Water's Edge

Chapter XLVII

Rassragr

DCI Womack kept radioing in, but they evidently wanted us to get lost in the muck. If they could charge the hippies, the narrative for the dam would make sense; crime had stopped being about upholding the law, and now meant upholding the mythos: a mythos of an old England respectfully clinging on to its values.

If those values had place for a neo-Nazi Saxon suicide cult hired by a Tory MP to do their dirty work, then England wasn't for me.

I stopped short when one of the boys who had been trying to skin a cat for the water gods came before me. We were in the middle of their camp now, and Godwine was preparing some rickety vehicles to take them from Hedon to the Dam near The Sunk Isle.

"Rassragr!" The boy said, hands on hips, trying to look threatening. I could tell Womack wanted to get him out of dodge but no one was coming to help just yet. We had to follow.

"Did you see them sacrifice someone around your age?" I asked the boy, and Yazmin stared at me in shock.

"Náht, rassragr. Killed a cat tho'."

"Definitely not?"

The boy grew quite serious, "Godwin lucs aft'a us." A pick-up and a Fiat grumbled out of the lot, the cempan hooting & hollering in the rear, Godwine upfront furious. He couldn't even begin to consider us as a threat, which would be his downfall, "He dunt murder."

I ruffled the boys head and walked past him, Yazmin trying one last time to get her blues & twos, before shaking her head, acquiescing to our solitude.

I could see how our assumptions get in the way. For all the horrible tattoos on their leader, the altar for the damned, they seemed so peaceful. The chastised and forgotten members of the English community were beginning to farm, to fish; it was humbling, and terrifying, to see them in this light, getting ready to sleep, winding down the day. It was easy to forget they were all white nationalists.

The blue lights appeared and I leapt into the passenger seat, and we sped away before I could get my seatbelt on.

"I finally got through, they saw the Saxons speeding to the Dam. They'll meet us there."

"We'll need bodies on the ground to arrest them all." I peered out of the window and nearly cracked a smile. I had forgotten this thrill.

It didn't take us long to catch up with Godwine as he slammed on the accelerator. The Dam loomed ahead of us, a vast concrete tooth lurching from the waves. No wonder he thought they needed help to worship Wada, staring up at this monster in the waves, taking children so easily. But you can't kill without permission, not according to cultists in the woods. What had England turned into?

We scrambled from the vehicle as we ran towards the dam.