Devil's Kiss

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3

  (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)

  Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia

  (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)

  Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi – 110 017, India

  Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand

  (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  puffinbooks.com

  First published 2009

  Copyright © Sarwat Chadda 2009

  All rights reserved

  The moral right of the author has been asserted

  Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition

  that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise

  circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other

  than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition

  being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

  ISBN: 978-0-141-93782-3

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  DEVIL’S

  KISS

  Sarwat Chadda has travelled widely in the Far and Middle East, but there’s no place like home, and home is London. There’s nothing he enjoys more than getting lost in its ancient paths and alleyways, and it’s on these streets that Billi SanGreal was born. Who needs fantasy worlds when you’ve a city like this? He shares this place with many other souls, but most of all he shares it with his wife and two daughters.

  devilskiss.co.uk

  Books by Sarwat Chadda

  DEVIL’S KISS

  To my wife and daughters

  Who made thee a prince and judge over us? Intendest thou to kill me, as thou killedst the Egyptian?

  Exodus 2:14

  Killing him should be easy; he’s only six.

  Then why the bilious, twisting feeling deep in her guts? Why the cold, clammy dampness down her back?

  He’s only six.

  Billi waded through the tall, spiny grass towards the back of the park. The autumnal night wind whispered to her, down here in The Pit.

  What a name for a playground.

  But no one played here, hadn’t for years. The low fence around it had long since fallen, leaving rotten planks jutting out of the earth like crooked black teeth. The animal rockers watched her with blank, hollow eyes and their old springs creaked as they nodded their heads in greeting.

  The boy sat on the swing, the middle one of three.

  Only six.

  Billi approached with a Maglite in her hand, its beam aided by the full moon and the red lights on the Crystal Palace radio aerial. It loomed over her like a giant black spike stabbing the sky.

  The rusty chains groaned as he swayed back and forth, watching her.

  Maybe it’s not him. Maybe he’s just some normal kid.

  Maybe I don’t have to murder him.

  He looked normal. Tatty Nike trainers, a pair of jeans with an elasticated waist, and a burgundy and blue striped Crystal Palace top.

  A local boy.

  Normal, except for the marks on his neck. His white throat was bound with dark purple bruises.

  Billi drew a long, deep breath and crossed over the old fence boundary, her heart hammering hard against her ribs. The playground was gravel and scattered with litter: old cans, mouldy newspapers and brittle brown leaves that had blown down from the skeletal trees at the top of the hill. But the corruption was more than just gentle ageing. All the signs were here.

  Of a Desolation: a place of evil. Innocent blood had been spilt, tainting the soil itself. Billi thought, if she dared to listen, she might still hear dying screams echoing in the wind, and the leaves rustling with a child’s last breath. The earth seeped with a sweet, oily vapour. It tinged the air, but as Billi passed the threshold it doubled in thickness, until after a few steps her lungs felt they were drowning in it. The few flowers and weeds that had broken through were grey and malformed. Beetles, glossy black, scuttled their armoured bodies over the stones, and fat, white, luminescent worms writhed under her feet.

  ‘Hello,’ said the boy.

  ‘Hello,’ said Billi.

  The boy looked at her. He was missing a lower front tooth, but otherwise his baby teeth formed a soft, easy smile.

  Just like the photo.

  I could still be wrong.

  But with each step closer, she knew she wasn’t. It was the bruises.

  Billi stopped a few metres in front of him. The marks still held the impressions of fingers, even after all this time.

  ‘Have you come to play?’ he asked.

  Look into his eyes. That’s what they’d told her. Wasn’t it one of the first lessons she’d learnt in the Order? The windows of the soul. She’d often stared at her own black orbs, wondering what really lay through them. Maybe only more darkness.

  The boy got off the swing, and Billi stepped backwards; she couldn’t help it.

  He looked up at her, catching the moon full on his plump, gap-toothed face. His eyes shone like mirrors, like cats’ eyes. Billi stared into them, but there was nothing there, just an empty reflection.

  It’s him.

  ‘I’m sorry, Alex. I’ve come to take you back.’

  ‘How do you know my name?’

  What didn’t she know about him? She’d read the old newspapers, trawled through the library archives for a week. Even watched the faded 8mm home movie, a flickering yellow-tinged illusion of life on a white bedsheet.

  Alexander Weeks. Six years old. No. 25 Bartholew Street. Pupil at St Christopher’s Primary School. Brother to Penny.

  Last seen in 1970.

  ‘But I’ve only just got here. I want to see my mummy.’

  Only son of Jennifer and Paul Weeks. Billi remembered them sitting with her dad in the church, showing him their old photo album. Telling him of how they still dreamed of Alex, even now.

  How they saw his face outside their window some nights.

  ‘I know you do. But you can’t stay here.’

  She’d argued she was only fifteen, a year below age. But her dad had insisted. It was time. The Ordeal. Her last test before she was initiated into the Order.

  And no one argued with Arthur SanGreal.

  She’d expected some Hot Meet. A fight, lots of sound and fury. Why else all those extra lessons sword-fighting with Percy? Her arms and legs were a busy map of bruises and cuts and already attracted enough attention at school. She’d thought there’d be a duel against one of the real Unholy. A Loony, Fang-face, even an Infernal maybe.

  Not this.

  Not killing a little kid.

  Billi took another step.

  ‘Why? It’s not fair!’ The swings either side of him rattled on their chains, agitated. Billi tensed. Goosebumps crept along her arm, even under her fleece. Alex radiated coldness.

  ‘I know, son.’

  Billi spun round.

  Her father strode over the broken fence and walked towards them. He wore his suit, his one and only suit. Dark blue and shiny with wear. In his left hand he held a scab
bard, in his right, a sword. A metre and a half long, its pommel was a thick iron disc bearing the Order’s symbol: two knights on a single horse. The broad blade gleamed ghost-silver in the moonlight. It was a brutal weapon made for hacking.

  The boy looked at him. ‘Have you come to kill me too?’

  Arthur stopped halfway between them and the fence and discarded the scabbard. He smiled at Alex, but it was tired and wan. And there was no gentleness in his icy blue eyes.

  ‘No, lad. You know I can’t.’ He glanced at Billi. ‘You’re already dead.’

  ‘It’s not fair!’ The swings were thrashing and clanging now, the roundabout creaked to life, turning slowly, grinding its rusty axle against its corroded socket.

  ‘The man said I could feed the birds! The man said –’

  ‘He’s been punished for what he did,’ said Arthur.

  ‘Is he in Hell?’ asked Alex.

  ‘I promise you he is.’

  The boy wailed. ‘I didn’t want to die!’ He held up his hands. ‘Please, let me stay.’ Crystal tears dribbled down his face, and his mouth and chin wrinkled in misery. ‘It’s dark and I’m all alone! It’s dark and I’m scared!’ He stepped nearer, begging.

  He’s just a little boy…

  ‘No, Billi!’ shouted Arthur, but too late. Billi dropped to her knees and embraced Alex. She pulled him close to her heart and –

  the chill seeps into her pores, saturating her skin with ice. Like venom, black ichor floods her veins, pumping her with Alex’s despair, envy and

  HATE

  that he was snatched from the sunlight by sweaty hands and crushing fingers, in the dirt and fallen leaves never to feel the

  WARMTH

  he misses so much and wants more than anything and so he sucks it from her, leaving only coldness that is brittle-bone deep, sucks the air out of her lungs, white frost, and her

  FLESH

  blisters and tears freeze on her cheeks as she stares into Alex’s eyes, black and malice-filled, remembering only the

  AGONY

  that he cannot forget and it eats him, an abysmal virus that he can’t contain so she must

  SUFFER

  like he did and the cold burns her heart as he burrows deeper, clawing at her to join him in the darkness, far, far –

  Powerful fingers dug deep into Billi’s shoulders and ripped her free. Arthur tossed her away from the boy and she tumbled in the gravel, slamming down hard on her cheek.

  She couldn’t move, frozen. Her fingers were crooked claws, trembling with the deep chill.

  Possession. It had tried to possess her. It wasn’t Alex. Not any more. She tried to stand, but her legs wouldn’t bend; they felt as brittle as icicles.

  ‘Billi!’ shouted Arthur.

  There was a loud crack as the wooden swing seat broke apart, and the two loose chains lashed out. Billi ducked as one whipped out above her, but Arthur took a blow across his forehead. The sword flew away, he stumbled, then was lifted off the ground as the chain wrapped itself round his neck.

  And tightened.

  He dangled from the swing’s A frame: a perverse playground gallows. Arthur clawed at the noose, his face turning deep red.

  ‘Let him go!’ screamed Billi. She bent forward, hoisting herself on to her feet, legs quivering like spaghetti.

  But Alex wasn’t listening. There was a black, savage fire inside him and he freed a bestial howl as her dad dangled on the end of the chain. The cry sliced Billi’s skin like daggers.

  Alex could never have made a sound like that. No child could.

  The sword stood between them, point buried into the ground, upright like a steel crucifix.

  ‘Please, Alex!’ Billi begged. Arthur’s hands dropped and he went limp.

  But Alex, or the thing pretending to be a living boy, just laughed and waved his arms, a mad puppeteer with her dad’s body as his doll.

  Billi charged, ripping the sword free in a shower of dirt and insects. Alex turned and she kicked him in his chest, knocking him over.

  Grip reversed, she held the sword above him, tip pointed down.

  ‘God forgive me,’ she whispered.

  Then plunged the blade into the child’s heart.

  The shriek tore the sky apart and Billi shuddered, but her fingers tightened round the wire-bound sword hilt. Black bile erupted from the wound, alive almost, saturating her clothes and face. She choked as droplets of ectoplasm splashed into her mouth and down her throat.

  She drove the sword deeper, pinning Alex to the earth.

  Leaning on to the pommel, she fumbled in her pocket with one hand and pulled out a small silver vial. Her sweaty fingers wouldn’t open the lid so she bit it off. Then she smeared the clear oil on to her fingers.

  Alex stared, eyes huge, as she tossed the empty bottle away. Billi released the sword and dropped to her knees beside him.

  ‘No, Billi! Please! I don’t want to go!’ He punched and screamed and scratched as she tried to hold his head still enough to mark it with the cross. He pulled her short black hair and spat out stinking oily gore.

  ‘Exorcizo te, omnis spiritus immunde, in nomine Dei Patris omnipotentis,’ she intoned. Locking his head still with her left hand, Billi pressed the first two fingers of her right on his forehead, then chin and finally both cheeks.

  ‘Please, Billi. Let me stay. Just a little longer,’ he whimpered.

  Billi tried to ignore the desperation in Alex’s voice. She had to finish this. ‘Ego to linio oleo salutis in Christo Jesu Domino nostro, ut habeas vitam aeternam!’

  Billi leapt away as Alex’s body spasmed. Bile poured out of his eyes, nostrils, ears, mouth, great jets of bubbling, noxious fluid that filled the air with the stink of brutal death. Alex’s cries weakened as the outpouring diminished, his body eroding before her.

  ‘What have you done?’ the boy hissed, eyes blazing with demonic madness.

  ‘Deus vult,’ Billi whispered. It was the Order’s battle cry, but right now it seemed more like a curse.

  God wills it.

  He gave a final scream then the last of Alex faded away; a pale outline lingered for a moment before, in the sigh of a breeze, it disappeared. Billi stared at the empty spot, only the black stain remained, and the vile odour. She pressed her hands against her face.

  I killed him.

  She’d passed the Ordeal; she should be elated. She’d trained so long and hard for this.

  Instead she felt sick and hollow.

  Arthur crashed to the ground, free from the now lifeless chains. He shook with a dry, rasping cough, then slowly rose to his feet. He stumbled over and stood beside her, inspecting the dark outline.

  ‘Well done. A clean kill,’ he croaked, rubbing his bruised neck. Then he saw Billi, covered in slimy gore. ‘Figuratively speaking.’

  Arthur wrapped his fingers round his sword and worked it back and forth until it came free. He wiped the blade with an old rag, inspecting the edge centimetre by centimetre for any new nicks or cracks. Finally he nodded with satisfaction and, on retrieving the scabbard, slipped the weapon in.

  ‘How was school?’ he said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘School. You did go, didn’t you?’

  ‘School? How can you talk about school after what I’ve just done!’

  ‘Done? What you’ve done is free a tortured soul. Whatever it looked like, whatever it said, that was not Alex Weeks. It was an evil spirit, corrupting that child’s darkest emotions, his soul.’ He glanced at the broken swings. ‘The dead should not linger.’

  ‘Jesus, how can you be so cold-hearted?’

  ‘Don’t blaspheme, Billi.’

  The ground swayed as she stood, and her guts churned. She sucked in the cold night air, but something putrid bubbled in her stomach. Arthur put his hand, awkwardly, on her shoulder. ‘How d’you feel?’

  She wanted to laugh. Feel? After what had just happened? She stumbled towards the boundary, clutching her belly. The ectoplasm writhed inside like serpents, sl
ithering up her throat.

  ‘I feel –’

  She dropped to her knees and puked. It was black.

  Her body buckled under each discharge, and Arthur squatted down beside her and drew out a crinkled packet of cigarettes. ‘Yes, it was the same for me, the first time.’ He lit one. ‘Welcome to the Knights Templar.’

  Billi crashed down on to the rear car seats of her dad’s battered grey Jaguar. Her eyelids began to droop the moment her cheek hit the familiar worn leather. The seat shivered as the engine chugged into life, as though the old car needed an awakening shrug before moving. Her father was still talking, but she couldn’t make any sense out of it, what with Radio 4 crackling out of the speakers and the dull drone of the engine. It was all Templar stuff he was talking about anyway, and she’d had enough of that tonight. More than enough.

  Welcome to the Knights Templar.

  Like she’d even had a choice.

  The vehicle began to rock rhythmically, and her eyes closed and Billi finally gave in to the exhaustion.

  Welcome to the Knights Templar.

  She pretends to be asleep. She hears the door creak open, and a sliver of light cuts across the room and her bed. Billi keeps her eyes closed and lets her breath slip in and out, ever so gently.

  The floorboards groan, despite the visitor’s attempt at silence. She doesn’t need to see to know who it is. A hand brushes her hair away from her face, and she picks up the familiar scent of sweat, oil and old leather.

  Dad.

  ‘They’re waiting, Art,’ comes a loud whisper from beside the door. The voice is deep and soft: Percy, her godfather.

  The hand straightens her duvet, and rests momentarily on her shoulder. Then her dad sighs and turns away. Moments later the door closes, darkness returns and the latch falls into place.

  Billi waits unmoving for a minute, then slides out of bed. She’s tall for her age, but light. The floorboards don’t squeak even as she crosses them. Then she’s beside the door, listening.

  Muffled voices murmur from beyond. She can’t make out any words, but there’s the scrape of chair legs on bare wood and the sound of taps running: they’re in the kitchen, downstairs.