Billi backed away, but she had nowhere to run. As she retreated into the church, into the chancel, Satan stepped closer. Suddenly Billi felt her back against the altar. He stopped.
‘I am here to help you,’ he said.
‘How?’
He pointed at the altar behind her.
A sword had been driven into the large marble block. It stood proud, bright and high. Two metres long, the blade was only a thumb wide. It seemed more a rapier and likely to snap with the slightest impact. The hilt was neatly wrapped in silver wire and long enough for two hands, the pommel a plain walnut shape. Light slipped over its cutting edge like quicksilver.
‘What is it?’ she said, unable to take her eyes off it.
‘A Silver Sword.’
‘Who made it?’
‘I did. During the Rebellion.’
The Rebellion.
The War in Heaven.
‘That sword will kill Ethereals. I guarantee it,’ said Satan.
Billi climbed on to the altar. The sword was plain, elegant and without adornment. No jewels, engravings or runes of power. But it radiated a purity of purpose that all other swords merely hinted at. The first and most perfect weapon.
‘Jesus Christ,’ she said.
‘Him too.’
She touched the hilt and a wave of energy ran up her arm, electrifying her body. She shook once as the fire burst through her heart and then the pain evaporated and she felt swollen with power. Her fingers wrapped themselves round it and she gently pulled. The blade drew out of the stone with no effort. She’d expected it to be unwieldy given its odd proportions; instead it sat in her palm with the lightness of a paintbrush. She carved her name in the air and it responded to the merest suggestion of wrist movement.
‘That sword will make you invulnerable to Michael’s powers.’
‘You’re giving me this?’
‘No, exchanging it. A deal.’
‘For my soul?’
The Devil grinned. He was close and the faint odour of old, putrid meat trickled from his mouth. He walked out of the ruined west door. ‘Come with me.’
Out of the fog crept a rusty old car. It could have been black, but was so covered in grime it was impossible to tell. The paint was peeling off the body like crusty old skin and the engine rumbled deeply like a snoring giant. Billi felt the vibrations travel through the ground and into her bones. The driver wore rags and was little more than a skin-covered skeleton. His eyes, mouth and even his ears had been stitched shut. Old brown blood encrusted the torn skin.
Billi’s hand tightened round the Silver Sword.
The Devil stepped in and settled himself in the patched-up leather seat.
‘I won’t hurt you, SanGreal.’
That’s what Elaine had said. Devils couldn’t directly hurt humanity. But Billi knew she was entering terrible danger. The low lamps of the car’s interior shone warm gold, the engine rumbled softly and the cold outside prickled her.
She stepped in. The Devil sighed as she shut the door.
She watched the city glide by, lit by the orange sodium glare of the street lights, lost and diffused in the fog. The darkness surrounded these hazy spots, deepening in the crevasses of the architecture. Blackness gathered under the bridges, in the empty doorways and many side streets that ran through the city. Billi saw a young girl, not much older than she was, curl up with a patchy sleeping bag in the dark open mouth of an alleyway. Billi wondered if she would still be there in the morning or would the shadows have claimed her? Maybe the Devil was right and Hell was here, just the other side of the windowpane.
The car drove the empty streets and it seemed as though light shrank from it. The darkness crept alongside the wheels, and just out of sight Billi sensed the chill of other things, perhaps the devils that did prowl the dark, answering cursed prayers and promising damnation. They lurked invisible beside her and in the presence of their master. The city beyond the window seemed to fade until all was mist.
Then the car stopped and the door opened. The driver bent low as the Devil stepped out. Billi went next and looked around.
They were outside Elaine’s.
‘Why are we here?’ The upstairs windows were dark. Everyone must be asleep.
‘So you can fulfil your part of the bargain.’
‘You want my soul?’
The Devil laughed, but shook his head. He touched the lock and the apartment door swung open. He pointed up the stairs.
‘I want you to kill your father,’ he said.
27
‘No!’ What else could she say?
‘Are you sure? Don’t you want to save the firstborn?’ The Devil raised an eyebrow. ‘Or Kay? Doesn’t he deserve to be saved?’ He wrapped his hand round hers and tightened his grip, squeezing her fingers against the sword hilt. ‘If positions were reversed do you think Arthur would hesitate?’
She wanted to say yes, her dad wouldn’t choose duty over his daughter, but the words refused to come out. She remembered Michael’s words – and how he’d brought the Templar Sword down on her arm. Arthur had done nothing.
Her life, or the life of every firstborn.
That would be no choice at all, for him.
‘That’s right.’ The Devil lifted her hand, raising the blade. Billi pushed with all her strength, but she couldn’t fight him. The weapon’s edge brushed her neck. The slightest pressure and it would open her throat wide. ‘He wouldn’t pause for a moment, would he?’ He released her.
Billi stood at the doorway, looking up at the bare bulb at the top of the narrow flight of steps. The fog around her rolled into the doorway, eddies of mist turning slowly in the entrance.
‘No.’ She couldn’t. Maybe her dad would choose duty over her. But she wasn’t like him. She may hate him, but if she wasn’t a Templar she certainly wasn’t an assassin. ‘Why d’you want him dead?’
‘They say that I am afraid of Arthur SanGreal. They are right.’ The Devil took off his glasses. His eyes…
He had none. Blood encrusted the edge of his sockets; the lids were wrinkled and curled back, revealing two empty dark holes. He gripped her cheeks and pulled her so their faces were a few centimetres apart. ‘That’s because I’ve finally met a mortal more ruthless than I. ’ He gestured to the empty sockets. ‘Your father’s work.’
She wanted to look away, but she couldn’t help herself. Staring into them she saw endless darkness, an abyss. The more Billi gazed into them the more she felt she’d fall, fall forever.
‘I was summoned, years ago, by a bishop, who thought he could command me. But as I appeared the Templars intervened.’ He put his fingers in the two holes. ‘Coming out of the Ethereal Realm into this world of clay isn’t easy, and isn’t gentle. Tearing through the caul of reality takes immense effort and we arrive weak, disorientated. Otherwise your father could not have done what he did.’
That was how the Templars had got the copy of the Goetia. From this bishop. ‘So you killed the priest?’
‘I? Not I, SanGreal.’ He pushed the glasses back. ‘It was Arthur that punished the poor man.’ Billi’s reflection shone in the dark lens. ‘And his passing was not gentle.’
Billi dropped the Silver Sword and it clattered on the cold stone. ‘Kill him yourself,’ she said.
The two of them held fast, Billi pressed against the wall and the Devil hard against her. He slowly released her, leaving a row of bloody nail marks along her cheeks. He dipped his finger into his mouth. ‘Do you know what went through your mother’s mind as she lay bleeding to death in the hallway? Alone and abandoned? She realized, sooner or later, that would be you.’ He smiled cruelly. ‘You shall keep the company of martyrs. Isn’t that the fate of all Templars?’
‘But I’m not a Templar.’
The Devil laughed. ‘Do you really believe you have any choice?’
Did she? She’d quit and yet here she was, doing her father’s will.
He would never let her be free. She had to free herself.