Being a true shifter isn’t the blessing it may seem. But through pain and darkness Perdita seeks to find her own life despite the ambition of others…

“We help.” Moth declared and I put my hands around the Queen’s head like a cage. Moth and Mandrake joined and the power of the gush of metaphorical water that flowed from my hands and into the Queen’s brain was such that it took all I could do to stand up. Fortunately, brain-washing doesn’t take long and I was able to remove my now freezing hands and step back before I disgraced myself by falling.
The Queen shook herself as if she had just stepped from a bath of ice water. She shivered, but her eyes were now clear – if flat and calculating.
“Oh. Right. Now I see.” She turned her flawless face to Moth and there was a catch in her voice. “Did they really kill Shadow?”
“Seems so.”
For an instant they were like real sisters, but the feeling passed as the room turned dark again and a fat moon floated in a cloudy sky. The sound of feet on the messy floor was loud and when I saw what came into the pool of light I sighed.
The goat-headed creature opened its lips. “Ill met by moonlight, proud…”
He got no further because the sisters turned on him. Her Majesty fired cold flame at him from her fingertips, but Moth was rather more direct.
“Piss off Silenius.”
After a second of offended silence the deity disappeared. Mandrake spoke in my head.
‘There are times when Moth sounds a great deal like you.’
I poked him in the chest. ‘Hush. I have a feeling something vital is about to happen.’
Moth and the Queen had a brief conference before spitting on their hands and slapping their palms together.
Mandrake’s arms tightened around me.
‘Why do I think we aren’t going to like this?’
‘Because Moth is probably going to stay and help. And I have a bad feeling about it.’
I shivered, and Moth landed on my shoulder.
“Mothwing must stay with sister until land is secure.”
“Are you sure?” Mandrake asked.
She nodded emphatically.
“And will they listen to one who is still a child?”
“We make them listen.”
I turned my face and kissed the side of her head.
“You must do what you have to do. Take care though. And come back to us soon.”
She put her arms around my head and hugged me before doing the same for Mandrake.
I looked at the Queen on her ivory throne and frowned my most intimidating frown. “I will hold you responsible for my bond mate’s safety, Titania. Play her false and there will be nowhere you can hide.”
She nodded, although she couldn’t quite meet my eye.
Moth pulled my earlobe and spoke softly in my head. ‘I will have care.’
‘You do.’
Then it was time for Mandrake and me to leave. At the doorway I turned to look at my bonded sister. She smiled and spoke for me alone.
‘Whatever I have to do here, know that I will love you as long as there is breath in my body.’
I was glad of Mandrake’s strong arm as he led me to where the unicorn waited. In a blizzard.
“Dirty weather for flying,” it said by way of a greeting.
“It is.”
The creature looked at me expectantly, then realised Moth wasn’t with us.
“Where is the fae?”
“She stays to help the Queen.”
It stared holes in me for a minute before it nodded. “I see.” I rather thought it did, because it nodded its head three times in a sort of equine salute. “Up and over the weather then, but it will be cold.”
As if in answer to that, a brownie in an apron appeared carrying two very thick fur parkas.
“Warm,” it said and handed us one each before scuttling back indoors. We helped each other into the heavy fur.
“What the frag?”
“Orc.” With which he lifted me onto the unicorn’s broad back and leapt aboard himself.
“Back to where the dragons are?”
“Please sir unicorn.”
The less said about that journey the better, it was cold and bumpy, and the air was thin. The only mercy was it was short. We landed in deep snow right in the middle of Purslane’s wing – although not at the Lyon estate.
Mandrake jumped down and lifted me to the ground. I waddled to the unicorn’s head and touched a hand to its velvet nose.
“I thank you for a safe ride Alsviør, and blessings be on you and your herd.”
It nuzzled my hand and blew a warm breath through my fingers.
“Be steadfast, small one, and all manner of things will be well.”
Then it clapped its wings together and was gone.

Jane Jago

It was one of those sunny days where you have to half squint at times to keep the brightness out. I’d just been round the monthly market in the town square and spent a bit on fruit and veg, and was wandering back to the bus stop when I saw a large orange on the edge of the pavement by the stone wall of the church.
Thinking it lost by someone leaving the market I bent to pick it up and found I was holding a small orange kitten.
And that was how we got our big tom cat, Marmalade!

Eleanor Swift-Hook

Some whimsical words on whimsical themes…

Tammi hated Zoom meetings, and how her colleagues sneered at her humble home. But she squared her shoulders and survived the winter.

When spring came, a skinny geek arrived with a laptop. She gave him a cup of tea and  chocolate chip cookie

“This one has smellivision,” he whispered, “but I ain’t supposed to tell you.”

Tammi’s house smelled sweetly of lavender and home baking.  The chief among her tormentors, however, was a less particular housekeeper and her high-rise apartment smelled of old ashtrays and feet. 

Tammi said nothing, simply watching as the pack turned on its former alpha.

Jane Jago

An everyday tale of village life and vampires…

They were rescued from what Em was beginning to feel was a treacly morass of emotion by the insistent burbling of her phone. She dragged it out of her pocket. It was Leodigrace so she answered.
“Em speaking.”
“Your wererabbit is completely insane, Emmeline. He won’t ever be fit to be allowed back into society.”
“Well isn’t that a surprise. And what’s with the my wererabbit crap?”
Leodigrace laughed, a deep sensual sound guaranteed to melt the knickers of any normal female. But Em wasn’t a normal female so she snarled at him.
“Did you have anything useful to say, doggy?”
It was his turn to snarl and Em laughed at his discomfiture. 
“Okay, Emmeline shall we call it an honourable draw? And I do have some information you may find interesting.”
Em put her phone on speaker.
“I’m listening.”
“The batshit crazy bat hater was actually being paid to exterminate the small fliers. He seems to have reported locally to one Sidney Harmsley-Gunn, but the paymaster was an American gentleman called Dominic Schilling.” Leodigrace suddenly sounded serious and profoundly formal. “Be very careful, Emmeline Vanderbilt, your little village has something someone somewhere is prepared to go to almost any lengths to get. And. Queen of Vampires, I am permitted to offer you the aid of weres, should it be that we can help.”
Em felt a prickle over her skin at his formal tone. Leodigrace was someone she respected, which was rare for a were. They were still early on in their own Time of Mitigation, having not read the way things were changing as quickly as the vampire community. So now they had the same kind of problems with rogues that Em had needed to confront a century past. She had some sympathy for that, although tempered by frustration at their folly in failing to see the signs and leaving it so late. 
But Leodigrace had been one of the first to listen and had even swallowed his pride to ask her advice on how it could be done for the were community. If he was now offering his aid then whatever plans Harmsley-Gunn had bought into would be disastrous for the village. So she answered his formality with her own. 
“Thank you, Father of Weres.”
He broke the connection and Em looked at Agnes who was barely keeping her anger in check, but it was Ginny who held her attention. The wispy woman whose surprising bravery had bought her near destruction was gone and in her place sat a proper vampire. She looked as cold as death and as implacable.
“Dominic Schilling,” she hissed, “is a creature without honour or compassion, Demonic Schilling is closer to the mark and he belongs to Ronald Dump.”
Em heard the name, but for a moment she was unable to make any connection to the words. 
Agnes was a different matter. “Ronald Dump? Well we aren’t having that bastard on our patch.” Then she began to swear, comprehensively and with real white-hot anger.
Then Em put the pieces together. “Dump? Fat, bald guy with more money than God? Builds upmarket ‘resorts’, drives out the locals and bankrupts the surrounding economies?”
“Yes,” Ginny snarled. “That awful excuse for a human being. If I am right he will already have bought most of the county council. That’s how he operates – carpeting cash over everything so he can stroll over the crushed bodies to his next photoshoot with the latest bigtime supermodel. And Schilling is his procurer in chief, his right hand flunky.” She almost spat her contempt. “We have to stop him. That werewolf you were talking to is absolutely right. Everything we love about this village would be devoured by his obsessive need to win. He doesn’t care about anything or anyone except himself.”
Ginny broke off and closed her mouth tightly as if afraid what might come out of it if she let it open.
“You have encountered him before?” Em prompted.
 “I lost a battle with him many years ago. He wanted to demolish some listed buildings to expand one of his hotels. We had all the evidence. We had the law on our side. But he corrupted the leadership of the planning department – who I happened to be married to at the time. So he won then. But I’m ready for him now. And this time it’s personal.”
She flexed her fingers and Em almost heard the bugle that was calling her to battle.
Agnes finished swearing under breath and looked at Ginny.
“First stop, Harmsley-Gunn?”
“He invited me onto the parish council, so I really should accept.”
Ginny managed a grin so vicious that it gave Em a good feeling about their new recruit. She had thought her a wet hen, but the youngest vampire in the country seemed to be coming out of her corner, brimming with passion and spoiling for a fight even before her Making was complete.

Part Twenty-Two of Much Dithering in Little Botheringham by Jane Jago and Eleanor Swift-Hook, will be here next week.

Because life happens…

Exploring the mysteries of life through the versatile medium of limerick poetry.

Secret

For life has a secret to share
It’s all about when you should care
About who, and what for,
And how you show the door
To those takers who never are fair!

Eleanor Swift-Hook

In a modern-day Britain where the Roman Empire never left, Dai and Julia solve murder mysteries, whilst still having to manage family, friendship and domestic crises…

“Notebook entry. Confirm date, Post Ides, Maius. Time, night watch, at two twenty three, and location Augusta Arena, Londinium, Britannia Maxima. Looks like the report of a murder was not wrong. He seems pretty deceased to me.”
Under the brilliant lights of the pitch, which turned night into day, the body would have looked gruesome anyway. It had no face. But laid out as it was on a white sheet, the injuries seemed to stand out more. There was no blood but…
Dai wished he had not put quite so much garum on the chips he had been eating less than an hour ago. Even after more than eight years in the job he still found he had little stomach for the messier end of it. At least the hands seemed to still be intact, which made part of the process a lot easier. He pressed the touchscreen of his identipad against one finger and then entered the other necessary details. DNA and fingerprint checks both came up. Which was unusual as most murder victims were unregistered on either database. But when he saw the image he knew why this one was different.
This had once been Treno Bellicus ‘Big Belly’: one of the leading lights of the Caledonian Game team here in Londinium for the Games. That had to be more than ironic.
Dai, like every schoolkid in Britannia, knew that an arena had stood here since before the Divine Diocletian had rebuilt the Empire under his heavy hand, spreading his brand of Romanisation as far as his arms would reach and at the same time snatching back the privilege of being a full citizen from all born outside Italia. Back then, the arena had staged the kind of barbaric and bloody spectacles ex-patriot Romans expected. And now? In all honesty, Dai could not say it was too much different. It might include a ball as a sop to those who wanted to call it sport, but the brutality remained the same. The Games in all their unrelenting savagery. Those who couldn’t be there in person to taste the dust and smell the blood could freely watch the spectacle on the screens on every street corner and in every public building. Bread and Circuses.

The prize that lured the finest athletes of the provinces to risk life and limb was otherwise unattainable Roman Citizenship, and this poor bastard had been a star player. A broad-featured face looked out of the screen on Dai’s wristphone, wearing a manufactured snarl; behind him was a virtual backdrop with sports drink logos and other product placements. Well, those sponsors had just lost one of their money-spinning assets.
Reluctantly, he returned his attention to the body and bent over it to peer at the visible injuries as he made his initial informal observations. It was as much talking himself through coping with the gruesome scene as anything of real value.
“Victim ID biometrics confirmed. Body is supine. Been dead the last four hours. He looks like he has been laid out all ready for anointing and Charon’s obol. But placed on a white cloth that I’m willing to bet half my next salary is going to be a bed sheet. Body was bled out, through the throat – ugly gash there – and cleaned up before being put here. The other half of my pay is going on the certainty there will be nothing on the body we can use to ID the killer. Other injuries I can see -”
One of the disadvantages of being a plainclothes investigator was it seemed to lead to less respect from civilians, especially from Roman civilians.
“Llewellyn?” the voice was coolly condescending.
Even though he had told his decanus to keep everyone away, Dai was grateful for the excuse to straighten up and stop looking at the corpse.
The woman who stood there was in her thirties, with classic Roman features; she wore her fashionably short stola over close-fitting leggings and boots. For someone who must have been dragged out of bed in the small hours, she looked very well turned out and made Dai wish he could cover the small stain on his tunic where he had dropped a chip when the call to attend this crime came through. Her name badge declared her to be ‘Annia Belonia Flavia’ and said she was Curatrix Prima. No doubt in charge of this arena. She was frowning at him and he realised he must be staring.
“That is indeed who I am, domina.”
Behind her back he could see Bryn, his decanus, looking guilty. So he should, but Dai had the feeling this woman was not the kind to be easily put off.
“Do you you know how this happened?” she demanded, as if it was Dai’s fault the body had been left in the middle of her pitch.
“Investigations are already underway,” he told her smoothly. “We have identified the victim and my people are questioning everyone who might have seen anything here.”
He had tried to put himself between her and the body, but she sidestepped and looked. Her hands went up to her face and the skin behind them looked almost as pale as the corpse, leaching into a light hint of green. To her credit, she recovered without vomiting, but she stepped back and took a breath before restoring the gravitas expected of a Roman matron.
“Who is it?”
“Treno Bellicus. You may have heard -”
“Of course I have.” She cut across him rudely as if wanting to reassert herself after the moment of weakness he had witnessed. “He is one of the contestants. He was reported missing days ago but you useless vigiles have done nothing about it.”
Dai took a breath and met her accusing glare with his own brand of gravitas.
“Well, you can be certain we are giving the matter our full attention now,” he assured her.
She snorted and stalked off.
“It strikes me that after two thousand years of unbroken Roman rule and all the incredible technological advances that has brought to the world, they would have figured simple things like that,” Bryn said, watching her retreating figure.
Dai glanced at his decanus, saw his expression and decided to bite.
“Things like what?”
“How to run a decent criminal investigation service. I mean clearly these vigiles she speaks of are cack. That poor woman, having to deal with such incompetents. It must be very trying for her.”
“I’ve met a few who really are,” Dai agreed, grinning, “but Roman Citizens just have to man up and make do with the inefficiencies and restrictions of Imperial rule out here in the provinces. She should just be glad we have the most essential basics like hovercars and the internet.”
“Yeah. I don’t know how the poor dears manage here in this primitive and barbarous land, so far from Rome where everything is always perfect.”
“If I didn’t know you better I might think you were abandoning Stoicism to become a Cynic, Bryn.”
“What? You have met my half-Roman wife? My mother’s half-Roman too. With those women folk I’m a Stoic, man, through and through. I have to be.”
Dai laughed and shook his head, then they both turned their attention back to the very unfunny reality of the corpse at their feet.

You can keep reading about the murder of Treno Bellicus in Dying to be Roman by Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook 

Some words seem much neglected
Such as galumphing and hirsute
And pedagogue and ortanique
(That is a sort of fruit).
And then there’s words like eldritch
And others of such feral fame
Preternatural, numinous
Are just two that I could name

And in the world of nature
So many words have wilted now
Like bosky, glebe and moiley
(That is a sort of cow).
Yet if I should then apricate
And rain falls from the welkin blue
I might get wet, yet still enjoy
The petrichor with you.

Mayhap tis serendipity
That English can record
Words like nithing and guerdon
(That’s a sort of reward).
But I am otiose today
And so will close this posy
And take my scapegrace self to reave
A potation we call rosy.

Eleanor Swift-Hook

Being a true shifter isn’t the blessing it may seem. But through pain and darkness Perdita seeks to find her own life despite the ambition of others…

Chapter Nine – Sister Act

As soon as the old one hit the ground his illusion began to disintegrate. With the enchanted landscape falling apart around her, the Queen sat up straighter. It was as if she was awakening from a deep sleep. She stretched until you could hear her joints pop and looked around her.
The illusion was truly horrible now with trees and stones turning into what looked and smelled like decomposing corpses and the ground beneath our feet running with every imaginable effluvium – and some I didn’t want to imagine. As the landscape stretched and contracted about Her Majesty, the only fixed points were ourselves and the wolves. Those two crouched side by side and I wondered what they were up to. It hit me, about a half a second too late.
Fortunately for the Faerie Queen, Mandrake does do thinking and the burst of blue fire he shot stopped the leaping wolves before they reached her throat.
The Queen froze them where they dropped with blue ice from her fingertips before returning to her accustomed form. She saw Moth and rapped out a question in the fae language – which is beyond my understanding. Moth broke the mind link before responding. To be honest, I didn’t much like her tone, but thus is ever the way between the sisters. And when the two of them stood nose to nose shouting I was glad not to understand what it was they said.
Mandrake wrapped his arms around me and bent to my ear.
“As a dragon should I be offended by the supposition I am incapable of thought?” he whispered.
I turned in his embrace and looked into his eyes to see he was far from angry at my deception. “I nearly got away with it.”
“You did. And to be honest if your folksy milkmaid hadn’t got him to drop his guard as far as it did we were all dead. Whilst he was busy regretting the necessity of killing you, Moth could cast an illusion and I could bash in his brains. Tell me something, though, why did he not see your wise old soul in your eyes?”
I made the tiny shift that gives me guileless brown eyes dimmed with the clouds of cataracts. Mandrake smiled.
“Very clever. Adds to the impression of vulnerability, but doesn’t it affect your vision?”
“Yes. Which is why I only do it in emergencies.”
The conversation between Moth and the Queen was becoming spikier and spikier and I hid my face against Mandrake’s chest.
“What is with those two?” he muttered.
“Apart from the fact they are half-sisters who were brought up to be in constant competition with each other?”
“Yes. Apart from that.”
“The Queen’s Majesty has more than a touch of paranoia when it comes to her siblings. Thinks they’re after her throne. Which is ridiculous. Moth wouldn’t have it as a gift, and their brother, Shadow, is gentle scholarly soul with a club foot and zero ambition. Trouble is, their guardian raised them to believe the throne was their destiny and encouraged the kind of blind ambition that goes with that assumption. I think Moth even bought into it until she found me and we bonded.”
Mandrake rubbed a hand up and down my back. “Not a lot of family feeling then?” I shook my head. “And their carping echoes right through your bones doesn’t it?”
I nodded and he hugged me wrapping one big, warm hand about the back of my neck, where it eased the tension and the headachy feel.
“Thank you, loved dragon.”
He extended his loving protection like a barrier around me and I willingly surrendered to comfort. I don’t know for how long I leaned on his formidable physicality, but I was dragged back to the business in hand by a distraught Moth. She landed on my shoulder and threw her arms around my head hugging as tight as she was able and sobbing broken-heartedly. I put one hand on her heaving shoulders and Mandrake covered it with his. We poured our love into her, and her sobs slowly subsided.
She sat back and knuckled her eyes. I proffered a small handkerchief and she mopped herself efficiently.
“Moth is sorry. Bad things happen. Shadow dead.”
“Oh no.”
Moth hiccuped. “Yes. Stupid sister still won’t see he don’t want throne.”
I sighed. “No. I don’t suppose she can. But what happened?”
“They bring his head.”
“Who?”
“I don’t understand. Black dragon comes. Brings old one. After this Sister remembers not.”
For a brief time I was too absorbed in sorrow for Moth and her gentle brother to notice anything else. However I was dragged into the reality of our situation by the unnatural rigidity of Mandrake’s body. I turned quickly and laid my hands on his face. I had thought him on the edge of the change, but he wasn’t. He was in control, just in a state beyond anger and I understood that he knew who this black dragon must be, and that it was bad.
“Are you sure it was a black dragon?” he managed to be gentle with Moth.
“Yes. Sister says black and gleaming like oiled silk.”
Mandrake made a sound deep in his chest and I felt impelled to touch my hand to his heart.
“Whatever it is, loved one, we are in it together.”
Moth laid her hand over mine. “Together.”
His smile was purest love. “Trust me? I need to do something and there’s no time to explain.”
“With my life and beyond.”
“Moth too.”
Mandrake took a step forward and flamed. Flames of the hottest blue consumed the body of the old enchanter and carried on burning until there was nothing left but a pile of ash. Divining his intention I ran to a huge oriel window and wrenched it open letting in real snow to mix with the rapidly decaying fake. Moth clapped her tiny hands and a wind picked up the sorcerer’s ashes sweeping them out into the snowstorm that now howled about Castel Seelie. When the last fragment was gone I wrestled the window closed and turned to face the fury of the Queen. She pointed a shaking finger at Mandrake.
“How dare you! I will have you skinned alive for that.”
“Won’t,” Moth declared. “Unless you want fight.”
The Queen deflated a bit. “At least tell me why that was necessary. I wanted to send his head to his confederates – as soon as I find out who they are.”
Mandrake showed her his teeth. “Oh yes, and have some necromancer reanimate a creature whose mind is intimately entwined with that of the Queen of the Fairies. That’d be great wouldn’t it?”
The Queen narrowed her eyes and stared at him but then the truth of what he said hit her and she crumpled into her throne, suddenly looking old and afraid.
“I need to stop reacting and start thinking, don’t I?”
I didn’t bother to sugar coat it. “You do. And pretty quickly unless you want to lose your throne to some conniving elf.”
Moth looked severe. “You needs help.”
“But who can I trust?”
Moth shrugged. “Who you likes least.”
“You then.”
“No. I am bonded. I will not.”
“Not even for the fate of your people?”
I stepped in. “Stop trying to manipulate your sister. Or would you contend with me?”
For about ten seconds, I thought she would be that stupid but she pulled back.
“What’s the matter with me? I open my mouth and something stupid comes out.”
It was difficult not to explain that it happened because, on a lot of levels, she was stupid, but I held my tongue. Moth came to my shoulder in search of help and even if I would have refused the silly queen, I could never refuse my bond sister.

Jane Jago

He stalks the night on silent paws
From shadow to shadow like a wraith
Obedient only to his own laws
Glossy and midnight from tail to face
Astride the fence defiance calls
To any who dare his wrath incur
And stands atop the garden wall
Malice hid in silken fur
He walks alone yet has no fear
Of anything the dark may hold
Bright of eye and sharp of ear
Moonlight only makes him bold
Throughout the day he cushioned sleeps
And twitching dreams of silver moons
His human servants fawn and weep
And bring him food on a golden spoon

Jane Jago

Some whimsical words on whimsical themes…

It’s difficult to be afraid when your mind and body have been so augmented that you can no longer feel pain, and although Figgis was outnumbered he crawled into a scrape in the ground beneath his enemies’ transport. 

Whistling soundlessly, he attached one of the limpet mines from his belt then snake-wriggled onto the shelter of the one stubby tree the oasis boasted.

Another entity might have felt a stirring of pity when the slavers herded the children into their transpo just before it exploded.

But it’s difficult to be human when your emotions have been scientifically scraped away…

Jane Jago