and died. I smacked my tongue to against the roof of my mouth but found myself unable to produce saliva.

  The air was warm and cloying. I could sense the presence of other bodies in close quarters, but I couldn’t hear any evidence of it. Before I decided against it, I allowed one eye to creak open to survey my surroundings.

  My accommodations were very different from the five-star suite that I had been given at Dartmouth House. They were even different from the Camden Flat with its seventies décor.

  I was in a concrete sex dungeon paradise. The floor had a large brown stain that looked like someone had tried and failed to purge the grey stone of spilled blood. The bars were iron but flaked with brown rust. I couldn’t see further than a few feet past my prison, the darkness outside was too dense to even bother squinting into.

  I leant forward to try and allow my feet purchase on the floor but failed miserably. My body swung, and my wrists strained against my weight. The sensation was strange, as if my hands did not belong to my
body anymore.

  My head flopped on my chest which made it difficult to breathe, but fatigue had set into my bones so thoroughly that it is hard to lift my neck.

  I wore a pastel blue ball gown with a slit up the thigh. It was stained with blood, and something else that I prayed wasn’t urine or sperm. My head felt like it was full of cotton wool, and I didn’t trust my sense of smell as it was invaded from all directions.

  I swallowed, but my throat constricted painfully, unable to concede.

  “Hello?” I called out. Despite my presence in a cell, my tone was jovial as if it did not belong to me. I swung from the shackles on the ceiling, testing their strength. I gave a small kick and ignored the pain in my wrists. An involuntary giggle escaped my lips when I compared it to the gymnastics classes my mother had dragged me to as a child. It had felt like a punishment then. If my ten-year-old self had had the power of clairvoyance she would have kept her whiny mouth shut.

  I didn’t hear his footsteps, but I saw his shadow step out of the gloom. It was Vincent. I never thought I would be happy to see the head of the Rose family, but I was surprised.

  “Vincent, be a dear and let me down?” I asked sweetly.

  “Sophia…” He tsked, shaking his head as if admonishing a child. The light was so dim that his auburn hair looked almost black. “You know why you are here, don’t you?”

  I squinted to try and get a look at his facial expression, but was unsuccessful. “Not really.”

  Vincent stepped closer and pushed his arms through the bars until he leant on his elbows. He stared at me as I hung from the ceiling like a rag doll.

  “Are you my jailor?” I cooed. “Is this another one of your games?”

  “This is not a game, Sophia.” Vincent shook his head. “You have been very naughty.”

  I tried to laugh but the pain my legs made me flinch instead. It was hard to keep up a strong façade in front of the Elite daemon when I felt like I had been drawn and quartered.

  “What did I do?” I asked.

  Vincent’s demeanour flared from casual to downright furious. His fists clenched and pounded the bars once. His face was pale, unable to produce the flush of blood that would have made his anger evident had he been human, but I could see his fury nonetheless. His jaw was clenched, and his pupils were stark black dots against pale icy blue eyes. I could see the daemon under his skin, swirling black magic. Stalking to and fro like a jungle cat.

  “You brought me a Witching, you stupid child!” He snarled. Spittle flew from his lush pink lips.

  My brow furrowed in confusion. “No. I didn’t.”

  “The street child you procured?” Vincent did not need to scream; his low words were threat enough.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I explained. My last memories were of sitting in my Camden flat. A flash of recognition sparked in my mind.

  Trix… Damian had taken Trix…

  I couldn’t remember what had happened after that.

  “The Families cannot afford a rivalry with the Witching Covens, and what have you done?” He asked sardonically. “You have brought me a child with Witching blood. You are the reason that Damian has taken the Blood Scratcher! They will want our heads!”

  My brow furrowed. “You knew that Damian has Trix?” I whispered.

  “Damian has specified that the Scratcher will live if you are given to him. The London Coven has given us an ultimatum. Beatrix Klein must live or there will be bloodshed at the Equinox Festival.”

  My eyes widened, unable to take in any of what Vincent Rose had said. Vincent licked his bottom lip, taking a strange pleasure in my pain.

  “You are no longer a Herder, Sophia. You will be given to Damian for whatever purpose he sees fit.”

  “You promised that you want help me ascend!” I hissed, suddenly aware that we were talking about my life being sold to a monster from Hell.

  “Think about the big picture,” Vincent shrugged. “One life and there will be no war between the Daemons and the London Coven.” His eyes sparkled with an emotion I did not understand. A deep longing. “Asmodeus is coming, this is bigger than you and I.”

  Come to me, Child.

  “Who is Asmodeus!” I shrieked. “I keep hearing that name and I have no idea what sort of pretentious, daemon, monster, whatever has such a stupid name!”

  “Asmodeus is the Queen of the Seventh Circle. The circle of lust. The Ruler of all Incubi and Succubae. As one of the seven rulers of hell, she needs a body to walk this plane.”

  “Great. The leader of sexy hell is stuck in sexy hell.” If I could have crossed my arms over my chest and pouted, I would have. Instead, I just sagged.

  “Her body cannot leave, lest Hell will collapse. But you have heard the prophecy, Sophia. She needs a Vessel. You will be her vessel. You will allow her to walk free on this plane and with it, a new age.”

  “That’s it.” I decided. “You’ve officially lost it. I spent almost a year in an asylum, and I must say Doc Mavis would have loved you. Delusions of grandeur, paranoia. I took A-level psych, and even I can diagnose you as fucking nuts.”

  Vincent bared his teeth in a snarl but made no other movement. “What is left of your pitiful soul will be cleaved from your body on the Equinox.”

  He turned around and began to walk away, his body slowly swallowed by darkness.

  I opened my mouth to scream, to beg or to plead. But something inside of me died.

  I knew it was hopeless.

  14.

  My blood looked like ink and oil. I rubbed my wrists absentmindedly, even though I no longer wore the rusted iron manacles. My cuffs had been swapped for more comfortable leather but I still had pins and needles from where my arms had been held in an uncomfortable position for the past twenty-four hours. The new leather, padded restraints did not stop rubbing against the thin skin of my wrists.

  It had taken a long time for the feeling to return to my arms. My fingers were still numb. I couldn’t get them to obey when I tried to move them. I had been taken from the cell and dressed by daemons that I had never seen before. Gone were the designer ball gowns and strange handbags. Instead, I wore a pale white silk shift. At least it seemed to hide the fact I had no curves. The neckline came up past my collarbone and stopped just before the matching collar that I had woken up with. I had tried to pry it off but I couldn’t find any weakness, the metal had no seams or lock.

  I had only seen one other human, she was slight with a nondescript face, the only discerning feature I saw was scarring on her upper thighs. She had been silent and unwilling to look at me. When Scar girl and I had been suitably dressed, we were both placed in a room together. The walls were padded and there was no furniture. The floor looked comfortable enough so I had sat down and scanned the wounds on my wrists. My senses were dulled and only the barest hint of magic and energy clung to the air. It was residual, as if neither of us existed. This girl wasn’t a vessel, or a daemon but something inside of her had died long ago. There were no emotions, nothing substantial to hold onto. The only feeling she seemed to have was physical. Ordinarily I could feel people’s pain, their intentions, the brush of their emotions against my skin as I took in the colours in the air. There was nothing inside of Scar girl.

  Her body seemed to vibrate with fear but I couldn’t see it as we sat in silence. She had a collar and restraints, just like mine.

  I wondered how useful she would be to an incubus or succubus when I couldn’t feel a thing. Maybe she was so used to all this shit that she had been desensitised.

  I watched my own energy curl into the air with detached interest, hints of pale crimson for the anger that had coiled around my heart. It mixed with the rope of energy that clung to my little finger like a ring. Passion and anger were similar it seemed.

  The smoke that had led me back to Henry in the past began to drift to the ceiling, it floated and hugged the expanse of the padded walls, searching for an opening. When it couldn’t find one, it spread out and reste
d there, content to hang above us both.

  Henry must have been upstairs.

  I had been drugged at some point. A few hours had gone by unaccounted for. Losing time was not unusual for me, but I tried to pick at my brain to think of where I could have been, and what could have happened. I came up short. As I reached for a memory, they slipped through my fingers like water.

  With nothing to do, I hummed, picked at one of my toenails and rubbed my hands to try and restore the feeling that had been stolen by my captivity.

  None of the actions alleviated my boredom. When I rubbed my hands for the twelfth time, the steel door to the box-room opened and Scar girl walked out without a word.

  I was alone.

  The only bright side I could think of was that I might see Henry before I died.

  When my time came, I mimicked Scar girl and walked through the door without a fuss. The corridor had no discerning qualities, nothing to hint at where I might be.

  A large man with a crooked nose, which had hadn’t been set properly, accompanied me. He did not speak, or even reach out to guide me. A simple incline of his head was enough. My new best friend had the kind of muscles that you didn’t see every day, with thick arms and wide shoulders. It was only as we walked through a labyrinth of white walls and linoleum, did I begin to hear the low buzzing of voices.

  I remembered what William had said about the Equinox festival and I could only assume I was at the Eltham Palace where he had said it was being held.

  My restraints were not attached to anything, save for each other, but they would have made it hard to escape. I ran through the list of things I could do in the situation but they were few. I had never taken a defensive class in my life and as much as a love of Anime had made me want to learn how to handle a samurai sword, I had just never gotten around to it.

  My physical fitness was lower than sedimentary, having only ever been to a gym once in my life. I rubbed my sweaty bound hands against the thighs of my dress, conscious that my movement was noted by the large, tan skinned daemon as he led us wherever we were going. His nose had been broken at some point, his dark eyes scrutinised me as if he had seen into my soul and come up wanting. I couldn’t blame him, apparently, I didn’t have a soul anymore.