Origins (A Demonkin Novel)

ORIGINS

Book One

Demonkin Series

ORIGINS

An Echelon Press Book

First Echelon Press paperback printing / 2011

All rights Reserved.

Copyright © 2011 by Sean Hayden

Cover Art © Karen L. Syed

w/Nathalie Moore

Echelon Press

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Laurel, MD 20723

www.echelonpress.com

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information address Echelon Press LLC.

eBook 978-1-59080-683-8

Produced in the United States of America

To my wife, who told me I should.

To my children, who whispered I could.

To my family, who smiled when I said I would.

Prologue

Mary Elizabeth Thorn sighed as she layered the final stroke of her thirteenth coat of blood paint. The smell assaulted her nose and made her stomach turn. The combination of milk, lime, and blood became almost too much for her to bear. If she had chosen to summon a creature of light, the milk and lime would have sufficed, but in order to summon a demon, blood had to be spilt. The tome she had spent most of her savings on had been very specific.

She checked the lines of the pentagram painted on the marble tile she had laid herself in the center of the room and a smile formed on her lips. They lay perfectly straight with no overlapping of the perfect circle enclosing it, and now for the runes. This task made the others pale in comparison. The runes couldn't be painted on; they had to be cut from the paint itself. She grimaced at the pain in her knees as she rose from the cold floor beneath her and strode to the large bench against the wall of her work room.

The tome rested in its familiar place of honor at the very center of her altar and worktable. She remembered building it oh so many years ago. Each copper nail driven with love, each board cut perfectly by hand without power tools, the blood, the sweat, and the tears that completed the dark recipe. Mary Elizabeth had chosen to follow the tenants of earth magery, but had succumbed to the promise of power only a summoner could deliver.

She gingerly picked up the silver carving tool and went to the northern point of the star, knelt down and began her grueling task. Hours passed as she carved the intricate runes into the face of the blood paint without scoring the marble. Only that level of precision could contain the demon, a perfect plane of marble below and the power of the runes around to encase the evil within.

The tome, having been written in ages past, bore only one flaw. When it had been penned, tiles of marble hadn't even been a fleeting thought in the minds of early masons. The tome called for a slab of marble to contain the spell.

* * *

Asmodeus sat on his throne and listened to the call. It had been many years since he had heard its ilk. While it had not been meant for him he heard it none the less. Asmodeus had fought many wars and answered countless challengers to be Lord of this Realm and as such obtained the power to answer any summons meant for his minions. He laughed at the feebleness of the call and plucked it from the air and held it in his mighty claw. He thought about tossing it away, then thought better. It had been eons since he had been allowed to cause havoc upon the mortal plane. Boredom overcame good sense and he traveled down the line of the summons.

He appeared in a blast of fire and smoke and looked around at his surroundings. Smells of blood, milk, lime, and spices assaulted his demonic senses. He lowered his gaze and noticed the small human woman staring at his greatness with fear and respect. He stood motionless and assessed the woman. She bore the marks of beauty as far as humans went, but the lack of horns and wings he found disappointing. He snorted as she stood and watched her walk to the edge of the circle.

"I have summoned you, vile beast, to do my bidding. What say you?" He could hear the fear in her voice as it infused her words with a perfume more enticing than the blood infused paint she had drawn her pentagram with.

Asmodeus glanced down at the circle cast thirteen times and found no flaw. An emotion akin to panic flashed through his mind. Never before had he seen its equal, and if he found himself truly trapped, he might be forced to answer the whims of the pitiful creature before him. Then he noticed the marble beneath him.

He looked up at the human and smiled. Lifting his taloned foot up to the level of his knee, he brought its mass down in one fell swoop. He laughed when he felt the marble shatter. He laughed harder when he saw the face of the human summoner. He felt the fear of his new toy.

Chapter 1

I felt the power flow from the tiny circuit board in my alarm clock to the tiny speaker less than an inch away before I heard the annoying "
bwa bwa bwa
" reach my sensitive ears. I hadn't slept at all today, and yes I mean day.

My name is Ashlyn Thorn, and I am a freak. I don't mean a "card carrying circus performing" freak; I mean a "nothing quite as unusual as me" freak. I am a nocturnal, blood drinking girl of seventeen, and I know what you're thinking, vampire. I used to think so too, but I'm not. I had been born this way. I know what you're thinking now, and no my father wasn't a vampire. I investigated that possibility as well. Vampires have been legal in these here United States for over forty years, and they all have one thing in common. They're infertile. Every last subspecies of
homo cruentus
from
dementis
, to
informis
, to
plurimus
, to
dominus
reproduce asexually through their bite. There has even been talk of reclassification of vampires from the genus of homo all the way back to the class of mammalia. However, the "they had been born human" side of the argument seems to be winning, so the
homo
cruentus
is the legal classification.

None of it changes the fact I have no idea what the hell I am. I have lived with my Aunt Margaret since the day my mother gave birth to me. I have met several of her closest friends (the ones she can trust with my secret) and none of them has blood which even remotely appeals to my senses. So for the past seventeen years I have been feeding off of her every other night. Nothing boosts your self esteem like being a parasitic niece.

I look like a vampire too. I have a pale complexion, which makes my red hair seem even redder, and fangs (yes, I have bitten my tongue and it hurts. Everyone asks.). The only difference I can see is my fangs have a slight backwards curvature whereas all subspecies of vampire have straight fangs. I know, I know, how could I possibly know all this? Well, I'll tell you. I fully matured at the ripe old age of seven, and I haven't aged a day since then (another tick mark in the column labeled freak). My aunt also thought it would be wise if I didn't leave the house where I might be seen, so ten years stuck in the same location with nothing but television and a computer probably would have given me the equivalent of a doctorate degree in supernatural biology, lucky me.

It's not really Aunt Maggie's fault. I asked her about my mother. She told me they had never really been close, and she had lost all contact with her about a year before her death. She seems really sad whenever I bring it up, so I try to keep my questions to a minimum. She and my mother are identical twin sisters. My aunt went into medicine and my mother went into magic. One night my aunt received a phone call from the San Diego police department and they told her of an accident involving my mother. She hopped on the next flight from Chicago and flew out there only to find my mother in the hospital pregnant and brain dead. They explained it as a magical ritual gone awry and even though they couldn't detect an embryonic heartbeat, the sonogram showed fetal movement. My aunt flew my mother back to Chicago and set my mother up in a hospital bed in her guest bedroom. I emerged three months later and my mother's body didn't survive. I'm kind of surprised my aunt doesn't hate me, but she has been wonderful my whole life. I have the killer bedroom with a flat screen TV, stereo, video games, and all the little gadgets to drive my friends insane with envy, if I had any.

Alright, back to the freak list. All vampiric subspecies abhor sunlight. Most burn when exposed. The weaker Nosferatu, or
homo cruentus informis
, actually burst into flame. Common vampires, or
homo cruentus plurimus
, burn out from within and leave nothing but ash.
Homo cruentus dominus
, or master vampires as they prefer to be called merely smoke and get a really bad sunburn, but if fully exposed for long enough they would die a horrible death as all the moisture from their bodies evaporated. Me on the other hand, I simply get really sunburned. It hurts the hell out of my eyes though. My pupils are slit like a cat's, and I can see fine in complete darkness and my hearing and sense of smell would rival a hunting beagle. The only other differences I have noted between me and vampires are my claws. All vampires have stronger than normal fingernails and hair. They often let their fingernails grow longer because they either think it adds to their vampire other worldliness or because they make useful weapons. Mine however, are more like predator claws. The kind of claws you would find on a hunting cat or eagle. Mine don't retract like a cat's, though I wish they did. They're kind of dangerous. Especially when I first wake up and try to rub my eyes.

I reached over and switched the alarm clock to the off position and got out of my bed, and noticed it said seven pm. The sun would be down completely in a few minutes and my senses told me my aunt wasn't there, leaving me alone in our small house in the suburbs of Chicago. My aunt, being a doctor, keeps some unusual hours, so I wasn't surprised to find myself alone. Knowing I was alone didn't change the nagging feeling I had in my gut. The same feeling had kept sleep from me most of the whole day.

I went about my usual shower and wake up routine and found myself back in my room in front of the television. Eight o'clock programming on a Monday always brightened my day. I had used my DVR to record my favorite shows and I always preferred to watch them recorded. I hate very few things in this world more than commercials. When you can't use a lot of products, advertising them to your face is a little insulting. So fast forwarding through the commercials I had almost missed the breaking news story about the fatal accident on the Kennedy Expressway.

My finger hit the play button and the picture jumped back to before the newsflash with the little "blip" noise I had always found so cute. I watched through the last few seconds of a car dealership add with my heart in my throat. The news flash came back on and I saw the helicopter taken images of the expressway. Traffic had backed itself all the way into downtown Chicago, but the crumpled mass of twisted metal lodged underneath the semi in front of it occupied my entire field of vision. It, at one time, had been a blue Volvo just like my aunt’s car. The image appeared too distorted for me to tell if the car belonged to her or not, but the sinking feeling I had plummeted even further into the abyss.

I grabbed the phone from my nightstand and dialed her cell. It didn't even ring, just went straight to voicemail. I didn't leave a message. I just stared at the television. I didn't know what to do. My mind raced in fifteen directions from all avenues from catching a bus to Northwestern Hospital to running the twenty miles to the scene of the accident. I cursed my inability to do anything and I started crying. I felt hope creep into my heart. Maybe it wasn't her, but it fluttered away. I don't know how I knew, but I did. The car belonged to my Aunt Maggie and she didn't survive. I had to face the fact I would have to live life alone.