Daniel thought, Do I want this branch of fire? Will it change me? But he submitted his will to the tide of his blood. There were no visions before his eyes, no shifts of awareness, just the animal thrust of masculinity.
Afterwards, he got up and went to stand in the window. It overlooked the garden, which led to the sea. Behind him, he heard Taziel light a cigarette, inhale deeply. ‘What time is it?’ Daniel asked.
He heard Taziel pick up his watch from the bedside table. ‘Two, twenty-five. Why?’
‘No reason.’
Taziel was silent for a moment, then said. ‘You have begun the countdown haven’t you. At two twenty-six, in three days’ time, you will be at his door.’
Daniel shivered, but said nothing.
‘He was in you earlier, wasn’t he,’ Taziel said. ‘That wasn’t you. It was him. You disgust me.’
Daniel turned then. ‘You’re very selfish. I have work to do. Why should that mean our friendship is over? Can’t you wait three days?’
Taziel stared at him, took a few long draws off the cigarette, then said resignedly. ‘He won’t let you come back to me. If you think otherwise, you’re deluding yourself.’
Daniel didn’t recognise the gruff, aggressive voice that burst out of his mouth. ‘If I don’t come back to you, it’ll be my own choice! OK?’
Taziel’s eyes had widened slightly. Daniel didn’t often sound harsh or raise his voice. ‘Come back to me now,’ he said quietly.
Daniel shook his head. ‘No. I can’t. If you have any respect for me, you’ll stand by me now, not drive me away.’
‘Respect you?’ Taziel laughed bitterly. ‘Daniel, I love you.’
‘Don’t say that!’ Daniel turned away, leaned on the windowsill. ‘You hardly know me. Don’t bind me with words!’
‘You are human,’ Taziel said coldly. ‘Only that. Why the hell should I tell a mere human I love it, unless I mean what I say?’
Daniel did not respond but dressed himself quickly. Taziel tried to stop him as he left the room, and called him back, but Daniel kept on walking. He went out into the garden through the French windows in the drawing room where he’d spent the dregs of the previous night. Outside the night was alive with elemental presences that tumbled in the wind and the salt perfume of the sea. Spectral fingers plucked at his hair, half-heard laughter tickled his ears. Daniel stood upon the wet lawn and took several deep breaths. He felt angry and confused, and it manifested as a desire to hit out at something. I am a man, he thought. Oh God, it is vile!
Chapter Eighteen
Casting the Stones
Sofia, Lily decided, was a person-eater. Not just a man-eater, although she’d undoubtedly gnawed a few masculine bones in her time. She was also a liar. Lily was intrigued by her, but also wary and a little frightened.
At dinner, Lily sat across from Sofia, who rested her elbows on the table, her raised white hands drooping before her, like the paws of a praying mantis, in mid-air. In fact, she was much like a praying mantis all over. The triangular head, the large eyes, the long, thin body, the general air of watchful hunger. Lily wanted to ask her about Shem, but kept her mouth shut in case anything was asked of her in return. She had a feeling Sofia would utter very personal and embarrassing questions. So the three of them sat and made painful small talk.
Lily was intrigued by the relationship between Sofia and Salamiel. They started off amicably enough, but halfway through the first course, Sofia became waspish with him. First, she complained about the temperature of the soup. When the fish arrived, she pulled a sour face after her first sip of wine and made disparaging comments about Salamiel’s knowledge and tastes. The fish she dissected carefully but refused to eat. Her silence on its texture and appearance were eloquent enough to reveal her opinions. By the time the meat arrived at the table, Lily was squirming in discomfort. Sofia felt that Salamiel’s cook had murdered the meat. Why had she been so foolish as to waste it on him?
Lily thought everything about the meal was fine, which perhaps only revealed her ignorance about food. She wasn’t used to eating well. It amazed her how Salamiel was not offended by Sofia’s moaning. Mid-way through one of Sofia’s caustic diatribes, while she poked at the tender lamb with her fork, Salamiel caught Lily’s eye and winked. Lily smiled back at him, puzzled by the warmth that his private gesture had kindled within her. He was a strange, confusing creature. Last night, he had terrified her, as commander of an army of ghouls. Not only had he apparently condoned the murder of Johcasta and Israel, and perhaps other residents of the Assembly Rooms, he had also kidnapped her and Owen. He’d spoken vaguely of saving them from the clutches of the ‘other’ Grigori, and keeping them safe for Shem, but Lily wondered whether he had other motives as well. She thought she should mistrust and despise him, treat him, in fact, in the same way Sofia did, but that would not be a natural reaction. Neither, she had to admit, did she possess the skill. Today, he had shown her a vulnerable side, which she’d lapped up, and as a result had spoken to him far too candidly. She felt annoyed with herself for being so open, so ready to give him the benefit of the doubt.
Earlier that day, after Lily’s bath in Salamiel’s private rooms, he had given her the clothes that Nina had gone out to buy. Thankfully, the plain black leggings and thick jumpers were far more to her taste than the hideous evening gown she’d be obliged to wear later on. Then Salamiel had shown her around Pharos, leading her through high, echoing rooms with bare stone walls, long galleries where dim paintings hung, and out to his conservatory of forced lush greenery and unseasonal heat. The house was stuffed with ancient artefacts; statues, books, talismans. As they walked, Salamiel told her stories about how he’d acquired some of his possessions. He had unearthed the strange, elongated stone head that sat on a polished marble plinth from a desert tomb: he had bartered in a bazaar in a Middle Eastern land for the worn statuette of a goddess, which now resided on top of a bookcase. Masks of the Watchers adorned the walls; attenuated features and slitted eyes.
‘You have travelled a lot,’ said Lily, thinking of Peverel Othman.
He nodded. ‘Yes. I had a lot of catching up to do. The world has changed so much.’ If Salamiel really had walked the earth in the days of Enoch and Noah, this understatement seemed farcical.
‘Surprising you didn’t run into Pev somewhere.’ She smiled. ‘That is Azazel.’
Salamiel smiled bleakly. ‘I would have known if I had.’
Lily glanced at him as they walked into the conservatory. She tried to imagine him desiccated and inanimate, buried for thousands of years, beneath a ton of rocks in the earth. He seemed far too sane, too whole and too youthful for that to be true. He was certainly not ordinary, but then he was Grigori, so that was inevitable, but Lily found herself wondering whether his story was genuine. Perhaps he only wanted it to be. A sad chord sounded in her heart. She felt sorry for him. He seemed at once lonely and deluded, waiting for the saviour he called Azazel. Lily felt Shem would only laugh at him. No, she thought bitterly. He’ll seduce him, then laugh.
Now, as he dealt graciously with Sofia’s complaints at the dinner table, he seemed world-weary and ancient, but it was not evident from his appearance. It was something indefinable, perhaps archaic, in his manner. Damn, Lily thought. I’m getting too interested. He was attractive, as all Grigori were attractive to her. She felt angry with herself about this. The surface meant nothing. What was underneath that perfect face and body might be horrifying. She had only to think of Peverel Othman to realise that.
After dinner, they returned to the drawing room. Salamiel opened a bottle of red wine, which of course Sofia detested. Lily thought it was wonderful, being used to supermarket plonk. Still no mention had been made of why she was there, or of Shem. After one glass of the wine, which warmly accentuated the effects of the alcohol consumed at table, Lily decided to say something herself.
‘I’d like to talk about what I’m doing here.’
Her remark silenced Sofia, and Lily was immediately
scared. Sofia’s face changed, as if she’d removed a mask. This was no twittering, silly female, but a creature of passionless power. Lily wished she’d kept her mouth shut.
‘My dear, you are here because you belong to Azazel. Soon he will be with us and you must be here waiting for him.’
‘I don’t belong to anyone,’ Lily said lamely. She glanced at Salamiel in appeal, but he was staring into his wine glass, slumped in his chair, his long legs stretched out before him, crossed at the ankles. She was disheartened by his lack of support.
Sofia laughed, but it was not the infuriating trilling with which she’d punctuated the meal. This was a low, cruel sound. ‘You are his, Lily Winter. You know it. I know it. Why deny this ultimate truth?’
Lily blushed. She wanted to say, ‘Shem does not believe in ultimate truth’, but knew Sofia would only have a response to her remark which she could not counter. ‘What are you going to do with him?’ she asked.
‘Help him rediscover his destiny,’ Sofia answered, almost casually. She took a sip of wine, grimaced, and pointedly put down her glass on an occasional table. ‘He will need you for this.’
Lily scratched her left ear, uncomfortable. She had visions of herself spread out on a slab in the cellar, Shemyaza transformed into a demon, fucking her life away. She thought of Daniel, and experienced a pang of love and need. She needed to divert the conversation. ‘You’ve seen him, haven’t you?’
Sofia paused for a moment before answering. ‘Yes. You are a very fortunate young woman.’
A thought passed through Lily’s mind. I don’t want him to rediscover his power. It will be terrible. He’ll become something hideous, like the ultimate weapon. She heard Sofia laugh softly.
‘You are so transparent, my dear, and so innocent. You must learn to take hold of the shadows and command them. You must learn about your own power too.’ She gestured with one hand. ‘Why be frightened? Don’t you feel the presence of Ishtahar within you?’
Lily glanced up at Sofia and couldn’t help saying, ‘You know about her?’ which seemed ridiculous. Anyone with knowledge of Grigori history knew about Ishtahar.
‘I know about what happened in Little Moor,’ Sofia said. ‘And that Ishtahar used you as a channel.’
Lily shook her head. ‘No, it wasn’t like that. She was just... there.’
‘Wrong,’ said Sofia. ‘You simply don’t understand what happened. Your presence enabled Ishtahar to manifest and speak to Azazel. We need that influence here too, and you will provide it.’
Anger shivered through Lily’s body and she spoke without thinking. ‘No! Ishtahar has no place here with you! She is absolute love and serenity. She is nothing like you, nothing like Azazel. She loves Shem, not the thing you want him to be!’
Sofia raised her eyebrows. ‘Poor child,’ she said, turning to Salamiel. ‘She simply cannot understand that Ishtahar is a sexual influence, who can lead the beast from the labyrinth.’ She looked back at Lily. ‘Ishtahar was a manifestation of the Maiden, whose filmy veils fan the fires of masculine desire. Azazel will smell her sex and be drawn by it.’
‘That’s disgusting!’ Lily said, but a part of her understood exactly what Sofia meant. She remembered Peverel Othman coming to her cottage in Little Moor, the way his eyes had seemed to stroke her flesh, reach right into her and take hold of her artless lust. She remembered the smell of him, the feel of his warm skin against hers, his hair like a banner across her thighs as his serpent tongue teased the most secret parts of her. A tingling sensation ignited between her legs. Sofia could sense it too. Lily hung her head so her hair covered her face. She wanted to weep with shame, yet at the same time was possessed by a longing to run from the house, into the wild winter elements outside. She wanted to scream with rapture and leap into the air. He was coming to her...
Sofia reached out and patted Lily’s knotted hands. ‘You must relax, my dear.’ She stood up. ‘I must be off now, Sal. I have a desire to take a glass of good wine before bedtime and I’ll not get that here.’
Lily sat with a numb, blank mind while Salamiel escorted Sofia to the front door. When he returned, he began to speak to her, but Lily interrupted him.
‘I don’t want to talk about it. Please, take me to Owen. I want to go to bed.’
Salamiel looked rather disapproving but slowly nodded. ‘As you wish. Can you remember where the room is?’
‘No.’ Lily stood up. She felt very drunk now, and slightly sick.
‘Then I’ll show you. Come.’ Salamiel offered her his arm.
The stairs seemed like a dark, threatening void ahead of them, the hall far too cavernous and draughty. They passed into the shadows, beyond the inadequate pools of light in the hall, and the chandelier overhead tinkled in a spectral breeze. Lily shivered, her fingers hooked as lightly as possible through Salamiel’s elbow. As they mounted the stairs, he said to her, ‘Sofia has frightened you.’
‘I said I didn’t want to...’
‘Hush!’ Salamiel interrupted. ‘I’m not going to talk about it at length, but there are a couple of things you must know. Don’t be frightened. No harm will come to you. You are worried that Sofia and I want to shape Azazel into a dark god, but that’s not so. I know him better than Sofia.’
Lily made a disgruntled noise. She sensed a sub-text to Salamiel’s words, which suggested his ideas and Sofia’s were perhaps not in accord. ‘I don’t trust you,’ she said. ‘You have to earn that.’
‘And maybe there are things you have to earn as well,’ he answered.
Lily realised he felt offended. They continued their walk to the bedroom in silence, through the shadows of the house.
Once in the room, Lily wished she hadn’t suggested sleeping with Owen. He was still sitting upright in the bed, staring at the door, clearly not seeing anything at all. Two lamps burned dimly in the room, and Owen’s skin seemed shockingly white against the darkness of the wooden headboard.
Salamiel, perhaps sensing Lily’s feelings and deciding she needed to be punished in some way, said goodnight curtly and left the room. Lily stood against the carved panels of the door, looking at her brother. She could not bear the thought of lying beside him, while he sat there staring. Yet it would be worse if he made some movement or looked at her. Owen was not himself any more. She dreaded to think what he might be.
There was a wide window-seat, upholstered as a couch, and it was here that Lily spent the night. She removed the thick top quilt from the bed, her stomach turning over as Owen’s dead white hands moved bonelessly against it, and wrapped herself up in it, fully dressed. She could not face turning out the lights, but shuffled over to the window-seat and lay down. The wind howled close to her ear, and she was afraid that if she paid too much attention she would hear words in it. She pulled the quilt over her head, creating a hot but uncomfortable nest for herself. Then she started having disturbing thoughts about how, now that her head was covered, Owen had turned his face towards her, his eyes burning. He had become the creature that had raped Daniel at the High Place and was getting out of the bed, padding towards her on silent feet, getting ready to rip the quilt from her back and... She threw back the quilt and looked at Owen in terror, but he hadn’t moved. Her sleep, that night, was fragmented, and tortured by fleeting nightmares.
Chapter Nineteen
Learning to Fly
Daniel wrote a note for Shem in the afternoon of the third day. Austin delivered it to Shem’s room, and waited to see if there would be a reply. Shem laughed as he read the note, and shook his head. ‘No reply. I don’t believe one is needed.’ The note consisted of two short sentences. ‘2.26 a.m. Be awake.’
Shem did not eat after two in the afternoon. When night fell, he moved all the furniture in his room out to the edges and created a circle for himself in the centre. Austin had brought him two packets of white candles and two dozen candlesticks. ‘Tonight, I have a visitor,’ Shem explained. ‘I want romantic light.’ He did not think it would be a good idea to advertise to Ennie
l that he planned some magical work. After Austin had left, Shem ran himself a bath, to which he added a palmful of salt from the cellar on his supper tray. After bathing, he dried his hair and dressed himself in a loose towelling robe. Then he arranged the candlesticks around the room. They were all of different shapes and sizes, made of glass and wood and metal. Some were very ancient and had clearly been used in magical rites before. Shem allowed himself the shivering light of a single candle, but left the others unlit.
Daniel and he must begin work immediately the boy arrived. First, they would have to track down Lily and Owen. After that, Daniel would have to concentrate on what this Sofia woman really wanted, and whether the Parzupheim had any hidden agenda. Then, they must think about what to do next. Tomorrow, he would put Emma out of her misery and summon her to him, but first he had to speak to Daniel. Shem moved his untouched supper tray onto the dressing table. Later, he might need to eat.
The hours ticked by, each stretched to its limit. Shem listened to the movements of the house, the faint voices. He heard the lights click off, one by one. People paused beyond his door, wondering. He could sense their thoughts. One was angry, another curious, a third leaden with sadness. He heard Emma’s breath outside, but she did not knock or call to him. The house sensed something was to happen this night and its tension affected its inhabitants.
At eleven o’clock, Enniel walked into the room without knocking. Shem wished he’d been able to lock the door, but he didn’t intend to move from the centre of his circle when Daniel arrived.
‘What are you doing?’ Enniel asked, his face bland.
Shem was sitting cross-legged on the floor within the ring of unlit candles. ‘What you want me to do.’
‘Which is?’
‘Concentrating upon my new form, getting to know it. The day after tomorrow I shall meet with your colleagues, if you’re agreeable.’
Enniel’s face softened. ‘That is good news. I shall call them tonight.’