Stealing Sacred Fire (41 page)

Jesus paused before her, and
she reached up to take his hands. She pressed them to her lips, and
felt the heat of living flesh against her own. ‘Forgive me, my
lord’ she said. ‘Save me.’

‘Rise,’ he murmured and his
voice was the music of flutes and bells.

Melandra stood. He towered over
her, taller than she’d ever imagined Christ to be. She looked at
him more closely and realised his hair was golden, not brown at
all. Neither did he have a beard, although his skin still appeared
honey pale. His face shone with light. He touched her cheek with
long fingers. ‘Well, my sister, will you kill me again?’

Her brow clouded. Kill him? Did
he refer to the cross? Did he hate humanity for what they had done
to him? ‘No, my lord. I will worship you.’

He laughed at her, shook his head. ‘See
me,’ he said, and brushed his fingers over her eyes.

She saw then, the long face,
the piercing blue eyes, the remembered smile. She uttered a screech
and pulled away from him. ‘Demon! Satan!’ He had touched her again,
touched her soul with his lies, made her see him as her ultimate
god. He was evil incarnate. She must kill him now, but how?

‘If you would fight evil,’ he
said, ‘cast off the cruelties that were perpetrated upon you as a
child.’

‘No!’ She put her hands over
her ears, backed away. Tiy and Amytis were vague presences in the
garden; their forms were blurred. All that existed with any clarity
was the demon before her.

A heavy decorative urn filled
with flowers stood near to the path. Melandra rushed over to it and
tried to lift it in her hands. She would smash him, smash his evil
face. Behind her, she heard him laughing, his approach.

‘Melandra, you will damage
yourself. Calm down.’

She turned on him, pointing a
shaking finger. ‘The Lord shall strike you down!’

‘The Lord?’ Shemyaza laughed.
‘He left his heaven a long time ago. I have seen what is left of
it, so I know. God does not care enough to strike me down. He, and
all those like him, have abandoned their children — me, you,
humanity and the Grigori.’

‘You’re lying!’

He shook his head. ‘No. You
have been lied to, but not by me.’

‘I don’t believe you!’ She
could feel her resolve slipping away. Even now, he could seduce
her. Her head blazed with pain and tremendous pressure. Blinking
her eyes, she whispered beneath her breath, ‘Preserve me, my God,
for in thee I do put my trust…’

‘Melandra,’ Shemyaza murmured,
‘look at me.’ His voice was so gentle. For all her yearning and
prayers, she could think only of the words of the Song of Solomon,
‘His eyes are as the eyes of doves by the rivers of waters… His
lips like lilies, dropping sweet smelling myrrh…’

‘No!’ she screamed in her head
and spoke aloud, ‘Be not thou far from me, O Lord; Oh my strength,
haste thee to help me!’

‘Look at me…’

She was sobbing now. ‘No. I
must not. Oh God, deliver my soul from the sword!’

‘Scriptures,’ Shemyaza said.
‘Ancient words. They are strange to your tongue now, Melandra. How
long since you’ve uttered them? You lost your god here in the
flower of Babylon. Why not speak the first lines of that pretty
verse: “My God, why hast thou forsaken me?”’

Melandra gripped the edge of
the urn, blinking at the stars of the flowers. They sparkled in her
sight, viewed through tears. Something black and terrible gleamed
among the petals. She saw it. Metal. A gun; lying there, with a
blue serpent sheen upon its muzzle. Her eyes followed the exact and
precise lines of its body. ‘For thou hast heard me from the horns
of the unicorn…’ she whispered. It was not her gun, something
smaller, but a weapon nonetheless. Why was it lying there, waiting
for her, if not sent by God, or her beloved Christ?

Melandra reached out and took
the weapon in her hands. It was warm, like the body of a basking
snake. Pausing only for a moment, she grasped the gun in both
hands, wheeled around and fired, crying, ‘In the name of God, die,
you bastard!’

She saw the red explosion,
smelled blood and cordite and the hideous reeks held within the
human body. She had killed him, blown him apart. For a moment, she
bowed her head, and a few sobs of relief shuddered through her. She
had returned to her god at the last moment, even though the
perfumes of Babylon had clouded her mind. She had sinned, but He
had heard her. ‘Have mercy upon me, Oh God,’ she said, ‘Wash me
thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.’

The smoke purled away slowly to
either side. The gunshot still seemed to echo and echo from the
palace walls. Amytis and Tiy were mere smudges upon the evening,
and the floating veils of the other women, who had come out into
the garden, were less substantial than smoke. Melandra leaned
against the urn, breathing heavily, as if she’d been running. She
had done it: accomplished her mission. She felt light-headed in her
success.

Then the smoke cleared and he
was walking towards her, the white of his gold-fringed robe
unmarked. She should have known it would not be that easy to kill a
demon.

‘You hold death in your hands,’
he said.

Melandra expelled a sobbing
shriek and tried to fire again, but the gun writhed in her hands.
When she looked down she saw an enormous, shining black scorpion
wriggling around in her hold, its sting lashing over her fingers.
She threw it away with a cry of disgust. Illusions! Lies! What
could she do? ‘Oh, God, I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not;
and in the night season…’

Amytis’ women were all staring
at her with wide eyes, as if they thought she was mad. I am, she
thought. I am mad. She put her hands over her face and tried to
gather her thoughts. In the chaotic darkness, she felt someone
touch her shoulder and knew the touch was his.

‘No!’ She tried to pull away,
but he would not let her go. She felt weak now, drained of energy
and emotion, a child looking out through the back window of a long,
black car, watching her life becoming smaller in its wake.

Shemyaza dragged her hands from
her face. ‘You are important,’ he told her. ‘You did not follow me
here, but were drawn. You are not my executioner, but my
protector.’

Melandra shook her head wildly.
‘Don’t say these things! You are evil!’ She began to recite another
psalm, ‘The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I
fear?’

‘Listen to me,’ Shemyaza said.
‘What you want and what I am are one and the same. I can be your
sacrificed king.’

‘When the wicked, even mine
enemies and my foes, came upon me to eat my flesh, they stumbled
and fell…’

Shemyaza held her wrists
tightly, his thumbs pressing against the delicate skin where blood
ran blue beneath its fragile integument. ‘Those words will not help
you, Melandra. Listen to me. I have walked in the desert as the
scapegoat, I have fallen from grace to atone for the sins of others
and myself; for humanity, I have died a thousand deaths throughout
history. The Roman Christian Empire distorted my image into a
symbol of fear, through which they wielded control over the masses
of humanity.’

‘No! No!’ Her voice rose in
pitch, becoming feverish.

Shemyaza leaned forward and
kissed her brow. ‘Walk with me now, Melandra. I am your Christ, the
slaughtered son of god. I am Tammuz, Adonis, Icarus. I am the Iblis
and the Peacock Angel. I am love and its dark brother. I am
Lucifer, son of the light.’

Melandra opened her eyes. ‘Hide
not thy face far from me; put not thy servant away in anger…’ She
paused. The devil had such serenity about him. He looked upon her
with the eyes of an angel who had never transgressed the laws of
heaven. He was beautiful, and the beauty shone out of him rather
than merely resting upon his body like a mantle. He was not like
Jesus — he was not wholly good — she could see that, but what was
good in him was pure and strong. The dark was the beast in him, the
night and the abyss.

‘You have been ordered to kill
me,’ he said, ‘but what you would really kill is all that is sacred
within you.’

‘How can I believe you? If you
are telling the truth, then all that I have ever believed is a
lie.’

He grimaced, and for a moment
she saw fury in him. ‘We have both been lied to.’ He shook his
head, as if to clear it of this anger. ‘In Istanbul, I gave you the
fruit, but you are yet to acquire the taste for it.’ He leaned down
and kissed her lips lightly, then let go of her hands. ‘Come with
me to Egypt, Melandra. I, and my brethren, have work to do there,
and we will need someone to be our eyes, ever alert for
danger.’

Melandra laughed nervously.
‘You want to hire me? To be your bodyguard?’ She raked a hand
through her hair. ‘This is absurd! My task is to kill you. How
could you ever trust me?’

Shemyaza smiled gently.
‘Perhaps that is one of the reasons I want you to be there.’

‘I don’t know,’ Melandra said.
‘I need to think…’ She looked up at him. ‘You don’t know how much I
hate you for what you did to me.’

‘It was done to both of us,’ he
answered. ‘You are intact, Melandra. I never came to you in the
flesh. My spirit was dragged to you.’

She frowned. ‘That is not
possible. You felt… so real. It was real.’

‘Do not be angry,’ he said. ‘I
am not denying you your experience. I merely want you to see that
it was arranged for both of us.’

‘Who arranged it?’

Tiy rustled forward. ‘There is
something you must know, something I have only just told Shemyaza
himself. Those men you work for, who are dedicated to ridding the
world of the Grigori, they are ruled by a higher power.’

‘Yes, it is God!’ Melandra
snapped.

Tiy shook her head. ‘Oh no. Since your
arrival here, I have visited the temple, Etemenanki, and breathed
the smokes of dream to learn about you. I found obstacles, veils I
could not rend, but today I broke through. What I learned is
terrible indeed.’

Melandra felt as if Tiy’s
emotions were floating off her like a vapour, infecting Melandra’s
own heart with disgust and shock. She felt breathless. ‘What did
you learn? What?’

Tiy paused, perhaps for effect,
then spoke. ‘The Children of Lamech murder Grigori in the name of
God, but its leaders defer to men and women whom they have never
met. They believe these people to be senators and judges,
individuals whose identity must be kept secret, but the truth is
more sinister than that. Today, the sacred fire showed me that a
hidden Grigori faction, who calls itself the Brethren of the Black
Sun, rules your organisation. This dark fraternity is opposed to
Shemyaza fulfilling his destiny, because it will destroy their
power. The victims of your organisation’s assassins are Grigori,
but individuals whose activities inconvenience the Brethren. They
are one of many secret cabals within Grigori society, but they are
perhaps the most dangerous.’

‘This cannot be true!’ Melandra
cried. ‘You lie. Why would Grigori want to murder Grigori? It’s
incredible.’

‘Girl!’ Tiy said firmly. ‘I do
not lie. Men murder men, don’t they?’

‘This news is as calamitous for
me as for you,’ Shemyaza said.

Melandra shook her head. ‘But
where is the evidence? I need more than just an old woman’s
dreams.’

‘In your heart,’ Tiy said, ‘you
know I speak the truth. In your homeland, the Brethren of the Black
Sun sent a demon to fill you with fear. You saw it at your leaders’
headquarters, as you received the fatal instructions from them to
kill Shemyaza.’

Melandra stared at Tiy in mute
shock.

Tiy nodded at her, as if she
could see the younger woman’s expression. ‘Oh yes, Melandra.
Believe it. You and your colleagues have been, and are being, used
by the very people you are sworn to eradicate.’

Shemyaza took her hands in his
own. ‘Nothing is as it seems, and that applies to both of us. I am
not asking you to abandon your faith, for all faiths are one faith.
I just want you to open your eyes and see that your directive to
kill me is merely the hands and minds of dark Grigori at work, not
God’s. There was no gun among the flowers, just the symbol of your
fears, but if you had truly believed in it, and your god had been
with you, it would have destroyed me.’

Melandra rubbed her aching brow
with shaking fingers. ‘I can’t believe you… I can’t!’

Tiy came forward and laid her
hands on Melandra’s arms. ‘We will go into the palace and find an
empty room. There, we will all talk together.’

Melandra stared at the old
woman’s face. Her feelings were torn. Tiy’s claims were
preposterous, and yet Melandra did not wholly disbelieve them. Some
part of her wanted to co-operate and was curious about what else
Tiy had to say, while another was chained to the creed of the
Children of Lamech. If she gave in to what her instincts told her
was right, she might only be damning her own soul. She knew
Shemyaza was adept at seducing women. Seduction takes many forms
and not all of them involve the body.

Tiy shook her gently. ‘You know
what is right, Melandra. But you are afraid.’

‘She must learn about the
Chambers of Light,’ Shemyaza said.

‘Yes, my son,’ Tiy
answered.

Melandra threw back her head
and searched the sky. I need a sign. Please, God, give me a sign of
what is right…

Perhaps Shemyaza read her thoughts. The
doves were still flying around the garden, filling it with the
whirring music of their wings. He reached out and plucked one from
the air without even looking at it. This, he held out to
Melandra.

She stared at the bird, which
now lay quietly in his hands. Then she took it from him and looked
into his eyes. She had never held a bird before. It felt so
fragile, its small heart beating rapidly against her fingers. Words
rippled through her mind like a clear stream. His countenance is as
Lebanon, excellent as the cedars. His mouth is most sweet, yea, he
is altogether lovely…