Dark Goddess Read online

  It was unfair. But since when was life fair? Never.

  Billi put the tray down on the table.

  “Vasilisa?”

  “When can I go?” asked Vasilisa. Brittle twigs scratched the windowpane like a witch’s fingers, and a low wind moaned through the loft void above.

  “Where?”

  “Away from here. You’re not my family.”

  “My dad will sort something out.” Billi began straightening the bedsheets, doing anything to distract herself. She picked up a plastic garbage bag and shook its contents over the bed. Out fell a jumble of stuffed animals: elephants, tigers, and a few patched-up bears. Billi rummaged around the bottom of the bag and found something else, curved and solid. She pulled out the Russian doll. She’d first seen it last night in Vasilisa’s bedroom.

  “That’s mine,” said the girl. She held out her hand for the doll. “Mum said she would protect me from them. But she couldn’t.”

  As Billi passed the doll to her, Vasilisa grabbed her wrist.

  “Don’t leave,” she whispered. “I’m scared. Please.” Her fingernails dug into Billi’s skin, and she clung on to her with desperate strength. Billi stood rigid, trapped in the girl’s grip, her heart racing. Then she unhooked the girl’s fingers and hurried to the door. She couldn’t stay here any longer; she had to get to school.

  “I’m off now, but I’ll look in again later.” Billi fumbled for the door handle. “You’ll be safe here.”

  The girl didn’t look around, but spoke so softly Billi wondered if she was actually talking to the doll.

  “Will I?”

  6

  “WHAT DO YOU THINK, PERCY?” billi asked as she sat beside her godfather’s gravestone. It had been a few weeks since she’d visited, and the grave needed tending.

  Percival. A poor soldier.

  That was all his epitaph said. Templars didn’t need anything long or melodramatic. “The others send their regards.” She flicked up the collar of her greatcoat and rewrapped her scarf around the bottom half of her face.

  The snow had fallen steadily all week, slowly covering London with a veil of white. Unfortunately, school was still open and Billi wasn’t looking forward to her midnight patrol. Double thermals would be in order.

  “Oh, how’s school? Same old, same old. You know me, too busy to hang out with the girls.” That hadn’t changed. Billi’s reputation was already mud, but after Kay’s death it had gotten even worse.

  According to the police, Kay’s death had been an accident. He’d broken into a building site and fallen from a half-constructed skyscraper. Case closed.

  Nothing about the battle that had been fought against the Unholy, the dark angels that had tried to kill them and London’s firstborn. Nothing about how Billi had slid a sword into Kay’s chest, sacrificing him so millions might live.

  The nightmares had lasted for weeks. She couldn’t close her eyes for seeing Kay’s staring at her, wide and empty.

  At school people said Billi was bad luck-bad things happened around her. Kay was just an unfortunate soul who’d got too close. Best stay away.

  “We might have a new Oracle. Do ask Kay if he’s got any advice.” Billi carried on talking to Percy’s grave. She wasn’t looking forward to getting back home and having to deal with Vasilisa. Why couldn’t they move her to Rowland’s or Elaine’s? The little girl unsettled things. Reminded Billi too muchof Kay. A new Oracle. Would Vasilisa survive longer than the last one?

  “I’ll come and visit Kay sometime, Percy. Tell him that. I promise I will.” But not yet. She wasn’t strong enough to go to Kay’s grave.

  The icy wind picked up, and the hairs along Billi’s nape stiffened. The air carried with it a strange thick smell, damp and cloying, like wet fur.

  Two women approached, winding their way through the maze of tombs and gravestones. One, a big girl with hair the color of flame, was wearing a T-shirt that revealed her wide muscular torso and long heavy arms. The other woman was gray-haired and had her hands tucked into the pockets of a hip-length woolen coat, embroidered with petroglyphs much like the ones Elaine had shown the Templars. They walked with a predator’s confidence, their movements graceful and economic; a hunter’s stride. Billi knew exactly what they were. But even if there had been any doubt, the eyes gave them away. Emerald green.

  The old woman raised her palm as she came closer, in a friendly way. “My name is Olga. This is my granddaughter Svetlana.” The accent was Russian.

  “Polenitsy,” Billi said. The old woman stopped a few feet from her, perhaps surprised that Billi knew who they were. The red-haired girl continued to move, not nearer, but around. She grinned at Billi, revealing teeth that were long and sharp. Her face was a jigsaw of cuts and scratches. The sort you might get if you’d been thrown through a window recently.

  Billi took a step back. She should have gone home first and tooled up. Here, all she could do was throw snowballs.

  “We mean you no harm,” said the old woman.

  “Tell that to her,” Billi said, pointing at the prowling girl. “Svetlana, enough,” snapped Olga. Svetlana snarled, but stopped. “We merely want the Spring Child, and then we will go.” She glanced down at Percy’s gravestone as she stepped closer. “‘Apoor soldier.’” She nodded and looked at Billi, intrigued. “Now I understand. A Templar. A female within the Order of the Temple of Solomon? Perhaps the knights have acquired some wisdom at last.”

  Was Olga laughing at her? At the idea that a girl could be a Templar? No. Billi could see the old woman was serious.

  “We want no war with the Knights Templar,” said Olga.

  “You lay a claw on Vasilisa’s head and we’ll give you a war you wouldn’t believe.”

  Olga grinned.

  My, what big teeth you have, Granny.

  “Templar, you are few. We are many. We would wipe you out.”

  “People have tried that before. No one’s managed it yet.” Billi clenched her fists-not that she’d last a second if things got hairy. “Why Vasilisa?”

  Svetlana jumped forward, snarling. “The girl will bring a new spring, one without the foulness of mankind. She has been chosen by Baba Yaga-”

  “Nyet!” Olga glared at Svetlana, then back at Billi. “That is none of your concern. She has been chosen by the goddess and that is enough.”

  Billi laughed. “Baba Yaga? Your witch? The one who lives in a hut and walks on chicken legs?”

  “You dare insult Mother Russia?” Svetlana growled, and talons grew from her fingertips. Olga stepped between them, blocking the younger woman.

  “And what of your crucified god?” said Olga, pointing at Billi’s crucifix. “Perhaps in a thousand year shis story may be nothing more than a fairy tale. You would do well not to mock what you do not understand.”

  “What I understand is that you want to kill a nine-year old kid. That’s not going to happen. Vasilisa is with us now.” Olga sighed. “So be it, Templar. Your doom is sealed.”

  7

  “SO IT IS THE POLENITSY. THEY’RE PRETTY BAD NEWS, Art,” said Elaine.

  “Now, that’sa surprise,” replied Arthur. He stood by the window, curtain pulled back as he peered out into the dark. He held the Templar Sword in his fist.

  Billi had gone home, checking over her shoulder every thirty seconds or so. If she’d been followed, she hadn’t spotted them.

  Lance was downstairs, Gwaine and Bors on patrol. Billi, her dad, and Elaine sat in the kitchen. It felt like they were under siege. All because of a little girl, asleep upstairs.

  “And Baba Yaga?” asked Billi. “What else do you know about her?”

  Elaine drummed her figures on a stack of books. The old Templar diaries. The aged books were a mismatch of leather-bound tomes that were the core of the Order’s occult lore. All the knights were meant to have studied them, but nobody knew as much as Elaine: she was practically a walking library.

  “Not much. She’s been in Russia for thousands of years, but that was never within
the Templars’ territories.” She gazed into the middle distance. “The stories of Baba Yaga cast her as an ancient witch, a powerful figure in pre-Christian Russia. Utterly evil, with the ability to command the elements and the beasts, a psychic, just like Kay, but much, much more powerful. She’s also called Mother Russia. They say she’s part of the soil, the very stones of the country. The stories refer to her having been driven deep into the forests by the Bogatyrs.”

  “Bogatyrs?” asked Billi.

  “An order of Christian knights, older than the Templars,” interrupted Arthur. “Last I heard, they were being led by Alexei Viktorovich Romanov. A good man, by all accounts. That was a few years ago.”

  “And now she’s after Vasilisa.” Billi leaned back in her chair.

  “You get any further with her?” Arthur asked Elaine.

  “I’m still testing. These things take time.”

  “Make contact with Jerusalem anyway. Once we know for sure, we’ll send Vasilisa there to start her training.”

  “Until then?” Billi asked. She couldn’t just sit around waiting.

  Arthur finished inspecting his sword and pushed it into its scabbard. “Double weapons’ training.”

  Billi looks down the cave opening, wondering if she can squeeze through the gap. The edges are slick with black mud, and she hears the lapping of water. A smell rises up through the hole, a vent, and it’s strong but familiar. It smells of decay and ancient earth, both moist and dusty at the same time. She descends.

  She enters the underworld. A vast pool of shimmering black water fills the cavern ahead of her.

  The water stirs, and ripples roll out from its center to Billi’s toes on the shore. Then a pale figure rises. The Stygian waters run off his body-black, oily rivulets sliding down the creases of his bare torso. He rises, smiling at Billi, until he is waist-deep.

  He is the ferryman. Billi wants to run into his arms.

  “Kay,” she whispers.

  “Hello, Billi.” His long silvery-white hair hangs wet and flat, half hiding his face. Billi wants to brush it aside so she can see him perfectly. Kay’s smooth face creases into a smile as he looks into her dark eyes, which sparkle in the gloomy cavern. It’s a smile she thought she remembered perfectly, but now she sees all the subtle details she missed. The way his lips almost part as they turn upward. How a small frown seems to form in the center of his eyebrows, just above his nose, as though his smile is serious business.

  She wades into the freezing water, reaching for him. Her heart beats so rapidly she thinks it’ll tear itself apart. She doesn’t care. She thinks only of what it would be like to feel him again, to touch him and to kiss those lips, to push back that last breath she stole and fill the hole that opened in her heart when he left her. Billi stretches out, but Kay remains just beyond her trembling fingertips.

  “I can’t reach you,” she says, despair hanging on her words. If only she can have him back, everything will be okay.

  “No, Billi. You can’t come.”

  She ignores him, plowing deeper into the water. The cold creeps up her legs, but she keeps struggling toward him.

  “Billi, I’ve come to say good-bye.”

  “No!” Billi shivers. The chill rises up her veins, slowing her heart as it drifts into slumber. “I want to be with you, Kay. Don’t you understand?”

  “The dead should not linger, Billi. Look to the living now.”

  Billi screams as she grabs for him, but Kay is on the far side now, beyond mortal touch.

  “Then why are you here?” she shouts.

  Kay shakes his head sadly. “Billi, I’m not here. Not anymore.” Silent as death, Kay places his hands on either side of his face.

  His face comes off. He lays it on the water’s edge, and instead of Kay, Billi now sees Vasilisa. She’s a small girl wading waist-deep in the Styx. Billi reaches to take her hand, but can’t.

  “Come out, Vasilisa. You’re not meant to be here,” Billi says. She sobs. Kay wasn’t meant to be here either. Not for a long time.

  Vasilisa places her hands on either side of her face. Her face comes off.

  Billi awoke, her blood pounding in her eardrums. She gasped for air and lay there, body damp with sweat.

  Was it really Kay?

  She’d dreamed about him before-of course she had-but nothing like this. You weren’t able to smell anything in dreams, were you? The smell had been the strongest thing about it. She could almost taste the cold water, and goose bumps rose along her arms as she remembered the deep cave she’d entered.

  She wiped her face on the sheet. A dream. She wasn’t psychic. Her dreams didn’t mean anything.

  Did they?

  Pans and plates clattered noisily from the kitchen. The sound echoed up the stairwell as someone got busy making a midnight snack.

  Why couldn’t they just shut up? Billi shuffled against the wall, trying to dampen the noise by covering her head with a pillow. No good. She was awake now. Blearily she checked the clock: three a.m. Must be Gwaine and Mordred on duty. They did the twelve-till-four slot. Why didn’t they bring sandwiches like everyone else? She sat up and smoothed her hair out of her face.

  This constant-and noisy-vigilance was how it was going to be, until the Polenitsy made their move or the Templars got Vasilisa out. Billi thought they should hide her somewhere else, but Arthur had said keeping her in the Temple gave them the home advantage. They would wait and let the werewolves come to them. But waiting wasn’t easy. Billi had to do something to keep her mind busy.

  She jumped out of bed and dragged out Kay’s box. She’d delayed this too long. She carried it upstairs into the study. On the windowsill she spotted another one of Arthur’s attempts to bring some life into the house: a big round glazed flowerpot with God knows what growing in it. Right now it was just a few bare twigs stuck in a pile of wet soil. Billi dropped Kay’s box down on Arthur’s desk. Moonlight shone in through the small windows overlooking Middle Temple Lane. Old bookshelves crowded the walls, and above them were ancient portraits of the earlier Templar Grand Masters and paintings of long-ago Templar battles. Acre. Hattin. Hampshire. That had been the last zombie war, back in the nineteenth century.

  There was a gentle tapping on the door. “Billi? Is that you?”

  “Vasilisa?”

  The girl came in. She’d wrapped herself up in one of Billi’s old bathrobes, which trailed along the floor.

  “I couldn’t sleep,” she said. Billi had heard her crying earlier. She’d thought about going in and saying something, but what? Nothing would bring Vasilisa’s parents back, and nothing Billi could say would ease the pain.

  “What do you want?” It came out harsher than Billi intended.

  Vasilisa stood in the center of the faded red carpet. “I want to go home.” She said it in a small, hopeless voice. “I don’t like it here.”

  Who does? “The farmhouse isn’t safe.”

  “No. Home in Karelia.”

  “That’s not safe either. Don’t worry. My dad will figure something out.” Billi shook her head; she wasn’t going to get rid of Vasilisa, so she pulled up a stool. “Fine. Sit here, but don’t touch anything.”

  Billi cut the thick tape that bound the cardboard box and rested her fingers on the lid. This was the last of Kay. She opened the box.

  CDs, a pile of books, a copy of NME magazine, and a couple of paperbacks. Nothing special except it was all Kay’s. Billi began emptying the contents, making neat piles on the large desk. Vasilisa sat up and watched.

  Billi flicked through a scrapbook of newspaper clippings. They were all seemingly minor incidents. A grave being defiled. Some wild-dog attack in a park. They didn’t seem like much, but the Templars kept an eye out for odd events. You never knew if one might lead to a ghul or a werewolf. Kay had made notes in his small, neat script in the margins, marking down which he thought worth investigating. Then there were the clippings on the mysterious sickness spreading through Britain. The last article was a few days before his dea
th. Billi smiled. He was such a nerd. As Billi flicked through Kay’s comments she saw Vasilisa reaching into the box.

  “No!” Billi slapped the girl’s hand, and something silver flew across the room and cracked against the wall. Billi stared at Vasilisa. “I said don’t touch anything.”

  “I was just helping.” She lowered her head, and her unkempt blond hair fell like a veil over her face. “Sorry.”

  Billi rose and picked up the object.

  It was Kay’s old cell phone. Billi turned it in her hand. The screen was cracked now. Billi bit her lip. If Vasilisa had broken it, Billi would be furious. She dug out a charger from one of the drawers and plugged it in.

  The screen glowed and the bloodred Templar cross appeared. It works, thank God. The logo faded away, and Billi stared at the screen saver.

  It was her and Kay.

  She didn’t even remember him taking it. They were outside, somewhere in the gardens, sitting on a bench. Wind had caught strands of his platinum-white hair, half covering his face. He was smiling that smile of his-like he knew a big secret. Vasilisa peered over her shoulder and gazed closely at the photo.

  Billi looked at Vasilisa. She had a wide pale face with dimpled cheeks that converged into a small pointed chin. Her blond hair was thick and uncombed. She had a young child’s nose, a round button, red from sniffing.

  Look to the living.

  “You’ve got a pixie face,” Billi said, fighting back a sudden urge to gently tuck Vasilisa’s blond locks behind her ear. Where had that come from?

  “Are there pixies?”

  “Not since 1807.”

  “I like you with long hair,” Vasilisa said. She pointed to the photo on the wall. “Like your mum.”

  It was a picture of the three of them-Billi, her mum, and her dad. It had been taken when she was five. She was being squeezed between her parents. Jamila was looking toward the camera, but Arthur was just gazing at his wife with open, uninhibited joy. He seemed decades younger, no gray in his hair, and his face smooth and worry-free. Billi grinned at herself, a five-year-old girl with a small gap in the middle of her baby teeth.