♠ Hurt ♠

Noddy went straight to the bar when he came back inside. Morag had a row of shooters lined up in front of her. He took one. Then he took another one.

“We need.” Morag tossed one back herself. “To get.” She chased that one with another. “Away.”

Noddy signaled for Sylvana to bring him a beer. “I can’t believe you did that.”

Morag froze. The vodka half-way to her crimson lips shimmered in the recessed light from behind the bar. Noddy could see tiny unrelated crimson dots running up her forearm. He looked away.

Morag’s head turned slowly, eyes sliding sideways to complete the movement. “I just saved your life.”

Noddy shook his head. “It was over. He wasn’t going to shoot. Not in here. Not in front of witnesses.”

Morag’s vodka completed its interrupted journey. “Oh, I’m sorry. But from where I stood, you had a fucking cannon pointed at your face and a pissed-off drug dealer about to blow your head all over the drum kit. A little gratitude would go a long way right about now.”

Noddy rubbed his eyes. It didn’t help with the pain that was starting to build behind them. “When’s Mick coming back? How much time do we have?”

“Supposed to be Thursday, last I heard. But who knows, with him?”

“You go. Get out of town. Even if it’s just for a few days, till this blows over.”

Morag turned to look straight at him. “Come with me. You can’t stay here. You know what he’s like.”

“I can’t go without Janine. And she won’t leave yet. She’s waiting for her bonus.”

“We’ll get money. Somewhere. Like we used to.”

“Bitch!”

The slap took Morag by surprise. It was delivered from the side, an awkward angle, and was more principle than effect. But a slap in the face is a slap in the face.

⛥⛥

Read Dancing in Valhalla in weekly installments on FaceBook or WordPress. Receive notifications via Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, GoodReads, or Amazon, where you’ll find the whole book – 13 decadent twisted tales of mystery, music, magick & mayhem.

Download FREE sampler previews of all my books – and some complete short stories – from PCloud. Including the new Burning Books sampler booklet (also available on Kindle Unlimited).

No charge. No obligation. No sign-in. Read for free. Share with your friends.

⛥⛥

Catch the Smashwords year-end sale, from the 18th of December till the 1st of January. Some of my books will be half-price. The rest will be free. Enjoy.

⛥⛥

Cheers.

♠ If you want blood ♠

Dirk was careful to take the pool cue from Morag’s trembling hands before turning his back on her. Even then, he first took a few steps around the circle of music-lovers who were gradually losing interest in anything except the band.

Dirk had known Morag a long time.

Noddy knelt beside the unconscious body in the bright yellow shirt, now shifting through orange to scarlet.

“Jesus. Is he still alive?”

Noddy looked up. “He’s still breathing.”

“And bleeding all over my dancefloor. Come on, give me a hand.”

Noddy screwed up his face.

“Yes, you. I need to get him to a hospital, for fuck’s sake. I never liked the dude, but I can’t let him die in the club, can I?”

“You know him?”

Morag’s voice behind him made Dirk jump. But just a little.

“Of course I know him. It’s Mario. He’s been running drugs for Mick while he was away.”

Noddy and Morag shared a look.

“What, here in the club?”

Dirk looked up at Morag, one eyebrow raised. “No, not here in the club. Mick has people for that. He’s been operating out of Mick’s flat, staying there too so he could look after the place. Now would you stop talking and help me get him to the car?”

⛥⛥

Read Dancing in Valhalla in weekly installments on FaceBook or WordPress. Receive notifications via Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, GoodReads, or Amazon, where you’ll find the whole book – 13 decadent twisted tales of mystery, music, magick & mayhem.

Download FREE sampler previews of all my books – and some complete short stories – from PCloud. Including the new Burning Books sampler booklet (also available on Kindle Unlimited).

No charge. No obligation. No sign-in. Read for free. Share with your friends.

⛥⛥

Catch the Smashwords year-end sale, from the 18th of December till the 1st of January. Some of my books will be half-price. The rest will be free. Enjoy.

⛥⛥

Cheers.

♠ Screaming for vengeance ♠

Dirk walked into Valhalla to see a pool cue swung high above the crowd in the middle of the dancefloor. He heard the sickening thwack of impact above a momentary lull in the music. Then the band played on.

“Fuck!”

He launched himself into the crowd, pushing his way through the dancing horde until he reached the spot where he had seen the pool cue. Where were the bouncers? Why had nobody stepped in?

The answer came in a circle of screaming denim and leather, straight from a B-grade horror movie. Except Morag was no vulnerable scream queen, knocking the monster down and running away. She swung the pool cue repeatedly, laying into the body that wasn’t even curled in a defensive foetal position. People nearby screamed encouragement or discouragement, according to their individual stress levels.

Dirk grabbed her from behind, tattooed arms wrapping around her chest, dragging her backwards. “That’s enough. Stop it. Stop!”

She fought with berserker fury, feet kicking as he lifted her off the ground and turned her to face the other way. Then she screamed, her entire body stiffened, shuddered, and all the fight went out of her.

⛥⛥

Read Dancing in Valhalla in weekly installments on FaceBook or WordPress. Receive notifications via Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, GoodReads, or Amazon, where you’ll find the whole book – 13 decadent twisted tales of mystery, music, magick & mayhem.

Download FREE sampler previews of all my books – and some complete short stories – from PCloud. Including the new Burning Books sampler booklet (also available on Kindle Unlimited).

No charge. No obligation. No sign-in. Read for free. Share with your friends.

⛥⛥

Catch the Smashwords year-end sale, from the 18th of December till the 1st of January. Some of my books will be free. The rest will be half-price. Enjoy.

⛥⛥

Cheers.

♠ Out of hand ♠

Noddy looked into bloodshot eyes sparking with recognition. The band had moved on, Sex and Religion’s pounding drum intro ensuring that nobody noticed the drama unfolding on the dancefloor.

Noddy smiled. For no real reason. The man in the Hawaiian shirt smiled too. Then there was a gun in his hand, and Noddy’s smile froze.

Being well-versed in the multitudinous varieties and technicalities of arms and ammunition, Noddy 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 to be there.

The band played on, the crowd caught up in the surge of Bex’s bass, Greg’s contrasting guitar chords. Lighters came out, held high in hands swaying to the haunting refrain of lost love.

The gun still shook inches away from Noddy’s face. Noddy still smiled, but only in the absence of another expression to replace the one frozen there.

The Hawaiian’s face was a kaleidoscope of conflicting emotions. Noddy watched them come and go with a detached amusement that had little to do with his current situation. Determination fought with doubt. Was replaced by anger. Then resignation. Noddy felt his own eyes grow tired from shifting back and forth between the Hawaiian’s face and the barrel of the gun that moved in and out of focus between them.

Then the gunman made a decision. A switch flipped in his head. His finger eased away from the trigger.

And he dropped like a sack of exploding pineapples.

⛥⛥

Read Dancing in Valhalla in weekly installments on FaceBook or WordPress. Receive notifications via Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, GoodReads, or Amazon, where you’ll find the whole book – 13 decadent twisted tales of mystery, music, magick & mayhem.

Download FREE sampler previews of all my books – and some complete short stories – from PCloud. Including the new Burning Books sampler booklet (also available on Kindle Unlimited).

No charge. No obligation. No sign-in. Read for free. Share with your friends.

⛥⛥

Join me at the East Rand Christmas Market on Saturday the 12th of December, to stock up on literary pressies. Full details can be found at www.facebook.com/BurningRosesNovel/events

⛥⛥

Cheers.

♠ Cats, dogs & rock n roll ♠

Join me in Edenvale from 10am on Saturday at the annual Our Place SPCA Fundraiser.

Potjie competition. Plates of potjie going for R60.00/plate with all proceeds to Edenvale SPCA.

Entrance fee on the day is pet food/blankets/toys.

Awards for best potjie and cutest pooch.

Raffles and loads of random prizes.

My books will be on sale. A percentage of the profits goes to the SPCA.

And, of course, there will be beer.

Event details – www.facebook.com/BurningRosesNovel/events

Cheers.

♠ Brothers in arms ♠

Dirk cut through the alley behind Mike’s Tavern to bypass two shiny black BMWs racing one another along the main drag leading from the hospital. His mind wasn’t on the road. He knew better. But he couldn’t get Mick out of his head.

He’d known him his whole life. They’d grown up together, in school, in clubs, on the gritty backstreets of the City of Gold. He loved him like a brother. He knew how he thought, how he reacted, better than he knew himself.

At least, he used to. This new Mick, the twenty-one-year-old who had been locked in a cage with older, more violent inhabitants of those same streets – this Mick wasn’t the same man who had gone into prison.

Sure, a concussion like that, severe enough to knock him into a coma, was bound to cause damage. Physical trauma that could be expected to heal slowly, given enough time and rest. But there was something behind that, beyond it. On a non-physical level. Dirk hesitated to use the word “emotional.” Mick would never admit to that.

But this obsession with revenge? With seeing Janine? And that’s what they were. Relentless obsessions, driving Mick’s every waking moment. Haunting his dreams too, Dirk suspected.

Maybe Mick was right. Maybe he did need to get out, back on the streets. Back into the business of running the club. If only he could be persuaded to take it slow.

Dirk swore and swerved to avoid a delivery truck as he exited the alley. These streets were dangerous. You had to keep your wits about you. If you let your guard down, even for a moment, you could soon be very dead.

⛥⛥

Read Dancing in Valhalla in weekly installments on FaceBook or WordPress. Receive notifications via Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, GoodReads, or Amazon, where you’ll find the whole book – 13 decadent twisted tales of mystery, music, magick & mayhem.

Download FREE sampler previews of all my books – and some complete short stories – from PCloud. Including the new Burning Books sampler booklet (also available on Kindle Unlimited).

No charge. No obligation. No sign-in. Read for free. Share with your friends.

⛥⛥

Join me at the East Rand Christmas Market on Saturday the 12th of December, to stock up on literary pressies. Full details can be found at www.facebook.com/BurningRosesNovel/events

⛥⛥

Cheers.

♠ Expect no mercy ♠

The club receded on all sides, everyone on the dancefloor vanishing from his sphere of consciousness. There were only two people left in the world, as time slowed and blood pounded in his ears. He could feel each heartbeat, distinct and separate, blotting out all other sounds. Even the band.

What was this oke even doing here, in a place like Valhalla, with his dayglo beach-wear and his ridiculous top hat? It wasn’t right.

Noddy knew he had to make the world a better place. He smacked the hat from its perch atop the long black curls. Before it hit the floor, Noddy had poured the rest of his beer over the man’s greasy hair and the circle of bandages that had been concealed under the hat. He could see each individual drop as it splashed off the oiled ringlets and carried on down to his shoulders, making beautiful colours and rainbows in the red and blue strobe lights from the stage.

Then the real sights and sounds of the club flooded back as the dude hunched his shoulders in the time-honoured “this is what happens when I’m wet” movement.

Noddy laughed.

The Hawaiian turned around, shoulders still hunched. He was no longer laughing. He reached a hand towards his hair in disbelief, eyes growing wider as his fingers confirmed the signals his scalp had been sending.

Noddy saw the widened eyes at the same time he noticed the Elastoplast across the man’s broken nose. Something about the look of those dilated pupils, combined with the tropical ensemble he was wearing, looked familiar.

The Hawaiian felt it too. Noddy watched in fascination as the eyes morphed from rage to confusion, through recognition into doubt, before returning via certainty to rage. Brows furrowed. Bloodshot eyes shot to the left. Head tilted to the side. Corners of his mouth turned down. Then a finger raised in a Eureka moment, and Noddy caught the memory as if by osmosis. The alley behind Mike’s Tavern.

⛥⛥

Read Dancing in Valhalla in weekly installments on FaceBook or WordPress. Receive notifications via Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, GoodReads, or Amazon, where you’ll find the whole book – 13 decadent twisted tales of mystery, music, magick & mayhem.

Download FREE sampler previews of all my books – and some complete short stories – from PCloud. Including the new Burning Books sampler booklet (also available on Kindle Unlimited).

No charge. No obligation. No sign-in. Read for free. Share with your friends.

⛥⛥

On Black Friday (27th), you can grab an eBook copy of Dancing in Valhalla, and/or Big Day Out, for half price.

Visit www.books2read.com/b/Valhalla to find participating retailers.

⛥⛥

Join me at the Fontainebleau Community Market on Saturday, or find my books at Die Pouveer Craft Market in Alberton. Full details for both events – www.facebook.com/BurningRosesNovel/events

⛥⛥

Cheers.

♠ The bartender’s song ♠

Bex strummed her bass. The Medicine Dolls set hadn’t started, but already there was a crowd gathering in front of the stage. Mostly male, and mostly on the bass player’s side. Gorgeous blondes with haunting voices, Jim Morrison tattoos and fishnet stockings had that effect on Valhalla regulars.

Noddy was looking for his own gorgeous blonde. Janine hadn’t arrived yet for her shift. Dirk wasn’t around to explain why she was late, so Noddy’s mind had spun into unhealthy speculation. Was she sick? What had the doctor said? There were times when Noddy wished he had a job and an office and a normal life, where people could reach him when something happened. These times were few and far between. But today had been one of them. In fact, today had been all of them.

He looked across at the bar. Sylvana, the other barmaid, caught his eye and shook her head.

Then Greg bounced onto the stage, launching straight into Girls and Poison, kissing on the dancefloor, lines in the bathroom. Anyone seated in the club shot to their feet, Doc Martens and pixie boots all drawn irresistibly towards the hottest band to ever come out of Cape Town.

Noddy let the riptide pull him along. Maybe watching the band would take his mind off Janine. He raised his bottle, letting the beer bubbles mix with the absinthe in his gut, shooting alcohol straight into his bloodstream.

The tall oke standing next to him chose that exact moment to lurch backwards with a whoop of laughter. His luminescent yellow Hawaiian shirt sleeve caught the bottom of Noddy’s beer and spilled it over his face and chest. Even onto his sleeveless denim jacket.

Noddy looked down in horror.

⛥⛥

Read Dancing in Valhalla in weekly installments on FaceBook or WordPress. Receive notifications via Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, GoodReads, or Amazon, where you’ll find the whole book – 13 decadent twisted tales of mystery, music, magick & mayhem.

Download FREE sampler previews of all my books – and some complete short stories – from PCloud.

No charge. No obligation. No sign-in. Read for free. Share with your friends.

⛥⛥

Cheers.

♠ Back on the streets ♠

“Ah need to get out, man. Back on the streets. Ye know? Ah’ve been gone too long.”

Dirk sat on the edge of the bed. Mick didn’t look good. Hell, he’d never been much to look at. But with bandages wrapped tight around his skull – fewer than before, but still more than was normal – he looked like an extra in a horror movie. And when he spoke, those black teeth…

“Christ, dude, you just came out of a coma. I thought you were dead, make out. Let the doctors keep an eye on you for a couple of days, make sure you’re okay.”

Mick had learned quickly not to shake his head in conversation. He pointed instead. “Don’t ye get it? Can’t ye understand what Ah’ve been through? Ah was all alone in there, man. Ye have no idea. No fucking idea. Ye wouldn’t have survived, Ah can tell ye that for nothing. And where’s Janine? Ah told ye, Ah need to see her.”

Dirk, on the other hand, was able to shake his head as much as he liked. He did so now. “Chill, boet. You did survive. And you survived coming off the bike. So give them another couple of days to make sure you survive this, too.”

Mick’s eyes lit up. “Aye, the bike. Did ye find them? What am Ah saying, of course ye found them. Did they plead? Did they beg? What was it like?”

“Let’s just say it’s been handled.”

Mick’s neck muscles stood out with the strain of keeping his head still. “Who was it? Another gang? Those Brakpan bastards trying to take me out of the picture?”

Dirk raised both hands. “Jesus, would you calm the fuck down? It was nobody. A nonentity. Civilians. And believe me, they’ve been punished for what happened.”

Mick sat back, reaching for a glass of water at the side of the bed. “Aye, well, let that be a lesson, then. A statement. Ah’m back. And things are gonna change around here, sure they are. Now could ye call that cute wee nurse outside the door, there? Ah think mah brain might be bleedin’ just a wee bit.”

Read Dancing in Valhalla in weekly installments on FaceBook or WordPress. Receive notifications via Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, GoodReads, or Amazon, where you’ll find the whole book – 13 decadent twisted tales of mystery, music, magick & mayhem.

Download FREE sampler previews of all my books – and some complete short stories – from PCloud.

No charge. No obligation. No sign-in. Read for free. Share with your friends.

⛥⛥

Cheers.