“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 death. 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.
“It’s an old picture. My mum died a long time ago.”
Vasilisa stared at the photo, then back into the box. “Whose things are these?” she asked, carefully keeping her hands to herself.
“My friend’s. His name was Kay.”
“Kay? Was he like you?”
Billi looked into Vasilisa’s big summer-sky-blue eyes. “No, I think maybe he was like you.”
There were half a dozen folders saved on Kay’s mobile. She shouldn’t look at them. Kay was dead and she needed to get over him. Quickly. But as she gazed over his belongings she knew that wasn’t fair. Not for Kay, and not for her. He’d been the best part of her life.
“Tell me about Karelia.”
“There was a big garden, and my babushka, my granny, she taught me the names of every plant, every flower.” Vasilisa pointed to the pot of twigs and drooping stalks on the windowsill. “Chrysanthemums. You should put those somewhere sunny.”
“When did you leave?”
“I was five. I didn’t want to. But someone came.”
“Who?”
Vasilisa closed her eyes, and Billi could see she was frightened.
“An old lady. Not nice like my babushka, but horrible, with green eyes. She was looking for me.”
Olga. So the Polenitsy had been after her already.
“My granny made me hide, but she was scared. She said the woman would come back, so we had to run. That night we all packed our bags and we came here, to be safe. I miss them. I miss my granny.” Vasilisa swung her feet, idle and wistful. “They say I’m going to be a Templar.” She looked at the paintings on the wall. “Are they all Templars? Those old men?”
“I’m a Templar.” Vasilisa looked at Billi curiously. “What are they? The Templars.”
Billi breathed a deep sigh. Where to begin? She had almost a thousand years of history in her head. Short or long version?
Short.
“They were a group of knights who swore to defend the Holy Land from the Muslims, back in the Middle Ages. That’s how they started. Just nine men.”
“Like the Bogatyrs?”
“You know about the Bogatyrs?” asked Billi.
Vasilisa’s eyes brightened. “Everybody in Russia knows! My mother used to read me stories about them. They fought dragons, evil witches, the Mongols, the Muslims. All the evil people.”
Billi laughed. “My mother was a Muslim.”
Vasilisa went red. “Are you?”
Billi shrugged. She could pray in Latin, Greek, English, and Arabic. She knew the direction of Mecca and the psalms. Did God really care?
“Anyway, back to the Templars.” She got up and took a picture off the wall. It was a landscape over Jerusalem, an elaborate medieval woodcut of the Holy City. She pointed to a dome in the center. “The knights fought the Muslims for a few hundred years. But then they were betrayed by their fellow Christians, by the Pope himself. After that the survivors rejected the Crusades and chose a new war-a war they call the Bataille Ténébreuse. That means the Dark Conflict. Instead of fighting other men, we fight the Unholy-monsters, like werewolves. Ghosts. The blood-drinkers. To be a knight you have to face one of those monsters. It’s called the Ordeal.”
“Did you have to do it?”
Billi nodded. Alex Weeks. The ghost of a six-year-old boy. Remembering what she’d had to do still turned her stomach.
“You don’t like being a Templar, Billi?”
“It’smyduty. Like’sgot nothing to do with it.” She caught the worried expression on Vasilisa’s face. She was talking about the girl’s future, if she was an Oracle. Billi rummaged around in the drawers and took out a pad and paper.
“Look, Vasilisa, we’re going to play a game.” With the pad up, she drew a circle. “See if you can guess what shape I’m drawing.”
“I’ve already done this with Elaine.”
“Let’s play again.” Elaine had said the powers would be temperamental at this age, but it was worth a shot.
Vasilisa frowned. “A circle.”
Could just be luck. Billi tore off the sheet and drew a triangle. “Now?”
“A triangle?”
Now we’re getting somewhere. She tore off that sheet and drew a five-pointed star.
“And this?”
“A star.”
“How many points?”
“Five.”
Oh my God. She drew a fish.
“What’s on the page? Concentrate.”
“A fish.”
Billi’s heart was beating hard and fast. Perhaps the Templars had their new Oracle after all.
“That’s amazing, Vasilisa.”
Vasilisa shook her head. “No. Anyone could do that.” Billi laughed. “I don’t think so.” But Vasilisa straightened and pointed behind Billi.
The window was right behind her. With the desk lamp on, everything Billi wrote was perfectly reflected in the glass. She blushed.
“Oh, right.” What an idiot. “Look, Vasilisa. I’d rather you didn’t tell anyone what just happened. Okay?”
Vasilisa rocked back and forth, laughing until she started hiccuping. “I tricked you,” she crowed.
“Seriously, it wasn’t that funny,” Billi said. Vasilisa laughed harder. Billi smiled. Maybe it was.
Eventually Vasilisa calmed down. She wiped her nose on her sleeve and looked at Kay’s belongings.
“What’s going to happen now?” she asked.
There was a creak as Billi leaned back into the worn leather of Arthur’s chair.
“We’ll take you somewhere safe. Then, when things have calmed down, probably send you home to your grandmother.”
Vasilisa nodded. “I would love to see her garden again.” She stood up and bent over the flowerpot, stroking the bright petals. “She loves chrysanthemums.”
Billi stared at the plant. Thick, luscious, green leaves covered what had been bare twigs minutes ago. Fluffy orange flowers bloomed, and even as Billi watched, buds rose along the twigs, growing into balls and unfurling into more blossoms. A soft, fresh scent began to fill the room.
Vasilisa plucked a flower and it blossomed open in her hands-she held it out to Billi. Her smile was open and she seemed unaware of what had just happened. Any chance of her living a normal life had just gone forever.
Vasilisa would be the next Templar Oracle.