Dark Goddess

12

THE EVENING PASSED WITH THE KNIGHTS CONSTANTLY checking in on the house. Billi couldn’t rest, painfully aware that things had reached a crunch point, not just for the Templars, but for her personally.

Tonight Vasilisa joined the Order. There would be no ceremony, no all-night vigils or prayers. Billi couldn’t let Vasilisa go to Jerusalem without making peace.

She knocked on the door. “Vasilisa? Can I come in?”

“No.”

The sun had gone down, and the room was in gloomy darkness. Billi turned on the light. Vasilisa sat on her bed, huddled in the corner, holding her knees.

Billi moved a few stuffed animals aside and sat facing the girl.

Where to begin?

“I’m sorry it’s come to this, Vasilisa. But it’s the only way you’ll be safe.”

“I was safe until you came along.”

“We saved you from the werewolves.”

“I wish they’d killed me too.”

“Don’t say that.” Billi stared hard at the girl. “You don’t mean it.”

“They say I’m going to be the new Oracle. What happened to the old one?”

“I’ll tell you about him. Kay was my best friend and I loved him more than anything.” Billi stopped. It had just burst out, this confession. She looked down at her shaking hands and clasped her fingers together, forcing them to be still. “There’s a hole inside that sometimes feels so big I think I’ll disappear into it-but he’s gone. He’s gone and you’re here.”

Their eyes met. They’d both already lost people they loved in the Bataille Tenebreuse. Billi joined Vasilisa in the corner.

“When I found you, Kay came back. In away. I dreamed of him and he told me he was saying good-bye.”

“Because of me?”

“The dead should not linger. I should look to the living.” Billi smiled at the girl. “That seems like a fair trade.”

“What will happen to me, in Jerusalem?”

“You’ll be taught how to control your powers. Kay was going mad with all the voices in his head. He used to say it was like having a radio on and the dial was always moving but never off. You’ll learn how to protect yourself.”

“And become a fighter, like you?”

Billi inspected her callused hands. All those years of weapons training and punching wooden boards. Hardly ladylike. She scratched her knuckles, then took the girl’s hand. “There are a lot of ways to fight, Vasilisa.”

The two of them sat together in the darkness. Outside the window the tree branches scratched at the glass and the old roof beams creaked. Below, Billi heard her father and one of the other knights scraping steel against whetstones.

“What is that called?” Billi asked, pointing at Vasilisa’s Russian doll.

“A matryoshka.”

“Can I look?”

Vasilisa nodded, and Billi opened up the doll. The next one was equally exquisite. Each flower was delicately painted into the shawl, and the dress’s embroidery looked as though it had been done using a single hair. The next doll matched it, and within that was a stone figurine covered in flaking gold leaf.

“It’s beautiful,” said Billi. It was a woman, crudely shaped, with a small head and large breasts and hips. Billi had seen statuettes like this in museums. It was a Venus figurine-they were prehistoric religious items, found throughout Europe.

Billi inspected the stone. The gold leaf had fallen off in patches and the stone beneath was highly polished, like black obsidian. Dark veins of iron ran through it.

“Babushka said it was the goddess.”

“Baba Yaga?”

“No, not just Baba Yaga.” Vasilisa took back the statue. “Baba Yaga is the Dark Goddess, the Winter Crone. But sooner or later winter ends and spring comes.” Vasilisa kissed the statue gently. “My babushka’s mother made this and the matryoshka dolls around it when she lived in Tunguska.”

“Tunguska?”

Vasilisa waved at the window. “Out in Siberia.” She picked up the gold-covered figurine. “She used to say this was magic. That’s why she covered it in gold.”

“She sounds like an interesting woman,” said Billi. “What else did your babushka’s mother say? Anything about Baba Yaga?”

“Oh yes.” Vasilisa took the figurine and whispered, “Baba Yaga hates us, Billi. For all the damage we’ve done.”

“What sort of damage?”

“She wants the Earth back to how it was before men came. She feels the Earth; she feels it like it’s her. Every time we dig mines we’re cutting her skin. When we put our garbage in the sea we’re pouring poison in her mouth. We make her sick.” Vasilisa held up the figurine, turning it toward the moonlight.

“You know that from her mind?” Vasilisa spoke with such simple clarity, Billi could almost see Baba Yaga’s point.

Vasilisa didn’t answer. She just stared, openmouthed, at the window.

Bright brown eyes peered through the glass. The hulking black silhouette of a werewolf filled the window frame as it perched on a tree bough.

Billi leaped up, dragging Vasilisa with her. The werewolf smashed its clawed fist through the glass.

Howls filled the darkness outside, and Billi heard something crash through the front door below.

Billi pushed Vasilisa out the door as her father bounded up the stairs, Templar Sword in his fist.

“Out of the way!”

He barged past, and Billi glanced back to see the werewolf scrabbling through the broken window. It howled at Arthur, flailing its claws at him, but got caught in the small frame. Arthur stepped to the side, checked the distance between them, and hacked at the neck twice before the head came off. By the time it had rolled over to the door, the head had transformed into that of a woman, and not one Billi recognized. Olga and Svetlana had come with friends.

“Let’s go,” Arthur said as he flicked the blood off his sword.

With Arthur in front, Vasilisa in the middle, and Billi behind, they descended into the basement. More glass smashed, this time in the living room. Gareth, a spiked mace in his hand, went to investigate.

Bors waited in the crowded storeroom. He passed them each a flashlight, then set about moving a large storage trunk.

Billi found her wakizashi and scabbard hanging from the wall. She strapped it to her back and pulled her jacket over it while Bors lifted up a manhole cover. Arthur grabbed his Fairbairn-Sykes dagger, his old Royal Marine weapon, and slid it into a leather forearm sheath, which he covered with his sleeve.

“If anyone with a tail comes down here, treat them exceedingly badly,” he said as he handed the Templar Sword to Bors.

“Damn right I will,” said Bors.

They climbed down the shaft, Arthur first. He shone his flashlight up and down the tunnel before waving the others down. The stink doubled every yard they descended until eventually Billi touched the floor. Rats squeaked in the darkness, and Billi pointed the light down into the low circular sewer. The old bricks shone wetly, and foul water seeped through the gaps, collecting into a thin stream that trickled along the lowest point.

A vast labyrinth of underground tunnels and sewers lay under Temple District, and only the Templars knew them all. The old Fleet River had been covered over by the Victorians and turned intoa main sewer. One of Billi’s earliest training exercises had been to find her way around the system without a map.