Hen night

The ritual was to begin at half past seven, though some of the more zealous adherents pre-loaded themselves with Jaeger shots and lines of cocaine while they adorned the giggling would-be bride with the standard ceremonial accoutrements. It was important that she look the part.

The location had been booked well in advance, a cheap function room above a seedy pub in the City's south-side. There had been recent attempts to gentrify the area, when the west end became too expensive even for the types who would normally live there. The area was not one for change and house prices, which were once rivalling the better areas of the city were in now in free-fall as the area reverted to its old, dark ways.

In they came, in groups of twos and threes, young women with fake tans, cheap jewellery and almost incomprehensible voices that could chisel diamonds. Most of the cult were already out of their minds well before the dancing started. Pills were popped, glasses of coke were topped up with half bottles hidden in handbags and the noise of almost two dozen nattering ratbags in gladrags drowned out the tinny noise emitted from the DJ booth. The DJ knew there was too much treble but to change it would be too much trouble, he knew his audience, knew what part he played, what he'd been paid and summoned to perform. The only thing that was different from most of these weekend rites was that the male stripper had been replaced by the Spae. He'd had to ask what that was but was happy to have the half-hour break while some old crackpot spun the coven a bunch of lies.

The Spae was an old woman with dyed black hair and grey-white roots growing sat round the back of the pub, smoking like a chimney while stuffing her face with a vinegar saturated, crispy, battered black pudding. Inside the girls clacked their heels on the wooden floorboards and chanted the choruses of the popular songs blaring out through the speakers like a sermon of call and response. The Spae was waiting until nine, at which point the music would stop and the future fate of the bride-to-be would be annunciated.

On the dot, the needle was grabbed and the music screeched to a halt and in she came. The lights were dimmed and the cultists were hushed and reverential as the Spae glided forward draped in a black lace shawl which looked more like the webbing of some giant nocturnal spider. She had been raised by an Irish Catholic family who'd given her the name, Agnes O'Malley but her real name and title was known to very few. Soror Atrophia, Adepta Extempus and Invoker Magestria of the Black Temple of The Abyss, was much more of a mouthful, but it was the name she'd had for over four hundred years.

The D.J. backed out of the room, instinctively knowing this moment was not for his eyes nor his ears. He was joined by the barman. Both stood outside without a word as the women listened to the prophecy of the creature their ritual had called.

The Spae glowered at the congregation. “Ye have called us and we have come. What have ye brought for us this night?”

The bride-to-be, a wide eyed and excited child with bleached blonde ringlets and too much lipstick was terrified as she was called forward into the single light which encircled the Spae. She knew this was no laughing matter, no mere fortune telling charlatan but a presence, a being of power. She knew there would be no fairy tale ending in the seers words. The bride-to-be did not care, this was her night. A wrinkled hand stretched towards her and from her costume she produced a small velvet bag, heavy with grandmother's jewellery and a £4000 watch stolen from her smug boss.

The Spae's hand curled round the little bag and plucked it from the bride-to-be's fingers. She seemed to weigh it for a second before nodding. There were excited whispers from the darkened assembly outside the ring of light.

The Spae closed her eyes, smiled and then spoke. “Ye will live an unsatisfied life, bound to a man ye will grow bored of by the time his seed takes root in yer belly. Ye will work tedious hours in a job you hate until yer second child will ruin your womb. Ye will grow fat and resentful of both them and yer husband who will, in time, copulate with your sister Theresa and they will run off together the week before yer fortieth birthday. Ye will drink to excess, have a string of meaningless relationships with men who have no desire to look after ye, just to fuck ye and then when ye are too old even to attract those desperate drunks ye surround yourself with, ye will get cancer of the pancreas and ye will die in squealing agony, ignored by yer children who grew to loathe ye as much as ye did them.”

This did not go down well. Women of the bride-to-be's generation had been lied to by everyone, told they were all special, all wonderful and all of them could have it all and so the bride-to-be crumbled into tears, horrified not at the words themselves, they made no sense to her, but that someone could be so mean, so cruel as to burst the delusory bubble she'd been living in, a societal glamour that once stripped away left her feeling naked and ashamed, despite the costume she wore. The pitiless Spae looked down at her like she was an animal, a lowly beast, a nothing in the garb of a woman. For a time there was silence, save for the bride-to-be's sobs.

Soror Atrophia stretched herself up, rising from the chair with supernatural grace and declared. “Ye imprison yerselves in hand-scrawled dramas penned as naive children. Ye wish for daydreams to come true, but they shall not, for ye have allowed others to write yer stories. I cannot change this, but for yer gifts I will grant ye one of my own. For the Lord of Tricks and Traps is fair, if foul. For this night ye shall be unencumbered by the fables you sleep in, for tonight, and tonight only, the Black Temple offers ye a moment of freedom. Sing and dance to the dreadful noise of the abyss, oh my sisters.”

She shuffled over to the bar, poured a glass of red wine which she took one sip of, before pouring the glass on the floor. She spoke something quietly, almost underneath the breath. The others ignored her as they tried to console the weeping woman who'd been damned by Soror Atrophia's words. The Spae skulked out the back and vanished into the cold damp night saying one last word. “Enjoy.”

The D.J did his best to restore the party atmosphere and was thankful that he succeeded, much to the relief of some of the older women, who held superstitious views on ruined hen nights. Drinks were drank, drugs were swallowed, snorted and smoked and before long the women forgot all about the Spae.

And then. And then it was closing time.

They spilled out into the rain soaked street, a screeching, ravenous gaggle of Primark fashioned Maenads. Their howls of crude laughter and half remembered choruses echoed up and down the gloomy length of Cathcart Road, a sound louder than sirens that signalled a very different kind of emergency, beware.

The sound was all too familiar to the citizens of Glasgow. It was the howling racket of something old, something they felt in their bones. Terrified young women dragged their boyfriends into closes and alleyways. Groups of drunk men banded together hailed taxis knowing they would be extorted but caring not one iota for the money. Safety was their priority. The all night newsagents pulled their shutters down, cowered behind them and prayed to Allah that the crew might pass them by. Takeaways closed early and the old drunks staggering out of their stale brown watering holes, scuttled up side streets and hid in order to avoid the oncoming storm of feminine madness.

A few curious citizens safely gawked out of their upper storey windows upon hearing the carrion crow squawks and unnecessary screaming, fearing rape or violence was taking place. Upon seeing the brightly coloured harridans in cheap plastic fairy wings and bright red satanic horns, they swiftly pulled their curtains shut like terrified children tugging at the bed-covers for extra safety from imagined wraiths.

And all the while, oblivious to their noxious behaviour, the party moved on towards the city centre, clumping across the tarmac in cheap shoes and tiny skirts unaware of the biting cold. Fuelled by drink, drugs and an almost toxic fog of nicotine they stormed through the streets like an insane, oestrogen enriched whirlwind, each of them having totally obliterated the perimeters of their personality that separated fighting feeding and fucking. They only had one thought on their collective mind, dancing.

The late bus wisely sped by, leaving them shouting abuse at it like angry dogs might bark at a passing car. A fight broke out between two of them. Hair was pulled, a lip was split, a face riven with fake nails. There were tears and wailing, apologies and hugs but they did not stop their march forward. They moved through the city like their minds had been replaced by some kind of supernatural storm. They had emerged into one single malevolent intelligence, were a colony entity created by their ecstatic ritual.

The burly threshold guardians of the nightclubs were having none of their shit and despite an onslaught of vile, sexually-charged verbal abuse they were refused entry to everywhere they could think of. Angry, hungry and horny they moved on, past the city, out by Cowcaddens and past a cheap commercial estate towards no set goal.

It was upon one of those streets they spied a young man walking alone and decided to have a bit of fun. They grabbed him with half a dozen shellac talons and demanding he kiss the bride-to-be. Not satisfied with the peck on the cheek he provided they threatened him, grabbing at his crotch and slapping his face until he did their bidding. When he did so, they told him he'd went too far, called him a pervert and a rapist which resulted in a frenzy of open palms and nails. They kicked him when he went down. A high heel scratched across his cheek, and blood poured from it which excited them more. A few of the more matriarchal harpies pulled him to his feet, pushing the others from the now terrified young man.

Once on his feet, he ran, refusing to hear their disingenuous apologies. Appalled by this insult to their benevolence, they followed, casting aside their cumbersome footwear so they might catch their new-found prey. As they sped after him, they pulled implements from their bags. Scissors, mace, a metal nail file even two or three sets of self heating curling tongs were all wielded. The hunt had begun.

Like the furies, they pursued him, catching up enough just to wound him a little bit before letting him move on. He was stabbed in the side, smacked on the head and once he tumbled they backed off until he ran off again. They did this for half an hour, toying with their prey as he pleaded for them to leave him alone, shouted for help and slowly but surely became more exhausted as his strength and blood ran out. Near Anniesland Cross he collapsed into a hedge, unable to move any further. He wept as they caught him, begged them for mercy but they had none to give. As some tore off his clothes leaving him naked, others filmed the scene upon their mobile phones. One grabbed his flaccid penis and slid it inside her mouth, sucking on it like it was a straw in a cocktail. They cackled and guffawed at this but were disappointed at his inability to get erect no matter how they tugged and sucked.

This frustration led to it being torn off and as he screamed himself into unconsciousness, he heard them cheer and laugh. They trophy was handed to the bride-to-be which she, feeling honoured, swallowed whole.

When he stopped entertaining them, they grew bored and decided it would be an opportune time to eat. They started with his cheeks, cutting them with the scissors. After than were the fingers and toes. They took his tongue and butchered his thighs before delighting almost wallowing in his raw offal.

When there was little left in that hedge but rag and bone, when they had had their fill, they dissipated, splitting off into pairs and trios, like little clouds after a violent storm. Dazed and satisfied they wandered their way to their homes, to their children and partners and fell asleep with smiles on their faces, ignoring their futile, hollow fates. All in all it had been a good night.