Devil’s Kiss

25

‘Put him in my bed,’ said Elaine. Kay hung slumped between Billi and Arthur. He was heavier than he looked and Billi grunted as she finally dropped him on to the mattress. Arthur was sweating heavily, and favoured his left side.

‘How are those stitches holding up?’ asked Elaine. Arthur waved her off, but it was clear he was in pain. So she checked Kay again instead, inspecting his eyes, his mouth and ears. She’d removed most of the talismans off his body, and arranged them round the bed instead.

‘Is he OK?’ asked Billi. ‘He’s not, y’know, possessed or anything?’

‘If you’re wondering if his head’s going to rotate all round his neck…’ Elaine stepped away from the bed. ‘No, he’s not. Some rest and he’ll be fine. Have bad dreams, though, I wouldn’t wonder.’

They retreated into the lounge. Billi collapsed on to the sofa, sick and exhausted. Kay’d failed. She’d been so sure he’d do it. They all had been. But it had been too soon – it was the wrong time to have done it. She knew he’d feel that he’d failed the Order when he woke – she knew how that guilt felt. But it wasn’t Kay’s guilt to bear alone. They’d all blown it – big-time. And would he be strong enough to try again, in seven days’ time? She didn’t know. That’s assuming they had seven days.

What were they going to do? Spend the rest of their lives running? Hiding in different holes every night? Always looking over their shoulders for the Angel of Death? They only had their lives. Michael had all of eternity.

‘That’s it, then,’ said Arthur. ‘My own stupid fault.’

‘It’s not, Dad. You were right; we were wrong. We forced you into it.’

He laughed, not for long because he went pale and bent over, cramped. He hissed through gritted teeth as he straightened.

‘Forced me, did you? I just… hoped.’ He almost laughed again and Billi watched his face brighten. Arthur finding something funny – now that was a first. ‘Foolish. To have hope.’

Elaine put her hand on Arthur’s arm. Billi caught her look, one of deep concern.

At least it can’t get any worse, thought Billi.

Elaine pointed at Arthur’s chest. ‘Don’t be shy. Let’s have a look, then.’

‘It’s nothing,’ he said. He grinned, but it wasn’t pleasant. ‘Had worse.’

Elaine wasn’t having any of it. She got him to take off the dressing gown and lift off his sweatshirt.

Blood caked his stomach. The bandages were brown with encrusted blood and fresh scarlet wept through them, thin trails dribbling along his abdomen.

‘You stupid, stupid idiot,’ Elaine said. She jerked her thumb towards the cupboard. ‘Billi, get my kit. It’s at the bottom.’

The first-aid kit was military issue: full of bandages, morphine and needles. Elaine began cutting off the useless old bandages.

Billi winced as Elaine tore off the dressing.

Arthur scowled at her as she then popped the plastic sheath off the syringe needle. ‘No drugs.’

‘Martyr till the last,’ replied Elaine. ‘Shut up and lie down.’

Arthur ignored her and lifted himself up on to his elbows and summoned Billi nearer. ‘The others will be waiting. They’ve got to know the Binding’s failed. Don’t want them going off half-cocked thinking we’ve taken care of Michael.’

‘Leave her be, Art. The girl’s done enough.’

That’s right, I have. What right did he have ordering her about? Not her problem. Hadn’t she made that clear? She tried to get Kay to quit, and look what had happened to him. Billi checked the bedroom door. Maybe after this Kay would see sense and realize the Templars were just bad news all round.

But was there any ‘after’? Michael was slaying throughout the city. Arthur looked up at her, face feverish. He demanded her obedience and she wouldn’t give it. She wasn’t a Templar any more. He couldn’t order her around. But…

If this wasn’t her problem whose was it? She’d do it for herself, not them.

‘Waiting where, Dad?’

‘Southwark. At the cathedral.’ His voice urgent. ‘They’ll be there for matins.’

Then the needle went into his leg and he sank back into the sofa. Elaine spared a moment’s glance at Billi. She wanted to say something, Billi was sure of it. Instead Elaine bit her lip and set to work.

Five in the morning. It was five in the morning and matins was in an hour. The world was asleep, and here she was, again. Billi stared empty-eyed at the fog outside the window, willing herself to get up, get her coat on and get out.

She found an old racing bike in the back of the garage. The rust on the chain wasn’t too bad, and she dug up some spare batteries for the lights out of a toolbox on the shelf. Billi zipped up her jacket and pulled the hood down so only her eyes peered out.

The icy fog broke over her in ghostly waves and the night was silent but for the creaking pedals. Billi fell into a semi-conscious, mechanical daze, just letting her legs turn the wheels, focusing on the spot of hazy lamplight ahead of her. The black tarmac ran under her wheels as she made her way into the City of London.

Killing Time, that’s what the other Templars called the misty gap between the night and dawn. How many times had she lain half sleep in bed, listening for the front door to open and the clatter of her dad’s weapons on the kitchen table? Then the prayers and the muttered discussions of killing and murder?

The chain rattled off the gears and shook Billi out of her dreamy memories. It dangled loose on the ground. She stopped by the roadside and inspected her bike.

Bugger, bugger, bugger.

It had broken. No way to fix it. She looked around. Fleet Street. Southwark was still a couple of miles on.

She’d dump the broken bike and get the night bus. Billi patted her pocket, relieved she’d remembered her purse. She really couldn’t be bothered -

Laughter drifted out of the darkness and Billi’s blood froze. It was harsh, cruel and laced with malice. It echoed between the walls and through the grey mist.

‘Welcome home, Templar.’ The voice, a woman’s, seemed to come from behind Billi’s shoulder. She spun round. There was nothing. Another laugh, just as vicious.

They glided out of the darkness, first indistinct, hazy shaped, then forming the shape of two women – the shadow-wreathed sisters she’d first seen in the hospital. They stood just within the glow of the orange street light, each moving with a predator’s patience, eyes glowing with eagerness. The one that had broken herself at the bottom of the stairwell walked clickety-click with her imperfectly healed body, her left leg and part of her hip at right angles, her face still swollen and black. The mist hung in white tendrils around her long, slim limbs: a ghostly embrace.

Instinct took over, instinct and fear. Billi ran through the side alleys off Fleet Street, her feet guiding her south without any thought, running along bare, slippery cobblestones that echoed hard with her fleeting steps. The terror overcame any pain she felt.

She looked round, just for a moment.

Nothing.

Where are they?

She turned into Pump Court and there they were. The blank glass windows looked down at her like faceless spectators, and she saw the sisters part, one move behind to stop her backtracking, the other ahead of her.

Perfect hunters, forcing the prey to them.

Billi dodged left, then immediately spun right. She dived past the ghul, and felt hard, sharp nails slash through her sleeve, but she was too hot and too frightened to feel the bloody cuts. She ran through the cloisters with its low ceiling and white-painted rows of columns. She had only one driving thought.

Sanctuary.

She saw it, suddenly looming over her. Despite the fog, despite the darkness, the pale stone building with its tall, lofty, stained-glass windows and massive black doors seemed to hold the fog and darkness at bay. Temple Church. No Hungry Dead could profane a house of God. If she could reach it she would be safe.

Billi ran across the flagstone courtyard, sprinkled with pre-dawn frost. The two ghuls screamed, and she saw a blur of movement ahead.

Billi fell down the steps to the entrance. Iron-stiff fingers dug into her shoulders, but somehow she wrenched free.

Sanctuary! She stretched out to touch the broad, arched west door, her only hope. Suddenly she was jerked backwards. One of the sisters locked her fingers round Billi’s throat, hoisted her off the ground and her head pounded with trapped blood.

‘Sanctuary,’ Billi whispered, hands straining out, fingers fully stretched, their tips so tantalizingly close.

The church doors exploded outwards, hurled apart by a hurricane. Devastating white light consumed them and the sisters let out a hellish, banshee-high scream before being swept away by the brilliant roaring wave.

Billi crashed to the ground, paralysed by the brightness. The light wiped out everything around her and it carried thousands of voices, a deafening cry of rage. She curled into a ball, eyelids squeezed tight, fists covering her face, but she could not escape the light. It burned through her eyelids, searing her retinas.

And then it was gone.

She lay there, too terrified to move. Her head echoed with the sudden absence of noise, and it was a minute or two before she dared lower her hands and, slowly, open her tear-swollen eyes.

A door creaked on one hinge. The wood was warped and its surface coated with ash. Behind her jagged splinters had embedded themselves in the wall. Of the ghuls, nothing remained except dirty black smears where they had last stood. Inside, the church walls were streaked with soot, and the flagstones cracked and polished black, as though exposed to immense heat. Thousands of tiny pieces of burning paper, torn from the hymn books, floated in the air like sprites at a ball. Glass tinkled like a shower on to the stone. Every single window had been shattered, leaving jagged glass teeth sticking out of the stone. Thin columns of smoke spiralled off the smouldering remains of the pews, each now a deformed, ash skeleton.

But within this devastated, burnt-out shell, Billi saw someone.

Standing in the centre of the choir, alone and bright in the darkness, as though glowing from within, was a man. Billi squinted, narrowing her eyes because he shone so brightly, as though a star made human. But slowly he dimmed, his energy spent, and she gasped.

He could have been Michael’s twin. The same flawless, marble-chiselled features, the same thick, sensual lips. The only difference was the eyes: they were hidden behind black glasses. The smoke coalesced around him into a suit of dull black. He walked towards her, the floor hissing as his bare feet trod the polished superheated stone.

‘Hello,’ he said.

He had shone so bright, the brightest star.

The Morning Star.

‘Bloody hell,’ said Billi.

He smiled. ‘Exactly.’

Then the Devil reached out his hand and helped Billi up.