Shoot you in the back

“Would you mind moving so that I can get to the bar?” It sounded like a reasonable request, and I honestly had no idea what they were doing standing between these two tables, blocking the most direct route between the watering hole and the stage. Until I glanced at the guy in the cloak.

He was standing absolutely motionless, except for a slight trembling in his hands, which he held a few inches away from his body at waist level. I thought he was having some kind of fit. His eyes were fixed on the stage, or at least on the mosh-pit in front of the stage, and he was taking deep breaths, in through his nose and out through his mouth. But it was his eyes that grabbed me. He didn’t seem to be looking at anything in the room, really, but they had kind of an unfocused intensity. I would say that it was one of the weirdest things I’d ever seen, but that would be lying – I’d seen some even stranger things in my short but pleasantly eventful life. Still, this definitely was not your average Saturday night drinking session.

Biker Number Two’s attention had been drawn. Without turning around, having faced the bar all this time, he asked over his shoulder if there was a problem. I was about to leave it and “go around”, like the nice people had asked, when I felt an arm go around my shoulders.

“That’s what I’d like to know. Is there a problem here, ladies?”

I’ve never figured out how he did it, but Mick could literally smell trouble from the other side of a room. It seemed to attract him the way most people would be attracted to the scent of freshly baked bread. Of course, Mick’s question had been in code. What he’d actually meant was “This my mate. You not. You die.” The “mate” thing was an optional extra he’d tossed in for appearances, just to give him an excuse. He must have been in a good mood.

“Nah, it’s cool,” I told him, not taking my eyes off the first Horseman. He shrugged, then looked at Mick. The big lad had already lost interest and turned away, with a pat on my shoulder, and missed the sneer that the biker tossed after him. I smiled again and went around the human island to the bar.

Extract from Burning Roses, a decadent tale of sex, drugs, rock n roll & magick. Available from www.amazon.com/author/burning

Have a great new year, wherever you are.

Till next time. Cheers.

Metal health

Halfway through the set I headed for the bar. The band were playing one of their few slow songs, and I was dying for a drink. There cannot possibly be a more strenuous exercise routine than a couple of solid hours spent headbanging in a club like the Irish. Sweat was pouring from every pore in the room. Some, with less experienced neck muscles, had already given up, and you could see these fallen soldiers hanging their heads at the bar, trying to stop the world from spinning. My left leg was shaking as I crossed the room, the thigh muscles stiff from the strain of holding back half a dozen drunken hooligans who had been trying to climb over me to reach the stage. That was one advantage of having Damien next to me – when the crowd got too rough, a few well-placed elbows normally cleared a space behind us. Didn’t win us many friends, though.

Two of the Horsemen stood between me and the bar. Not the safest of locations. These two weren’t the same as the two from the toilet, and they stood either side of some guy who was wearing a long black cloak. I didn’t care what he wore, as long as he got out of the way.

As I reached the trio, one of the bikers held out an arm and nodded that I should go around them. Now, this had not been my original plan, and I saw no reason to change plans mid-mission. I swept the hair from my face, using both hands to get the last of the sweat-stuck strands out of the way. Then I stopped in front of the group.

“’Scuse me, pal.” I thought I’d start with the civil approach.

“Go around.”

And that’s where it all started to go wrong. If only the man had said “please.” Or if he’d smiled. Or winked. But he just nodded off to the side again and gulped his beer, then tried to stare me down. As if he owned the club. Now, don’t get me wrong – I appreciate arrogance. Some misguided souls, who obviously don’t know me very well, have even, on occasion, described me as being arrogant myself. But here we had the irresistible force meeting the immovable object. In a place I liked to think of as my home away from home. I smiled.

Extract from Burning Roses, a decadent tale of sex, drugs, rock n roll & magick. Available from www.amazon.com/author/burning

Enjoy the festive season. Be as naughty as you like for the next 300 days. Check out the Smashwords Sale if you need something to read over the holidays. Lots of free/discounted ebooks, not just mine.

Till next time. Cheers.

And the band played on

A second stage-diver appeared, bouncing onto the platform and tossing a fist in the air before launching himself after it. But this one had miscalculated. He had aimed himself at the space between me and Damien. We saw him coming at the same moment, reached up, grabbed his shoulders with one hand each and pulled down hard. He hit the floor face first, boots spinning out of sight, as Bruce reached the last verse.

 

“The flames of the battle are dying away now.

The corpses are heaped in pile upon pile.

With fear in our hearts we crawl from concealment.

Blood touches our skin – we choke down the bile.

Astonished, we walk amongst sinners and demons.

The first rays of sunlight appear in the East:

A new day is dawning as terror forsakes us.

With smiles on our faces we worship the Beast.”

 

And that was it. The end of the song. There was silence for a split second, while heads stopped bouncing up and down, then the audience erupted in a roar of appreciation. Every single person on the floor was yelling, screaming, waving their fists in the air. Most of us took up a chant. “Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood!”

Bruce tossed his hair back and planted his microphone stand at the front of the stage. He raised his hands, acknowledging the response. The club belonged to these five. He raised his mike. The chant slowed.

“Hello! How the fuck are we?”

There was a surge of noise in response.

“It’s fucking nice to be back. It’s been too long.”

There was a shriek from the back of the room. Bruce raised his eyebrows.

“Seems we’ve got some ladies in the crowd tonight.” More shrieks. “Any of you girls want to suck some Blood?” This raised a few smiles, and a chorus of screams from one corner of the room.

Bruce picked up on it immediately. “Scream for me, Irish Club!” We did. “Scream for me, Irish Club!” We did. “This next song… is… the Howl of the Banshee!”

And so it was.

Extract from Burning Roses, a decadent tale of sex, drugs, rock n roll & magick. Available from www.amazon.com/author/burning

If anyone actually reads these things, I recently posted a cheeky short horror story on Amazon, just in time for Xmas. It’s called Inner Beauty.  99 American cents on Amazon. You could find it by following the above link. Or, in the festive spirit, you could follow this one – SmashWords – and download it for free. For a limited period. Or until I change my mind.

There’s also a new radio play – Fiddlesticks – available from various online retailers – Fiddlesticks . Because I can’t resist a challenge…

Till next time. Cheers.

Come taste the band

As I hit the front of the crowd, throwing up my left foot to brace myself against the knee-high stage, Bruce launched himself from behind Bonzo’s drum kit, microphone in hand.

“In darkness we run from the blade of the reaper.

Ignorance fills us with dread and with fear.

Hoofbeats behind sound the approach of the horsemen,

Galloping faster and soon drawing near.

The cries of the damned are a chorus around us.

Sulphur and brimstone and fire fill the air.

Before us the forces of Hell stand united –

Life has forsaken us – God does not care.”

The solo sprang like a living thing from the last line of the second verse, as Angus took his place at the front of the stage. He’d been playing guitar since he was eight years old, and on nights like this, you could see the results. Obviously straight from the sports field, he was still wearing a pair of shorts. Horned salutes stabbed the air. Bottles were held high inadulation. The rest of us launched into our own version of the solo, empty hands playing notes that hadn’t even been invented yet as hair and sweat filled the front row.

Then the inevitable mosher climbed onto the stage, threw his arms in the air and dived into the crowd. This one landed way off on my right, as his buddies broke his fall and helped him to his feet. Angus grinned and played on.

The third verse came and went, “the hordes of the dark one marching from concealment,” the apocalyptic fighting carrying on. This led to a second guitar solo, this time with Tony doing the honours. He’d lost the tips of two of the fingers on his right hand in an industrial accident, but this had never affected his playing. The crowd was rapidly banging its way into a frenzy. The guy on my left lost his balance and swayed for a moment, then was gone. In his place stood Damien, head down, foot up, bottle held precariously by two fingers as the rest of them danced along the air-strings.

Extract from Burning Roses, a decadent tale of sex, drugs, rock n roll & magick. Available from www.amazon.com/author/burning

Till next time. Cheers.

Master of puppets

“Did you ever consider,” I asked, “that maybe you died outside the Moulin Rouge? And that all this,” I waved my beer around, “is just a fantasy running through your fevered brain as you lie dying in the gutter?”

“That would make you a figment of my imagination, then, wouldn’t it?” Damien enjoyed this kind of conversation, but I could see Ian starting to lose interest. Metaphysics and philosophy weren’t his cup of tea. In fact, I’d never seen Ian with a cup of tea.

“If it was true. Of course, the real truth is that you guys, this club, only exist in my head. And all your memories are just stories that I made up and put there when I created the universe this morning.”

“And one day you’ll wake up, right, and we’ll all just go poof?”

“Who are you calling a poof?”

“Do you really think that could be true?” Morag made a surprise entrance into the conversation.

“What, that he’s a poof?”

“Fuck off.”

“No. That we could all just be parts of someone’s dream, not really real. And that one day he’ll wake up.”

Damien and I looked at each other. Morag’s approach to magick had always been more down to earth than ours, with an instinctive, emotional grasp of what was required.

“Could be,” I replied, slowly. “I mean, how do you really know that you exist? What if you only think that you exist?”

“Or,” added Damien, “what if you do really exist, but the rest of us don’t? Like, there’s no way for you to be sure that I’m actually thinking my own thoughts, is there? You think that you are sure that you are thinking things, but what if the rest of us were just reflections of your own thoughts, appearing to think and act, but actually just thinking that we’re thinking?”

“What the fuck have you been drinking?” roared Ian as he got to his feet. “You’re all out of your fucking heads!”

“Sorry I made you say that, Ian,” I grinned. “I’ll make you a bit more tolerant next time around.”

“Aaargh!” He stomped off towards the stage.

“Maybe we’ll bring you back as a woman!” Damien yelled after him. “Think what fun you could have, looking at yourself in the mirror! Jumping on yourself!”

This last was a reference to one of Ian’s more daring sexual exploits. He had picked up an exotic dancer, and they’d gone out for a while. One night, probably not in a sober state, she had tied him to a bed, stripped in front of him to get him aroused, rubbed him with lubricant, then climbed on top of a chest of drawers. Taking careful aim, she had launched herself onto the bed, spreading her legs in mid-air and landing perfectly on the target.

Unfortunately, no amount of lubricant could have prepared poor Ian for this sudden wrench to his manhood. The doctor had been sympathetic, and had administered a local anaesthetic as well as a liberal dose of painkillers while stitching things back into place. Ian was now fully recovered, but for a couple of weeks he had been drinking even more than usual, and the story had eventually come out. Being the man’s friends, we had of course been extremely sensitive about the incident. Only one song had been composed to commemorate the event. Only three pictures had appeared on the toilet wall. And we had resisted the temptation to go that extra mile and have a T-shirt printed. After all, he was a mate.

Extract from Burning Roses, a decadent tale of sex, drugs, rock n roll & magick. Available from www.amazon.com/author/burning

Till next time. Cheers.

Banned from the pubs

“So there we are,” said Damien, “the five of us, coming out of the Moulin Rouge, around 3 in the morning. We get outside, and we see that Sam’s got blood all over his face. Now, Sam might be a bit strange sometimes, but even he doesn’t walk around with blood all over his face. I mean, he isn’t Polish, is he?”

There were a couple of grins at this, as we looked around to see whether Rafael was in the club. There were four of us sitting around a table. Damien had grabbed it after some skins had got up to go to the dancefloor, and Ian and I had joined him on our way back from the bar. Morag had come through with her promise to buy me a drink. In fact, with her newfound prosperity, she had sprung for an entire round. About half a pint of that had accidentally ended up in my lap, for which she had, of course, apologized most profusely. I thought I had gotten off lightly.

“So we ask him what’s happened, right? And he says that some cunt just hit him as we were walking down the stairs. For no reason.” Pause for a drink. “So, I go back up the stairs, but the bouncers won’t let me back in. Now you know me, I’m normally quite a peaceful sort, but I was starting to get a bit tense here.” More grins around the table. Damien’s “peaceful” personality was well known in the Irish.

“So I explain that we want to see this guy that did it, just to find out why. You know? And all this time, Sam’s just standing against the wall, wiping blood off his face, shaking his head, and we’re all feeling, like, sorry for the guy. He’s a mate, you know?”

As I raised my bottle for another sip, someone slapped me on the back of the head, spilling another mouthful in my lap. The roar of laughter that followed could only have come from one mouth.

“Oi, Mick. You want a drink? Morag’s buying.”

The leader of the Aryan Knights placed his fists on the table and looked around. A barbed wire tattoo snaked around his left arm from wrist to shoulder, with swastikas and eagles claiming the spaces between. A picture of a chain spiraled up his right arm. A real chain looped around his waist, held in place by a huge combination padlock. We all knew that the combination was set to open with just one click of the dial.

Behind him stood half a dozen smaller clones, trying to look hard. One of them was wearing a Sisters of Mercy shirt, which just didn’t make any sense to me at all. What was the world coming to?

“Not tonight.” He raised his eyes and scanned the dancefloor. I could practically smell the aggression pouring off him. “Tonight I’m just looking for a fight.” He picked up Damien’s beer and had a swig, then handed it back and winked. “You girls behave yourselves now.”

Extract from Burning Roses, a decadent tale of sex, drugs, rock n roll & magick. Available from www.amazon.com/author/burning

Till next time. Cheers.

If you want blood

Then another body entered my sights. Damien had moved to intercept the insect, had reached out easily and had taken away its stinger. The bug spun around, not knowing which way to run, or even where to look. It seemed to decide that the madman with the loaded gun was a greater threat than the madman with empty hands, and it headed back towards me. This was a very brief change of trajectory. As it rushed towards me, I swatted it with the back of my hand and it flew across the room, landing at Stevie’s feet. I saw the black cloaks rush to its aid, but I was busy with the other entity that had forced itself into my field of vision.

Damien stood with his back to the wall, gun hanging loosely. He was still shaking his head.

“I couldn’t let him hurt you,” he told me. “I wouldn’t have let him hurt Morag.”

No. You do not use that name. My hand lashed out again, sending him spinning along the wall. He managed to stay on his feet. As he straightened up, a small part of me registered that I’d never felt this strong before. The greater part of me ignored this minority report.

“Ok, I deserved that,” Damien went on, wiping a new trickle of blood from his nose. “I’ve done some bad things. But I’ve changed, John.”

He might have been expecting it, but the next backhand still caught him before he could move. This time he ended up on his knees in the corner. He had lost his grip on the gun. He scrambled to get his hand back on the weapon, but I was in front of him before he made it fully back to his feet.

“No!” The gun swung up. His free hand was braced against a wall, supporting his watery legs. The scratch on his face had opened, and blood was starting to ooze down his cheek, competing with the trickle still coming from his nose.

“Don’t make me do this, John.”

I didn’t care what he did. Nothing could stop me.

Realizing this, he pushed himself off the wall and ducked under my reach, heading for the door. But Stevie moved to block his path.

Damien stopped where he was, then staggered back as if he’d run into a brick wall. He spread his arms, one hand warding off this new opponent, the other hand with the gun stretched back towards me.

“I’m sorry, alright?”

I kept moving forward.

“I just want it all to stop, for fuck sake. Please. Just make it stop.”

I smacked his arm aside. As he spun from the force of the blow, I slapped him again, knocking him once more to his knees. I heard his jaw bone snap as he went down.

I glanced over at Morag, whose eyes had never left Damien. Her bruises seemed to have darkened during the few moments since I’d first seen them. Maybe that was only my imagination. I’d never seen her physically hurt before. Was it only her face? What about the rest of her body? What about…?

A new wave of berserker rage flooded through me as I turned back towards Damien. He hadn’t even tried to make it back to his feet this time. One hand cradled his broken face. The other held the gun close to his body, pointing up towards me. He couldn’t say it, but his body language pleaded for mercy. The same mercy he’d shown the mother of my unborn child?

I raised an arm. His eyes hardened. I started to swing. His finger pulled back on the trigger. I smiled. His eyes closed slightly, in anticipation of the coming noise.

Then the Beast was moving between us, the gun went off, and I was pushed back against the wall.

As I bounced forward, raising my arm again for another blow, I saw Stevie carry on across the room, clutching his chest.

Damien pushed himself upright, arm straightening towards me.

I was now too far away to reach the gun. But I was bulletproof. Wasn’t I?

Oops.

Damien squeezed his eyes almost closed as his finger started to tighten on the trigger one more time. I was tempted to close mine too. It was either that or launch myself forward in a final attack.

Before I could make that split-second decision, Damien’s arm jerked up and the shot went over my head.

He dropped the gun. Lowered his arm. Opened his eyes. Wide. Shook his head. Then dropped once again to his knees.

Behind him stood Morag, a bloody knife in her hand.

She moved around in front of Damien, holding the blade so he could see it clearly. Crouching next to him, she reached over and wiped it on the front of his already stained shirt.

“Psycho bitch strikes again,” she murmured, with that sweet smile on her face, the one that gave grown men nightmares.

Damien was leaking all over himself. From his nose, from the side of his face, and now from his mouth. One eye was useless, swollen almost closed and looking off at a strange angle, as if he was trying to look behind himself. Obviously that wasn’t working for him.

“Now this is very important,” Morag told him. “For both of us.” She slapped him lightly on the side of the head. He glared at her as well as he could. “That’s good. I need your full attention.”

She held her knife in front of his face, turning it so the light in the room played along its length. She smiled. He nodded and smiled back. More blood dribbled down his chin.

Morag lowered her arm and placed the tip of the blade just under his rib cage. He raised his hand. He didn’t try to push her away. Instead, his hand rested on hers, drowning it.

Damien looked up at me. No words were necessary. Or possible. His one eye held a depth of emotion, the intense feelings that modern males refuse to share until it’s too late. Secret jealousies. Unspoken gratitudes. Hidden pain.

I nodded in complete understanding. He nodded back.

Turning again to Morag, he managed to breathe “Thank you” without moving his mouth.

Then he grunted as she leaned forward and drove her knife in up to the hilt.

Extract from Burning Roses, a decadent tale of sex, drugs, rock n roll & magick. Available from www.amazon.com/author/burning

Till next time. Cheers.

By demons be driven

Morag was handcuffed to a chair in the middle of the back room. As if that wasn’t bad enough, she sported a beautiful bruise across her cheekbone, spreading into a discolouration around her left eye. She barely looked up as we entered.

Through the red mist that appeared in front of me, I saw Michael had been scribbling on a notepad. He dropped the pen on the desk when he saw us.

“I hope that’s your will,” said the Beast.

“Excuse me?”

“Are you suicidal?”

As I stepped forward, not sure whether I was going to free Morag first or leave that until I’d killed everyone else in the room, I noticed Damien leaning back in a chair against one wall, drink in hand. That wasn’t right. He wasn’t supposed to be there. My killing spree hit a temporary speed bump.

Michael stood up, with a gun in the place of the pen. But his arm remained calmly by his side.

“There’s no need for more violence,” he said. “I’m sure we’ve all had enough of that for one day.” He also had a black eye, and his lips looked swollen and bloody. His shirt had been torn away from his neck, and there were still a few drops of blood decorating the chest area. See? The trend hadn’t taken long to catch on.

“I never laid a hand on her,” he protested. “She was already bruised when your friend brought her to me. But we had to tie her to the chair in self-defence, while we waited for you guys to come collect her. Of course, this gives us one last chance to reach some kind of agreement on how we can all work together.”

I wasn’t listening. Apart from the main players, three of his black-cloaked creepies stood around the room, their attention focused on the Beast behind me. My eyes hadn’t moved from Damien.

“I have to admit,” I told him, “seeing you here has thrown me a bit.”

He shrugged. His nose had been broken recently, and a new scratch ran down the side of his face. And yes, he’d jumped on the bloody shirt bandwagon. But with more blood than I would have expected from a broken nose.

“Hollis Brown here decided to give me this one last chance,” Mike explained, “just as everyone else deserted me. He appeared out of the blue with your beautiful friend, so we could all try to salvage something from this situation, for the sake of all humanity.”

Another speed bump. This was the serious kind, with steep sides that would destroy your shock absorbers and rip the guts from your car if you hadn’t seen it coming.

“?”

The question was unspoken, but Damien understood it well enough.

He shrugged again and shook his head. His voice was empty, flat. “They’re gone, John. I didn’t know what to do. She was going to leave me. And take the baby. I couldn’t let that happen, John. They’re all I have. Then things just…”

He shook his head again, before taking a long drink. I turned to Morag, who was trying to bore a hole through him from her position in the center of the room. Her left eye was now swollen half closed. But that had no effect on the intensity of her gaze.

Instead, it brought the red fog back into my own eyes.

Michael made the mistake of speaking next.

“And that’s exactly the kind of tragedy that I want to prevent. If you’d just – .”

The desk was the only thing keeping him alive. I moved to one side, planning on going around it rather than over it or through it. Although those had been my first instincts. Mike responded by moving in the opposite direction, raising his weapon as he went.

“Look. Wait. Let’s talk.”

But all I could hear was a buzzing in my ears as my peripheral vision vanished and Michael became the centre of my universe.

I moved faster, crossing the far side of the desk as he backed away. He joined his hands together to get a steadier grip.

“Don’t come any closer. I’m warning you.”

Buzz buzz buzz. The insect was making defensive noises as I prepared to swat it. Maybe it would sting me in its death throes. Just another reason for me to swat it hard and fast, before it could do so.

Extract from Burning Roses, a decadent tale of sex, drugs, rock n roll & magick. Available from www.amazon.com/author/burning

Till next time. Cheers.

Revenge is sweet

I reached out and picked up my neighbour’s glass from the bar, full of some exotic looking cocktail. Before he even noticed that it had moved, the glass was tilted above his head and the sticky drink was no longer inside it. I could see each individual drop as they splashed off his thinning hair and carried on down to his shoulders, making beautiful colours and rainbows in the red and blue lights from the bar.

The dark thing inside my head wanted to smash the empty glass after the liquid, making more pretty colours, but I managed to hold it back as the sights and sounds of the room flooded back into the real world that I inhabited. The old fart’s shoulders hunched up in the time-honoured “this is what happens when I’m wet” gesture, and his companion shrieked aloud at the sight. This was even funnier than whatever they’d been talking about before, and I had to agree with her. It certainly brightened my day considerably, and even brought a smile to my face as I turned to the barman and waved my half-empty beer at him. No debates about whether I’m an optimist or a pessimist, please – half the beer was missing, whichever way you looked at it.

But the previously friendly barman wasn’t moving. The much-needed refill wasn’t winging its merry way towards me. Instead, the few other old folks propping up the bar all seemed to be looking in my direction, with eyes wide and mouths closed. Which is the way it should be 24/7, if you ask me. I decided to glance round and make sure that there wasn’t something else interrupting their otherwise empty lives, but as so often happens in these situations, I immediately regretted having done so.

The old fart (not the dead one, the other one – now easily distinguishable because of the goop dripping from his head) was pointing a gun at me. Being well versed in the multitudinous varieties and technicalities of arms and ammunition, I recognized it instantly as a Big Gun. The kind that makes things explode, as opposed to the kind that just drills a neat hole through them. Chrome plated. Red grip on the handle. And this identification wasn’t at all easy to make, as the thing was shaking up and down, back and forth, and quite obviously wasn’t at all happy where it was. I toyed with the idea of reaching out and taking it away from him, but then I just couldn’t be bothered. So I tried to be nice.

“Fuck off.”

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m as macho as the next guy. But this wasn’t bravado speaking. At that moment, I honestly didn’t give a fuck whether or not he pulled the trigger. It had been a long weekend. I was tired. Hot. Thirsty. Coming down from some kind of recreational synthetic. Combined with the aftereffects of an adrenaline rush. And I was in no mood to start apologising or begging in front of anybody.

“You bastard!” He started to tremble all over, his eyes growing bigger by the second. “Who the fuck do you think you are?”

Possible replies stumbled over one another in my head as they rushed to get out first. But overriding them all came the lyrics to a song by little Ronnie James Dio.

 

“Well it’s a matter of mind. You know you can be free forever. So the next time someone points a gun at you…

Say Shoot Shoot. You don’t care. Shoot Shoot.”

 

OK, it loses something in the translation into a non-musical format, but believe me when I tell you that you don’t want me to sing it to you. Suffice to say, this was running through my mind, with the backing musicians doing their backing musical bits, while I stood there with a gun pointed at my head. When things can’t possibly get any worse, and you’ve got nothing to lose, what’s a boy to do?

I drained the last half of the beer in my hand.

“Look sunshine. Either shoot me, or fuck off. You’re starting to annoy me.” At which point I turned my back on him and spun the empty bottle on the bar, hoping that it would be replaced before I was rendered incapable of enjoying any more.

Again, this wasn’t just pure nonchalance. It had occurred to me that he’d probably be less likely to shoot me in the back, and more likely to explode if I kept staring into his face. I could also see his reflection in the mirrors behind the bar, and I was preparing myself to slip off the barstool and onto the floor if he made any sudden moves.

The impasse lasted a couple more minutes, then one of the other barflies reached for his drink, the ice cubes chimed in the glass as he raised it to his mouth, and the spell was broken. A collective breath was taken, then the hum of conversation in the bar started to build up once again. All this time, the old fart was still pointing the Big Gun at the back of my head. And I was starting to think that he might have gone beyond the point of no return, where it became easier just to go with the flow than to take a step back. But then grandma stepped up to the plate.

“Come on, love. Leave him. He’s not worth it.”

I took a deep breath, just in case.

“Really, my sweet. Come have another drink.”

In the mirrors, I saw the tension drain out of him as his arm dropped to his side, his head dropping onto his chest. His big moment had come and gone, and he’d blown it. I reached for the empty beer bottle in front of me. I’d be fucked if I was going to let the old fart walk out of there after that. I mean, I had a reputation to maintain. A reputation that, all by itself, had kept me alive on more occasions than I could remember.

But before I had a chance to turn round, the bouncer had performed a perfect rugby tackle on the old fart, hitting him from behind and taking him down to the tiles. The gun slid off against the far wall, and the teddy boy was on top of him, pounding away. Then it was over, and the little man got to his feet, taking his shades from a jacket pocket while slicking back his hair with the other hand. He grabbed the former gunman by the shirt collar, picked up the weapon from where it lay against the wall, and started to remove them from the scene of the crime.

“Sorry about that,” he grunted as he heaved away at the body that was bigger than he was. “George! A free beer for the peacekeeper, here.”

And who was George to argue? The beer appeared, and it definitely seemed colder and more refreshing than the previous one.

Extract from Burning Roses, a decadent tale of sex, drugs, rock n roll & magick. Available from www.amazon.com/author/burning

Till next time. Cheers.

Beer drinkers & hell raisers

Right, so the girl had disappeared. No problem. Girls come and go all the time. Fish in the sea. So what? There was no point looking for her. If she’d decided to do a runner, that was her decision. For whatever reason. Nothing much anyone could do about it. I certainly wasn’t going to run after her and try to “win her back.” No chance. Not me.

If she ever turned up again, we’d see what happened. But she’d be the one crawling back to me. If I was in the mood. Yip, that was the way to handle this. Put it all behind me, and move on. Preferably as soon as humanly possible. And everybody knows that the best way to get over a woman is to find another woman. Or to get horribly drunk. Or all of the above, in no particular order.

So the drinking part was well underway. And there were a couple of likely candidates right in front of me, with obviously nothing better to do on a Monday afternoon than entertain good-looking young headbangers. Should I? Shouldn’t I?

I’d managed to drink away the worst of the previous night’s hangover, along with whatever it was that my ex had given me. Rehydrated, it was time to offload some of the excess liquid. Rehydrated, but certainly not feeling my normal carefree self. Must have been acid in that cap, I thought to myself as I swung my feet off the chair and swiveled away from the dancefloor. Always got this nasty aggressiveness when I came down from an acid trip. Like the rest of the world was there just to annoy me. And who’s to say that wasn’t true?

They were certainly in the way as I sauntered to the bar. All I wanted was to get my hands on another beer. Not much to ask. And these bastards were deliberately standing in my way. But hey… I’m a nice guy. I try to avoid trouble when at all possible. Especially when cute little gnomes ask me to behave myself. So I squeezed in between an old fart who was chatting up an even older hooker, and some shriveled stick insect who seemed to be either dead or asleep, and I managed to attract the barman’s attention by giving him The Stare. He saw the empty bottle in my hand, and had a new one in front of me before I had a chance to wave it at him.

Not bad service. He was probably in cahoots with the gnome.

I raised the bottle to my lips for a quick swig before heading for the restrooms, but it wasn’t to be. The old fart (not the dead one, the other one) chose that moment to jerk backwards in his chair with what sounded like a whoop of laughter. Beer spilled over my face, pouring onto my clean shirt and even my colours. Not a drop reaching my mouth.

While I looked down in horror, he half turned on his barstool and waved at me. Then he turned back to his professional companion and laughed again, shrugging and using the moment to place a sweaty hand on her wrinkled knee.

The room suddenly receded on all sides, everyone in the bar vanishing from my sphere of consciousness. There were only me and him left in the world. And, hazily, the woman at the end of his arm. But she was merely a blur as time slowed and blood started to pound in my ears. I could feel each heartbeat, distinct and separate from the others, blotting out all other sounds.

This was it. The final humiliation. I’d been chased. I’d been drugged. I’d been dumped. I’d woken with a hangover. And now I’d had beer poured over me. My own beer, at that. The line had just been crossed.

Extract from Burning Roses, a decadent tale of sex, drugs, rock n roll & magick. Available from www.amazon.com/author/burning

Also now available from Walmart, of all places… https://www.walmart.com/ip/Burning-Roses-eBook/213541267

Till next time. Cheers.

Smells like teen spirit

Clouds. Cotton wool. A comfortable numbness. That pleasant warm swirling sensation, like you’re back in the womb. Such a wonderful feeling. Then the killjoy drudges of reality have to ruin it by making their presence felt. Voices in the distance. Cold, hard floor pressed against your skin. The incessant buzzing of Beelzebub’s minions as they explore exposed flesh to ascertain whether or not you are dead and edible.

Then your own body aligns itself with the opposition. Head starts to pound as blood surges back into oxygen-starved brain cells. Arm finally complains that it can’t bear the full weight of your body for more than a couple of hours. Face realizes that the carpet it’s making love to doesn’t smell so good from such a close proximity. And then the final betrayal – the worst of all. The one you can’t ignore. It starts as a dead feeling in the pit of your stomach. Then it kicks. Then it adds a few interesting sound effects, just in case you missed the tactile message. Another kick. Call it a heave. The surge of saliva at the back of your throat. Head still spinning, so you wonder what you should do with all this accumulating liquid.

Then a blaze of light as your eyes snap open and you sit up, gasping, hand over your mouth, looking for a receptacle. Gotta be close. No time to search. There – a dustbin! Throwing yourself across the room. Crouching on all fours. It kicks again. You try to let it out, give it what it wants, but it resists, toying with you. Feeling that you could explode from the pressure. Something has to give. And then it does. And you wish it would stop.

*

She was gone. One look around the room could have told me that, but I kept looking anyway, hoping that I would find some indication that she’d be coming back. Her handbag draped across the back of a chair, perhaps. Or a hastily scribbled note – “Off to buy breakfast.” But there was nothing of the sort.

I hated those mornings when I’d wake up wondering who it was lying next to me, what her name was, where I’d met her, and how she’d died. Fortunately, this wasn’t one of those.

Nevertheless, I still felt terrible. On so many levels. I’d finally stumbled across the perfect woman, only to let her slip through my fingers. I’d been played like a foolish child, like a friendly puppy willing to do anything to please its new master. And of course, my head and belly were still aching.

And the stench in the room! Unbelievable! You’d have thought that university students would take a bit more pride in their surroundings. I decided to do my bit for the environment. Searching through the chest of drawers closest to me, mainly a storage space for the standard student stockpile of two-minute noodles, I found some deodorant and aftershave, still in the gift box it had come in. Liberal doses of both sprayed and poured into the dustbin seemed to take the edge off its new flavour, but I’d lost interest in my temporary accommodation. Making sure that I hadn’t left anything behind, including the room’s key which was tucked safely in my pocket, I was about to take my leave when I saw a box of matches lying innocently on a shelf next to the door. Well, it couldn’t make things any worse…

As I closed the door behind me, the dustbin was nicely ablaze in the centre of the room. Fire was such a cleansing tool. I was sure the two first-years would appreciate my friendly gesture.

Extract from Burning Roses, a decadent tale of sex, drugs, rock n roll & magick. Available from www.amazon.com/author/burning

Also now available from Walmart, of all places… https://www.walmart.com/ip/Burning-Roses-eBook/213541267

Till next time. Cheers.

Werewolves of London

On this night, while mist prowled through the village, and rain beat down on the roof of the police station, thirteen men stood in a circle about the altar, their hands raised above their heads, their heads flung back in supplication. For these were the chosen ones. They had worked towards this night, preparing themselves physically and spiritually, cleansing their bodies as they fortified their souls. Now they were ready to begin the rites, to initiate the ancient ritual which would awaken the dark one from his ages-long slumber, and set him loose once more upon the earth.

All preparations had been completed: their clothing had been cast aside, and their bodies smeared with animal blood. The sacrifice had been made ready on the altar – Steve Denny lay there, unconscious, his naked body daubed with arcane symbols, his mind no longer present. Steve Denny was, in fact, no more. What lay on the altar was a living, breathing corpse. A receptacle awaiting its new master.

Outside, the mist seemed to gather momentum, roiling and crawling more furiously than before. The rain beat down with renewed force, as if trying to match the mist in its anger. Thunder roared across the sky. Lightning flashed.

In the basement, seven candles, the only illumination, flickered as one. The movement broke the trance-like state into which the thirteen had drifted. Their eyes snapped open, but glowed dull, lifeless. Their arms descended till they could grasp hands, forming a ring around the altar. One of their number detached himself from the others, moved towards the lifeless body lying on the slab. This one stood at the foot of the altar, his arms raised, looking down on the body formerly inhabited by the farmer’s son.

“Let us begin.”

The twelve dropped to their knees. Their leader began a low, whispered chant, which was picked up by the others, building in volume as it progressed. The chant was in an ancient, half-forgotten tongue, only hinted at in dark legends and in a few rare manuscripts.

The candles flickered again. The moment was nigh.

“Oh Nameless One,” called the thirteenth man, “hear us, Your servants! From Your ancient slumber we call upon You to awaken and come forth once more to walk among us! Hear our call, oh Mighty One, as we recite the words set down by Your most faithful devotees, in days long past, when last You ruled over men!”

“Hear us, Ravager of Life, as we speak the words to break Your imprisonment, to end Your banishment, and to restore You to Your rightful place among, and yet above, mortal men! Hear us, Scourge of the Light, as we bid You… awake!”

The candles leapt into agitated life, flickering to twice, three times their former height. Outside, the rain redoubled its efforts, hammering at every surface in sight. Thunder cracked and lightning whipped the storm, while down below the mist seemed to pour from the very air. Dense banks of vapour invaded the town, obscuring gardens and buildings as once it had obscured wet patches on the road.

On the altar, the body of Steve Denny began to stir. His breathing became deeper and more rapid, and his veins began to pulse again with life.

The chanters reached a climax, the alien language echoing around the chamber. Their leader threw back his head.

“Hear us, Nameless One! Come to us!”

The body before him jerked spasmodically. The hands stiffened into talons, then, as the nails grew long and pointed, and strong fingers grew even stronger, they became claws. Similar changes were taking place at the feet. The whole body seemed to be swelling, growing, hardening, feeding on the darkness and becoming something that was more than human. Or something that was not human at all.

Steve Denny’s face was changing, too. His mouth was widening, the teeth inside becoming longer, sharper. His ears were growing, becoming pointed at the top as the lobes vanished.

The chant went on. The candles danced ever higher, casting strange shadows on the walls. Twisted creatures seemed to move in those shadows, slinking or capering as the whim took them. They seemed to add their voices to the chant, as it grew ever more frenzied and commanding. Outside, the storm had reached its peak. The night was ablaze as mist embraced the lightning which filled the sky, and the thunder formed a constant backdrop of crackling, booming sound. The time was ripe. Something had to give.

In a basement below the police station in the main street of Wilton, something opened its eyes. Yellow slits gleamed in the semi-darkness. Yellow slits with vertical, black slashes for pupils.

The chanting stopped.

Extract from Burning Roses, a decadent tale of sex, drugs, rock n roll & magick. Available from www.amazon.com/author/burning

Till next time. Cheers.

Dirty deeds

Only a week past, there had been two rather disturbing occurrences in Wilton. First, there had been the two dead cows. No cause for alarm, certainly, although Tam Denny, the farmer who had owned the beasts, had been understandably upset. What had gotten to the villagers was the fact that both cows had been drained of blood.
The second thing playing on the villagers’ minds was the disappearance of Steve Denny, the farmer’s son. Steve had been out in the fields, the night after the cows had been found, making sure that nothing happened to the rest of the herd. Steve had been a strapping lad, the champion of the local boxing club, and he had taken his father’s shotgun with him, just in case. He’d been planning to go see the Rockin’ Vicars that weekend, but had considered this more important. Sometime during that night, Steve had disappeared. There was no sign of a struggle. No blood on the grass or shreds of clothing. Nor was there any sign of the farmer’s son.
The local constabulary had been put on the alert. Throughout the region, posters were distributed, descriptions were given. Tam Denny had even posted a five hundred-pound reward for information as to his son’s whereabouts. But, so far, nothing had come to light.
Now, a week later, the streets were empty. Some of the villagers were tucked away in bed, seeking the safety that comes from knowing that nothing can harm you once the blankets have been pulled over your head. Others, more courageous or more foolish, were still awake, but safely indoors. Their lights blazed defiantly, warning the creatures of the night that they were no helpless victims. As a further safeguard, their black and white television sets were turned up to full volume, in an attempt to frighten the night-stalkers with the sounds of car chases, gun shots and screams of terror. The noise also served to hide the suspicious creaks and moans which came from the old buildings, and which had been known to keep more than one villager awake at night.
But that did not account for all the inhabitants of Wilton.
For thirteen men were not buried under their bedclothes. Thirteen men were not glued to the square box which dominated living rooms all over town. Thirteen men were, instead, gathered in a basement under the police station.
This basement held no prisoners, or supplies, or anything within the normal day-to-day experience of the rest of the townsfolk. This basement held an altar. It was of black granite, standing strong and cold in the center of the room. The altar, like the basement itself, had been there long before the police station had been built above it. It had been there long before the village had been patched together by the local inhabitants. It had been there, some whispered, since the beginning of time, in those unimaginably remote ages before man had crawled out from the swamps, when dark beings had stalked the earth and carved lairs for themselves from the living rock.
*
“You don’t want to maybe bring in a touch of melodrama here instead?”
“Just write it down.”
“Can we go back and start with ‘It was a dark and stormy night’?”
“Remember when I said I wasn’t going to eat you?”
“Writing it down. No problem.”
“Whose round is it?”
“Must be yours. I’m very busy at the moment, writing things down.”

Extract from Burning Roses, a decadent tale of sex, drugs, rock n roll & magick. Available from www.amazon.com/author/burning

Till next time. Cheers.

Prologue

Mist crawled along the main street, concealing puddles made by the incessant rain. Swirling tendrils drifted off into side streets, making their way silently, like messengers from another world. The mist flowed outward as it went, ever expanding, now bubbling and rolling as if it were a living thing, now spreading evenly like a river of blood. No place was safe from its approach. Fences were ignored, walls were climbed, even doors and windows were breached. There was no sanctuary in the little town of Wilton, nestling sleepily on the edge of Salisbury Plain. But then, the mist, in itself, posed no danger.
*
“Do we really need to include this bit? I’m not even in it. And this is supposed to be my story.”
“We discussed this. They need to understand where it all started. This is bigger than you now.”
“You’re not making this up? I’ve had enough people lying to me recently.”
“I’m not making this up. I never lied to you. Not my fault if it sometimes takes you a while to put two and two together. Hey, don’t swear at me under your breath. I can still hear you. Now carry on.”

Extract from Burning Roses, a decadent tale of sex, drugs, rock n roll & magick. Available from www.amazon.com/author/burning

Till next time. Cheers.

Shaken, not stirred

Downstairs, Morag was sipping on a bottle of vodka she must have found somewhere in her search. Another bottle dangled from her free hand.

“Want some?” she offered, shooting daggers at my companion as she looked her up and down. Before either of us could reply, a door opened behind her and a Horseman took a step into the hallway. He was wearing earphones attached to a Walkman at his belt, and was looking down while he zipped himself up. Morag spun round as he moved forward, the movement catching his attention. His right hand left his crotch and whipped up towards a shoulder holster. He was fast. But Morag was still spinning. Her arms swung out from her sides, propelled by centrifugal force, and one of the bottles exploded against the man’s face, sending him flying back into the toilet.

She tossed the other bottle towards me as she leaped after the shattered biker. I dove forward to catch it, and by the time I’d regained my balance she was closing the door behind her.

“Time we were somewhere else.”

Extract from Burning Roses, a decadent tale of sex, drugs, rock n roll & magick. Available from www.amazon.com/author/burning

Till next time. Cheers.

Dragons & Spells

It was the girl in the picture. The one I’d been asked to look out for. But the picture had shown a kid in a school uniform, her hair tied up in a pony. Might even have been in black and white.

What I saw in front of me was much more than some schoolgirl who had run away from home. Deep green eyes skewered me, piercing through to my soul and pulling me in to their bottomless depths. She held my gaze for an eternity, a smile starting to pull at the corner of her lips. Her hands dropped to rest lightly on her thighs. Then she winked at me.

In one fluid movement she was on her feet and moving to the bed. She snatched up the long black dress laying on the mattress and pulled it over her head, shrugging it down over her golden body. I remembered to breathe. Cinnamon filled my lungs.

“I was starting to think you’d never get here,” she said, pulling her hair out from the collar and shaking it back into place. “Ready to go?”

Even with the spell broken, I couldn’t quite get back into the here and now. We were going somewhere? I shook my head, looking around again to see what I’d missed. Which must have seemed like a good idea, because she shook her head as well.

“Out.” She floated towards me, making shooing motions with one hand as she grabbed a black leather handbag with the other. “Go.”

I stumbled back into the hallway as she followed and closed the door behind her. Then she strode towards the stairs, swinging her bag over her shoulder. A green dragon grinned at me from under the bag strap. I grinned back.

Extract from Burning Roses, a decadent tale of sex, drugs, rock n roll & magick. Available from www.amazon.com/author/burning

Till next time. Cheers.

The girl in the room

First impressions. Darkness. Space. Emptiness yet… filled with a presence. Almost a sense of expectation. A hush.

“Upstairs! Move!”

Morag was in charge, her eyes adjusting to the dimness inside as she spun me around and sent me flying towards a wooden staircase to the left of the door. She moved forward through the entrance hall, disappearing into what looked like a large, empty living room.

I skillfully used a combination of my back and the wall to break my momentum, then sprinted up the stairs. Trying to move quietly in the dark, in a strange house, while wearing size ten boots and taking three steps at a time. Try it sometime. It makes a great game at parties.

At the top of the stairs was another entrance area, narrowing to a hallway at the far end. I could make this out because this floor was lit by candles mounted in brackets on the walls.

Half a dozen rooms led off either side of the hallway. The first two were empty and dark. I popped my head round the doorways, feeling for a light switch, then moved on when I had no luck. The second pair were locked. Solid wooden doors, which didn’t even rattle when I threw my weight against them. This was not going well.

Then I reached the last room on the left. From up close, I could see the flicker of light under the door. And I could hear a gentle humming sound, a slow, meditative melody, like a lullaby. The scent of cinnamon seemed to accompany the humming, making my mouth water as it remembered drinking gluhwein during the last cold spell we’d had.

Forgetting the social niceties, I turned the handle and pushed the door with my other hand. It flew open, and for a moment I was blinded by the blaze of illumination that lay on the other side. The hairs along my arms stood to attention.

After blinking for a couple of seconds, my eyes took in the scene. Medium sized room. Bed in one corner. Cupboard next to it. Circle of candles filling the rest of the space. Girl kneeling in the centre of the candles. Clothes on the bed. My head swung to the left to confirm, then back to the middle of the room. Girl kneeling. Clothes on the bed.

Hair like midnight cascaded down her back, stopping just short of her waist. Candlelight glittered on a delicate silver chain which connected one side of her nose to an ear. Her arms were held out at her sides, palms up, while her head was bowed in supplication. This left her facing me with nothing to obscure my view of the pentagram tattoo just above her left breast. It was a circle of thorns, some of them seeming to dig into the skin, with the familiar five-pointed star straddling them. Another design circled her upper right arm. Again thorns, this time with roses blossoming between them. From the angle she was kneeling, and with the flickering light of the candles, it looked as if the flowers were on fire.

Then she opened her eyes and looked up at me, and I was lost.

Extract from Burning Roses, a decadent tale of sex, drugs, rock n roll & magick. Available from www.amazon.com/author/burning

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The break-in

The three of us approached from the back, keeping an eye on the upstairs windows to see if we could spot any movement or other clues as to who might be inside which rooms. Our resident expert in the pulling of moves had thrown together a rough plan, which involved her distracting the guy at the door, as only she could, while we others crept inside. Then Damien would keep, like, a central watch from the hallway or wherever, and I’d do a quick recce of the rooms. All of which seemed simple enough. I mean, does that not sound like a simple, foolproof set of instructions? What could possibly go wrong, right? Ha.

The red glare of the setting sun blinded us momentarily as we passed from the protection of the house, heading round to the gate. We could make out a pair of figures standing next to the fence, but couldn’t see enough detail to be able to tell who they were.

As we got closer, the sun dipped behind a tree, one of the figures turned slightly, and I recognized two Irish Club regulars. They recognized us at the same time.

“Oi, Venom. Look what cat’s been dragged in.”

This cracked them up, and they slapped one another on the back in appreciation of their own wit. It had obviously been a good day. The taller one then smacked himself on the back of the neck and shook his head.

“Got to mind our manners, though.” He held out his right hand. “You guys want some?”

Morag took the offered joint and put it to her lips. Me, I was starting to get thirsty again.

“Good to see you got off alright the other night,” said Sam. “Knew you would. Not like the rest of those tossers.” He giggled and nudged his mate. “When the going gets tough…”

Damien moved closer to them, smiling.

“No hard feelings, right?” Sam held out his hand.

Damien opened his arms and stepped forward, embracing the man. Sam, bewildered at first, wrapped his arms around him, patting him on the back and looking at Uncle Venom.

Morag moved further from the house, turning her back as she drained the last few puffs from the smoke. I glanced towards the front door and saw that my friend from earlier was still there, leaning his chair back against the wall, hands behind his head. No worries.

Then Sam’s hands started to flutter against Damien’s back. I saw it out of the corner of my eye, and wondered what the hell he was up to. Damien still had both arms wrapped around him in a bearhug, but Sam’s hands seemed to have a life of their own. They waved in the air, then clenched momentarily into fists, then one of them grabbed the back of Damien’s jacket and started to pull at the leather.

There was a noise coming from the two of them, as well. Kind of a grunting sound. The pulling hand switched its grip to Damien’s hair, as the other hand moved to his shoulder and strained against it. Sam seemed to be trying to pull free from the embrace. Then he started to scream.

The biker swung his chair to the ground as Sam tore himself away. I managed to catch both actions from where I stood, and could hear the rustle of Morag’s chains as she spun round behind me. Sam’s hands flew to his face. He staggered back, still screaming, and I wondered what kind of shit he’d been smoking earlier in the day. Then Damien turned to me and grinned. I saw the blood on his teeth at the same time as it started to run between Sam’s fingers.

Uncle Venom was the first to tear himself out of his frozen state. He shouted something unintelligible and threw himself at Damien, who caught him, swung him round and sent him flying into the picket fence. Damien had just enough time to spit out the chunk of face he’d bitten off before Sam bulldozed into him, sending them both spinning into the garden as well.

The biker was there in an instant, trying to grab bodies and separate the combatants. Nobody was messing up the daisies while he was on duty.

Morag’s hand on my collar practically wrenched me off my feet as she ran up the path towards the front door. Ah, the cool-headed professional…

Extract from Burning Roses, a decadent tale of sex, drugs, rock n roll & magick. Available from www.amazon.com/author/burning

Till next time. Cheers.

City of Gold

From the Skeleton in Yeoville, I could see the whole of Johannesburg set out before me. It was more impressive at night, when the neon madness of the city that never sleeps became stars reflecting in a pool of infinite darkness. Some stars burned steady, constant. Come up here any evening and you’d see the street lights running along the main highways and boulevards, mapping out our playground. Hubs of incandescence scattered from Melville through the CBD to Yeoville and Hillbrow itself. The warming glow of Ponte City rising 54 storeys above those streets of gold. And moving between the hubs, scattered along the highways, were our brothers and sisters, friends and lovers, sons, daughters, mothers and fathers, all part of one living breathing soul. The multitude of faces, voices, colours, bodies, laughing, crying, smiling, dreaming, some familiar, some forgotten, some never to be seen again.

The Skeleton was a burned out shell of a building perched on the edge of a cliff. Probably condemned years before. Probably suicidally unsafe. But it was where we came to watch the sun rise after a night in the clubs. Or where we went for some quiet time, to get away from the noise and the buzz.

Extract from Burning Roses, a decadent tale of sex, drugs, rock n roll & magick. Available from www.amazon.com/author/burning

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Breaking the what?

Strange how those words can’t ever be followed by another sound. As if your ears shut down in shock, a protective mechanism, refusing to hear anything else in case it turns out to be more bad news. The world receded. Music stopped. People vanished. Gravity deserted us. Time became meaningless. We were alone, clinging to one another as we spun madly through a world that no longer made sense. The vodka played its part well, spinning the room at just the right angle and slapping blinkers on the side of my face, that old familiar tunnel vision that seasoned drinkers know so well. All I could see were her eyes, emerald windows into a soul I’d once known as well as my own, cherished more than my own. They were infinity, holding entire worlds of caring and pain and longing within themselves. All the emotions that ever existed were right there in front of me, naked in their honesty, painful in their intensity, reaching for me, calling to me, trying to wrap themselves around me and shield me from what they knew was coming, what they knew was lurking outside of current time and space, crouching in the dark and readying itself.

Raindrops landed on Morag’s upturned face. Warm and salty, I could taste them as they fell. I tried to ask where they were coming from, but the only word that came out was “No.” My head shook itself to confirm this. More raindrops appeared. “No. He said he’d meet me here tonight.”

“John…”

I tried to pull away. I needed to breathe. She held me tighter. “John, don’t. I’m so sorry. Don’t go.”

I remembered the bottle in my hand and took a long drink. Must have spilled some on my face, because it was wet. I wiped it away, sniffing. Probably coming down with something. Another drink should sort that out.

Then the music came flooding back, grounding me again and reminding me where I was. Zeplins. Tuesday night. Urban Assault. And I could see them across the room, the crowd making its way from the bars and the dance floors and the pool tables, crowding into the space in front of the band, ready and waiting. Cliff appeared on stage, still standing in as a replacement singer while they searched for a new front man. He raised his arms to thunderous applause. “Breaking the what?”

The crowd surged forward. “Law!”

“Can’t hear you. Breaking the what?”

More fans poured from the toilets and the stairs leading to the roof. “Law!”

“Louder. Breaking the what?”

Fists and bottles shot into the air. “Law!”

Cliff smiled through his beard.

Extract from Burning Roses, a decadent tale of sex, drugs, rock n roll & magick. Available from www.amazon.com/author/burning

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Agro

I bumped into Cliff, Shane and Mountain as soon as I walked into the Doors. They were excited about the gig and couldn’t wait to get on stage. Overflowing with enthusiasm, as always. I asked whether they were going to need me to fill in for anyone, as I’d done on a previous occasion. Cliff managed to keep a straight face while he reminded me that they’d unplugged me from the amp as soon as they realized that I couldn’t actually play anything except air guitar. But I’d had my 15 minutes of rock stardom. I was happy to call it a day before I burned out like so many others before me, victims of their own fame.

The main dancefloor was practically empty, but the night was still a foetus. Things would get busier soon enough. I made my way upstairs, noticing how wide the stairs were. Most people took this for granted. Anyone who had spent any time at all in Image, didn’t. The toilets in Image were up a narrow flight of steel stairs. It wasn’t unusual to be making one’s way up these stairs, only to be confronted by the towering figure of a punk or skinhead teetering drunkenly at the top of the stairs, trying to make his way down. Political differences aside, the chances of the aforementioned club-goer falling headlong down the stairs were usually 50/50. Discretion being what it is, most people clenched whatever needed to be clenched and retreated to the bottom of the stairs to watch the entertainment, perhaps placing a small side-bet with any other spectators who might have joined them.

Extract from Burning Roses, a decadent tale of sex, drugs, rock n roll & magick. Available from www.amazon.com/author/burning

Till next time. Cheers.

Wet dreams

“Sex magick?” Damien asked, with a gleam in his eye.

“Hey, there’s always room for sex magick.”

The gleam turned into a grin. “Speaking of which…”

“Hello, boys.” Morag’s arm went around my shoulder as she gave me a peck on the cheek. “Miss me?”

“You’re always in my dreams,” said Damien. “And I’m sure I’m always in yours.”

She smiled sweetly. I’d been on the receiving end of that smile before. I knew what was coming.

“God, that makes me so hot, Damien, knowing that you lie in bed thinking about me. You want to go up to the roof?”

He should have known better. But base instincts often overrule logical thought. “Why not?” He held out his arm, elbow bent to guide her up the stairs.

“Why not? Well, how about the fact that you’re married?”

Still grinning, Damien was not one to admit defeat. “Don’t you worry your pretty head about that. What Julie doesn’t know, can’t hurt her.” The elbow waited, not quite patiently.

“You’re a pig, Damien. Go away before I throw up all over you.”

“That’s not the tune you were singing a few days ago, darling.”

“It’s what I’m saying now. Try to keep up.”

He waved his elbow one more time. “Last chance.”

Morag took a step to the side. Grabbed my beer bottle. Took a drink. Looked me up and down. Turned to Damien. Looked him over from head to toe. Took another drink. Handed the bottle back to me, with an apologetic shrug. Turned to Damien, took his arm, leaned in close and spat a mouthful of beer in his face.

To his credit, Damien didn’t react immediately. He closed his eyes. Took a deep breath. Opened his hand and tried to pull his arm free. But Morag wouldn’t let go.

“Happy now, loverboy? Plenty more where that came from.”

He tugged at his arm, but she held on.

“How are your dreams now, sweetheart? Wet, maybe?”

Extract from Burning Roses, a decadent tale of sex, drugs, rock n roll & magick. Available from www.amazon.com/author/burning

Till next time. Cheers.

Irish Club

Peter was on the door at the Irish, chatting to Carol and Alan. For free entrance and as many drinks as he could handle, the big biker made sure that no-one would sneak in without paying.

The Irish Club was situated above the Hillbrow Squash Courts, on the corner of Pretoria and Edith Cavell streets. There was no signboard. No fluorescent lights. No indication to the casual passerby that there was anything at all above the courts. Except maybe for the rabble spilling out onto the street in between sets, a heaving, sweating mass of hair and tattoos, denim and leather.

The place had started off as a social hangout for Hillbrow’s Irish community. Until one of the members in Pentagon had mentioned to his boss at American Express that he played in a band. The boss happened to be on the Irish Club managing committee, and it just so happened that they were looking for a band to liven the place up. One quick audition in an empty club later, everything had changed. Friday nights, it was still a bar. You could take along your favourite bootleg tapes, and listen to them while having a drink or two with your mates. But on Saturdays…

On Saturdays there was a stage built out of beer crates. Two or three of the heaviest bands in Joburg would be sure to turn up. There had been festivals, starting early in the day, where a dozen or more bands would gig one after the other, through to the small hours of Sunday morning. Desecrated Altar had played a few times. Midget Submarine. 2 Dogs Funking. The Blast. And Stretch had blown everyone away during one of these festivals with his table hopping guitar shredding extravaganza.

Ragnarok was on stage now, all attitude and swagger, ripping through a GBH cover. Everybody loved Ragnarok. Loud as fuck, no posing, hair flying as they banged their way through the set. And they’d brought their fans with them, bouncing around in the moshpit, waving their beers in the air and playing air-guitar. The rest of the audience stood or sat around, nodding their heads to the beat. I had to smile when I saw that Dean was back on vocals, performing double duty as he pounded away on the drum kit. Dean could have performed as a one man band if he had enough arms and legs, being more at home on guitar. But the current guitarist, on loan from Helter Skelter, played note-perfect AC/DC and Maiden covers, so Dean had opted for the back of the stage in this particular grouping.

Ragnarok’s regular singer was still recovering after he’d seen a patched biker stash a gun inside the cistern of a toilet in a Rockey Street bar. He’d snuck in to take possession of the weapon after the stranger had left, only to bump into the same stranger and a few of his patched brothers on the way out. Even if the gun had been loaded, it wouldn’t have helped him during the short but intense lesson in personal property that followed.

“Howsit going?” Damien handed Pete a couple of tickets and slid me a beer, grabbing another one for himself. Molly sold tickets from her cage at the door, and these were exchanged for drinks. A simple way to get around licensing laws. Of course, an entire roll of tickets had been liberated during the first metal night, and anyone who was anyone now had a bundle of them stashed in an inside pocket.

Extract from Burning Roses, a decadent tale of sex, drugs, rock n roll & magick. Available from www.amazon.com/author/burning

With thanks to Gary Walker, for both the history lesson and the Club.

Those who were there might notice that I’ve taken a few creative liberties with timelines and the years in which various overlapping bands existed. Had to squeeze them all in somehow.

Till next time. Cheers.

Tarot

“Carry on.”

He turned over the third card, and the strangeness barometer went up a few more notches. The card without a number. The Green Man of the Celts. The Fool stared up at us, wearing the horns of Bacchus. The moment of divine consciousness.

Beers were raised. Throats were cooled. We both studied the scene in front of us.

It was possible that the cards were completely meaningless. A random series of draws, just pieces of card laid out in a pattern. Toss a coin often enough and heads will match tails eventually. Or – the popular alternative – maybe they were actually trying to tell us something, and we just weren’t getting the message. Or – the only other option – this was all some kind of game.

“Assuming that you’re not fucking with me,” I said, slowly, “what the hell does this mean?”

Rafael had turned pale in the moonlight. No longer smirking, no more laughing, he was playing his part to the hilt.

“Four major arcana, West? When we’re looking for places and times? You’re out of your depth.”

My turn to laugh. “Right. Now you see why I’ve never liked divination. Bunch of old women scaring the crap out of each other.”

“Are you going to take this seriously?”

I looked at him from a couple of feet away, trying to decipher the look in his eyes. From the tiny bits of his eyes I could see behind the fringe of black hair that covered the top half of his face. They’d always had a manic look about them. A darkness. But a playful darkness. A lunatic playfulness. But a reasonably functional lunacy. Except for the time we’d tried playing chess after smoking buttons. Not to be recommended.

Extract from Burning Roses, a decadent tale of sex, drugs, rock n roll & magick. Available from www.amazon.com/author/burning

Till next time. Cheers.

Psychobilly

They kicked straight into “The Boogie Mansion”, a guaranteed crowd-pleaser. I left my companions discussing the new world order and made my way to the front of the stage, taking a position next to the drummer. No fancy drum kits for these guys. Just a simple two drum set, which was more than enough for Boy McLoud. James Flames complemented this with his old fashioned double bass on the other side of the stage. Then there was the lunatic in the mask.

Much has been said about the band’s lead singer and guitarist. He claimed that there was a little bit of Martin Rocka in everyone. Or that at least there should be. And anyone who had seen them live would inevitably end up with some of their twisted swamp music stuck in their head for days.

“There are only three kings,” he proclaimed with his hand held high, now that their first song had ended. “Drinking.” He raised a finger. “Fucking.” Another finger. “And Elvis.”

With which they launched into their version of “So Square.”

The Beast appeared at my side. “I like this bunch,” he rumbled, loud enough to be heard above the band. “My kind of music.”

He looked closely at some of the people around us. “You know, I always wanted tattoos myself. But obviously I couldn’t find anyone who could see my real skin to get them done.”

An unusual problem, I thought. I’d always taken tattoos, T-shirts and back-patches for granted. Being a normal, unpossessed kind of guy. I couldn’t imagine going through life with no control over how I dressed or how I looked.

“Now admit that you’d rather be here than back in that flat I rescued you from.”

I turned to query this, and I would have raised an eyebrow if I’d been genetically predisposed to doing so, but he’d already moved on, sliding through the crowd to get a more central view.

Extract from Burning Roses, a decadent tale of sex, drugs, rock n roll & magick. Available from http://www.amazon.com/author/burning

Till next time. Cheers.

Sacrifice

I showed him a finger. Then reconsidered and showed him two.

“Has this got anything to do with that bullshit earlier, about Satanic sacrifices?” I asked. “Are you involved?”

“Not this time, believe it or not.” He looked sincere. “None of my crowd even know the details. But whatever it is, it’s big. Sounds like the real thing. Darkness. Blood. Death. The same kind of rituals we’ve been fucking around with for years, but these people know what they’re doing. They’re really going to do it. And the rest of us are crapping ourselves, wondering where we can hide until it’s all over.”

“Really? If you don’t like it, why don’t you just step in and stop it?”

He spread his arms. “Stop who? We don’t even know who all the players are. The Horsemen are probably involved, but they don’t have the juice for this kind of ritual. The MTC might have had the juice once upon a time, but Vernon doesn’t have the balls, or the connections you guys used to have. Maybe the witches, but Morag would’ve heard something.” He gave me a sideways glance, squinting his eyes. “Tell you the truth, you’re the only person actually confirmed as being involved, especially after that business earlier tonight at the Station bar.”

“What’s that got to do with anything?” It was becoming more and more difficult to follow his train of thought, which had entered a long dark tunnel and was in serious danger of derailing itself.

“You didn’t tell me that old fart was sacrificed in an alley behind the bar. I didn’t think you had it in you anymore, West. I’m impressed.”

I just looked at him. There were no words.

“Heart ripped out. Still missing. Lying in a pool of his own blood and intestines. You need to learn not to skimp on these little details when you tell a story.”

I shook my head. He seemed to be living in a graphic novel, probably something Victorian by The Original Writer.

“Look, I might have done the same thing in your position. Did you get the little bouncer to help you? Maybe hold him down for you?”

“How do these things get inside your pointy little head? Do the Voices put them there?”

He laughed. Not with merriment. This was the laugh of someone balanced on the edge of the precipice, determined not to scream in case the dark shapes below looked up and noticed him.

Extract from Burning Roses, a decadent tale of sex, drugs, rock n roll & magick. Available from www.amazon.com/author/burning

Till next time. Cheers.

Urban Assault

The set was intense. I threw myself into it, starting a thrash session that saw some of the younger crowd stagger back away from the front line, dizzy and looking for air. The older regulars took their place, relishing a chance to cut loose and push the limits. After the first few songs, jackets and shirts were discarded, leaving a wall of hair and tattoos with the odd set of colours here and there. The band rose to the challenge, Dirk and Sven pushing the rhythm section so that the guitars had to race to keep up. And keep up they did. Riff after riff. Hook after hook. Verse. Chorus. Solo. Repeat. It became a sweating, panting, screaming animal with 50 heads, all thrashing in time to the thunder that poured from the stage.

And the beast would not die. When it was over, we yelled for more. They delivered. Original songs exhausted, they ripped through some more covers. Generals. Big Women. TNT. Lean On Me. Then they threw out their own challenge. Seek And Destroy. Played even faster than the original. Mike broke a string during the intro but played on, ignoring the pain from his tortured fingers. This obviously wasn’t Horseman Mike. Or the owner of Mike’s Tavern. This was the Mike who had held the scene together at one point, driving round in his battered car looking for venues, keeping a list of phone numbers so he could let everyone know about upcoming gigs. Not the only person who contributed. There were others. I could picture Mike growing old, losing his hair, settling down with a wife and kids, probably planting vegetables in his back yard, and still trying to keep the old crowd together.

Cliff launched himself into the pit after the second chorus, joining the front row in a frenzy of insane air guitar playing as we formed a solid wall to keep the mosh pit behind us from erupting onto the stage. Then he was back up there with the band for the last verse, struggling to keep his damp hair out of his face as he closed with the final chorus.

Extract from Burning Roses, a decadent tale of sex, drugs, rock n roll & magick. Available from http://www.amazon.com/author/burning

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Till next time. Cheers.

That had been the plan. Kill them all.

Blood pooled at our feet. The stink of death filled the air.

Now that it was over, and the adrenaline was draining from my body, I felt numb. And strangely turned on. Which couldn’t be normal.

“We should go.” The Beast pushed himself upright. Stretched his shoulders back. Thumped his chest. “Ah, that’s better.”

I turned towards the door. Morag still knelt beside the heap of bodies, slowly wiping her knife again and again on Mike’s shirt.

I held out a hand to help her to her feet. She didn’t respond.

“Morag. Time we were somewhere else.”

She stopped cleaning the blade. Folded it back into a closed position, using one hand. Opened it again. Appeared to be inspecting it for blood stains.

“Come on. We can talk about this later.”

The green eyes blazing up at me barely contained the fires of hell that threatened to consume everyone in the room. I had to make a conscious effort not to take a step back.

“No. We’ll talk about this now.”

She stood upright, and I was relieved to see her slip the weapon back inside her leather jacket. When her eyes locked onto mine, I decided that I’d rather be facing the knife.

Extract from Burning Roses, available on http://www.amazon.com/author/burning

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Till next time. Cheers.