As a hang-around, James could have gone with any group he fancied, but he chose safety over the chance of further fighting glory and stayed back with Will and the other Monsters. As six Brigands chapters led a noisy charge downhill, James joined a defensive line on the edge of camp. He stood two metres from Will, arms folded and wearing his new riding gloves with a length of bike chain wound around his left fist.
Satan’s Prodigy were a powerful gang, but their fourteen chapters were all based in northern England or Scotland and only two of them had come south for the Tea Party. The Brigands arrived to find that the Prodigy had packed up and taken refuge on other parts of Outlaw Hill. It was a victory of sorts, but most likely the start of a bitter feud that would flare up at runs and gatherings over months or years.
The Vengefuls were tougher opponents. The Brigands outnumbered them, but any Vengeful showing his face after the earlier rout was going to be tough and well armed.
The view down Outlaw Hill was lit by motorcycle headlamps and the huge bonfires. James caught glimpses of a medieval style battle, with screams, groans and metal hitting metal.
‘We should be down there,’ Will said eagerly, as he stood beside James.
But James didn’t like it one bit. CHERUB taught you to measure up an opponent and only attack when you knew you could win. In particular he remembered how his friend Gabrielle had almost died after being stabbed in a street brawl and his shorts and T-shirt offered no protection.
‘I’m going back to my tent for a second,’ James said. ‘I’m gonna grab a couple of tent pegs.’
But James really wanted protection. He unzipped his tent and grabbed the jeans he’d ridden up in and a blue hooded sweatshirt from his backpack. This was reinforced with a thin stab-proof lining and he pulled it on quickly.
As James crawled out of the tent he got blinded by three white headlamp beams. The bikes had crept on to Brigands territory from behind the portable toilets. James wasn’t the first to notice and as he put on his trainers several Cardiff Brigands were charging towards the invaders. With the headlamps shining in James’ face he couldn’t tell what the riders were up to until flames erupted over the line of non-Harleys owned by members of the puppet gangs.
The sight of burning bikes set most of the Monster Bunch running out of their defensive positions towards the three riders, who opened their throttles and blasted off downhill. James was one of the first to reach the line of flaming bikes.
His first thought was his own Kawasaki. He couldn’t remember exactly where he’d parked and was relieved to spot it five metres clear of the flames. He’d already seen how hard it was to put out the two flaming Harleys and they’d used up the fire extinguishers from the breakdown truck.
‘Give us a hand,’ James shouted, as he grabbed the bike nearest the flames that wasn’t actually burning and lifted the back wheel to push it away.
The bike was heavy and the heat licked his jeans, but he soon had a Cardiff Brigand dragging the bike from the front.
‘Good thinking, boyo,’ the Brigand said, before shouting orders. ‘Get the other bikes out. Make a fire break.’
It didn’t take long to shift the bikes, but there was no water around so the burning bikes were doomed. One desperate owner tried to beat the flames with a branch snapped off a tree, but it was hopeless. The guy was a Monster Bunch member in his early twenties and it was a horrible thing to watch his bike burn. James knew it was probably the most expensive thing he owned.
But there wasn’t time for sympathy. The attack from the rear had been a diversion; bikers now swarmed into the Brigands’ camp from the front. Someone screamed that they’d been stabbed. James and the Monsters moved warily towards the middle of the camp, where several of the attackers seemed to be holding sticks in the fire.
These caught light instantly, the blue flames they gave off indicating that the ends had been doused in petrol. James realised the Führer’s suspicions about leaving camp were correct. Satan’s Prodigy and the Vengeful Bastards weren’t strong enough to take on the Brigands, but another gang had used the situation to formulate a well planned attack.
A Cardiff Brigand ran towards the fire and gave one of the torch bearers a two-handed shove, knocking him head first into the flames. But this was a minor victory amidst a spectacular defeat as bikers rampaged across the Brigands’ camp using their flaming torches to set light to the tents.
Women gathered up kids and ran into the lane behind the camp. The defending Monsters and Brigands fought bravely but either got knocked down or retreated when the numbers overwhelmed them. There were hundreds more Brigands downhill, but by the time they knew what was going on and ran back up to their camp it would be too late.
James unwound some of the chain around his gloved left fist and ran towards his tent. Tents a few metres away were ablaze and he wondered if he should have gone straight for his bike as he stepped over a small gas camping stove. If one of those got hot enough to explode it would cause serious injuries.
But James was committed. He dived inside his tent, grabbed his crash helmet and hooked his backpack over one shoulder. As he backed out a bright blue flame plunged through the nylon over his head and swung towards his chest.
James was thankful for all the hours of combat training he’d done on CHERUB campus as he pulled his legs up to his chin, flipped himself head over heels and sprang gymnastically to his feet.
It was the last thing the attacker was expecting, and the stunned, flame-lit face of a wiry biker made James feel like he was in a dream from some weird zombie movie. He swung with the chain, slicing open the biker’s cheek. A Karate kick to the kidneys sent James’ attacker crashing to the ground, crushing Shampoo Jr’s tent. The burning torch landed alongside and set fire to the nylon fabric.
James’ tent and a dozen nearby were burning. The air was getting too hot to breathe and the skinny biker showed no signs of getting up. He’d suffocate, or at least get badly burned, if James left him, so he hooked his helmet over one arm before grabbing the biker’s ankle and dragging him between a line of tents on to clear grass.
Half a dozen men fought nearby as James swatted out the flames on his opponent’s jeans and rolled him in the dirt to make sure. The patch on the back of his jacket read: Bitch Slappers, Luton. He saw that part of the patch had torn off as its owner got dragged through the dirt, and knew that stealing it would earn him kudos from the Brigands.
As James dug his gloved fingers under the stitching and ripped the patch off he heard a gunshot. It was a long way down the hill, but it crushed any lingering doubts about whether he should leave.
James stuffed the patch inside his backpack and dodged behind Shampoo Jr, who was down in the dirt and about to get stomped by three Bitch Slappers. He thought about wading in, but in a mass brawl even the best fighter can get stabbed from behind or knocked out by a stray punch and he’d taken too many risks already.
The worst of the fighting hadn’t reached the back of the Brigands’ campsite. A couple of the toughest Cardiff Brigands stood by one of the coaches, armed with machetes. The coach itself had its engine running. All the seats were filled with women and sobbing kids, but more were piling on board to sit on laps or stand in the aisle.
James ran up to his bike and saw that someone had worked their way along the line with a hammer, smashing lights and tipping them over. His Kawasaki seemed to be leading a charmed life: the only damage he could see in the dark was an indicator lamp that had shattered when the Honda trail bike next door had been kicked over.
After hauling the Honda back on to its stand, James straddled his Kawasaki and put on his helmet. His backpack hung awkwardly from one shoulder and he wasn’t even sure if the zips were done up, but he could stop and fix that later. He needed to get out of the danger zone as fast as he could.
There was a muffled crunch as James kick-started his engine. His heart leapt, thinking that he’d been sabotaged, but he’d actually heard a Bitch Slapper hurling a stone slab at a side window
of the packed coach.
The last passengers ran aboard and the driver began reversing with the two Cardiff Brigands leaning from the open doorway. As James pushed off he saw that the slab had ricocheted off the toughened glass, but he could see people screaming in the seats next to it and the coach driver couldn’t pull away until he’d made a tricky reversing manoeuvre on to a tree-lined avenue.
The Bitch Slapper was picking up the slab and if it hit the window a second time it might punch a hole and seriously injure the kids inside. James still had the chain wrapped around his glove and he unwound it as he drove off at walking pace. With one hand on the handlebars, he opened the throttle and his Kawasaki accelerated hard. The ground was bumpy and it was a fight to keep the bike under control, but he steered up on to the road beside the coach and lashed the Bitch Slapper across the back with the chain, slicing through his leather jacket and tearing into his back.
As the Bitch Slapper collapsed, James lost control of the chain, which swung around and cracked his visor. He wrenched the brakes, but found his tyres jolting violently over tree roots. He thought he was going head first into a trunk, but he managed to swing past with his jeans scraping bark.
Back on the road the coach driver completed his turn and aligned his front tyres so that his vehicle passed cleanly over the stone slab and the writhing Bitch Slapper. James took a long breath and stuffed the chain into his hoodie pocket before driving in a tight circle and pulling back on to the road.
After a few hundred metres the road broke away from Outlaw Hill and he overtook the coach. Some of the women inside gave him thumbs-up and the Cardiff Brigand in the open doorway waved his machete appreciatively.
James sped on across a taxiway, between the frames of two rusting hangars that hadn’t housed an aircraft in thirty years. The moonlit fields on either side were dotted with couples making out and families enjoying a late picnic. But while some corners of the Tea Party remained calm, James saw an air of panic on the main strip, with vanloads of police parked in the middle of the tarmac and ordinary bikers and their families surging towards the exit gates.
James cruised an access road that ran parallel with the strip and gulped when he saw the tatty stall with Cardinas Spanish Paella – Famous across Europe written across the back. He felt slightly sad as he imagined Reina standing inside with her hair tied back.
The gate James had entered through with the Brigands was manned by one of the bikers in fluorescent security jackets.
‘You want a hand stamp for re-entry?’ he asked. ‘What’s it like up there on the Hill?’
‘Mental,’ James said. ‘Looks like the police are getting ready to go in and I’ve got no intention of going back.’
The coach closed back up behind James as he pulled through the gate and turned right. The traffic was heavy, but the snarl-ups were all in the public car park behind him. Most of the traffic was coming out of the festival, but the headlamps of the few cars coming the other way reflected horribly off the crack in his visor and blinded him.
James had lost count of the beers he’d drunk and as his adrenaline rush wore off he realised he was in no state to make the three-hundred-mile ride back to Devon. He stuck close to the kerb, let cars overtake and hummed an Arctic Monkeys song to stop himself from falling asleep.
When he reached an out-of-town shopping area he pulled the bike up outside a McDonald’s, then checked the area out to make sure that there were no other refugees from the Tea Party around. There weren’t, but it was probably only a matter of time and he didn’t want to be here on his own when a chapter of riled-up outlaws arrived.
James slid out his mobile and dialled the campus emergency number. A man with a brummy accent answered: ‘Unicorn Tyre Repair.’
‘Hey, Ranjit,’ James said, relieved to hear a familiar voice. ‘It’s James, agent twelve-o-three. I’m about fifteen miles from Cambridge with a motorbike. I need you to reserve me a hotel room somewhere nearby. Then arrange for a van to come and pick me and the motorbike up early tomorrow morning and take me back to Devon.’
James waited a few seconds while the emergency mission controller tapped away at his keyboard.
‘OK,’ Ranjit said. ‘I can book you into a three-star or a five-star. Those are both within four miles of your present co-ordinates. Which would you prefer?’
‘Oh let me think,’ James said. ‘The five-star, maybe?’
Ranjit laughed. ‘Why ask, eh? I’ve e-mailed driving directions to your hotel to your handset. Is there anything else you need? Would you like me to contact Chloe Blake?’
‘Yeah, give her a call and tell her I’ll speak to her once I’ve checked in and taken a shower.’
‘You don’t sound so great.’
‘Just knackered,’ James explained. ‘It’s been a bloody long day.’
35. COUSINS
Dante tried not to think about his past as alcohol took hold and the party at the Führer’s house came to life. By quarter to ten you couldn’t get across the conservatory without stepping over teenagers making out. The stereo speakers were out on the lawn and a dozen girls danced barefoot in the grass. The atmosphere in the back lounge was darker, as lads who’d either been blown out or were scared to speak to girls drank hard and bickered over the pool table and dart board.
Joe was in a state. Lauren tried to keep him calm, but all the little problems were stressing him out. The toilet upstairs was blocked, someone had puked on the doorstep, the woman who owned a cottage on the next plot of land phoned to complain about lewd dancing and he’d caught two girls snogging on Martin’s bed.
Worst of all one girl had brought an older cousin and then a bunch of his friends had turned up. Before long there was a group of five sixth-form kids who were acting rowdy and making phone calls urging more friends to come along.
‘What are we gonna do?’ Joe asked Lauren, as he sat on the bottom of the stairs drumming his leg. ‘If I ask them to go they’ll just laugh … And everyone will think I’m a geek.’
Lauren put a hand on his shoulder. ‘I’ve told you already, me and John will back you up if you want to go in there and ask them to leave.’
A roar of laughter and clapping came out of the front lounge and two people Joe hadn’t seen before walked past.
‘Who the bloody hell are they?’ Joe said. ‘I didn’t see them come in.’
Lauren shrugged. ‘I don’t think they’re bothering with the front door. They’re walking around the side and coming in through the French doors.’
‘Shit,’ Joe said, burying his head in his hands. ‘I never should have done this. You and me could have had the house to ourselves. Drunk some champagne, used my parents’ Jacuzzi. Instead I had to have this dumb party.’
‘Next time, eh?’ Lauren smiled, as she kissed Joe on the neck. ‘Shall I get you a drink?’
‘I suppose,’ Joe said. ‘Lager or something. I might as well try to enjoy myself.’
Lauren stumbled as she got off the steps and only avoided a fall by grabbing hold of the banister. ‘Those wine spritzer things are too nice,’ she giggled, as she ambled down the hallway towards the kitchen.
The kitchen worktop was covered with the residue from the cocktail making, the fridge door hung open and someone had dumped empty beer cans in the washing machine. Lauren grabbed a bottle of Stella for Joe. She wasn’t planning to drink another spritzer straight away but she saw that there were only a few left so she grabbed one.
‘Hey gorgeous,’ a kid with a beard slurred, grabbing a handful of Lauren’s bum as his other arm reached in for a beer. ‘You’re like, cute … you know?’
Lauren cracked her head on the inside of the fridge as she shot up. ‘Buzz off, you creep,’ she snapped as she scowled and rubbed her head.
The guy thrust his hips and flicked his tongue in and out. ‘You know you want me, baby cakes!’ he howled.
He howled again as Lauren jammed her finger in his eye.
‘Bitch,’ he moaned, as he dropped his unopened beer and
stumbled backwards into a cabinet. ‘I was only messing.’
‘Kiss my arse,’ Lauren said, as she slammed the fridge door and stormed off with the two drinks. She was halfway down the hall when she heard a window breaking in the back lounge.
Joe got there first, and found a bunch of his school friends scuffling over the pool table with some of the older kids. The window had broken when two guys fighting over a cue had led to the thick end going through a pane of glass.
‘Hey, what the hell?’ Joe demanded, as he faced off an overweight kid who looked about James’ age.
‘These wankers won’t let us near the table,’ the fat kid explained. ‘All I said is that I’ll play the winner.’
‘These wankers are my friends,’ Joe answered back. ‘Who are you? Why are you even in my house?’
The kid shoved Joe with both hands. ‘You starting something, titch?’
‘I can batter you, you fat turd,’ Joe shouted.
Lauren and Dante had both come into the room, along with a whole bunch of the older kids.
‘Are we getting the pool table or not?’ one of them demanded. ‘These Year Eights need their butts whipped if you ask me.’
‘Do you know who owns this house?’ one of Joe’s mates shouted. ‘Start something here, mate, and the Führer will finish it.’
‘And where is he?’ the fat kid taunted. ‘Fat arsed old racist. Probably out lynching some coons with his KKK buddies.’
Joe charged forward. It had been a few years since he’d been coached by Teeth but he could still throw a decent punch and the fat kid hit the floor, unconscious. There was a collective gasp followed by plenty of pushing and shoving.
‘I think everyone who doesn’t know Joe should show some class and leave,’ Lauren suggested.
All Joe’s friends agreed, as did some of the older crew who justified themselves by saying things like It’s a kiddies’ party anyway, but were actually shit scared of the Führer.
Brigands M.C. Page 25