Sarwat Chadda - Dark Goddess

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.

“Which way?” Billi asked.

“Exit eleven.” Holborn. That made sense. They could take the tube straight to Heathrow Airport from there.

“Don’t step in anything,” Arthur warned as he led them past colonies of red-eyed rats and pits overflowing with vomit-inducing foulness.

Eventually they reached a flight of steps leading to a steel door. Arthur unlocked it with a large key, and they emerged into a white-tiled corridor, the Holborn tube station itself. The door said danger-high voltage and had an official-looking London Electricity sign on it, so to the casual observer it was just one of the thousands of substations that covered the city.

Commuters in their winter coats, heads down and iPod buds in, barely gave them a second glance. It was rush hour and everyone wanted to get home. Billi took Vasilisa’s hand and joined the flow.

Buffeted and shoved along by the crowd, Billi locked her fingers around Vasilisa’s wrist as the sea of humanity caught her up. She couldn’t see anything but the back of the guy in front of her. A Polenitsy could be right there and she wouldn’t know it until the claws were in her back. Someone’s elbow hit her ribs, and Billi almost lashed out, her senses on hyperdrive. A man barged between Billi and Vasilisa, knocking Billi’s grip free.

“Billi!”

Vasilisa screamed as she disappeared in a sudden surge of people heading to the escalator. Billi glanced back and forth. Arthur was gone.

Bloody hell!

“Out of the way!” Billi pushed a man aside, knocking the newspaper out of his hands.

“Oi!”

Billi snarled, then saw Vasilisa turning around and around in a wall of bodies. Billi broke through, and Vasilisa ran into her arms. It took a minute for Billi to calm down, her heart racing harder here in the station than when the werewolves had attacked. She couldn’t lose Vasilisa. Billi used her sleeve to wipe the tears from Vasilisa’s face. This time they walked side by side to the westbound platform.

Arthur was waiting at the bottom of the steps. He put away his mobile.

“Elaine will meet us at Heathrow with Vasilisa’s passport. She’ll take her.”

“You’re not going?” Billi asked.

“Not with the Polenitsy on a rampage.”

Together they emerged onto the crowded platform. HEATHROW-2 MINUTES

The train pulledin and they pushed on board. A couple of seats came free, so Billi and Vasilisa sat. Arthur stood in the center of the car a few paces away, keeping an eye on the doors.

“We’re okay,” said Billi to herself as much as to Vasilisa, who still clutched her hand. People loomed over them, swaying from side to side as the train rattled through the tunnels. “Just sit tight.”