The Templar's Curse

by Sarwat Chadda

  Erin laughs.

  ***

  What a freaky dream. What did it mean?

  Out in the desert amongst the Mesopotamian ruins and with Erin, the snake version, and digging up Ivan.

  Snakes were believed to be immortal. That was what everyone was after. To live forever. But why? Did it really appeal so much? Maybe because she was only eighteen, Billi felt immortal anyway. She was as good as she would ever be. What happened ten years down the line? Twenty? Those years seemed impossibly far away, but one day she’d be the same age as her dad and how did he spend his mornings? He ached. He was slow first thing, she would see him wince as he reached for the mug on the shelf.

  Snakes. Immortality. Erin and Ivan. All mixed up in her subconscious. Was it trying to make sense of it all, give her clues? Or was it like most dreams, irrelevant? Was she trying to see a pattern that wasn’t there? She rubbed her face, trying to get herself awake. Not even six but she had a lot to do today.

  Sizzling. She heard something sizzling. And what was that smell? Onions frying? Yeah. And someone singing. Couldn’t make out the lyrics, and whatever the song he was making a mess of it.

  Billi sat up and pulled on a jumper. The apartment heating wasn’t the best, and the mornings were getting autumnal. But whatever was happening in the kitchen, she wanted to be a part of it. She heard the kettle boiling and the toaster pop.

  “Morning,” said Faustus. He stood over the hob and was sprinkling fresh chillies in with the omelette. “Give me another minute. Pour out a cuppa, will you? Four sugars. I’ve got a feeling today’s gonna be a long one.”

  Billi took two mugs off the shelf. “Didn’t think you were a morning person.”

  “You know I’ve been dreaming of eggs? The commune voted to go full vegan last month. Now I’m all for living a better life, but a man’s got to have a few pleasures otherwise what’s the point?”

  He’d put the toast, butter and marmalade out already and, blimey, were they fresh flowers in Dad’s pint glass? Where and when had he got those? “If you do this every morning, then you can stay.”

  Faustus chopped the omelette in half with a jab of the fish slice then slid each piece onto a plate. “You couldn’t afford me. I’m high maintenance.”

  “Then maybe you should be the one going out with Ivan.”

  Faustus sprinkled some fresh coriander. “Believe me, it crossed my mind.”

  “Had a weird dream. You want to hear about it?”

  Faustus smeared ketchup over his slice. “Was I in it?”

  “Erin and Ivan. They were snakes.”

  “That’s certainly Freudian. Any trains going into tunnels?”

  “Sometimes a snake is just a snake, Faustus. I dunno. Maybe it doesn’t mean anything but then if it does, it’ll only make sense when it’s too late.” Billi slapped her omelette between two slices of toast. It smelt delicious. When was the last time she’d had a proper cooked breakfast? When had she had a proper breakfast? Nowadays it was coffee and a banana, if she remembered. Her mouth watered and she bit in. The chillies set her mouth all a-tingling. She closed her eyes as she chewed, giving each of her taste-buds a chance to wake up and enjoy the treat.

  When she opened them she realised he was looking at her, a wry smile over his lips. The sun was just rising, the light was streaming through the small window and in that magical half-glow of a new day Faustus’s face was a mix of mysterious shadow and easy familiarity. He looked new, reborn. He wore a tee-shirt and his bare arms were tanned, and the left one decorated with the occult tattoos. She could make out the symbols much more clearly. “What do they mean?”

  “You know you shouldn’t ask anyone to explain their tattoos.”

  “Indulge me, Faustus,” said Billi. “Or did you think you were getting some cool Buddhist quote but it turns out to be the number five special off the menu of the local Indian takeaway?”

  Faustus rolled up a quarter of the omelette and pushed it into his mouth. He made noises as he chewed. He licked his fingers before drawing them around one of the tattoos. “This is summoning the goddess of the underworld, Hel. I’m asking her to open her heart and provide her protection. This next band is to Thoth and Anubis, Egyptian divinities. It’s asking them for their aid, pleading that they are wise and forgiving in their judgements.”

  “You’re strange boy, Faustus.”

  “You give the best compliments, Billi.” He gestured at his mobile. “I’ve texted Lionel. He’s up so I’ll be taking Erin’s scrap book up there and we’ll see if we can find anything of interest. It’s ancient Sumerian, not my area of expertise but we’ll get there.”

  “Time’s ticking. I don’t know how long Ivan’s got.”

  “You got to trust me with this, Billi.”

  She nodded. “Take the spare keys. I’ll meet you back here later.”

  “What are you up to?”

  “I’m gonna see if I can persuade Gwaine to change his mind, and help.” Billi finished off the last of her sandwich and brushed the crumbs off her fingertips. “We don’t agree on much, but in the end we’re both Templars. I need to convince him that Ivan’s kidnapping is Templar business, not some gangster drama with the Russian mafia.”

  “How are you going to do that?”

  Billi gazed out the window. The Temple Church was just visible over the rooftops. “By being a good little Templar.”

  ***

  After splashing some water on her face Billi ran across the Temple to get to the church, and downstairs into the ossuary. She flicked on the lights and set to work, laying out the mats and hanging up the gloves. She wiped down the punch-bags and arranged the practise weapons in a neat row, lightest to heaviest.

  Gwaine arrived just as Billi was sliding the dummy into place.

  He didn’t say anything, not even nod an acknowledgement. He wished she wasn’t in his life, and Billi frankly wished the exact same. The other Templars? She had a working relationship with them, might even call Lance a friend, she could go to him when her dad wasn’t around but he was back in France dealing with a loup garou, a werewolf. Mo? Sure, he was a legitimate mate but he had only just passed the Ordeal. He sat at the table with the other eight, herself included, but his job was to be quiet, listen, and do exactly as he was told.

  Billi put the last of the staves on the rack. “You’re wrong about me.”

  Gwaine looked around the ossuary, looking for something that was out of place. Looking for something to complain about. He didn’t speak, just went over to the weapons, tutted, and rearranged them. Nothing was ever good enough for him.

  “Did you hear me, Gwaine?”

  “I heard.” He picked up a pair of light-weight sparring gloves.

  “You think I’m not dedicated to the order. That I’m not a true Templar. Why? Haven’t I proved myself, over and over again? Who took on Michael? Who stopped Baba Yaga? Me. What about those vampires we found in that abandoned train station? I was in first.”

  “So?”

  “What more do you want? Tell me, and I’ll do it.”

  “And in return you want me to help find your boyfriend?” Gwaine dragged his palm over his thick grey bristles. “Is that it?”

  “He’s in danger. It’s connected with the Ouroboros Society. One of their guys, Reginald FitzRoy, may be behind Ivan’s kidnapping. This isn’t gangster business. This is our business.”

  “If what you say is true, why haven’t his Bogatyrs leapt into action?”

  “They don’t know London. For all I know they’re busy searching every alleyway from here to Croydon but we’re Templars. London is ours. Ours to rule, and to protect.”

  “Nice sentiment. You don’t mean a word of it, of course. You’re no Templar, Billi SanGreal. You never will be. You know why?”

  “Because I don’t obey the rules, right?”

  Gwaine glared at her. “Damn right! It’s that simple! Yeah, you pay lip service, you know the words and the rituals but
you can train a chimp to do what you do. But you don’t believe, not really. You’re just a violent, maladjusted kid who thinks she’s marked for some great destiny. And before you get your knickers in a twist it’s got nothing to do with you being a girl, though that doesn’t help. You’re a danger to yourself, and that I wholly don’t care about, but you’re a danger to the order and that, my girl, is my life you’re messing with. I have given everything to the Templars, and I’ll be damned if I’ll see it destroyed by the likes of you.”

  Look at him, he’s ready to explode. What did I ever do to make him like this?

  He was old, and tough and there were no old and bold Templars except Gwaine and yet she couldn’t respect him. He was Seneschal, second in command, and he’d taught her dad. Hell, he’d taught her back at the beginning. History and Arabic. Both of them had hated every second of it but that had only made Billi work harder. She’d been fluent within a year and thought that would be that, but then her dad had got Gwaine to teach her Hebrew too. There’d been no escape.

  But now it was too late for either of them to turn back. They represented the opposites within the order. Gwaine wanted everything to be how it had been back at the beginning. He wanted the Templars to be just like the original founders at the beginning of the 12th century but didn’t understand why that wouldn’t work. There was no going back to some mythic, Golden Age. There was only one way for the Order to go, and that was relentlessly forward. And that, whether she liked it or not, was Billi, Mordred, Bors and the squires.

  Bors was Gwaine’s nephew, but Bors was a vicious brute. You aimed him at the enemy and then just got the hell out of the way. But he wasn’t a leader. The squires didn’t look to him, they looked to Billi.

  And that terrified Gwaine.

  He’d seen into the future and found Billi. That’s why he wanted to turn back the clock nine hundred years.

  “You want my help?” asked Gwaine. “There’s a simple way to get it. The oldest way there is to decide who’s right, and who isn’t. Trial by combat.”

  “You’re serious?”

  Gwaine cracked his knuckles, each one noisily after the other.

  He’s serious.

  Gwaine had to be sixty, minimum. There wasn’t much to him, sinewy muscle and leathery skin covered with five decades’ worth of scars. She’d watched him countless times. She’d taken lessons off him. He’d shown her how to punch properly.

  She was taller with longer reach and over forty years younger. He didn’t even have much of a weight advantage.

  You can have him, SanGreal.

  Billi picked up a pair of gloves for herself. “I win and you’ll help me find Ivan?”

  “I win and you leave the Bogatyrs to deal with their man by themselves.”

  The gloves were short, the type used nowadays in MMA. Gwaine was an old-school bare knuckle brawler. He had a jaw made of stone and that bristly bald head of his could be hammered at all day without him feeling it. You’d break your fingers on his skull. He worked nice and tight, head down and elbows in. That belly of his was as hard-packed as wood. But one good hit from those knobbly knuckles of his then it was goodnight, SanGreal.

  That’s all he wants, one opening and he’s in.

  Voices echoed, grumbles and a few laughs from the steps and a moment later down came Mo, Idres and Carados. Mo caught her gaze and the laughter stopped dead.

  “Don’t mind us, boys,” said Gwaine, slowly circling her on the mat. “Mordred, get on with the drills.”

  “What’s going on?” said Carados.

  “Shut up and grab the swords,” snapped Mordred. He passed by close to Billi. “You’d better know what you’re doing.”

  That makes two of us, mate.

  Could she beat Gwaine? What would it prove in the end? Would it settle anything between them, or be a new source of resentment, even hate? Would it solve anything? She knew the answer to that. Billi tossed the gloves away. “I’m not fighting you, Gwaine. I’m not interested in this macho bullshit. You know I’m right about Ivan but you’re obsessed with status. That’s why you weren’t made Master and Dad was. He just wants to get the job done, any which way you can, but you want it all to be your way, or none at all. You’d rather fail than break the rules. I ain’t got the time for that.”

  He smiled. He’d won this petty little victory and that’s all that mattered to him. His world was small, and bitter and this was the measure of Gwaine. An old hard man who couldn’t accept he’d been left behind and was grasping onto any little straw of relevance, to persuade himself that he mattered. It was sad and pitiful, but Billi wasn’t interested in pitying Gwaine. He was in her way and she was just going to step around him and leave him behind. She glanced over to Mordred. “Get Idres to practise with his off-hand. He needs to get more used to swapping grips, it’ll keep him unpredictable.”

  “Got it.” Mordred tossed the wooden sword to Carados. “You heard her.”

  Billi stopped in the fresh air outside Temple Church. There was a group of tourists rushing across the square, following a woman holding up the Monarch Tours sign. They took quick photos before heading off to their coach.

  Great start to the day, SanGreal. One seriously pissed off Seneschal and those squires didn’t look like they were gonna be running to your aid any time soon.

  Mo? Could she get Mo to help? Not likely.

  Who does that leave? Faustus and ...

  She wanted her dad back. But that wasn’t going to happen, not in time. Billi opened up her mobile and she almost called him, but her gaze instead fell on a text from Erin. She wanted to meet up and had ended it with a half-dozen kisses.

  Erin was part of all this, whether she liked it or not. And she was in deep. Should Billi come clean and tell her exactly what was going on?

  Could Erin handle it? To know what was really out there in the dark? Didn’t she have enough to be dealing with without Billi telling her what horrors, what dangers, lurked in the shadows? And yet...

  She was lying to Erin. Erin thought she was her friend but she was her bait. Something to dangle out and hope something big and ugly would bite. If she was going to put Erin at risk then surely Erin deserved to know. But what if, once she knew the truth, Erin hated Billi? Wasn’t that likely?

  So what do you want? Keep this fake friendship or risk telling her the truth and accepting the consequences? Yeah, you could lose her but there may be a chance Erin might join you. Does she deserve either? If you really cared you would leave her well out of it.

  Except she couldn’t. But Billi just wasn’t sure why. She typed back to Erin.

  See you in an hour. Where are you?

  The reply came a few seconds later.

  I’m visiting Dad.

  CHAPTER 20

  West Norwood cemetery was one of the ‘big seven’ necropoli, cities of the dead, that had been built during the Victorian era to manage the explosion in London’s population. It was only a few kilometres from Erin’s home, and it was where her dad was buried.

  There was a war memorial at the entrance, and war graves dotted across the cemetery, mainly from the world wars. Billi had found out the FitzRoys had a family plot within the heart of the cemetery, so she adjusted her coat and wandered further in.

  Looking for Erin.

  The cemetery wasn’t busy this time in the evening. Paths wound through the fields of graves and tombs of the great and good and dearly departed and much loved and much missed. Some were old, forgotten and covered with weeds and broken apart by tree roots while others had flowers and gifts laid out. There were ones with teddy bears and balloons and very brief lives. Some she paused at, calculating how old they would be now if death hadn’t lifted them from their cribs.

  An old woman in a big coat and headscarf filled a plastic bottle from the water tap and then shuffled over to work on a grave. She settled down on her knees and chatted to the grave as she tended the flowers and potted plants. A heavily pregnant woman sat
on a bench, scrolling through her mobile as she rolled a pram back and forth. She glanced at Billi with a weary expression as if to warn her not to rush, once you had kids your life was over.

  The cemetery was a labyrinth and much overgrown. Some of the paths had disappeared under weeds and brambles.

  Workmen had started on cutting back the worst of the summer growth and had built up piles of dead wood and trimmings. It made her think of her dad and the other Templars. They worked as handymen and gardeners within Temple district and in the late autumn would build a huge pyre of branches, foliage and leaves that would be set ablaze on Guy Fawkes night. The apartment would smell of sawdust for weeks and she’d learnt how best to use an axe on some of the more stubborn trees.

  Erin knelt by the gravestone, a bunch of flowers on her lap. She was talking. Whatever she was saying it was serious and troubling, and it seemed her dad was the only one she could share it with.

  It felt wrong to be here, despite the invite she should have waited for Erin to come back home. Billi could tell herself it was for Erin’s own protection but was that true? Was she really here to guard her friend or was she dangling Erin like a worm on a hook, hoping for a bite? What sort of person was she? She wanted to be good, to be caring and to be the sort who comforted people, someone others looked to for help. That was the only way she could justify what she did. Dad had talked about his years as a soldier and how hard it was justifying the things he’d done for the sake of Queen and Country. That had led to his PTSD, and ultimately to him meeting her mum. The world turned in strange ways.

  Someone was coming. A man.

  Billi moved slowly behind one of the bigger tombs.

  He dawdled, looking at one grave, then another, exploring the cemetery with a cup of coffee in his hand and a newspaper tucked under his arm. His hat hid his face and his suit was well-cut with a budding carnation in his lapel’s button-hole. Military cut? And those shoes were polished as brightly as a cadet on parade.

  Reggie?

  She believed what Ardhan had told her, that Erin was haunted by her great-grandfather. It was a solid corner of the jigsaw puzzle she and Faustus were trying to assemble. He wanted the Vessel of the Anunnaki but it was becoming clear that Simon had never found such an object and, even if Erin had somehow missed it, her mother had seen to it personally that all the artefacts had been destroyed.