Scenting Hallowed Blood by Storm Constantine Page B

be
mine!’ Sacrifice, desire, lust and sin; Othman’s heady cocktail of
subtle demands. Daniel insisted that the dark presence of Peverel
Othman was gone now, although Lily was not convinced of that. She
had tried to talk to Emma, who simply told her that everything
would sort itself out in its own time, but Lily could not stand
seeing Owen as he was now. Avoiding the sight of him, she spent as
much time as possible in the company of the other Grigori in the
Rooms. Sometimes she wished Shem and the others would leave, so she
could stay behind with her new friends. She could imagine herself
drifting into their lifestyle so that her past life would become a
blur in her mind. She wanted to sit all day and do things like
Naomi and Johcasta did, hiding away from the world, half-existing,
but safe.
    One day, after she’d been in
the Rooms for about two weeks, Israel asked her about her
companions. They were walking down a dusty gallery, where lighter
spaces on the yellowy walls showed where paintings had once hung.
The windows that ran down one side, and overlooked the square, were
cracked in the corners and dusty. When the wind blew, they
rattled.
    Israel padded light-footed
beside her, taller than Lily by over a foot. ‘What are you doing
here?’ he enquired. His voice, like his body, was dark and
velvety.
    Lily shrugged. She wasn’t
surprised at the question, only at how long it had taken someone to
ask it. ‘We have nowhere to go.’
    Israel sighed. ‘Such is often
the case. The Grigori, Shem, is your father? And the woman, Emma,
your mother?’
    ‘That’s right,’ Lily lied. She
thought it best to.
    ‘Dangerous,’ said Israel, ‘the
mating of one kind with another. It is why you are estranged, of
course.’
    ‘I expect so,’ Lily answered.
‘We lived in one place for a while, but it became...
difficult.’
    Israel frowned. ‘The human boy,
Daniel, is your half-brother?’
    Lily thought it was all getting
too convenient, so decided to tell a little truth, to lend
authenticity to her story. ‘No, he was, is, my brother’s
lover.’
    ‘Your brother is unwell.’
    ‘Yes,’ said Lily. She hoped
Israel wouldn’t ask what his illness entailed. ‘I don’t know what
we’re going to do,’ she said quickly, if a little lamely. ‘We can’t
stay here for ever.’
    ‘Your father is in trouble.’
Israel smiled widely. ‘Otherwise you wouldn’t be here.’
    Lily grinned awkwardly, but did
not answer. ‘I would like to stay here,’ she said, ‘but not with my
family.’
    Israel didn’t know who Shem was
or what he represented. If she came out with the truth and said,
‘He is Shemyaza, the Shemyaza,’ Israel would laugh, and
believe Shem’s guardians had only called him that as a child
because it was a powerful name. Many Grigori were named after the
fallen ones. She had learned that her own father had possessed such
a name: Kashday. She had never met him, nor had any hope of doing
so. She presumed he was dead, perhaps reunited with her mother, a
woman who had dared to love an angel.
    In Little Moor, Lily had
thought she was in love with Peverel Othman, only now the infection
had left her. She felt empty of love, dried out; free but somehow
melancholy because of it. Shem was beautiful, the ultimate
desirable object, yet she could not love him. Whatever he was now,
she knew too much of his past, the killing, the deceit and
corruption. She could not feel sorry for Shemyaza now. He had made
himself in his own image, a warped and bitter reflection. Daniel
believed Shemyaza was some kind of messiah, but Lily could not
share that belief. She admired Daniel’s courage and tenacity, his
determination to push and bully Shemyaza into caring about
the world and his as yet unspecified destiny, but ultimately, she
thought Daniel was wasting his time. If Shemyaza was so powerful,
why didn’t he do something about Owen?
    It was only a short time ago
that Lily and Owen had learned the truth about what they were,