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  The Bleeders

  A novel by Michaela Haze

  —

  DAEMONS OF LONDON – BOOK 1

  THE BLEEDERS

  Originally published in the United Stated/ United Kingdom in 2010 by

  DIRTY JEANS PUBLISHING LTD

  www.michaelahaze.com

  Copyright © Michaela Haysman 2009/2010

  This Edition has been edited for re-release in 2016

  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.

  Part 1

  “Wherever I sat—on the deck of a ship or at a street café in Paris or Bangkok—I would be sitting under the same glass bell jar, stewing in my own sour air”

  -Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

  1.

  TRANQUIL HILL MENTAL FACILITY

  *

  Present day

  If I were to make a list of the two things I wanted most in the world, I wanted a cigarette and silence. As I looked through the bars on my window with their flaking white paint, Henry stood behind me screaming. Except Henry wasn’t real.

  I could hear two voices behind the door. One was a woman; she was unimportant, familiar – Dr. Mavis. The other voice was a man. Now that was new; that was curious. I twitched involuntarily and opened my eyes to stare at the door of my personal prison.

  “Paranoid schizophrenic.” Dr. Mavis informed the owner of the new voice.

  These people were not talking about me; they were talking about the illness that I had and the monsters my brain housed. I wondered, fleetingly, when I stopped being a person with paranoid schizophrenia and became a paranoid schizophrenic, defined by my illness. Life was hazy, and reality was vague—so no; I could not actively tell when I stopped being a person in the eyes of my doctors.

  It was probably when my illness became more interesting than I was.

  Dr. Mavis had been a consistent part of my life for the last several months; she would come in every day to talk to me. While it was done in the kindest of ways, beyond the call of her duty, it made me feel like someone that needed pity. I never wanted to be that person. Not that I was a person anymore, I was the paranoia and false image incarnate.

  “Her name is Sophia Taylor.” Dr. Mavis informed the other voice.

  My name is Fear.

  I thought of all the possibilities of who Dr. Mavis was talking to; the most creative I could come up with that she was hearing the voices too, hearing my daemons, seeing them too. I listened to the swipe of a card key as the door popped open. I didn’t move, why would I? I could have stood up to make the white coats feel welcome, but I didn’t feel like it, I continued to sit with my knees curled to my chest on my scratchy sheeted bed.

  Everything in my room was a rather disgusting shade of homely ‘feel welcome’ not entirely white. Dr. Mavis stood in the doorway, her caramel hair like a thousand flames that licked at the shoulders of her white cotton coat. She was the only bright thing in the place. Her name was scribed on her breast pocket in italics.

  “Dr. Mavis,” I said her name, weighed it carefully, painfully, focusing on the words on my tongue rather than the roaring in my ears. “The people are arguing again.” The rest of the sentence came out as a tiny exhale of air.

  “Thank you for telling me.” Dr. Mavis said lightly.

  I closed my eyes and inhaled sharply. Cutting off my field of vision did little to calm me, without the visual distractions it made the voices louder, brusquer. These voices were false, wrong; the thing was I couldn’t tell the difference anymore.

  I just wanted to go back to sleep.

  “Sophia, can you tell me what they are saying this time?” Dr. Mavis inquired gently.

  I opened my eyes and rocked backward, I drew my eyes to the ceiling silently. I stared for a few seconds—count to three. I hoped that my face did not betray the frightening things that flashed across my mind.

  “It’s high up here, it’s so high, I need to get down; I need to get down now SOPHIA!”

  I heard a ruffle of fabric; the doctors were in my doorway still, waiting. I blinked and tried to erase my expression of wide-eyed fear as her feminine voice filled my ears. I could hear it echoing around my skull, haunting me.

  I heard movement behind Dr. Mavis.

  I flinched but kept my arms crossed over my chest, my fingers gripped the top of my arms. I could feel the blunt edges of my bitten fingernails as they scratched my skin. Sudden movements made me nervous. My heart was going a mile a minute as I fought the natural response to hide away.

  “Who is that there? Who is that behind you?” My eyes widened, pleading and red-rimmed with tears. “Please don’t tell me there is no one there Dr. Mavis; I couldn’t bear it if you did.”

  Dr. Mavis smiled politely, subdued and professional. She had spent years perfecting her patience, her tiny smile told me I could have made her wait even longer if I wanted to.

  “No Sophia, this is Dr. Kanning.” She murmured. “He will be seeing you for the next six weeks as part of your diagnostic review.”

  I nodded in a swift, jerky movement and my eyed wandered to the wall. More white coats and more tests.

  “Sophia Taylor prefers to be called Fear. Often she is unresponsive but today is a good day.” Dr. Mavis informed the new doctor.

  “I see.” Dr. Kanning said. His voice was beautiful. It grabbed me, held me on the edge of my seat, salivating to hear more. I noticed it was full of pain, hurt, dripping velvet and gruff masculinity. Those things twisted in the air in front of me like smoke.

  “Henry…?” I hissed incredulously. “Henry, is that you?”

  I turned to the other doctor; my eyes fell on him by accident: I refused to look at Henry in the eye, but I knew his voice and knew his body. His existence was etched into my soul.

  She stood next to him; my own personal ghost. It was evident that Dr. Kanning, Henry, he could not see her. People would naturally assume that if they were to ever have a mental ‘affliction’ they would be able to tell the difference between the voices in reality and the voices in their head. The real people and the fake ones. That was a fallacy, the visions and voices were just as real as the doctors.

  Stood next to my new doctor was the haunting image of a woman, early twenties, quirked smile. I hated her so fucking much. However, as I looked at the physician all of that fell away—all I could think of was my Henry.

  “My name is Dr. Kanning,” The new doctor said, asserting his identity, the corner of his mouth hitched to show a subdued half smile. He nodded once, very professional.

  My eyes flickered over his face taking everything in and getting drunk on his features. He was lapis Lazuli, dark blue eyes and a mess of chestnut hair, high cheekbones, strong jaw… it wasn’t just a feeling of déjà vu or seeing a friend after a long time.

  He was my— “Henry?” My quivering voice gave me away, it wasn’t the good kind of quiver either—it screamed ‘I’m broken, possibly insane and I know who you are’.

  The new doctor shook his head and smiled vacantly as if he didn’t have the faintest clue who I was talking about. All the smiles that I saw in the asylum were polite—no intense emotion behind any of them. He was not who I thought he was. I got that from his mild confusion.

  I turned away and began to stare at the blank ivory walls. I tried not to listen to the roaring flurry;
it was a bad, very bad day for the mind. I reached up and grabbed my own lank mouse brown hair in my fist. I grimaced, as I started to tremble uncontrollably.

  I couldn’t control it. My body wasn’t mine anymore.

  It belonged to the paranoid schizophrenic.

  Dr. Mavis looked to the two of us before the corners of her mouth twitched into a tiny smile.

  She turned on her heel and left me with my new doctor.

  “Can you look somewhere else, Henry?”

  The new doctor sat down in the furthest corner on the sand filled, indestructible chair. My room had no curtains and nothing personal. Dr. Kanning leant forward and knotted his fingers together as he watched me with a vested interest.

  “I’m afraid I can’t Sophia, I would like to look at your face when I’m talking to you,” Henry informed me lightly. He smiled, but I didn’t want to look at him. He looked so much like my destroyer. “Can you please tell me why you keep calling me Henry?” The doctor asked.

  I grasped at the top of my arms as all my good humour fell out of my stomach and dropped onto the floor. I felt queasy. The room seemed to fuzz around the edges and rock like a boat.

  Why did I call him Henry, did that mean he wasn’t Henry?

  Henry? Henry?

  Where are you? It hurts here, it hurts in my head, in my throat, it hurts so much.

  “I’m afraid, Henry,” I said with slow emphasis as I looked up at the blank white ceiling. “If I don’t keep saying your name… you’ll disappear.”

  “I’m your doctor Sophia, I’m not going anywhere.”

  “I don’t believe you, Henry.”

  “Dr. Kanning.” Henry corrected, his face betrayed annoyance.

  I swallowed the bile in my throat. When lack of words crept into my mouth, honesty was always best. It was comfortable with this man; I wanted to tell him the truth.

  “If I don’t keep saying that you’re Henry then I might forget. I was told that my memory is pathetic in comparison to … yours… if I don’t keep reciting your name then maybe it will be true. Maybe my memory is nothing but an ineffectual net.” I sighed heavily.

  The doctor looked down to his plastic clipboard, his notes abandoned, but I knew there were microphones.

  Oh, great—she was back again.

  “Who’s in front of you, Sophia?” Henry asked.

  I looked around as if suddenly the room had been drawn to my attention.

  “People,” I stated calmly as I tried to keep the amusement out of my voice.

  “Can you tell me who they are?”

  My mind snapped like a rubber band that had been stretched too far. I was stifled. I was losing clarity. Dr. Kanning’s voice was not Henry’s voice; it was too delicate and too careful to go with the dark memories that came with that man.

  “There are lots of people. Henry, you there, you’re next to me, but you’re here too, so I don’t understand. I took the pills. I was good, I did as you asked but you’re in front of me…and you’re also leaning over telling me things.”

  “What kind of things Sophia?” The fake Henry asked.

  “There is a Henry behind me, but you can’t see him, can you?” I allowed my eyes to wander behind my shoulder, and sure enough, he was there, my guardian angel.

  I smirked. Henry was there, behind me, watching me. He would always be there.

  Dr. Kanning’s eyes watched mine as he tried to see what I was looking at.

  “If I take the pills, I get to go home, but if I take the pills I don’t get to see you anymore,” I explained carefully. “And I like seeing you.”

  The Henry on my shoulder was the same as he was three years ago. He had a shock of dark mahogany hair, pale alabaster skin, and eyes so blue they could cut steel.

  The doctor crooked his brow. The Henry that stood behind me, with his hand on my shoulder, was just as real.

  Dr. Kanning’s fingers knotted and his expression was severe. The two men looked identical to me except for the smell and the eyes. Henry’s eyes changed from Celestine crystal to deep indigo, but the Doctors remained dark.

  Dr. Kanning or the Henry in front of me kept telling me he wasn’t Henry. Henry behind me kept telling me he was. In the chasm of my mind, it made more sense to believe the person that told me that he wasn’t Henry.

  “Henry is behind me,” I repeated firmly.

  “Right, can you tell me if he is shouting?” Dr. Kanning asked as if he was dealing with a child. The infinite patience of the doctor had snapped.

  I’m not here, don’t tell him I’m here—he’ll only keep you longer.

  “But I trust him, Henry,” I said to the man behind my shoulder, I could feel the cold presence next to me. “I need to tell someone Henry. It’s killing me.”

  The hand on my shoulder wavered for a second. “I’m beginning to think that you’re not real and that nothing that happened was ever real.” I whimpered.

  The doctor sat back and watched as I talked to myself and answered my own questions. I’m practically having an argument with myself here. I thought scathingly.

  “Ms. Taylor…” The doctor Henry started to say, I kept looking over my shoulder. I would not respond to any name other than Fia. My nickname.

  Every time someone called me that it was like he was back, for just a millisecond before I remembered that he went away.

  “Fia.” The doctor repeated, strained now.

  “Mr. Doctor Man, who is not Henry,” I said forcefully.

  But it was Henry, of that much I was sure. I wanted to believe it was him so much so that denial seemed like such a beautiful word.

  “If you wish to hear my story, you must be patient,” I said ominously.

  “I understand that Fia, take your time.” The doctor smiled gently.

  I had layered his image over Henry’s in my mind. The cheekbones, his smile, his lips…

  They looked the same, and I wanted it desperately to be him.

  “I have a secret; it’s not even my secret.” I murmured, ashamed.

  The doctor looked at me for a second, as if to gauge the change in my tone.

  “You don’t have to tell me anything Fia, but I must remind you that whatever is said in this room does not leave this room.” He assured me.

  “Henry had a secret.” I kept my eyes downcast as I looked to my hands. I pulled the string of my oversized men’s boxer shorts to give my hands something to do.

  “Can you please explain this Henry character to me?” The doctor’s voice had no inflection; we could have been talking about the weather.

  “Henry is Henry, and you are Henry.” I gestured over my shoulder. “Henry is Henry,”

  “I am Henry?” The doctor frowned.

  “Henry is my addiction.”

  “Heroin?” the doctor didn’t seem shocked. “You did report some withdrawal symptoms when you were first admitted…” He flipped over his notepad. I held up my hand to stop him.

  “No.”

  “Not Heroin...?” The doctor began, “Have you ever been addicted to any substances, legal or otherwise?”

  “No, Henry is Henry. Henry is my addiction, and Henry was my soul mate.”

  I felt stupid explaining this. “Have you never been addicted to a person?” I asked. My eyes were full of fervour and a vehement sincerity.

  “Once,” he admitted cautiously.

  “Have you ever craved their blood inside you, wanted their touch so badly, vomited and bled with need, to the point of wishing death on yourself if death is what it takes to just get one more hit.”

  “Continue Fia,” Dr. Kanning murmured appreciatively as if he felt, at last, he was getting into the good bit.

  “Henry Thomas Blaire was my addiction.”

  We stared at each other for a few seconds, but the information probably meant very little to him. It was the first time I had spoken Henry’s full name for so long that it felt like an unleashing.

  “Henry,” he confirmed for clarity.

  “Do you know why I’
m in here…? The real reason?”

  “Yes. Paranoid Schizophrenic,” Dr. Kanning told me.

  I couldn’t help but snort. “My name is Fia, not Paranoid Schizophrenic.”

  “Alright. Fia.” He seemed to think to an agreement brought our conversation back into safe territory. “Why are you here if your illness is not genuine?”

  “I’m not ill, doctor,” I smirked.

  He looked at me politely as if he heard that all the time.

  “The reason I’m here is not that I’m ill, not in the way you doctors think I am.”

  “Right Fia. But you’re here because you want to be well again.” Henry said impatiently.

  “There is no way I will ever be well again,”

  All my malice fell away, and my sorrow returned. I looked at the doctor, who looked like my lover. Square in the eyes.

  “I’m here because…well…because I hear the voices. I could have ignored them, but I didn’t. I could be taking my medication like a good girl and walking the streets with the other rehabilitated souls—but I’m not.” I smiled bitterly. “I’m here… because I want to be here,”

  The Doctor Henry in front looked at me as if to say, and...?

  The Henry behind me was screaming; trying to shake me, begging me not to divulge the next sliver of information.

  Don’t, Fia! I love you. Please don’t do this. They won’t understand. They will come if you tell this secret.

  “You’re so silly Henry...” I said, “...they won’t kill me for revealing the secret because there is no they. They don’t exist! You don’t exist.”

  I took a deep breath.

  “You don’t exist, Henry. I can tell the doctors, Henry. They want to help me.”

  Don’t!

  The doctor looked at me for a second. I tried to give my whole attention to the man with the clipboard in front of me and for the first time since I was in Tranquil Hill mental facility, I said something that I would never voice out loud.

  “Henry Blaire was a Daemon.” I said slowly, my voice hitching into a sob. “and I fell in love with him.”