She used her hands to paint him with the blood of Moccus, putting feral striping along his face, flanks, and thighs. He did the same for her, decorating her breasts and belly with swirls and whorls which might have been fruiting vines or serpents. She slicked his cock with cruor and lay back to take him, and he fucked the blood of their slaughtered god into her beneath the light of a dying moon.
6
BARBECUE
SUNDAY WAS THE BUSIEST DAY OF THE WEEK AT BRIAR Hill Allotments, and there were plenty of eyes to watch the preparations for the much-anticipated barbecue. The weather had set in overcast but it wasn’t actively raining, which was the most anybody could expect from late March. The first surprise was when the newcomers’ battered blue van arrived around mid-morning, because most people had assumed that they would simply buy a hog roast in from Partridge’s or a catering company – and when the young man and woman started hauling out trestle tables, bags of charcoal, boxes of disposable picnic supplies, crates of beer and soft drinks, trays of bread rolls, and three large red cool-boxes, a few muttered that they’d bitten off more than they could chew but the general feeling was one of approval. The new neighbours weren’t going to dazzle them by flashing their cash on something slick and corporate. They were doing it old school.
Within ten minutes they had offers from half a dozen pairs of willing hands who, between them, made short work of digging a wide, shallow pit for the charcoal, putting up the tables, and setting out the plates, cups, bottles, and napkins. This attracted satellite hangers-on in the form of friends and relatives, and in half an hour a sizeable crowd had gathered. Meat came out of the cool-boxes in large foil-wrapped joints that were placed directly onto the charcoal once it had died down to white embers, more embers were shovelled over the top and then turves from the pit were laid on top of that to keep in the heat.
Everett popped the top off a bottle of beer, dumped himself into a camp chair, smiled around at the crowd and said, ‘And now we wait. You know this is going to take about six hours to cook, right? Did anybody bring a pack of cards?’
People brought more than a pack of cards. From sheds across the allotments came outdoor games and toys that had been stashed away for the summer: giant Jenga, swingball, and cricket sets. Shane Harding brought a set of juggling balls, causing hilarity and chaos by substituting them with increasingly improbable objects like potatoes, cushions, and – to cries of delighted disgust – even Hugh Preston’s false eye. The festivities drew out even the recluses like Ben Torelli and dour old Marcus Overton, a decommissioned grammar school headmaster who was using retirement to enjoy his twin hobbies of gardening and misanthropy. While the kids played, the adults stood around in groups and chatted, comparing notes on what they were growing, arguing about sport and avoiding politics because a dispute over football statistics was one thing, but a conversation about Brexit could end friendships. Most went and brought back some contribution or other to the occasion – salads, snacks, more bread, more drinks. Over the next six hours they came and went, some stayed for a few minutes, some an hour, some went home to do the laundry and came back again later, some went back to work on their plots, but as the afternoon lengthened and the time for the pit to be opened drew near, the numbers gradually increased.
Dennie watched the day unfold from her own plot. She couldn’t see any sign of the brother, but that still wasn’t any kind of incentive to join in with the festivities. She watched Ardwyn and Everett being the perfect hosts – chatting, mingling between the various groups, playing swingball with the kids, and saw nothing to suggest that there was anything underhanded about them. The door to their shed was wide open, and as far as she could see from here it looked absolutely normal, stocked with the kinds of tools and gardening odds and sods that she would have expected to find in any of the other sheds. Looking at its solid wooden floor it seemed ridiculous to think that she had heard digging coming from inside; it was much more likely to have been a dream or another episode, but the one thing that she was absolutely rock-solid sure of was the mockery she had seen in Ardwyn’s eyes. The young woman’s solicitous concern for Dennie’s health had been a mask behind which she was laughing at her. Worse, she was now laughing at all her friends and neighbours. Dennie watched Ardwyn chatting with Becky while David helped Everett check the cooking pit, then hunker down to say something to Alice which made the girl giggle, and thought Right, that’s it. Whatever game the couple were playing, they weren’t going to play it with the Pimblett family.
But that didn’t mean she had to march over there and make a big fuss like last time. They’d caught her off guard, and she’d made a fool of herself. Worse, she’d alerted them to the fact that she knew they were up to something. They wanted to pretend that she was just a doddery old fart. Well that was a part she was more than happy to play.
‘But you stay here, my big hairy hero,’ she told Viggo, and put him on his leash in the shed. ‘I don’t need you picking any more fights on my behalf.’
He thumped
