Sarwat Chadda: Devil’s Kiss

Michael stood in a blackened crater of molten tarmac. And the others gathered around him.

They appeared as hazy shadows, trembling against the fiery light, slowly taking form and substance. Each one screamed as he tore his way through the final barrier between realms and returned, at last, to this one. Billi watched them stumble, naked and exhausted, and collapse on the ground, black vapours rising off their still forming bodies. Dozens and dozens took the same journey and the street was littered with white, tattooed bodies. Michael walked to one and helped lift him up. They stared at each other, their golden eyes filled with Ethereal power. Michael embraced him.

‘Araqiel,’ he said.

The others stood. The shadows about their bodies rippled and wrapped their bodies with dark cloth. Against this their white faces shone with angelic light. Dark angels indeed.

The Cursed Mirror. Michael had dropped it. Billi crawled towards it. With it there may still be a chance. She stretched out her hand.

Michael picked it up. He looked down at her and cupped the disc in his hands. It melted like butter though his fingers and long strands of glowing molten copper dripped on to the floor, hissing and solidifying into a formless blob.

He then bent down and lifted her face gently. Those eyes that she’d once thought so beautiful and brilliant were now the eyes of a pitiless hunter. They reflected no warmth, no compassion. He lowered his lips and kissed her. Billi flinched, but his fingers clenched her jaw, holding her fast. It felt like she was pressed against a boiling kettle. She wanted to scream, but his lips held hers shut. Then Michael dropped her.

The other Watchers gathered around him.

‘Come, we have God’s work to do,’ he said. They turned away and vanished into the darkness.

Billi got up, took a few steps, then tumbled as her head spun and the ground swayed. She turned towards the sky, desperate for some cool rain on her face, but she was burning. She felt as though the raindrops were boiling off her skin the moment they landed. She couldn’t breathe. The air thickened around her. Her ears filled with an endless high-pitched buzzing and the ground gave way. Hands grabbed her as she fell and her dad was shouting at her, his eyes wide with terror, but she couldn’t hear what he was saying. Steel nails raked her belly and she doubled over, vomit gorging her throat, spilling out of her mouth. Elaine rushed to help and her hands passed over Billi’s eyes, just briefly.

She saw them, the cloud of black crystalline necro-flies, descending on her. She screamed as they infested her face, crawling over her mouth and her eyes, their drone echoing deep in her skull. She thrashed wildly, trying to fight them off, but they swarmed thicker and thicker around her until she was covered in them and her eyes filled with darkness.

The plague was unleashed.

I’m dead.

Kay’s dead.

We’re all dead.

She floated in the air, warm and weightless. She felt safe and secure, something she hadn’t felt in years. If this was death it wasn’t so bad.

But as Billi senses returned so did the pain. Each breath was like dragging broken glass down her throat, and white-hot needles dug into every joint.

Wasn’t all that meant to end when you died?

‘Billi?’

Her dad was close, looking down at her. He was carrying her in his arms. He hadn’t done that since… when? Ages and ages. He wiped her face with his sleeve.

‘Don’t cry. We’re almost home.’

Home? Where was that?

She looked up into the dark sky and floating above him were two knights, riding a single horse. The Knights Templar.

My God, the Templars have a Heaven all to themselves.

Just great.

She’d thought once she was dead she’d have a break from all that. But as her eyes focused the two knights became a small, black iron statue, atop a plain white stone column.

Home. What other home did they have?

Temple Church.

Elaine threw her coat on the pedestal at the foot of the Templar column and Arthur laid Billi on to it. Drizzle tickled her face, its coolness dampening the red fever boiling her skin.

From here crusades had been declared. From here the greatest military order of medieval times had made holy war. Nobles, princes and even kings had come here on bended knee and trembled under the gauntlets of the Knights Templar.

Now it was a fire-blackened shell. The windows all shattered and the doors boarded up with plywood. The rain merely smeared great streaks of soot down its white walls. Distant flashes of lightning lit the thick black clouds that loomed over London. The air trembled with thunder.

But there was another sound, almost drowned under the violent sky. Billi lifted herself on to her side, straining to separate the sounds.

Church bells. The city echoed with them. The noise rose as more and more bells joined the summoning. The black clouds seemed to shake with anger and thundered back. For a brief moment Billi hoped. She hoped that something would happen, anything.

Summoning the faithful. The fearful.

The rain beat down hard, wind screamed across the courtyard and Billi could hear the bells no longer. She sank back on to the hard, cold stone. What good would it do them? Michael had won. And tomorrow all the firstborn would be dead.

Kay was dead. She would be dead.

Arthur sat down beside her and stroked her hair. He leaned against the column and smiled weakly. There was a gentleness there that she hadn’t seen in years. He looked so different.

‘Art,’ said Elaine, pointing into the darkness ahead.

They came. Black silhouettes moving cautiously through the wall of rain. Arthur stood up and pulled out the breadknife.

The Watchers. They’d come to finish the job. A half dozen or so, but that would be more than enough. They moved with warrior confidence, not rushing, but approaching with a deadly sureness.

Arthur stepped forward.

‘Close your eyes, Billi,’ said Elaine. She bunched up her bony fists, determined to fight till the last. Billi wanted to laugh; she wanted to cry. Elaine hadn’t been a Templar in life, but she was going to die one.

No. She would not go eyes closed and on her back. Billi forced herself up. Her muscles spasmed, but she gritted her teeth and forced them under her control. If this was the end she’d fight. The black shapes came closer.

‘Art?’

She peered into the darkness. Hold on…

‘Gwaine?’ said Arthur.

He stepped out into the weak pool of street light. Gwaine’s face had aged, his cheeks sunken and deeper grooved than before. But his eyes shone wetly. He stopped an arm’s length from her dad. Billi watched as the others appeared. The air about them went still and she held her breath.

‘Arthur.’ He took Arthur’s right hand in his and went to his knee. ‘My Master.’

They’d come. They’d all come. Bors, Gareth, old Father Balin and the others. Pelleas hugged Billi, squeezing her until she couldn’t breathe. Even Elaine got kisses from Bors, and Billi watched her blushing and laughing in relief.

They’d come. They were few but, to Billi, she realized at last they were everything.

It was inevitable. She’d tried and fought against it. She’d quit and almost abandoned them, but this was her life, her destiny. Kay was gone and this was all the family she had now.

The Knights Templar.

‘But I’m coming with you,’ said Billi. She sat on a stool with a dense brown woollen shawl over her shoulders, feeling a hundred years old. The pain had turned down from un bearable agony to merely unbearable. Maybe here, deep in the Temple catacombs, the bones of the ancient Templars were better wards than all the magic Elaine could manage.