The demon wasn’t used to defiance. It was used to screaming and cowering and mortals surrendering to terror. It was used to its dinner being handed to it on a plate. Suddenly it was all jaws and no trousers. And Billi had a weapon. Nothing glamorous, just an old branch off an oak tree with a few small twigs still attached, but in the end the weapon didn’t matter. What mattered was the Templar wielding it. Billi had been taught by the best, and the most brutal. No finesse required when it came to smashing heads.
The crone chuckled, but it was forced and she was trying too hard. “You think you have what it takes, dear? You think you can hurt poor old granny? Kids of today, no respect for their elders.”
It was an old trick, maybe that’s all demons knew.
Billi met the old crone’s beady, malevolent gaze. “Manners? You want to teach me —”
She twisted right and jabbed just as baby burst from the bush. It was into its guts, enough to stop it, enough to make it squeal. The second blow, that was, literally, the killer. She hit it so hard the branch cracked all the way down its length. Billi gave it a twist and turned to face the granny, the last asakku standing, with a jagged wooden stake in each hand.
Had they really thought she’d fall for it? Keep your target talking while your companion sneaks up behind. Really?
“Bye, bye, baby,” said Billi as the evil little creature melted to the ground. She winked at old crone. “Sorry, you were saying?”
The demon backed off. It wasn’t entirely stupid. “You don’t know who you’re dealing with, dear. You don’t know what powers are at play, beings that could swallow stars whole. You think you mean something? With that foolish stick? That you could possibly make a difference? You’re nothing but a mere mortal. A flea that thinks it rules the dog.”
“Fleas bite,” said Billi.
It couldn’t back down. It was a demon and she, as it had been pointed out, was a mere mortal. How would that look in hell? A demon frightened off by a little girl? Its hell-born physique made it tough, but flesh was flesh, no matter what dark energies flowed through its arteries. Billi needed this over and done with. A quick glance at Erin was warning enough. She could only take so much.
“Look, granny,” Billi lowered her sword. “Why don’t you just piss off, find three or four new mates and come back tomorrow? I thought this was gonna be a bigger deal than it was, to be honest. Demons?” Billi spat at the crone’s feet. “That’s what I think of demons.”
Granny screamed as she charged, her arms swinging wildly. Billi ducked, leading with her right shoulder, and pushed under and up, lifting the crone off her feet and slamming her against a big upright tombstone.
Still pressing her shoulder against the demon, Billi flipped the stakes in her hands, and rammed both into its belly, giving them a vicious twist until she could feel the points come out of the back and hit the tombstone. Granny shrieked, clawing at Billi, snapping her wicked fangs and struggling to get free, but Billi held her against the stone until her blows weakened and her lungs began to rattle with desperate gasps. The coup de grace was one final upward twist, puncturing the creature’s putrid heart. Black bile gushed out and granny went limp. Billi waited a second, you never knew with demons, but waited until there was no life left in it at all before stepping back.
Granny was already rotting away. In a few moments she was a dusty outline upon the tombstone and nothing more. Billi tossed the gruesome, gore-covered stakes away.
And Erin stumbled beside a gravestone and puked up her guts. She sobbed as she heaved, shaking her head, muttering to herself. Probably trying to persuade herself that she wasn’t going totally insane. Not easy at a time like this.
Billi rubbed Erin’s back to help get it all out. “Yeah, it was the same for me the first time.”
Erin wiped her mouth as she looked over her shoulder. “The first time? Who are you, Billi?”
Who indeed? To be honest, what else? “Would you believe, a Knight Templar?”
***
“Asakku demons? He summoned actual demons?” Faustus said from the other end of the call. “I should have come with you.”
“I managed.” She’d done her best to wash the gore off under the tap, but that putrid, rotting odour still clung to her.
“I need to go have a look. Find out more about these asakku Reggie has control over. He’s playing a dangerous game.”
“But at least it confirms Reggie as our Big Bad,” said Billi. The sleeve of her jacket hung in ribbons and the back was torn up. Damn. She’d been fond of that jacket. “And that Erin’s the key to all this. What does she have that he wants?”
“It’s got to be in those rubbings. You asked her why she gave them to you?”
“Not yet, but I will.”
Erin was further along, out of earshot. She’d rinsed her mouth out with a bottle of water but still looked pale and wide-eyed, staring at every person passing as if they might suddenly transform into something monstrous. Billi picked up her helmet. “I gotta take her home.”
“Want me to meet you?”
“You think Reggie might try the same trick? Summon up more of these… asakku? Have them waiting in Erin’s driveway?”
“There’s a reason they were in the cemetery. They need necromantic energies to manifest in the mortal, material realms. This existence isn’t natural to them. What worries me is how they came through. I’ve dealt with possessions before but they’d actually taken over the host bodies entirely. That’s a level of dark magic I’ve never come across.”
“You mean that was a real old lady, a real mum and… my God. I killed a baby. Bloody hell, Faustus!”
“You don’t understand. Reggie would have taken
