Chapter Forty One
Chaos
My shoulder wobbled. A hand there, someone shaking. Urgency. My brain was swimming in the fog of deep sleep, drenched in alcohol.
“Chaos. Carnage. Wake up. Someone’s phone’s ringing.”
“Then answer someone’s phone,” a voice across the room grumbled, low and sleepy.
“Fine.”
And now that the girl had broken through my sleep, my brain limped into action. The air was icy around me, my arm draping down the side of the bed, a duvet covering my legs but my arse and back exposed to the cold.
“Hello?” the light feminine voice was amplified, echoing in my skull, bile pooling in my throat and my stomach growling, my body reminding me of hours of abuse.
Damp hung in the air. Stale and musty, clinging to the walls in patches of mottled black. My eyes fought to adjust. The lamp on the other side of the bed cast a dull orange glow, barely enough to light one tiny corner of the huge room and sending shadows creeping like approaching demons.
“Yeah, they’re here,” the voice continued, the accent heavy with cockney tones.
Then the mobile phone was pushed to my ear, a paragraph of expletives tumbling out.
“Where the fuck are you?”
“No fucking idea,” I grumbled. “Student house somewhere.”
“Get up and get fucking clothes on. Demon’s been shot.”
“Fuck!” I rolled to upright in a split second, rubbing at my eyes as my head swirled, the Victorian coving that had fallen off in places where it separated the wall from the ceiling, spinning before my eyes. “How bad?”
“Really fucking bad. Just get fucking over here.”
“Where?”
“Tattoo shop.”
“On it.”
“What’s happening?” Caleb groaned from where he lay spooning against a sleeping woman on the sofa across the other side of the room.
Her big tits hung off the end of the settee, her bare leg folded underneath her, and Caleb snuggled in behind her. I couldn’t remember her name, or the name of the girl staring at me as I scrabbled around on the floor to untangle my jeans from a heap of discarded clothing. I grabbed the trousers and a t-shirt, unsure whether it was mine or my brothers, but it fit anyway.
“You have to go?” the girl on the sofa mumbled.
“Yeah babe,” Caleb patted her shoulder before climbing out from behind her and joining me at the clothes pile in the search of underwear.
“Your sock.” I threw the object at him. “Howay. We need to fuck off.”
“Aye, aye. Coming.”
“What’s that then, the fifth time?” the girl on the couch called, then rolled over onto her back, giggling hysterically.
Fuck’s sake. Students. Good for some fun. Annoying as fuck afterwards.
“You two coming back when you’re done doing business?” the other asked, a hint of desperation in her voice.
“Nah, babe. See you around.”
I pushed Caleb towards the door as he hopped on one foot, tugging on the last boot.
*****
Bikes surrounded the tattoo shop, strewn haphazardly in the middle of the street where they had pulled to a stop and brothers had got off in a hurry. There was little left of the door to the shop. Two pieces of wood hung on by the hinges, the rest of it smashed away, splinters and chunks littering the floor inside. And inside the shop was even worse. Nothing had been left untouched. The glass privacy booth was shattered, the glass wall now lay in tiny pieces on the black tiles. The black leather table slashed like it had come straight out of a horror movie.
“Fuck,” Caleb breathed beside me.
Tools, and paint, drawings and pictures. Not any of it had survived. All of it ransacked.
We moved through the shop to the back, climbing the staircase that wound up into the flat above. The picture was similar. It was a wreck, only upstairs was filled with bodies.
“What the fuck happened?” I asked as Reap, Toni Canneloni and Sicknote pushed themselves against the wall to let us through.
“Masked men on bikes. No cuts,” Magnet grunted as we stepped into Demon’s lounge above his shop.
On the far side, Demon lay in an armchair. His face was a mess, blood and swelling making him barely recognisable and against his stomach his hand clasped. I glanced at it, to the blood that pooled through his fingers and soaked into the grey hoodie. Ciara was on her knees beside him, and Indie stooped over the top of her. And then he turned and looked at the rest of us.
“It’s no good. The bleeding isn’t slowing down. If we don’t get him to hospital soon, we’ll lose him.”
“No fucking hospital,” Demon gasped, his face contorting.
“We have no choice. Unless you want to bleed out here in your fucking chair?”
“Please, babe,” Ciara’s voice was soft, an attempt at soothing, but all I could hear was abstract fear. “I need you to be ok. I need you to go to hospital.”
Demon dropped his eyes, his hands reaching towards her face, smoothing over one side and we all saw her wince.
“Fine. Only because I need to be alive to tear apart the fucker that hit you.”
Indie turned towards us and nodded, and Magnet touched his thumb across the phone before pushing it to his ear.
“Chaos,” Demon rasped from across the room. “The dog.”
He paused, and for the first time, I scanned the room. It was the same mess as we’d seen downstairs, but I hadn’t noticed the bundle of black fur that lay to one side. She whimpered suddenly, pain coursing through her body.
“I need you to get Kinobi to a vet. Make sure they save her. Whatever it takes.”
I nodded, moving towards the body of the big Doberman and to the hole in her side from a bullet wound. Fuck. She looked worse than Demon, barely able to hold her head from the floor, but as I approached, her tail wagged. Just twice, before she had no energy to do anymore.
“Gonna need your van, brother,” I scooped the dog gently into my arms, bracing myself as I lifted the big animal off the floor.
“Keys are in the visor,” Demon gasped again. “Don’t let her die, Chaos.”
I looked at the tall man lying in the armchair, at his ashen face, and the worry on Indie’s, and then back at his dog, which was becoming more and more limp in my arms. And suddenly, I didn’t know which one would die first.