“Careful, Elaine, you sound like you admire her,” warned Arthur.
“I respect her, Art. We all should.” Elaine watched her smoke trail rise upward. “It’s always wise to respect gods, whether they’re yours or not.”
“And Fimbulwinter?” Arthur said, grim-faced.
Elaine nodded. “The Norse legends talk of the long winter that will herald the end of the world.”
“Why would Vasilisa say that Fimbulwinter is coming?”
“Because she told me.” The little girl stood barefooted in the doorway, the Russian doll in her hand.
Elaine got up. “You should be in bed. Why don’t we-”
“Who told you?” asked Arthur, stopping Elaine.
Vasilisa’s small hands rubbed the doll nervously. “Baba Yaga. She told me. Or I heard her.” She bit her lip, staring at them, white with fear. “I heard her.” Billi led Vasilisa to a stool, then leaned on the windowsill behind her.
Vasilisa had shrunk, or so it seemed. It looked like she’d had her insides drained out. Dark rings circled her eyes, giving her a sunken, haunted look. She bit her lip and pressed her fist against her temple.
“She was in here, whispering in my head. She wanted more. Much more. She wanted the world to be covered in ice and snow. I could see her dreams,” Vasilisa whispered. “She wants it all, Billi. She wants it all covered in white. She wants to bury the world.”
Gwaine shook his head. “That’s not possible. How can you freeze the entire planet?”
Billi spoke. “Eruptions affect the weather.” With her class studying what had happened in Pompeii, she’d picked up a lot on volcanoes. “The eruption throws up huge volumes of sulphur dioxide into the air. That reacts with the water in the atmosphere and acts like a great big mirror. It reflects the sun’s heat back out into space. If the eruption was big enough, it could definitely create a volcanic winter.”
Arthur’s eyes narrowed. “You think Vesuvius will cause Fimbulwinter?”
“Even a medium-sized eruption like Vesuvius will affect temperatures, but for Fimbulwinter, something much, much bigger would have to happen.” Billi racked her brains, trying to recall what had come up at school. “A super-volcano. If one of those blew, we’d have a global temperature drop-cooling, may be even freezing, most of the planet. Could last ten years.”
“Long enough to obliterate crops and livestock. Most people would starve to death,” added Elaine.
“A cull,” said Billi. Wasn’t that what humans did if any other species overpopulated? Hunt them down until they reached more “manageable” numbers? Now Baba Yaga wanted to do that to mankind.
Gwaine shook his head. “But it would wipe out everyone. Polenitsy included.”
“She doesn’t care,” said Vasilisa. She sat between Elaine and Arthur, her shoulders hunched and her voice a bare whisper. “She wants to clean the world. Start it over again.”
Arthur spoke. “She’s nearly immortal. In a few hundred years the planet would repopulate, but humanity would be nowhere near the six billion it is today. Baba Yaga’s seen so many species come and go, the loss of a few more wouldn’t bother her in the least, and neither would the time scale. A few centuries mean nothing to her.” He looked at Billi. “We got any of these super-volcanoes this side of the equator?”
Billi nodded. “Yellowstone. The entire park is a gigantic one. When that goes, it’s good-bye for all of us.”
Arthur cleared his throat and squatted down in front of Vasilisa.
“You look tired, child. I think it best you sleep.” He held out his hand. “C’mon.”
As Arthur took the girl upstairs, Billi went to the kettle. She tried to fill it, but her hand wouldn’t hold it still enough. She gave up.
Baba Yaga wanted Fimbulwinter. With her and Vasilisa’s power combined, could she do it? Wipe out the world?
Arthur returned and stood in the center of the kitchen. “I’m moving everything forward.” He glanced at his watch. “Vasilisa flies out tonight. Elaine and I will go to Jerusalem with her until she’s handed over. I want all knights on duty until Vasilisa’s on that plane. Gwaine, you’re in charge while I’m gone.”
Gwaine nodded.
Arthur put his hand on Billi’s shoulder. “You get some rest, girl. I’ll need you later.”
“What about the Polenitsy?” said Billi. “They’ll be coming for her.”
Arthur stood by the window, immobile in the pale winter light. “Let them come.”
12
THE EVENING PASSED WITH THE KNIGHTS CONSTANTLY checking in on the house. Billi couldn’t rest, painfully aware that things had reached a crunch point, not just for the Templars, but for her personally.
Tonight Vasilisa joined the Order. There would be no ceremony, no all-night vigils or prayers. Billi couldn’t let Vasilisa go to Jerusalem without making peace.
She knocked on the door. “Vasilisa? Can I come in?”
“No.”
The sun had gone down, and the room was in gloomy darkness. Billi turned on the light. Vasilisa sat on her bed, huddled in the corner, holding her knees.
Billi moved a few stuffed animals aside and sat facing the girl.
Where to begin?
“I’m sorry it’s come to this, Vasilisa. But it’s the only way you’ll be safe.”
“I was safe until you came along.”
“We saved you from the werewolves.”
“I wish they’d killed me too.”
“Don’t say that.” Billi stared hard at the girl. “You don’t mean it.”
“They say I’m going to be the new Oracle. What happened to the old one?”
“I’ll tell you about him. Kay was my best friend and I loved him more than anything.” Billi stopped. It had just burst out, this confession. She looked down at her shaking hands and clasped her fingers together, forcing them to be still. “There’s a hole inside that sometimes feels so big I think I’ll disappear into it-but he’s gone. He’s gone and you’re here.”
Their eyes met. They’d both already lost people they loved in the Bataille Ténébreuse. Billi joined Vasilisa in the corner.
“When I found you, Kay came back. In away. I dreamed of him and he told me he was saying good-bye.”
“Because of me?”
“The dead should not linger. I should look to the living.” Billi smiled at the girl. “That seems like a fair trade.”
“What will happen to me, in Jerusalem?”
“You’ll be taught how to control your powers. Kay was going mad with all the voices in his head. He used to say it was like having a radio on and the dial was always moving but never off. You’ll learn how to protect yourself.”
“And become a fighter, like you?”
Billi inspected her callused hands. All those years of weapons training and punching wooden boards. Hardly ladylike. She scratched her knuckles, then took the girl’s hand. “There are a lot of ways to fight, Vasilisa.”
The two of them sat together in the darkness. Outside the window the tree branches scratched at the glass and the old roof beams creaked. Below, Billi heard her father and one of the other knights scraping steel against whetstones.
“What is that called?” Billi asked, pointing at Vasilisa’s Russian doll.
“A matryoshka.”
“Can I look?”
Vasilisa nodded, and Billi opened up the doll. The next one was equally exquisite. Each flower was delicately painted into the shawl, and the dress’s embroidery looked as though it had been done using a single hair. The next doll matched it, and within that was a stone figurine covered in flaking gold leaf.
“It’s beautiful,” said Billi. It was a woman, crudely shaped, with a small head and large breasts and hips. Billi had seen statuettes like this in museums. It was a Venus figurine-they were prehistoric religious items, found throughout Europe.