The Templar's Curse by Sarwat Chadda (classic books to read TXT) 📕

“Ivan? The tsarevich? What makes you think I have your boyfriend?”

“Don’t play stupid, Lawrence. It’s not a good look for you.” Billi gestured at his ring. “I know you’re in the Ouroboros Society.”

He screwed up his eyes to stare at it, then he sniggered. “The Ouroboros Society? You have a talent of making the wrong enemies.”

“Tell me something I don’t know, but I do know your friends kidnapped Ivan last night. I want him back.”

“The prince is nothing to us,” he replied. “What would we want him for? Our wealth exceeds his a thousand-fold and we wield power he could not hope to match. And kidnapping is so passé. We’re scholars, not criminals.”

“Not criminals? Don’t make me laugh. What about all the historical treasures you guys have stolen over the centuries? You are the biggest thieves in history.”

“We are custodians, nothing more. Those treasures you mention aren’t valued by the unwashed, ignorant masses. Only the society appreciate their true worth.”

“Is that how it was with the FitzRoys?” Billi asked. “Did they appreciate what they found?”

“FitzRoy?” Lawrence looked genuinely surprised. “What have they got to do with this?”

“I know Reginald worked for you and I know that Simon robbed the Baghdad museum during the Iraq war. You deny that?”

“Not at all. I recruited Reginald FitzRoy into the society in the 1920’s. He was fascinated by the various immortality myths of Mesopotamia. The most famous was the flower of immortality that the demi-god Gilgamesh retrieved from the underworld, then lost to a snake. Reginald was convinced it was based on a real, historical event. It was an obsession of his. Much like the quest for the philosopher’s stone amongst alchemists. It was an obsession he couldn’t let go. It took him down some very dark paths.”

“Like what?”

Lawrence sighed. “He searched for the Vessel of the Anunnaki.”

“Now imagine I understand none of what you just said. Tell me again, but with footnotes. Are you saying Reginald wanted to become immortal?”

“Once he knew it was possible, of course. The vessel was said to convert any food placed within it into immortal fare. If you ate from the vessel you would never age. But with all such things there was a price to be paid. As you ate so did the Anunnaki, the Old Ones.”

“What are they? Gods?”

Lawrence shook his head. “Before them. These are cosmic entities that were banished to some dark space by the gods. Most old religions have them. The defeat of the titans by Zeus and his kin, the casting down into Hell of Lucifer by your Almighty. But to eat from the vessel, so you needed to feed the Anunnaki something in return.”

“Souls?”

“Reginald crossed a line. He had begun worshipping them already and there had been strange deaths in Mosul, the region he was excavating. The local police didn’t understand any of it but the details were clear enough to me. Ritual sacrifice. The work of demons.”

“Did you just say demons? I assume you don’t mean metaphorically?”

Lawrence grimaced. “A breed of lower being called the asakku. Vindictive, cruel creatures with barely any real intelligence, just evil cunning. But they created a lot of havoc, and bloodshed. Reginald was already gaining power from the Anunnaki, and these demons were gifts, proof of their favour. But in return his very soul was being corrupted, twisted into something utterly monstrous, utterly inhuman. While his mortal form was just a plain man, if you could see beyond that you saw he was growing more reptilian, more like the Anunnaki. The vessel was too dangerous, the price too high. The Anunnaki’s hunger too powerful to be controlled by a mere offering from a vessel, no matter what its size. These beings live in a cold, empty realm of entropy. The Anunnaki were cast out many eons ago, but they have not forgotten us. They live in a negative universe, having consumed it like... a snake eating its own tail. They would consume our universe if given a chance. That is a risk we could never take. My... masters ordered me to banish Reginald before he could do any harm. He took it badly.”

“Meaning?”

“He lingered in the Middle East for a few years longer, digging, searching, but without our support. If he came to close to discovering anything of use, of danger, I moved swiftly to stop him. Accidents at the digs. Locals refusing to work for him, items disappearing in the dead of night. Including a few of his own assistants. He was an occultist of some renown by then and had gained a few followers himself, he’d started training his own son, Edward, in the occult arts. I think he eventually realised the futility of his position, so took the theatrical way out. Snake bite. Ironic, don’t you think? Or poetic, depending which way you look at it.”

“You sure? You saw his body? He wouldn’t be the first to fake his own death.”

Lawrence shot her a withering look. “Do you not think that crossed my mind? I saw his body, I had it cremated and his ashes scattered over the banks of the Tigris. If he could come back from that, then he deserved being a member of the Ouroboros Society.”

This was getting her nowhere. Lawrence wasn’t lying, he looked relieved to have told her all this. Just dead ends.

There wasn’t much else she could take from here. It freaked her out and that wasn’t something she was used to. Billi had been fighting the Bataille Tenebreuse, the Dark Conflict, for the last three years, night after bloody night. Fallen angels, pagan goddesses, vampires and werewolves and even a zombie horde or two. There’d been close calls and times she’d been afraid, more than she liked to admit to herself. But this was different. The Templars fought the Unholy, creatures cast beyond the divine light, but if what Lawrence said was true then these Anunnaki were a threat of an entirely different