Scenting Hallowed Blood (25 page)

The previous night, she and
Owen had been bundled into the back of a van outside the Assembly
Rooms and driven away from London. Salamiel had allowed Lily to
gather a few belongings together. Under the eyes of two watchful
Emim, she had torn Johcasta’s dress from her body, uncaring that
they saw her breasts and knickers. They were not men, and she
sensed their drives had no human parallel. She had clothed herself
in jeans and a holey black jumper and pushed her feet into a pair
of Owen’s dilapidated biker boots. She thought about leaving behind
the small pouch Johcasta had thrown to her, but at the last moment
thrust it into her canvas bag. She knew it contained her dead
friend’s divining stones. There was a dull clink as they rubbed
together inside the cloth. The Emim had simply watched her
preparations. Neither of them spoke to her or interfered.

In the van, she had hugged
Owen’s listless body closely, kissed his hair, his face. It was
like he was brain-damaged.
He will never be well,
Lily had
thought then.
Someone will always have to care for him.
This
was accompanied by a brief, savage surge of anger towards Shem. Why
hadn’t he helped Owen? How could he have just left her brother like
this? Lily resolved to tell Salamiel anything he wanted to know.
She had no loyalty to Shem. If she could save her own skin, and
that of her brother, she would betray the one who had used and
abandoned them. She cried then, for a while. When she slept,
fitfully, leaning against the musty cushions provided for their
comfort, Lily dreamed of Israel’s death. Only it was not in the
Assembly Rooms, but out in the garden. He was making love to her,
and the Emim dropped down from the trees, ripping his handsome head
from his body, even as he still pumped into her. Lily screamed,
showered with blood. The headless body ejaculated and the Emim
danced around her, giggling, swinging Israel’s staring head by the
hair.

Lily woke up, gasping. All she
could think was
Thank God, it wasn’t Owen. Thank God it wasn’t
Daniel.
She was slightly appalled by the fact she felt so
removed from what she had witnessed on the stairs in the Assembly
Rooms. Surely she should feel furious, grief-stricken, terrified,
sick? Instead, she felt only a mild sense of frustration, an
indignant annoyance at the waste of life. Yet moments before his
death, Israel had been as close to her as it is possible for a
person to get.
Is this numbness the flower of the Grigori within
me?
she thought.
The amorality, the legacy of
Shemyaza?

Owen moved feebly against her,
making a faint, whimpering sound. Perhaps he had sensed the horror
that had seethed in her sleeping mind or the cold dispassion of her
waking thoughts.

Before dawn, they’d reached
their destination. In the darkness, it had been difficult to
discern any detail, but Lily could tell the house before her was
large. She had also seen the name of it: a floodlit ribbon of stone
above the door bore the single word: Pharos. Two Emim had taken
them inside. The hall was flagged in rough stone and the walls were
unplastered. It would have looked primitive and neglected, but for
the array of ornate Far Eastern-looking masks that adorned the
walls and the heavy chandeliers swinging overhead, and the thick
rugs upon the flagstones. Salamiel had been nowhere in sight. An
Emim had taken Lily up several flights of stairs to the top of the
house, where she’d been shown to her room. It was not a guest’s
room, for she could sense that servants had once slept here. She
had a feeling Owen had been accommodated in more comfortable
quarters. Perhaps the Emim would fawn over him all night, hoping
for a taste of Shemyaza’s memory in his flesh. She had slept
surprisingly well; the sleep of the exhausted, the defeated.

Fools,
Lily thought,
turning away from the window and the bleak landscape. She lay down
again resignedly on the lumpy bed. Salamiel and his Emim were blind
to the fact that Lily herself was far more potent a tool than Owen.
She had melded with the essence of Shemyaza’s lost love, Ishtahar.
She had risen up through the ground of the High Place in the belly
of a goddess. She had been reborn Shem’s daughter. Owen was
mindless, ruined. Salamiel had not picked up on this. He was too
obsessed with Shemyaza. Perhaps this could be used to her
advantage. Salamiel would expect her to try and escape, or to at
least leave her room. She did not want to try the door and find it
locked. She would not give her captors that satisfaction. She would
be patient and wait. If there were games to be played, she wanted
to invent some of her own rules.

Some hours before Lily awoke,
Salamiel took a late breakfast in his heated conservatory at the
back of his house. It was to here that one of his servants
conducted a visitor. Salamiel had just poured himself a cup of
Lapsang Souchong tea and spread a hot muffin with bitter marmalade.
He did not particularly want to speak to anyone, as he needed to
think. The servant knew he did not have to announce the visitor.
She treated this place as her own, and Salamiel deferred to
her.

She stalked into the
conservatory and removed her hat and coat. Salamiel looked up at
her with some discomfort and annoyance. ‘Sofia.’

‘Good morning, Salamiel.’ She
smiled tightly and signalled to the servant. ‘Bring me a cup of
coffee. I can’t stand that poisonous pond-water he drinks!’ She sat
down in a wicker chair.

The servant bowed and departed.
Sofia stretched out her long legs and crossed them at the ankles.
Leaning back in the chair, with her be-ringed fingers interlaced on
her flat belly, she looked very masculine. Because of her demure,
lady-like appearance, the effect of this body posture was all the
more unnerving. It spoke of a certain callousness and pitiless
strength.

‘Well?’ Sofia said.

Salamiel refused to look away
from her hard, dark eyes. ‘We have the Winter twins. Azazel was too
slippery. He had assistance. I presume the Parzupheim was
involved.’

Sofia put her head on one side.
‘I know all this. You should not have interfered, Salamiel. Your
disgusting little Emim were crawling all over the Moses Assembly
Rooms. Blood was spilt, lives were lost. Those lives could so
easily have been the wrong ones. Why did you do that? My orders to
you were specific. You should not have acted until Azazel was safe
in High Crag.’

Salamiel shrugged and sipped
his tea. ‘I was not prepared to wait. Azazel must come to me,
Sofia. This you know. I don’t want him contaminated by the
Parzupheim’s lies and machinations.’

‘What you want is irrelevant,’
Sofia said in an icy voice. ‘You are a mote, Salamiel, my dear, as
are Enniel and his bunch of family conspirators. I speak for
echelons too high for you to comprehend.’

‘I’m not interested,’ Salamiel
replied silkily. ‘You need me as much as you need Azazel. We are
brothers.’

Sofia laughed politely. ‘You,
my dear, are a side-kick. You always were in the past, and you are
now. Azazel has the power, not you. Do not make the mistake of
over-estimating your value.’

Salamiel stared at her blandly.
Her satiny insults meant he had ruffled her feathers more than she
cared to admit. ‘Have you been to High Crag?’

Sofia withdrew an enamelled
cigarette case from her purse and took out a black cigarette. She
did not answer him until she’d lit it and taken a satisfying
lungful of smoke. ‘Not yet, no. I am prolonging the moment of
revelation.’

Salamiel smiled. ‘You’re not
afraid, are you?’

She rolled her eyes scornfully.
‘Terrified, naturally.’

‘What will you say to him?’

She shrugged gracefully. ‘I
don’t know. I shall wait until I’ve seen him before formulating a
strategy.’ She took another draw of smoke. ‘The Parzupheim have not
yet realised how Azazel may be used in this locality. That is to
our advantage, because consequently, they cannot interfere with our
plans.’

‘Others know of the
potentials,’ Salamiel pointed out.

Sofia pulled a sour face.
‘Small fry! They are of no consequence.’

Salamiel stuck out his lower
lip and nodded thoughtfully. ‘Perhaps, but I never make the mistake
of under-estimating rivals and competitors. That kind of pride
makes you vulnerable.’

Sofia smiled sweetly. ‘Well,
that is a sensible attitude for someone of your status.’

Salamiel blinked slowly. It was
pointless to lock horns with this female.

She relented. ‘So, what have
you done with the twins?’

‘The girl is sleeping.’ He
frowned. ‘The boy is badly damaged. He has retreated inside
himself.’

‘I am not surprised. He has
undergone the trauma of Grigorian tantra.’ Sofia leaned forward. ‘I
suppose it is best you should know. Azazel attempted to open the
stargate in Little Moor. He invoked the demon god, Ahriman, into
himself, but before that had taken the Winter boy into his power.
There is a very potent and dangerous ritual, whereby a magician
incites a person to assault them sexually...’

Salamiel interrupted her. ‘And,
of course, what the attacker doesn’t realise is that the event is
preordained. In the act of violating their supposed victim, they
surrender their soul to the magician’s power. Don’t patronise me,
Sofia. I am aware of these practices.’

Sofia sniffed. ‘Whatever. That,
in any case, is my estimation of what has happened to Owen Winter.
He has become the victim of violation, raped of his soul essence
and personality. If Azazel had wanted to restore him, he would have
done so by now. We can only assume Winter is useless for our
purposes.’

Salamiel’s servant padded
silently back into the conservatory, bearing a silver tray on which
a wide china cup of coffee wobbled precariously. Sofia took this
from him and sipped with pleasure. ‘The girl, Lily, is more
important.’

Salamiel frowned. ‘How? Azazel,
in this life, has acted through the male principle. He would work
with only one female vibration, and that belongs to Ishtahar, who
unfortunately is beyond our control techniques.’

‘Precisely,’ Sofia agreed. ‘But
Lily is in tune with that vibration.’

Salamiel looked uncertain.
‘What do you recommend I do with her?’

Sofia smiled. ‘Make her trust
you. Teach her. Azazel will need her very soon, and we don’t want
our plans delayed by any childish petulance on Miss Winter’s part.
Also, we will need Azazel’s vizier. The boy is a powerful psychic,
and gains in strength with each day that passes.’

‘Daniel Cranton.’

‘Yes. He should be at High Crag
as well by now.’ She narrowed her eyes at Salamiel. ‘You look
furtive, my dear. I do hope you haven’t done any interfering in
that quarter as well.’

He shook his head, averting his
eyes, unwilling to admit to the occult display he’d put on for
Cranton’s benefit during his journey down to Cornwall. ‘I don’t
have Daniel Cranton. As far as I know, he is at High Crag.’

Sofia nodded curtly. ‘And the
Emim? I don’t want them running around loose. They are at best an
unpredictable force.’

‘The Emim have been put to
rest,’ Salamiel answered. ‘They sleep below the house.’

‘Good!’ Sofia finished her
coffee in one elegant gulp. ‘Now, I have some shopping to do in
Newquay. This afternoon, I shall visit High Crag and introduce
myself to Azazel. Of course, I shall say nothing at this stage of
my connection with you, or even of your existence. Let him believe
I work solely for the Parzupheim. I want to see how the land lies,
what condition he is in.’

‘When do you anticipate he’ll
be ready to come to me?’

‘Patience! How can I answer
that yet? I shall report my findings to you later, when I come here
for dinner this evening.’

‘Did we have an arrangement?’
Salamiel smiled widely.

‘No, but we have now. It will
please me to meet Lily Winter, so have her ready to be presented to
me. Say nothing of my station to her. I must simply be a friend.’
She stood. ‘I have some very fine lamb in my freezer. I’ll send one
of my people down with it. If I’m to dine here, I might as well
ensure the meal will be palatable.’

Salamiel wouldn’t have been
surprised if she’d offered to lend her cook as well. Sofia had a
very dim view of Salamiel’s establishment and staff. He stood
politely as she retrieved her hat and coat. ‘Until later,
then.’

Sofia smiled fiercely, breathed
‘Goodbye!’ and sailed regally back into the house.

Salamiel sat down and finished
his breakfast. He thought about what Sofia had said to him. Most of
the time he ignored her scorn because he realised she possessed far
greater power and knowledge than he did, but occasionally her
autocratic manner grated on his nerves. They had waited centuries
for this time to come, and he had put up with her insults and
put-downs because he knew he needed her help. But he felt she was
too confident of her own power. She was wrong about Owen Winter for
a start. Salamiel did not dismiss Sofia’s opinions about Lily, but
he felt sure the twins needed to work as a pair to be useful.

At half past two, Salamiel
considered sending a servant up to Lily’s room to let her out.
Then, on impulse, he appropriated the key and went there himself.
If he was to win her trust, he must begin immediately. He found her
lying on her bed with an array of coloured stones spread out on the
mildewed counterpane before her. She looked up in alarm when he
entered the room. He saw her throat convulse in a nervous swallow,
but she forced herself to look back down at the stones, to move a
few around each other.

‘They are pretty,’ Salamiel
said. Pointedly, he put the key to the door down on Lily’s bedside
table. She would realise that he intended to leave it there.

‘Your monsters murdered the
woman who gave them to me,’ Lily said.