Sarwat Chadda - Dark Goddess

There could be no room for pity. The Knights Templar, from being an ancient order of warriors, was now a death squad.

So be it.

Billi looked at Kay one last time, then deleted him forever.

THE ERUPTION HAD THROWN UP SO MUCH ASH THAT flights throughout Europe had been delayed. Now, two days after the eruption, the backlog of weary and irate travelers still hadn’t been cleared. People slept on the seats, on the floors, up against the walls. Long lines of cars and buses blocked the entrance to Heathrow Airport as the passengers were transferred to other airports or hotels, all being managed by a forlorn airport staff.

Billi and the other knights picked their way through the groups of abandoned passengers and climbed over piles of waiting luggage. It wasn’t yet seven, but the airport was overflowing.

Billi watched the news on one of the big overhead screens. The destruction of Naples dominated everything. Almost thirty feet of ash and rock had fallen over the city in the last two days, and only now were any rescue vehicles able to even approach the devastated city. Buildings had collapsed under the sheer weight of the falling debris, burying scores of people. Ash had set as hard as concrete, and the drills and picks and the desperate hands did little good.

Miracles still occurred. People continued to trickle out of the tunnels. They’d fled into the underground system, then walked out once the eruptions had ended. Thousands were gathered in an ever-growing refugee camp, and families pored over long lists plastered to wooden walls, hoping to find a relative or friend among the survivors.

“It seems so hopeless,” said a woman watching the coverage.

Hopeless? Maybe. But people still fought on. Billi stared at the small figures moving over the vast gray city like ants, struggling against the wrath of nature. That’s what humanity did, wasn’t it? Despite the overwhelming odds, it fought on.

No weapons. Arthur didn’t want anyone getting arrested at customs because they’d tried to smuggle in a broadsword. Lance knew an arms dealer in Moscow from his bad old days as a smuggler, and that was where Gwaine’s team would tool up. Arthur had friends across the waters in Finland, and they would deliver gear to the Karelia team. Each Templar had a package of Elaine’s wolfsbane poultices.

Billi pulled off her backpack while Elaine arranged the boarding passes. She scratched her shoulder blade. The claw marks had healed up nicely, but she had no plans to get bitten or clawed again. She’d put the roll of stinking brown cloth in an airtight Tupperware sandwich box, but still the smell seemed to linger on everything.

The Knights Templar gathered at the coffee shop on the other side of passport control. The Karelia flight was just before the Moscow one.

Arthur brought his latte over to Billi.

“How are you feeling?” He sat down stiffly.

“Better than you, I think.”

“Funny girl.” He stirred in his sugar, and the chair creaked as he leaned back. “It’s going to be a bad one, Billi.”

Like she didn’t know. They were going in blind. Here in Britain the Templars had secret contacts and hideouts scattered across the country. Russia was the unknown. It was Baba Yaga and the Polenitsys’ heartland. They’d be outnumbered ten to one, at least.

“Tell me about the Bogatyrs,” Billi said. Everything had been so rushed, she’d had no time to find out about the Russian knights.

“Christian warriors, set up before the Templars. The Russians never got involved in the Crusades; their enemies weren’t the Saracens, but the followers of the old ways-pagans, witches, the werewolves.”

“And what about this Romanov bloke? Alexeithingamajig?”

“Alexei Viktorovich Romanov. Please get the pronunciation right-he is royalty. Great-grandson of Tsar Nicholas, if I remember correctly.” Arthur scratched his beard, trying to remember what else he knew. “The story is that everyone in the royal family was killed at the beginning of the Russian revolution. That much is history. But there were always rumors that one Romanov survived; the princess Anastasia. She was saved by the Bogatyrs. Since then her children and her children’s children have served, and led, the Russian order of knights. Stalin tried his best to wipe them out, and they went into hiding, like us. But after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Bogatyrs became active again, under the leadership of Alexei. Tsar Alexei.”

“What’s he like?”

Arthur shrugged. “Never met him. But I hear he’s a man of honor.” He glanced up at the overhead display. “Time to go.” He leaned across the table and kissed Billi’s cheek. “Good-bye.”

The other knights waited. Arthur looked as though there were something else he wanted to say. He fidgeted with his wedding ring. “Listen, Billi. If the worst happens, don’t worry about me. Look after yourself.” He patted her arm. It was a pathetic gesture, but neither of them knew what else to do. “You’ll be fine.” Then he turned toward the others.

“Dad, wait.”

Billi wanted to say something. She wanted to say she loved him. That despite how things had turned out, it wasn’t his fault. She’d chosen this life.

“ Deus vult, Dad.”

Arthur smiled and nodded. “ Deus vult , Billi.”

“WHAT D’YOU THINK?” ASKED ELAINE AS SHE leaned over Billi to peer out the plane window. They were over Russia and would be landing in the next ten minutes. What did she think? Billi stared out over a world of mutilated white.

They’d leftthe suburban landscapeof southeast England, the blotches of orange-roofed estates and fragmented fields. From up above she’d realized how small, how provincial England was, away from the cluster of skyscrapers and parks of London.

Russia was on a different scale entirely. The plane banked over a maze of monolithic housing blocks that seemed to have been dumped at random over the countryside. A huge power station with four hellhole chimneys belched great clouds of steam into the sky. The snow around it was smeared with soot. Motorways ran like scars across the vast plains, razor-straight and black.

The main roads led to vast expanses of forest, with smaller roads winding to clusters of houses on the edge of a river or a lake.

“Dachas,” said Elaine. “Once, all Russians dreamed of was their little hidey-hole in the country. Play peasant during the weekend, then go back to big bad Moscow.”

“What do they dream of now?”

“Diamonds and caviar, like the rest of us,” Elaine said as she summoned the steward. Her tray table was already overflowing with miniature bottles of Gordon’s gin.

Lance appeared. The plane was half empty, giving everyone space to spread out. He and Gwaine were up near the front, while Billi and Elaine had gone to the back.

He grabbed a bottle as it rolled off the small flip-down table. Elaine blushed as he handed it back to her. Was she embarrassed because of her drinking? That would be a first.

Maybe it was Lance. He’d joined the order a week or two after Percy’s funeral. The Templars had known about him for years, a loner who stalked ghuls and the other Unholy across Europe. Billi had seen him in action a few days after he’d arrived. A trio of blood-drinkers had been feeding on people in a nursing home, safe in the assumption that no one would believe horror stories from the elderly inhabitants. Lance had gone through those undead likea hurricane.

Even Arthur had been impressed. The Frenchman had an easy charm, and his eyepatch gave him piratical glamor. He was old, maybe in his mid-thirties, but handsome in that Continental way, with a long, drooping, Gallic mustache. Billi looked at Elaine again. Red as a tomato.