Enter The Voodoo Magic Man
“Fuck, bugger and blast”, Johnny wasn’t pleased to see me, nothing new there.
“well that’s hardly a nice greeting for an old friend now is it?” Sez I, standing on Johnny’s doorstep, doing my best not to look desperate.
“What the fuck d’ya think gives you the goddamn right to even knock at my door you back-stabbing little shit” Johnny replies.
“You owe me Johnny, you know you owe me.”
“I don’t owe you shi…”
“Don’t interrupt” I snap, pushing past him into his hallway. “You owe me and the only reason you’re getting all in my face is that you hoped I’d never collect Johnny-boy”. I walk along the hall, all wood panel and awkward side-tables, into the coffee table and leather armchair filled study. “You thought I’d be dead long before I ever tried to collect you bastard, well I’m not. Daff’s in hospital with a hole in her small intestine and a matching hole in her fucking belly, so the crap she’s so full of is leaking out. Charlie’s running around the City calling himself Khamael and offing our mates and it’s all going very much to shit, so shut up, pay attention and do as yer damn well told Voodoo boy.
Now Johnny’s a good kid really, a self-centred whiny wee shite to be sure, but a good kid at heart. He’s also now Officially the hardest f’ing Voodoo magic man in all of London. Last night he’d have been about three places lower on the totem pole but Fucking Thing-That-Ain’t-Charlie has been a busy little Angel of desolation and destruction in the 8 hours since it gave Daff the finger in a near-fatal manner. The self-righteous shit is offing every practitioner of magic, magick and other daft-arse spellings of a fundamental truth like there’s no tomorrow. Which, by the way, I’m now treating as a serious possibility.
What really gets to me is the fact that it keeps quoting that ‘Thou Shalt not suffer a Wytch’ to live crap, which is SO not what was in the original bible (it was thieves, not witches). So I’m pretty sure this Angel’s full of crap. The problem is that the Big G is, well, mysterious (read unreliable, mercurial and a bit of a git). Meaning I’ve no idea or way of knowing if this little pocket holocaust is actually his will (Which would leave me well and truly, 100% screwed, and not, I hasten to add, in any way that resembles good) or a rogue thing (leaving me only 90% fucked up the arse).
I explain what needs doing and give Johnny a kick up the arse for good measure. I pulled a real nasty demon out of him a long ways back, before he got himself a spiritual patron to deal with that crap (some big-daddy Voodoo power does all the riding Johnny gets nowadays, and it doesn’t let anyone else play, like a spiritual Johnny for Johnny). Anyways, Johnny really does owe me bigstyle for that Job, and now the boy’s all grown up and worth something, I’m here to collect. I’ve spent the last eight miserable hours calling everyone I know who plays the game. Dishing out warnings and calling in favours, not to mention the troops. A depressing number of my contacts are already dead, have legged it, or are busy warding their houses all to fuck. Goes without saying they don’t want me about, they all think I’m target numero uno!
Johnny gets to work with a minimal of grumbling it’s almost indecent how bad he want’s me away from him the ungrateful sod. Making a proper spirit vessel aint that hard, making one to hold something this baddass is very hard indeed. I could do it you understand, but I’d need kit, which I don’t have, as I’m not risking my flat right now. Humming and banging a little skull drum my Soho Voodoo Twenty Something starts preparing the vessel, a rum bottle covered in beads and feathers and all that crap.
“Oi, keep yer shirt on Johnny-boy, I’m not one of yer Chelsea-housewives with a taste for Caribbean, you don’t need to get yer kit off to do this right”
“It helps me concentrate, now leave off, you don’t want me to fuck this up do you” he snapped back.
Boy has a point. This is the last bit of kit I need, the last bit of my arsenal: circle, candle, sword, ward, hex and bottle and a butterfly in a hurricanes chance of seeing the dawn.
Nothing new there either.
“well that’s hardly a nice greeting for an old friend now is it?” Sez I, standing on Johnny’s doorstep, doing my best not to look desperate.
“What the fuck d’ya think gives you the goddamn right to even knock at my door you back-stabbing little shit” Johnny replies.
“You owe me Johnny, you know you owe me.”
“I don’t owe you shi…”
“Don’t interrupt” I snap, pushing past him into his hallway. “You owe me and the only reason you’re getting all in my face is that you hoped I’d never collect Johnny-boy”. I walk along the hall, all wood panel and awkward side-tables, into the coffee table and leather armchair filled study. “You thought I’d be dead long before I ever tried to collect you bastard, well I’m not. Daff’s in hospital with a hole in her small intestine and a matching hole in her fucking belly, so the crap she’s so full of is leaking out. Charlie’s running around the City calling himself Khamael and offing our mates and it’s all going very much to shit, so shut up, pay attention and do as yer damn well told Voodoo boy.
Now Johnny’s a good kid really, a self-centred whiny wee shite to be sure, but a good kid at heart. He’s also now Officially the hardest f’ing Voodoo magic man in all of London. Last night he’d have been about three places lower on the totem pole but Fucking Thing-That-Ain’t-Charlie has been a busy little Angel of desolation and destruction in the 8 hours since it gave Daff the finger in a near-fatal manner. The self-righteous shit is offing every practitioner of magic, magick and other daft-arse spellings of a fundamental truth like there’s no tomorrow. Which, by the way, I’m now treating as a serious possibility.
What really gets to me is the fact that it keeps quoting that ‘Thou Shalt not suffer a Wytch’ to live crap, which is SO not what was in the original bible (it was thieves, not witches). So I’m pretty sure this Angel’s full of crap. The problem is that the Big G is, well, mysterious (read unreliable, mercurial and a bit of a git). Meaning I’ve no idea or way of knowing if this little pocket holocaust is actually his will (Which would leave me well and truly, 100% screwed, and not, I hasten to add, in any way that resembles good) or a rogue thing (leaving me only 90% fucked up the arse).
I explain what needs doing and give Johnny a kick up the arse for good measure. I pulled a real nasty demon out of him a long ways back, before he got himself a spiritual patron to deal with that crap (some big-daddy Voodoo power does all the riding Johnny gets nowadays, and it doesn’t let anyone else play, like a spiritual Johnny for Johnny). Anyways, Johnny really does owe me bigstyle for that Job, and now the boy’s all grown up and worth something, I’m here to collect. I’ve spent the last eight miserable hours calling everyone I know who plays the game. Dishing out warnings and calling in favours, not to mention the troops. A depressing number of my contacts are already dead, have legged it, or are busy warding their houses all to fuck. Goes without saying they don’t want me about, they all think I’m target numero uno!
Johnny gets to work with a minimal of grumbling it’s almost indecent how bad he want’s me away from him the ungrateful sod. Making a proper spirit vessel aint that hard, making one to hold something this baddass is very hard indeed. I could do it you understand, but I’d need kit, which I don’t have, as I’m not risking my flat right now. Humming and banging a little skull drum my Soho Voodoo Twenty Something starts preparing the vessel, a rum bottle covered in beads and feathers and all that crap.
“Oi, keep yer shirt on Johnny-boy, I’m not one of yer Chelsea-housewives with a taste for Caribbean, you don’t need to get yer kit off to do this right”
“It helps me concentrate, now leave off, you don’t want me to fuck this up do you” he snapped back.
Boy has a point. This is the last bit of kit I need, the last bit of my arsenal: circle, candle, sword, ward, hex and bottle and a butterfly in a hurricanes chance of seeing the dawn.
Nothing new there either.