Scenting Hallowed Blood (22 page)

‘Fucking hell!’ The driver
sounded frightened now.

‘I said the dukes of Hell, I
meant the dukes of Hell,’ Taziel said. ‘We have to shake that thing
off. Put your damn foot down!’

The car screeched forward, and
Taziel heard the unmistakable scrabble of diamond hard claws on the
car’s roof. At this sound, the driver uttered a panicked string of
profanities. How long would the thing keep a grip? Presumably, it
intended to take a ride with them, see where they ended up. If it
had wanted to attack it would have done so by now. But what if
there were more of them further ahead? Taziel wiped sweat from his
upper lip. Daniel’s face was white and tense, his eyes round as he
looked up into Taziel’s face.

Taziel forced a smile. ‘Trust
me. We’ll be fine.’

They reached a straight stretch
of road, where Taziel instructed the driver to increase their
speed. When the speedometer reached ninety, he said. ‘Now
stop.’

‘What?’ There was an edge of
hysteria in the driver’s voice.

‘Emergency stop? Remember?’

‘It’ll fucking kill us!’

‘Just do it!’ He pulled Daniel
forward off the seat. ‘Down. Curl up.’ They both huddled onto the
floor behind the front seats.

The car had slowed a little,
but the jolt when it came was bone-breaking. They heard something
bump on the road ahead of them, followed by a strange, high-pitched
scream.

‘Now step on it again!’ Taziel
cried, scrambling back into his seat.

As the car veered around the
body and streaked forward, Taziel peered out of the rear window,
and saw the pale, crouching figure on the tarmac; it stared at him
malevolently. The image of the white face seemed to zoom towards
him, even though they were travelling swiftly away from it.

They drove further onto the
moors, and now thick, glutinous fog swirled across the road, as if
someone was operating a gigantic dry ice machine somewhere out in
the darkness. The driver was forced to slow down, despite Taziel’s
entreaties for speed. Eerie balls of light streaked out of the
mist, flashing over the road in front of them. Attenuated phantom
figures scurried backwards and forwards across the tarmac, their
clawed hands held high, their starved ghost faces screaming in
fury. Daniel could not stand the sight of them and covered his face
with his hands. Then, an enormous black shape formed itself from
the fog and leapt at the car windscreen. Taziel saw the snarling
jaws of a great puma. The driver, who had been making an effort to
be brave, now lost control. He uttered a cracked scream and the car
skidded off the road to land in a ditch. Taziel and Daniel were
thrown about in the back like rags.

Taziel summoned his inner
strength to clear his head. The car hung at an angle over the
ditch. There was no way they could reverse out without leaving the
safety of the vehicle and physically pushing it. The driver seemed
to be weeping. He was hunched over the steering wheel, his head
resting on his hands. Taziel couldn’t feel sorry for the man. He
wished they’d hired a Grigori driver, someone who wouldn’t freak
out at strange phenomena. He squinted out of the window at the
swirling fog. All seemed quiet now, but that might not last. This
was clearly what their pursuers intended to happen. Taziel prodded
the driver on the shoulder. ‘Don’t crack up. We’re not out of this
yet. Daniel and I will have to try and push this thing out of the
ditch. You steer, OK?’

The driver raised his head and
nodded miserably, although Taziel was unconvinced he’d be much
help. Taziel picked up the impression that the man was thinking
about his family and whether he’d ever see them again.

‘Go out there?’ Daniel queried,
his voice full of misgivings.

Taziel opened the door. ‘What
else can we do?’

‘Wait until morning?’ Daniel
didn’t have much hope.

Taziel sighed in disgust and
got out of the car. Daniel followed him. ‘It’s not that bad,’
Taziel said. He pressed his back against the front bumper. ‘Come
on, Daniel. Help me, will you.’

At first, Daniel thought the
car would never move. It felt as if strong, unseen hands had
reached out of the earth and were clinging onto the axle. ‘Perhaps
it’s damaged underneath?’ he suggested.

‘Just keep pushing! It’s
tangled with the gorse bushes, that’s all.’

The undergrowth pulled and
scratched at Daniel’s body as he flexed his muscles against the
car. Slowly, the vehicle began to move backwards. If anything was
holding onto the car from beneath, it released its grip. ‘What’s
that?’ Daniel asked.

Taziel looked out into the fog.
He saw a large ball of white light hovering some distance away from
them, although it was impossible to tell how far. ‘We’re nearly
there,’ he said in a calm voice. ‘Don’t look at that thing.’

The car suddenly bounced
backwards onto the road, and Taziel grabbed hold of Daniel. Even
though they had only a few feet to cross, it seemed to take minutes
before the car door was beneath Taziel’s hand. The ball of light
came screaming towards them.

‘In!’ Taziel yelled and threw
Daniel into the back seat. He just managed to scramble inside and
shut the door before the light-ball exploded against the car’s
flank. There was a sound of grating metal and the stink of burning
paint.

The driver, saying nothing,
started the car and set off at speed into the thick fog. The only
sound in the car was that of panting breath. Taziel reached out a
shaking hand and gripped the driver’s shoulder. ‘You’ve done
great,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry. Nothing will get us. It’s mainly all
for show.’

The driver gibbered a soft
sound, and Taziel patted his shoulder a few more times, before
leaning back in his seat.

Daniel was kneeling on the
seat, looking out of the back window. ‘There’s a light following
us,’ he said.

Taziel looked round. ‘So there
is.’

‘It’s like the film
“
Close Encounters
”
,’ Daniel said, his tone a mixture of terror and
wonder.

‘Not much,’ Taziel said. ‘If
that thing decides to engulf us, we’ll lose rather more than a few
hours of our life.’

Daniel sat down again.
‘Whoever’s after us must be very powerful.’

Taziel pushed his hair out of
his face. ‘Yes.’

‘Will we make it?’

Taziel looked at Daniel, and
reached for his hand. He seemed so young and vulnerable. ‘Yes, I
think so. We’d have been finished off by now if they meant to kill
us. You’re important, Daniel, you’re Shemyaza’s vizier. They want
you in their clutches, but they won’t risk your death.’

It seemed as if the weird
denizens of the moor had given up trying to frighten them. The ball
of light trailed them for a few miles before veering off to the
left of the road. Gradually, the fog dissipated. The driver uttered
a shaky laugh. ‘I dunno what you geezers are into,’ he said, ‘but
I’ve never seen shit like this before. I could use a drink right
now.’

‘You’ll be well paid for this,’
Taziel said. The driver would be dining out on the story of this
night for several months to come.

The minute Shemyaza walked through High
Crag’s front door, he felt he had returned home. This was absurd
because he had never set foot in the place before. Still, all
Grigori family houses shared a certain ambience and decor; he could
now be in any one of them.

The journey down had been
strained to say the least. Aninka had done most of the driving,
nervously tapping the steering-wheel with her finger-nails. On
occasion, she narrowly missed causing an accident. Shemyaza could
sense her tension and excitement. It was bizarre to him, for he
barely remembered her. His life as Peverel Othman had become
fragmented in his memory. It was as if he’d been drunk and acting
out of character. There were one or two recollections that still
burned vividly in his head: sitting in a dim-lit apartment drinking
iced wine before the television; a visit to an art gallery. But
that was all. He could tell from Aninka’s attitude that she had
witnessed him doing sublime as well as horrifying things. Deeply,
hidden, she still loved him. Now she felt torn, unable to reconcile
the image of Shemyaza with the frightening memory of Peverel
Othman.

Shemyaza had slumped back in
his seat, listening to Emma confer in a clipped voice with Lahash.
They talked about Shem as if he wasn’t there for a few minutes, and
then went on to discuss the white-haired creatures that had
appeared in the Assembly Rooms. Who had sent them? Would they try
to get at Shem again?

Shemyaza felt a faint stirring
of recollection as he listened to their conversation. Deep within
him, something uncurled and woke up, pricked its ears. His mind
skittered briefly across the thought of Lily and Owen. They had
been left at the mercy of those creatures. And where was Daniel?
Suddenly Shemyaza felt chillingly alone. His vizier had been left
behind. How could he have been so blind as to ignore Daniel’s
importance? He leaned forward, tapped Lahash on the shoulder. ‘You
are sure that Daniel Cranton is safe?’

Lahash glanced round nervously,
the memory of being flung across the room by Shem’s power clearly
still fresh in his mind. ‘Yes. He’s at Aninka’s apartment. You
heard me talk to Taziel on the phone as we were leaving
London.’

‘Taziel.’ Shem hadn’t really
listened to the phone call. He’d simply climbed into the back of
the car and gone into shutdown. The name: Taziel. He knew it should
mean something to him.

‘Taziel Levantine,’ Aninka said
sharply. ‘Surely you remember him?’

The words sent a shock through
Shem’s mind, but didn’t quite connect with a memory. ‘Obviously,
you think I should,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. I can’t remember
everything that happened to me before.’

Aninka made a disgusted sound.
‘Vienna,’ she said coldly. ‘A band, Azliel X. You managed them,
fucked Taziel, then fucked him up. Badly.’

A faint but discomforting image
of a screaming face surfaced in Shem’s mind. ‘I think I remember,’
he said cautiously and then added lightly. ‘Is there an army of
ex-lovers out for my blood now?’

Nobody laughed at this remark,
although Emma did smirk a little.

‘Is Daniel coming to Cornwall?’
Shem asked. ‘I don’t want him to stay with this Taziel. I want him
with me.’

‘He’s coming,’ Lahash said.

Aninka suddenly expelled a
staccato burst of laughter, which prompted Lahash to say, ‘Can it,
Ninka.’

Shem knew there was something
they weren’t telling him, something about Daniel. Games, just
games. Daniel was coming to him. Whatever else these people thought
or felt was irrelevant.

Enniel Prussoe was typical of
the Parzupheim: urbane, condescending, immaculate. Shemyaza felt
wary of him at once. He saw cold ambition in Enniel’s dark
glittering eyes, and something else: humiliated anger. Still, he
was politeness itself, ushering Shem into a seat in his study,
offering wine or brandy to his guests. Shem could almost see
Enniel’s fingers twitching, as if he longed to get hold of Shem,
incarcerate him, flay him, peel his secrets and power from him. The
Parzupheim were dangerous, with far-reaching influence. Peverel
Othman had always treated them with wary respect, haunting the
periphery of their territories. Shemyaza, for all his rebirth and
the fanfare of his second coming, would be wise to remember that.
He accepted a globe of brandy from Enniel, their fingers touching
as the glass exchanged hands. The ends of Enniel’s fingers were
burning hot. Shemyaza exuded a thought,
All right. At your
convenience.
And Enniel withdrew a few feet as if scalded. Shem
smiled into his glass, took a luxurious sip of the liquor. Emma,
Lahash, Aninka: they were all shadowy figures on the boundary of
this meeting. It was no longer the light versus the dark, but one
spectrum of light against another.
You want mine,
Shem
thought.
But maybe I don’t want yours. You can’t make me be
anything I don’t want to be.

He kept these thoughts veiled,
but guessed Enniel knew the gist of his feelings. ‘You must
appreciate why it is so important for you to be here with us,’
Enniel said aloud. ‘I have heard reports of the
interference
at the Moses Assembly Rooms.’

Shemyaza met his eyes, noticed
with amusement how uncomfortable Enniel was with that. ‘The twins,
Lily and Owen Winter. ‘Before I agree to do anything for, with or
to you, I want your assurance that you will send people to help
them — wherever they are.’ He remembered some of Ishtahar’s last
words to him then, the time when she had come to him on the hill
outside Little Moor.
These are our children, Shem. Love them and
care for them.
It had only been a cruel illusion. He had
resigned himself to the thought that it was unlikely Ishtahar and
he would be reunited in this life, but if there was some vague
essence of her floating around him, he hoped to appease it.

Enniel sucked his upper lip. ‘I
will, of course, see what I can do.’

‘I would appreciate rather more
commitment than that.’ Shemyaza took another sip of brandy.

Emma came to sit beside him on
the couch and put her arm along his shoulder. Shemyaza drew
strength from her presence, knowing they presented a united front
to Enniel. Impulsively, he turned and kissed Emma’s cheek.

Enniel regarded them coolly. ‘I
will do
everything
I can,’ he said, ‘but I won’t make
promises I can’t keep. I don’t know what’s happened to the twins,
or who was behind the raid on the Assembly Rooms. I can only hope
the Winters are of more use alive to their captors than dead.’

Shemyaza nodded. ‘I shall work
upon discerning their whereabouts as soon as I’ve rested. But I
shall need Daniel for that.’