Daemon Blood
Mary Maddox
(Daemon World, #3)
Publication date: March 8th 2022
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Horror
Our war will not unfold in your imaginary heaven. We will fight on Earth with human beings as pawns and weapons.
Lu Darlington is a seer, bound to the daemon Talion through ritual and blood. It’s not a role she enjoys, but she has little choice: daemons take what they want and destroy whoever stands in their way.
So Lu’s surprised when Talion doesn’t punish her for her newfound ability to keep him from possessing her whenever he likes. In fact he’s pleased. The stronger she is, he explains, the more powerful he becomes.
And he needs that power, because a war is brewing in the daemon world, a war that will be fought by—and through—humans.
Lu’s friend Lisa Duncan can’t see daemons but she’s seen what they can do and so has stayed far away from Lu for years. After a bizarre attack on Lisa leaves half a dozen people dead and she learns it’s just the first skirmish in the daemon war, Lisa realizes the safest place to be is with Lu.
Then Talion sends Lu away to teach her skills to another seer and Lisa must stay behind to look after Lu’s son Solly, conceived through a daemon ceremony with Talion. At four years old Solly’s seer abilities are already so strong Lisa is sometimes more afraid of Solly than for him.
As Talion’s enemies grow bolder, Lisa and Lu face attacks from every direction. There seems little hope any of them will survive—until Talion and his allies devise a plan.
The only problem is how much it will cost.
“With Daemon Blood, Mary Maddox has crafted a timeless tale of good against evil. With compelling characters and a keen sense of the darkness that lurks within us all, Daemon Blood will stay with you long after you turn the final thrilling page.”
— David Sodergren, Author of The Forgotten Island
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EXCERPT:
In twenty minutes she finds a cheap plane ticket online for tomorrow afternoon. She books a return flight for two weeks from now—long enough, she hopes, for the cops, gossips, and reporters to lose interest in Willard Steeples’ murder. She decides to pack her suitcase ahead of time except for her toothbrush, medications, and a few other items. Those can go in a carryon that she’ll pack tomorrow.Lisa feels bad about sneaking off without telling her parents. Steve would probably let her go, but Mom would have a fit.
She hauls her largest suitcase from the overhead shelf of her bedroom closet and opens it on the floor. She packs jeans and sweatshirts and a wool sweater for dressy occasions. Then she rifles through her underwear drawer in search of something that might keep her halfway warm in the Utah winter.
Her hand brushes a photograph on the bottom of the drawer—a portrait of her, taken by a professional photographer when she was thirteen or fourteen. She put it there right after she came home from the hospital—back when she still hoped the surgeons could work a miracle.
Ash blond curls frame her plump teenage face. Her skin, enhanced by the photographer’s retouching, glows like a pearl. Her eyes sparkle with expectation. Not even the braces on her teeth diminish her smile. Those braces came off a few months before Mom sent her to Utah and Rad destroyed her innocence along with her face. Even if the surgeons could have made her flawless, the girl in the photograph died fifteen years ago, that night on the mountain.
Lisa takes the photograph from its cardboard holder and rips it in half.
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Author Bio:
Mary Maddox is a suspense, horror, and dark fantasy novelist with what The Charleston Times-Courier calls a “Ray Bradbury-like gift for deft, deep-shadowed description.” Born in Soldiers Summit, high in the mountains of Utah, Maddox graduated with honors in creative writing from Knox College, and went on to earn an MFA from the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop. She taught writing at Eastern Illinois University and has published stories in various journals, including Yellow Silk, Farmer’s Market, The Scream Online, and Huffington Post. The Illinois Arts Council has honored her fiction with a Literary Award and an Artist’s Grant.
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