Scenting Hallowed Blood Read online

  Daniel had in fact thought about going to the cafe again that morning, but had decided against it at the last moment. It was mainly inspired by a fear that his new friend Eve would not be there. As he’d roamed the house in the grey pre-dawn, he’d come across Lily, barefoot and wraith-like. It was as if they hadn’t seen one another for years, but it had been only two days. She asked if he’d been to see Owen at all, to which Daniel had to reply that he hadn’t. Lily obviously felt they should talk and insisted on dragging him to Naomi’s room with her, where the hours sped by as they sat around drinking tea and chatting. He realised how easy it would be to end up frittering away his life in this place.

  Daniel went to bed early, feeling lethargic and bored, unable to think of anything interesting to do. He tossed and turned for what seemed like hours on his lumpy mattress. Noises from outside intruded into his dreams, calling him to wakefulness, ordering him to sleep. He awoke, or thought he did, to sense a presence in the room. This was not unusual in the Assembly Rooms: it had already happened to him several times, and on each occasion, he’d ignored the visitor and returned to sleep. Awareness of presences was something he’d lived with all his life; it did not unnerve him particularly. But this time, as he turned his back against the darkness between himself and the blanketed window, his spine crawled with unease. He resisted the urge to turn over and open his eyes, willing himself to relax.

  There was a pressure on the bed.

  Daniel was instantly alert. It felt as if someone had sat down beside him. He froze, wondering whether another member of the household had crept into the room without him hearing, although in his heart he sensed this was not the explanation. The presence was not corporeal, but was it threatening or not? In his mind, Daniel conjured a glowing caul of protection around himself, a cocoon of light. He formed a silent question: What do you want? There was no immediate response, although he sensed a quickening of interest behind him, and an intensifying of the pressure against his protective ether as if a hand was pressed against it. He sensed the presence did not intend him harm. Reassured, he turned over, but could see nothing in the faint light seeping between the ragged curtains. He closed his eyes, willing an image to form in his mind: Who are you? The Assembly Rooms might be haunted by dozens of spirits. Perhaps one of them had homed in on him. He felt very calm.

  Without warning, a rush of sensation assaulted Daniel’s mind and body. He felt as if he’d been caught up in powerful arms, held against a body of light and cloud, absorbed by it. He was flooded by a hungry desire and an awareness of heat and strength. His breath came out in a gasp of pleasure and shock. At first, he thought it must be Shem, giving in to the urge for contact, but nothing about this entity was redolent of Shemyaza. Neither was it a ghost. He could sense, however, that it was male; a tall Grigori, eager with need. Daniel opened his eyes and the air was full of blue sparks. He felt he was suspended a foot above the bed, gripped in the invisible arms.

  The sensation fled as quickly as it had come. Daniel found himself panting and gasping upon the bed, gazing up into a spiralling void that was closing in on itself even as he looked at it. Whoever had come to him had vanished. Daniel sat up. Who had it been, and why had they come? He had seen nothing physical, but felt sure he would recognise the visitor’s face should he ever find it.

  He got out of bed and walked over the window, looked out over the square. He didn’t know what he expected to see.

  In the shadow of the trees, standing against the railing was a line of dark shapes. He could make out no detail of their features or clothing, only that they were very tall.

  Daniel let the curtain fall back. His first instinct was to go and tell Shem what he’d seen and experienced, or perhaps Emma, but as nothing had threatened him, it seemed like more paranoia. Emma would leap on it, and Shem would scoff. Easier to remain quiet. Sighing, he went back to his bed and crawled under the duvet. Perhaps the visitor had been nothing more than a manifestation of his own desires. His body throbbed with a need to be held close by enfolding arms. His lips burned because no other lips pressed against them. A fierce and reckless thought sped through his mind: he wanted freedom, the liberty to explore the world and find himself a lover, someone who, at the very least, was aware of his existence. Owen was dead to him. Strange how easy it was to think that, now. Almost comforting. Daniel turned onto his side and closed his eyes.

  In the dream, Daniel opened his eyes to find that he floated upon calm water. Moonlight fell down upon his naked body and the sea-perfumed air was warm against his skin. In the distance, he could hear a call, like whale-song. He bobbed upon the thick waters, utterly relaxed. The shore was about a mile away: he could see rugged cliffs, which reminded him of the Cornish coast, where he had spent summers as a child. He turned over, wallowing in the womb-like waters, and saw a shape against the moon; a tall, sinuous figure walking upon the moonlit water towards him. A woman. Even though the light was behind her, he could discern her features, for it seemed as if she was full of a soft cerulean shimmer, which radiated out from her. She was beautiful, clad in wafting blue veils and her long dark hair seethed around her head as if she were underwater. Upon her belly, visible through the veils, was the image of an enormous eye. He realised then that he knew her. It was the goddess who had appeared to them at the High Place in Little Moor on that fateful last night. Shem’s woman. ‘Ishtahar!’

  At the sound of the name, she held a slender finger to her lips in a request for silence.

  Daniel dog-paddled in the water, trying to reach her. She was walking towards him, but seemed to draw no closer. ‘Ishtahar, I need your help!’

  She was still smiling, her long, graceful feet dancing upon the moonlit waves.

  ‘Ishtahar, Shemyaza will not listen to me. He will not become. Help me.’

  She paused. ‘Daniel, beloved, I am powerless to affect the destiny of the divine in flesh. The time of resurrection is at hand. I can only lament for the loss of his light but I am she who is eternally with you.’

  ‘But what can I do?’

  ‘Swim to shore.’ With these words, she vanished, and there was only white moonlight falling on his face where once her shadow had hung.

  Daniel woke up, dazzled by moonlight, yet none fell into the room. Without pausing to think, he struggled into a T-shirt and hurried from his room. He could no longer keep silent. Not now!

  He entered Shemyaza’s room without knocking. Shem lay asleep, half in, half out of the bed, his long, pale limbs illumined by the flickering colours emanating from the silent TV. Daniel paused, momentarily taken aback. Shem looked so vulnerable lying there. He could be killed so easily. Daniel padded softly towards the bed, wondering how close he could get before Shem woke up. Before he was within three feet of the trailing duvet, Shem cast it back and said, ‘Are you frightened? Are you cold? Get in.’

  Daniel was neither of these things, but slipped into the hot nest. He wondered why Shem’s reserves were down tonight. Normally, he would let none of them get so close. Daniel decided not to question this matter, for fear of invoking Shem’s distancing cold. He put an arm around Shem’s body, and conjured no rebuff. Shem merely sighed deeply, lying on his back.

  ‘I had a dream,’ Daniel said.

  ‘Only that?’ Shem reached out and stroked his hair. ‘I never dream now.’

  ‘I saw her, Shem. I saw Ishtahar.’ He felt Shemyaza’s arms stiffen, the slight sense of withdrawal.

  ‘It was just a dream. Forget it.’

  ‘I can’t. I think it was important. I was floating in the sea. I think it was Cornwall, and she walked towards me across the water. She told me to swim to the shore. But I woke up.’

  ‘There is no Ishtahar,’ Shemyaza said. ‘She’s dead. Dead and gone a long time ago. Whereas you... my faithful Daniel, you have followed me across the deserts of time, kept at my heels, remained faithful in life and death. And here you are now. Where is the woman? Gone.’ He leaned over Daniel in the bed, and Daniel was flooded with a sense of
remembrance, from a life long past. He could almost smell the incense and the clear air of the forgotten country. It was springtime, and the air was balmy. Ishtahar lay in the future, an undreamed-of threat. He closed his eyes, waiting for the kiss, the long-fingered hand upon his waist, but it did not come. Shemyaza sighed and lay back down. Daniel sat up and found himself looking at a fierce grin.

  ‘I am castrated by my own delinquencies,’ Shem said. ‘Not even with you can I overcome them. The thought even of a kiss turns my stomach, yet you are a lovely creature.’

  Daniel lay down with his head upon Shem’s chest. He curled his fingers in the long strands of pale hair that lay there, damp against the skin. ‘Just sleep,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t matter.’ In his heart, he knew that it did. Impotency was just another part of the murky hinterland that was once the light of his soul.

  Shemyaza lay awake for a long time, staring at the ceiling. He suppressed any thought of Ishtahar, and tried to concentrate on the lithe, young body against him. Why couldn’t he find succour in communion of the flesh? At one time, it had been his gift to humanity, and theirs to him. Now, he was empty of feeling and could not even draw comfort from the warmth of arms around him. Brief, tantalising images surfaced in his mind: Ishtahar’s laughter ringing out, the smell of corn, the fierce heat of the sun against his naked skin. He pushed these memories back down into the deepest recesses of his brain. Then came the unbidden recollection of the original Daniel: their heat, their oiled bodies sliding against one another in the perfumed shadows of the great, cool house, which once had been home. Why can’t I recapture that now in reality?

  He ran his hand down Daniel’s sleeping flank, and in his memory felt a surge of lust, but in the present moment, felt nothing. Fretfully, he rolled Daniel onto his back and pressed his lips against Daniel’s own, but it was like putting his mouth against yielding cloth. There was no exchange of feeling. Daniel murmured in his sleep and frowned, then rolled onto his side. Shemyaza watched him for a moment, then lay back down, his arms behind his head. If this was the way it was to be, he could do nothing about it. His head ached with the desire to recapture sleep, and slowly, fitfully, it came to him.

  She was waiting there for him, beyond the threshold of wakefulness: a young woman, dark of skin and hair, robed in blue, with small gold beads chinking in her braided hair. She sat upon a shingled beach, her slim, brown arms encircling her raised knees. The froth-cuffed waves lapped at her bare toes. Bright sunlight gleamed against her skin. Ishtahar: as lovely as a man could imagine or a woman could fear. As she saw Shemyaza walking towards her, she raised a hand in casual greeting and smiled.

  He did not return the signal, afraid she would disappear or mutate into something hideous the moment he acknowledged her. Still, her image did not flicker or fade as he drew near. She appeared to be as relaxed as if they’d only recently parted and this was a planned meeting.

  Shemyaza cast his shadow over her. He could smell a musky scent emanating from her body, and the languorous curves of her limbs murmured to him in a silent language of sensual promise. She was a witch, like a drug, a poison. His whole body ached at the sight of her.

  ‘Hello, Shem,’ she said. ‘How are you?’

  He sensed amusement behind her words, or perhaps, even now, it was bitterness.

  ‘I am broken, but I’d have thought you’d know this. Why torment me?’

  She squinted up at him, shielding her black-rimmed eyes with one henna-patterned hand. ‘You speak of torment? Ah, the selfishness of men! Can’t you think of anyone’s anguish but your own?’

  He sighed impatiently. ‘Is this why I am here? For you to scold me?’ He thought to himself: I am dreaming, and this vision is my own creation.

  Ishtahar, however, seemed oblivious to the fact she might not be real. ‘Scold you?’ She uttered an indignant sound. ‘Can’t you stop for a moment, and consider my torment? You dwell in the realm of flesh, and walk upon the breast and body of the earth. Your light is hers to absorb. Yet, where am I? Nowhere and everywhere. Oh, I can tell you of torment!’ She leaned back on straight arms, gazing out to sea.

  Shemyaza hunkered down beside her. He wanted to speak, yet there were too many words in his head to choose from. Most of them seemed inappropriate.

  Perhaps taking his silence as contrition, Ishtahar spoke again. ‘I have had an eternity to ponder our time together. Sometimes I used to wonder what it all meant, but that was when I still had flesh about my soul. You were taken from me by the war that your angry heart waged against your brethren, supposedly for the enlightenment of my primitive people. What was I meant to feel about that? Serenity? Acceptance?’ She shook her head, and the gold beads flew around her. ‘I hated the world for the sacrifice it had demanded. I hated my captors, who called themselves guardians. They told me my tears created a flood to purge the world of sin and blame, but I was purged of nothing. All of it remained inside me, heavy like a child that would not be born.’ She sighed deeply. ‘Now, beyond life, I have been made a goddess, and my grief is eternal. I did not ask for what happened after I met you. Perhaps I was wrong to lie with you, perhaps we were both foolish to believe it would have no repercussions. I was simply a woman in love, who had no idea what tragedies that love would spawn.’

  There was a silence, then Shem said, ‘I should not have come to you then. Now, I wish I hadn’t.’

  Ishtahar laughed coldly. ‘Oh, but what a different place your world of men would be if you had not!’

  Shem grimaced. ‘I am sick of the world of men!’

  Ishtahar put her head on one side. ‘But it is a world you chose! Can’t you remember? You took your punishment gladly, sacrificed yourself to seek the light of redemption.’

  Shem shook his head. ‘There was more to it than that. I was young and ignorant. I was betrayed. Now I am ruined. I want only to end it all.’

  Ishtahar looked away from him. ‘From the ashes of ruin comes the phoenix of fire to herald a new dawn.’ It seemed she was quoting from something. She smiled and glanced at him again. ‘You live as a man now, Shem, but it is only as a god that you can end it.’

  ‘Right, I shall deify myself this instant!’ He smiled sadly. ‘Ishti, what is this? Why are we here talking like this? How can it change things? Do we have anything to share apart from bitterness or recriminations?’

  She shrugged. ‘I like to think so, but if you refuse to take what I say seriously, then there is little hope. Believe me: you must be more than a man.’

  ‘Don’t you think I haven’t tried that?’ he said angrily. ‘My life as Peverel Othman was dedicated to that, in a perverse fashion! And what good did that do?’

  ‘Misguided,’ Ishtahar replied. ‘You concentrated on clawing open the stargate, thinking that finding access to the Source would empower you. Wrong. The redemption you need and truly seek lies within yourself already. That is where you’ll find godhead. And even now, despite your flippant words, you hunger for it.’

  Shem fixed her with a burning stare. ‘I hunger only for you.’

  She smiled tightly. ‘Remember, I am a goddess now. Only as a god may you return to me. That is the way of things.’

  ‘Then tell me how!’

  ‘I just have!’

  Shem shook his head. ‘No, what you said means nothing in real terms. Look inside myself?’ He made a scoffing sound and pressed a closed fist against his chest. ‘There’s only darkness inside me, and I can’t see the way!’

  Ishtahar regarded him steadily for a few moments. Shem wondered why he couldn’t just reach out and take her in his arms. This interaction of words seemed meaningless. In the past, their strength had been in physical communion. But it seemed as if an invisible barrier lay between them. He dared not attempt to breach it, sensing that if he did, Ishtahar would vanish.

  After a while, she spoke. ‘I have been thinking how I might help you. You must understand it’s difficult for me, there are constraints about me. However, I can at least tell you this. Your vizier knows
the place of your ancestors and descendants. He hears its call. Listen to him. Let him be your guiding light. I know there is still much darkness ahead.’

  ‘My ancestors? My descendants? Why? Where?’

  Ishtahar leaned forward, clasping her knees once more. Her voice took on a lilting tone, as if she recited poetry. ‘Come, gaze upon this water, for it is the ocean of my tears. A part of you lies sleeping deep within the belly of these serpent rocks. It is ready to be reawakened. Keep the light of the truth that I have spoken strong within you. And do not be tempted by my image again, until my time for flesh is come.’

  Shem knew then that he had reached the end of his dream. The waves crashed upon the shore, drowning out any further words Ishtahar might have spoken, and presently he was sitting alone, gazing up at the sky, where dark masses of cloud moved quickly, inexorably to obscure the sun.

  In the morning, Shemyaza awoke late, to find Daniel standing over him holding a mug of tea. ‘Kiss me,’ Shem said.

  Daniel put down the tea on the floor and knelt beside the bed. His eyes looked faintly troubled, but he put his hands upon Shem’s shoulders and leaned forward to kiss him briefly.

  It was a start, Daniel supposed, though for some reason he felt unhappy doing it. Shem’s lips were unresponsive beneath his own, but at least they were warm.

  ‘Was it Cornwall?’ Shem asked him.

  Daniel knelt upright, his hands plunged between his thighs. ‘In the dream? Yes, I think so.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  Daniel frowned. ‘As much as I can be.’

  Shem nodded. ‘Thank you.’

  Daniel said nothing more, but offered the mug to Shem again. He took it. Daniel watched him drink, the movement in his long throat. Was his question significant? Could it possibly mean Shem was considering acting upon it? He dared not hope, and was frightened of asking questions for fear of killing any recently born purpose before it could take a hold in Shem’s mind.