The Ritual

behind her grubby apron, before returning with something extending from her
tiny hand. Something thin and sharp and glinting within the tiny liver-spotted fist. Luke looked down and focused on the blackened steel of an old blade, an inch from his naked gut: narrow as a
pencil, a museum piece, a relic whipped from a still life painted by a Dutch master. It prodded at him again.
    There was commotion of heavy boots from somewhere behind him in the attic. And Loki’s voice was suddenly loud all about them. Fenris began wheedling with Loki in Norwegian. Then he talked
quickly and angrily at the elderly woman, who in turn bared her blackish gums and dark teeth and growled at Fenris like a small bear.
    Luke was suddenly pulled away, backwards, to the entrance, his feet kicking and scuffling for balance on the old dusty floorboards. The lantern light leapt and retracted from behind him; it
surged up and dropped down the underside of the ancient roof. And the amber light gave the impression that a row of the thin figures against the right wall, were all leaning forward at the same
time as if eager for him to remain in there with them.
    Then Luke was spun around above the opening to the attic staircase, and pushed at it by Loki; one huge hand cupping the back of his head. But Luke needed little encouragement and leapt down the
stairs, skittering, stumbling, missing his footing, and crashing to his knees at the bottom.
    He was talking, quickly, to himself; had not realized he was doing so.
    Surtr stood before him, looking as frightened as he felt.
    He tried to get up, but in his jittery panic fell forward onto his face. His forehead hit the floor, caught the tip of his swollen nose. Tiny broken bones moved within the inflamed tissue. His
eyes turned over, white, and his stomach flopped inside out. He bleached into a faint for a few seconds, banged his mouth against wood, then woke and clasped his face with the imploring fingers of
his bound and useless hands.
    In the distance, up above him, there was shouting: Loki and Fenris. And another sound. One far more disconcerting. A deep, throaty growling that evolved into bleating. It didn’t sound like
a person. Didn’t sound like it had come out of a human mouth at all. And it was then combined with a stream of words twisted enough in their anguish to inform the listener that hysteria was
building within the speaker. It must have been the voice of the old woman.

FIFTY-NINE
    ‘Now maybe you take us seriously, eh?’ Loki stood over Luke, shaking his head in grave disappointment.
    Luke looked up from the box bed through the one eye that remained open. Inside his mouth he could feel bits of teeth, like sand, from where he’d fallen onto his face. But, strangely, there
was no tooth pain.
    Fenris had been sent outside by Loki, to calm down. When they came down from the attic, Loki had bellowed at Fenris. He’d even cuffed him hard, outside of Luke’s room, and then
shoved him down the stairs. Surtr had meekly followed the petulant Fenris into the paddock outside. He could hear her now, outside his window, continuing Loki’s admonition of sulky
disobedient Fenris.
    Leaning over the box bed, which Luke had crawled back to after falling down the attic stairs, Loki rebound Luke’s ankles with a new nylon tie. And Luke did not resist, having had enough of
fists and boots and shoving and yanking, but he had wondered if they found the little white loops here, in this place, or whether they had carried the ties with them, and had used them on other
wrists and other ankles as they made their way north. The notion made him feel faint and nervous again. He thought he might hyperventilate.
    A slight easing of the terrible nausea from his head wound was now the only positive thing that he could identify within his reduced and wretched state.
    Loki sat down on the end of the bed. The giant was breathing hard. He spoke with difficulty, was wheezy; it sounded like he had asthma, like Phil. Poor Phil.
    ‘So now you know, Luke from London. Know that you are nothing. A worm compared to what is here.’ He pointed one long finger at the ceiling. Then he looked at the little window,
before checking the watch face between the two studded wristbands on his forearm. He looked back at Luke, his cold blue eyes alight with excitement inside their black sockets. ‘She can call
it, you know? We know she can. And she know we are fucking serious. She has promised to call it. For us. And