Stealing Sacred Fire (45 page)

‘Not so fast,’ Melandra
snapped, as if sensing he was going to break the connection.
‘Shemyaza wants you to wait for Penemue. He’ll be coming to the
church with you. Now, he can’t speak English, Cranton, so send
someone down to the lobby to wait for him. I’ll put him in a cab
and he’ll be with you within a quarter of an hour. Got that?’

‘All right,’ Daniel said. He
felt confused about this development. If Penemue was coming to
their hotel, why couldn’t Shem accompany him? What was he planning?
Daniel put down the phone with a frown on his face.

‘What is it?’ Salamiel
asked.

Daniel shrugged. ‘Penemue is
coming here.’

‘Alone?’

Daniel nodded. ‘Yes.
Apparently.’

Cairo,
Egypt

Helen and her mother walked the streets
of Old Babylon. Lily held her daughter’s right hand, although in
the other Helen carried the jar containing Met-Met. She had
insisted on bringing the scarab with her. ‘Why here, love?’ Lily
asked as they strolled down a winding, narrow street. All seemed
unusually quiet, as if they had stepped from the bustling chaos of
Cairo into an older time. This was a very ancient quarter of the
city, the last bastion of the Copts. Mosques were not so prevalent
here.

‘Met-Met has told me to come
here,’ Helen said, as if the fact was obvious.

‘But why?’ Lily looked around
herself. Would Shemyaza or Daniel step from around a corner? She
didn’t like this place; it spooked her.

‘Met-Met has a job for me,’
Helen said.

Lily glanced down at her
daughter. ‘Honey, who exactly is Met-Met? Why does he tell you to
do things?’

‘He’s my friend,’ Helen
answered. ‘I can’t see him, but I know he looks after me.’

‘Has he told you what this job
is that you have to do?’

Helen shook her head. ‘Not yet.
He’s just taking us somewhere.’

Helen could not tell her mother
how she sensed danger all around. Lily might want them to return to
their hotel if she knew about that. Helen was frightened, because
to her, the danger felt like a dense black smoke creeping down
every alley. These strands of darkness were converging on a single
point, and there, she knew, a wonderful brightness would be found.
The evil smoke wanted to extinguish this radiance. The light
belonged to her. She was part of it and must protect it.

‘It’ll be dark soon,’ Lily
said, her voice tense. ‘I think we should go back to the hotel. We
can continue this walk tomorrow.’

‘Not yet,’ said Helen in a
quiet, firm voice.

‘Well, here we are,’ Gadreel
said. The group stood before the entrance to St Menas. The church
door was situated at the bottom of a short flight of steps. There
was no garden around the building, not even a yard. The frontage
was unornamented, faced with yellow-painted plaster. Its only
external adornment was two pillars encrusted with blue mosaic
tiles, on either side of the narrow double doors. A decorated arch
curved above the lintel.

‘I expected something a little
more splendid,’ Pharmaros said lamely, voicing the thought in all
her companions’ minds.

Daniel led the way inside. The
church itself was cramped and lacked ostentation. Five black
pillars ran down each side of the narrow room, framing a simple
altar at the far end, below a leaded-glass window. The glass was
not coloured, but the coppery light of the sky outside lent an
orange hue to the panes. A statue stood to the left of the altar,
which upon inspection, the group discovered represented John the
Baptist. A statue of Mary riding a donkey, on the right of the
altar, was placed near to a high pulpit reached by a flight of
wooden steps. Two banks of plain dark wood pews flanked the narrow
aisle. The air smelled musty, of old, cheap frankincense. There
were no priests, and no worshippers. The place felt deserted.

‘Where is he?’ Pharmaros asked,
turning round in a slow circle.

‘Not here,’ Salamiel said
bleakly.

‘He will be,’ Daniel said. ‘Be
patient.’

Penemue sat down uneasily on
one of the pews. His large frame looked awkward in the narrow
seat.

Gadreel had gone to investigate
a cast-iron gate to the left of the altar. Her voice echoed
slightly. ‘There are steps here. This must be the crypt.’ She shook
the gate. ‘But it’s locked.’

Salamiel and Kashday joined her
at the gate and inspected the lock. They would need tools to break
it.

‘We can’t break in,’ Pharmaros
said. ‘Someone will hear us.’

‘There doesn’t seem to be
anyone around,’ Gadreel said.

Daniel sighed. ‘Just wait. Shem
will come and he will open the gate.’

Salamiel laughed coldly. ‘With the
power of his hands, no doubt.’ He went to sprawl on a pew at the
front of the church, with his feet up on the worn wood. ‘Shall we
sing a few hymns to get us in the mood?’

Daniel glanced at him sourly.
He sensed the tension in his companions. Pharmaros would be happier
fleeing the place; Gadreel was worried Shem would not come; Penemue
felt bewildered and nervous having recently been dumped by Shem
into twentieth century chaos; while Salamiel thought that what they
were doing was a waste of time. Only Kashday seemed confident and
calm. Daniel himself felt like a spring about to uncoil abruptly in
a confined space. He sensed danger, but not in the church. It was
outside, closing in.

Shemyaza and Melandra were
walking through Old Babylon, having recently got out of a taxi.
Both were dressed completely in black. Shemyaza’s hair shone with
white fire against his dark shirt. The sun had already begun to
sink, but darkness was about an hour away. Before they’d left their
lodgings, Shemyaza had given instructions to Tiy. ‘Go to the
Sphinx, mother, and use your inner eye to watch my progress through
the chambers.’

Tiy had nodded, but with some
reluctance. She’d frowned. ‘Something weighs heavily within you,’
she’d said. ‘Have strength, my son.’

Shem had nodded. ‘Yes.’

Outside, he had refused to
answer Melandra’s question as to why he had sent Tiy to the Sphinx.
‘She does her job,’ he’d said. ‘Just do yours. That’s all I
ask.’

‘But Giza will be heaving with
party-goers,’ Melandra had argued. ‘Is that any place to send an
old woman alone?’

Shemyaza had smiled to himself.
‘If I were you, I’d never let Tiy hear you say anything like
that.’

Now they walked along a street crowded
with people and animals and traffic. Dust hung heavily in the air
and the sunlight was almost orange. Melandra was sure she could
hear the throb of loud music from beyond the city. Bands had been
playing on the Giza plateau all day. Since they’d left their
lodgings, Melandra had sensed pursuit; faint at first, but now her
spine tingled with apprehension. ‘We are being followed,’ she
said.

Shemyaza nodded. ‘Keep
alert.’

‘It could be other operatives
of the Children of Lamech.’ Would she have to protect them from
someone she already knew?

Shemyaza shook his head. ‘No.
It is the Brethren of the Black Sun.’

Melandra had her weapon ready
in her bag. She could almost imagine it was alive, eager to claim
lives. She felt as if she was walking through a dream. The one she
had been sent to kill, whom she’d been told was evil incarnate,
walked beside her. He had been a strange companion, distant and
silent, brooding upon his destiny. Lately, when he talked, it
sounded as if he was uttering the lines from some ancient tragedy.
Melandra no longer doubted that he spoke the truth, mainly because
of the cordial yet respectful way he acted towards her, and the
obvious torment that sometimes smoked from his eyes. She could
still not totally disassociate him with the image of Christ, and
even now, walking through the antique streets of the oldest part of
the city, she felt as if her feet were leading her to Gethsemane.
Her feelings were torn. A faint voice from the past, deep within
her, questioned her switch of alliance, yet her heart was filled
with sympathy for this tall, charismatic man. He seemed so sad,
bringing recollections to her of the feelings she had picked up
when handling her crucifix at home.

Shemyaza suddenly stopped dead
and winced.

‘What is it?’ she asked.

He shook his head. ‘They are so… dark.’
His face had assumed an expression of pain. ‘Keep moving. The
sacred gate is ahead. It was built by a Grigori family many
centuries ago and will be a refuge for us.’

An electric shudder coursed up
Melandra’s spine. She could sense the black presences behind them,
drawing ever closer. Without her even realising it, the street had
become deserted. Their foot-steps echoed, perhaps smothering the
sound of pursuit. A strange, ground-hugging mist had begun to seep
from every shadowed side alley; perhaps a natural phenomenon from
the gullies and culverts of the city’s water system. Melandra did
not like it, unable to dispel the suspicion that the people
following them had conjured the mist as concealment. For a moment,
she was filled with doubt. If their pursuers were as terrible as
Tiy and Shemyaza had intimated, would a gun be enough to deter
them?

There was a wide archway ahead,
which spanned the street. It had perhaps once been part of another
structure, which had long vanished. Its granite blocks were
corroded with age, but there was something imposing about it,
something both watchful and meaningful. Melandra and Shemyaza had
increased their pace. Melandra felt that if they could just pass
beneath the arch, they would be safe. It was an irrational feeling.
They were so close now, only feet away. The sun had nearly left the
sky.

Then, a tall, dark figure
stepped from beneath the shadow of the arch. Shemyaza drew in his
breath sharply. Melandra reached for her weapon. There was no doubt
in her mind that the person ahead of them represented a severe
threat. He was dressed in a long, black leather coat, his short,
fair hair swept back from his brow, his face forbidding and
emotionless. Melandra shuddered: he looked like a crazed Nazi from
an old war movie.

The man made a movement with
his hand that suggested he was about to throw something. Melandra
reacted quickly and a shot rang out into the twilight. The man
uttered a grunt and crumpled forward.

Good shot, girl, Melandra
thought to herself. Her self-congratulation was short-lived.

Tall figures were melting out
of the shadows on every side, all dressed similarly to the man she
had shot. Melandra raised her weapon again, but one of the Brethren
flung out his hand. It seemed a bolt of mercurial silver light shot
towards her. It struck the gun from her hand. She glanced down and,
at her feet, saw a shining silver disk, almost like a CD, but
carved with strange, curling patterns. At once, Melandra leapt
forward, kicking high. She was trained in half a dozen disciplines
of Oriental martial arts. Her body adjusted to the habitual
movements, so that she flew with fluid grace towards their
assailants. Her training took over. Her feet met solid flesh. Her
arms, anticipating every move against her, deflected blows. She
felt invulnerable, unconquerable, fulfilling her role as she had
been schooled to do,

But then, another of the Dark
Brethren threw one of the disks towards her. She could see it
coming, shining, shimmering, as if in slow motion. She felt the
impact of it, which brought immediate stinging pain. Melandra
glanced at her wrist and, in horror, saw that she was bleeding
profusely. She clamped her left hand over the wound in an attempt
to stem the flow, but it was too deep; the bone laid bare. A quick
glance around the street advised her that she and Shemyaza were now
surrounded by tall, dark shapes, clad in black leather. Her whole
body weakened. They were as good as dead. She had failed him.

‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered.
Shemyaza, now standing close behind her, did not answer.

One of their pursuers stepped
towards them. His face was as severe as if it was fashioned from
painted iron; his eyes were the blue of new steel. ‘Peverel
Othman,’ he said in a clear, toneless voice.

Shemyaza’s body tensed. ‘You know who I
am,’ he said. ‘As I know you: Prometheus.’

The man’s cold, handsome face
cracked into a smile. ‘So, you know one of my names. I am
impressed.’

‘You must let me pass,
Prometheus. Do not attempt to obstruct me.’

The other laughed. ‘Alas, we
cannot allow you to go any further.’ His smile faded. ‘We tolerated
Othman, because he was just a directionless mass of havoc energy —
quite entertaining. We were prepared to tolerate Shemyaza too, as
long as he remained an icon of worship within the Masonic halls of
minor, Grigori cabals. But now it appears you want to change
things. We are intrigued as to how you intend to do this.’

Shemyaza spoke monotonously, as
if he was reciting lines from an ancient text. ‘I have come to the
land of my ancestors to put wrong to right. I will open up the
Chambers of Light and return to the source of our creation.’

The leader of the Black Sun
laughed coldly. ‘How commendable! And just how will you accomplish
these things, Anakim? Do you intend to offer a sacrifice, through
blood and the fires of hell?’

‘My offering is love,’ Shemyaza
answered stonily.

His adversary pantomimed
exaggerated concern. ‘Indeed? Then it seems we really do have a
problem. Loving and killing: it’s all the same. They both initiate
change, and we don’t want change to occur. Let’s just say we like
the world as it is.’ He raised a hand.

Shemyaza said no more, as if
resigned to whatever would happen next. Melandra, dazed beside him,
wondered why he had revealed his purpose to these soulless
creatures. Couldn’t he summon his own power now and destroy his
adversaries?