The Ritual

inch taller than four feet. From a distance she would resemble a child in a high-necked dress, which looked homespun. Another notion that contributed to his
discomfort. About the front of her black gown was a floor-length apron, once white, but now soiled brown with old water marks.
    ‘I don’t come near you if you are going to puke,’ the grinning youth said from behind the elderly woman. The childlike lacy gown had gone from his skinny body. Instead he wore
a black T-shirt emblazoned with the name Gorgoroth and a photograph of a group of men, their faces horribly disfigured with white, black, and blood-red make-up. The cracked white paint on the
youth’s face stopped under his chin, leaving his throat clean but still very pale. It was thin and made especially pointy with an Adam’s apple. Between his feminine hands he held a
tray. ‘None of us can cook shit. We burn water! But she is OK. If you like fucking stew every day.’
    Luke was not sure whether he should smile, or say thank you. He didn’t know why he was here, or who these people were. He said nothing.
    On the wooden plate, dark floury vegetables were covered with a brown lumpy gravy.
    ‘We have drink. We make it ourselves, so it is very strong. Er . . . you call it . . . Moonshine. Moonshine! But maybe you puke very quickly if you drink it today, I think. So you get
water.’
    The tray was lowered and placed on the bed. Luke glanced at the youth’s tattooed arms; ink crawled in black vines around circular runes. On the inside of one forearm was a Thor’s
hammer. A badly drawn inverted crucifix disfigured the back of a slender hand. Tucked inside his bullet belt was a long knife. The knife handle was made of dark bone. The blade was shiny against
the dull leather of his trousers. The sight of it dried out Luke’s mouth.
    ‘Please,’ he said. ‘My name is Luke. I am hurt. I need . . . Please, I need for you to get help.’
    The youth stood back. ‘Luke eh? I am Fenris.’ He smiled with pride. ‘You know what that means?’
    Luke stared blankly at him.
    ‘It means Wolf.’ He pronounced it vulf. ‘Ha! Because I am very like the wolf, you know. As many have found out. And the other guy, his name is Loki. You know what it
means?’
    When no answer was coming from Luke’s stupefied face, he said, ‘Devil. Because, let me tell you, he is exactly that, my friend. And the girl with the great tits – though
don’t tell her I say so – is called Surtr. A pretty name for a demon, eh? It means fire. Her name too, it is the same as she is. You understand me?’
    ‘Yes.’ Luke did not want to hear another word from the figure he found baffling, and utterly idiotic.
    The old woman continued to stare at him, which unnerved him, even though he still avoided looking directly into her almost imperceptible eyes in that small collapsed face. She did not smile. He
imagined she never had done.
    ‘So where you come from, Luke?’
    ‘London. England,’ he said automatically.
    ‘Ah, London,’ Fenris repeated, emphasizing the second syllable and pronouncing it ‘don’ not ‘dun’, like those with English as a second language often did.
‘One day, I think, we will play there. At the Camden Underworld maybe. I have never been, but Loki, he has been to London.’
    Luke’s face felt heavy and almost ached from a lack of expression caused by his bemusement at the irrelevance of the youth’s chatter. He could think of nothing to say, and part of
him resisted pleading for help; instinctively, he felt it would do him no good.
    ‘And how did you get from London to here, Luke?’
    Luke looked at the floor, closed his eyes on the pain of recollection more than from the discomfort caused by the thin light. ‘A holiday.’
    The youth remained quiet, thinking hard on what Luke had just said. Then suddenly laughed, and laughed, and could not seem to stop. Eventually, he wiped at his eyes, smudging black eye make-up
into white face-paint. ‘Some fucking holiday, eh?’ Then he laughed some more.
    If two of his friends had not been butchered so horribly, and the third gone missing, he might have seen the funny side of it too. Instead, the man’s giggling made him angry. But the
sharpness of rage was welcome compared to the anxiety he could not swallow. And his irritation proved a refreshing respite from the sickish skittering of nerves in his gut, which seemed to have
rendered him strengthless. ‘My friends died. Out there. In the forest. We