From Iconoclast: Mistrust and Treason by E.M. Swift-Hook. You can listen to this on YouTube too.

The woman on the chair beside him looked the lean, mean and hungry kind – the only doubt being exactly where that hunger was focused. She was presently focused on whatever personal screens held her attention, but he had a strong feeling they were not going to be ones about her favourite esport celebrities.
Whatever it was she was looking at must have been pretty attention-grabbing though, as her top teeth were visible, pressing hard into her bottom lip as she concentrated. Then she moved her arm and he saw the slight bulk of a wrist slot analysis device, no doubt the source of her screens. It also answered all his questions: she was on a power climb – a woman literally wired to her work. Which made her exactly the kind of person he would choose to swim a shark-filled river in full spate to avoid.
The other four people in the room could have had ‘Specialist Data Nerd’ stamped on their faces and it would not have made that fact any more obvious than it already was. These were the elite of the Coalition Security Force – masters of the virtual universe – no doubt self-labelling as crime-fighting heroes to a man and woman. But then they knew they were the most effective fighters of crime in the service, with clear-up rates that made the rest of the CSF look like slouches and shirkers. Armed with their forensic accounting suites, specialist link-predictive policing packages, and anti-hacking inoculation protocols, they could identify, isolate and neutralise almost any link-based fraudster or financial criminal. Usually, they had their perpetrator fingered within moments of the crime, sometimes even before the crime was committed, but if not they could always fearlessly hunt the evildoers down in the information jungles of the Coalition link networks, then analyse them into submission.
Very. Scary. People.
Not.
In his experience, they were never happy when asked to dirty their hands to provide reports on the sort of research their more reality-oriented colleagues might require: things about the messy side of life with real blood, real violence, real emotions. It was only when someone very senior was holding a briefing these people were ever in evidence. Had Jecks not been running this, there would have been a single junior techie, remote linking poor quality information packages someone had knocked together on their lunch break. But with the head of the CSF involved, every department manager had made it a point to turn up in person just to be seen.
Even so, they were all looking put upon and focused more on their own screens than on what was happening in the room, glancing up now and then as if worried they might have missed the start of the briefing, then ploughing their attention back into their virtual worlds. Clearly, as far as they were concerned, there were much better uses for their valuable time. And they were probably right. No doubt they should be off tagging some new virus or breaching a criminal firewall in the depths of the underlink networks. But, instead, because this was Jecks’ personal show, they were having to be here in the flesh, parading themselves so they could give whatever briefing this was some skeleton of fact. Presumably, Jecks himself was bringing the flesh to hang on it, but if so the only people here to be briefed so far were himself and…
He looked at the woman sitting beside him again, a mix of dread and certainty spawning in his guts. He closed his eyes for a moment, consciously banishing the notion as far from his thoughts as he could send it, then opened them again to find it had not gone away, any more than she had. He had been wrong about such things before. He would have to hope he was wrong this time too.

E.M. Swift-Hook

The wallet was fat, with notes and plastic cards. Frankie picked it up and opened it riffling through the money with a grimy thumb.

“That’d buy us plenty.”

“And it’d also get us in plenty of trouble.”

“Trouble?”

“Yeah. Frankie, you are a numpty. Did you never see who dropped it?”

“Nah. Why’d I care who drops it?”

“Because it was MadDog Newton.”

Frankie dropped the wallet like it bit him.

Minnie picked it up and sprinted after MadDog’s shiny head.

She came back grinning, with a fifty in one hand.

“C’mon Frankie. Mister Newton is gonna buy us breakfast.”

©️jj 2019

A Rose By Any Other Name by Joanne Van Leerdam is a tangled-up tale that Shakespeare and the Brothers Grimm never told.

Gnarled fingers gripped the doorframe tightly as she watched him riding slowly, as though searching for something.
What does his lordship want now? By the stars, I have precious little left.  Is it not enough that he has built his mansion on my father’s land? And his walls around the trees between which my poor mother is buried? I’ll give him something… although it may not be what he wants.
She grinned cynically, a glimpse of yellowed teeth between thin, hateful lips.
Wait. He’s dismounting… Fool. There are no raspberries yet; it’s still too warm. What kind of moron… picks raspberry leaves? Oh, now… that is interesting. Very interesting.
Straightening her thin body to her full height, she stepped out into the field, heading straight for the thicket of barren raspberry bushes.
“And what are you going to do with those?” she demanded.
Nico jumped at the sudden intrusion. His thoughts scattered at the sight of Malevolenza.
Wizened and ghastly, she had become even thinner and more gaunt since he had last laid eyes on her over twenty years ago. She had watched in angry silence as the walls of the estate were built by his father’s workmen. Her wailing curses had risen like a fortress of sound outside the completed estate walls continuing for what had seemed an eternity on the night they were finished and the gates locked – the night his father had died. Whether it was fear or black magic that had driven the soul from his body, Nicolas would never know. When his father was cold, his grey eyes staring sightlessly at the ceiling as though he had been interrupted mid-thought, the old crone had fallen silent and disappeared. Or so he had thought.
“Well? Cat got your tongue? Or are you… bewitched?” she cackled.
Nico opened his mouth, but he could not speak.
“Raspberry leaves… what on earth would a man want those for? Unless… there is a child on the way?”
The fear in Nicolas’ eyes was like a drug to her.
Malevolenza pointed her bony finger at him, her dirty, ragged nail giving emphasis to her intent. She muttered the words of her spell under her breath: “Doppio, doppio, lavoro e disordine, Ora sono io il tuo maestro!”
Nico remained mute, entirely under her control.
“You will take these leaves to your wife. Grind them into a powder, and make a tea. She will drink it, and her pains will begin. And then, when the child is born, you shall give the baby to me. You will tell your wife the child is dead. Go now. It shall be done.”
Nico’s senses returned to him only when she had disappeared. Shaking his head, and unable to recall what had crossed his mind just now, he resumed picking the leaves and placing them carefully in the pouch he had brought for his special harvest.
As he returned home late that afternoon, the sun dropped low in the sky and a distinct chill fell over the air.

For the author’s perspective on writing this book, visit the blog post ‘My Least Favourite Shakespeare Play’ at https://wordynerdbird.com/2019/06/06/my-least-favourite-shakespeare-play/

A Bite of .... Joanne Van Leerdam 

Question One: Chocolate cake or coffee cake?

Chocolate cake, all the way. It’s rich and delicious and decadent… and you can still have coffee with it. They make a perfect pair.
While I love coffee, I don’t actually like coffee-flavoured foods much. 

Question Two: Would you rather be James Bond or Batman?

Batman. They both drive cool cars, but James Bond doesn’t have a cape.

Question Three: Have you ever written somebody you dislike into a book, just so you could make them suffer?

Oh yes! My poems in ‘A Poet’s Curse’ and the stories in ‘Curious Things’ and ‘Curious Times’ are exactly that. Horror is so… therapeutic!

Joanne Van Leerdam is a poet, blogger, writer, thinker, puzzler, teacher, traveller, photographer and generally nice person. Despite having lived all her life in Australia, she has, thus far, avoided being killed or consumed by any of the rampant and varied deadly wildlife, which is probably a good thing.
Other than Australia, Canada is her favourite place in the world.
In addition to writing powerful, thought-provoking poetry and short-but-incredibly horrifying stories, she has recently turned her hand to writing medieval fantasy infused with dark humour. Because she’s not yet a world famous author, she is still required to keep a day job. Joanne spends her daytime hours keeping teens enthralled in her senior high school English, History and Drama/Performance classes.
Joanne is an active member and performer in her local theatre company, where she has just completed a successful season in Monty Python’s Spamalot! and has directed high school musicals for more years than she cares to count.
Joanne is the mother of two delightful furchildren and the guardian of a growing collection of Charlie Bears.
In her spare time, she doesn’t mind the occasional sleep.

You can find her on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Goodreads and her own Website and personal blog, creative writing blog and review blog.

She should be over it by now. It had been an accident. But still. Whenever she shut her eyes all she could see was the lorry bearing down on her.

The sound of footsteps brought her back to today, and she had to smile as her small son toddled in clutching a mismatched bundle of bright poppies in one chubby fist.

“Look, Mum. Flowers,” he announced before dropping them in her lap and ambling off.

There was a piece of crumpled paper among the stems. She smoothed it reflexively

‘Poppies. To bring peace.’

That was the first time she cried…

©️jj 2019

Dying to be Roman by Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook is a whodunit set in a modern day Britain where the Roman Empire still rules. You can listen to this on YouTube too. And if you missed out, you can start from the beginning here.

“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.

Action replay.
Same arena.
Twenty four hours later.
This time, though, there were two bodies.
One was another British contestant, Tam Docca ‘Fly Boy’, from the Valentia Game team, but it was the second corpse lying as if awaiting funeral rites that had Dai’s fullest attention. Quintillas Publius Luca – son of a Roman Senator and a proper one at that, from proper Rome – not one of those who sat in Augusta Treverorum, giving themselves airs.
Trev, as Dai and most Britons thought of it, was the capital of Prefecture Galliae, home to the man who ruled Britannia and much of the Northern and Western parts of the continent as well. It was one of the four original Prefectures, each governed by its own Caesar, established by the Divine Diocletian under his sole rule as God-Emperor of a new Roman Empire.
According to the information Dai was getting, Luca was not supposed to even be in the province. There were media images which showed him in some small provincial town, identified as Lutetia in Gallia Lugdunensis, sipping cocktails on a terrace overlooking a river, with his gorgeous patrician bride of a year, one Marcella Tullia Junius. The same article claimed Luca was away from Rome on a long-term project to regenerate and oversee the family’s estates in Gallia.
“You would think,” Bryn observed dryly, “that after last night they would have kept a watch. Security cameras all down still and I bet no one saw a thing, just like before. That’ll put a sour look on the face of that jobsworth Flavia.”
Dai shot his decanus a look.
“Shut up, Bryn, you spado. I’m thinking.”
The decanus chuckled.
“It ain’t often I can get the Bard to swear,” he remarked happily. “Let’s see if I can shake a few more curses out of those pure Celtic lips. You know they’ll sic a Roman on us? This is too big for us local yokels.”
“Yeah. Just as long as it isn’t Titillicus…”
“Oh, course you won’t have heard. Titillicus is no longer a factor. He got in a ruck with the Tribune, who sent him home to his mammy.”
“In disgrace?”
“Nah. In a body bag. Seems he pulled a knife.”
“Moron. But what was the row about?”
“As if you couldn’t guess.”
“He didn’t?”
“Yep. The Tribune’s wife under the very eyes of the family lares.”
Dai grinned viciously. He had never liked working with Titillicus, the kind of Roman who assumed he ruled the Province and owned every provincial he encountered. Surely whoever they sent from Trev HQ would have to be better than that?

Two days later, he found out.
He stood outside the Prefect’s office feeling as if he had been grilled like a flatbread on a griddle. The Prefect seemed to feel it was all Dai’s fault too, on top of which she was seething they had not sent one of her extended family’s clients from Trev. They had sent someone direct from Rome.
“This is a client of the Praetor himself so if you mess this up, Llewellyn, you make one mistake, or upset her at all, you will be stuck in the Pit monitoring security footage until you reach your dotage.”
“Domina.”
The Pit was a room under the main HQ where failed vigiles would be sent to serve out their term going over the endless amount of security footage the AI decided needed a human decision. The chances of making the wrong call were high, and too many of those, would get you a missio ignominiosa – meaning you’d be thrown out of the vigiles with nothing and little chance of getting any decent employment anywhere, ever. The idea of a future life as a nightclub bouncer in one of the shadier suburbs did not fill Dai with a warm fuzzy feeling.
That and the fact this was his turf, his case and he was going to have to solve it somehow, whilst keeping some place-holding sycophantic client of Praetor Marius Aurelius Naribus distracted enough not to get in the way.
In the lift back to the main office he had time to contemplate the implications. Bryn must have seen his mood, because the decanus wisely said nothing when Dai gestured to him to follow. The two of them made their way to the plush reception room where important people from Rome could be properly accommodated and entertained. Dai ignored all protocols and strode in, then stopped so fast Bryn pushed into him and he heard the decanus swear under his breath. But Dai barely noticed because he had just realised that this was going to be worse than he could ever have imagined. This wasn’t a woman, it was a little boy in leather trews and bristling with weapons.

Part III will be here next Sunday. If you can’t wait to find out what happens next you can snag the full novella here.

She had always been the epitome of effortless cool, and neither the strands of white in her hair nor the crows’ feet about her eyes could rob her of one that. She cradled an old guitar.

Simeon’s camera loved her.

“You ever see anybody from the old days?” he asked idly.

“Only my husband.”

The man that came out of the cabin looked as if he wrestled bears, and for a moment Simeon thought he was dead. But then he recognised the nature of this gift.

He took one picture. An image that would catapult him to fame and fortune. 

©️jj 2019

Sitting alone at the bar, remembering when I was fine
I used to be a beauty then, before the claws of time
Sitting with my pal Jim Beam, the memories they linger
Unlike money, cars and men, that slip right through my fingers

Looking back to when my chest was neat and tight and perky
When my skin was more like silk and less like frozen turkey
Looking back to when I had the perfect little ass
Back when I was seventeen, half a century past

Sitting alone at the bar, while the juke box plays old tunes
Songs they sung when I was young, not a wrinkled prune
Sitting with an empty glass, staring at the wall
Remembering when I was young and John Boy he was tall

Looking back to when my chest was neat and tight and perky
When my skin was more like silk and less like frozen turkey
Looking back to when I had the perfect little ass
Back when I was seventeen, half a century past

Sitting alone at the bar with no one to stand me a beer
Where the hell did I go wrong to wind up sitting here
Sitting alone at the bar too drink to get up and go home
Even the dog has buggered off and left me all alone

Looking back to when my life was all in front of me
Back to when I knew I could be what I dreamed I’d be
Looking back to when I had the world beneath my feet
Back when I was seventeen, and life was truly sweet

©jj 2019

A Fortune’s Fools story by E.M. Swift-Hook. You can listen to this on YouTube too.

It always began with an explosion.
Any explosion – any one of the hundred or more he had survived.
The explosion would lock him in, trap him, make him a prisoner of his sleeping mind. In the real world, he was safe in bed with a woman curled close beside him. Vel’s cousin, Lea, her body warm and sated. But it was not enough. The moment sleep claimed him the explosion would still come, shredding his sanity. Then the nightmare would run on, making him relive each episode, as vivid as life. Every thought, sensation, feeling, image, as clear as it had been at the time, pursuing him remorselessly until he could – somehow – scramble back to consciousness from the relentless abuse of sleep….

An explosion crumpling the building to his right as if it were paper.
Three more blasts in quick succession, the last close enough to spew out a lethal hail of masonry. The kinetic shielding on his armaments belt protected him so the rubble bounced away, but the screaming beside him was cut off abruptly. What had been two human beings a moment before, was now a pulped mess.
A shattering silence followed. He could see troops advancing – eight  – and five more still in cover behind them according to the Lattice screen. With three bursts he  dropped two of the nearest, the rest scattered for cover.
“Leader Four-Delta from Prime. Withdraw immediately.”
The voice in his ears at last.
“Acknowledged.”
Relaying the order to his three surviving team members, Jaz put down covering fire as they retreated. The Lattice was pounding him with information through his scalp implanted data-port, faster than he could absorb it:  numbers and location of the enemy, their armaments, expected movements, ground plans, suggested paths he could take. More.

Then:
“Leader Four-Delta from Prime.  Lattice is showing you are surrounded. We are unable to support. Repeat. Unable to support.” A pause, before the voice added: “You’re on your own out there, Jaz.”
Bastards.
“Acknowledged.”
Snarling the word, he focused on keeping up covering fire. He knew they were surrounded. He could see what was going on.  The handful of Special Legion troops he had been given for this job were being sacrificed – a feint – so the rest of his unit could hit the main enemy base largely unopposed. Except of course no one had told him that. It crossed his mind to wonder who he had pissed off enough so they chose him for this suicide run. If – when – he got out of this he would find out and make them pay. Then the thought occurred that it was probably nothing personal at all. When you were living out a death sentence, you shouldn’t be too surprised to be treated as completely expendable.
A sudden blossom of light caught one of the three whose retreat Jaz was covering. It impacted in the centre of the spine and the figure’s arms went wide, briefly embracing air that was suddenly red with a haze of  vaporised blood, flesh and entrails. Jaz swore and pulled a grenade loose from his belt, sending it in a skilful parabola back towards the enemy to cover his own retreat.
Another of his surviving team went down to a sniper shot,  but the third was trying to offer what covering fire she could from behind a partially demolished building and was being pretty effective. He ran, rolled, then vaulted the lowest part of the wall, crouching beside her, checking Lattice screens, looking for any way out for them.
More blasts exploded on either side and the world disintegrated. Finding himself suddenly under a pile of tumbling masonry, Jaz shook free of it like a wet dog shedding water.  But beside him one arm was all that was visible from beneath the rubble – that and the blood.

He started running again.
Watching the environment.
Watching the screens.
Checking the Lattice data overlays.
A movement on the screen broke the profile of the low rise building beside him, some kind of accommodation block. Appearing on screen: ground-plans, elevations, positions of people, their predicted paths. The data projected into his visual field, augmenting his reality. He turned, raking fire across the facade. A figure fell and a fusillade of energy fire came his way from the building.
Lattice visual was showing him six men in there. Lattice data telling him they were armed with anti-mech heavy weaponry, which he knew they would now be turning on him. The energy threshold of his kinetic shield would be zero defence against that kind of power. Lattice data flashed up a helpful message warning him of the over-ride risk. Better late than never. He cancelled it and pumped more of the adrenalin based cocktail of drugs through the intravenous clip fixed into his torso. Speed was his only defence now and not much of one.

He ran.
Using cover.
Changing course.
His whole focus on making that speed.
The buildings ended in a high wall and as he made the final sprint towards it, he tried to decide between tracking along it for a break or scaling it and risking exposure. Checking Lattice screens for the information he needed to inform the decision. A close burn sent him diving into the last available cover before the wall but –
The screens all went dark and a mild voice was speaking calmly in his ear:
“You are not logged on to the Lattice. Please be aware when the countdown hits zero your brain implants will self-destruct – you are not -”
Fuck the bastards.
He cancelled the voice and ignored the timer as its chilling digits counted down his heartbeats on the edge of his visual field.  There was nothing he could do. The coms drone has been pulled out leaving him to die. For a moment he felt the futility of fighting. They had abandoned him, he was not going to get out this time.

Then he heard it.
Distant sounds of a fire-fight.
Jaz felt an almost dizzying rush of relief – these were the sounds of death that offered him some small hope of life. A moment later he was up and running.
Freeing the climbing line on the belt, he fired the grapnel, barely waiting for it to impact before swarming up the high wall. He felt incredibly vulnerable  – naked to the guns behind. Then he was flattening himself, sliding over the top, dropping down and sprinting.
The trace of light caught in his peripheral vision, making him break into an evasive diving roll. He saw, not felt, the next splash of energy. The shock of it impacted afterwards, horrific and crippling, tearing out his strength and will.
He hit the ground and stayed down, unable to rise, unable to think, his consciousness hollowed out by the pain.
Time fragmented.
Awareness shrank.
The smell of the dark ground beneath his face, tasting musty and sweet – an alien soil. The beat of his heart timing the steady flick of numbers that counted down to the moment oblivion would devour him.
Then –
Something moving, lifting him, an arm under his shoulder. A voice – his brother’s voice – Avilon Revid.
“Let’s get you out of here.”

….. waking was always sudden and never easy.
Like ripping away flesh.
Then came the disorientation as the two worlds of the past and present battled for supremacy.
Which was real?
His mind was still caught in the snare of memory, vividly relived.  He could feel the cold sweat on his body and the hammering of his heart.  A face, vague in the darkness, Avilon’s? Then another voice, familiar and feminine, full of concern and compassion:
“You got it bad tonight?”
The face shifted, the features softening into Lea’s. She was there for him as she had been the last time and the time before that. And he knew then, with a sudden certainty, she would be there for him every night he needed her. He reached out and her arms slipped around him drawing him close, holding him as he sobbed in relief, like a frightened child.

E.M. Swift-Hook.

The cat followed her home one filthy night. Not proof against obvious need she invited it in.

Now it was a fixture.

A summer Sunday and the beer was icy, but the man wasn’t to be pacified.

“You can’t get around me with a measly bottle of lager. All I’m asking for is a trifling loan.”

“I said no.”

He smashed the bottle on the edge of the table.

“How about five thou not to carve up your face?”

The cat came from nowhere landing on his face, which offered opportunity for the kick to the balls that dropped him.

©️jj 2019

Pterodactyl in the sky
Prehistoric flying by
Ugly to the human eye
Pterodactyl leather wings
Oddest of all flying things
Sharp of beak and made of strings
Pterodactyl in the sky
Shot as it was flying by
Will be pterodactyl pie

©jj 2019