The Ritual (38 page)

The truck. Keys. The truck.

Had she wanted him to get away, there would have been car keys along with the knife in his little bed that morning. But he could not just go into a bedroom and stab a sleeping body; the thought made him feel sick and faint. He leant against the wall of the little hall. Peered at the plain wood, either blemished with wood smoke or just blackened with a terrible age.

On the balls of his feet he slipped around another dusty oil lantern and passed into the parlour, into another era. There were walls of dark wood, cloudy with ancient mould and damp near the bulgy ceiling. A gassy yellowish light came in through two small grimy windows facing the paddock. He smelled wet wood, dead smoke lingering.

Most of the walls were obscured by the dusty artefacts. Horse shoes. Animal bones. Another charnel house. Bones and remains from the forest. Skulls of martens or squirrels, antlers from red deer, the dinosaur face of a bear skull, the nightmare grimace of an elk; all sightless, desiccated.

The furniture was homemade, simple. Hunting materials lined the shelves in the heavy cabinet. The blackened head of a broad axe. A shield boss. Points of spears, arrow heads, knife blades. Other things of corroded iron that could have been hooks, or blades. He saw an oval brooch decorated with a leaping animal. And the sudden colour of glass beads; blue glass patterned with an undulating mosaic of red, white, yellow in a little brass dish. A rubble of round flat stones, worn like flints, maybe whetstones. Other implements, their purpose a mystery to him, all made from bone or stone and so old and bleached they resembled driftwood on a sea shore. His eyes scoured the floor, the walls, and the little table for the rifle.

Under his feet worn and mouldering pelts of deer covered dirty straw scattered about the dusty floorboards; the tattered remnants of the pelts were an unwelcome reminder of the trees and what hung from them.

Nothing of any use to him in the parlour; no clothes, no rifle. He turned on his heel, stepped across the hallway. Suddenly afraid of the darkness at the top of the staircase, he looked to his left as he crossed the passage. And came into the kitchen quickly.

And then there was Fenris. Inside the kitchen with him. A room bigger than Luke thought it could be. Long: the floor hard and cold with uneven tiles of slate. And upon the dark table Fenris lay inside a red sleeping bag, within the plain boards of a box bed. Beside the wooden box was a long wooden sheet, or lid; the tabletop for when the furniture wasn’t being used as a bed. The pointy smeared face of Fenris peeked out of the covers; the blue eyes were wide open.

They looked down, took in the knife in Luke’s hand, flicked back up to his face. Stared at him, almost doleful, in anticipation. Of what?

Fenris’s studded boots stood empty, beside a wooden bench, along one side of the big box bed. Luke looked about the room again quickly: an iron range with black chimney, a dark-brown cabinet, some pots and wooden plates, a back door. And a tiny crib, hand carved, in which the old woman sat; in her dusty black dress beside the hearth, like a cat. She stared at him too, waiting. What did they want from him, these people?

And then he saw it; the rifle leaning against the wall beside the door he had come through. And Fenris saw him see it. The world then became a blur with a judder going through it as time passed too quickly.

Fenris swung his legs, then his whole body off the table, and stood up still inside his sleeping bag; it dropped in a scarlet ruffle about his knees. ‘Good morning, Luke. Maybe you go back to London now, eh? Wearing your faggot dress. It look good on you.’

He slept in leather jeans and a T-shirt that advertised Bathory. In his hand was the sheath knife. It came into that slender feminine hand and the room and Luke’s life so quickly he knew in a heartbeat that the youth could use it. Had used it. Relied upon it and slept with it like a lover.

Luke’s heart dropped like a stone into a stomach that shimmered, then vanished. Only this far; only to get this far and
they
were there again, in his way.

He ran at Fenris, his own knife at his side. Then hesitated, one step away from Fenris, for a time shorter than a wristwatch could measure. He asked himself how it was done, the entering of a sharp point into a living human being. Even after all he had been through, it was simply not in him. But he had paused in that room long enough for Fenris to grin and thrust up a skinny white arm.

Luke flinched. Jerked to the side. Then his breath seized up inside him when he felt the opening of himself like wet pastry across his hip bone. A long sting followed the parting of his flesh under the gown. There was a hot flash down one thigh, and when he looked he was all red and drippy to the knee. He gouted, he gushed.

Fenris grinned, swivelled the knife about in his hand so it daggered down from his fist. Luke looked into the boy’s hard blue eyes and felt too angry to breathe. He had not wanted this and because of his decency he would have to die in a dirty kitchen. ‘Cunt,’ he said, and spit came out of his mouth. It made Fenris blink. Then the boy’s skinny tattooed arm was up in the air and coming down at him fast.

Luke walked under his elbow. Caught the girlish wrist in one hand, like he’d plucked a cricket ball whizzing through the air at second slip, and he had the ball in his hand before anyone had seen the actual catch. He punched his other hand up and into the skinny boy, blade out. His fist came to a stop as his thumb and knuckle indented the boy’s flat stomach, and then he stepped away.

Fenris gasped. Looked down himself in surprise. Then screwed up his smeared face like he was going to cry, like he was so disappointed who something was over, or that he had been cheated.

Luke went for the gun. Around him all he could hear was Fenris’s cries and his own breath, which was loud and hot and wet all over his own face. He was dizzy at the sight of the blood. It was all over his own leg, and coming out slippery between Fenris’s long scarlet fingers where he clutched them at his soggy side.

The gun was heavy. Ungainly. Luke heaved it up and into his arms and nearly dropped it. His hands were shaking too much to hold it steady, or to get his finger inside the trigger guard.

Fenris howled. His face was fury and grief and panic now. The old woman looked on from her little wooden box, impassive, as if strangely bored with their behaviour.

Fenris stepped out of the sleeping bag and came at him. Luke forced a jittery finger inside the trigger guard. Put the end of the barrel in Fenris’s direction.

Fenris did not stop.

Luke pulled the trigger. The trigger was unmovable. He tried to turn the rifle around to use the butt to strike Fenris, but the long barrel struck the wall behind his head. His own clumsiness and lack of coordination infuriated him; his arms felt like they were full of warm water.

He quickly swept the rifle to the side and parried Fenris’s bony hand that came slashing at him with his hunting knife still gripped in it. The point of the knife whisked a slot across Luke’s bicep, then cut his chest above the nipple. It felt deep; seemed to wake him up. He kicked the heel of his right foot into Fenris’s side, where it was wet.

The kid fell back, holding himself around the middle with both wet red hands. Luke ran sideways to the cabinets beside the window, to make room for himself, to get some air so that he could breathe. He looked down at the rifle; he had once fired a .22 rifle in the sea cadets; it had been a bolt action. He slid the bolt back and forth, hoping he was chambering a round. Pointed it at Fenris again, pulled the trigger. No movement from the trigger. ‘Shit.’

He leaned the rifle against the wall. It immediately slid down the patchy plaster and clattered noisily against the floor.

Fenris was now leaning on the plain wooden box that he had been sleeping inside. He had dropped his knife so he could hold his wet side with both hands. He was crying now. Looking at the ceiling, he called out for Loki twice. Then moaned in anguish and horror at the sight of his own blood coming over his hands and around the handle of the Swiss Army knife that was still stuck inside him; the knife Luke had just kicked deeper.

Upstairs: footsteps. Loud, skittering, scuffing, hurried: coming through the ceiling.

Luke went to Fenris. Picked up the sheath knife from before the youth’s skinny bare feet.

‘Please Luke,’ Fenris said.

Luke smashed it into the boy’s throat. All the way through, until the finger guard of the handle stopped against the lump of his Adam’s apple.

Luke stepped away, panting. ‘I’m sorry. Shit. Shit.’ He wanted this to stop now.

The old woman spoke in Swedish. She nodded her little white head in approval and her eyes smiled at him, over Fenris’s shoulder.

There was a terrible wet choking sound coming from Fenris, and he could not keep still. He staggered about the kitchen, dripping, then tottered out of the room, as if there were someone who could help him outside.

Heavy boots banged through a tight corridor upstairs, then boomed on to the stairs. Loki.

Fenris turned left in the dim hallway and ran for the front door like he was sick and wanted air.

Luke picked up the rifle, stared at it. Saw the little steel lever above the trigger guard. Put the end of the barrel against the floor, reached down with a hand and slipped the steel lever away from the SAFETY position.

Big boots boomed against the bottom two steps of the staircase and then came banging down the cramped hall on the ground floor. Loki was trying to be calm, but was worried; Luke could hear it in his voice, as he called out in Norwegian to Fenris; who he must have been able to see out on the porch or in the grass paddock. Luke shouldered the weapon and pointed the barrel into the middle of the doorframe. The rifle was so heavy, so long; it was hard to keep it aloft and steady. It made his arms feel frail.

But as soon as he had the rifle’s sights aimed at the doorway, Loki ducked into the kitchen, stooping at the waist so his head would miss the top of the frame. He did not see Luke until it was too late. Their eyes locked for a moment. Loki’s were puffy with sleep, running with mascara, and twitchy with shock. Just as he frowned in confusion, Luke shot him.

The rifle bucked; not too hard. But the sound deafened him. It seemed to crack the slate floor, smash all the windows and roar like a jet too low to the earth. Loki disappeared from the door. Luke’s ears whistled. The old lady cried out, afraid. Her little rough hands clouted her own ears. All was jittery around Luke; the world leapt in and out and nothing made sense in the ringing of his ears, in the impact of sending that bullet through a man.

Luke punched the bolt up, forward, back, and down. A brass shell dropped and bounced on to the slate stones; some smoke drifted from the end of the shell case. He was getting better. Not so clumsy. He could smell fireworks.

Loki was on all fours in the grubby hallway. Head down, hair covering his gasping face, his great back shuddering. Strangely, he too crawled at the front door which was wide open now.

Luke slipped on the floor. Looked down. His foot was wet with his own blood. He had slipped in the blood that was running down his leg from his hip. There was very little pain in his hip, but the sight of the blood made his vision go white. He stopped to be sick in the hallway, but nothing came out beside some phlegm. Mostly, it was just a big gassy burp. He looked over his shoulder at the stairs. But Surtr was not coming down yet. Up there it was silent.

Loki had reached the doorway and rolled onto his back, half on the porch, half in the hallway. They looked into each other’s eyes. They were both panting, exhausted, and unable to speak for a while. He had not realized the barrel of the gun had been directed so low when he shot Loki, but he had gunned him somewhere through the pelvis, where Loki’s big hands were now pressing into a dark wetness.

‘Luke. Stop!’ he commanded in his deep voice. Even covered in cracked white face-paint, Loki had never looked so pale.

Luke shook his head. Swallowed, but could not find his voice.

‘Luke, no. I ask this of you.’

Then words rushed out of him. ‘Where are the keys to the truck?’

Loki stayed quiet, but winced, screwed up his eyes against the pain.

‘Keys, Loki?’ He looked over his shoulder. Still no Surtr.

‘Upstairs. In my jacket.’

‘Where your fat bitch is? Nice try.’

Loki looked at him again; he was terrified, he had been telling Luke the truth about the whereabouts of the keys. Luke stared at the long figure down there, shivering in agony. The man couldn’t have been older than twenty. Loki started to cry. Luke could not look him in the eye for long. He started to cry too; couldn’t help himself. He felt a terrible grinding remorse for what he had just done to Fenris and Loki; he was about to shut down at any moment.

Luke stopped crying. Was suddenly angry with himself. Swallowed hard. ‘My friends wanted to live, Loki. To see their children.’ He cleared his throat; spat phlegm onto the floor. ‘Mercy is a privilege out here. Not a right. You made it that way. You can die by your own rules.’ Luke cleared his throat again and said, ‘Fuck it.’ He aimed the end of the rifle barrel at Loki’s big face. ‘Consequences, Loki.’

‘No, Luke,’ Loki said in a voice that was not so deep now. He raised a big hand and stretched it towards Luke, palm first. The palm was bright red and wet.

Luke shot him through his fingers. Banged Loki’s big head down against the wooden deck of the porch. Behind his head was an instant wide swirl of murky liquid peppered with hard bits that Luke could not bring himself to look into. The sound of it coming out of Loki’s head was the worst thing he had ever heard.

Luke punched the bolt up, forward, back, and down. Stepped over Loki, who still twitched and shivered down the length of his legs. Luke was not worried about him getting up again.

Luke sniffed; there was mucus all over his mouth and chin. With one forearm he wiped at his eyes, then at his mouth.

Fenris was lying on his side, still moving, about twenty feet from the house. Pulling himself along the ground with one arm, towards the trees. Just to get away. Luke followed him. There was a lot of blood in the grass.