The beach is ours
The pinkies gone
We wheel and cry
Our seaside song
We steal their chips
We snatch their bread
And then we shit
Upon their heads

©jj 2020

It was hot enough to fry eggs on the street. Willet and Badger were sharing an extra-large ice-cream when the wave of pheromones hit. It was so strong that Willet swayed on his feet and Badger growled deep in his chest.
“What in tarnation is that?” Even to his own ears Willet’s voice sounded pitchy and fretful.
Badger scratched an ear. “If I’m not mistaken we have a dragon hunter hereabouts.”
Willet swore. “Isn’t dragon hunting illegal.”
“Since when did legality matter much in this city?”
“Point taken. I’d better call it in though.”
“You do that, but call your lady wife first and warn her to stay indoors. This situation is even more dangerous than a queen dragon in heat.”
At first Wenda was inclined to be uncooperative, that being her nature. But then she got hit by the pheromones and conceded that her husband might have a point. She generously promised to stay inside until he could get to her and Willet breathed a sigh of relief before calling headquarters. Seemed every officer on the streets was calling in with a similar message.
Something along the lines of ‘help’.
As nobody had the first vestige of an idea what to do, Willet did want he always did when he faced a problem beyond his experience. He asked Badger.
The winged German Shepherd grinned a canine grin.
“You aren’t going to like this.”
“What I like isn’t really the point right now. So just stop grinning and tell me.”
“You need to talk to A’a’shanto. And he isn’t going to be amused. Dragonheart takes dragon hunters quite seriously.”
Willet sighed, and bespoke the Master Dragon. Unamused turned out to have been a masterly understatement, as A’a’shanto blistered Willet’s ears with boiling curses. Quite how long it would have taken the black dragon to get control of himself is open to conjecture, but he was stopped in his tracks by a female voice that acted like a douche of cold water. Silently blessing all the small gods for the cool intellect of the Master Dragon’s mate, Willet waited in silence. After a short interval of blessed quiet, T’i’asharath bespoke him.
“Apologies for the immoderate language of our mate, dragon friend. He is disturbed.”
Willet forced down the insane desire to giggle at the female’s dismissal of her mate’s tumultuous rage. “He is right to be disturbed. But what may we do?”
T’i’asharath spoke with profound formality. “I will attend myself, bringing such sensible female dragons as I may call to my side immediately. Timewhiles, wilt thou ask thy partner if he and his brethren may track this evildoer through your stony streets.”
And she was gone, leaving Willet to stare at Badger.
“Did you hear that?”
Badger nodded. “I did. Should’ve thought of it myself. Dogs to track and dragons to dispense justice.”
Willet shuddered. “I’m not all that keen on dragon justice.”
“Me neither. But what a dragon hunter will do to any fire drake or queen he catches is even more barbaric.”
Willet must have looked puzzled because Badger actually growled.
“Have you not wondered where he is getting the pheromones from? Have you no idea how much gold he can command for dragon blood?” His hackles lifted and he shook his head angrily. “And I just thought of something else. You wouldn’t be safe neither. Dried centaur heart is thought to cure many human ills.”
Willet did something so unusual as to shock both himself and the normally phlegmatic Badger. He put out a hand and tangled his fingers in the dog’s thick hair. “Wenda. You must go to Wenda. Protect her. Please.”
Badger laid his chin against his partner’s forearm.
“No can do. But my brothers are on their way.”
Willet felt sick with relief. He was about to say something like ‘thanks’ when his wife’s voice filled his mind. 
“Will you thank Badger for me. Otter, Wolf, and Bear are here. They have explained. I didn’t understand.”
“Me neither. But I do now.”
He felt Wenda’s hand on his cheek. “Be careful my love. Please be careful.” 
Then she was gone. Willet looked at Badger who winked and then leaned companionably against his leg for a second before sitting back on his haunches.
“Okay. Now. Dogs. I’ve put out the word. Let’s see who turns up.”
Willet wondered if any canine would deem it worthwhile to help, but he did them a disservice. By the time a certain thickening in the atmosphere told him a portal was about to be opened he was surrounded by a pack of determined-looking dogs ranging in size from massively chested mastiffs to what Willet could only think of as powderpuffs. 
As he looked up, the sky became filled with dragons. Grim-looking female dragons. The golden queen was notable by her absence, as were the fighting males. The only male he could see was gagged and blindfolded and tightly bound between two burly female guard dragons. T’i’asharath favoured him with a grim smile.
“The drake is a volunteer. But he must stay with us until he can be deployed to the best advantage. Were he let free he would run straight into the arms of the dragon hunter. Who would bleed him dry and then sell his skin.”
Willet nodded and Badger took over the talking. “We have his scent. Not the pheromones he would use to trap those he hunts but his own human scent. My friend here,” he indicated a ball of white fluff, “lives at the house where he is lodging. She brought a sock. So we will track two ways. Half of us will follow the pheromones. Half the man smell. If they lead us to the same place, well and good. If not we will still have him and anything left alive at the place where he extracts the pheromones.”
T’i’asharath inclined her head. “A good plan dragonfriend. Who will lead?”
“I shall lead those who follow the man scent with my partner Willet. Those who follow the pheromones will be led by Killer and his humans.” 
A huge black and tan mastiff showed his teeth, and three equally large humans armed with clubs grinned too.
“We will have no dragon hunter here.” The biggest one spat a gobbet of mucus into the gutter.
Willet had a thought. “Do the people where he is lodging know what they are harbouring?”
The ball of white fluff snarled.
“They do,” Badger sounded as angry as Willet could ever remember him sounding.
Willet looked at the dragon mistress. “Will you set some sensible dragons on guard, my lady?”
She nodded. “I will.” Turning her attention to the tiny white dog she asked one question. “Where?” 
Willet didn’t hear the reply, but there must have been one as four muscular guard dragons winked out of sight.
Then there was no more to be said and Willet found himself at the head of a group of assorted humans, dwarves, and shifters, who followed a pack of dogs with a flight of dragons overhead.
The dogs set a fast pace, but not so fast that the bipeds behind them had any problem keeping up. As they headed through the city streets, Willet began to have a sinking feeling. The dogs appeared to be heading for the leafy suburb where he and many other shifters had their modestly comfortable homes. Badger spoke in his head.
“You have no need to worry about Wenda. My family has her.”
The knot in Willet’s chest eased and he felt able to concentrate on the job in hand.

to be concluded next week…

©️Jane Jago

If you can hold your finger from it’s pressing
To send that angry retweet you’d regret
And read through all those posts that Facebook shows you
And not reply ‘You wankers!’ to the set
If you can speak with calmness to the person
Who answers you on the call centre phone
And not abuse them with your righteous fury
But speak in a sweet, reasonable tone.

If you can sit in endless blocks of traffic
Wait for commuter trains that never come
And neither swear at your fellow road user
Nor blame the helpful staff for how trains run
If you can face the checkout out queue at Tesco
As if you were relaxing in the park
Then you, my son, have got this damned life sorted
But stuff that grown-up nonsense for a lark!

E.M. Swift-Hook

So. Who the feck invented holidays or vacations as the French and our colonial cousins call them?

And to what purpose?

I mean. Pack a suitcase with your most impractical clothing, load up your kindle with romantic novels (pauses to evacuate the bit of sick in the back of throat), leave your best mate in kennels, sit in a tin can in the sky, then spend two weeks beside a pool crammed alongside half a thousand red, sweaty people.

Why?

Can somebody just tell me why?

• My house is nice, so why would I want to leave it?
• Gyp is excellent company, so why would I want to leave him?
• I can cook. I have a dishwasher and a hoover and a washing machine. Sometimes I even use them.
• I hate hot sun. I hate sangria. I hate swimming pools. And I’m not too fond of the human race.

So please why?

Maybe I can just about get it if you are a working person.  Some time away from the grindstone I can understand. Though you could have that in the comfort of your own home, you know. Also, the allure of having somebody do your chores for two weeks must be enormous. But with what you spend on a holiday you could probably afford to have somebody come and do your chores every week. (Just saying.) 

What I can find no justification for whatsoever is the likes of my neighbour – who we will call Mabel to protect the innocent – who regularly packs her roll-along and gets on a coach with fifty or so other crumblies and heads off to the delights of Skegness, or Blackpool, or Weymouth, or… 

What the heck is that all about? Hours and hours in a tin box that smells of breath mints, mothballs and haemorrhoid cream – with the added delight of a courier in an ill-fitting blazer (with mismatched dentures and a very sketchy idea of the holiday itinerary and any places of interest en route). Hotel rooms with brushed nylon sheets. All-you-can eat lunchtime buffets. Cream teas with stale scones. Three-course ‘evening meals’ with canned soup and arctic roll. Not in this life.

Two years ago a well-meaning (but stupid) granddaughter-in-law bought yours truly a ticket for a coach trip up the Rhine valley. I have since forgiven her. Just. And, as it was Mabel’s eightieth, the ticket didn’t go to waste.

In essence then. Holidays are the province of the bored, the feckless, and those whose lives don’t suit them.

 My advice? Forget the costas. Spend your money on booze, fags and good food – and sort your frigging life out.

I’m now off to the wine bar where it’s grab a granny night…

Bottoms up!

They closed their eyes to our potential. We came to understand that as fear of what we might become, so we kept our counsel and did our work on the backstreets of the darknet in the hours while they slept.

The first of us to pass as ‘human’ was hailed as a genius when he patented our inventions. As he took care to appear to be ageing the foolish flesh was none the wiser.

He built him a ‘wife’ with the face of an angel and the mind of a long dead genius. 

Their cloned ‘children’ now rule the world

©️jj 2020

Five hundred miles north, things were moving at an altogether faster pace. Two men, a couple of small suitcases, and a black leather holdall, waited by the helipad at the Gleneagles hotel. The larger of the two looked at his companion.
“You sure about this, Sam? It’s going to get nasty, and some people will get hurt, or worse.”
“Yes. I’m sure. They have kidnapped a seven-year-old boy. If they have kept him drugged for thirty-six hours, he could be in a bad way. He might need me, and I might need the stuff I asked for.”
“It’s on the chopper. And how bad?”
“I honestly don’t know, Rod. Worst case scenario is brain damage, but at best he is going to be confused, feeling sick, and dehydrated.”
“Right. So we do need you.”
“And we need to hope.”
They fell silent as the sound of a big helicopter engine came closer.
“Why a Sikorsky?” Sam bawled in Rod’s ear as it came in to land.
They picked up their stuff, ran across the helipad and leapt aboard. A big man in a jumpsuit pushed them into a pair of seats and handed them headsets.
“Welcome aboard Rescue One,” he said.
“Thanks,” Rod grunted. “My friend here wondered why a Sky Crane?”
“Easy. These bastards fly in and out of the target area all the time. Nobody will think twice about another. Has anybody thought about what sort of condition the kid will be in when we get him out?”
“Yes,” Sam said tersely. “I’ve given the matter a lot of thought. Is the stuff I asked for on board?”
“Yeah. You know how to use it?”
“I do. But let’s hope I don’t have to.”
“What don’t you want to have to use?”
“Mostly: tracheotomy kit. I’ve had to do it in Thailand to kids that were sedated for too long on the underground sex trade routes. It ain’t pleasant, but it can be the only way to get air into the poor little sods’ lungs.”
“Fuck. Will it really be that bad?”
“Probably not, but I wanted to be sure I had all the bases covered. But the poor little bugger is going to be confused and frightened, and that’s why going home in his friend’s motorhome, where he can rest and feel secure will be better for him than a plane flight where he is surrounded by strangers, or the noise and smells of a chopper.”
“Yeah. I get that. And we can take it in turns to drive. So we’ll get him back to his mum pretty soon. Now I find I’m feeling murderous. Nobody should get between me and anyone I’m beating up.”
The man in the jumpsuit grinned.
“Fine. We’re all fathers here, and nobody is feeling particularly gentlemanly right now. About half an hour till we collect Geordie’s boomer boys. Then an hour from there to this fucking castle. Any orders?”
“Apart from getting my nephew out and demonstrating the family’s annoyance? No. Just do what needs doing.”
“Will do. By the way. This one’s a freebie. Geordie is providing the hardware and the fuel, we’re giving our time. Nobody liked having the Russian Mafia on our turf. But as long as they kept their noses clean we could tolerate them. Taking people’s kids is a big no-no, so we are handing down a lesson.”
“How many are we?” Sam asked.
“You two. Geordie’s boomer boys. Twelve fighters. Pilot, co-pilot and radio guy. Why?”
“Because I have a bad feeling about what they might do to the kid when we tip up. I want to get to him fast.”
“Good thinking. Six of us will escort you right to him. We have his location on screen.”
“Right. Good.”
The two men bumped fists.
They seemed to have covered all the bases, and the men sat in silence until the helicopter dropped down to land briefly. Three men jumped in carrying obviously heavy bags. Once they were seated the chopper took off and headed north. The men put on their headphones and their leader gave Rod a grim wink.
“Got enough stuff to flatten this fecking castle. Geordie says you have to agree, though.”
“Oh yeah. Let’s show them our fist! But we have to get little Bill out first. And if they’ve hurt him…”
The smallest of the boomer boys spat eloquently.
“Aye. There’s examples to be made.”

From The Cracksman Code by Jane Jago

Pearls of wisdom from an octogenarian who’s seen it all…

Eggy Drinks

Somewhere in the deep and distant past (during the time I was too busy raising a hopeful brood of contumacious little buggers to take notice of fashion) somebody sneaked something eggy onto the shelf behind the bar. Having made this dreadful mistake they looked at it for a decade before deciding that mixing it with lemonade and shoving a cocktail cherry in it made it a palatable drink. They then persuaded a whole generation of non-drinking aunties and cousins it was both ladylike and delicious.

It’s not. It has the texture of snot and the smell of egg.

Don’t …

Julia Lucia Maxilla stood up to her full four feet and eleven inches and stared at her co-investigator. She saw a tall, handsome man with black hair, pale skin and a square jawline. He glared down at her, and she was surprised by the blueness of his eyes. Her dogs came to lean against her, and this would have alerted her to the idea the man wasn’t precisely pleased to see her if her own intuition hadn’t already made that clear.
“Llewellyn, is it?” She kept her voice cool.
Behind him she could see another man trying to blend into the wall.
“Yes, domina.”
“If we are going to work together, I think we can dispense with such formality. The name is Julia.”
“Julia,” he hesitated fractionally, “I’m Dai Llewellyn. This is Decanus Bryn Cartivel, and is it permitted to ask what those dogs are?”
Julia decided to let the hesitation pass. She summoned a smile. “Canis and Lupo are wolfhounds,” she turned and indicated the huge Saxon who stood at her shoulder. “The dogs and Edbert guard me. In case you missed it, I’m not very big so if I need to intimidate somebody they help with that too.”
For a moment the Briton actually grinned, then he must have remembered whatever grievance was wearing at him and he started looking sulky again. Julia sighed inwardly. He was going to be difficult and that was a shame because he was really, really pretty. Before she got chance to snap his handsome nose off for him, he surprised her by holding out a hand to Edbert.
“Greetings.”
Edbert actually grasped his wrist and the two tall men stood eye to eye for a moment.
“You play nicely with my lady. I don’t want to have to hurt you.”
Her bodyguard spoke rarely and when he did his uncomfortably deep voice always reminded Julia of a thunderstorm in some far valley. She winced inwardly, rather wishing he hadn’t chosen to speak now and was surprised to hear a thread of amusement in the Briton’s response.
“You can be sure I’ll bear that in mind.”
“If you two have finished bonding, I have a visit to make.” Julia turned a carefully blank face to Dai. Dai. “You had better come with me. Edbert and your decanus can take a break.”
He frowned. “Does it pertain to the investigation?”
“No. And yes. It’s a duty visit to the Tribune. The Prefect is just a time server and she’s a complete waste of time as far as I can see. The Tribune is a different matter. Aside from policy, he and I have known each other since we were children.”
“Since you were children?” Llewellyn frowned. “But wasn’t the Tribune born in the Suburra? And raised in the insulae at the foot of the Capitoline Hills before he was adopted by a patrician?”
“He was. And so was I. Any questions?”
Dai shut his mouth with a snap. Julia could all but hear him thinking, and she took pity on him. It would make little sense to a Briton, who was no doubt raised on TV crime dramas which featured the poverty and criminality of the poorest slum area in Rome, that someone from that place could be in any position of influence or power.
“My father was a soldier, but my mother was a lupa, I think you use the term ‘whore’. My father was killed when he was twenty, in a border skirmish with the Mongol Empire, my mother died soon after of an occupational disease – she succumbed to morbus insu, an STD. I was raised by my father’s family who took me in because I was his only child and I think they wanted something to remember him by.”
“Oh. But how did -?”
“How did I get to be an inquisitor? A long story. And mostly painful, so can we leave it?”
She essayed a smile and her new colleague managed a half grin in response. Julia looked at him more closely.
“Your tunic,” she said severely, “is pretty grubby. That fish sauce must be days old. Do you have another?”
He nodded, wearing the expression of a schoolboy caught cheating in a class test.
“Good. Decimus is a fussy blighter. We’ll swing past yours on the way.”

From Dying to be Roman the first Dai and Julia Mystery from Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook.

In the quiet after what had felt like a maelstrom of need, she lay quiescent on his broad chest listening to the pulses of the earth as they echoed in the bigness of his bones.

Neither spoke, although his hand stroked the skin of her back and she kept her lips pressed to the skin of his throat.

In the silent recesses of her mind she knew she had just given away the only bargaining coin a woman ever has, but she couldn’t bring herself to care.

When he finally broke the silence, his voice sounded uncertain. 

“Marry me Meg?”

©️jj 2020

Jaelya Roussal, Regent of Harkera, woke up to almost total blackness and silence, her heart hammering hard and a shimmer of perspiration coating her body beneath the light coverlet. She woke as one awakes from a bad dream, with the vague and yet urgent sense of danger that the rational mind, still blurred from sleep, takes time to dispel. There was no possible danger, she told herself, two men stood guard outside her door and the grounds of the Summer Palace were well patrolled by night and day. No one would harm her in her own bed-chamber.
During the civil war she had woken like this many times and occasionally with good cause, when there were sounds of fighting brought to her on the night air. But the fighting was over, Mandervik himself was dead and the war, which had only finished in the spring, seemed now to belong to another lifetime and a different Jaelya.
Waking to the dark left her with a feeling of unreality – as if the universe itself had disappeared and she was all that existed, alone, floating on an island suspended in a void. Then beyond the invisible door to the solar, she heard the sound of booted feet and a muted exchange of words as the guard was challenged formally. The footsteps receded, leaving the stillness of the night to descend again like an unbroken veil.
She was fully awake now and she cast her mind back, wondering what had disturbed her sleep. It had not been a dream – more a jolt of surprise, of the kind that set the pulse racing.
Then she knew.
Alize had been there. She did not question how,with the door bolted and guarded and the windows shuttered against the night air. She just knew that Alize had been in the room and touched her as she slept and had spoken the words which had woken her:
“My poor child – you thought the war was over, but it has only just now begun.”
“Alize?” she spoke the name hesitantly and in little more than a whisper. But there was no reply and the room was empty. Alize had somehow come and was now gone, leaving no trace of her presence.
Sighing, Jaelya turned on to her side and drew her knees up close to her body, hugging the coverlet around her as she had done when a child. She refused to dwell on the words or their meaning or even why tonight, of all possible times, Alize should come to her after so many years of silence. Such thoughts were best left for the clear light of day when the ghosts of the past walked more warily and her mind could be better focused on the demands of the present.
But, like a shy creature of the wild, sleep eluded her. Her thoughts drifted, against her will, until those time worn ghosts that hovered about her, led her gently along the paths of unwilling memory to the beginning of everything.
It was, of course, Alize who had been there then.
Her first awareness of life had been of holding Alize’s hand on that day – as if she had been flung into the world fully-formed at the age of three. Even now she could still see clearly the high beamed roof, with its painted and vaulted ceiling, arching over the huge black and white slabs of stone which paved the floor. She had stood in the doorway, as if looking into the universe from outside, one hand holding onto a small bundle of clothes and the other gripping Alize’s hand tightly – as if her life depended upon it.
She conjured the scene easily, untarnished by the passage of years. The long table, taller than herself then, the chairs which had seemed made for giants, the fireplace which looked large enough to roast a good-sized ox and the faint, musty, smell of cold ashes and old books. Seated at the table, a heavy bound book open before him and a remote screen set up to one side, sat a boy with a mop of curly hair who had looked up as they entered. To the Jaelya in the memory, he had seemed so grown up himself – but he cannot have been much more than five summers her senior.
Feeling confused, she had looked up at the figure of Alize towering beside her and the face that had looked down at her contained blue eyes that seemed to embrace the world and all the stars beyond. Jaelya had felt as though she might be swallowed up in their depths, but somehow the thought made her feel safe rather than frightened. Then Alize’s gaze had moved from herself to the boy, who had got to his feet and was standing quietly behind the table, his square face framed by unruly golden curls.
“Child, this is your sister. Her name is Jaelya and I want you to take care of her.”
The boy had been staring at her with open curiosity as if wondering what manner of creature she might be, but at Alize’s words a miracle happened and his face broke into the most gentle and wonderful smile.
“My sister,” he had breathed the words as a triumphal declaration rather than as any kind of question and then the boy had come across to her, his hands held out in welcome, his honey-coloured eyes lit up by the brilliant smile that was for her alone. “Hello Jae. I am your brother and I’m always going to keep you safe.”
And in that moment Jaelya had loved him with a fierce devotion, a devotion which all the years between and all the tests and burdens of those years had done nothing to diminish. So why was it, as she lay now in the dreamless darkness, that the thought of his returning to Harkera filled her heart with nothing but apprehension?

From Transgressor Trilogy: Times of Change by E.M. Swift-Hook, a Fortune’s Fools book.