Devil’s Kiss

27

‘No!’ What else could she say?

‘Are you sure? Don’t you want to save the firstborn?’ The Devil raised an eyebrow. ‘Or Kay? Doesn’t he deserve to be saved?’ He wrapped his hand round hers and tightened his grip, squeezing her fingers against the sword hilt. ‘If positions were reversed do you think Arthur would hesitate?’

She wanted to say yes, her dad wouldn’t choose duty over his daughter, but the words refused to come out. She remembered Michael’s words – and how he’d brought the Templar Sword down on her arm. Arthur had done nothing.

Her life, or the life of every firstborn.

That would be no choice at all, for him.

‘That’s right.’ The Devil lifted her hand, raising the blade. Billi pushed with all her strength, but she couldn’t fight him. The weapon’s edge brushed her neck. The slightest pressure and it would open her throat wide. ‘He wouldn’t pause for a moment, would he?’ He released her.

Billi stood at the doorway, looking up at the bare bulb at the top of the narrow flight of steps. The fog around her rolled into the doorway, eddies of mist turning slowly in the entrance.

‘No.’ She couldn’t. Maybe her dad would choose duty over her. But she wasn’t like him. She may hate him, but if she wasn’t a Templar she certainly wasn’t an assassin. ‘Why d’you want him dead?’

‘They say that I am afraid of Arthur SanGreal. They are right.’ The Devil took off his glasses. His eyes…

He had none. Blood encrusted the edge of his sockets; the lids were wrinkled and curled back, revealing two empty dark holes. He gripped her cheeks and pulled her so their faces were a few centimetres apart. ‘That’s because I’ve finally met a mortal more ruthless than I. ’ He gestured to the empty sockets. ‘Your father’s work.’

She wanted to look away, but she couldn’t help herself. Staring into them she saw endless darkness, an abyss. The more Billi gazed into them the more she felt she’d fall, fall forever.

‘I was summoned, years ago, by a bishop, who thought he could command me. But as I appeared the Templars intervened.’ He put his fingers in the two holes. ‘Coming out of the Ethereal Realm into this world of clay isn’t easy, and isn’t gentle. Tearing through the caul of reality takes immense effort and we arrive weak, disorientated. Otherwise your father could not have done what he did.’

That was how the Templars had got the copy of the Goetia. From this bishop. ‘So you killed the priest?’

‘I? Not I, SanGreal.’ He pushed the glasses back. ‘It was Arthur that punished the poor man.’ Billi’s reflection shone in the dark lens. ‘And his passing was not gentle.’

Billi dropped the Silver Sword and it clattered on the cold stone. ‘Kill him yourself,’ she said.

The two of them held fast, Billi pressed against the wall and the Devil hard against her. He slowly released her, leaving a row of bloody nail marks along her cheeks. He dipped his finger into his mouth. ‘Do you know what went through your mother’s mind as she lay bleeding to death in the hallway? Alone and abandoned? She realized, sooner or later, that would be you.’ He smiled cruelly. ‘You shall keep the company of martyrs. Isn’t that the fate of all Templars?’

‘But I’m not a Templar.’

The Devil laughed. ‘Do you really believe you have any choice?’

Did she? She’d quit and yet here she was, doing her father’s will.

He would never let her be free. She had to free herself.

Billi reached for the sword.

‘No, not with that. You must find your own way to do this. Leave it here until it’s done.’

Billi went up the stairs.

She unlocked the door and entered the lounge. She’d thought they’d stay up, but Elaine was slouched on the sofa, snoring. The table lamp was on and a copy of a book, The Talisman, lay open on her lap. Billi crept past her and took a knife from the kitchen drawer. It was a narrow-bladed skinning knife, stiff and softly curved. It would slip between ribs easily.

An assassin’s weapon, that’s what Percy would have called it. He’d hated knives because they could be hidden in a smile. He’d said the assassins killed as they embraced their victims.

Billi entered the bedroom.

The curtains fluttered in the breeze; her dad never completely closed his window, not even when it was snowing outside. Just enough light slipped through the gap to see he was asleep. Lying on his back, the blankets lay half hanging off the bed, his upper torso covered in fresh white bandages. Old thin scars decorated his chest. He’d been fighting his entire life, first in the Royal Marines, and then as a Templar. He’d survived all those battles, all those midnight Ordeals with ghuls, werewolves, ghosts, demons.

The Unholy rightly feared him.

Moonlight caught the long sharp edge of her knife. Any chest wound deeper than seven centimetres was fatal; Billi had ten.

‘Jamila?’

She froze as he whispered her mum’s name. Did he miss her so much that even now, instead of seeing her, he saw first his dead wife? Was Billi always going to come a poor second to a ghost? He loved death, not her. Arthur’s head shifted as he rose and leaned against the wooden headboard and his face fell into a shaft of moonlight. His eyes were red-rimmed, still dilated from the morphine, but they came into focus. ‘Billi,’ he grunted. ‘I thought it was… never mind.’

Then he saw the knife.

His gaze stayed on the weapon, like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Perhaps his brain just couldn’t register it.

Assassin.

The best assassins were loved by their victims, until it was too late. How else could you get close to your target unless they trusted you? Unless they loved you?

How else could you kill Arthur SanGreal?

One life against thousands. It was one life against hundreds of thousands. The Devil was right: if their positions were reversed Arthur wouldn’t hesitate.

Slowly he raised his gaze until those blue eyes of his met her black orbs. His cheeks creased ever so slightly and the wrinkles around his eyes bunched up. He smiled at her. ‘I understand,’ he said. He looked down at his chest, then turned his face towards the light through the window. And waited.

Billi stood beside the bed, her heart pounding so hard she could hear it. Sweat coated her back. She’d only walked a few steps, but her legs quivered with effort. Only her hand was steady. She closed her eyes. She thought about Rebecca Williamson, dying alone and afraid. Like her mother. Like he would, one day, let her die.

One life against all the firstborn.

Her dad’s life.

She slammed the knife forward.