Sarwat Chadda - Dark Goddess

Pyroclastic surge , thought Billi. Hadn’t it all been in that Latin book? Superheated poisonous gases traveling at hundreds of miles per hour, incinerating everything in its path. It was the surge that had annihilated Pompeii back in a.d.

79. The ash fall had merely buried an already extinct city. There was no escape. “No use, no use,” said the cameraman. The camera lowered to dangle over a pair of boots. “We’re dead.”

The camera swung back and forth. The sound was just screaming and the roaring of the wind. Then the camera went up and Nicholas was back on the screen, his red tear-filled eyes staring straight at Billi, straight at them all.

“Keep filming,” he said grimly. He steadied himself and ran his hand through his hair, shaking ash off his hands.

“I love you,” he said. “I just wanted to say that I love you, Maggie.” He was shouting now as the wailing around them became deafening. “Tell the girls Daddy is thinking of them.” His voice was hoarse and he cradled the camera with both hands. “Tell them I love-”

The screen crackled, filled with electronic snow, then went black and silent. The only thing left on it was the headline, Nicholas Rhodes, live from Naples , then that too disappeared. The picture went back to the studio. The anchorwoman stared dumbly at her monitor.

Billi raced up the stairs.

Elaine and Arthur held Vasilisa in the half-filled tub. The water steamed, and both were using soaking towels to hold the semiconscious girl; she was too hot to touch.

“What’s she doing?” Billi could only think of that eruption. “She’s not doing anything! Something’s happening to her!” snapped Elaine.

Vasilisa jerked savagely, almost breaking free. Water splashed everywhere as she fought. Her eyes were squeezed shut. “This is what she wants!” she screamed. She grabbed Arthur’s arm, staring madly at him. Billi held her shoulders and watched the girl’s eyes darken, the pale blue melting into black. “This is what she wants!”

Elaine fumbled for the talismans around Vasilisa’s neck and pressed them against her temples.

“Fight. Fight her,” she whispered.

Vasilisa glared, snapping her teeth in fury. “Foo Liis H.” It was just a word, a curse, but it wasn’t Vasilisa. She hissed in a cacophony of dozens of discordant tongues. She clawed at Elaine’s face and left red-hot blisters down her cheek. Then Vasilisa’s eyes lost focus, glazing over. Her eyelids fluttered, and she slumped into the water.

The water in the bath continued to steam, and Arthur pulled back his hand, which was ringed with burns. It was sauna hot in here, and the temperature was still rising.

“Snow,” Billi said. “Put her in the snow.”

What happens to her affects the natural world. What happens to the natural world affects her.

Arthur wrapped Vasilisa in a wet blanket. The three of them ran into the gardens of Middle Temple. The blanket was smoldering by the time he unrolled her into the snow. Desperately they scooped handfuls over her, and great wet puddles formed as the snow almost instantly melted. But with the three of them at work they managed to get Vasilisa’s skin back to a normal temperature. Vasilisa gazed around her.

“Oh. So much snow.” She turned to Billi. “It’s Fimbulwinter…” Vasilisa’s voice fell into a murmur and she slumped.

Elaine put her hand against the girl’s forehead. She waited a minute, then sighed.

“She’s okay.”

Arthur lifted Vasilisa, cradling her in his arms. Elaine struggled to her feet.

As they made their way back home they passed a house with the lights still on. Billi paused outside a window.

It was indistinct, but the newscaster was repeating the same sentence over and over again, as though eventually she would believe her own words.

The eruption is over, but Naples has been destroyed.

THE ASH KEPT FALLING OVER NAPLES. NEWS COVERAGE continued as the scale of the disaster climbed. Towns had vanished, completely submerged under the millions of tons of volcanic detritus.

The pyroclastic blast had petered out as it smashed into the eastern face of the city, so the western inhabitants avoided the worst excesses of the eruption. Huge crowds of terrified people clustered at the bay, all struggling for a space on the flotilla of boats and ships that had gathered as part of the rescue operation.

For a while reports still came out of the city, mostly telephone calls from people who had hidden in basements while the volcano raged. But slowly the signals faded as they were buried alive, trapped forever underground.

They’d put Vasilisa back in bed, and she was sleeping soundly. Elaine had made sure the talismans were firmly in place before closing the door.

Billi, Arthur, and Elaine sat in the kitchen; by midmorning they’d all had enough of watching the news. Gwaine arrived, somber and carrying an armful of newspapers.

“What I want to know is, did Vasilisa do it?” asked Arthur. “Did she cause that eruption?”

“No…” Elaine began, but her tone was ambiguous. “Vesuvius is an active volcano. Sooner or later something like this was bound to happen.” She stared at the scorch marks on the floor. “Vasilisa’s sympathetic powers meant that she felt the eruption coming-she got worse as it did-but by the same token, as she cooled down, so did the volcano. She stopped the eruption. If it hadn’t been for Billi’s quick thinking, things could have been much, much worse…”

“There are thousands dead, tens of thousands. How much worse could it have been?” asked Gwaine. “And in the future?” His hand rested on the day’s Guardian . naples gone was the headline; the rest of the front page was black. “Will Vasilisa be able to cause volcanic eruptions?”

Elaine looked at Arthur, biting her lip. She spoke in a low whisper. “Yes. It’s possible-if she’s an avatar.”

Avatar? Wasn’t an avatar a computer icon? Somehow Billi got the feeling this was something different.

Elaine continued. “It’sa concept I came across in India during my traveling days.” In the bright overhead light the wrinkles around her mouth were deep black crevasses. “A super-Oracle.”

“Christ Almighty,” muttered Gwaine.

“Yes, like him. Don’t you get it? Vasilisa stopped a volcanic eruption. To be able to manipulate such energies requires incredible psychic strength; it would be like Kay trying to read the minds of everyone in London at once. The fact that Vasilisa survived and didn’t self-combust makes me think she has vast potential. It’s all lurking there, deep within her. She’s just too young to access it consciously.” Elaine gazed at the stairs that led to Vasilisa. “But once she learns how to control her abilities she’ll be able to create hurricanes with a clap of her hands. Stomp the ground and bring on earthquakes. Manipulate nature to suit her whims.”

“Oh,” said Billi. “Is that all? I was worried for a minute.”

This was the girl she’d rescued: someone who could destroy cities. Billi struggled to match the image of the frail blond girl with the destruction that had been wrought in Italy. She had powers and responsibility no human should be burdened with. Billi pitied her. She was a pawn in a game between the Templars and the Polenitsy. Whoever possessed Vasilisa could control nature.

“No wonder the Polenitsy want her so badly,” said Billi. They must have suspected Vasilisa was powerful, to have come all this way.

“Not just the werewolves,” added Elaine. “Can you imagine what the ghuls would give for the blood of such a powerful psychic? Or the devils for her soul? The powers they would gain by devouring her?”