They were Hollywood’s golden couple,  but celluloid affection rarely translates smoothly to real life. It was another celebrity party and both had drunk enough to make a savage fight unavoidable.

Her voice was lightly vicious. “He’s as anonymous as a Souza march, everyone has heard him – they just can’t remember where.”

“And you, my love, are like the common cold. Everyone has had you.”

She leapt on him with bared teeth. As they hit the floor the gunshot was shockingly loud.

He cradled her briefly to his breast before putting that pistol into his own mouth and pulling the trigger.

©jane jago

Maybe by Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook . Sometimes we walk the edges of realty…

CHAPTER ONE: JESSICA

           “Well, you know what they say, don’t you pet? What don’t kill you, will make you stronger.”
            Jessica felt her teeth dig into her tongue with the effort of not snapping back. It was one of those glib sayings people trotted out every time they realised there was harm done they couldn’t heal. She wanted to snarl that what didn’t kill you could just as easily leave you broken and bloody, weakened and vulnerable and much less strong than you were before. It could also leave you changed as well as damaged, struggling to know who this stranger was that you had become – the one who jumped at shadows and whose heart started racing when a car engine started up. 
            It was not a good look for a woman who had once been decorated for valour.
            She forced a smile and did not cringe at the hand pat that went with the words of wisdom, delivered from the place of someone whose worst nightmares were about being caught on Scarborough seafront without her make-up on.
            “Your aunt means well, Jess.”
            The voice came from the door of the lounge, which was being pushed open. There was a smell of fresh coffee as Uncle David carried in a tray with a samovar and tiny cups.
            “Oh don’t be so daft, Dave. She knows I mean well, don’t you pet?”
            Jessica nodded and managed a half-smile, then busied herself moving the newspaper, and a couple of magazines about horoscopes and tarot cards, from the table in front of the paisley-patterned settee. Her uncle set the tray down with care then served the coffee as he always did – strong, black and sweet.
            His eyes were not patronising when he looked at her. But then he had fought at Goose Green and brought home his own ghosts to roost in the rafters of the perfect life his wife devised for them both. No children of their own, but then they had Jess.
            “So are you off to Whitby again to see that young man?” Aunt Susan peered over both the top of her cup and her bifocals.
            For a moment, just hearing someone naming the place sent a shiver through Jessica’s spine, and her imagination bridged the miles to place her on top of the cliffs, screaming gulls wheeling overhead, the wind that never slept and Roald, the image of a modern-day viking, hair blowing over his face, shoulders half-hunched in a fleece, face animated, telling her the history of the ruined abbey as if he had been there at the time.

            “It was all started by a woman – Hild. She was an amazing woman and not one you would want to cross. A princess of sorts. And for all she was an abbess eventually, she didn’t decide to become a nun until she was  in her thirties and she’d done one heck of a lot of living by then.” He paused and made a really broad gesture with one arm as if including the ruins and all the headland where they stood. “She loved this place. Would stand up on the cliffs, by the beacon that was here then and look out over the sea, and unbraid her hair so the wind could play with it. And, you know, when she established that first abbey it was nothing like you would think of a monastery today. It was more like a community – both men and women.”
            It was easy to picture Hilda in her Saxon dress, facing out over the waves. Jessica thought of that actress she’d seen playing Rowena in ‘Ivanhoe’.
            “No,” Roald sounded almost angry, “Hild was of Anglic blood – not Saxon. The ones Pope Gregory famously spoke about when he saw some being sold as slaves: ‘Non Angli, sed angeli’.
            Jessica looked at him her mouth very slightly agape. He did that a lot. It was very unsettling.
            “Non angerlee – what?”
            Roald grinned and gave an exaggerated mock wince, as if her pronunciation caused him pain.
            “Non Angli, sed angeli – ‘These are not Angles, they are angels.’ “

Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook

Part 2 of Maybe will be here next week…

They were the giants, whose shoulders lift us high,
And we, the living, cast our patronising smiles
In weighing deeds of those whose grandeur we decry.
We judge them from the giddy heights of gifted breath,
Belittling those whose words have filled our breast-milk tomes,
So forgetting soon shall we join them in death
And then will others come and rifle through our bones,
To pick the choicest flesh from them – and discard the rest.
Then laugh at all our fears and our misapprehended woes
Themselves to glorify, to think the wisest and the best.

E.M. Swift-Hook

From the eighth Fortune’s Fools book Iconoclast: Not To Be by E.M Swift-Hook which is now available for pre-order.

The following day Avilon had deposited her travel bag at the spaceport and reached her chosen observation point in good time. A bench under a tree. She had identified it as giving her a clear view of three of the entrances to the mausoleum. Like most across Coalition space, it was set in a small park. Many mausoleums were polyhedral with the octagonal format being most favoured.  This one was smoothly round beneath its dome, three stories high, with curved alcoves pushing the building’s walls out in bulges, so it looked a little like a sophisticated dessert, upturned on a serving dish.
Considering the venue, she had dressed appropriately and wore a traditional mourning veil over her face. Just as most of the women and many of the men present were doing as a mark of respect or simply to hide the signs of their grief. Except this veil was not as traditional as it appeared. Aside obscuring her features and making her hard to recognise, the fabric was designed to disrupt facial recognition in a way no amount of current technology could correct.
The weather was overcast, which seemed to fit well with the mood of the place. Two funerals arrived as she waited, the people filing in solemn procession through one of the entrances, the coffins bourne on silent gurneys, flanked by smartly clad relatives and followed by friends. Once inside they would be shown into one of the side-chambers of the mausoleum, where they would sit and listen to speeches in praise and remembrance of the one who had died.
After the second of the funerals had gone inside, Avilon checked the time and took the security cameras offline, before walking slowly to join a third funeral procession making its way into the mausoleum. There was nothing preventing her simply walking in to honour the dead, but as part of a larger group she drew less attention from the staff and it was not difficult to detach herself unobserved once inside. She had spotted Car Torbalen walking in the middle of the second procession, a veil over his head and his demeanour as grave as the rest of the mourners, only recognisable by his bulk and the way he moved. She wondered if he was indeed there to attend that funeral. It would have provided a solid pretext to satisfy the Legacy whilst removing him from under their scrutiny. It was a good idea to keep in mind that he was a very clever man.
Even though it was dull outside, the dimly lit interior of the mausoleum seemed dark. Avilon had to allow a few moments for her eyes to adjust as she looked around. The funeral procession she had followed was still slowly filing into a side-chamber, guided by silent ushers. There were also a handful of people in the main body of the building, come to visit their dead. Avilon looked up to where the domed roof was set with thousands of shining points of light. Most were white but there were reds and blues and greens there too, illuminated from around the dome. Each point of light, a gemstone formed from the remains of someone who had died many years before. The gems of the more recently deceased were set in special cabinets where relatives could visit them and place flowers or leave other tokens. These cabinets were in the alcoves, tiered around the walls, accessible by open walkways on each floor so the echoing silence and beauty of the dome was omnipresent.
Torbalen was visible on the top walkway, leaning on the rail and looking up at the dome. He had removed the veil and seemed oblivious to her presence or that of anyone else, lost in thoughts of infinity and mortality, perhaps. It was hard to tell as the lighting was too poor, but it was very clear he was alone.
This was not a place to rush or be seen to move fast, so Avilon walked as quickly as she could without breaking convention and drawing attention to herself. Appearing to be a not-so-recently bereaved relative, moving with purpose to visit her dead. Once she was on the highest gallery she lifted her own veil. Torbalen must have heard her approach as she made no attempt to move silently but he remained, arms folded on the rail, contemplating the starry vault of the mausoleum dome. It was only when she was a couple of paces away, he turned, briefly, met her gaze and stepped into the alcove behind them. Avilon followed.
“My parents are here,” he said, not turning to face her. He opened one of the cabinets to reveal two crystals resting in a soft cloth bed, nestled side by side in the gentle glow of the cabinet’s lighting. “It won’t be long before they are set in the dome – five years I’ve been told. They need the space for the more recently deceased.”
Avilon wondered what to say. Her own parents, dead in an accident that she had long since doubted really was one, would be somewhere in a Central mausoleum. She had never been to visit them and was not sure she would want to even if it were ever possible. She was no longer the child they had raised or the person they had known, in more ways than the merely physical.
“This is your homeworld?” she asked after the silence stretched too long.
“It was. Once. I don’t think any of us really have a home as such now, do we? And yes, I am here for the funeral of a relative. My brother.” He lifted a hand as Avilon drew breath to speak. “No need for condolences and you are not intruding on private grief with this meeting. We were never exactly close. In fact, I can’t recall the last time we had a civil word for each other – and that includes our shared childhood. But it was still expected for me to be here, of course.”
“Thank you for agreeing to meet me.”
Torbalen half-turned to sweep his hand over the cabinet, closing it again, leaving them in the dark of the alcove.
“You didn’t give me much choice. I need the information you have.”

E.M Swift-Hook

You can snag your copy of  Iconoclast: Not To Be on preorder now!

Brave is not the painted face of a brazen warrior tall
It’s more the paint that hides the tears of women feeling small
Courage isn’t facing foes with muscles rippling taut
It’s more about the difficult things you do because you ought 
Brave is not the proud explorer nor the mighty mountaineer 
It’s someone unsung doing that hard thing because it’s here
Quiet courage, faces misery deep and looks into its eyes 
Defeats her fears for years and years. Although inside she cries

©️Jane Jago 2019

The pursuit had been going on for hours now, and Sharky was about beat. His body felt leaden and with every beat of his tail he knew himself to be getting weaker and weaker.
Something inside him refused to just give in, though, so he turned to face the behemoth. He kept his eyes open and his gaze stony as the monster came ever closer.
He might not be much of a shark but he determined to die with at least the semblance of bravery.
The monster stopped within a millimetre of his face.
“Tag,” it said, “you’re it now.”

©jane jago

New Year, new you!

I have very little doubt that at some time in the waning hours of the last decade ninety per cent of you will have been tempted into making at least one resolution for the improvement of yourselves or the planet you are lucky enough to inhabit.

There will have been earnest declarations of an absolute determination to live a greener more environmentally aware life, drunken avowals to the cause of losing weight, giving up smoking, and getting fit, and, we mustn’t forget those for whom 2020 was to be the year of the birth of the seminal twenty-first century novel.

But two weeks in how have you fared? 

All you little extinction rebels. Did you remember your designer shopping bags when you went to Waitrose? Have you traded in the Range Rover for a Leaf? And did you really manage to talk yourself out of booking that holiday to the Maldives? 

I thought not.

And who has stopped smoking? Lost an ounce? Actually used that gym membership? 

I see one hand raised in a sea of shame.

What about all the wannabe Shakespeares out there. You bought the laptop and Stephen King On Writing. Spent a lot.

Written a lot? No. But I bet you’ve played every game you own and watched a lot of catch-up TV.

Now you have soberly faced up to the undeniable fact that you are the same you as you were before January arrived it’s time to listen to granny.

Don’t be making promises you can’t keep. Better to say to quietly yourself that you’ll try to do a few things a bit different than trumpet your intentions where you will be exposed to cruel ridicule for not lasting beyond January 3rd.

Granny’s first rule for surviving the year. Keep your head down, your mouth shut, your legs crossed and your phone in your pocket. 

And this time next year I hope you will have remembered that New Year’s Eve is really not the time to make any decision except maybe to just have another drink…

I’ve been cleaning hotels since I was fifteen years old – and now I’m forty and as plain as a pikestaff I’m still at it. I’m a good cleaner, though, so I’ve moved up the scale from backstreet boarding houses and these days I wear a nifty little uniform and clear up after the guests in the five-star Venezia Palace that looms over the resort like a fancy wedding cake. 
That Friday evening I had been called to the penthouse level to deal with a ‘little mishap’ in one of the bathrooms. I had just finished, when a wispy little lady drifted into the room. She blushed as if embarrassed to see me, so I bobbed a half curtesy and she smiled vaguely.
“Umm, miss. While you are here there’s a bit of a spillage out on the balcony.”
“Yes ma’am.”
I picked up my emergency kit and followed, admiring her silk lounging pyjamas but feeling a bit sorry for her obvious shyness and awkwardness.
“The maid was still here, Arlo, so I asked her to come and mop up here.”
‘Arlo’ was a handsome devil, but with one of them closed faces that makes me think that the wearer harbours bad secrets. He briefly lifted his head and his eyes slid across me without even really registering me as a human being. But I was so used to that sort of reaction that I wasn’t  even insulted any more. I just got on with my cleaning. 
I was almost finished when I heard a strange noise. It was like wings. Only not bird wings. It sounded leathery and slapping. I looked up to see another man standing on the breast-high balustrade. He was pale-skinned and bare-chested and he had black leather wings. They were folded now, but I knew the snapping sound had been those wings flying him in. 
Unlike Arlo, this man’s cold black eyes didn’t discount my humanity. Instead I could feel his gaze burning against the pulse point in my throat. It felt hungry and made me want to shiver. I made to turn and walk away, but it was as if my feel were nailed to the ground. 
Arlo looked up. “Leave the maid, Luce, she’s only here to clear up after Clumsy Clara here, who can’t hold her drink.”
‘Luce’ jumped lightly down onto the floor and was at the woman’s side in two strides. He pulled aside the woman’s silken collar exposing twin puncture marks in the papery whiteness of her skin. He showed his teeth.
“Arlo. Were you not told?”
“Since when have the likes of us done anything we were told?”
Moving too fast for the eye to register Luce was beside Arlo and he one hand around the other man’s throat. 
Clara made a small sound in the back of her throat before slipping to the ground in a dead faint. As she hit the ground the compulsion to remain in place left me and I went to her side.
As I knelt down, her eyes fluttered open.
“Get away,” she whispered. “While they are occupied with each other. Run away.”
I eased an arm under her shoulders and helped her to sit up. As I did so a she gave a harsh little cry, and I realised Arlo was moving. He walked like a clockwork soldier, or one of the automatons that go in and out of the clock in the hotel ballroom, and when he got to the balustrade he climbed over. For a second, he seemed to stand on thin air before plunging downwards. 
We were eighty-nine floors up and my stomach revolted at the idea of his body being splattered across the pristine stones of the foyer below us.
Only he wasn’t. A moment later he reappeared grinning savagely. His wings were feathered, but as black as Luce’s leather. 
The two men grappled with each other, standing on insubstantial air as they fought. The woman on the floor hid her face in my shoulder for a moment before struggling to her feet.
“Can I help you ma’am?” I asked quietly.
“I should refuse you. But I cannot.”
She took my hand and I walked beside her to where the two winged ones fought.
“Blood for blood,” she said and the men looked hungrily at me.
Then Clara let go of my hand and I fell. 
My last living thought was that the cleaning crew would never get my blood out of the marble floor below.

©️jj 2019

The life of an elderly delinquent in limericks – with free optional snark…

It’s amazing how tarmac and gravel
Can fuck up your holiday travel
On a motorway an
Overturned caravan
Will cause all of your plans to unravel

© jane jago

She trod up the aisle, to where the chosen husband awaited her.

He was blocky and brilliantined, with a whitish, bristling moustache, above pursed pink lips.

As she promised to obey, he smiled coldly, although walking down the aisle he patted her hand.

“As long as you obey orders,” he whispered, “you have nothing to fear.”

The wedding breakfast was interminable, but night still came too soon. The groom entered the bedchamber.

“Obedience,” he snapped, shutting the door behind him with a click.

Morning found a figure huddled in the corner of the bedroom. 

He never challenged his wife again….

©jane jago