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
“A day in the life of the main character.”
Lu Darlington is a daemon seer. She has the rare ability to see daemons and tether them to the physical world. Daemons are unhoused spirits. Unless they inhabit the body of a human being or animal—or are tethered by a seer—they drift into the ether and endure the nothingness of nonbeing. Daemons fight ferociously for the ownership of seers, who give them power and the freedom to move about.
Lu has belonged since birth to the daemon Talion, whom she swore to obey and serve. Her additional abilities make her an especially valuable seer. She can resist possession by daemons as well as read minds and sometimes influence the thoughts and emotions of others.
Despite her supernatural talents, Lu’s day-to-day tasks and worries leave her as worn out as thousands of other single mothers.
Workdays
Lu gets up at six in the morning and meditates for twenty minutes before waking her four-year-old son, Solly. She makes breakfast and then drives Solly to the house of her adoptive mother, Debbie, who takes care of him while Lu is at work. By nine o’clock Lu arrives at Luxie’s, a small boutique in a downtown Salt Lake City mall, where she works as a salesclerk. Not the world’s most exciting job, but thanks to her telepathic abilities, she makes a halfway decent living selling overpriced clothes that women wear for a season or two then push to the back of their closets.
She leaves work at five and picks up Solly. Occasionally they stop for pizza, but she usually cooks at home. After dinner, Solly plays with his parakeet or watches TV until bedtime. Then Lu has a precious hour or two to herself for reading and meditation.
Weekends
Lu generally has Sundays and Mondays off. She spends those days doing laundry, cleaning house, and shopping for groceries. She performs these chores not only for herself and Solly but for Galen, the surrogate whom Talion used to impregnate Lu. The daemon regularly possesses Galen so he can have a human relationship with Solly. As a result, Galen’s personality is slowly disintegrating. He struggles to hold down his bartending job, and he’s developing a serious drinking problem. He can’t keep his condo or Jeep clean, so Talion commands Lu to do the work.
Worries
Lu worries about Galen. She feels responsible for what’s happening to him even though she couldn’t stop Talion from using him as a surrogate. She begs Talion to save him, but the daemon brushes aside her pleas.
She also worries about her son. Like his mother, Solly can see daemons and read minds. So far, his behavior has made Debbie uneasy but not suspicious. Lu frets about what will happen once he starts school. She warns her son not to let anyone know about his abilities, but he’s too young to be careful. His best friend already knows about his telepathy.
Debbie is another source of worry. Unable to bear children, she leaped at the chance to adopt Lu. Debbie’s former husband figured one orphaned teen was enough, but she yearned for a houseful of kids. Eventually, she divorced him and married a wealthy man who could afford to make her dream come true. Now she has five more adopted children, ages seventeen months to eight years, and a nanny to help care for them. Debbie is glad to babysit Solly. She loves her grandson and dispenses plenty of unwanted advice about how to raise him. She also pesters Lu about bringing Solly to church. Talion is an amoral spirit, not a servant of the devil, but Lu still worries that the church would confuse Solly.
Despite these difficulties, Lu knows her life could be worse. Then Talion’s enemies attack Solly, and she discovers just how much worse.
Goodreads / Amazon / Barnes & Noble / iBooks / Kobo / Google Play
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.
GIVEAWAY!
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Hosted by:
Thanks for being on the tour! 🙂