More and more. No matter how much time she dedicated to the Templars her dad always wanted more. Did he treat the other knights like that? She couldn’t even have a few hours to herself without the Order smashing it all up.
And Mike understood. The only thing good about being on watch was she could go over the date again and again. She really wanted to see him again. But how? Her dad would never let her be free. The harder she worked the more responsibilities he piled on to her. She was trapped.
So I left.
12
Billi got home after the watch and was asleep the moment her head hit the pillow. She made it through the next day only because it was Saturday. She thought about calling Mike, but seemed to have left her mobile in Berrant’s van. And, anyway, what use would it be? But the more she thought about how her dad dictated every minuscule aspect of her life, the more she thought about what Mike had said.
Evening came around too quickly. Billi crossed the dark, empty courtyard and made her way down into the catacombs.
The armoury was alive with the clatter of weapons and thumping of punches and kicks. Billi chucked her bag in a corner and found a spot to perform her warm-ups. Even Kay was here – that was a first. He was red faced and absolutely soaked in sweat, practising unarmed combat with the hulking Bors. There were no weight categories in real fights, so Arthur made everyone train against everyone. Billi winced as Bors slammed his shoulder into Kay’s chest, catapulting him across the practice mat.
‘He won’t be much good as an Oracle if you knock his brains out,’ said Billi. Bors just grunted; when it came to Oracles he felt the same way as Gwaine did. Kay lifted himself off the mat and waved at her. She ignored him.
She looked around the catacomb. Still no Arthur, and Percy was at work fighting Pelleas. Percy wielded a heavy axe as though it was made of balsa wood. Pelleas, bandages now gone, darted under and between blows, weaving a web of steel with his rapier and main gauche. Gareth sat on a stool, carefully wrapping fresh fletching to a quiver of arrows. An array of arrowheads lay on the table. Armour-piercing bodkins, barbed tips, even the forked rope cutters. All brightly polished and razor sharp.
Pelleas broke off and stepped away so Billi lifted up a quarterstaff. The straight two-metre pole was about as thick as her wrist and made of heavy oak. It was smooth and oiled from years of use. Billi raised it over her head and listened to her shoulder blades click.
‘Whenever you’re ready,’ said Billi. She slid the staff through her loose grip and waited. Percy dropped his axe and reached for one of the bokkens. It looked half-sized in his hand.
She went into guard, holding her weapon at waist height, an end pointed at the centre of Percy’s chest.
‘Where’s Dad?’
Percy circled her. He held the sword in a single grip, and tapped it against hers. ‘Out. Where else?’
‘Nice of him to mention it.’
Percy snorted. ‘Why would he do that? You know Art.’
Yes, why would he? She was made to miss out on her own life for these watches and training sessions, but her dad could do what he bloody liked.
‘Has he always been like this, Percy?’
Percy had known Dad since they’d served in the Royal Marines together. He’d been best man at her parents’ wedding and had been chosen to be her godfather. If her dad had a friend, it was this man in front of her. Percy slowly took the sword in a two-handed grip. Billi watched his fingers flex round the hilt.
‘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.’
13
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.
But Mike was already out there. He stood waiting for her, standing on the narrow flange of an ‘I’ beam, maybe less than ten centimetres wide. The wind howled through the steel, cut and sliced by the metal so it sounded like screeching voices calling in the dark.
Mike proceeded to a ladder and started to climb up it. ‘The view is to die for.’
‘I bet it is,’ said Billi, but Mike didn’t hear her.
She put a foot out on the beam. It wasn’t wide, but she’d worked on narrower in training. She’d take one step at a time, not rush, concentrate and try not to worry about the rain. Or the gently swaying tower. Or gravity.
One foot, then the next, she worked her way, shuffled her way, to the ladder. It was further from the lift platform than she’d thought, or at least seemed that way. But she reached it. Her hands gripped the ladder rails tightly, and she could see it was clamped firmly to the vertical column. Maybe she’d just stay here for a while. Until they finished building the tower.
‘We can go back down if you’re scared. I don’t mind.’ Mike looked back down the ladder at her.
Scared? Billi scowled. If only Mike knew what she did at nights. She carried on climbing up. Her fingers were freezing and she had to force them to close round the rungs. But she climbed.
Mike stood at the end of a beam, suspended alone in the sky, his coat flapping in the wind like the wild wings of a giant bat. He was lost in the sight of London below him. Billi could see the pale white dome of St Paul ’s, the gleaming lights, the black star-sprinkled sky. And Mike, poised above it all.
‘Careful,’ she said. Like that was a great piece of advice. She held on to the column; the tower was definitely swaying.
‘Come out here, to the edge.’
‘The view’s fine from here, thanks. It’s a long way down. Don’t fall.’ Oh, very helpful thing to say.
Mike shook his head. ‘I can’t fall. I’ve never fallen.’
‘It may not be up to you. Accidents happen. Earthquake, sudden wind.’ She wasn’t helping, but she thought he was an idiot to be up here. ‘Things beyond our control. Force majeure. Acts of God.’
Mike stiffened. ‘Why is it they call them that? Acts of God?’
‘Call what?’
‘Disasters. Catastrophes. When something terrible happens it’s always an Act of God. Why is that?’
Billi started to feel nervous. Mike obviously still had as much stuff to deal with right now as she did. But this really wasn’t the place to be doing it. ‘Come back, Mike. Let’s talk on the ground.’ But he wasn’t listening. He leaned out; it looked as if he was ready to jump. Or fly.
‘I’ll tell you why. It’s because when people are afraid, they turn to Him. They remember their lives continue purely on His whim.’ He snapped his fingers. The loud crack was like a gunshot. ‘Lives that could end in an instant.’
This sounds like seriously Crazy Talk. Billi reached out, one hand on the column, the other stretched towards his back. ‘Mike…’
‘It takes a terrible thing to remind people of their obligations to God. The more terrible, the better. Wouldn’t it be something if that happened?’
‘What happened?’
‘Something so terrible that everyone returned to Him. To fill the churches on Sunday instead of Ikea. To fill the mosques, the synagogues.’ He spread out his arms. ‘An Act of God that would restore faith.’
Billi hung on to the ladder. It wasn’t the night cold that made her shiver.
‘Mike -’
‘Your father, he’ll make you suffer – you know that.’
Billi said nothing. Mike was crossing the line – that was her business. She wanted to get down. The wind picked up and invisible claws pulled at her. She wrapped herself tightly round the column.
‘You owe him nothing, Billi.’ Mike stroked the long spike along his neck. ‘Help me, Billi, and I’ll make you free.’ Mike turned towards her, those golden eyes peering down at her like an eagle’s. Predatory and surging with power. ‘Where’s the Mirror, Billi?’
Billi’s blood went cold. It couldn’t be. Mike stood up and the black coat spread out, not like wings of a bat, but like those of an angel. A Dark Angel.
‘Betray him, Billi. For what he’s done to you. For what he did to your mother.’
‘I told you – you’ve got it so wrong. My dad didn’t kill my mum.’
‘I know.’
‘What?’
Mike leapt.
He launched hims
elf out into the sky and he seemed to halt, impossibly, at the apex of the jump. Then he dived down and slammed into the beam next to Billi. The ladder shook loose and fell away, and Billi tottered on the narrow edge before she came off, touching only empty air. Her heart froze and she flung her arms out, staring in horror as the ladder disappeared down into the deep darkness. Terror robbed her voice of air, and all she could do was stare as the lights blurred and the sky turned and the wind screamed in her ears.
OhGodohGodohGodohGod -
Mike’s hand locked itself round her left wrist and she almost dislocated her shoulder at the sudden halt. He held her with one hand without effort. Their eyes met and for the briefest moment Billi thought he was going to let go. Instead he let her dangle. Billi felt her left shoe slide off and it was gone; the air tickled her foot.
‘I know he didn’t kill her.’ His eyes lit up and there was nothing human in them. ‘I did.’
14
Billi felt like she was on the rack and her arm was being ripped out of her socket. She could barely focus through the blinding agony as she swayed, high above the city, dangling from Mike’s grip.
‘The Mirror, Billi, it’s all I want. Tell me where it is, and I’ll let you go.’ He laughed at his weak joke.
Billi groaned. Hot waves of pain raced along her arm and down her spine.
‘My brothers and sisters have been imprisoned long enough.’ He tightened his grip and Billi screamed.
‘No,’ was all she could say. The ground, so far below, revolved slowly, sickeningly.
Mike’s face was twisted in demonic rage, the skin waxen and pallid in his fury. He caught her looking at him, exposed, then the moment passed. Suddenly he was back to the friendly, human Mike. But the mask had slipped and his true self had been revealed.
The Unholy.
How could she have been so stupid?
‘I almost had it, ten years ago.’ He raised Billi up so they were eye to eye. ‘Would have got it, if it hadn’t been for your mother.’
Devil’s Kiss Page 9
