Scenting Hallowed Blood (48 page)

Meggie, who was used to being
treated with respect by all around her, objected strongly to
Enniel’s manner. Once her anger was roused, he became simply an
obnoxious male, who must be put in his place. ‘Your kind will be
destroyed!’ she shouted, pointing an omenic finger at him. ‘You are
filth and corruption! The Shining One is not for your greedy hands!
Get from my garden! Crawl back to your stinking nest of dung-eating
serpents!’

Enniel was clearly astounded by
her belligerence, for he was silenced for a moment. Then he smiled.
‘So, you want to take me on, do you, hag? Very well. Step out here,
match my power if you can.’

How this confrontation would
have ended, Meggie dared not imagine. She did not want to lock
horns with a Grigori patriarch, but once challenged, she could not
back down. Her heart was heavy in her breast as she took a step
into the front garden. But before any more exchanges could follow,
Daniel came running through the house and positioned himself
between them. ‘What the hell’s going on?’ he demanded.

Meggie and Enniel began
shouting at once. Daniel raised his arms, and yelled. ‘Enough!’
Light sparked from his eyes. He looked like what he was, a part of
Shemyaza.

Both Enniel and Meggie fell
quiet.

Daniel turned from one to the
other. ‘Look at the pair of you! You both want the same thing, yet
you fight like selfish children!’ He pointed at Enniel. ‘You! The
serpent power is not just for Grigori, but for humans too.’ He
turned on Meggie. ‘And you! You despise the Grigori, yet you should
appreciate they are the descendants of Shemyaza.’ He shook his head
in exasperation. ‘If anything, the Parzupheim and the Pelleth
should be working together. You all want to control the serpent
when it wakes, but none of you will. Don’t you understand that only
Shem will control it? Why are you screaming at one another? What
good will that do? Shem is alone in the underworld, perhaps
fighting for his soul and his life. We should be thinking of him
now, not ourselves and our greed! Have you no shame?’

Daniel’s passion subdued both
Enniel and Meggie. Enniel sighed and rubbed the back of his neck.
‘Daniel, I was concerned for you. I don’t want you to be used.’

Daniel uttered a choked laugh.
‘Don’t say that to me. You were happy to use me yourself when you
believed I had some use.’

‘That devil...’ Meggie began,
sensing victory, but Daniel interrupted her.

‘Don’t say anything, Megs. I
know what you think of me, too. The Parzupheim believe I’m
Shemyaza’s toy, and your opinion hardly differs. You think I’m
perverted.’

‘Daniel, that’s not true!’
Meggie said. ‘Your ways are different but...’

‘I don’t want to hear it,’
Daniel said. ‘All I want to hear is for you two to make your peace.
You both have work to do tonight, and in my view, both methods are
valid and necessary. The Grigori will do what they see fit, as will
the Pelleth.’ He glanced at Enniel. ‘You can’t stop humans being
drawn to Shemyaza, or wanting to tap his power to work magic. It
will always happen. He doesn’t belong to you alone. So you might as
well accept it. And the Pelleth must accept that the Grigori have a
right to share in the serpent power.’

‘And who will you be working
with?’ Enniel asked coldly.

Daniel looked into his eyes.
‘Do you have a place for me in your temple?’

‘If you want to...’

Daniel shook his head. ‘Oh no,
don’t even say it! You’re not aware of what I am, are you?’ He
thumped his chest with a closed fist. ‘I served King Darius as his
vizier at Taketi el Sulamain in Persia, the founder of Masonry and
Grigori hierarchy. And before that, I served Shemyaza in Kharsag,
and was murdered beside him. I was Grigori once, and I shall be so
again. No-one is closer to Shemyaza than I am. I was with him in
the beginning and I am with him now, which might be the end. Yet
you scorn me and view me with contempt. Your people are no better
than humanity, Enniel. It would do you good to live a human life
and appreciate that. You’re stuck in the past, all of you! To you,
the blood spilled in Eden is still fresh.’ He sighed. ‘Oh, what’s
the point? You can’t hear me, can you?’

Enniel’s voice was soothing.
‘Come back to High Crag, Daniel. Let us make amends.’

Daniel shook his head. ‘No,
it’s too late. I’m not wholly human, but my place tonight is with
the people among whom I was born. None of us really know what’s
going to happen. We shall just have to live it.’

Enniel looked at him steadily
for a few moments, then said, ‘Very well. But we do need to talk at
some stage. Come to High Crag tomorrow. By that time, we should
know how the land lies.’

Daniel nodded wearily. ‘I’ll
come.’

Enniel turned to Meggie. ‘I’m
afraid I can’t apologise to you. Daniel might be wiser and more
tolerant than I am, but it will take some time for me to accept
what he suggests. Still, I realise he spoke the truth in some
measure. I can’t stop you performing your own rituals.’

Meggie slowly shook her head.
‘No, you can’t. But like you, I stand humbled by Daniel’s words.
Perhaps in the future, we may speak on this matter again.’

Enniel nodded curtly, and
marched back to his Range Rover. Daniel stood beside Meggie as they
watched him drive away. Meggie put her arm around him. ‘Daniel, you
shamed me.’

‘I didn’t mean to, Megs, but I
had to say what I felt.’

‘No, you were right to.’ She
sighed. ‘Agh! It’ll be hard living in the new world, and will take
a lot of compromise. Hope I’m up to it!’

Daniel smiled at her, his faced
slightly puzzled. ‘Of course you are.’

They went back into the
house.

In Tamara’s cottage, Shemyaza, Tamara
and Delmar prepared themselves for the night to come. The sun had
been shining relentlessly all day, making a cauldron of the sea, a
cinder of the land, but at dusk, thick clouds rolled across the
sky, trapping the heat below. A warm wind chivvied the leafless
trees, and the sound of distant thunder could be heard. Whether
this deep elemental growling emanated from the sky or beneath the
earth was difficult to discern.

The previous night, Tamara had
hauled her sewing machine out of storage from beneath her bed, and
had hastily fashioned three simple robes. Obeying instructions from
Barbelo, Tamara would be dressed in red for the ceremony to come,
Delmar in oceanic green, while Shemyaza would be swathed in white,
girdled with rope of golden cord. Now the three of them stood naked
in the parlour, with the robes spread out on the sofa. Before they
dressed, Tamara anointed Delmar and Shemyaza with a herbal unguent,
then applied it to her own skin. She was anxious about the work to
come, and was still awaiting a phone call from Barbelo to give her
final directions.

Once dressed, the three of them
sat by candlelight in a circle and meditated in silence.
Conversation had been stilted between them all day, and now the air
vibrated with tension. When the phone rang, Tamara started so
violently, she felt as if her bones jumped free of her body. Making
sure the parlour door was closed firmly behind her, she hurried
into the kitchen to answer the phone.

As Tamara had anticipated, the
caller was Barbelo, although her voice sounded faint, as if she was
calling from a long way away. ‘Listen to me, Tamara, for I will
give you a song.’

Tamara pressed the phone
against her ear. ‘Yes?’

A shrill whistle shuddered down
the line and pierced Tamara’s ear. She uttered a short scream, and
jerked her head away. For a moment, her head rang with the sound.
Then it faded away. Gingerly, she replaced the phone to her ear.
‘What was that? It nearly deafened me.’

‘But it was your song, my
darling!’

‘Song? I didn’t hear it!’

‘You did, and you will remember
it when the time comes. It is the lament for Serapis. This evening,
you will sing it to the Lion Guardian.’ The phone clicked, then the
dialling tone sounded. Tamara stared at the instrument in
astonishment for a few moments. Was that all Barbelo was going to
say? Had she been cut off? Puzzled, she went back into the
parlour.

‘Who was it?’ Shemyaza asked.
‘Is your coven on to us?’

Tamara shook her head. ‘No. It
was my father. I told him I was busy.’ She rubbed her hands
together. ‘It is time now. We must leave. Put your coats on.’

At the threshold to the
cottage, Tamara took Shemyaza’s hand in her own. ‘Are you afraid?’
she asked him.

He shrugged. His expression was
that of a beautiful, bewildered boy. ‘I don’t know. I feel numb, as
if this isn’t real. Perhaps nothing will happen.’

Tamara’s heart turned over at
the sight of him, but she suppressed her gentler emotions and shook
her head. Her voice, when she spoke, was firm. ‘Remember what
happened with Michael at the Mount yesterday! You really think
nothing will happen?’

Shemyaza stared at her. ‘I’m
still not sure I want to go through with this. The results...’

Tamara interrupted him. You
must do this for me, my love.’

Shemyaza smiled bleakly and
walked past her towards the car.

Tamara knew that the Pelleth
would be safely gathered at the Penhaligon house, and unlikely to
be wandering about. She drove with confidence to the cliff top
above the Lion’s Head. Delmar had still been having trouble with
his parents, and had to continue sneaking out of the house to be
with Tamara. Ellen Tremayne was obviously aware her son had been
working with Tamara, and was no doubt obeying the injunctions of
the Pelleth in trying to prevent him doing so. However, Delmar was
a law unto himself, and a slippery creature. It was virtually
impossible to imprison him. Now he sat in the back of the car, his
strange eyes shifting with mer-light. This was the night when the
sea would come to the land, and in the advent of the serpent, the
elements would fuse in primal hunger.

Tamara did not park in one of
the coastal lay-bys, but turned up a narrow track, where she could
secrete her vehicle beneath a grove of ancient oaks. Tamara watched
Shemyaza ease himself gingerly out of the car as if his joints were
aching. He looked slightly ridiculous with her father’s old coat
slung over his robe. She opened the back door for Delmar.

‘We’ll leave the coats here,’
she said. ‘It’s only a short walk to the cliff-top, and it’s not
exactly cold tonight, is it.’

Tamara led the way to the path
that led down to the beach. Soon, she thought, the power of the
serpent would be hers. Shemyaza, she felt she already owned. Let
the Pelleth and the Grigori perform their feeble rituals. She knew,
because Barbelo had told her, that everyone believed Shemyaza was
already in the underworld. So much for their psychics and scrying
pools.

They walked along the beach in
silence. The light around them was green; neither day nor night.
Above them, the edges of the clouds seemed tinged with
phosphorescence. The sea was restless, churning with flickering
lights and quick, dark shapes. Warm, damp breezes blew against
their faces; a perfume spray of brine and earth.

Although Tamara had received no
precise instructions for the ritual to come, she trusted that she’d
know what to say and do at the right time. They rounded the cove
and there was the majestic countenance of the guardian ahead of
them, staring out to sea as it had done for millennia. Shemyaza
seemed to be in a daze. He stumbled ahead of his companions and
halted before the lion. Tamara watched in a kind of ghoulish
fascination and anticipation. Shemyaza threw back his head, so that
his hair poured down the back of his robe. He seemed to want to
look the guardian in the eye, but at that moment the eyes were
closed, just suggestions of shapes within the rock.

Tamara caught up with him,
Delmar at her heels. ‘Speak to the guardian, Shem,’ she murmured
through the wind.

‘I don’t know its name,’ he
answered, his voice vague.

‘It is Azumi,’ Delmar said.

Tamara glanced at the boy, knew
immediately that the information was correct. ‘Azumi,’ she echoed
and positioned herself behind Shemyaza, with Delmar at her left
side.

Shemyaza sighed, then raised
his arms. Although she could not see his face, Tamara guessed his
eyes were closed. ‘Azumi! Hear me! It is I, Shemyaza. I seek
entrance to the lair of the serpent.’

For a moment, all was still,
then came a small tumble of stones. Tamara felt the rock beneath
her feet tremble slightly. Before them, the face of the lion became
more distinct in the stone. The rock seemed to shift and seethe,
until what appeared to be the perfect statue of a gigantic sphinx
reared before them. Azumi. The guardian’s eyes opened slowly, and
twin fans of red light gouted out. Its jaw cracked ajar, with a
sound like an avalanche of gravel. Its voice was the voice of the
earth, a thunderous sound of rocks grinding together. Tamara fought
an urge to put her hands over her ears, or press her fingers to her
temples. The voice reverberated painfully inside her mind.

‘Have you come to sing the
Lament for Serapis?’

Shemyaza glanced round at
Tamara. ‘Have I?’ he asked.

Tamara collected herself,
nodded and stepped up beside him, taking his hand in her own. ‘Say
yes, Tell it your priestess will sing the Lament.’

Shemyaza turned back to the
lion. ‘The Lament will be sung. My priestess will sing it.’

Tamara took a step back and
withdrew the serpent talisman from a pocket in her robe. Holding it
up before her face, she closed her eyes and focused her whole being
upon the carved image and the power that Barbelo had instilled into
it. In her mind, she saw a fine glowing haze begin to seep from the
distended mouth of each snake, twin coils that twisted together
into a single, writhing plume above the talisman. A newly born
serpent of moist aether. Slowly, undulating on the air, it drifted
like a questing viper towards her parted lips. Unconsciously, she
gritted her teeth. When it touched her, the cold vapour prised her
jaws apart, and began to probe the soft tissues of her mouth.
creeping over her tongue and down her throat. Tamara had to fight
the urge to retch, reminding herself this was merely a
visualisation. The serpent breath filled her chest with a numbing
cold; it felt as if a great reptile had curled itself around her
lungs. And something moved there. A life of sorts.