Pandaemonium (4 page)

Tullian chants something else in Latin. Merrick catches the words ‘
exorcizo
’ and ‘
exorcizata
’. He has to raise his voice above the demon’s foul retort, the whine of the ECG alarm and the growing, pulsing hum of the machine.

‘. . . et ipsum inimicum eradicare et explantare valeas cum angelis suis apostaticis . . .’

The demon goes limp for a moment, just long enough for Merrick to begin to believe that Tullian’s words have somehow quelled its dark spirit, until its rest is revealed as a mere gathering of strength before another assault. In its redoubled writhing, it pops a bolt on the band securing its left elbow. The band doesn’t come fully away, but thus loosened it will allow the creature more purchase on the clamp restraining its wrist.

The men in yellow raise their shock batons, while the soldiers level their guns. Tullian waves them both off, raising his hands and gesturing them all to hold. He then reaches once more inside his robes and produces, this time, an intricately ornate dagger.

‘. . . per virtutem ejusdem Domini nostri Jesu Christ . . .’

The demon sees it, watches Tullian raise both hands full height over his head.

‘. . .
qui venturus est judicare vivos et mortuos et sæculum per ignem
,’ he shouts, his voice rising to a roar of his own on the last words as he drives the blade down into the creature’s chest.

Blood so black, so lightlessly black, sprays from the wound, spurting like a fountain as Tullian hauls the knife free and up again. The demon strains at the wrist clamp until its own flesh tears and more black fluid pools around the base of the metal loop.

Tullian brings the knife down once more, still calling above the noise: ‘
Deus, Agios, Resurrectio
.’

Again.

‘
Aeternas, Creator, Redemptor
.’

Again.

‘Unitas, Summum bonum, Infinitas . . .’

Again. Again. Again. Again.

Until, with the creature unmoving but for ever-gentler twitches, silent but for a deflating moan of final breath through its throat and the splash of its jet blood upon the concrete floor, he desists, and breathlessly utters one last word of Latin:

‘
Amen
.’

Brimstone, they used to call it: the stench of Hell. Volcanic, something redolent of the bowels of the Earth. Certainly bowels and earth are the two things that leap to Adnan’s mind as his eyes threaten to water in the face of this olfactory assault.

‘Mother of Christ, that is evil,’ says Deso. ‘That is pure evil.’

‘It’s fuckin’ hellish,’ Marky agrees. ‘Jesus God.’

‘Seriously,’ Deso rejoins, ‘if a factory had produced that, the fuckin’ EU would have them shut doon for being in violation of aboot ten different environmental regulations.’

‘Ach, yous are all just jealous,’ says Beansy with a satisfied grin, wafting more guff from the seat of his toxic trousers with a near-regal wave of his hand. ‘There’s nane of your puny wee arseholes could generate a bouquet of such variety or potency. Come on, take it in, draw it all the way down and savour the sophistication. Mmm. I’m getting canal water, I’m getting burst bin bag in August, and ooh, a subtle top-note of Saltcoats beach at low tide. Exquisite. And there’s plenty more where that came from.’

‘Fuck’s sake, Beansy,’ Radar warns, ‘I’m telling you: if I smelt that comin’ oot of me, I’d be straight doon tae the nearest parasitology unit to make sure I didnae have a deid Komodo dragon up my Ronson.’

Adnan’s eyes are streaming now, but it’s more from the laughter than from the fumes. He can’t see the screen on his DS, couldn’t concentrate anyway because he’s doubling over in his seat.

Deso gets to his feet in the aisle and reaches towards the neat little hammer that’s fixed above the pane for breaking the coach’s windows in an emergency. Then he pretends to collapse before he can make it.

Fizzy puts his hands to his cheeks and goes: ‘Nooooooooo!’

Deso fucking loves this stuff. Everybody’s falling about, pishing themselves. It’s almost worth putting up with the smell of Beansy’s farts for the sake of the laughs and the carry-on. Almost.

One row forward of Deso, Cameron gets to his feet, leaning across Ewan to slide open the vent panel above the window, and while he’s vertical, he reaches to the overhead shelf and cranks up the tunes a wee bit as well. Pretty decent portable speaker rig he’s got up there, just a shame it’s Cam’s iPod they’re attached to. Fucking emo stuff: it’s a wonder Cam never committed suicide or turned into a fucking vampire. Some of it’s all right, though: the one playing just now has a good stomp on it that makes an appropriate soundtrack for travel. Deso finds himself nodding his head to the rhythm, but he’s as much nodding in approval of the vent getting slid back, because he knows what that’s about. Oh yes indeed.

Cameron takes a look down the front, checking none of the teachers are choosing this moment to cast a backwards glance over their responsibilities.

Beansy is on to it as well. ‘Yo, wastoid,’ he shouts across the aisle. ‘You’re not blazin’ up in here.’

Cameron shoots back a finger-on-lips gesture, eyes indicating the dangers lying towards the front and rear of the vehicle, though he’s grinning as he does so.

‘Tubby bastard’s probably just afraid we’ll blow a hole in the bus when we light up,’ says Ewan, ‘given the amount of gas he’s just pumped into the atmosphere.’

Deso hears the strike of the match, sharp and distinct through the music, the engine and the babble of thirty-odd voices up and down the bus. It’s one of those sounds that school trained him to notice from any distance and to isolate within the widest spectrum of foreground volume. Some folk were like that with sweetie wrappers: they could hear you trying to secretly open a packet of Fruitella in your pocket from the other side of the playground, and they’d be in your face demanding: ‘Geez wan, gaunny, eh?’ before you’d slipped the first sleekit swedger between your lips. Deso had honed a different skill within two months of first year, his tuck-shop funds proving insufficient to finance a nascent nicotine habit. If you wanted a drag, you had to cadge it from one of the older guys, and with so many eager gaping mouths coveting the same few fags, you had to be first on the scene to be in with a chance.

He doesn’t smoke now, though; not fags anyway. Had to give it up halfway through first year when he made the football team. If you got caught having just one fly draw, you were out for good, no parole. He hasn’t puffed a cigarette since, but a wee bit of doobage now and again, that’s a different story. Not incompatible with midfield creativity either. Look at Russell Latapy: nobody was telling Deso
he
never liked a jay.

Deso sees it getting passed from Ewan to Cam. It’s a well skinny wee doob, but that just shows Ewan knows his game. Very little smoke, crucial in reducing the chances of detection, and not just from the teachers. A far greater threat is the jay getting spotted by the inhabitants of the back row.

Aye, some things don’t change. It’s fifth year, they’re not kids any more, but the big men have still laid claim to the back seats, same as they did in first year; same as they did in fucking primary school. It is inevitable that Kirk, Dazza and Rocks will clock the joint eventually, and Ewan knows passing it to them for a wee toke is like making a sacrifice to placate a potentially vengeful deity. However, the trick is to get it shared around the rest of them for a while first. If it ends up with Kirk too early, it won’t be coming back, and not out of greed, but power. The prick would hang on to it and smoke it right down to the roach purely to demonstrate that nobody had the balls to take it back off him. Fucking wank that he is.

It’s only a few moments before there’s a more welcome smell drifting Deso’s way, dispersing the last traces of Beansy’s violation. Then a cupped hand thrusts back towards him through the gap between the seats and the window. Deso takes it more swiftly and gracefully than those relay guys ever manage at the Olympics, and pulls it to his lips. Oh yes.

The smoke is almost invisible as it drifts its way down the bus, detected by most, identified by some. Marianne recognises it as immediately as she recognised the music, though in both cases this is despite interference from closer to the front. Gillian and Deborah and their little clique have their own iPod playing in competition, showcasing ‘Ibiza Club-Ned Anthems Volume 103’. It’s the same stuff that’s always blaring out of the open windows of souped-up chav-mobiles when they pull up at traffic lights. She’s often wondered whether the little guys at the wheel are secretly hoping you’ll lean in as you walk past and say: ‘Your tunes are the bomb, mate. You must be cool as.’

The smell of blow is one of the few things to penetrate the fug of perfume and body spray enveloping this section of the bus. If the collective scent could be bottled, it would be called Trying Too Hard. Marianne hopes they’ve brought dental mints too, because even all that eau-de-teen-queen isn’t going to mask what’s on their breath.

‘Eeuugh,’ splutters Yvonne, looking with distaste at the green bottle. ‘Is white wine no’ meant to be chilled?’

God’s sake, some front she’s got, Gillian reckons. Never brought anything more intoxicating than a packet of Lockets and the cheeky cow is slagging
her
contribution?

‘Aye, sorry,’ Gillian responds. ‘Hang on till I get my ice bucket out of my bag. If you don’t want it, pass it on.’

‘I didn’t say that,’ Yvonne clarifies with a giggle. ‘I’ve just got more rarified taste than you plebs.’

‘What are you talking about?’ asks Julie. ‘It’s been decanted and everything. Right into that Appletise bottle.’

Yvonne hands the bottle to Theresa, who helps herself to a long swig.

‘Aah,’ she says approvingly. ‘Liebfraumilch. Shitey German sweet white wine served at room temperature with just a hint of three different shades of lipstick.’

Julie has taken the bottle next, and spills a little on her chin as she laughs at what Theresa just said.

It was quite funny, Gillian would concede, but the lassie better be as ready to break out some vintage swally when they get there as she’s ready to break out the cheeky patter.

‘Still tastes better than Buckfast,’ Gillian asserts.

‘You’re tootin’ there,’ Yvonne agrees. ‘Michael McBean could do a big grogger into the bottle and it would still taste better than Buckfast. I think those monks must make that stuff to drink as a penance.’

‘Whereas if Liam Donnelly did a big grogger in it, you’d be the first to drink it,’ Debs suggests.

‘No I would not,’ Yvonne replies with a blush that is only partly fuelled by indignation.

‘Of course she wouldnae,’ agrees Gillian. ‘Different story if he
came
in it, right enough.’

‘I still wouldn’t be the first to drink it, though. I’d be lucky if I was third behind you pair.’

They all laugh, though Deborah silently notes that Yvonne didn’t
deny
she would drink it. It’s always worth storing such ammunition, especially on a trip like this. You never know who you’ll end up sharing a room with and therefore how dirty you might need to fight in five-way conversations at two in the morning.

She notices Gillian glancing back and across the aisle. Gill’s got a smirk on her face when she sees Deborah’s caught her. Deborah smiles too and steals a peek over the back of their seats. The subject is he of the supposedly coveted jizz (even when diluted in warm Liebfraumilch), Liam Donnelly. He’s gorgeous, but let’s face it: the only way she, Gill or Yvonne were likely to get near his bodily fluids
would
be if he spooged into a bottle. Him and his equally pretty pal Jason might be on this same coach, might be in the same classes, but it didn’t seem like they attended the same school. They were aloof: that was the word, one she finally understood when she saw them glide down a corridor like it was a catwalk, somehow disconnected from the world of damp duffle coats and dinner-hour tribal warfare that everyone else was stuck in. For years before that, she had assumed it meant something to do with being gay, mainly because it rhymed with poof. In a way that was a measure of their status: they were fey and preening enough for ‘poof’ to be the more readily applicable description, but they had this disdainful maturity about them that meant even the hard cases seemed to regard slagging them as a self-defeating exercise.

They had their female equivalents in Rebecca and Samantha, two more of the Beautiful People who had always managed to come across as more grown-up and sophisticated than some of the staff. They hung around out of school with the same crowd as Liam and Jase, but it wasn’t clear whether or who might be boyfriend-girlfriend among them. Even the ambiguity of their relationships was as much an indication of their status as their fevered speculation reflected how Deborah and her pals were still daft wee lassies.

‘I heard she’s had a Brazilian,’ says Gillian, indicating Rebecca. ‘My cousin works at a tanning place in Hamilton, and she says she’s been in and had it done.

‘A Brazilian?’ asks Yvonne. ‘I’ve heard she’s had an Argentinian, an Australian and two Poles.’

‘I bet she’s had more poles than that,’ Deborah says, seizing the chance to trump Yvonne’s joke.

Deborah steals a look to make sure she hasn’t been overheard, feeling suddenly anxious, not to mention distantly guilty. She knows her remark was based on nothing but a kind of vicarious wishful thinking. She just made it up to sound bitchy but she feels like she’d actually be jealous if it was true.

She is relieved to spot that Rebecca is oblivious. She is sitting on her own, neckband cans plugged into her iPhone, head bobbing to the music and the rhythm of the bus as she stares serenely out of the window. It would look like a carefully considered pose if it wasn’t that Rebecca probably looked perfectly composed even when she first woke up each day.

Samantha also has a double seat to herself, as do Liam and Jase. It is a further demonstration of their aloof self-assurance. As far as the rules apply to everybody else, only complete sad-sacks end up sitting by themselves. Odd numbers unavoidably meant some folk would be sitting alone in the row behind or across from their mates, but if you weren’t situated adjacent to your pals, you would settle for sitting next to someone you weren’t that friendly with rather than end up conspicuously on your Jack.

Apart from the Beautiful People, the only folk sitting in true isolation are the weirdo loner Matthew Wilson and that creepy English Goth, Marianne.

Marianne’s only excuse is that she is the new girl, but she isn’t that new; otherwise why would she be on the trip? You hardly need grief counselling if you barely knew the person who’s dead, do you? She’d been here most of a term, joining after the summer holidays. Not just your Matalan bulk-issue Goth, either. Definitely weirder. Some of the ones you saw hanging about the town made you think there must be ‘emo look’ pages in the new Next Directory, whereas Marianne’s gear seemed to have come from a Victorian jumble sale. She looks like she’d smell of rickety houses and old ladies’ perfume, but nobody is venturing close enough to verify this.

Then, of course, there is the music, some of which Debs can hear coming from further up the bus: probably courtesy of Cameron McNeill. He isn’t a Goth or an emo but he is definitely trying to make some kind of pathetic statement by playing that stuff. It’s a total pose. Nobody really likes listening to that depressing and tuneless racket; it’s like the Emperor’s New Clothes. They just think it makes them dead cool if they say they don’t like the
X Factor
, and then there is an ascending scale of alternativeness according to how weird the stuff they
claim
to like is.