Scenting Hallowed Blood (6 page)

Shem was sitting on the floor
beneath the window, almost invisible in the grey light, playing a
computer game on a hand-held console, borrowed from one of the
other Grigori in the house. His long legs were curled up around him
and his feet were bare. His pale hair hung loose over his chest,
obscuring the logo on his T-shirt. He looked up when Daniel came
into the room and smiled vaguely. The sight of him always made
Daniel’s heart falter. It was partly caused by the shock of Shem’s
rather unkempt beauty, but also something else, something within
the man that came out of him like an invisible fan of light.

‘I’ve been outside,’ Daniel
said.

Shem turned his attention back
to his game. ‘I know. I sensed your presence on the pavement
outside.’

Daniel sauntered over to where
Shem sat and squatted down beside him. ‘I mean, I went out of the
square, to a cafe.’ He wondered whether Shem would look up in
alarm, be shocked into admonishing him, but no.

‘Right.’

There was no scolding that he
should have taken care, or not spoken to anyone. ‘I met a weird
woman who bought me breakfast.’

Shem uttered an amused snort.
‘Daniel, to you, all women are weird.’

‘Don’t you think that’s strange
though? Someone I don’t know offering to buy me breakfast?’

Shem looked up at him
studiously for a moment or two, then shook his head. ‘No, not at
all. I’m sure she would have liked to buy you more than
breakfast.’

‘So you don’t think it could
mean trouble?’

Shem frowned quizzically, but
did not look up. ‘Trouble? What kind?’

‘You know, someone following
us.’

Shem sighed and put down the
game. ‘Daniel, I can’t be bothered with Emma’s paranoia, for that
is what you’re talking about. She puts ideas into your head. No-one
has ever caught up with me before, so why should they now?’

Daniel shrugged. ‘Dunno. I just
wonder what would happen, though, if they did.’

Shem grinned. ‘They’d kill me
and subject you and the others to unspeakable torture.’ He laughed.
‘Don’t look like that. I was joking. No-one is looking for us.
Nobody cares.’ He stood up and plunged his hands into his hair to
scratch his scalp. Then he shook himself like a dog and leaned on
the windowsill to look out.

‘How long must we stay here?’
Daniel asked, still squatting on the floor.

‘No-one’s keeping you here,’
Shem answered shortly. ‘Except, perhaps, for Emma.’

‘Do you want us to leave
you?’

Shem glanced round at him. For
a few moments, he said nothing. ‘No, I don’t, but I can’t see why
you should waste your life here. Especially you and Lily. Emma will
stick by me because she wants the Fruit of Youth.’ He laughed
harshly. ‘And Owen is not in this reality, so should probably be
looked after by Emma. But you and Lily should just fly away.’ He
raised his arms. ‘She could carry you in her arms and fly.’

‘I can’t leave Owen,’ Daniel
said. He wondered why he felt uncomfortable saying that.

Shem shook his head in what
seemed to be disbelief. ‘Why? He’s weak, Daniel. He let me use him
to hurt you. You very nearly died. Get out now, and leave both of
us behind. You owe us nothing but your contempt.’

‘Once you would not have
thought that,’ Daniel said, sensing progress, however faint.

‘You don’t know that.’

‘I won’t leave you either.’
Daniel stood up. ‘You can’t stay here for ever. You can’t deny what
you are...’

Shem raised his hands and
closed his eyes. ‘Daniel, Daniel, please be quiet. I don’t want to
hear your opinions. I have been many things and will no doubt be
many more, but at the moment, I don’t want to be anything but an
invisible creature who spends all day sucking up the media and
playing computer games. I could do this for millennia. You, on the
other hand, don’t have such a luxury of time.’

‘You couldn’t do it for
millennia,’ Daniel said mulishly. ‘The house will fall down long
before then, and the TV will definitely conk out within the next
twelve months.’

Shem laughed grudgingly. ‘I was
speaking, as you well know, metaphorically. Please don’t hassle me
now. If you’re going to keep nagging, do it outside the door where
I can’t hear you.’ He flapped his hands at Daniel. ‘Now, please. I
want some peace.’

Sighing, Daniel trudged out. He
paused at the door, trying to think of something clever to say, but
failed. He felt angry and frustrated. What could he do to break
down Shem’s reserve? He couldn’t go on like this. He had to finish
becoming.
Didn’t he realise he didn’t have a choice about
that? Hiding away here would only delay the inevitable.

Aninka Prussoe returned to the flat
around mid-day. She’d spent the morning in the West End, browsing
through bookshops, checking out the card sections to see whether
any of her own prints were represented there. She could never
resist doing that.

When she walked through the
front door, her nostrils were assailed almost immediately by the
smell of marijuana smoke. It indicated Taziel hadn’t moved from the
flat all morning, but that was not unusual. She found him sprawled
on the sofa in the living room, shrouded in a fug of smoke, reading
a horror novel. She and Taziel had been sharing the flat for two
weeks now, ever since Aninka had been handed the keys by her
guardian, Enniel. She felt that Enniel was quietly angry with both
of them for failing to entrap Peverel Othman in Little Moor. Only
she mustn’t think of him in those terms any more. Peverel Othman
had ceased to exist; Shemyaza had
been reborn.
Enniel had
assured Aninka, during the embarrassing confession of their failure
at the family house in Cornwall, that he did not blame her or
Taziel for Shemyaza’s escape. The implication in his words was that
he blamed Lahash Murkaster, his own agent, who’d accompanied them
to the north. Aninka and Taziel were soft, artistic types,
strangers to the world of deceit, cunning and manipulation. Lahash,
on the other hand, had been trained to deal with situations like
the one in Little Moor.

At first, Aninka had hoped to
see more of Lahash once their ‘mission’ was ended, but he didn’t
contact her, and she had no idea where he was. Sometimes she’d
suspected he wasn’t interested in seeing her again, then reassured
herself with the thought that he too did not know her whereabouts.
It was unlikely Enniel would have told him. Taziel, whom she knew
thought little of Lahash, never mentioned their erstwhile
companion. He didn’t seem to want to talk about anything connected
with what had happened to them.

Taziel had been recalled from
Vienna by Enniel, forced to abandon his life there, in order to
help track down the Anakim, Peverel Othman. Aninka had offered her
services voluntarily, although she and Taziel were linked by a
common experience. Both were ex-lovers, if that term could be used,
of Peverel Othman. Both had witnessed the excesses of his
behaviour. Both were scarred by it. Taziel had maintained a strong
psychic link with Othman, which he had used to pinpoint the
Anakim’s whereabouts. What followed had been a dash to the north,
in the hope of capturing Othman, alive or dead. Lahash Murkaster
had carried a gun: Aninka had seen it. But the climax of their
search had been beyond their imaginations. On a sacred hill in the
middle of a forest, Peverel Othman had performed his last, dark
ritual. He had craved power, or so they supposed, but the outcome
of his rite had been the stripping away of ignorance, presumably
the last thing Othman had wanted or imagined. From the ashes of
Othman had come Shemyaza. It was still hard to believe what they’d
seen.

Shemyaza had slipped away from
them, and they’d been forced to return to Cornwall and admit their
failing. Taziel said that the Parzupheim, the governing body of the
Grigori families, of which Enniel was a prominent member, had
always known who Othman was. Aninka wasn’t sure. Would the
Parzupheim have sent only three people to the north if they’d
suspected the truth?

Aninka wondered why Taziel
didn’t return to Vienna now; he had a band waiting there for him,
and, she gathered, a lover. Still, he made no attempt to go home,
and as far as Aninka knew had not even telephoned his people there.
But, as she was out so much more than he was, perhaps he did that
when he was alone. He seemed content to do nothing, just sit
around, although in the evenings he and Aninka went out together to
pubs and clubs, or to the cinema. They got on quite well, which
surprised her. Their common bond of the failed love affair with
Peverel Othman was never alluded to. Far easier to talk about their
shared interest in films and books and music. Their nights out
together were more like workshops than social occasions. They
talked about art, ripped it apart, stuck it back together again,
even made tentative plans. Taziel wanted to write a contemporary
opera, and suggested Aninka could design the sets and the costumes
for it. It gave them something to think about, something on which
to focus their minds, so that uncomfortable memories could not
squeeze in to haunt them. Aninka felt they were living in limbo.
The talk of working together was a fantasy, because their
involvement with Othman, or Shemyaza, was unfinished. The episode
was not over yet, but merely going through a lull. The thought made
her shudder. She felt this strongly and wondered whether Taziel
felt the same. Sometimes she wanted to ask him, because she felt
his decision to remain in England must have something to do with
it, but she sensed he’d just flare up and get angry if the subject
was mentioned.

Then, on the eighth night of
their occupation of the flat, Lahash had turned up at the door.
He’d seemed edgy but pleased to see them. He’d bought flowers for
Aninka, scentless and unnaturally blue, probably purchased from a
garage on the way to the flat. Still, she appreciated the
gesture.

‘How did you find us?’ she
asked. The three of them sitting together in the low-lit
living-room, conjured memories of their time together in hotel
bedrooms while they had hunted for Othman, and brought with it a
sense of excitement.

‘It wasn’t that difficult,’
Lahash answered, smiling slyly. He was dressed, as usual, in a
smart suit, over which he wore a long raincoat. Aninka always
thought he looked as if he worked for the CIA, and wondered why she
found him attractive. She didn’t normally fancy men with short
hair, whether they were Grigori or human.

Taziel looked distinctly
uncomfortable, perhaps sensing that Lahash’s appearance would mean
they’d have to talk about Othman, and the experiences they’d
shared. Still, he did not leave the room, merely watched Lahash
with narrowed eyes through a veil of sweet-smelling smoke. He was
the opposite of Lahash — longhaired and scruffy, his body posture
languid rather than alert.

‘Are you in trouble?’ Aninka
asked. ‘What did Enniel say to you?’

Lahash shrugged. ‘He implied I
was careless, and in the heat of remonstrations, even that I might
have let the Anakim escape deliberately.’ He grimaced. ‘After all,
my blood too is tainted.’ He referred to the fact that the
Murkasters were a disgraced branch of the family.

‘That’s ridiculous!’ Aninka
exclaimed. ‘I did tell Enniel what happened, you know. I made sure
he knew there was nothing any of us could do, and even that it was
Taziel and I who wanted to give up the chase. You were the one who
thought we should carry on.’

‘Thanks. Although I don’t think
your — er — testimony did much good.’

‘I could speak to him again,’
Aninka suggested.

Lahash shook his head. ‘No,
don’t do that. I don’t think it’s a good idea he finds out I’ve
contacted you. As far as Enniel is concerned, you and Taz are off
the case.’

‘We’re not, you know,’ Aninka
dared to say, not looking at Taziel. ‘It’s not over yet, for any of
us.’

Lahash nodded. ‘That is one of
the reasons I wanted to find you.’ He gave Aninka a significant
glance, which effectively increased her heartbeat.

Taziel had not yet uttered a
word to Lahash other than a surly greeting. Now, he voiced a
question. ‘What do you want?’

Lahash glanced at him, his
expression showing plainly that he expected trouble from this
quarter. ‘I want to know where Peverel Othman is. No, I want to
know where Shemyaza is. And the best way to do that is to utilise
the talents of the one person who’s professed to have a psychic
ability to track him, namely yourself. I want him, Taz. He escaped
me, because I wasn’t prepared for what happened at Little Moor.
Now, I know what I’m dealing with, and I can handle it. This isn’t
over until I deliver Shemyaza, alive or dead, to High Crag.’
Lahash’s expression had become steely, with a hint of mania.

‘So you can absolve yourself in
Enniel’s eyes?’ Taziel laughed harshly. ‘Show him you’re a clever
boy, after all. You’re pathetic! You think I’ll help you? Are you
so obsessed with Shemyaza you can’t face an obvious truth? There’s
no way I want to open up that wound again. Aninka knows it, so why
don’t you?’

Aninka was annoyed with Taziel.
The confrontational side to his nature hadn’t manifested once since
they’d been in the flat. ‘Why haven’t you gone home?’ she asked
sharply. ‘If you’d really thought this business was over, surely
you’d have resumed your life as it was. You don’t fool me,
Taz.’

Taziel blinked at her,
apparently surprised someone he’d considered to be an ally had
turned on him. She suspected that, had they been alone, he might
have talked about his feelings, but Lahash was there, so Taziel’s
defence screens were raised and impregnable.

‘I just don’t see why we should
let ourselves be used, so Lahash can worm his way back into the
Parzupheim’s favour. You know how dangerous this is, Ninka.
Shemyaza is insane and unpredictable. He must have killed thousands
of people. We, he discarded. We were lucky. There is no reason now
for us to get involved. We’ve been paid off, and have a safe haven.
You think I’m waiting here to find a way to Shemyaza? You’re wrong.
I’m not sure whether I can go back to Vienna. But that has nothing
to do with
him
. I have a feeling that I’ve moved on to a new
cycle in my life. Going back belongs to feeling hurt and betrayed.
I want to be here now, in England.’