Devil’s Kiss

28

The knife stood jammed in the headboard.

Arthur looked up at her. Tears lined his weather-beaten cheeks.

The door crashed open and the light came on. Billi blinked in the sudden brightness. Elaine stood bracing the doorframe. Her hair was as wild as a witch’s and she stared at them, then at the knife a few centimetres beside Arthur. Her mouth hung open, then clamped into a furious grimace. ‘Tell her, Arthur! Tell her!’ she hissed through her gritted yellow teeth. She then straightened her baggy pyjamas and slammed the door shut as she stormed off.

‘Oh God.’ Billi stepped away from the bed, her entire body trembling. She stared at the bright blade quivering in the wood. ‘What? What, Dad?’

Arthur straightened up. ‘I’m sorry, Billi. I’m sorry about all of this. I just wish there’d been another way. But you couldn’t know. It was Kay.’

Suddenly it seemed so hard to breathe. Arthur took a deep breath, then spoke. ‘Kay said this night would come.’ He took hold of her hand; it was the only way to stop it shaking. ‘He prophesised you would kill me.’

Billi shook her head wildly. ‘No, Kay doesn’t have that power. He said so himself.’ Telekinesis, telepathy, aura-reading, all the extra-sensory perceptions, but not this; he couldn’t see into the future.

‘She will sacrifice the one she loves to save them. That was what Kay said, back when we first found him.’ His voice was just above a whisper. He’d kept the secret so long he could barely speak it. ‘Those fits he used to have, they were visions. We didn’t understand at first. But this one kept coming back.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘I couldn’t, sweetheart. I couldn’t.’

Sweetheart? The word seemed so wrong coming from him. Arthur looked at her, imploring, his face pale and bloodless in the moon-glow. It looked like the face of a dead man. He continued.

‘Kay knew something was coming, something terrible. And he knew only you could stop it.’ He struggled out of bed and leaned heavily against the bedpost. ‘But I would have to die.’

Oh my God. Of course. All to try to stop the tenth plague.

‘That’s why I’ve trained you the way I have, Billi. I had to. D’you think I’d wish this life on anyone, most of all you?’

Kay had tried to tell her. You’re wrong about your father. He knew, he could see, Arthur did love her.

‘But I couldn’t let it show how much it hurt being… cruel. I had to harden your heart. Towards me. Make you ruthless enough to do what was necessary.’

It was sick.

‘So I’d kill you when I had to.’ Billi closed her eyes; her head spun with all this. Her dad had brought her up to kill him. And the other Templars, even Percy, they must have known. She’d been lied to by everybody all her life.

‘Say something, Billi.’

‘Jesus, I never knew how completely insane you were, until now.’ She backed towards the door. She felt trapped and suffocated. ‘You sick, sick bastard! How could you have done this to me?’

Kay opened the door. His hair was tangled, half covering his face, and he looked more dead than her dad. He tried to say something, but instead just stared at the pair of them with bewildered fear. Billi turned on him.

‘And Kay? Did Kay know?’

Arthur shook his head. ‘No. Those visions were driving him beyond madness. Elaine worked endlessly to draw him back. But the power of prophecy was lost.’

She covered her face, not able to cry, not able to scream; trapped between hate and pity. Arthur went to wrap his arms round her.

‘Don’t you touch me.’

He lowered his hands and backed away.

Lies, lies, lies.

The Knights Templar.

Bastards.

They migrated into the lounge. Elaine had pulled the curtains back, letting in the grey pre-dawn light. Arthur shuffled in behind her and Kay just stared.

She should be exhausted, but the trembling energies from the Silver Sword still surged through her, settled deep in the marrow of her bones.

‘Tell me, from the beginning,’ said Arthur.

Billi stared at them. There was a subtle change in each of their faces. Her father looked almost softly at her. The burden of his secret gone, she could see a lightness, only a slight lightness, but something new instead of that mask of iron. But Billi’s fury still bubbled. She couldn’t forgive him for the way he’d treated her. The way they’d all treated her.

Kay, still weak from the ritual, leaned against the wall, away from her. He was afraid.

‘Satan,’ he said. ‘You met Satan.’

Arthur stiffened. He’d pulled the knife out of the head-board and put it on the table. ‘Where?’

‘He’d been waiting for me at Temple Church.’

‘But why didn’t he just come through when I was performing the ritual?’ asked Kay. Billi wasn’t sure if he was pleased or disappointed.

‘He said that Ethereals are weak when they first enter the Material Realm.’ Billi checked the window; the Devil was long gone. ‘He offered me a Silver Sword, but only if I killed you.’

‘To fulfil Kay’s prophecy,’ added Elaine.

Kay suddenly moved. ‘I’ve never made any prophecies. You know I can’t.’

Elaine shook her head. ‘Not now, Kay. But when you first came to us. Should have bet on the horses back then.’ She laughed, but it withered as a poor joke. The sense of fear was thick in the room.

Arthur spoke. ‘Young psychics have an extraordinary potential. But it’s wild and will drive them insane. You were already in a bad way when we found you.’ He looked at Kay. ‘You’d been moved from foster home to foster home. Father Balin made you a ward of the Temple and that’s when Elaine began looking after you. But you’d made your prophecy. Something deadly and terrible was coming, and you said “she will sacrifice the one she loves to save them”.’ He turned to Elaine. ‘We argued about what it meant. Prophecies, especially ones looking well into the future, are dangerously ambiguous.’

‘And you thought it meant you?’ asked Billi.

‘Who else could it mean?’ he asked.

Billi closed her eyes. She wanted to shut off from everything. It was too much. Because of a boy’s vague prediction she’d spent the last five years being beaten, tested, trained and taught how to do terrible things. All so she’d be ready to kill her father. She struggled with her breathing. It was as though a giant invisible vice was crushing her from all directions.

‘I never wanted this for you, Billi,’ said Arthur. He sounded sincere, but so what? This was the life he’d given her.

Kay touched her hand. She looked up at him and there was such softness in his eyes, their blue light reflected his gentleness, and if Billi had been anyone’s child except Arthur’s she would have wept. His fingers wrapped round hers and Billi felt how smooth they were against her own, hard and calloused by years of weapons training.

Elaine cleared her throat. ‘What do we do next, Art?’

Her dad looked at her, then at Kay. He smiled, but it was sad. He was beaten.

‘You run.’

They were leaving. Elaine and Kay would take the Cursed Mirror to Jerusalem. Among the Sufis, rabbis and priests they hoped there might be someone who could stop Michael. Meanwhile Arthur would organize a feint, an attack that would distract Michael, hopefully preventing him from discovering the Mirror was long gone. Billi would go into hiding. With the prophecy proving a failure, Arthur wanted Billi far away from the oncoming battle.

Billi helped Kay pack. Elaine had grabbed two bin bags full of Oxfam clothing and dumped them on the bedroom floor. Billi picked up a brown polyester shirt with orange stripes and held it up against the light. Did Elaine pick these vile things on purpose?

It looks absolutely -

‘Don’t swear,’ he said.

‘I didn’t say anything.’

‘But you thought it really hard.’

Billi found a packet of thermal pants. She didn’t want to know how Elaine had guessed their size. She swiftly stuffed them in the suitcase.

‘You’re leaving, again,’ she said. ‘We could go together, if you want.’ And she would. No matter what her dad said. If Kay wanted. He shook his head.

‘No. It’s safer this way.’ He didn’t look at her; he just kept his attention on the clothes. ‘I had missed you, you know.’

Billi nodded. ‘If you’d told me that at the beginning things would have been a lot less complicated.’

‘You’re the only friend I’ve had, Billi.’ He paused. ‘Maybe more than friends?’

Billi thought about how she’d felt when she’d kissed him at Trafalgar Square.

She smiled. ‘I was hysterical then. It doesn’t count.’

Kay put the last of the jumpers in the suitcase then closed it. Billi could hear Elaine and Arthur getting supper ready. There were plates clattering and cutlery banging against each other. A kettle whistled.

‘You can do it, Kay.’ Billi held his hand. ‘You’ll beat Michael. I know you will.’

Kay frowned. ‘Then what?’ He spoke quietly. Billi remained silent. Even when he did return they wouldn’t be together. She wasn’t a Templar – he was. The Order meant everything to him.

‘It doesn’t, Billi. Not as much as other things.’

Billi raised her eyebrows at Kay. He’d been reading her thoughts again. But somehow it didn’t seem to matter so much now. ‘Then maybe we’ll be like normal people?’

Neither of them said any more. They both knew that was never really going to happen.

Elaine banged on the door. ‘Dinner’s ready.’

They gathered at the table as the food was served. Arthur said grace, then Elaine began ladling out the vegetable hotpot. Billi watched the way Elaine and Arthur worked, he passing the food around as Elaine filled the bowls.

‘Y’know what this reminds me of?’ Elaine looked about the table. ‘Passover.’

The meal held to commemorate the night the Angel of Death delivered the tenth plague on the firstborn of Egypt. Billi glanced over at Kay. See? She did pay some attention in her Templar lessons. Kay smiled. He didn’t look great: the effects of the ritual had left him badly depleted. Billi touched his hand under the table, gently linking fingers with him for a moment.

‘I don’t think smearing lamb’s blood over doorposts will stop Michael this time,’ Arthur retorted dryly.

‘I know that,’ snapped Elaine. ‘It’s what the blood symbolizes that’s important: the blood of sacrifice. The most powerful magic there is. Just killing a lamb wouldn’t mean anything now. The sacrifice -’ she glanced at Billi – ‘needs to mean something.’ Elaine took a tray of spinach and handed it across the table. ‘I used to love getting the food ready for the Seder meal. The horseradishes, all the chopped nuts and apples floating in the wine.’ She laughed suddenly. ‘Do you know what we used to do? Do you know about the Elijah’s Cup?’

Billi nodded. ‘You fill an extra cup, in case he should appear at your door.’

Elaine clapped her hands. ‘Exactly! When I was a child we would pour the cup, then wait. But as we waited for the prophet all eyes would be turned to the front door. It’s an old trick, but the best. When no one was looking my dad would knock on the table! You should have seen the way we’d jump!’ She laughed and raised her fist above the table -

Bang.

Bang.

Bang.

Someone was knocking at the door. Hard, firm and steady. Kay stared towards the direction of the noise, his face ashen. Billi got up and in the silence left the room and entered the stair landing. A hot film of sweat ran down her back, clinging to her blouse.

Driven by an irresistible dread she descended, turned the doorknob and slowly pulled it back.

He smiled at her, waiting in the doorway. No threats, no sudden movements. He didn’t need to. With shocking, sudden clarity Billi knew she had lost. Truly, utterly and completely lost.

It was Michael.