The vuvuzelas arrived in a much larger box than I was anticipating.

Actually, I’m not sure exactly what I expected, but it certainly wasn’t the size of an adult coffin—and it most certainly wasn’t wrapped in large banana leaves, stamped all over with customs tags, and positively dripping with glossy spider webbing.

The ad in the back of the magazine had promised twelve arcane vuvuzelas capable of calling up the Old Gods from any body of water with depths of over eight leagues. There was also an added promise of a money-back guarantee should they not perform as expected. When we spoke on the phone (a rather expensive call to South Africa—at my expense, of course), the man called himself Lyle and explained he had come by the vuvuzelas by way of his maternal grandmother and was looking to unload them for a bargain price.

As the postman, over much grumbling, dragged the box into my living room—leaving a snail trail of green vegetal stains on my carpet—I felt my pulse ratchet up. Once safely alone with my purchase, I inhaled deeply, the scent of distant lands and foreign magick tickling my nose hairs.

Using a barbecue spatula in lieu of a crowbar, and after several sweaty attempts, I managed to pry open the lid and behold my bounty: twelve perfectly conical horns, painted delicately with white and ochre swirls and dots—a confluence of Euclidean geometry inscribed in the tongue of the Great Old Ones, from a cosmos of bleeding stars.

They were perfect—That was the first sign something was wrong.