Old Camden tat

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

It was a cold and wintry night. Outside the markets were hung bright lanterns and fairy lights and beneath them Camden glowed, brighter and stranger than ever. The half lights cast thicker shadows across white painted faces and made the black rimmed eyes seem more sunken than they were before. The neon colours on jackets and in hair glowed with eerie reds and greens. The crowds bustled and hustled and here and there a face would show up which barely even seemed human any more.

Outside the Electric Ballroom there were posters with grinning skulls heads on them. A couple of thin young men with tangled dreads lounged outside. If you looked closely you could see more skulls, little and white, braided into the hair. They grinned at passers by with slightly more teeth than they should, and leered at the pretty girls, who occasionally would pause although afterwards they wouldn’t have been able to tell you why. There was just something about these men, they would say. They didn’t seem like the normal run of thugs.

The young men would tell you that as well. You aren’t just another thug. Not when you’ve seen the things they have seen. Not when you’ve been touched by the angels.

Inside the Electric Ballroom the floors were being swept for the night. There were more young men in here, this time bigger and bulkier with coal coloured skin. They stood propped against the walls, watching over the cleaners and talking amongst each other. They knew tonight was not one of the normal nights.

A woman with black skin and hair tightly braided walked about, her pace slightly tight with nerves. No one of any significance had arrived yet, but now the sun was down. Now it was dark outside. And that meant they would soon be there.

Out in the streets the stalls were beginning to close. The first of the stallholders began to make their way, pushing through the crowds towards the tube station and their long journeys home. Other types of people were coming out of the tube station as well – men in suits, women in heels, the ordinary residents of Camden making their way home. They too threw nervous glances in the direction of the Electric Ballroom. Once it had just been a Goth club. These days there were rumours about it. The police talked about links to organised crime and the number of raids had gone through the roof for a bit, before stopping, abruptly, with no real explanation. The amount of street crime in the area had gone up, and every so often something darker would surface. The mutilated bodies of animals had been found down by the canal. There had been a murder six months back where the body of a young boy who appeared to have bled to death with glyphs and sigils on his skin had turned up in a skip up by Mornington Crescent. His family had been West Indians with links to the Yardies. His father had vanished two months previously as well.

Bright colours flickered in the puddles. Along the street the lights were red and orange and by the tube station the water in the road seemed to collect in pools of blood. Boots splashed and then there were another four young men running across the road with skulls braided in their hair. Their clothes were luminously coloured and these men had painted their faces to look like skulls with paint that glowed under the lights. They whooped and shouted to each other as they ran, and passers by shrunk back to let them by. Some of the spooky kids looked after them admiringly. They were a recognised sight around Camden these days; as colourful as chaos.

The sun was gone now, and the shoppers had vanished. The commuters were fading as well, vanishing into homes with locked doors and curtains pulled tight shut. Clubbers and pub goers walked the streets, some staring about openly at everything their was to see. More men with painted faces had gathered by the empty stalls that made up the market during the day and two had got drums which they were working now. The beat was harsh and fast and another three or four were beginning to move to it, dancing and spinning.

No one noticed the man in the dark suit who watched them all from the shadows without a flicker of a smile. No one noticed when he pulled back. They would notice him later in the evening when he would be dressed in white with a top hat. They would notice him later when he would run the show like a bloodied ring master and they would notice when he brought out his angels to come and dance.

No one noticed the girl with bare feet who sat perched on a windowsill two floors up and watched the chaos as it began to unfold. She ran her hands through her hair and then tilted her face up to the full moon. They always held these nights when the moon was fat and the blood was running wild. They would notice her later when she was dressed in red and spinning and crying out in voices which weren’t her own. They would notice her later when she was running her fingernails through the very souls inside of them.

No one noticed the second girl who came to the window behind her sister and laid gentle hands on the other girl’s shoulder. She was slender and groomed and for the moment looked like she should be in Chelsea, or Richmond. Anywhere other than Camden. She was too delicate, too polished to belong among the punks and Goths. They would notice her later, dressed up in PVC and strutting around the nightclub where she would break anyone who got in her way. They would notice her later when she became l’ange de mort.

It was a cold and wintry night. The drums in the market were soon to be matched by other drums from the Electric Ballroom, beating out a harsher staccato beat. The dancing would begin again and already there was an odd feeling in the air. An anticipation. A tension. A fear.

The night was drawing in.

Soon the loa would be there.