The Ritual

shirtless figures holding swords, faces painted, grimacing at the camera. Some were taken of the
three figures in the snow. Blackened wintry trees formed a skeletal backdrop to their posturing. In the winter shots they held their instruments. Loki played guitar; it looked like a banjo in his
huge long-fingered hands. Fenris held drum sticks. This role seemed to make sense to Luke, as drumming would be the only thing to contain his fidgeting, his energy, and it also produced a lot of
noise.
    The third figure he had not seen at the house. He was slender, tall, and boyishly beautiful despite the white face-paint, in turn festooned with thin black cracks. His hair was lustrous,
feminine, and his whole demeanour was somehow at odds with the other two musicians. He seemed to command a stillness about him the other two could only mimic. Was he the one who had gone for
help?
    They all wore leather trousers, big boots, studded belts. They liked bullets, tattoos, inverted crosses. There were over a dozen photographs, all featuring the same trio making themselves look
as ominous, or evil, or hideous, or insane, or imperious as they could manage when shirtless with painted faces. Luke had seen similar before in Kerrang!, Metal Hammer – the magazines
they stocked in the shop. He always flicked through them, but it wasn’t his thing. He listened to and avidly collected classic rock, blues, outlaw country, folk, Americana. Always had done.
Though he had not taken too much interest in the outré genre of heavy metal, he knew black metal was a Scandinavian thing. Didn’t they burn some churches in the nineties? They were
Satanic. It was an underground anti-authoritarian thing. He knew little else, but was pretty sure his ignorance would soon be corrected by Fenris. The thought made him feel more tired than he had
imagined it was possible to be. And why they produced such music in the social utopia of Scandinavia puzzled him. Perhaps it was a protest to being the most spoiled people in Europe; an act of
rebellion against having everything.
    At the bottom of each photo the logo of Blood Frenzy was printed, as was Nordland Panzergrenadier Records, and a P.O. Box address in Oslo.
    Fenris dropped a CD into Luke’s lap. Then sat back, his arms crossed, his chin raised, his monstrous face grimacing. ‘You have that in your store?’
    The cover artwork featured a wintry northern landscape so dark it was hard to determine much definition. Gassy whitish mist or light trailed from a patch of water in the bottom left-hand corner
of the photograph. Or was it a painting? The band’s logo was red and inscribed like streak lightning at the top of the cover.
    Luke turned the case over and saw one of the press shots on the rear, featuring the three figures in the snow, holding broadswords in warrior poses. A track listing was stamped in Germanic
writing down the left-hand side. He lacked the energy, interest and inclination to read the song titles. Feeling irritable, sullen, exhausted, he just shrugged and tossed the case back towards
Fenris.
    ‘You don’t know!’ Fenris lashed out and slapped Luke’s face.
    Luke jolted back and against the end of the bed like he had been electrocuted. They stared at each other. Fenris’s blue eyes had narrowed, darkened. He looked psychotic. Luke swallowed.
And then the figure was suddenly smiling again, as if pleased with Luke’s reaction.
    A bully. A pissant little fuck. ‘Don’t fucking touch me again.’
    Fenris made a big deal of looking afraid. ‘Or what will you do to me, Luke of London? Eh? Who work in the CD store, but do not know of the most evil band in the whole world! You must work
in a faggot store. Sell music for pussies.’ He laughed loudly at his own wit.
    Luke thought of kicking Fenris in the face, with the heel of his foot, right into his dirty teeth. The disorientating throb of pain between his ears told him that maybe it was not the right
moment. But he welcomed again the heat of anger building inside him; he’d had enough of this. ‘We just don’t get much demand for devil-worshipping horse shit.’
    Fenris stopped laughing. Sat bolt upright. The energy of his body changed. Slowly, he moved off the bed, not once breaking his glare from Luke. The youth’s addled face seemed to have
reddened under the white paint. He had made Fenris so angry, the youth could barely breathe. When he managed to speak, his voice was low and mean. ‘Devil? The devil? That what