Scenting Hallowed Blood (49 page)

Her jaw dropped open.

A tiny sound was building up
within her throat, forcing its way upwards, out of her mouth.
Gradually it rose in pitch, until the air around her seemed to
vibrate. Then, the note changed key of its own volition; Tamara had
no physical control over it. The keening flirted briefly with a
lower tone, before soaring upward once more into an unbearable
crescendo. The sound was beyond beauty, a formless language of raw
music. Tamara sensed it did not originate from either Grigori or
human tongues. Its message was a lament, like the cry hidden
beneath the crashing of the waves, as the sea lunges in hungry
desperation at the unyielding land. The caress of the Lament would
eventually claim and reshape anything that it touched.

Before Tamara, Shemyaza stood
motionless, allowing the song to wash through his entire body. All
the glyphs carved upon the rearing stone stele before him shone
with a fierce light; it seemed they crept and crawled upon the
surface of the portal. Instinctively, he reached out and placed his
hands upon them. At the same moment, the resonance of the Lament
reached an ear-splitting climax, and a deep vibration started up
from somewhere behind the cliff, as if the song had woken a giant,
sleeping heart. These sounds streamed painfully through every bone
and muscle in Shemyaza’s body, as if they would shake him apart. He
knew he must somehow move beyond this stage of the ritual,
otherwise it might destroy him. Steeling himself, he pushed the
boundaries of his perception beyond the inflexible surface of the
stone portal, threading his sight through the atoms of the rock. As
he concentrated on this, the vibrations of the Lament seemed to die
away. All he could hear was the steady, rhythmic thumping,
emanating from deep within the earth. He perceived that a huge,
pulsating ball of white light hovered beyond the portal, almost as
if it were a spiritual guide that had been awaiting his arrival.
Within it, Shemyaza could see moving spirals and gyrating lines of
brighter light. He sensed a watchful intelligence within the
radiant sphere; it seemed to be examining or assessing him.

‘Do you know me?’ he asked,
within his mind. ‘Can you feel me?’

The sense of vigilance
increased. Shemyaza was certain it heard him.

‘I have come to the gate of
your abyss,’ he told it, ‘led by a dark and impenetrable void
inside me. Are you the light that should be within me? Are you what
I am to become?’

The flickering brilliance made
no response, merely spun upon the air in front of him.

‘Take me unto you,’ Shemyaza
said. ‘I need to pass through the portal, to look upon the source
of your creation with living eyes.’

The light began to retreat away
into the darkness. Shemyaza felt a brief tug of grief within his
heart. He could not follow it, and the rock still stood firm before
him. As the light faded from his inner sight, he became aware once
more of the eerie tones of the Lament around him. It no longer
seemed to emanate from Tamara’s throat, but from all around him, as
if every living thing, every rock, every grain of sand, raised the
voices of their essence in song.

Shemyaza opened his eyes. He
gazed up at the face of Azumi and the eyes of the guardian changed
from red to a deep, radiant gold. The Lament abruptly ceased, and
the silence around him was absolute; no sound of wave or wind, not
even a sea bird’s cry. The waves themselves were stilled, as if
holding their breath.

Shemyaza turned round to face
Tamara, and became aware of the sound of her rasping breath. Her
face looked sickly and pallid in the strange greenish light. Delmar
was a starved, pale shape beside her. Shemyaza wanted to speak to
them, tell them about the light beyond the cliff. The Lament had
ended, it was used up, and the guardian within the cliff had
assessed him, but they had failed, for the portal had not opened to
him. Tamara’s eyes stared back at him wildly. What could they say
to one another now?

Shemyaza opened his mouth, but
before he could utter any words, an immense cracking sound split
the air around them. Tamara staggered into Delmar, and Shemyaza
wheeled round to face the cliff. His vision seemed blurred, then he
realised that the rock face before him was shaking. The cracking of
stone bones resounded all around them, and slowly, so slowly, the
stone portal between the sphinx’s paws began to roll backwards. All
that could be seen beyond it was a dense blackness.

Shemyaza glanced back at
Tamara. Now was the time! There was no going back. Her image seemed
smoky before him, somehow insubstantial, as if she was fading away
out of existence. Then, as if a veil of dusky air was being drawn
aside, her form solidified once more before him. Her body had
become wreathed in a shifting smoke of diaphanous blue veils, but
her face was visible. He uttered a low, agonised cry. It was not
Tamara’s face he saw, but that of his lost consort, Ishtahar. Her
black eyes, dark as the waters of life, stared directly at him. Her
fine lips were drawn into a shy, sad smile. She projected an air of
pleading and yearning, yet there was no hint of weakness about her.
The spirit within her was strong and determined.

Shemyaza felt as if a black
crust that had encased his heart, broke and fell away, to be
absorbed by the tides of his blood. She had come to him at the
final hour. She was here to guide and protect him. ‘Ishti,’ he
murmured.

‘Yes, I am she,’ the vision
responded gently.

Shemyaza could not see that
beneath the cloak of illusion, Tamara stood strong and still,
gripping the serpent talisman in her hand. She was wreathed in the
breath of the serpent, and it spun a deceitful image in Shemyaza’s
mind. ‘I am she, my beloved,’ Tamara crooned. ‘Behold, the way lies
open to you.’

Shemyaza turned back to the
cliff. A lightless maw now lay between the paws of the sphinx.
Steam purled out of it, accompanied by a long, sibilant hiss. As
the vapour touched him, Shemyaza was engulfed in a fetid stink, the
sulphur breath of the underworld. At first, the steam was cold, but
as it coiled and twisted around his body, a snake of breath drawn
from the deepest pit of land, it gradually became hotter, until he
felt it would sear the skin from his bones. A deep thudding sound
boomed through it, as if giant machinery churned beneath the
earth.

‘Enter!’ cried Tamara.

Shemyaza hesitated, and looked
back at her. ‘I can’t!’

‘You must!’ she cried. ‘Shem,
do it now. Do it for me, your love. Remember who I am. Unless you
do this, the world will become barren. I will be barren. For the
sake of our love, enter through the gate!’

Shemyaza stared at her for a
moment. He was still unsure, having no idea what he would find
beneath the earth, or even if he would be able to escape
afterwards. Over the past week, he’d been lulled into accepting his
fate by the succubus Tamara, but he knew that his heart was still
poisoned by bitterness. Should he face the serpent feeling that
way? Yet Ishtahar had come to him at last. How could he deny her?
‘Come with me!’ he cried.

The image before him shook her
head. ‘No. You know I cannot. You must go alone.’

Shemyaza was afraid. If
Ishtahar was not at his side to soothe his negative feelings, he
felt he would be vulnerable in the underworld. He did not trust his
own heart.

Then a cold hand touched his
arm. Shemyaza saw that it was Delmar.

‘My Lord, enter the gate. Go
willingly. Do it for love, yes, but do it also for the liberty of
this land, for I can see its light within you.’

This was his vizier speaking,
the one who advised him. How could he ignore the boy? How could he
ignore the woman he loved?

‘Wait for me,’ Shemyaza said,
and stepped into the darkness.

At High Crag, the Parzupheim
gathered in the temple. Enniel made ready to lead a ceremony
designed to help Shemyaza accomplish his task in the
underworld.

In the garden of the Penhaligon
house, the Pelleth prepared for their cliff-top ritual. The women
had smeared themselves with flying ointment. Now Meggie stood
before them with her arms raised, and the warm, unnatural wind
lifted her hair. ‘When the serpent comes, my sisters, we must fly
with it! Fly!’

Emma moved closer to Daniel’s
side. ‘Will it happen? Can you sense anything?’

Daniel sighed in perplexity and
shook his head. ‘It’s so confused in my head. I can’t tell.’ He
uttered a furious sound. ‘Emma, I feel like I’ve been blinded!’

Emma squeezed his arm. ‘Have
faith, my Daniel.’

Lily felt on edge and jumpy.
Salamiel had not been in the house all day, and she’d barely seen
Nina. She knew that tonight, everyone expected something momentous
to happen. Surely she wouldn’t be left alone at that time?
Restlessly, she roamed the house. Beyond the tall windows, the wind
moaned in a horribly human voice. Shutters clattered, as if worried
by spindly fingers seeking ingress. And below the harrying whine of
the wind was a more terrible sound; the flexing of the muscles of
the land as the serpent writhed at the threshold of wakefulness.
Every few minutes, the ground shook, making the ancient artefacts
that ornamented the shelves and nooks of the house rattle and
wobble. Occasionally, a crash could be heard as something fell from
its niche.

The library, normally the room
Lily found the most welcoming, unnerved her. She thought of
withered ghosts sitting in leather chairs, the creak of fleshless
bones. In the cavernous hall-way, the chandelier swung and chinked.
Somewhere in the far reaches of the house, something uttered a cry;
perhaps an animal. Lily hugged herself and spun around in the
meagre sweeping spotlight of the chandelier. She felt as if the
house was closing in on her. She emanated a psychic call to Daniel,
but sensed only darkness. She called to Salamiel with her body and
mind, but even though she had no idea where he was, she knew he was
beyond hearing her. Even Nina’s presence would be welcome now.

Lily mounted the stairs,
resisting the urge to look back over her shoulder at the library
door. Nina must be in her bedroom, probably painting her toe-nails
ice-pink and listening to the radio. Despite the fact she was a
Grigori dependant, she seemed an unimaginative, unshakeable person.
But where was Nina’s bedroom? A noise like a heavy chest dropping
echoed through the house. It seemed to come from the cellars.

Lily ran up the stairs.

She paced up and down the main
corridor on the first floor, pausing to listen at doors, hearing
nothing but the restless shift of drapes at windows laced with
draughts and the occasional rattle of objects on their shelves.
Plucking up her courage, still fearful of ghosts, she opened a few
of the doors, but found only desolate bed-chambers beyond them,
lying under the thinnest patina of dust, illumined by the sick,
green light from the sky outside.

Again, a heavy crash came from
somewhere below the house. Lily ran to the stairs that led to the
next floor. All lay in darkness above her, threatening and alive,
yet she felt an intense compulsion to mount the stairs. Was it
simply because she wanted to look for Nina or Salamiel? If she
couldn’t find them on the next floor, she’d go outside, try to use
her psychic sense to locate the house where Daniel was staying. She
couldn’t bear to remain alone in this place. Why had Salamiel
deserted her? Wasn’t she to be part of Shem’s destiny?

The second floor was silent and
empty. Lily entered the bedroom she had slept in on her first
night. She sensed a tension there, the phantom of her own anxiety,
and shut the door on it quickly. Her feet led her down a narrow
corridor and at the end was a door. Drawn to it, almost against her
will, Lily turned the worn metal handle. Beyond the door, a narrow
flight of stairs, illuminated by low-burning wall-lights, led up to
the final floor.

The upper storey, where the
long attics lay, was dark and cold. Lily put her hand on one of the
ancient cast iron radiators and found it chilly to her touch. Here,
the wall-paper was old and fading, and the overhead lights were
eerily dim in their small glass shades, hanging from ancient
fabric-coated wiring, strung with cobwebs. The air smelled musty
and damp.

What am I doing here?
she asked herself. Nina would not have a room up here; she was far
too fond of warmth and light. Lily felt frightened, yet driven. As
she crept along the thin carpet of a long corridor, a booming sound
came from outside, and all the light fittings began to shake. Lily
reached out for the wall. Her blood felt thick in her veins. She
was close to screaming.

Try the doors,
she told
herself, but the thought of looking into the rooms terrified her.
She was walking towards the end of a corridor, where a round
window, with an arrangement of wedge-shaped panes, overlooked the
garden. Some of the panes were cracked, and all were thick with
grime. Lily expected to see a tall shape manifest before this mouth
of leprous light, something hideous with arms outstretched, its
hair waving around its head like a halo of vipers.

She found her hand upon the
door to her left, even before she heard the sound.

It was a low murmuring, at once
like a song and a litany of complaint.

The dull brass knob turned
beneath her fingers and the door swung open. It neither creaked nor
scraped upon the floor. Once the door was open, Lily’s ears were
assaulted by the wail of children, children in terrible pain,
terrible fear, but there were no children in the tiny, black room,
only the ghosts of their terror. She stood with frozen feet, gazing
in horror and awe at the tableau before her.

The woman sat cross-legged in a
shifting pool of dead snakes and serpent blood, as if she’d lately
mutilated each reptile. Around her gory couch, black candles were
stuck onto the floor, a flickering sea of light. Behind her, half
cradled by the ripped snake flesh, lay a small, withered form. Lily
dared not look too closely; it seemed too much like the corpse of
an infant, sucked of life and juice. The woman wore a cloak of owl
feathers, spiked with a cruel forest of severed beaks and claws. It
was Sofia. She did not seem able to see Lily standing in the
doorway, for her eyes were rolled upwards in their sockets. She
seemed so far gone into some arcane trance that even her sharp
senses were ignorant of the girl. A strange gibbering sound, which
might have been torn words or the chittering of night creatures,
came from her lips, which were stained with black saliva. As she
mumbled, she chewed. Lily could smell the scent of haoma, but it
was almost eclipsed by the stench of rotten meat rising from the
coiled carcasses. Sofia was naked beneath her grisly cloak, her
body smeared with the black blood of the snakes. She was the most
wretched and dark thing Lily had ever seen, or could ever imagine
seeing. Even Peverel Othman in his worst guise had not been so
close to abomination. Lily wanted to back from the room, deny what
she’d seen, and uttered a sad sound of disgust.