Small crowds of students and shoppers gather in excited huddles on the pavement. They look at each other with worried faces before turning their eyes back toward the clouds of black smoke blowing over the roofs and down Market Street. In a flash of panic that feels cold down to his ankles, Dante thinks of the Land Rover loaded with Molotov cocktails and gallon drums of petrol. He peers across the road to the corner of Grey Friars Street, where the War Wagon is parked. It stands alone before a stone walclass="underline" a sand-coloured sentinel with plastic sheets pressed against the windows, covering its explosive entrails. 'Thank fuck for that,' Dante says. 'I thought the War Wagon had gone off.'
'It will do soon, if the wind keeps blowing this way. Something's on fire. Maybe on North Street.'
Another fire engine hurtles past the flat. The street is engulfed by its screams and flashes. The wake hits the windows with a whump of air and Dante's hair blows across his face. Below, cars parked at the curb shake on their tyres, and buildings shudder the length and breadth of Market Street. Across the jagged roofs, pointed attics, and between distant spires, Dante watches the thick hurricane of black smoke rise in a plume before the wind smashes the top off it and blows smoky tendrils across town to the south. The air seems to reek of a thousand winter bonfires, lit all at once and abandoned to the elements. Darkness rushes in from the sea, carried by thick grey clouds, to eclipse the early glow of the moon-expectant sky. Pale-grey light is sandwiched between the street and the ominous blanket of nightfall, through which people run with a safe haven in mind, or simply stand about looking confused. Somewhere down there, a woman begins to cry.
'And another over there!' Hart shrieks, pointing down Grey Friars towards the Tudor Inn. Behind the white plaster and black timbers of the pub, another tornado of swirling black smoke raises itself. This one is closer, and streaked with orange sparks they can almost hear, cracking and spitting.
'Must be something on the Scores, maybe. Or closer at the end of North Street,' Dante says. His stomach flops over.
'The cathedral too,' Hart shouts. By leaning out of the window, Dante can see a third and more distant smudge of smoke. It flows across the far-off skeleton of the fallen church and obscures its spiky silhouette. 'The whole place is ablaze.'
Dante turns to Hart. 'Why?'
Hart seizes the lapels of Dante's jacket and shakes the last vestiges of dreamless sleep from his companion's head. 'Don't you see! Dies Irae. It's gonna happen tonight. This is a diversion!'
'Burn the town?' Dante jabbers. 'Can't be right.'
'Better believe it, buddy!' Hart shrieks. His face is ashen and his hands tremble through Dante's jacket. 'The town burned them alive, way back, after the trials. They've been waiting for this. Now's their time. It's why we're still alive. They keep an eye on us, but they've been busy with something else. They've been busy with this. The whole place is gonna go up.'
Dante knocks Hart's hands off his jacket and peers out at the street again. A group of police cars, parked in a cordon at the top of Market Street by the monument, turns bystanders back toward their end of the street. 'We gotta move, Hart. The police are doing a sweep away from the fires. If they evacuate the town, the War Wagon will be stranded.'
Hart stares right into Dante's eyes. His little bullet eyes blink rapidly behind his glasses. With the overspill from the lights outside, Dante can see the tiny thumbprints embedded on the lenses. 'What say you and me just blow out right now. We don't look back. Get down to Edinburgh and have ourselves a time.'
Dante shakes his head. 'Come on, man. It's started. We need to move now. To the cottage. If this is a diversion, the place might be empty. We can set a trap.'
'Oh man,' Hart says. He walks into the lounge, his head in his hands, and slumps across the couch. Reaching out, he grasps at a bottle of whisky.
Dante looks up at the evening sky and then checks his watch. 'It's nearly eight! You shouldn't have let me sleep so long! I told you to wake me before six. Hart, have you lost your bottle? You know I can't sleep tonight. It's my last night, for fuck's sake. What were you thinking?'
Hart's face is white with emotion. 'I fell asleep! You said we wouldn't roll out till it got dark. Man, you needed rest. Your back is still fucked up.'
'Shit, shit, shit,' Dante says. He claws his face and walks in a circle. He looks at Hart. 'Sorry, man. I'm not with it. I'm freaked. I'm sorry.'
Hart nods with his face in his hands. 'I'm all wired. Just be kindly.'
Dante fills his Zippo lighter with fuel, until the white spirit overflows and trickles across his fingers. Slapping his pocket, he checks for the four disposable lighters he bought from the petrol station earlier in the day. 'Got your lighters?' he shouts across to Hart, over the noise of running feet, screaming sirens and speeding cars down below. Hart lowers the Scotch bottle and nods, before swallowing and then wincing through the afterburn.
'Let's go,' Dante says. He runs down the stairs to the barricade, hardly able to feel his legs or think straight from the adrenaline. On the way down, he loses his balance and hits a wall. The ribs on his back fire off a salvo of short, breath-stopping spasms of white-hot pain. It is so bad he has to sit down on the stairs. Doubling over, he waits for the little explosions to subside. Hart joins him. 'You all right, dude?'
Dante flops back on the stairs, and rests on his elbows. He swears to himself. The sweat on his face turns cold. All the running around and driving since he checked out of hospital is taking its toll. 'Painkillers,' he says to Hart, who is now tugging the couch, single handed, over Dante's head. Hart and the couch disappear and Hart says, 'Wait a minute,' over his shoulder. He returns, the small brown jar of tablets rattling in one hand and the bottle of whisky to wash them down in the other.
'Get your jacket,' Dante tells Hart, and stands up on the creaking stairs. He bites down on the last wave of pain, swallows four tablets, and then takes a quick slurp of whisky. Cigarettes are next. Dante dips his Marlboro into a big orange Zippo flame. He opens the front door. 'I knew I'd die with one of these in my mouth,' he says, and waits on the busy street for Hart to catch him up.
Pandemonium is breaking loose on Market Street. Although the high-street shops are long closed, the Metro supermarket stays open until ten. Shoppers and uniformed staff are gathering on the pavement, herded down toward the Union building by two police officers. Hundreds of students, out drinking in Freshers' week, file out of pubs, their faces full of smiles and laughter. When the heavy presence of police, and a fresh wave of thundering fire engines, registers on the young and tipsy minds, they begin running in a large, bemused and muttering horde down Market Street toward Hart's flat.
Dante and Hart trot across the road to the War Wagon. Wasting no time, Dante fires the engine up and swings the Land Rover around, hitting the horn hard to disperse the people who stand open-mouthed on the road. A pretty girl in a green uniform looks at the windscreen, not really seeing either of them before she moves to the side of the road. An older woman in slippers, who keeps her fingers spread wide on both of her cheeks, follows the dazed supermarket worker.
'The top of Market Street is closed,' he yells across to Hart. 'I'll have to turn it around here. Watch out for people bolting in front of me.'
Hart nods. 'How long will it take to get there?' he asks, his bottom lip trembling.
'Fifteen minutes,' Dante says, peering left and right as he moves the vehicle through the bystanders.
Whisky sloshes in the bottle Hart removes from his mouth. 'What we gonna do when we get there? My mind's gone. I can't remember the plan.'