The Purebloods Read online

  The Purebloods

  By Michaela Haze

  Daemons of London – Book 3

  THE PUREBLOODS

  Daemons of London – Book 3

  ISBN: 9781521222461

  Originally published in the United States/United Kingdom in 2017

  By DIRTY JEANS PUBLISHING LTD

  www.michaelahaze.com

  Copyright © Michaela Haysman 2017

  This book is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and all characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Prologue.

  The sound of trickling water pulled me back from the dark corner of my mind, where I had hidden from the world. My skin was numb with cold, and the inside of my eyelids was illuminated with a pinkish glow from the harsh sunlight overhead. I felt the ripples of stagnant water as it lapped at my fingers.

  I pushed my hands down to gain purchase, but I was unable to grab onto anything. My body thrashed in the water, and it burnt my throat as I breathed it in. My eyes flew open, and I saw the slimy edge of the concrete. I paddled through the shallow water and grabbed hold of the ledge. When I lifted myself out of the water, I felt the sharp sting of brisk spring air and hissed a breath through my teeth. It wasn’t unpleasant, but jarring. I was completely naked.

  I looked over my shoulder, noticing that my long chestnut hair was plastered to my back in wet tangled waves. I recognised the statue of a turquoise coloured mermaid holding onto three writhing fish. I was in Trafalgar Square. Central London. The colours had been dull the last time I had seen them, with my enhanced vision, I noticed that the water refracted the light and shone tiny rainbows that no one else could see.

  Crimson stained the fountain. I looked closely at my hands, but the water had washed off most of the evidence. The combined acrid smell of urine and the metallic tang of blood clung to my nostrils. My bitten fingernails had dried blood on them, the kind of staining that wouldn’t come out even if I scrubbed until my hands were raw.

  I didn’t remember how I had gotten to the fountain, my mind was blank. The last thing that I remembered was the ringing of my mobile phone alarm, warning me that Asmodeus was due to arrive.

  I wished I could have said that there was a fade to black moment, but there wasn’t. My consciousness was forcefully squeezed to the back of my mind, and everything hurt.

  It took a second for my eyes to register the chatter of hundreds of people and the blue flashing lights of the London Metropolitan Police.

  I looked down to the Trafalgar Square fountain and then up to the columns of the ancient Tate portrait gallery. I couldn’t have picked a more populated and central location to enjoy a nude jaunt.

  But it wasn’t me that they were all there to see. At least, it wasn’t just me.

  Floating in the centre of the dirty water was a man without a head.

  A paramedic placed a shiny blanket over my shoulders while they rummaged through their ambulance to find something for me to wear. I was surprised to find that my teeth didn’t chatter. I wondered if the lack of reaction to the temperature was something that I could chalk up to the Queen of Hell.

  A police officer sidled up to the back of the ambulance as I sat on the floor, looking out of the open doors.

  I watched the dead body droop like a deflated balloon, the bloated arm swung from the gurney like a forlorn accessory, covered in a white sheet. The stretcher was pulled into an ivory tent by four different people in jumpsuits. The headless man was no longer visible, but it didn’t stop all the reporters and the news stations from clambering at the yellow crime scene tape and trying to get a peek at what was going to be the next headline on the BBC news.

  A harsh light shone in my eyes, and I was checked for a concussion and found lacking.

  “Is there anyone that we can call for you?” the paramedic asked, she was a woman in her forties with a kind face.

  I bit the inside of my cheek and thought about talking. My throat stung with unspoken words, I didn’t even know if I could talk. It felt like my voice had been taken from overuse.

  We all heard the scream. All the uniformed police officers and even the man with bug-eyed glasses that took water samples turned around to the source of the sound.

  What had been a stressful morning at the scene of a crime quickly became a mad rush.

  An elderly man in a tweed jacket ran down the steps of the Tate portrait gallery, his silver comb-over stuck to his bald head with exertion. His portly torso heaved with strain.

  He pointed back at the gallery, the man looked like he was going to be sick.

  “The head!” He shouted.

  A wave of people took off up the limestone steps, clambering to see what the police would no doubt shut away from the public when they got to the crime scene inside.

  The paramedic taking care of me ran forward and tucked the man inside of a silver blanket and brought him over to the ambulance. He seemed to be going into shock.

  Almost everyone had left to go and gawk at the severed head of the man in the fountain, while a select few stayed and collected evidence from where the body had been found. People had their phones out, filming the chaos.

  “There was something carved into his forehead. A message.” The elderly man whispered, his voice frail.

  “What did it say?” I croaked.

  “Give her back.”

  Part 1

  “If I am the chief of sinners, I am the chief of sufferers also.”

  ― Robert Louis Stevenson,

  The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

  1.

  Three weeks earlier

  -

  Katya Klein had shot me in the liver. And it hurt like a bitch.

  I was quite lucky because I couldn’t feel the searing pain that my body was experiencing. Instead, I stood in the greyscale of Purgatory with the Queen of the Seventh Circle of Hell. We both watched as my body bled out on the stone altar; convulsing in agony.

  Katya stepped forward, her heels clicked against the herringbone floor, and she reached into her pocket with her free hand. Her other hand remained on the gun, steady and aimed at Damian, who stood on the platform overlooking the crowd. The short brunette Witchling was the identical twin of my best friend and roommate Beatrix Klein, but she had none of the demure grace of Trix. Katya was a red-faced and snarling Pit-bull. To illustrate their different personalities, I could only think of the times that one of Trix’s ex-boyfriends had called her “a stone-cold-ice-queen bitch.”

  She’d loved the moniker and had it printed on a pint glass.

  “You’ll give my sister back this instant.” Katya snarled through her teeth.

  Damian rolled his shoulders and stifled a yawn. “Beatrix Klein isn’t here.”

  My gaze whipped from the Pureblood and then rested back on my soon-to-be corpse. Katya raised her hand over her head. She held an object in her fist, but I couldn’t quite distinguish what it was from a distance. Impervious from pain and reality, I drifted forward until I stood in front of Katya. I was a head taller than her and could easily see into her raised fist.

  The gun-toting Witchling held a matted ball of brunette hair, coated in dried blood and wrapped around a few twigs and what looked like a wishbone. I had no idea what it was.

  I peered over Katya’s shoulder and shot Asmodeus, the Queen, a confused look. Her hair was made up of thousands of writhing black winged creatures. Souls. Her gait was regal as she approached my side.

  Time had slowed down.

  The Queen of Hell had a face that I couldn’t bear to look at, even for a second. She was too powerful, even thinking a
bout her facial features made my head shatter in pain.

  “It’s an Anima Mundi,” Asmodeus’s husky voice stated slowly, in awe.

  “A what?”

  Asmodeus flickered into her body, like static on television. Her existence given weight as the mass of souls haloed the air around her.

  “It’s a daemon bomb!” The Queen gasped in horror and without a word, pushed her palm into the space between my breasts. I flew back across the room as if I had been hit by a car.

  I filled my body like a tidal wave, the words Anima Mundi repeated over and over in my mind as I tried to grasp onto reality and failed hard.

  I jolted, like hundreds of volts had wracked through my bones and sat up with a gasp. I pressed my bloody hands to my side and tried to put pressure on the bullet wound. It burned, and I gritted my teeth to hold back a scream. I was unsuccessful.

  Damian walked to my side, and I grabbed the front of his white shirt in desperation. My filthy hands left red prints all over the fabric, and I scrambled to pull him closer.

  His dark brown eyes widened when he saw my lips moving rhythmically, but unable to make a sound.

  “What is it?” He hissed.

  “Anima…mundi…” I croaked.

  My head dropped to the concrete altar with a bounce as Damian let go of my body. The crack made my vision turn white. Everything doubled. When I looked up at the ceiling, tear-tracks drew a path down my cheeks. I saw Asmodeus. She looked down at me, like a blinding white light.

  My lips moved. Over and over.

  I want to live. I said, but my voice was lost in the chaos.

  Cleansing flames roared through the atrium as Katya’s magic probed every molecule in search of daemon prey.

  “You dare to try and hurt my Amore?!”

  I felt it when Asmodeus poured her consciousness into my body. I became a passenger to her thoughts and feelings. A spectator.

  I heard her as clearly as I heard my own internal monologue.

  Once the skinny, weak woman had conveyed her desire to live, the pulsating pressure on Asmodeus’s throat eased, and she found herself able to break through the Hell Sigil scrawled in chalk on the concrete floor. The ritual was rife for completion.

  The in-between, as well as the human realities, were too painful to navigate without a body. Asmodeus found it cumbersome to free herself and leave Hell, even for the shortest time. Her very existence was linked to the threads of Sin, and the blanket of power that kept Hell buoyant and stalwart.

  The Vessel’s hair lifted, but it did not squirm like Amore’s did when she was in her own body. Instead, it crackled with static electricity. The brunette strands rose towards the ceiling, sparks lit up the space between the tendrils. As Amore’s power threaded itself through Sophia’s bones, skin and sinews, the bullet wound on her side knitted shut. The steel slug became energy and was absorbed. Amore put her hands on the edge of the concrete altar and lifted herself into a seated position. The loud and annoying Witchling stood, holding an Anima Mundi in her hand, raised overhead like a grenade. Asmodeus cocked her head to one side and allowed her vision to relax as she flicked through the immediate possible futures. She couldn’t see far, but thirty seconds was enough when dealing with humans.

  The first future was death and flames. Her daemons burned into the purity of ash.

  The second future led to Damian’s death. If her lover realised that Amore stood by his side instead of the dying human, he would throw himself in the way of the Witchling’s magic. He would take the brunt of the burn, and he would not survive.

  The third possibility was the most attractive one, so she chose that.

  Amore rose to her feet; her bearing was regal with her shoulders pulled back, and her spine was straight. She surveyed Katya Klein with a cruel smile as if the Witchling was prey. Cornered and helpless.

  Katya stepped back in shock when she noted the change in the Vessel’s demeanour. Amore liked that. Sparks of power rippled off the Queen’s skin and hair as if it was about to ignite. The stink of ozone and the unbearable pressure that made human’s ears pop made her prey flinch.

  Asmodeus looked at Damian and sighed, it was such a chore to use the blanket of power for such trivial things, but the Vessel cared about the daemons in the room. Or namely, Sophia Taylor cared about Henry Blaire.

  Amore knew him as Haage.

  The room full of corrupted human slime was unimportant, but the three Pureblooded Demon’s mattered. They were linked to her, and Asmodeus protected her own.

  Amore pulled the threads of power and wound them into the fabric of the world. The air began to shimmer like asphalt on a hot day. The ground trembled. Enough to ripple the surface of the champagne but not much more. Time had slowed.

  Amore pushed the Witchling with all her might, the woman flew back, her ribs cracked and her teeth rattled. The Queen wanted blood, she wanted the woman to pay with her body and mind. She wanted the Witchling to dance until her feet were bloody stumps, but there was no time, and she didn’t care enough to act on her desires.

  Amore cracked open the space between worlds and pulled her daemons into Purgatory.

  Asmodeus borrowed from Damian. She was sure he wouldn’t mind.

  There was heavy magical residue in every location that he had ever been to, but she chose the most recent signature. Logically, it was somewhere that Damian considered relatively safe and comfortable.

  Amore had not stepped into the Human Realities in an age. She had been a presence before the first humans had begun to perish and their Sin became her Hell. Amore had no gender, but she preferred the female form. So, she had become known as a Queen amongst the Kings of the other circles.

  Her attention was split between the hundred or so daemons that she connected to, as she pushed to Damian’s home.

  Amore wondered how much energy she would have to expend to create a crown of fire to rest on her head. She shrugged. Probably too much, considering that her hunger had begun to make the Vessel’s fingers tremble with need. The ache of unquenchable arousal licked up her belly and rested at the top of her thighs. She shouldn’t have tried to do so much too soon.

  Amore wondered if she should have just let them all perish, or if she should have saved only her Purebloods. She pinched the inside of the Vessel’s wrist. Too many doubts were leaking through her mind. Her Vessel was tainted with darkness, and not the fun kind.

  Damian took Amore’s hand and weaved her fingers with his own. To a human, it may have looked like an affectionate gesture, but it was communication at its most basic level. They traded their thoughts like energy, pinging between two pylons.

  “Why save the daemons?” He asked.

  “The Vessel is weak,” Amore replied with disdain. With a mental push, she boxed the Vessel’s mind into the back of her skull and locked the door. It gave Amore satisfaction to feel the flicker of Sophia’s consciousness disappear like a snuffed-out flame. She had successfully pushed her down into the recesses of her own memories.

  Amore felt the cool marble under her bare feet, but the crowd she had pulled with her did not land with such grace. Bodies slammed into the polished floor in front of the spiral staircase at the entrance of Damian’s abode. Amore looked around appraisingly and noted that human décor had certainly changed since she had last been in the Human Realities.

  She had seen flickers in the souls that she had harvested, but that was different. It was like watching sit-coms on television to learn a language. You never got the real experience, just the highlights.

  Amore licked her lips and looked down at the crowd of recovering daemons. Damian was still by her side, but he wasn’t enough. Asmodeus ripped off her silk shift dress, dirty from blood and grime of the Vessel’s previous trials. She stood naked and appraised their guests.

  They looked up her expectantly and felt the pressure of her power in the air and across their skin. She could taste their want, and it mingled with her own.

  She needed to feed on their skin, their need
s and connections. Amore spoke in an accented tone that was very different from Damian’s. It was a combination of all languages and none. She implored the daemons to reach out and nourish her Vessel.

  Damian fell to his knees, his beautifully chiselled jaw dropped open in an expression of awe. “You’re finally here, Amore. My Queen.” He uttered in reverence, as he looked up at her as if she was the sun.

  Asmodeus reached forward and allowed the long fingers of the Vessel to trace the soft lines of his jaw. She had made him. Sculpted him from Sin itself, and he could take any form he wished. But he always relaxed into the face she had created for him. The act of Lust that was so beautiful that it had inspired her to create her other half. He was made from her but tied to the world in a way that she would never be.

  Damian leant forward and placed a delicate kiss on the top of each of her feet. The burning fire inside of her welcomed his touch, and the tendrils of Amore’s magic lashed out into the crowd of daemons below. Like searching hands, Asmodeus felt the soft caress of skin and the lust that rose off of the daemons below like steam. A dam had broken, and the incubi and succubae became embroiled in each other, in a mash of teeth and torn clothing.

  Damian rose and trailed slow kisses up the inside of her thigh. Her wetness pooled and her fists clenched. The Vessel hadn’t been touched in so long, it was so devoid of what Amore needed to function that she guzzled the second-hand Sin from the room like a starving urchin.

  She wanted to feed Damian; they were made of the same. She wanted to bask in her lineage and take from the writhing mass of bodies below as flesh slapped against flesh in a frenzied orgy.

  As Damian parted her thighs and his hand rose up, tortuously slow towards her core, Asmodeus looked down at the crowd from the corner of her eye. Her full lips twitched into a smile as her eyes flickered at the debauchery. Tipping her head back, and allowing a low moan to ease from her throat in pleasure, Damian gripped her thigh, and his mouth pressed onto her sex.