Ivan checked his watch. “We’ll be in Moscow for lunch. I’ve booked us the suite at the Hyatt. It’s near the Kremlin and I’ve got meetings all day.” He patted his jacket pocket. “But the evenings are yours. I’ve tickets for the Bolshoi.”
“Good seats?” asked Billi.
Ivan winced. He knew how she felt about his outrageous royal privilege. “The royal box. The director insisted.”
“So I’m just going to sit around eating caviar and going on shopping trips at the GUM?”
He frowned. “You deserve a break, Billi. We talked about this.”
“We did. But it felt different, Ivan. I don’t know.”
The taxi rolled along the Embankment. Early morning joggers were huffing and puffing their way along the banks of the Thames. Across the river was the South Bank Centre. Was she going to miss all this? There were theatres in Moscow and she could jog along the Moskva river every morning if she wanted to.
She was losing her friends, but she was keeping Ivan. Wasn’t that the better deal?
What about Erin?
She’d spent a week with Erin, being by her side when the nightmares threatened to overwhelm her and she thought Reggie was still there, lurking at the foot of her bed. It would be years before she was finally rid of him, if she ever would be. He’d been hidden in her consciousness for most of her life and his taint lingered like mould in an old, old house. The inquest had been hard, awful actually, but the deaths of Ardhan, Brigid and Phoebe had been classed as accidents. They’d gone to a party at Hollburgh and the cliff had collapsed, Erin being the only survivor. But Erin was going to have to live with the guilt of their deaths forever, or find a way to make amends.
They’d sat, talked endlessly about their lives, Billi revealing her role within the Knights Templar and Erin telling her about Reginald’s dark invasions, those long periods he whispered to her and she thought she was mad, as mad as her father had been. And they’d gone up into her loft and found a rucksack of her father’s, all but hidden in cobwebs, full of yellowed, crinkling letters and notebooks of Erin’s dad, her grandfather and Reginald himself. It seemed Eddie had investigated his family thoroughly, trying to find a way to beat Reginald at his own game. The papers were a treasure trove of occult research, and the machinations of the Ouroboros Society. The organization had its members and servants in government, in business, religion and crime.
The rucksack was waiting for Arthur to return. There was a war coming, a war between the Templars and the Ouroboros Society.
And where would she be? Holed up in a fancy hotel in Moscow.
“Stop the taxi.”
Ivan looked round. “What?”
Billi tapped the panel between them and the driver. “Stop the taxi!”
The driver glanced over his shoulder, then drew up by the side of the road.
“What’s going on, Billi? We’ve got to get to Heathrow.” But Ivan was worried. They knew each other too well. “You don’t want to go.”
How could she tell him? Was she wrong about this? Didn’t she deserve to put down her sword, have a life without the horror and the bloodshed? Let others fight her battles, for once? She had nothing left to prove. And yet…
“I can’t, Ivan. There’s unfinished business. I need to stay.”
“I thought you loved me.”
“I do. I truly do. But if I go with you that love will become bitter. It’ll end badly between us, both blaming each other and we don’t deserve that unhappiness, to see all this become poisoned. You know what I mean. This was a perfect time, you and me, being together, but we need to grow up. We need to accept ourselves for what we truly are.”
“And what’s that?” he snapped. He was angry, but that was his right.
“You’re a prince of Russia, leader of the Bogatyrs. Your place is with them. And you know what I am, what I’ve always been.”
“The Knights Templar isn’t everything, Billi.”
Billi put her hand on his. He gripped it. He didn’t want her to go. “It is, for me.”
She’d never seen him cry. Not once in the two years they’d been together. There’d been no need, not with them so happy.
“I love you, Billi.”
She squeezed his hand, smiling even as her own tears fell. “Then let me go.”
***
“I knew it. I knew you couldn’t leave,” said Carados as she entered the Sergeant’s Arms pub that evening. He dragged up a stool. “Here. Sit down.”
Mordred joined them, carrying a beer and put it down in front of her. “Want to talk about it?”
“Not really.” She took a sip and looked around the table at the others. Idres nodded sympathetically while Lionel had his head buried in one of Reggie’s occult notebooks.
“What do you think?” Billi asked.
He pushed up his glasses. “Once the Ouroboros Society know we have all this on them, they’re going to come after us. With everything.”
Billi nodded. “Reggie was just an ugly symptom of the disease. The society has been pulling the strings for centuries, and we’ve just been chasing after shadows. Our fight’s been the sideshow. Vampires, werewolves, the fallen angels have just been a distraction, keeping us occupied and unaware of the true evil preying upon humanity.”
Carados looked thoughtful, which was a new look for him. “So what are you proposing, boss?”
“We take the fight to them. They don’t know we have this on them. We strike hard and fast.”
“You think we’re the first to come after them? We’ll get a few hits in, but then what? They’ve got more resources than most governments. Hell, they’ve got governments willing to do their bidding. Charging up to the castle gates waving our swords is not going to get us anywhere.”
“I agree. But we’ll have someone on the inside to open those gates.”
Bors frowned. “Who?”
Billi turned towards the pub door and beckoned her in.
Erin stood at the table, looking at Billi and the others.
