Billi lifted the motorbike onto its kickstand opposite her home, the top floor apartment in the Lamb Building. “You want to come up?”
Ivan shook his head as he got out his mobile. “I could do with avoiding your father for a while. You’d think he’d be used to me by now. We’ve been going out… two years?”
“Don’t take it personally. Dad’s a miserable git.” She punched in the door code and went in, carrying the backpack.
Billi took the stairs to the top floor. The short corridor to her apartment was lined with old paintings of past grandmasters and famous battles. Her dad had filled the vase beside the apartment door with fresh flowers from the Temple garden. Next to the vase was a four-foot-long medieval sword. His subtle reminder she was in charge of training the squires tomorrow, right after matins.
Billi entered the dark apartment, bringing the sword in and putting it in the umbrella stand. “Dad? I’m back. There was a little disagreement with Lawrence. Don’t expect an Christmas card from him this year.”
No reply. The curtains were still open, letting the silver moonlight fall upon the second-hand furnishings and shelves stuffed with ancient leather-bound books.
“Dad?” She went into the kitchen.
Wood shavings covered the small round dining table and there were garlic cloves scattered on the Formica worktop. A note had been stuck to the fridge.
Out with Bors. Another stake and bake. Don’t forget the training. Idres needs a lot more practice.
So, he wouldn’t be back till dawn, at the earliest. The vampires were getting overconfident. Didn’t they understand the Templars ruled London? There’d been an attack south of the river only a week ago. Seems her dad had tracked down its lair.
What was she going to do with the jar? She’d hoped Dad would take over from here. Lawrence might send his boys around to try and get it back. But would Lawrence risk coming onto the Templars’ own turf? She knew how afraid he was of her dad, and rightly so. Even the Devil feared her dad. Lucifer had told her himself, when she’d meant him, how long ago? Two years? It felt a lot longer.
She needed to deal with the jar herself. But that didn’t mean spoiling the rest of her night.
Then she went into her small bedroom and took off her biker’s jacket. The thing was covered in golem dust. Then she noticed something inside the pocket.
Lawrence’s mobile.
She turned it over, noticing a series of missed calls from a private number. It was locked, needing a thumb print to open. Not that security would be a problem...
She slipped it into her back pocket and grabbed the first earrings she could find. A minute later she was back out on the street with Ivan. “The guys will be waiting, and still more or less sober,” she said as she put in her earrings. “The Sergeant’s Arms ain’t busy this time of night and the landlord usually gives us one of the rooms at the back.”
Ivan winced. She didn’t like it when he winced. “Something’s come up.”
“Seriously? In the last ten minutes?”
“It’s been brewing for a while. I was just waiting for news. There are some people I need to meet. Tonight.”
“What people?”
He looked uneasy. “My people.”
“Oh. Like Russian Mafia people. Just great. What’s it this time? Someone cross the line in Moscow and they need your blessing before they make a hit? The hand of tsarevich Ivan upon their shoulders? Or are we back into smuggling?”
His eyes darkened. “You know my Bogatyrs are as righteous as any of your Templars. Things have changed since the days of Koshchey so don’t act as if I’m doing anything different from what you would be doing if our positions were reversed. I have obligations, Billi.”
They’d met in Moscow, two years ago and under very different circumstances. The Bogatyrs were Russia’s fabled warrior heroes, protectors of the innocent and dread foes against the ancient monsters of Eastern Europe. But they’d fallen far from their lofty ideals when Billi and the other Templars had taken a trip out there. Headed by Koshchey the Undying they had become little more than gangsters, out for themselves and happy to destroy anyone who got in their way. Things had been tricky right up to the moment when, in the shadow of the old nuclear reactor at Chernobyl, Ivan had been forced to kill his old mentor.
Ivan took her hand. “Why don’t you come with me?”
“To the Firebird, I suppose?” Soho’s newest, and most elite, nightclub. Annual membership ran into a hefty five figures and the queue outside was insane. But Ivan was a Romanov and that gave him automatic access past any velvet rope. But there was a club within a club, beyond the DJs and neon dance floor. A kingdom, ruled by Ivan. The place where everyone still called him tsarevich — prince. “I thought you weren’t getting involved.”
“You thought I wasn’t.” There as an edge to his voice, cold and hard as flint. “I’m not your errand boy, Billi. The Bogatyrs are my family’s legacy to Russia. I won’t just abandon it and… do what? Exactly?”
“Dad would make you a Templar in a second. You know that.”
“I won’t serve under your father. Don’t ask me to.”
Why did he say things like that about her dad? It was impossible, with Arthur on one side and Ivan on the other. “So when are you going to Moscow? You’ve only just got back.”
“That’s not decided. I probably won’t need to anyway. Even if I did, why don’t you come with me for once? You never got the chance to appreciate Moscow the last time.”
“I can’t just abandon my duties, Ivan.”
“And I can’t
