Scenting Hallowed Blood

by Storm Constantine

  ‘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.

  Whimpering, Lily dragged Owen down the final stretch of the path to the beach. Here, she saw the image of Ishtahar standing upon the sand, her veils blowing around her. The sea was wild, the waves looked like screaming, foaming horses with dead, black eyes. As the waves crested and broke up on the shore, the sea beasts vanished, only for more to rear up behind them. Lily knelt upon the sand, shuddering and gulping air. She looked back at the cliff-face, and saw a host of stone faces staring out at her. They stretched their jaws wide, splintering stone, rolled their pebble eyes and uttered a lament of moans and piteous chanting. The cliff itself seemed to be disintegrating. Small land-slides of rock clattered down its face.

  Lily squatted down and covered Owen with her body. He was shivering violently, his jaws clenched. She saw blood mixed with spittle on his lips. ‘Ishtahar,’ she breathed. ‘Ishtahar. Help us.’

  But the image of the blue woman kept her distance, a blade of pale light upon the sand.

  In the temple of High Crag, the voices of the Parzupheim rang out, uttering incantations in lost tongues. In the drawing-room, Aninka stood with her face pressed against the panes of the French windows. The night called to her, but she was too afraid to face it.

  On the cliff above Meggie’s house, the Pelleth swayed to the wind, singing a shrieking, elemental song. Daniel stood straight, with his eyes squeezed shut, seeking an image of his master in the hectic night.

  At Pharos, Sofia rolled in her bed of serpent blood, sending tendrils of her mind down to the lair of the serpent, tongues sugared with sweet lies. She beheld the image of Shemyaza feeling his way through the fire-shot darkness, and reached out to him. ‘Scapegoat, sacrifice! You are the Dying King, to die forever. Go to your death, boy-child. That is what they want. Feed their lies. Or will you turn to me, the dark serpent mother? Let me nurture your bitterness into an avenging blade. Be not the goat but the war-bird. Turn upon them! Be fierce! Be cruel! Unleash the serpent against them!’ She felt her thoughts brush against the uncertainty in Shemyaza’s mind. He was a foolish child, fretful and selfish. Part of his petulant, masculine soul heard her words and listened intently.

  Salamiel lay like a five-pointed star upon the roof of his house, intoxicated by trance. His eyes stared blindly at the boiling sky. He meditated upon the light of truth. ‘Azazel, let your heart be true. Ahura Mazda, absolve him of his sins. Let the radiance of the true spiritual sun shine upon him in this hour of darkness. Azazel, look to the light of truth! Bring us hope through the love you once gave to the land. In Anu’s name, amen...’ His inner voice was nothing more than a small, silvery thread of sound that snaked in vain through the caverns of the underworld.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Waking the Serpent

  When Shemyaza entered the portal to the underworld, he found that the floor sloped down immediately. The cave within was lit by a dull orange radiance, which shone sickly through a viscous steam that clung to his legs, but there was no sign of the ball of light he’d perceived from outside. The incline before him was so sharp, Shemyaza was forced to scramble down it on his backside, using his hands and feet to steady his descent. It was a slow process, for slippery fragments of sharp slate cut into his fingers as they clawed for purchase. He knew that if he tried to hurry, the shifting stone beneath him might give way entirely, send him plummeting downwards. Eventually, he reached the bottom of the slope, and here was able to walk upright. He found himself in a wide tunnel, lined on either side by recesses in the rock. Within each niche giant bones were resting, as if the labyrinth of tunnels was no more than an ancient catacomb, where the dead contemplated lightless eternity as they sifted away to dust. Then, beneath his feet, the rock vibrated, as if a coiled, living thing had flexed its scrolls of muscle far below. It reminded him that whatever this place might be, it was far more than a mausoleum for the dead.

  Shemyaza walked along the winding tunnel for what seemed like many hours. Always the floor sloped downwards and, with each step he took, the air became hotter and more oppressive. To left and right, he saw the gaping mouths of side tunnels leading off into darkness, but kept his feet upon the straightest path. The bones of the giants lined the tunnel walls; silent, sentinel, prehistoric. They lay amid their rotted finery, the damp wink of jewels coruscating through their fibrous dust. It looked as if thousands had been entombed there.

  As Shemyaza walked, he thought about how the parched bones around him had once thrilled with vitality: the empty, cracked craniums had bloomed with thoughts, desires, emotion. In the end, it had all fallen to powdery nothingness. This, in all truth, was his own inevitable destiny. But what punctuated the journey of his life could and must matter; he could effect changes. He could be. If he wanted it badly enough.

  Now, there were faint voices hissing through the air around him. He heard snatches of conversation, whispered words. His name. ‘Shem! Shem!’ Was that Daniel calling to him? No, Daniel was lost to him. He had chosen to abandon his vizier in favour of the sea-born boy. The spirits of guilt and unease rose up within him upon dark, tattered wings. He did not want to contemplate them, for he was afraid of the pain. Summoning his will, he dismissed all thoughts of Daniel from his mind.

  Then, he heard a sibilant, feminine murmur, close to his ear. It was impossible to decipher the words exactly, but they seemed to coax him onwards to the serpent. Shem could sense their purpose; it was to inflame his outrage at the thought of others desiring him to be their scapegoat. Were these the ashen sentiments of some long-dead female giant, someone who understood about victimisation and who sympathised with his plight? He reached out with his inner voice, and asked the spirit to identify herself, speak to him plainly, but even as he did this, he sensed her withdrawal. The whispers faded from his mind, as if he’d passed through the substance of some resentful ghost.

  Moments later, a low, desperate entreaty called to his pure heart, a prayer to the light of truth. Fleetingly, Shemyaza thought of his lost brethren, the other Watchers who’d shared his fate. Salamiel? Is that you? He tried to visualise Salamiel’s face, but could not summon an image to his mind’s eye. Even if Sofia had told the truth, and Salamiel was near, Shemyaza knew he could not venture into this territory.

  These phantoms must all be in his own mind, and for that reason Shemyaza dismissed them from his consciousness. He must not listen to them. All that was real, all that mattered, was that he was making the journey at last, but not for the Parzupheim. He was making it for Tamara and Delmar, his faithful servants, who waited beyond the portal for him, patient and true. Tamara’s face bloomed before his inner eye. Had she not guided and protected him? But you are here, regardless, a quiet voice murmured. Despite your misgivings.

  Shemyaza shivered. He began to feel afraid, and his awareness was projected outside his body, looking into his brain, his heart. His fear was a swirling pit of dull yellow light, shot with ribbons of red. The colours of bitterness trailed through it,
and the hues of shame and anger. He saw himself as a warped gestalt of fear, hatred and pain, surely an inappropriate manifestation to approach the serpent? Yet he could neither halt his progress nor turn back. A heavy weariness descended upon him. What must be must be. If he was to die, he could do nothing to prevent it. If he was to unleash dark forces upon the earth, it was the flower of his destiny. Others heaped him with responsibility, but ultimately he was just a catalyst, a tool.

  The tunnel led through many lofty caverns, each deeper than the one before: yawning chambers rang with the echoes of ancient rites. Here, the dead giants were fixed upright to the uneven walls, their friable skeletons held together by fused armour. Rank upon rank, they disappeared into the shadows of above; a slumbering army of kings. As he passed them, Shemyaza imagined that a shred of awareness reached out to him from each desiccated corpse. Have you come to wake us? Have you come to lead us to victory?

  He directed no answer towards them.

  Eventually, the floor of the wide tunnel began to slope upwards once more. Soon, the path was too sheer to negotiate by feet alone, and he began to use his hands to help him climb. The light became ruddier, and the hot air was punctuated by inexplicable cold spots; columns of freezing, spiralling aether. Passing through them, Shemyaza heard terrible screams and could smell the meaty, metallic tang of blood. Above him, the steep path led to a ledge, over which poured clouds of billowing steam that smelled of ozone and salt. He pulled himself up onto the path.

  Before him, stood a male figure, motionless and vigilant. The man was taller than Shemyaza himself, and clad in a long dark robe. He was undoubtedly Grigori. His head was entirely covered by a close fitting skull cap of silver metal, and he carried a staff crowned by the sigil of a Magian priest, the same double-serpent of Tamara’s talisman. Shemyaza knew he was facing the guardian of this place, perhaps the first of many.