Personal Demon Read online

  Praise for the Laws of the Blood novels

  “Susan Sizemore has created a believable vampire community…This gripping chiller with a touch of romance will really sink its teeth into the minds of the audience.”

  —Midwest Book Review

  “Sizemore has managed to breathe new life into the vampire genre…[The] characters are also very well drawn; not only do they differ from your Dracula or Nosferatu style of vampire, they possess great life, character, and believability. Any lover of vampire fiction would be well-advised to sample Sizemore’s wares.”

  —Rambles.NET

  “Fascinating…The characterizations are excellent, the plot strong, and the pace well implemented.”

  —SF Site

  “Calling this book a compulsive page-turner doesn’t begin to do it justice…strong characterizations and crisply described, plausible action.”

  —Crescent Blues

  “The author knows how to write ‘realistic’ vampires. Her characters are three-dimensional and intriguing.”

  —All About Romance

  “Pumps new life into a very old horror staple…highly recommended.”

  —VOYA

  “A rousing adventure.”

  —Booklist

  “If you like thrills as well as chills, this one’s for you.”

  —Chronicle

  “The author gives us a cast of memorable characters that are realistic, entertaining, and interesting.”

  —SF Site

  “Sure to appeal to vampire buffs familiar with Buffy’s Sunnydale and Anita Blake’s St. Louis…The story is fast and sexy, with pathos and comic relief in the vampires’ conflicted relationships with humans.”

  —RT Book Reviews

  Ace Books by Susan Sizemore

  The Laws of the Blood Novels

  THE HUNT

  PARTNERS

  COMPANIONS

  DECEPTIONS

  HEROES

  PERSONAL DEMON

  personal

  demon

  SUSAN SIZEMORE

  ACE BOOKS, NEW YORK

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) • Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England • Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.) • Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.) • Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India • Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.) • Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  PERSONAL DEMON

  An Ace Book / published by arrangement with the author

  PUBLISHING HISTORY

  Ace mass-market edition / October 2012

  Copyright © 2012 by Susan Sizemore.

  Cover art by Don Sipley.

  Cover design element © iStockphoto/Thinkstock.

  Cover design by Judith Lagerman.

  Interior text design by Kristin del Rosario.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  ISBN: 978-1-101-58963-2

  ACE

  Ace Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  ACE and the “A” design are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

  ALWAYS LEARNING

  PEARSON

  personal

  demon

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-one

  Chapter Forty-two

  Chapter Forty-three

  Chapter Forty-four

  Chapter Forty-five

  prologue

  LONDON, 1888

  The closer Christopher Bell got to London, the more the place smelled, worse by the moment. Even the acrid coal smoke spewed by the train engine wasn’t enough to cover the stench. Probably because it wasn’t just his long nose that was being assailed by the concentration of human filth. He wasn’t from London, wouldn’t be heading there if he wasn’t supposed to report to the Admiralty.

  Captain Christopher Bell was from Sheffield, with not a single nobleman in his background to ease his way in his naval career. His accent was good enough when he remembered what he’d learned from private tutors and his Oxford education, but after a year at sea, he needed practice at acting the gentleman. At least his industrialist family was wealthy, if not of proper breeding. His other three brothers were engaged in running railways, in banking, and in shipbuilding. Christopher had been chosen as the one to serve Queen and Country, to be a shining example of the family’s patriotic fervor. He didn’t mind. He liked the life. He liked being at sea.

  It kept the noise down, and the sights and sounds he perceived in apparently freakishly different ways than the rest of the world. It kept the—th
e aromas was the best way he could describe them—inside his head at a controllable minimum. Bell supposed he was crazy, but since he managed to hide it most of the time with Mr. Morse’s help, no one locked him up. In fact, much of the time he was able to use his peculiar abilities to his advantage. That was why he’d been promoted to the captaincy of his own ship at a relatively young age.

  His ship had docked in Portsmouth two days ago. He’d been looking forward to a bit of discreet, upper-class carousing with a lady of light virtue he’d left with a hefty sum and the promise of return patronage the last time he’d been in England. After a few nights of unwinding from the rigors of the sea and celibacy, he’d planned for a relaxing shore leave at the family estate, maybe even a bit of courtship. His mother’s letters had increasingly pointed out the benefits of an advantageous marriage, and she had some rich prospects in mind. Besides, she wanted grandchildren from all her offspring. Christopher didn’t mind the thought of a wife. The more he thought about it, the more he relished the idea, actually. A man had to do it sometime; might as well get on with it. Tick this duty off as he had every other thing a man of his position in life should do.

  He was a bit concerned that perhaps no pretty girl would be attracted to his not at all handsome features, all long nose and long face and skin rough from the wind. It was more likely some smart, strong-willed chit would think she could make something of him—just the sort of woman a man should run screaming from might be his lot in life. He’d smiled at the notion, glad that he spent most of his time at sea. He fancied he could remain cloaked in a bachelor’s existence even with a formidable wife at home.

  Then he’d received the summons to London, cutting short all his speculations and plans. He began to get nervous as soon as the train left the station. Mr. Morse had been taken ill the day they’d docked and was in hospital, leaving his employer on his own. Christopher almost wished he hadn’t taken a private coach for the trip. A few other passengers in the car to converse with would at least have diverted his thoughts. Not that it was really his thoughts that were the problem. He thought about many things as the train drew closer and closer to the heart of the city. He recited verse and sang to himself. He tried to read. He wanted to run screaming. To jump off the train and run and run and run. He had no idea what the matter was, but he felt…

  He felt darkness.

  Fear.

  Not just fear. He’d been in enough battles and storms and disasters to recognize all sort of different kinds of fear. The fear he—smelled was a type of hysteria. It stank of sweat and leering excitement, of titillation and greed. It smelled of anger, hate, absolute panic. It was in London. All over London. It covered the city heavier than one of the smoky industrial fogs the residents of London were almost proud of.

  All Christopher knew was that the closer the train drew to his destination, the less he wanted to be there. He wanted to run away but stayed still, his big, long-fingered hands clasped tightly in his lap. He didn’t show his fear. It wasn’t his fear in any case, though it penetrated him like damp cold in the North Sea.

  He reminded himself that the chill was natural. It was November. He pretended the chill in his mind was only imagination.

  Christopher discovered what was wrong the moment he stepped off the train at the busy station. Newsboys rushed up and down the platform, brandishing papers at the crowd of new arrivals. He smelled ink that wasn’t yet dry.

  The boys shouted, “New letter from the Ripper!”

  “Read what the coppers aren’t telling us!”

  “Women afraid to leave their homes!”

  Christopher read a headline of the paper a boy pushed under his nose, the words “Where will the Ripper strike next?” were scrawled across the top of the page in huge, bold black letters.

  Oh, yes, he remembered hearing about this now from his secretary, Mr. Morse, who loved gossip. How could the lurid scandal have slipped his mind? There was someone killing prostitutes in Whitechapel. He’d wondered at hearing this talked about in a Portsmouth pub. Prostitutes were killed, a sad fact of the sort of life folk were forced to live in the slums. It seemed this commonplace had taken the fancy of the whole country. And London proper was boiling over with fear about it. Not outrage, not exactly. He would have welcomed the boil of indignation seething through the good citizens; it would have been a clean emotional smell in his mind. But the stink was one of unnecessary terror and sick titillation. The fear was for the good women of the city, which made no logical sense. Good women didn’t roam the narrow, filthy streets of Whitechapel. Good women didn’t go with strangers, knowing that each customer might be a killer but needing the coin anyway. People should be outraged; instead, they were merely afraid. But afraid enough to give him a nervous reaction that was growing into one of his horrible headaches.

  Outrage might have speared good people along to make an effort to clean up the slums, find employment for unfortunates like this Ripper’s victims. But righteous outrage wasn’t what these newsboys were hawking. Outrage would only sell papers to the reformers, and that wouldn’t bring in enough coins to make a decent profit for the publishers.

  Christopher Bell wished he were still at sea.

  Instead, he found himself a hansom cab and rode off to take a room at his father’s London club. It was on a quiet street in a respectable neighborhood. He drank a whiskey, and another, and tried to go to bed. But the pain screamed at him, in him. It called to him, from inside and outside his brain. He needed to do something. That’s what the pain insisted. He needed to move, to walk. To hunt.

  It was a foolish, frightening notion, but he found himself out on the dark street on a cold November night without quite knowing how he’d gotten there.

  When an overwhelming scent of blood dripped through his brain, Christopher had to follow it. He had to stop it. Stop the flow? Stop the source? That was it, stop the source—stop the one responsible.

  “Responsible for what?” he demanded, looking up at the sky. There was no sky overhead, just sooty darkness.

  The cobblestones beneath his feet were slick, slippery. Dirt covered his palm when he leaned against the brick wall of a tenement to catch his breath, and his breath came out in plumes of steam and mixed with a light fog. He had no idea where he was. But there were people on the streets; pale faces of women looked out of alley entrances, lurked in shadows. Working girls, drink-addled and hungry. The wasted creatures eyed him with hope and fear.

  Fear. Fear, fear, fear. He couldn’t stand it. Fear and hate. The combination was like oil and water dripping inside him, smothering from the outside, drowning from the inside, leaving dark smears on his soul. He needed to make it stop.

  Blood. Follow the blood.

  Christopher grabbed a gin bottle from the hand of a man he passed. He smashed it against a wall and hurried on, the neck gripped in his hand. The drunk’s shouts followed him for a while. He lost the swearing around two corners and up an alley.

  He didn’t hesitate when he saw a door open up ahead. The man who came out wore a heavy coat, with a hat pulled down shadowing his face. The reek of blood oozed from him. The stench was all too real.

  None of the blood was the man’s. A girl had died. He’d killed her. He’d muttered words as he ripped her apart. Now it was over. It was done. Time to wait. Time to plan. Time to pray.

  “No!” Christopher screamed. “No, no, no!” He wasn’t aware that he kept shouting.

  The man whirled to face him, quick. Full of venom and bloodlust.

  But not strong, not fit. Not the way Captain Christopher Bell was. Not furious the way Christopher was. Not righteous.

  Vicious, yes, driven, greedy, but not yet full of demonic fire. No matter how hard he’d prayed, no matter how many sacrifices. Not enough. Certainly not enough.

  Christopher ran, ugly alien thoughts jarring through his head. The jagged glass already aimed at the other man’s throat before he knew he was running.

  When blood gushed this time, it belonged to the killer.
It was Jack the Ripper who bled, fell onto the dirty Whitechapel street, died.

  Christopher came to his senses with a broken bottle in his hand. With a dead man’s blood running over his highly polished boots.

  “Very nicely done.”

  There was nothing of Whitechapel in the rich voice of the woman who’d spoken. There were—layers—though, a hint of pride, a touch of sarcasm, curiosity. Threat.

  “Let’s have a look at you.”

  There were claws on the hand that turned him to face her. He knew instinctively that he was weak as a kitten against her strength—mental as well as physical. She was—

  A beautiful little thing. Dressed in black satin and jet beads. A mourning dress. Pale as a ghost. Maybe she was a ghost. One of the Ripper’s victims?

  Christopher shook his head, trying to clear out the foolishness. And bloodlust. And the sick, mental vomit taste of the man he’d killed.

  The woman touched his cheek, stroked the tips of her claws ever so gently down his long jaw.

  “I’ve never met anyone like you before,” she said.

  “Funny, I was thinking the same thing.”

  A faint smiled lifted her full, rich lips. “You have the gift of seeing, feeling, acting. But you see thoughts and emotions, color them, smell them. Most of us only hear with our minds. Hear and speak.”

  “Us?”

  “You’re quick to the point, too.” She traced his face with both hands, this time running her fingertips along his cheeks and down his throat. His pulse raced against her light touch. “Strong mind, stronger will. Born to be my child, I think.”

  “I have a mother.”

  She laughed, setting off crystal bells in his head. “Well, you’re about to have a second one, my lovely. I do believe I can make something of you.”

  “It seems I’ve been found by just the sort of managing woman I don’t want.”

  “I shall make you a knight of my realm,” she told him.

  Somehow, he couldn’t argue, didn’t want to protest.