Bors was right, though Billi hated to admit it. She looked at Kay, knowing the question only he could answer.
Kay’s face was grim. The survival of the Knights Templar depended on him.
‘Then we can’t afford to wait seven days to do the binding, can we?’ He turned to Billi. ‘We’ll do it tonight.’
24
‘No, I forbid it,’ said Arthur. The moment they’d returned, Kay had explained the danger they were all exposed to. Arthur was completely unmoved.
‘But, Dad, Berrant’s dead. The others -’
‘Knew the risks when they joined. We all do.’ He looked at Kay, Elaine and finally at Billi. ‘You thought about what might happen if we rush this and get it wrong? What might happen to Kay?’
‘I’m willing to take the risk,’ said Kay.
‘Are you?’ Arthur’s eyes narrowed. ‘Are you willing to take responsibility for all the dead firstborn if you foul it up?’ He shook his head. ‘No, we wait.’
Billi peered out of the window. Fat dark clouds hung over the city, swollen with rain. The window hadn’t been cleaned in God knows how long. There were black smears where the raindrops had left their sooty tracks.
‘Then that’s it. The Knights Templar will be wiped out,’ she said.
‘Better we lose a handful of men than all the firstborn children of Britain.’
Elaine tossed a newspaper across the table. ‘But they’re dying already. Michael’s been busy while we’ve been sitting here on our arses.’
The headline was bold white on a black page.
WHAT KILLED THEM?
There was row upon row of photos. Some taken from holiday snaps, others were school pictures, kids in their uniforms self-consciously grinning at the camera. Billi scanned the article and stopped at a name she knew.
‘Rebecca Williamson.’ She barely recognized her in the photo. The face looking up at her was a cheery blonde girl with plump cheeks and dimples. Nothing like the skeletal child she’d spoken to in the hospital.
‘He’s killed them all.’ There must be fifty or more of them. Now the news was out, panic would follow. Already schools were shutting down. Soon the hospitals would overflow with worried parents bringing in their kids. And no one could stop it except them.
‘That’s what he wants, don’t you see?’ Arthur took the paper from her. ‘He’ll force us to confront him, to play our hand too early, just because of these deaths.’
‘Jesus Christ, Dad, we have to do something.’ Billi stood up in front of him. ‘You think after Michael’s killed the others that he won’t come after us? We can’t hide here forever.’
Elaine gently pulled Kay round to face her. ‘Can you do it?’ she asked.
‘I have to.’
Billi saw Kay swallow hard.
Arthur sat down and turned his ring round his finger. The other three stood around him, waiting. Eventually, with a sigh, he nodded.
‘Fine. Tonight.’
The only illumination in the loft was a single, bare light bulb, suspended from a low rafter crossing the underside of the roof. The air smelt of dust and fresh paint. Billi crawled in behind her father, and tucked herself in an alcove beside him.
The loft had been swept clean and the dormer windows painted in. Elaine and Kay were on their hands and knees putting the finishing touches on a two-metre-diameter circle, the Binding Seal. Within it was the six-pointed star with the Cursed Mirror lying, polished and gleaming, on a black velvet pillow in its centre. Despite the cold Kay was bare-chested and sweating. Across his forehead, around his neck, arms and chest, were small silver talismans, maqlu, tied in place with thin leather straps. He copied cuneiform wards off the Goetia beside him, a pot of white paint in his right hand, a delicate narrow pointed brush in his left. He looked up at her briefly, winked.
He looks shattered. He was constantly wiping sweat off his forehead, and balanced his left hand on his right wrist to hold it steady. The concentration was intense.
It had to be. A mistake now would be worse than fatal.
He blew on the finished calligraphy, then inspected the scroll, checking line by line for any mistakes. Elaine, bent double beneath the low ceiling, peered over his shoulder. Satisfied, she tapped him on the shoulder and nodded.
The ladder clanged noisily into place and Arthur pulled up the hatch, sealing them in the loft. Elaine joined them at the side, just outside the Seal. All three knelt there, watching Kay.
But was he ready? She’d read enough about necromancy to know what might happen if things went badly wrong. The theory was dangerously simple. Kay would open a portal into the Ethereal Realm, trying to locate the path to Limbo. If he got it wrong he might choose the way towards one of the other aspects of the Ether: Heaven or Hell. Once the portal was fully open, he would seek Michael out, possible now that he had marked him psychically, then draw the Dark Angel through it, and shut the door. But in the dim loft space with the dense shadows around them she was scared for Kay. What if it did go wrong? He’d cast himself out into the ether, among the countless things that dwelled there, many of them hateful of mankind. They could tear his soul to shreds. She looked across at Kay, her heart in her throat. She couldn’t lose him too. Maybe this was a mistake. Maybe they should wait another seven days. Maybe…
Kay glanced up. He smiled at her and, exhausted as he was, there was that lightness in his face, in his smile, that seemed to brighten the room and push the shadows away. He turned to Elaine.
‘I’m ready,’ he said.
With Elaine’s help he tightened the straps and lashes, adjusting the plate on his forehead. Three of these small silver talismans hung round his neck. He unhooked one and clenched the metal between his teeth. His breath hissed fiercely through his nostrils.
Then he sat in the lotus position, the Mirror on his lap. The bulb, directly overhead, threw weird shadows and reflections against the sloping inner walls of the loft. Kay tilted his head back, eyes unfocused, and let his breath drop to the slightest breeze.
This was it.
The bulb hummed and dimmed away to nothing, sinking the loft into utter blackness. Billi felt her dad shift and goosebumps rose along her skin as though someone had stroked her with ice.
Kay moaned.
And the Mirror began to glow. First it was just a dim, pulsing hue of orange, red, gold, fading and rising over long intervals. It was barely bright enough to light Kay, its eerie sheen rippled over his gloss-white torso. His muscles stood rigid and the veins trembled. His teeth bit hard into the silver and his lips were drawn back into a silent, feral snarl. His breathing was coming in and out in sharp, desperate pants.
A chill breeze rose from nowhere and frost crept along the ground. The floorboards turned white as icy ribbons formed on their surface. In the increasing brightness Billi watched her breath form white clouds.
Intense light poured out of the Mirror. The blaze was steady and multi-hued. The patterns thrown against Kay’s flesh showed shapes moving against the light source and Billi almost jerked forward. Kay’s chest rose and dropped like a marathon runner’s, and the sweat glistening on his body had turned to minute ice droplets, clinging to his skin.
Voices whispered in the air, a distant babble of tongues that swam and flickered in Billi’s ears, incoherent, but urgent and urging.
Kay’s body jerked like it had been hit with electricity and the talisman spat out of his mouth.
Tendrils of black smoke seeped out of the Mirror, creeping cautiously along his quivering muscles, wrapping themselves about his arms and neck, probing at his eyes, his ears, his mouth…