Scenting Hallowed Blood (50 page)

Sofia’s head snapped forward.
Her eyes fixed on Lily. She held out her bloody arms, flexing the
fingers like claws. ‘Ah, my pretty, pretty, here you are! Did you
hear me call you? It is our time now.’

Lily’s stomach burned and an
acid taste rose to her tongue. ‘No... Where is... No...’ She felt
sick, aware now that she had obeyed a silent summons. Some dark,
hideous part of her had heard Sofia’s call and followed it to its
source.’

Sofia uttered a chilling
cackle. ‘Oh, come to me, my pretty one! Come sit upon my lap and I
will take you to the secret places beneath the earth. Don’t you
understand your purpose? You are here because we hunt the Prince of
Truth. Your husband, your lover, your despoiler.’ She extended a
clawed hand. ‘Here, take my fingers in your own. Share my sight. He
walks beneath the earth alone. He needs us now, my lovely one. You
are to be his sacred bride.’

‘You are no part of Shem,’ Lily
managed to say. She wanted to back from the room, but was incapable
of moving. Sofia’s eyes were locked with her own, and the strength
of that pitiless stare would not let her leave.

‘Oh, but I am part of him,’
Sofia said. ‘More so than the fools who sing his praises and litter
his path with flowers. There are Grigori upon this planet, Lily,
who are so old, you could not imagine them. They have waited for
this hour, when their Dark Prince comes to lead them in the final
battle. I am their Queen, their Priestess. When the Shamir wakes,
its power shall be ours, and Azazel our king. With you, he will
create a dynasty of kings who shall rule the earth for eternity. We
shall take back all that was lost and the stargate will open unto
us. Humanity will be cleansed from all the lands. Their love for
war will climax in the war of all wars, and from the ashes Grigori
will rise victorious, to reclaim their world.’

‘You are evil!’ Lily cried.
‘Shem won’t do what you want!’ She wished she could be sure of
that.

‘Oh, will he not?’ Sofia
laughed again. ‘Why fight it, Lily? You know that you want and need
him. He is confused now and we must help him. The drivel and cant
of the weak New Age must not seduce him. Come now, join me, for we
must extinguish his light, lead him to the Lie. We must help him
initiate the true renewal.’

‘No!’

Sofia shook her head slowly,
her mouth stretched into a grin. ‘Ah, you are a wilful girl! Still,
that is all to the good. Azazel would scorn a milk-thin maid.’ She
pursed her mouth and nodded, as if coming to a decision. ‘Lily, at
this moment, Salamiel is calling to his lord. He is our tool, and
weak from love. You have bewitched him, which I applaud. Come here
to me, and we will augment Salamiel’s call. Azazel will hear you
both. We must tell him to put out the serpent’s golden eyes. In its
blind rage, it will energise this land with the true power that is
beyond all comprehension. Listen to me, Lily. Feel your own power
in your belly. Don’t you know that a child grows there? Your
daughter will be a great priestess. Make the way ready for her.
Take what is yours by right!’

‘I’m... I’m pregnant?’ Lily
felt she would be sick at any moment. To hear this news in this
terrible place, from the lips of a she-demon, was too much to bear.
Perhaps it wasn’t true.

‘Of course it’s true,’ Sofia
said softly, her eyes a mere slit. ‘It is the child of the
black-skinned one, your sacrificial lover.’

‘Israel!’ The word was uttered
in a shocked whisper. All the grief she had held in check, the
revulsion, shame and horror, erupted from some hidden corner of
Lily’s mind. The thought of Israel’s death and the fact she might
be carrying his child gave her the strength to act. It was perhaps
the last thing Sofia had anticipated. Lily knew she could not fight
Sofia, but now at least she had the freedom to escape.

In one swift movement, Lily
backed out of the room and slammed the door. She heard Sofia’s
hideous laughter echoing out and the cries of ghostly children
shrieked louder, as if instruments of torture had been tightened
upon their flesh.

‘Run, then, my darling! Run!
You will be back! You have nowhere to turn but to the one who rules
your heart!

With her stomach churning, Lily
fled the upper storey. She was in such haste, she felt she flew
down the stairs without her feet touching any of the treads. She
had to get out! Was Salamiel part of Sofia’s evil ritual? Had he
lied to her?

Oh God, Owen!
She
couldn’t leave him here. Skidding on the landing, Lily pelted down
to Owen’s room. She half expected to find Salamiel there, enacting
some filthy rite upon her brother’s body, but Owen sat upright in
his bed as always, staring at the door, absurdly tranquil in the
chaos of the night.

‘O! We have to go!’ Lily ran to
the bed. She had no time to dress him. Sofia might be slithering
down from the attic room at this very moment. When she touched
Owen’s body, she felt him jerk.

‘Owen! That’s right. Help me!
Please help me! Walk! We have to go! We’re in danger! Please wake
up!’ She continued to exhort him as she half dragged him to the
door. Owen’s limbs moved spasmodically, like the limbs of a puppet,
but at least he was making some contribution. Tearing a dressing
gown from the back of the door as she left the room, Lily glanced
to left and right up the corridor. All seemed quiet. She pushed
Owen’s arms into the robe. ‘Come on now. Help me. We must go.’ He
was moving too slowly, too awkwardly.

They reached the top of the
stairs that led down to the hall. Lily could see the front door.
She prayed it was unlocked. ‘Come on, O. That’s right. Down here.’
She had her arms around him. He made a sound in his throat of
consternation and distress. ‘Good, good. You’re doing fine. We’ll
find Daniel, now. I promise. We’ll get out of here.’

They were almost at the bottom,
when the door to the basement flew open. Lily’s heart froze. Pale
shapes were crawling out into the hall, stretching and writhing
upon the stone floor. Emim!

‘Oh, Great Shem!’ Lily’s curse
was followed by a wail. The Emim reared up from their bellies like
white cobras, sniffing the air. Their hair wafted around their
heads like the tail feathers of white peacocks. Their eyes were
filmed as if with a third eye-lid. They yawned and flexed their
limbs. Something had recently awoken them, Lily realised, and they
were still sluggish. That was to her advantage.

Banishing all fear, Lily
summoned her inner strength and lifted her brother in her arms. In
her terror, Owen felt as light as a sick baby. Remembering her
flight from the upper storey, she flew down the last few stairs,
jumped over the reaching hands of the nearest Emim and hurled
herself forward at the main door. Behind her, she heard the Emim
hissing and chattering their teeth. She heard the slide of their
pale bodies along the stone. Then the door was before her. With
little effort, she slung Owen over one shoulder and turned the
great handle. It opened immediately and the night rushed in around
her, warm and damp and stinking of sulphur. Lily secured Owen’s
position with a shrug of her shoulder and ran out into the
darkness. A furious wind grabbed at her hair. It seemed full of
living creatures, which pawed and licked at her with tiny hands and
tongues. She heard lascivious whispers in her ears.

Which way? Lily’s head darted
from the left to right. She could not afford to delay. Without
making a conscious decision, she began to run down the gravel
driveway towards the road. The pale stones shifted beneath her
feet, impeding her progress. It was like the flight through a
nightmare. Wind elementals formed in the air before her; grey,
screaming shapes that whirled before her face. She screamed and
ducked, but the phantoms simply vanished, only to reappear when she
tried to continue her escape. She felt spectral fingers, like the
twigs of trees, snag in her hair and scrape her cheeks, but she had
to fight on. What haunted the top storey of Pharos was worse than
any ghost or elemental. Owen shuddered and groaned on her shoulder.
Several times, she nearly dropped him. Her muscles shrieked with
pain, but she dared not pause to move her brother’s weight to her
other shoulder.

Finally, the main gates were
before her. She glanced backwards, but the Emim did not appear to
have followed her. Quickly, Lily hurried through the gates and shut
them behind her. For a moment, stillness. Would Sofia really let
her escape so easily? Still, she hadn’t seemed to care that Lily
had run away, seeming confident she would be compelled to
return.

Lily dropped Owen onto the
road, and rubbed her neck and shoulders. She pressed her face
against the wrought iron bars of the gate. Nothing. Pharos was in
darkness, and there were no sounds other than the low whistle of
the wind. Now where? She must not wait around here too long. The
news that Sofia had given her hadn’t yet sunk into her mind fully,
but she realised there was another life at stake now, all that
remained of Israel in the world.

She lifted Owen over her
shoulder again. Which way? Where was Daniel?

Lily attempted to muster her
thoughts for a moment. She must try to concentrate, pick up some
sense of her friend. But there was only darkness and a dull buzzing
in her head. Still, she could not stay here. ‘Which way, O?’ He
made no sound, lying like a dead weight over her shoulder, his arms
dangling down her back. She looked to the right, saw only a
maelstrom of flickering grey shapes in the air, some feet from
where she stood. The elementals were back, waiting to tease her.
She realised they were no real physical threat, but balked at the
idea of forcing her way through them. She looked to the left and
saw a similar obstruction, dirty smoke full of the suggestion of
grimacing faces and jostling limbs. It seemed there was little
choice; both directions promised danger. Then the greyness seemed
to part. Lily took a step in that direction. As the dirty fog
drifted aside, she could see a blue light that wavered just above
the surface of the road ahead. She heard a voice call to her.

‘Come, my daughter. Come!’ And
the blue light became the figure of a woman; a pale arm raised in a
gesture of beckoning.

‘Ishtahar!’ Lily began to jog
towards the shimmering figure, hoping desperately this was no lie.
The vision was clad in a floating cloud of peacock blue veils, but
she appeared to have no face. Where her features should have been
was only a blank whiteness.

No matter how fast Lily ran,
the figure on the road retreated ahead of her, even though it did
not appear to move. Lily knew she was being led, and part of her
mind shrieked a warning, but she kept focused in her head the
vision of Ishtahar she had seen at the High Place in Little Moor.
Could the image of this benign goddess ever be used by dark forces?
She had to trust that it would not.

She called out in her mind.
‘Lead me to Daniel! Help me!’

It seemed she ran for an
eternity. Owen became heavier upon her shoulder. Her burst of
unnatural strength had ebbed away. Her chest ached and her legs had
become weak. Soon, she was merely staggering along the road, bowed
down by the weight of her brother. Presently, she sank to her
knees, tears of frustration and fear spilling down her face. Behind
her, she heard an unearthly howl, which was echoed many times
around her. Emim! They were stalking her, smelling her warmth.

‘Now, my Lily, have
courage.’

The voice came from nowhere, a
soft and gentle chime of sound. A few feet away, she saw the image
of the blue woman hovering at the side of the road. Behind her, the
ocean churned and roared. Lily pushed her hair furiously from her
eyes. They had reached the coast. About half a mile away, an
enormous house reared against the bilious sky, crowned with wisps
of cloud. Lights blazed from its windows.

‘This way, my child. Find your
strength. I am with you.’

Lily groaned and lurched to her
feet. Was this the house where Daniel was? With her arms trembling
from exertion, she hoisted Owen off the road. She could barely
control his sprawling limbs. The house seemed so far away. The
vision in blue hovered before her, hanging on the air.

‘Down.... down... Here...’

The ghostly woman disappeared
over the edge of the cliff. Lily could hear her faint call from
below. ‘Come to me! Release me! Come, my daughter!’

Not to the house, then.

Lily staggered to the edge of
the road, and saw a tortuous path leading downwards. She didn’t
think she’d be able to negotiate it with Owen in her arms, but knew
she had to try. She took the first ginger step and felt loose
stones slide beneath her feet. Within seconds, she had fallen onto
her backside and was slithering downwards with Owen hanging in her
lap, his weight dragging her onwards. Her skirt was ripped, pushed
up around her waist, her knickers tore, leaving her vulnerable to
the predations of the stones. As the landscape flashed by her, she
had a nightmare vision of plummeting off the path and down to the
beach below, but then, somehow, she managed to halt her descent.
Her buttocks and the backs of her thighs smarted with grazes. Owen
uttered a faint groan and pawed the air with limp hands. The side
of his face was scraped and raw.

‘Oh sweet goddess, help me!’
Lily’s prayer was a ragged cry. She slid up the rock wall to her
left and began to drag Owen sideways down the path, keeping her
spine pressed against the cliff. Stones showered her head from
above, and she twisted her ankle painfully as she missed her
footing. Then, a long, clawed hand curled around her face.

Lily screamed, and struggled,
but strong arms held her against the cliff. A quick, lithe shape
jumped overhead and, turning in the air, landed on all fours in
front of her. Its lizard face hissed at her, a crested ruff rising
up around its head crowned with vicious spines. Just as Lily was
sure she was about to die, she heard a low, fluting cry drift up
from the beach. The lizard man cocked its head to listen, then
lowered its spined ruff. The arms that gripped Lily pushed her
away. She staggered forward and fell to her knees before the
creature in front of her, her face inches from its own. She looked
into its wise serpent eyes and could smell its reptile musk, but it
made no move to attack her. Its mouth dropped open, revealing a
dark maw. ‘Daughter...’ The word was little more than a hiss.