The Human Herders

by Michaela Haze

  I ran up the platform but found myself thrown back when I tried to touch my body. I looked down to the floor and saw the Hell Sigil that had been drawn on the floor in chalk. My inky blood spread over the circles like a lover’s caress but whatever magic Damian had put around my body prevented my soul, my essence, from returning.

  I looked back to Damian, who was surveying the crowd with a cruel sense of detachment. Someone stepped forward. It was the Trix-lookalike. I blinked to try and clear my vision but realised that I did not imagine her presence. She was not a hallucination, which was good to know.

  “It was me!” The woman screamed, her lips curled in disgust and her eyes were full with unfettered rage. The opposite of my best friend, benevolent and above such petty human emotions. “My name is Katya Klein and you have my sister. The blood scratcher.” She raised the gun with sure hands.

  Damian laughed without humour. “And you brought a human weapon here?”

  Katya’s eyes did not leave Damian’s. “The weapon wasn’t for you.” Her eyes flickered to my writhing body on the altar and Damian followed her gaze. He hadn’t realised that I was bleeding on the table. He snarled, feral, a deep sound of pure hatred radiated from his chest and his bared teeth snapped once.

  “You’ll wish you didn’t do that.” Damian uttered the words slowly as if Katya would have trouble understanding. “You have incurred Hell’s wrath!”

  “My magic doesn’t come from Hell.” Katya snarled back. “Give Beatrix back to the Coven!”

  Damian’s head turned from my body to Katya in the whip-sharp movement of a predator scenting his prey. He pointed at my body.

  “Six minutes.” The woman in red called out, and I ignored her.

  “Sophia Taylor here has willingly given her body in return for your sister’s safe return.” Damian whispered, but his voice carried over the room in the same way his power pressed down like the air pressure before a storm. “If Sophia here were to perish before her bargain is complete, perhaps you will find your dear sister does not return in the same state she came to me in.”

  Katya blanched but did not lower the gun. “Beatrix belongs to the London Coven.”

  “Really?” Damian surveyed his hand with disinterest. “She told me that she had left you long ago. But I don’t really want to discuss politics when my vessel bleeds out on the table.”

  I shuddered and felt weakness wash over my consciousness. It was finally ending. I would finally be free. I would either die on the table or Asmodeus would take my body. Either way I wouldn’t have to feel the pain anymore.

  …the pain of…what it was, I couldn’t remember.

  I felt a hand on my shoulder, which was jarring considering that physical sensation had left me behind since I had left my body. It was the woman in red. She stood by my side, shorter than me by about a head. She had to pull my ear to her mouth to whisper.

  “Do you want to live?” She asked.

  “I…don’t know.” I admitted.

  “But you don’t want to die.” The woman in red clarified.

  I shrugged and didn’t take my eyes off my body. My eyes had closed and I heard my heart beat inside of my eardrums like a clock, slowing down before it stopped.

  “My name is Asmodeus.” The woman admitted. I nodded slowly, that made sense. “I can’t stay here long. My body isn’t allowed out of Hell.”

  “That’s why I’m up there.” I pointed to the altar. “I’m your vessel. You’re meant to take over my body.”

  Asmodeus laughed, a low husky and seductive sound and it was no wonder that she was the queen of the seventh circle. She was regal. Lust pooled and rolled off every curve of her body; even I wanted her.

  “I need to know. Do you want to live?!” Asmodeus demanded, her voice was a roar that caused the champagne flutes on the table to rattle. Her power transcended the walls between Hell, Limbo and the Human Realities.

  I stared blankly at my physical body and the dark blood that leaked out of my side. I placed my hands just below my ribs, as if I could will myself to feel the wound.

  “I want my body back.” I whispered. “My life back.”

  Asmodeus draped her arm over my shoulder and rested her head against my flat chest. Her fingers trailed a searing path as she walked them up my collarbone. She pulled the neckline of my bloodied white shift towards her lips and she licked the side of my face. I could feel her. Taste her in the back of my throat. She was everywhere, inside every crevice of my mind and body. But she was also nowhere. A whisper. A shadow.

  “Damian got something very wrong.” Asmodeus brushed her fingers along my jaw and I found myself pulled in, enthralled by her. “I cannot leave Hell for long, even in a Vessel. Your body will still be yours.”

  I was unable to stop the sob that escaped my throat in relief.

  But she continued.

  “But as soon as the sun sets, every day, your body will be mine.” The queen of Hell whispered.

  The Story continues in The Purebloods

  Available on Pre-order now – 13th June 2017

  Bonus chapter.

  Asmodeus

  In the beginning, I was a weaver. Now I am a queen.

  There hadn’t always been seven circles of Hell, but there were seven of us. One for every sin.

  When the first humans on earth began to die, we weaved their sins into the fabric of power. Each of us chose our favourite. The one that sang to us.

  I chose Lust.

  When I ripped the threads of Sin from the souls of humans. Sometimes it came with regret, but never raw pain like Wrath or Greed. There was no way to see what the world looked like beyond the greyscale of Hell but I gleaned images from the souls I spun into my web. I saw humans fucking like animals, and Angels that had been felled by my sin of choice. Where my hands touched the threads of Sin, I began to take on their power. As a demon, since the heart of creation, my job was to weave. To store the souls. To add to the blanket of power so that one day, the seven of us Cursed might have escaped.

  We walked the earth once, but I couldn’t remember what came before Lust.

  The longer I wove, the more powerful I became. Along with my other seven brethren.

  Occasionally a Fold would emerge between Hell and the Elsewhere. The world of humans. Instances of death, significant and macabre were enough to create a Fold in which someone could travel through. Alas, we quickly found out that when one of us left Hell then the threads of power began to collapse. Our bodies couldn’t leave, so connected to the blanket of power that the balance shifted and Hell would collapse.

  Occasionally humans would slip through the Folds, tainted with Sin and death. We would corrupt them, toy with them. Play with them and make them choke on our blood.

  These humans became the first Elite Daemons.

  So, we waited. And we weaved.

  It had been written at the beginning of time that one day a Vessel would come and the golden seals of Hell would break.

  I had harvested a soul, a good-looking man whose Lust for the flesh was so absolute that he had died in the throes of passion. A heart attack as an old man, holding his young wife who had been wed against her will. His sin glowed hot in my hands and I spun the thread through my own skin and into the fabric of Hell itself. I could taste him. He was so delightful that I found myself unable contain emotion. I cried and as my tears littered the arid ground, I created beauty from my own sorrow and joy.

  I created Damian.

  And he was mine.

  Coming soon:

  The Purebloods

  Daemons of London – Book Three

  Sophia Taylor has sold her soul.

  Damian has started a war with the London Coven and the Witchings want daemon blood.

  With her best friend Trix on one shoulder, and the now Pureblooded Henry on the other, Sophia must navigate what it means to have one of the rulers of Hell inside of her body.

  If Sophia loses control, the city will burn.

 

  Michaela Haze, The Human Herders