The Templar's Curse Sarwat Chadda (top books of all time TXT) 📖

on the top of the gravestone. He patted it, and moved on, nodding at the mum with the pram as she strolled along.

“Hello, dear. Could you help me?”

The old woman had appeared out of nowhere. Billi had been so focused on Erin she’d not noticed her. The woman gestured at the filled water bottle. “It’s just too heavy. Could you help me get it over there?”

Billi nodded as she took the bottle. “Sure. Where, exactly?”

The pregnant woman leant over the pram, smiling and making noises at the baby as it started crying. Some kids made the weirdest noises.

She’d guessed wrong. Reggie wasn’t coming. That was the problem with cemeteries, your imagination got carried away.

The old woman murmured something.

Billi shook her head. “I’m sorry, what?”

The old woman sighed as she smiled sweetly. “I said in that bloody hole, you dumb bitch.”

The baby screamed.

The frail old woman grabbed Billi’s collar and swung her off her feet and slammed her against the tomb wall. She laughed as she did it again with no more effort than if she was tossing a rag-doll. Her grin widened and Billi gagged as a putrid stench poured out from deep within, and a row of needle-like teeth rose out from her gums.

Billi grabbed the old woman’s wrist and twisted, even as she stamped down on her knee. It was enough to rip herself free, the old woman hissed angrily, running her tongue over her fangs.

Still holding her wrist, Billi forced her lower, and snapped out a sharp kick to the jaw. It broke loose, but the old woman merely spat black bile onto the tombstone.

What had Lawrence told her about Reggie? That he’d been given minions from the Anunnaki. A type of demon called… asakku. How could she take one down? What weaknesses did they have? This wasn’t going the way Billi liked. She stumbled onto the path. “Erin!”

The baby’s scream was now a thick, gruesome throaty snarl. It climbed out of the pram, tearing its blanket into rags with long, razor-keen fingernails. And the mother...

Something was climbing out of her mouth.

Long spindly fingers stuck out from her grotesquely wide mouth, pushing back the lips wider and wider but instead of tearing and her jaw snapping apart, it all just stretched as the dome of a skull, slick with yellowish bile and spittle, pushed its way out through the expanding opening.

“Erin!” Billi legged up beside her and grabbed her wrist. “We are leaving!”

The asakku demon had climbed out of the pregnant woman who, now just an empty bag of skin, lay like a discarded coat upon the path. It was slimy, skeletal and unfolded itself, arms and legs triple-jointed so it stood ten feet tall with arms just as long. Covered in mucus it groaned as it clicked bones into place. Then its tiny, hell-red eyes turned towards Billi and Erin.

“No, no, no.” Erin covered her face with her hands. “No, no, no...”

She thinks she’s hallucinating. She thinks the medication’s not working.

Billi roughly pulled Erin’s hands away. “Listen to me. Those things are real. Real and they’ve always been real. The monsters you dreamed about were out there, Erin. Let me help you. Please, Erin. You have to trust me.”

Erin didn’t get it. Billi could see the confusion, the madness threatening to consume her. She was panting, tipping over into panic. She should slap some sense into her.

Should, but won’t.

Billi kissed her. Hard on the lips, a second or two, then broke away. “You with me?”

Erin looked just as bewildered, but in a different way. Then, of all things, she smirked. “You do that now? After all the hints?”

“Come on!” Hand in hand they ran, shoving their way through the brambles, stumbling over the roots and weaving in and out between the tombs and gravestones.

The demons chased. The old woman scuttled up trees, leaping branch to branch, howling and yelling. “Come to granny, dear! I’ll make it quick and juicy!”

The baby, despite its stumpy bowed legs, moved as nimbly as a spider on all fours. Its head had distended now to a canine snout, lips slavering as it snapped its ragged long fangs, tearing through the bushes even as it cried like a baby wanting its milk.

But Billi couldn’t see the skeleton demon. That was bad, bad, bad.

Billi tightened her hold on Erin who, though pale with fear, had locked her lips into a thin, determined line. They were going to get out of this. But she needed a weapon.

“Billi!”

The skeleton demon was galloping along the path, its talons clicking as they struck the ground.

Then Billi stumbled into a pile of sawn-off branches and dead leaves.

She locked her fingers around a branch. She swung as she heard the howl of the demon, and Erin’s scream.

Wood hit bone, and bone shattered. The left wrist went limp and the now-useless claw-like nails scraped across her shoulder. Billi swapped to a double-handed grip and brought the branch upwards, putting all her strength and swing into the heavy, bulbous knot at the end, and into the skeleton’s jaw.

The skeleton tried to catch itself as it stumbled backwards, bits of teeth and jawbone hanging from old sinew, but Billi kicked it square in the chest, taking it down. She stood over it, and raised her branch one more time…

It took three blows for the skull to disintegrate, and for the hellish light in the demon’s eyes to fade into blackness, and Erin screamed at each blow. Billi didn’t care about that. This was no time for squeamishness. The soil beneath the remains of the skull was soaked with black and grey mush by the time she was done. Billi raised her bloody branch and pointed it at the remains two demons. “Who’s next?”

Baby and old crone were more cautious now. The crone snarled. “Going to chew you up, dear. First the fingers and toes, then have a root deep inside and pull out the tasty bits. I’ll make sure you don’t die though. I want you to enjoy the feast.”

Billi grinned back.