Chapter 1

Rebel without a Cause

The suburb of Fish Hoek is an ugly little misbegotten excuse for a seaside town. Today is one of those rare summer evenings when the southeaster isn’t ripping the world to shit, adding to my displeasure in making this place my least favourite spot in the world. Even my sort has business in this little hellhole from time to time and, in any case, I feel like walking, the gods be damned, and have come forth from my house on the hill.

Already the high season has been laid, fever-like, over this part of the Mother City. Shop! Shop! Shop! Spend all your money on shit you don’t need but think you want! Christmas decorations have been bleaching in shop windows since mid-October, their siren call beckoning to wallets still fat with the promise of a thirteenth cheque or end-of-year bonus. Teenagers laze about in the skate park, some cupping furtive cigarettes in their hands while others bring their boards down on the tarmac with loud cracks, like gunshots.

Main Road is a constant rumble of cars, trucks, buses and minibus taxis, the sound rattling my collarbone with each passing vehicle. Cross without watching at your own peril. Oh, fuck, and are the buildings ugly: square, blockish structures, few recalling the art deco, most evoking the generic, post-World War II economic boom. If only someone could have put the town planner out of his misery while these hulking shop fronts were still only being doodled on paper.

The shadows turn blue and long, yet there’s still brightness left to make me squint against the shafts of light reflecting off windows. Despite this, I like watching the people. Tired, fat black mamas toss words in Xhosa across the gulf of tar. They never spare me a glance, which is great, since I couldn’t care less for them. Otherwise, it’s the typical dross: the inhabitants of the avenues, the nearly-deads with their Zimmer frames and the assorted white trash and dregs of society starting when they see me for the first time. Edward Gorey meets the suburbs. I, James Edward Guillaume, am the resident master of the Gothic and macabre of this city’s southern coastal neighbourhoods, and I excel at adding a little dash of darkness to this pastel-shaded suburban nightmare.

She’s just another one of the tired bodies surging past, but the little lady with the lilac-framed glasses finds the balls to squeak out a “Jesus loves you” before slipping me an inane, saccharine smile. Her eyes dart over my chunky, inverse silver pentagram and slide up warily to meet my gaze, causing me to break my stride.

Self-righteous, dried-out cunt. I flip the old duck the bird and growl, “Go fuck yourself.”

She blanches and pulls back like she’s just been bitch-slapped. I turn from her so she doesn’t see the wicked leer imposing itself across my features, my teeth pulling back from my lips, ivory against a smear of black lipstick. Fuck the bitch. What the hell does she know? Should I rather tip my hat and say, “Why thank you, ma’am, I know—I spoke to Jesus just the other day,” and wish her kindly on her way?

What does she see, hmm? A skinny white chap of colonial descent, yes, with a bounce in his step, his long black hair teased out to make Siouxsie Sioux proud. Black eyeliner, black nail polish—wouldn’t be caught without those, luv. My face is powdered to perfection, accentuating cheekbones so sharp one could slice one’s fingers. Add black PVC trousers, skin-tight, and finish with a loose black shirt. Don’t forget the top hat and the knee-high boots from Hell.

Call me vain, if you will, for I represent, in garish detail, every fear these perennially dull folk entertain. Not only do I look the Devil, I am, in fact, the only bona fide black magician in this neck of the woods. This world isn’t going to change. It has little time for me. Why should I pay it lip service? Why should I bow, offering platitudes and niceties? Sure, I don’t have all the answers, but I refuse to lose my sense of place in the miasma of the mundane. Damn it. I can be anything I want to be.

I’d be safe if I dressed like them, behaved like them. No one would bother me. But all the while the monster would be howling and seething beneath the surface, itching to be free to snap its teeth at anyone within reach. The smart thing to do would be to pretend I’m the same as everyone else, but smart isn’t fun now, is it?

* * * *

Mondays always leave me out of sorts. Today is no different. I’ve been to that place where Mother lives, with its urine-stinking corridors and narrow wards where old people wait for death to swallow them. It’s always the same: the blank milky stares, their uncomprehending vocalisations bearing little resemblance to human speech. As always, I can’t wait to get out when visiting hour draws to a close at four. The disinfectant scours my sinuses for hours afterward, and leaves a pall that lingers across the rest of my day.

Stuart drops by to see me for a tarot reading this afternoon a half-hour after I arrive home, still rattled from seeing Mom. He’s an old friend who usually visits my shop on Tuesdays, but we had agreed to meet a day earlier at my house. In the inner sanctum of my dining room, I spread the cards on the dark stinkwood table. I’ve drawn the curtains so the westering sun cannot rob the house of what coolness the walls retain. Stuart perches on the edge of the chair, causing it to creak, and leans his arms on the table.

The cards are silk to my fingers. There is always something comforting about the way they slip onto the polished wood with a satisfying slap. The spread takes shape, and with each arrangement, I turn the cards over to reveal their story. There are the usual minor arcana speaking of wands, cups, discs and swords.

The art of Lady Frieda Harris evokes William Blake’s watercolours with a subtle kaleidoscope of shades, shapes and patterns. Using Aleister Crowley’s standard layout of five sets of three, it’s the final trio that causes my breath to stop when The Tower is revealed in its flaming inferno, dignified by the Nine of Swords accompanied by The Hanged Man. Not good. Not good at all. The Tower usually indicates the end of all illusions, and the Nine of Swords tells me there is a malicious person making trouble. Combine this with The Hanged Man and one has all manner of interesting possibilities speaking of some form of sacrifice to be made.

My fingers, of their own accord, try to run the tangles out of the hair spilling down my shoulders and I swallow, thinking hard of how to lie, to tell Stuart there’s some good in the way the cards are dignified in this layout.

A disembodied whisper brushes my ear. “This is not for him.”

I jump to my feet, almost knocking my chair over.

“What is it?” Confusion marks Stuart’s face. It’s been so quiet up until now. Only our breathing and the ticking of the antlered cuckoo clock on the wall mark the time in this room.

“It’s nothing.” I try to disguise how much my hands shake as I scoop up the cards. “The tarot is not speaking to me today. I can tell when the cards are a bit off.”

Stuart, a tall, bronzed Apollo out of place in my lounge, with its black walls and silver candlesticks, gives me a weak grin. “Maybe next time, bud. It’s crazy season at the moment. I understand.”

He doesn’t.

A smile fakes its way across my face and a cold sweat starts beneath my armpits. Hollow eyes glance at me from the mirror above the fireplace.

* * * *

“Please remind me why we’re going through this much trouble, Jamie,” Lee complains as our boots sink ankle-deep into soft white sand near Surfer’s Corner in Kommetjie.

“Aleister Crowley and Victor Neuberg slogged all the way out into the bleeding North African desert to do summon Choronzon. Something happened out there, Lee. All we have to do is walk for half an hour to the fucking wreck of the fucking Kakapo and you can’t stop moaning the entire way. Just think of what we’ll achieve. You can shake the sand out of your boots when we get back to the car.”

“Easy for you to say. You’re not carrying all the shit I am.”

“Shut the fuck up. If you want to be a half-decent black magician, you gotta do what I say. Or should I start charging you for your lessons?”

He swears beneath his breath while we press on. Yes, I’m making him carry the rucksack with all the gear in it. So what? He came to me six months ago wanting instruction in the black arts. Who am I to say no to a willing student? The boy’s not stupid either. He’s already read most of the Great Beast’s writings and shown an inkling of understanding, which is something for a seventeen-year-old. He’s not a cat-killing, blood-drinking wannabe cultist.

Walking behind him gives me the opportunity to admire how firm his thighs are, the way the tight black denim rides up to the sweet mounds of his arse. His God-fearing parents would writhe and shrivel if they knew the way that Lee’s mouth has bruised my own on more than one occasion, the way his fingers and tongue have gained knowledge of my flesh. Lee, my catamite, my morsel—always hungry for more.

The sun...