Sarwat Chadda - Devil’s Kiss

‘Like what, honey?’

‘Selfish and heartless?’

Percy stopped dead. His grip tightened and Billi saw his jaw stiffen. Then he took a deep sigh, stepped back and focused his attention on his weapon.

‘We’ll start with light sparring. Upper-body cuts first,’ he said. He shifted his position to high guard.

‘Percy, didn’t you hear me?’

‘Left strike to head.’

His kiai shout shook the stones and Billi swept up her staff but even though she blocked the attack the impact knocked her to the ground. Her hands stung. Percy stood over her, sword tip directed at her throat.

‘More flexibility in the shoulders; absorbs the shock better,’ he said.

Billi didn’t get up.

Percy paused. He tucked the bokken under his armpit and lifted Billi up to her feet. He stood in front of her and his brown eyes softened.

‘Billi, I wish it could be different, but Arthur has no choice.’ He glanced up, checking no one was near, then leaned down so he could whisper. ‘Never doubt he loves you. You’re everything to him.’

Then he put away his wooden sword and left.

Two hours later Billi was in the kitchen clearing away dinner when Arthur returned home. He dropped his gym bag against the washing machine and went to the fridge.

‘You were late for watch,’ he said.

Oh, nice to see you too, Dad.

‘Yes. I’m sorry.’

‘I thought I’d made myself clear, right here -’ he pointed at the spot in front of him – ‘about you wasting time in cafes… socializing.’

So Kay had grassed her up. Some friend he’d turned out to be. ‘I wasn’t wasting my time.’

His eyes narrowed and his fingers tightened round the fridge handle. Arthur stood, eyes locked on hers, and Billi marked the paleness in his face.

‘What exactly do you think this is?’ he asked. ‘Some sort of game? That you can drop out of any time you like to go holding hands with a boy?’ He slammed the door shut and the table jumped. ‘Yes, the training’s hard but it’s for your own good.’

‘My own good? This is nothing to do with me! The Knights Templar – it’s all you care about. Everything’s about the Order. You don’t care about me.’

Arthur stared back at her stonily, but he didn’t deny it.

‘You are a Templar, Billi. Never forget that. We, you, have no choice. Deal with it.’

And he turned his back on her.

Percy had been so wrong. Billi slammed the front door and wiped her face. She just had to get out. She didn’t care where, just out.

‘Hey, SanGreal.’

Billi spun around. Mike stood in the shadowy doorway behind her. His eyes shone warmly in the street light.

‘For God’s sake, Mike, you almost gave me a cardiac.’ What was he doing here at this time of night?

He pulled out his mobile. ‘I’ve tried calling.’

‘Sorry, but I’ve lost mine.’

Mike came closer. ‘So it wasn’t because of our talk? I’m sorry if I got too personal. It’s none of my business.’

‘No, it’s nothing to do with you. It’s just… things aren’t that great with Dad.’ Gross understatement.

Mike saw her tear-stained face. He bit his lips and Billi could see he was struggling not to say something. He just nodded slowly. ‘You OK?’

Billi stared at her door. The paint was worn and flaking. She turned towards Mike. God, she so desperately wanted to run away from all this.

‘Let’s get out of here,’ he said, almost reading her thoughts. ‘I want to show you something amazing.’

They made their way along the dark streets into the City. It was dead this time of night. Though the oldest part of London, it was a maze of narrow alleys and glass towers, old bones with fresh new flesh. The unlit wine bars, dull pubs, the monolithic Victorian banks, the glass and steel skyscrapers, they all jostled and pushed at each other, vainly reaching for what little sky there was.

Mike brought Billi to a building site. Barbed wire topped the whitewashed hoarding, and floodlights cast their stark white glare over the skeletal black frame of a half-erected tower. Billi stopped in front of the display board.

‘ Elysium Heights,’ she said. She followed the spine of the building upwards. It looked like the skeleton of some ancient giant, reaching out of his grave and grasping for Heaven. The sky hung low and brooding over it like an angry thought. ‘Who’d want to live up there?’

‘It’s beautiful,’ said Mike. ‘Haven’t you noticed how you can’t see the dirt from up high?’

Billi shook her head. ‘It’s unreal. Living up so high… it just cuts you off. But some people might want that.’

‘Want what?’

‘To be above everyone.’

Mike smiled. ‘You might feel differently once you’ve seen for yourself.’ He made his way to the gates. ‘Follow me.’

The gates were steel mesh, and Mike scrabbled up and over them in seconds. He dropped down on the opposite side. ‘Come on.’

Trespassing. It was trespassing.

‘No. This is stupid, Mike. Come back.’

Her dad would flay her alive if she got caught.

Mike looked up at the tower. ‘We’ll be quick. I’ve done it before, Billi. Up there you get a different perspective on things. Your troubles don’t seem to matter so much.’

She shouldn’t do it. She should be a good little girl and obey her dad.

Billi hooked her fingers into the chain-link, and jumped over. She stumbled as she landed, but Mike caught her. His arms lingered round her and Billi could sense his strength, just held in check.

Then he straightened her up and moved further into the dark.

Portakabins, stores and temporary sheds lay scattered across the muddy pitch-sized site. Tractors, bulldozers and yellow-painted lorries stood idle and menacing like dormant monsters. The harsh floodlights threw deep shadows as well as glaring brightness, and it didn’t take long for Billi to get lost in the labyrinthine alleyways between the piles of cement and steel.

‘This is it.’ Mike stopped beside the goods hoist. The steel cage took men and materials up and down the building, fixed to the side via a rickety-looking yellow scaffold.

Billi stared awestruck at the scale of it all. The frame rose out of huge concrete columns, each a couple of metres wide. A complex web of steel beams climbed higher and higher into the darkness. Spotlights erected on the elevated platforms drew her gaze: small isolated islands in the tower grasping at the darkness.

Mike pointed upwards. ‘The view is awesome.’

‘You’ve been that high?’

Mike looked into the sky. ‘Oh, much higher.’ He lifted up the steel cage door of the lift.

Billi followed him in and slammed the gate down. Mike took hold of the red handle and pulled. The lift trembled as it shook itself free of the earth, then climbed upwards.

The city spread out under her. The roads were golden ribbons twisting through the diamond-sparkling darkness, the buildings glowed in the floodlights and the Thames wound through it all, as black as marble. The wind-wrapped raindrops stung her cheeks and the cold air electrified her skin. Higher and higher they rose, the lift rattled and shook, the noise of the gears on the scaffold was deafening. The city and all her problems were so far below. Mike was right: it was beautiful.

The lift halted with a jolt.

Mike rolled up the gate. ‘Follow me.’

‘Are you insane? I’m not going out there!’

‘C’mon, Billi. I’ll take care of you.’ Billi hesitated. No one had promised her that before.

She walked to the edge of the lift. The floor hadn’t been fully cast yet. It was just a matrix of beams with patches filled in with concrete, like a massive crossword. She gazed downwards and had to clutch the side as her head swam with vertigo. There wasn’t much between her and the ground, two hundred metres below. She slowly crossed the solid section of floor, keeping well away from the edge.