Deamhan

Deamhan

Deamhan Chronicles. Book One

by Isaiyan Morrison

The characters depicted in this story are completely fictitious, and any similarities to actual events, locations or people, living or dead, are entirely coincidental.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, in whole or in part, without written permis- sion from the publisher, except for brief quotations in reviews. For information regarding permissions please contact the publisher [email protected]

ISBN 10 – 1-937758-40-0

ISBN 13 – 978-1-937758-40-0

Library of Congress: 2013947563 Deamhan

Publisher: Rainstorm Press    Copyright 2013 by Rainstorm Press

Text Copyright 2013 Adebusola Adesiji

All rights reserved.

Interior book design by – The Mad Formatter
www.TheMadFormatter.com
 

Cover Design by: John Cosentino

Special Thanks

To the Adesiji family. Thank you for believing that I could do this! I love you all!

To the Haskins family. Thank you so much for being there for me and believing in my ideas. I miss you guys and promise to visit soon! Tomika, Alexis, Sina . . . you gals are too wonderful and I'm blessed to have supportive friends like you.

To my boyfriend. You've been my rock and have always had my back. I love you! Here's to a promising career! Keeping my fingers crossed.

Prologue

The rain carried the yellow-imbued blood down the sewer drain behind Caroline Austin, leaving an uncanny trail. The water fell like sheets from the heavens, blinding and suffocating her while she ran down the empty Minneapolis streets. The small, open wounds on her breasts throbbed in uncontrollable pain. Caroline swiped at the seeping blood in an attempt to dilute her trail, wishing the dark liquid would mix with the rain and disappear.

Caroline heard the heavy footsteps closing in behind her. Her legs buckled, and she fell to the pavement, the dirty rainwater sloshing into her eyes, blinding her. Her mind raced with sordid thoughts of death. She didn’t want to die, not here, not now, but her body froze in fear, and she couldn’t move. She closed her eyes, focusing on the image of her daughter that glowed for a brief moment in the darkness. The image gave her unusual strength, and she shoved her body upward, forcing herself to stand. The sound of approaching footsteps snapped her mind back to reality.

In front of her, a bum sprawled on the sidewalk, was sound asleep. She ran toward him, opening her mouth to scream, to wake him from his drunken stupor. Yet no sound would come. The sudden, cold draft of death from behind kept her running. She turned the corner and there was Lucius.

She tried to catch herself, to turn and run the other away, but she slipped and fell in front of him. Looking up at his figure before her, she wondered how anyone as old as him could be so fast. Lucius leaned against the building, his brown hair falling gracefully behind his back. His smooth, oval face shone, his concerned gaze releasing some of her fear. His eyes could lock even the most non-submissive Deamhan and bring them to their knees. She had never been this close to him. She always believed she never would.

He took slow steps toward her, holding out his hands. Surely he knew of her strong interest in him. She’d written detailed articles and biographies about him. These same writings were influential in her organization’s understanding of the Deamhan. Before her, not much was known about his origins. She’d uncovered the rumors and silenced speculations without invading the privacy he had left.

He took another step toward her, and this time she moved back. It plagued him that she feared for her life. She noticed small droplets of rain glistening off his face in delicate drops.

Caroline turned to run, but he again appeared in front of her, blocking her way. She stumbled and fell to the pavement, her breath coming hard. His cold hands scooped her into his arms without effort, brushing her wet and matted bangs from her pale forehead. Her eyes gazed away, unable to stare at him while he brushed his cold hands against her right cheek.

He noticed a fresh, wet bloodstain above her right breast. Pulling back her shirt, the Deamhan found a small, jagged wound. Deep.

She was dying.

The stranger held her close to his chest and turned to carry her to safety. How dare they not follow his decree! He’d been clear: they weren’t to harm or attack her. She was protected. One of his own had disobeyed the law, ratcheting up the tension between the Deamhan groups.

He placed her ear next to his heart, hoping to keep her awake.

She opened her mouth to speak, but he silenced her, touching an icy finger to her lips.

“Sleep, Mrs. Austin.” His voice was soft. “You are safe here . . . with me.”

CHAPTER ONE

Veronica Austin stood in line behind a tall woman with long black hair, her blonde roots clearly visible in the streetlight brightening the corner. A circular tribal tattoo of jagged black lines decorated the base of the woman’s neck between her broad shoulders.

Dad never liked tattoos.

He didn’t like the idea of Veronica returning to Minneapolis after twenty years either, but that didn’t stop her.

A huge neon sign hanging above the entrance glared “Dark Sepulcher,” with the “L” blinking in rapid succession. Black paint peeled from the brick walls, now discolored from years of treacherous Minnesota winters. Posters of upcoming concerts and events lined the wall. Veronica wasn’t interested. At a glance, you’d mistake the building for an old factory, but Veronica knew better. She’d been told that the building housed secrets—dark secrets—and she planned to discover each one. This was the starting point in the search for her mother.

She cleared her throat and the woman glanced back, giving her a half-smile. Instead of real eyebrows, the woman had drawn severe black swathes with an eyeliner pencil, and she’d colored her lipstick line above her upper lip, giving her mouth a full, yet abstract look.

Two bouncers stood at the front entrance dressed in black T-shirts with “Security” printed in white letters. Veronica handed the taller bouncer her California driver’s license and waited while he studied it under the glare of his bright flashlight. She sucked in breath, preparing herself for questions about why she’d come and what she wanted with Dark Sepulcher. Instead, the bouncer flicked the license back to her and motioned for her to enter.

Veronica slid a five under the steel bars of the cashier’s window, who snapped up the bill without a glance as she bobbed her head to the beat from her earphones. Veronica thought she recognized the chorus of “Devil Went Down to Georgia” by Charlie Daniels escape from the girl’s earphones, but it drowned under the bass coming from behind a thick, dark curtain blocking the venue’s entrance. She stepped forward, sucked in another deep breath, and pulled the curtain back.

She wondered how her mother felt, walking into this same mysterious environment nearly twenty years ago. The question repeated in her head like a broken record. She needed an answer. Her mother had always been a quiet and loyal wife. What could drive the woman to go against her husband’s wishes and visit Dark Sepulcher? Could it be the same force now thrusting Veronica to follow in her mother’s footsteps?

No one in her father’s bastardized organization—The Brotherhood—had the balls to question her mother’s disappearance. No one except for Veronica. Her father buried all photographs and mementos of her mother and he sent Veronica to San Diego to live under the care of The Brotherhood. His actions had since festered inside Veronica’s wounded heart. He’d sold family heirlooms, pawned his wedding ring. He’d destroyed family pictures—the frozen moments that captured family outings, picnics, and celebrations.

Now, Veronica remembered only one picture of her and her mother standing in front of a rollercoaster on a hot Saturday. Her mother wore white shorts with a black fanny pack, white sandals, and a pink short-sleeved shirt. Veronica wore her favorite white dress decorated with butterflies and flowers. Though she’d been only five at the time, she remembered the moment as if it happened yesterday. They’d stood in line at the water park, waiting for their turn on the “Wet Excursion.” They’d just finished a bag of sugar doughnuts. Her father could throw away the photo, but nothing he could do would fade the memory of that day.

She’d become a threat to her father who now had the title: President of the Midwest Division. The Brotherhood had split America into three divisions long ago with each division answering to the Head Master—the overall leader of the organization. During the time of her mother’s disappearance, her father held the title of Region Leader, a step below President, and his duties included handing out orders to the researchers under his control, one being his own wife; Veronica’s mother.

Veronica trusted The Brotherhood (humans who studied and documented the Deamhan from afar) as much as she trusted words from a politician’s mouth.  They were known throughout the Deamhan world as humans who watched but never interfered. But something happened during the time of her mother’s disappearance. Somehow they had intruded on the Deamhan and for this; the President of the Midwest Division was killed. The Minnesota Chapter disbanded, her father was promoted and the researchers scattered to the Eastern and Western Divisions, leaving Minnesota. Afterwards, the Deamhan grew stronger in numbers and without the eyes of any human on them, they also grew more violent.

When her father heard she planned on moving back to Minnesota, he warned her to not reopen her mother’s case. In the past, Veronica had believed whatever Daddy said to be was the honest-to-God truth. If he’d told her the earth was flat, she’d have thrown out her globe. Parents never lie. Her daddy never lied.

Not until her mother disappeared.

Now, Veronica had no clue what she might encounter in Dark Sepulcher. As she pulled back the heavy curtain, her eyes jumped frantically back and forth as they tried to adjust to the darkness. Life-sized macramé figures hung from the ceiling. White smoke spewed from fog machines and drifted ghostlike toward the crowded dance floor. Writhing bodies moved in trance-like motion to throbbing music blasting from massive speakers surrounding the floor. Veronica felt an unexplainable euphoric vibe circling the club with the fog. It enthralled her.

This wasn’t the scary Dark Sepulcher from the story told to children at bedtime to frighten them from misbehaving. “If you act up, the scary Deamhan will get you!”

No, this is party central.

Or so she thought.

Veronica focused her stare on a small stage standing erect to her left. A wooden beam hung horizontally above the stage with a woman tied fast to the beam. She was topless except for small pieces of black tape covering her nipples. A short man wearing a tuxedo stood before her, alternately caressing and slapping her stomach with a wooden paddle. Her face cringed and relaxed with each slap. Her eyes rolled to the back of her head and her tongue darted out, glazing her lips.

A small crowd had gathered around, watching the public display of foreplay. Veronica felt the erotic tension of the group increase with each slap of the woman’s stomach. The group began to sway, slithering and smiling by the controlled fiasco.

Though mesmerized, Veronica moved on, passing a row of silver-tinted booths next to the wall. A group of boys and girls, none appearing older than eighteen, huddled in the corner booth talking over a small lit candle in the middle of the table. They laughed aloud, shouting over one another until their voices became a jumble. The music changed to a faster rhythm and they fled the booth, pushing past Veronica in their rush to reach the dance floor.

Much to Veronica’s relief, everyone looked human. None of the clubbers possessed traits of the Deamhan: the sharp fangs, the dark hollow eyes, the pale, ashy skin. She’d expected them to ooze from the woodwork, romping around like drug addicts looking for their next high.

The speakers pulsed with beats of industrial music. She felt the bass thumping and vibrating each inch of her body. She’d been to raves and dance clubs in San Diego before, but the music had never been this loud.

Of course, The Brotherhood had an explanation for the loud music. Before she left, Veronica raided their files, discovering what information she could about the club. A vampire, quite different from the Deamhan, owned Dark Sepulcher. To Veronica, vampires and Deamhan were one and the same—evil, foul and wretched, yet they also had differences. While vampires lived off the blood of humans, Deamhan lived off the psychic energy generated from humans in different ways.

Their loud music drowned the screams of victims held in torture chambers below Dark Sepulcher. They perfumed the air with strong, sweet incense, covering the smell of rotting flesh and tainted blood. Of course, Veronica hardly believed everything The Brotherhood said about the Deamhan, but she remained on edge, just the same. How could she not? She’d lost her mother here. Still, her body couldn’t help but move to the pounding beat. The fog-filled room, the gyrating bodies, the electrified air, it all combined to assuage her worries. Despite herself, she felt her lips part in a seductive smile.