Sandile laughs a huge, booming laugh and crushes my hand in a vice grip. ‘Good to meet you, Baxter. My condolences on your apprenticeship.’
‘Thanks.’ I put on a grieving face. ‘I’m dealing with it as best I can.’
‘Fuck you both,’ Ronin says and strides up the stairs to the hotel.
The interior is as Gothic as the outside. The massive entrance hall is all dark wood, antique armour and velvet drapes.
‘Not bad for a gay Zulu guy from Mthata, eh?’ Sandile says.
‘Huh. How did you get the dough for all this? Last time I looked, MK pay cheques weren’t exactly blowing anyone’s mind.’
Sandile’s face crumples. ‘Well, the divorce. Michael always had money …’
Ronin puts his hand on the big man’s shoulder. ‘Sorry, I heard about that from Pat.’
Sandile forces a smile on to his face. ‘No matter. It’s in the past. Get you a Scotch, old man?’
A flash of indescribable pain passes across Ronin’s face. ‘I, um, don’t drink any more,’ he mumbles.
‘I must have misheard. It almost sounded like you said you don’t drink any more.’
‘That’s what I said,’ Ronin replies hoarsely.
Sandile shakes his head. ‘The world has turned upside down. Basson dead, MK6 operatives getting picked off all over the place and Jackie Ronin turns down a Scotch.’ He shrugs. ‘Well come and sit anyway. I’ll make you a virgin cocktail.’
‘Just shoot me now,’ Ronin says morosely as we follow Sandile into a voluminous room housing a shiny mahogany bar and several dusty blackjack, roulette and poker tables that look like they were last used in the eighties.
‘Welcome to the casino capital of South Africa,’ Sandile says ruefully as he pours himself a massive tumbler of Scotch.
‘Business not going well?’ Ronin accepts a lemonade with a look of disgust.
‘Understatement,’ Sandile says, offering me a tumbler. I take it gratefully. ‘Michael was right. I am a useless hotelier. So here I sit in this huge decaying house, all alone and waiting to be the next one to have my teeth pulled by the Muti Man.’
‘Is it really bad?’ I say. ‘I mean the agents getting targeted?’
Sandile shrugs. ‘Kramer got taken out on his farm two weeks ago. All his teeth, zzzzip, gone.’
‘Damn,’ Ronin says. ‘They got a crazy motherfucker like Kramer?’
‘Yeah,’ Sandile says. ‘And Goldberg, Mthewa and Jacobs. They’re taking out the big guns and the Blood Kraal aren’t doing anything about it.’
‘They gave the Legion control of Hexpoort,’ Ronin says. ‘After the attack.’
Sandile gives him a startled look. ‘They attacked the Poort? What kind of lunatic would attack the Witch at home?’
‘My apprentice here says the Muti Man is a Tengu.’
‘A Crow shaman? I thought most of them were rounded up in the ’82 purge? They were the Legion’s public enemy number one.’
‘Apparently not. And this one is pissed.’
Sandile grabs the bottle of Scotch and takes a swig from it. ‘Well fuck me. This just goes from bad to worse.’
Ronin eyes the bottle like he’s a vampire looking at a vial of blood. ‘Bottom line is that we’re at war whether it’s official or not. Any unusual activity around this area?’
‘A coven of Semish in caves about twenty Ks away. But they don’t look for shit unless something pisses them off. I’ve capped one or two of them for hunting humans and now they stick to cattle.’
‘Well it’s probably not a bad idea to be prepared. Like you said, things are turned on their head. You still have your collection?’
Sandile chuckles. ‘Oh, a man does not get rid of a collection like mine.’
‘Anything you’d be willing to sell the boy? He needs a weapon. The pig-iron I’ve lent him doesn’t suit him.’
‘I’m offended. You may as well ask me to sell him an organ.’
‘OK.’ Ronin turns his glass in his hand and stares at the lemonade. ‘Just asking.’
Sandile looks at me. ‘But I hear our boy here is a Dreamwalker.’
‘Where did you hear that?’ I say.
‘The first Dreamwalker at Hexpoort in fifty years? News like that travels.’ He taps his fingers on the glossy mahogany of the bar. ‘So … what exactly can you do? How extensive are those Dreamwalking skills?’
‘Stop beating around the bush. If you want something from him, just ask.’
Sandile sighs. ‘It’s my ex-husband, Michael. He won’t answer my calls. He won’t let me see our son. I just want to find out what they’re up to.’
‘You want me to spy on your ex for you?’
‘Not spy exactly. Just make sure they’re OK,’ he says. ‘He’s threatened to take our son overseas if he catches me surveilling him.’
‘So you want me to surveil him.’
‘Do it and you can have anything from my collection you want.’
I look at Ronin. He shrugs. ‘Let’s just say I would do unspeakable things for something from his collection.’
‘You’d do unspeakable things for a cigarette,’ I say. ‘But OK. I’m in. Have you got anything of his? I think it’ll be easier that way.’
Sandile holds up a hand and disappears into the entrance hall. I hear his heavy footsteps going up the stairs. He appears a few minutes later holding up a denim shirt.
‘Haven’t washed it,’ he says. ‘Sentimental fool that I am.’
‘This’ll work.’ I take the shirt and sit down on the floor in the middle of the room. As I weave the beads between my fingers, the cloth of the shirt throbs with something, a vibe, an essence, a unique marker that I follow back to its source.
I see a tall man in a blazer and jeans reading a small boy a bedtime story. The image shifts and I’m exposed to the man’s dreams. Great swathes of ambition run through him, images of yachts, parties, a childhood obsession with old cars. And meeting Sandile. A single word of immense significance to the two of them throbs in my head.
I open my eyes. ‘He still dreams about you,’ I say.
Sandile stares at me. ‘How can I tell this is real?’
‘Does the word “Lotus” mean anything to you?’
‘My God,’ he says, clenching and unclenching a huge fist.
Ronin puts a hand on his arm. ‘Steady there, old man.’
Sandile hangs his head, but when he lifts it he’s smiling. ‘I’m OK. This is a positive thing, right? Maybe I can still get him back?’
‘I really don’t know,’ I say.
He shakes his head. ‘So stupid. Love, right?’
I nod. So damn stupid.
Sandile downs his Scotch and then puts a hand on my shoulder. ‘But let’s talk about something a little less ambiguous. Let’s talk about weapons.’
‘Now you’re speaking my language,’ Ronin says.
We follow Sandile into a large sitting room. He taps numbers into a panel underneath a painting of a man in uniform stroking a greyhound, and a whole wall slides away to reveal a large steel display room filled with racks.
‘Projectile weapons, bladed weapons, impact weapons,’ Sandile says, brushing his fingers along a row of guns. ‘You can pick one of each.’
Ronin shakes his head in wonder. ‘I’ll spy on anyone you want for as long as you want for one of these beauties.’
I look from rack to rack. There are so many different kinds that I don’t know where to start.
‘Any tips?’ I ask Ronin.
‘Logically, there are all kinds of things you should factor in: reach, range, magazine capacity, susceptibility to jamming. But the best advice I can give you is just pick the items that feel right.’
‘Let’s give him some space,’ Sandile says, stepping back out of the room. Ronin reluctantly follows, and I’m left alone with the instruments of death.
I’ve always liked the concept of weapons better than the reality. In movies and games they seem so cool. Up close you can’t help but become aw
are of their terrible lethal capacity. These are tools with no other purpose than that of ending life, and there’s something terrifying about that.
I browse the long racks and decide to be systematic about it. Impact weapons first. There are iron-shod sticks, baseball bats, canes, batons, staffs, maces. There are nunchaku and tonfa and some kind of weird gnarled stick weighted with lead.
I pick up a heavy baton and immediately feel ill. The violence in it throbs against my palm and I can feel the heads that have been cracked open, the limbs broken, the bones shattered. I replace it carefully on the rack. As I go through the weapons I start to get a sense of what Ronin means. They all have personalities: snarling and rabid or lethally calm. There’s a staff that feels like a snake in my hands, and a cane that I swear is laughing at me.
I happen on one that feels light to the touch. It’s a spring-loaded baton that lengthens into a longer quarterstaff at the touch of a button. It’s made of a faded grey wood carved with spidery sigils. Rather than the heavy, bloody, primal character of some of the others, it has a thoughtful, strategic, and maybe slightly snarky, sarcastic feel to it. It’s the kind of weapon that would crack a joke as its shoves into your solar plexus. I like it already.
I place it carefully on the floor next to me.
The bladed weapons are something altogether different. Arrogant, vain and narcissistic, the cutlasses, katanas, sabres, rapiers, longswords, knives and daggers seem to revel in their own sharpness. An ornate scimitar I take off the rack feels immediately like the worst kind of blowhard. I take a couple of test swings and it almost seems like I’m being forced to sit through some financier sounding off about how awesome he is. I put it back.
I pick up a short sword with a polished wooden handle. It feels solid, dependable, long-suffering. It’s the Eeyore of blades, seeming to sigh through the air, stoically accepting that it’s a sword and that’s what it does. It’s the kind of weapon that will cut through a thousand enemies and carry on going because that’s the fate it has accepted.
I place it on the floor next to the baton.
The guns feel calculated and lethal, the stolid personalities of Marine Corps sergeants and Army Rangers. This time I take a total chance and pick something different. In contrast to my other choices, this one is pure ego: a shiny chrome handgun with an image of the Wheel of Fortune tarot card inlaid on the handle in mother-of-pearl and semi-precious stones. It feels comfortable in my hand, wild, untamed, a gun that’ll blow between red hot and ice cold in a couple of seconds. It’s a mobster’s gun, a gambler’s gun, a gun that’s not afraid when the dice are thrown.
I place it next to my two other choices.
‘Knock, knock.’
I turn to see Sandile standing in the room with a smile on his face and a jacket slung over his arm.
‘You done?’ Ronin asks.
I nod.
They look at the weapons I’ve chosen, like breeders studying thoroughbred horses. ‘Excellent,’ Sandile says. ‘I’m very impressed by your choices.’ He looks at Ronin with a raised eyebrow.
‘Not my style.’ Ronin grimaces.
‘That’s why I like them so much,’ I say.
Sandile bursts out laughing. ‘I think you two are going to be perfect together. Just perfect.’
He hands me a shoulder strap and holster for the gun and baton, and a belt and sheath for the short sword, and then presents me with the jacket he has over his arm.
‘This is a gift,’ he says. ‘It stopped fitting me a long time ago.’
‘Let’s be honest,’ Ronin says. ‘It never fitted you.’
‘You’re probably right.’
I strap the sword around my waist and slide the baton and the handgun into the shoulder harness, then shrug the jacket on. It fits perfectly, like it’s been tailored, seemingly moulding to my body.
Ronin seems less than impressed, but Sandile nods approvingly.
‘He has potential, Ronin.’ He puts his hands on his hips and looks at me. ‘Real potential.’
‘Yeah, we’ll see,’ Ronin says gruffly.
‘Welcome to the agent’s life,’ Sandile says. ‘It’s not pretty, but it’s something, I suppose.’
‘Well, you look ridiculous,’ Ronin says as I enter the room he’s staying in for the night. I’m glad he’s the one that got the Safari Room. A really badly taxidermied eland stares cross-eyed across the room, and the faux lion rug looks a little too well used.
Ronin sits at an old wooden writing desk with a cup of tea and an expression of utter defeat on his face. He’s sweating again and he looks red and feverish. I’m starting to wonder whether he’s ever going to break the back of his addiction.
‘I look like you,’ I say, unstrapping my weapons and laying them down carefully on the couch. ‘So yeah, I guess you’re right.’
‘Lemon, ginger and honey,’ Ronin says, looking into the teacup. ‘Mmmmm.’
I sit down at the desk and Ronin grabs a piece of paper, turns it over and slides it away from me.
‘What’s that?’ I say.
‘Mind your own business,’ he growls. ‘Don’t you have to go practise looking tough in a mirror or something?’
‘Come on,’ I say. ‘What is it?’
He sighs. ‘OK, I’ll tell you. But you’ve got to promise not to laugh.’
‘OK,’ I say. ‘I promise.’
‘Well, in the book I’m reading, the doctor recommends writing a letter to your addiction as if it were a person.’
I burst out laughing.
‘Whatever, porno boy,’ he says.
‘Sorry.’ I try to suppress a giggle. ‘Sorry. So you’re writing a letter to alcohol?’
‘Well, he says it works better if you’re specific, so I’m writing a letter to Scotch. “Dear Scotch. You are a beautiful lady. You are the colour of copper. You are the taste of water to a man dying of thirst. We can’t be together any more. It’s not you, it’s me. Be happy without me. Ronin.”’
‘That’s beautiful,’ I say. ‘Real poetry.’
‘It’s not helping,’ Ronin says, sipping his tea desperately.
We sit for a while and listen to the crickets chirping outside.
‘That speech you made back at Hexpoort. About being an agent. Did you mean it?’
‘Yeah, mostly.’ Ronin takes another sip of his tea. ‘It’s a hard life at the best of times.’
‘I’ve just been thinking,’ I say. ‘Are we really doing the right thing for the Hidden?’
‘You’re getting all political on me now, sparky?’
‘It’s just that maybe I don’t want to be the prison guard,’ I say.
‘Sometimes you don’t get to choose,’ Ronin replies.
The next morning we pack our stuff into the Cortina and say goodbye to Sandile.
‘Ronin tell you how we met?’
‘No,’ I say.
He rubs his chin. ‘My village was destroyed by Gogs, real mean ones—’
‘No other kind,’ Ronin interrupts.
‘Yeah, well. Me and some of the other kids escaped by hiding in a tree. The Gogs cleared out and days later Ronin’s unit found us. His unit commander wanted to execute all of the survivors and Ronin knocked him the fuck out.’
‘Yeah, what a hero,’ Ronin growls. ‘You neglect to mention that it was our Gog unit that destroyed your village.’
Sandile leans in. ‘Don’t let Ronin fool you with his whole poor-evil-me routine. He’s done some really good things in his time.’
Ronin pats him on the shoulder. ‘It’s cute how you keep believing in something despite all evidence to the contrary.’
One hundred and forty-five white cars, ninety-five black cars, seventy-eight silver cars, seventy red cars, thirty-four green cars, one pink car with the words REAL FANDANGO emblazoned on it in lurid yellow, twenty-five cows, thirteen goats, one ostrich, one man dressed in a plastic bag holding a TV antenna on his head. These are the things I count on the endless road as I’m lulled into a vacant trance.<
br />
An infinite amount of time later, I regain a semi-conscious awareness of the car bumping down the road. Then I’m catapulted back into reality by Ronin mercilessly flicking my ear with his thick fingers.
‘Stop.’ I reach up to push his hand away.
‘We’re here,’ he says.
I rub my eyes. ‘Where’s here?’
‘Forest in Elgin,’ Ronin replies, lighting up a cigarette and getting out of the car. ‘Take a look.’ I open the door and follow him.
A fine mist shifts and coils among the silent trees. Ronin gestures with his cigarette towards a tree stump in the centre of a clearing. We walk through the mist and I breathe in the cold, ghostlike wisps. Venus hangs in the sky like tacky pink costume jewellery.
The burnt, blackened stump is etched with symbols in gold and silver that are so faint you wouldn’t see them if you weren’t looking for them. Ronin drops to one knee and runs his fingers across the dark wood, then spits on to the pine-needle floor of the clearing.
‘Obayifo ring,’ he says. ‘It marks the edges of their territority.’
‘What are Obayifo anyway?’ I ask.
‘Well, they’re really two distinct creatures: the queen and her offspring. The offspring are what would commonly be called faeries.’
‘Faeries? Don’t they just fly around and grant people’s wishes and shit?’
‘That’s the Disney version,’ Ronin says. ‘The world that these faeries inhabit is the Brothers Grimm version, the one where Sleeping Beauty gets nailed in her sleep by the prince and wakes up having already borne three kids.’
‘Right,’ I say, feeling that familiar sinking feeling that accompanies going anywhere with Ronin. ‘Well let’s get this over with then, I guess.’
Ronin claps me on the shoulder. ‘Now you’re starting to get into the spirit of being an agent.’
10
THE AGENTS GRIM
WE WALK THROUGH dense, silent forest. There’s an ancient feeling hanging in the air. My magical senses are much more attuned to that kind of thing now, and the tingling sensation in my hands makes it seem like I’m clawing and kneading the air like a cat playing with yarn. My lungs fill with oxygen and I feel exhilarated as we walk. This is a beautiful, sacred space. If you spent enough time here you could really get in touch with yourself. The outer world would melt away and you’d be contained in a bubble of peace that—
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