Scenting Hallowed Blood (29 page)

He heard Taziel pick up his
watch from the bedside table. ‘Two, twenty-five. Why?’

‘No reason.’

Taziel was silent for a moment,
then said. ‘You have begun the countdown haven’t you. At two
twenty-six, in three days’ time, you will be at his door.’

Daniel shivered, but said
nothing.

‘He was
in
you earlier,
wasn’t he,’ Taziel said. ‘That wasn’t you. It was
him.
You
disgust me.’

Daniel turned then. ‘You’re
very selfish. I have work to do. Why should that mean our
friendship is over? Can’t you wait three days?’

Taziel stared at him, took a
few long draws off the cigarette, then said resignedly. ‘He won’t
let you come back to me. If you think otherwise, you’re deluding
yourself.’

Daniel didn’t recognise the
gruff, aggressive voice that burst out of his mouth. ‘If I don’t
come back to you, it’ll be my own choice! OK?’

Taziel’s eyes had widened
slightly. Daniel didn’t often sound harsh or raise his voice. ‘Come
back to me now,’ he said quietly.

Daniel shook his head. ‘No. I
can’t. If you have any respect for me, you’ll stand by me now, not
drive me away.’

‘Respect you?’ Taziel laughed
bitterly. ‘Daniel, I
love
you.’

‘Don’t say that!’ Daniel turned
away, leaned on the windowsill. ‘You hardly know me. Don’t bind me
with words!’

‘You are human,’ Taziel said
coldly. ‘Only that. Why the hell should I tell a mere human I love
it, unless I mean what I say?’

Daniel did not respond but
dressed himself quickly. Taziel tried to stop him as he left the
room, and called him back, but Daniel kept on walking. He went out
into the garden through the French windows in the drawing room
where he’d spent the dregs of the previous night. Outside the night
was alive with elemental presences that tumbled in the wind and the
salt perfume of the sea. Spectral fingers plucked at his hair,
half-heard laughter tickled his ears. Daniel stood upon the wet
lawn and took several deep breaths. He felt angry and confused, and
it manifested as a desire to hit out at something.
I am a
man,
he thought.
Oh God, it is vile!

Sofia, Lily decided, was a
person-eater. Not just a man-eater, although she’d undoubtedly
gnawed a few masculine bones in her time. She was also a liar. Lily
was intrigued by her, but also wary and a little frightened.

At dinner, Lily sat across from
Sofia, who rested her elbows on the table, her raised white hands
drooping before her, like the paws of a praying mantis, in mid-air.
In fact, she was much like a praying mantis all over. The
triangular head, the large eyes, the long, thin body, the general
air of watchful hunger. Lily wanted to ask her about Shem, but kept
her mouth shut in case anything was asked of her in return. She had
a feeling Sofia would utter very personal and embarrassing
questions. So the three of them sat and made painful small
talk.

Lily was intrigued by the
relationship between Sofia and Salamiel. They started off amicably
enough, but halfway through the first course, Sofia became waspish
with him. First, she complained about the temperature of the soup.
When the fish arrived, she pulled a sour face after her first sip
of wine and made disparaging comments about Salamiel’s knowledge
and tastes. The fish she dissected carefully but refused to eat.
Her silence on its texture and appearance were eloquent enough to
reveal her opinions. By the time the meat arrived at the table,
Lily was squirming in discomfort. Sofia felt that Salamiel’s cook
had murdered the meat. Why had she been so foolish as to waste it
on him?

Lily thought everything about
the meal was fine, which perhaps only revealed her ignorance about
food. She wasn’t used to eating well. It amazed her how Salamiel
was not offended by Sofia’s moaning. Mid-way through one of Sofia’s
caustic diatribes, while she poked at the tender lamb with her
fork, Salamiel caught Lily’s eye and winked. Lily smiled back at
him, puzzled by the warmth that his private gesture had kindled
within her. He was a strange, confusing creature. Last night, he
had terrified her, as commander of an army of ghouls. Not only had
he apparently condoned the murder of Johcasta and Israel, and
perhaps other residents of the Assembly Rooms, he had also
kidnapped her and Owen. He’d spoken vaguely of saving them from the
clutches of the ‘other’ Grigori, and keeping them safe for Shem,
but Lily wondered whether he had other motives as well. She thought
she should mistrust and despise him, treat him, in fact, in the
same way Sofia did, but that would not be a natural reaction.
Neither, she had to admit, did she possess the skill. Today, he had
shown her a vulnerable side, which she’d lapped up, and as a result
had spoken to him far too candidly. She felt annoyed with herself
for being so open, so ready to give him the benefit of the
doubt.

Earlier that day, after Lily’s
bath in Salamiel’s private rooms, he had given her the clothes that
Nina had gone out to buy. Thankfully, the plain black leggings and
thick jumpers were far more to her taste than the hideous evening
gown she’d be obliged to wear later on. Then Salamiel had shown her
around Pharos, leading her through high, echoing rooms with bare
stone walls, long galleries where dim paintings hung, and out to
his conservatory of forced lush greenery and unseasonal heat. The
house was stuffed with ancient artefacts; statues, books,
talismans. As they walked, Salamiel told her stories about how he’d
acquired some of his possessions. He had unearthed the strange,
elongated stone head that sat on a polished marble plinth from a
desert tomb: he had bartered in a bazaar in a Middle Eastern land
for the worn statuette of a goddess, which now resided on top of a
bookcase. Masks of the Watchers adorned the walls; attenuated
features and slitted eyes.

‘You have travelled a lot,’
said Lily, thinking of Peverel Othman.

He nodded. ‘Yes. I had a lot of
catching up to do. The world has changed so much.’ If Salamiel
really had walked the earth in the days of Enoch and Noah, this
understatement seemed farcical.

‘Surprising you didn’t run into
Pev somewhere.’ She smiled. ‘That is
Azazel.
’

Salamiel smiled bleakly. ‘I
would have known if I had.’

Lily glanced at him as they
walked into the conservatory. She tried to imagine him desiccated
and inanimate, buried for thousands of years, beneath a ton of
rocks in the earth. He seemed far too sane, too whole and too
youthful for that to be true. He was certainly not ordinary, but
then he was Grigori, so that was inevitable, but Lily found herself
wondering whether his story was genuine. Perhaps he only wanted it
to be. A sad chord sounded in her heart. She felt sorry for him. He
seemed at once lonely and deluded, waiting for the saviour he
called Azazel. Lily felt Shem would only laugh at him.
No,
she thought bitterly.
He’ll seduce him, then laugh.

Now, as he dealt graciously
with Sofia’s complaints at the dinner table, he seemed world-weary
and ancient, but it was not evident from his appearance. It was
something indefinable, perhaps archaic, in his manner.
Damn,
Lily thought.
I’m getting too interested.
He was attractive,
as all Grigori were attractive to her. She felt angry with herself
about this. The surface meant nothing. What was underneath that
perfect face and body might be horrifying. She had only to think of
Peverel Othman to realise that.

After dinner, they returned to
the drawing room. Salamiel opened a bottle of red wine, which of
course Sofia detested. Lily thought it was wonderful, being used to
supermarket plonk. Still no mention had been made of why she was
there, or of Shem. After one glass of the wine, which warmly
accentuated the effects of the alcohol consumed at table, Lily
decided to say something herself.

‘I’d like to talk about what
I’m doing here.’

Her remark silenced Sofia, and
Lily was immediately scared. Sofia’s face changed, as if she’d
removed a mask. This was no twittering, silly female, but a
creature of passionless power. Lily wished she’d kept her mouth
shut.

‘My dear, you are here because
you belong to Azazel. Soon he will be with us and you must be here
waiting for him.’

‘I don’t belong to anyone,’
Lily said lamely. She glanced at Salamiel in appeal, but he was
staring into his wine glass, slumped in his chair, his long legs
stretched out before him, crossed at the ankles. She was
disheartened by his lack of support.

Sofia laughed, but it was not
the infuriating trilling with which she’d punctuated the meal. This
was a low, cruel sound. ‘You
are
his, Lily Winter. You know
it. I know it. Why deny this ultimate truth?’

Lily blushed. She wanted to
say, ‘Shem does not believe in ultimate truth’, but knew Sofia
would only have a response to her remark which she could not
counter. ‘What are you going to do with him?’ she asked.

‘Help him rediscover his
destiny,’ Sofia answered, almost casually. She took a sip of wine,
grimaced, and pointedly put down her glass on an occasional table.
‘He will need you for this.’

Lily scratched her left ear,
uncomfortable. She had visions of herself spread out on a slab in
the cellar, Shemyaza transformed into a demon, fucking her life
away. She thought of Daniel, and experienced a pang of love and
need. She needed to divert the conversation. ‘You’ve seen him,
haven’t you?’

Sofia paused for a moment
before answering. ‘Yes. You are a very fortunate young woman.’

A thought passed through Lily’s
mind.
I don’t want him to rediscover his power. It will be
terrible. He’ll become something hideous, like the ultimate
weapon.
She heard Sofia laugh softly.

‘You are so transparent, my
dear, and so innocent. You must learn to take hold of the shadows
and command them. You must learn about your own power too.’ She
gestured with one hand. ‘Why be frightened? Don’t you feel the
presence of Ishtahar within you?’

Lily glanced up at Sofia and
couldn’t help saying, ‘You know about her?’ which seemed
ridiculous. Anyone with knowledge of Grigori history knew about
Ishtahar.

‘I know about what happened in
Little Moor,’ Sofia said. ‘And that Ishtahar used you as a
channel.’

Lily shook her head. ‘No, it
wasn’t like that. She was just... there.’

‘Wrong,’ said Sofia. ‘You
simply don’t understand what happened. Your presence enabled
Ishtahar to manifest and speak to Azazel. We need that influence
here too, and you will provide it.’

Anger shivered through Lily’s
body and she spoke without thinking. ‘No! Ishtahar has no place
here with you! She is absolute love and serenity. She is nothing
like you, nothing like Azazel. She loves Shem, not the thing you
want him to be!’

Sofia raised her eyebrows.
‘Poor child,’ she said, turning to Salamiel. ‘She simply cannot
understand that Ishtahar is a sexual influence, who can lead the
beast from the labyrinth.’ She looked back at Lily. ‘Ishtahar was a
manifestation of the Maiden, whose filmy veils fan the fires of
masculine desire. Azazel will smell her sex and be drawn by
it.’

‘That’s disgusting!’ Lily said,
but a part of her understood exactly what Sofia meant. She
remembered Peverel Othman coming to her cottage in Little Moor, the
way his eyes had seemed to stroke her flesh, reach right into her
and take hold of her artless lust. She remembered the smell of him,
the feel of his warm skin against hers, his hair like a banner
across her thighs as his serpent tongue teased the most secret
parts of her. A tingling sensation ignited between her legs. Sofia
could sense it too. Lily hung her head so her hair covered her
face. She wanted to weep with shame, yet at the same time was
possessed by a longing to run from the house, into the wild winter
elements outside. She wanted to scream with rapture and leap into
the air.
He was coming to her...

Sofia reached out and patted
Lily’s knotted hands. ‘You must relax, my dear.’ She stood up. ‘I
must be off now, Sal. I have a desire to take a glass of good wine
before bedtime and I’ll not get that here.’

Lily sat with a numb, blank
mind while Salamiel escorted Sofia to the front door. When he
returned, he began to speak to her, but Lily interrupted him.

‘I don’t want to talk about it.
Please, take me to Owen. I want to go to bed.’

Salamiel looked rather
disapproving but slowly nodded. ‘As you wish. Can you remember
where the room is?’

‘No.’ Lily stood up. She felt
very drunk now, and slightly sick.

‘Then I’ll show you. Come.’
Salamiel offered her his arm.

The stairs seemed like a dark,
threatening void ahead of them, the hall far too cavernous and
draughty. They passed into the shadows, beyond the inadequate pools
of light in the hall, and the chandelier overhead tinkled in a
spectral breeze. Lily shivered, her fingers hooked as lightly as
possible through Salamiel’s elbow. As they mounted the stairs, he
said to her, ‘Sofia has frightened you.’

‘I said I didn’t want
to...’

‘Hush!’ Salamiel interrupted.
‘I’m not going to talk about it at length, but there are a couple
of things you must know. Don’t be frightened. No harm will come to
you. You are worried that Sofia and I want to shape Azazel into a
dark god, but that’s not so. I know him better than Sofia.’

Lily made a disgruntled noise.
She sensed a sub-text to Salamiel’s words, which suggested his
ideas and Sofia’s were perhaps not in accord. ‘I don’t trust you,’
she said. ‘You have to earn that.’

‘And maybe there are things you
have to earn as well,’ he answered.

Lily realised he felt offended.
They continued their walk to the bedroom in silence, through the
shadows of the house.