Scenting Hallowed Blood (57 page)

‘Shem,’ Daniel sighed, and
opened his eyes. Was that golden beast all that was left of his
beloved king, all that he had become? He stared in horror and
wonder at the sight. A dark female power had him in its grip. Not
Ishtahar, something full of hate. He picked up vestiges of Sofia,
saw her grinning face.

I must help him,
Daniel
thought,
but how?

‘Think of the High Place,’
Daniel said to Lily. ‘Remember it.’

‘Why?’ Her face was buried
against his shoulder.

‘The goddess. Ishtahar. Summon
her, Lily. Be a channel for her.’

Lily lifted her head and
blinked at the sky. ‘There are shadows against the clouds,’ she
said.

‘It’s Shem,’ Daniel told her.
‘Shem and Sofia. They are battling for his soul.’

Lily swallowed with a shudder
and pushed herself away from Daniel. Slowly, she got to her feet
and for a few moments stood swaying before him. Then, she put her
hand into the pocket of her dress and took out the cowry shell. She
glanced at Daniel. ‘This is our tool.’ He blinked at her slowly to
signify his confidence in her, his trust.

Lily turned away from him and
raised her arms to the sky, the shell held aloft in both hands. Her
voice was unsteady to begin with, but gradually strengthened into a
resonant, pure sound. ‘Ishtahar! Ishtar! Asharah! Astoroth! Enanna!
Ereshkigal!’

Daniel looked up at her, and
saw that the cowry shell had begun to vibrate with a deep, blue
light. As he stared at it, it turned into what looked like an
unblinking eye, which gradually enlarged, its light eclipsing Lily
from his sight. Now the eye hung in the air before him, a beautiful
dark eye full of the mysteries of female allure, growing in size
with every moment. It wept a shining vapour of peacock-blue mist,
which swirled up and around it. Slowly, the mist began to take on
form; a belly, a torso, breasts swathed in flowing fabric. The
goddess formed herself against the sky, a goddess whose belly was
adorned with the sacred eye. Ishtahar.

For a brief moment, she smiled
down upon Daniel and Lily and then slowly turned towards the
creatures fighting behind her. They were dwarfed by her immense
size. The elegant pillars of her legs carried her towards them. Her
dark hair, strung with stars, streamed out behind her. Her voice
was the clamour of bells. ‘Lilith, my sister whore! Hear me! Know
me! See me!’

The dragon-beast tore its head
away from the golden serpent, shining flesh hanging from its red
jaws. Its mouth dropped open and an evil hiss cataracted out.
‘Never! You are powerless, feeble goddess!’

Ishtahar smiled and shook her
head. With one gargantuan hand, she reached out and plucked the
golden serpent from the dragon’s hold. This she curled around her
left wrist, where it clung like a bracelet. Thoughtfully, she put
this hand behind her back, as if to protect her precious
jewellery.

The Leviathan screamed its rage
and with each horrific bellow increased in size. ‘Fight me! See if
your power matches mine!’

Again Ishtahar laughed. ‘Ah,
but your power has already played its part, dark mother. Be gone!
You have no purpose here now.’

The voice of the Sofia-beast
boomed out in rage. ‘Played its part? I have only just begun to
play. Do not shelter the Shemyaza serpent from me. Release him to
finish what is started!’

Ishtahar shook her head. ‘It is
already finished, demoness. You attempt to play out the eternal
struggle here today, a struggle as old as time, but you can never
win. The source created divine goodness within the Sun King,
Shemyaza, and also created all that is evil. Our source is perfect,
and to be perfect is to be free, to own the ability to choose
between good and evil. Humankind has always had the choice of
pursuing the path of light or darkness, for if they did not own
this choice, they would be slaves, and the source does not traffic
in slaves.’ Her voice lowered. ‘Shemyaza’s struggle to understand
this has made him what he is. He can never be yours.’

Such was the quiet confidence
in Ishtahar’s voice, that the vast, twisted Leviathan seemed to
shrink before her, its wrath diminish. Its voice was a hoarse
croak. ‘You cannot banish me, Ishtahar, for I am part of you. Your
dark sister. I am all that you are too weak to be!’

‘Indeed, but I have many parts,
many sisters and many faces. Listen, do you not hear the siren song
of the sea?’ Ishtahar raised her hand and gestured gracefully at
the waves, her arm undulating on the air, her long fingers curling
and uncurling. Her movement seemed to act as a summons. A high and
haunting note, like that uttered by a pure, female voice, lapped
off the foaming water, lifted up like mist to drift across the
cliff top. The vision of Ishtahar turned and gestured at Lily and
Emma. ‘Come, my daughters, call with me to our sister, Seference,
who dwells within the light of the sea-foam.’

As if in a trance, Lily and
Emma were drawn to the very edge of the cliff, followed by the
Pelleth. Led by Emma, they lifted their voices in a rhythmic chant,
‘Om Sefer, Tu Sefer, Sefer, Sefer, Sahar!’

Beneath them, the sea began to
roil and glow with a vibrant, blue-green radiance. It seemed as if
a hundred other female voices rose up from the waves and joined in
the chant. The weaving sounds created a harmony that both lulled
and excited the senses of everyone assembled on the cliff top. The
dragon beat its wings frantically, caught in an unexpected
updraught of air. Below it, a wall of iridescent green water slowly
rose up into the sky.

Crouching down behind Lily and
Emma, Daniel stared in horror at the smooth mountain of water,
fearing that another tidal wave had come to engulf them. But then,
within the sheer glassy surface, he saw the dripping and
weed-swathed form of an immense woman shimmer into existence.
Seference. Her eyes shone green with the dark light of the ocean
depths. Her hair was a swirling purl of salty foam. Her body was
draped with a shining cloak of black weed, threaded with the spars
of long-sunk, forgotten ships. For a brief moment, Daniel thought
that within the writhing fibres of Seference’s robe, he could see
the faces of Meggie and Betsy Penhaligon peering out, along with a
multitude of other female faces he did not recognise. Emotion
choked him. He bowed his head.

Seference’s voice, when she
spoke, was the crashing of waves against the jagged coast. ‘Unholy
sister, return to the lowest depths of the earth, where you chose
to dwell after you cast yourself out from the High Place.’

The dragon hissed down at her
malevolently, its jaws dribbling strings of clotted blood. Its
wings clawed against the air, but it was drawn down relentlessly
before the wall of water.

Seference turned her head
towards Ishtahar. ‘Sister. Together.’ She extended her arms from
the water wall.

Ishtahar stretched out her own
arms and waded towards the waiting embrace of her ocean-born
sister. As their palms touched, they corralled the Leviathan
between them. It uttered a howl of frustrated fury and lashed its
spiny tail. It wings battered the air frantically in an attempt to
fly away.

Ishtahar uttered a command.
‘Look, unholy sister, into the eye of my belly, the cauldron of my
power! You cannot escape us, for you look upon yourself. My eye is
a mirror for all female power. You cannot escape yourself.’

The dragon screamed in terror
as the two shining goddesses drew nearer to each other.

The voice of Seference boomed
out. ‘Now we shall send you back to the depths, where you will not
rule, nor scheme nor rage, but sleep in humility. Your time will
come again, dark queen, but come, let us embrace as sisters at
last.’

Ishtahar stepped forward into
the luminous wall of water, and as all three goddesses merged into
one, a dazzling flare of turquoise light blazed out. Sofia’s last
struggles were engulfed. For a second, the water spurted upwards,
and then collapsed with a crash back into the ocean. Slowly
seething, the sea gradually sank back to calm. Ishtahar was gone,
and the golden serpent, Shemyaza, had gone with her, clasped to her
sacred wrist.

Lily lowered her arms and put
the shell back into her pocket. She glanced round at Daniel, and
beyond him to the unreadable faces of the Grigori who still stood
in a line behind them. Emma stood rigid, as if in shock, her hands
against her mouth, the Pelleth behind her, their faces pale. How
much had they all seen? Daniel groaned and huddled against the
ground, hugging himself. He felt sick, elated, immeasurably
sad.

Now it was over. The power of
hate had been vanquished, but love had vanished with it.

Then, below the cliff, the
rocks shifted loosely. Lily gasped and took a step backwards,
afraid that more of the land was going to subside. Others were
inspired to follow her move.

Emma leaned down and put her
hand on Daniel’s arm. ‘Come, Danny,’ she murmured. ‘There’s no
point staying here.’

‘No!’ he hissed at her. ‘You go
if you want to. I have to stay.’

More rocks clattered against
one another below them. Daniel froze. Emma tried to pull him away,
but he shook her off roughly. He staggered to his feet and took a
step towards the jagged edge of the cliff, where the piled,
shattered rocks sloped down towards the shore.

‘Daniel, no!’ Emma cried.

He did not hear her. He heard
instead more rocks moving, then more and more. His heart began to
beat wildly. For a moment, all was held in stasis, and then a pale,
feebly-moving thing groped its way over the cliff top. Daniel
plunged forward and grabbed hold of it. Long, agile fingers curled
around his own. Deaf to the cries of concern behind him, he pulled
with all his strength. He hauled a dusty, bloody body from the
rubble, and then Shemyaza was in his arms, alive.

Daniel could do nothing but
shower Shemyaza’s face and hair with kisses, repeating a mantra of
relief. ‘Forgive me, I lost faith. Forgive me.’

Shem a weak hand and touched
his face. ‘No, my Daniel, it was I who lost the faith. Forgive
me.’

Daniel uttered an anguished
sound and pulled Shemyaza closer against him, prompting a groan of
pain. Shemyaza felt so vulnerable in his arms, so human. ‘Where is
Ishtahar?’ Daniel asked. ‘I know you were with her.’

Shemyaza shook his head. ‘Gone.
For now.’ He pulled away from Daniel a little. ‘Help me up. I will
tell you everything later.’

Enniel had kept everyone else
at a distance while Daniel spoke with Shemyaza. Now, as Shemyaza
rose uncertainly to his feet, Enniel stepped forward. He wanted to
utter some ritual greeting, welcome the Sacred King as saviour and
deliverer. All he could do was take Shemyaza in his arms, murmur,
‘Thank Shem, Thank Shem.’ There were no other words he could think
of.

Shemyaza returned the embrace,
then drew away from Enniel. He called Daniel, Lily and Emma to him
and pulled them against his body. Then, he released them and turned
to Aninka, who stood at Enniel’s side.

‘I wronged you,’ he said.

She nodded. ‘Yes, and I allowed
it. Don’t ask for my forgiveness, Pev, because I can’t give
it.’

He smiled sadly. ‘It would help
if you could believe I am no longer Peverel Othman.’

‘It’s too late. I could never
forget that.’

Shemyaza looked into her eyes,
and Aninka saw that he understood she could never forgive him,
simply because he was unable to love her in the way she desired.
Even now, she wished this knowledge could change his feelings, but
she knew it was impossible. He would waste no more words on
pleading.

Salamiel had climbed the rubble
from the beach, and now came to stand beside the angel king.
Shemyaza turned from Aninka and held out his arms to Salamiel. ‘You
are the first,’ Shemyaza said. ‘There must be others.’

Salamiel curled into his
embrace. ‘Together we shall find them.’

Enniel raised his arms. ‘This
is a day of great joy! We shall celebrate at High Crag!’ He turned
to Daniel. ‘Bring your friends from the village, boy. This feast is
to be shared by human and Grigori alike.’

‘There is something first that
needs to be done,’ Shemyaza said. He addressed Lily. ‘Where is your
brother, my daughter?’

‘At the house,’ Lily said.
‘Shem, can you...’ She dared not ask the question.

He reached out and touched her
hair. ‘Long overdue,’ he replied. ‘Bring him down to Mermaid’s
Cove.’

The procession wound its way
along the cliff-top to the grounds of High Crag, which were draped
in swathes of deep-sea weeds, so that it looked like some drowned
garden that had risen from the ocean. Daniel and Emma walked at
Shemyaza’s side, holding onto his arms. Both sensed Shem’s
overwhelming exhaustion, which he was trying hard to keep at bay.
His body was battered and cut, his mind wearied.

Later he would tell them of how
he’d awoken on the beach, at the mouth of the rubble-filled cave
that had been hidden behind the lion’s head. At the time he’d
believed his encounter with Ainzu and the Shamir, his battle with
Sofia, had been physical, but now he wondered whether only his
spirit had travelled through the labyrinth of underground tunnels
and risen into the sky to fight a dragon. His soul had fused with
the serpent power, helped initiate the energising of the ancient
sites, but perhaps his body had lain unconscious on the rocky floor
beyond Azumi’s portal. He would never know for sure.

Everyone gathered on the beach
at Mermaid’s Cove, where the sea licked innocuously at the land
with tiny wavelets. Lily and Aninka went to fetch Owen from the
house.

Shemyaza stood upon the beach,
gazing down at the spot where he sensed Tamara had buried the cowry
shell that had chained a fragment of Ishtahar’s soul. He instructed
the women to strip Owen of his clothes and carry him to the water’s
edge. Lily still carried the shell, and Shemyaza instructed her to
fill it with sea water from the tide’s lip.