Two Women and Some Books
Where do they go when they leave us?
Is there another place
Where the dead can be who they always were
And wear a familiar face?
Are they just in another room?
Just through another door?
Do they somewhere wait for us?
Are we worth waiting for?
Where do our loved ones truly go
Is there somewhere their souls reside?
Or is it only our memories
That keeps the bright spirits alive?
Challenge Accepted is an anthology of speculative fiction, featuring people with disabilities who rise to the challenge. This is an extract from Walk of Courage by Layla Pinkett.
“Put him down there. Take off his legs. We don’t want him trying anything stupid like escaping, do we?”
Toby’s body tensed as those words came from the mouth of one of his captors. With some kind of hood over his head, he had no way of seeing where he’d been taken, and no idea why these people wanted him. All he knew, was that he was scared, and there was no denying it. He guessed that there were at least three of these people, could be more, but only three that he knew of so far.
One of them pushed him down hard into a chair, and his prosthetics were removed, but more gently than he had expected. They must have someone who knew how to do it. Another tugging sensation and the hood was pulled from Toby’s head. In the moment, it didn’t make much difference to how much he could see because the light was too bright and his vision blurred. When he was finally able to focus on his kidnappers he still saw no faces. They had ski-masks on to conceal their identities. Very clever.
Toby’s first impression of his surroundings was of a sea of grey and a dank smell, like laundry that had been left too long in the washer. The place was derelict, everything in it worn or broken. Except a set of monitors on the back wall of the room. Ten he counted—nine in a block together and one to the side. Apart from the chair he was sitting on, a sofa in the corner, and a small table, there was no other furniture. Minimalist. Bleak. The ideal kidnappers’ hideaway.
One of the men—despite the masks he was pretty sure they were all men – —picked up Toby’s artificial limbs, a leg in each hand, and lowered himself down to his captive’s level.
“If it weren’t for the clattering of these when we picked you up, we’d never have known you were a cripple.” The masked man stood back upright.
Toby could feel his top lip curling, as anger began to outweigh his fear.
Cripple? He’d been called a lot worse every day at school, but it still put the familiar stone in his guts to hear it said.
“What do you want with me?” His voice quavered as he spoke which he hated as he didn’t want them to know how scared he was. But there was no response anyway. They might not even have heard him. The man holding his legs leaned them up against the wall and nodded to the other two. One left the room scooping up Toby’s prosthetics on the way, while the other went over to the screens, all of which were in hibernation state.
“This is why you’re here.” The man doing all the talking gestured towards the screens. Despite the gleam of intelligence in his eyes, he was overweight and unkempt. Chubby. Thinking that made Toby feel a little bit less afraid. Chubs. Yeah, that’s it, he’s called Chubs.
Chubs was the one in charge. He stood there, pulling a small disc from his pocket, then placed it into a little crevice in the wall by the screens. Low-tech, or what? But then the whole place was low-tech. Most the stuff in the room was obsolete. These people, whoever they were, looked like hoarders of the old, with no interest in the new.
“Watch, boy.”
The monitors flickered into life. As each screen turned on, it added a new piece to the overall picture, like a puzzle. By the end of it, Toby saw himself in the images, himself and a woman he recognized, holding a microphone up for him. It was right outside the Coramax building and this was the interview he’d had with the local news channel yesterday, right after he collected his prize from Coramax’s CEO. Why did that have anything to do with his being kidnapped? Toby wracked his brain, but nothing came. Then the images started moving as the interview began.
Challenge Accepted is available to preorder and will be released on 29 March!
The girl at the roadside meeting place was shivering in the icy rain. Micah reached down a hand to help her onto the wagon – only then realising she held a tiny baby to her breast.
An hour later both were warm, dry and fed. The girl looked shyly at Micah.
“What of The Hunters?”
“Me and Eli will keep you safe.”
“What of your own safety?”
“We are safe enough.”
“But how?”
“Eli. If you please.”
If you have never been in a wagon on the back of a dragon who is showing off you have missed something entirely joyous.
Even dragons need to learn their manners
The dragon regarded his talons with elaborate casualness.
“And this concerns me because?”
The woman cast down her eyes so he couldn’t see the flare of anger in their depths.
“It concerns you because you were supposed to be guarding her.”
“She dismissed me,” the dragon sounded defiant.
“And this concerns me because?” The woman’s voice was as cold and pointed as a steel blade.
He lifted his eyes and stared at his interlocutor.
“By what right does a human question a dragon?”
“The right of a child whose mother was murdered while her guard dragon slept.”
B’a’al snarled savagely then flowed into his human form, standing naked in front of the woman.
“There is a forfeit to be paid by humans who dare question dragonkind,” he sneered, and moved towards the delicate red-haired woman who had dared to speak to him with contempt in her voice. “I will take my payment here and now…”
She held up a hand and he found himself stopped in his tracks as if held by a giant claw. The woman made a tutting noise.
“Arrogance, arrogance,” she muttered before making her own change.
B’a’al found himself looking into the eyes of something he had never seen before. She was like him, only not, and probably outweighed him by half.
“There is a forfeit to be paid by dragons who are stupid enough to quarrel with wyverns” she said before she casually ripped his head off and ate it.
Bezit the gem merchant needed a wife, but not a woman in his bed.
When he saw the delicate beauty with hunted eyes and a big belly in the market in Tashkent he thought his troubles over. He bought her out of kindness, and married her immediately.
Once Ashama understood that her husband had no wish to do what others had done she blossomed, presenting him with an exquisite daughter who he named Luliwa.
It was the happiest home in Constantinopolis, Bezit was the most indulged of men, and the guardians of morality had no excuse to seize his wealth.
.... or 'How To Speak Typo' by Jane Jago
boolish (adjective) – hailing from the small state of bool on the Indian sub-continent
chamring (noun) – metal ring which can be worn either on the genitalia or in the hair
damger (noun) – mild irritation of the genitalia caused by sitting on a microwave oven
dona’t (noun) – a fried doughy treat filled with apostrophes
mipsprint (verb) – to talk gobbledygook very fast
micpherone (noun) – the hormone secreted by leprechauns when in heat
pashish mag (noun) – shoddily produced amateur porn publication
porrigde (noun) – Scottish breakfast consisting of oats, Buckie, and car tyres
sruck (adjective) – denotes having one’s finger in one’s ear rather in the manner of an elderly folk singer
troat (noun) – fish of the salmon family native to to the river Liffey with feathery gills and large mouth
vejanuary (noun) – pet name for the lady garden adopted by yummy mummies
wellow (verb) – the act of walking through a nine-inch-deep puddle in six-inch-high wellington boots
zump (noun) – small tumulus under a the fitted sheet in a newly made bed indicating the presence of a sleeping cat
Disclaimer: all these words are genuine typos defined by Jane Jago. The source of each is withheld to protect the guilty.
Father was dead. Not killed in glorious war. Died of a bloody flux in the holy land.
Now the Order had brought his body home, and Elfrida must do honour to the dead.
She clasped her hands inside the sleeves of her robe and bowed her head as the knights lowered his body into the ground. She sprinkled earth on his coffin.
The knights seemed grim faced, and Elfrida’s courage all but failed her until the tallest of them took off his helm and smiled at her.
He had the bluest eyes.
Eyes that he passed to their twin sons.
In the final days before the army of Qabal Vyazin began an improbable and historic winter march through the Great Tusk Pass, Caer found himself caught up in a continual stream of demands upon his time and energy. Having been involved in a manhunt most of the previous day, he slept briefly and rode at dawn to the mustering troops where he spent half the morning reviewing the supplies and arguing with one of the Warlord’s other commanders about the necessary provision and how best to transport it. Then he returned to Tabruth to speak with the Warlord himself; an interview which had not been very pleasant, focusing as it did on Caer’s shortcomings and his failure to find the Harkeran agents responsible for the murder of Ralik Vyazin. He had spent the afternoon looking over the apartments of Commander Brachios which had been broken into the night before. Brachios himself was with the army, but his catamite had been killed and Caer knew that once the Commander received that news he would be getting an extremely irate Brachios descending on him as well.
The Tabruthans, who should have been of the most assistance in this policing investigation, seemed to be oddly unavailable or firmly, but politely, unable to offer any insight. In the end, he took the problem with him to his own rooms where he dined alone with the woman he had desired and won on his own terms: the Caravansi Alexa, she they called ‘the Fair’.
As they were served the rich food she listened to the tally of his frustrations and humiliations over the past few days, starting with how he had nearly laid hands on the assassin, but the man had lost him in the streets of the city and then on through the catalogue of events of the day concluding with his inability to find any real clue to the identity of the second murderer. The beautiful face opposite him looked attentive and when he had finished, frowned very slightly. Alexa raised a goblet to her lips and sipped the wine.
“It seems to me,” she said pointedly, setting the goblet down on the table between them, “you may not be looking for two men but one.”
“I had thought of that,” Caer returned crossly. “But there is no more reason to suppose that is so than that there were two or even more men.”
Alexa watched him with her violet eyes.
“No? So there are two – or more – men presently wandering around Tabruth with the skill to break into and out of the castle at will and act as they please once inside. I am sure you will have been told that Brachios’ lover was well armed and that his death was no simple assassination.”
“I was also told,” Caer said feeling caustic, “that Ralik was killed by an energy pistol and Brachios’ catamite with a jewelled dagger – his own. Why would a man with an energy weapon use a blade?”
“If I were trying to suggest that there was more than one man involved in these attacks, I might choose to vary the way I killed,” Alexa told him, patiently, as if explaining something to a child. “Assuming, of course, I had the skill to do so.”
Caer was silent then, thinking.
“One man,” he said at last. “Not a group of Harkeran sympathisers?”
“One man,” she agreed, “who has the skill to kill even those trained to arms and who seems to want to speak to Commander Brachios very urgently.”
He looked at her as if seeing her for the very first time: the dark red hair in perfect loops, framing her oval face with its high arching brows and the clear violet eyes beneath them. Beauty and intelligence combined with an iron will and the competitive spirit that had made her the best caravansi he had ever served under in his days as a Zoukai. But now the tide had turned and it was he who held the whip hand and she who followed. She needed the favour of the Warlord and could only hold that through Caer. So she spent the winter with him whilst her caravan was secured in separate quarters in the city of Kharzabad.
“You think that our murderer might make a point of visiting Brachios then, if the Commander were known to be staying somewhere – more easy to get to?” Caer asked her.
She turned her head slightly to look at the darkening window. “I think you show some intelligence sometimes,” she said simply.
From Dues of Blood a Fortune's Fools book by E.M. Swift-Hook and the third volume in the Transgressor trilogy.
Pa appeared at grandma’s and grabbed Effie from the yard. He dragged her onto a slow moving northbound train and quelled her objections with a heavy clout. It was her good luck that he met two of his drinking buddies in the box car, and one of them had a jug of rotgut whisky.
She slipped off the train at the Springfield crossing and as she sat waiting for the next southbound she heard the sound of a familiar truck.
It was grandma, in her rusty old Holden, come after Pa with a ten gauge and murder in her heart .
Tempest Blades: The Withered King is the debut science fantasy novel from Ricardo Victoria which is now available on preorder.
The sky was raging in fury, lightning slashing across the dark skies, the wind blowing away the mist. The square was being emptied, the townspeople trying to get as far away as possible from the giant creature, whose red eyes were locked on the man standing in front of him in defiance. Any other mortal would cower before the behemoth, but this one was smiling. The creature started a conversation, its deep, booming voice echoing all over the place.
“Why don’t you run like the other mortals?”
“Not really my thing.”
“I will crush you.”
“You can try.”
The creature roared with anger, stomping its way across the plaza. Fionn didn’t waste time and jumped into the fray, slashing it with Black Fang. The creature replied in kind, raising its massive right claw and trying to shred Fionn like paper. He parried the attack with the sword, but the strength behind it almost broke his arm. He got ready to parry the second one, biting his lips to tolerate the pain, when an attack by Gaby on the creature’s back interrupted the exchange between them. Gaby’s twin blades were out of their sheaths and each shone with a clear, bright light, one glowing blue and the other red.
“Are those Tempest Blades too?” Fionn asked with an incredulous stare.
“Yes,” Gaby replied with her crooked smile. “Their names are Heartguard and Soulkeeper.”
“How did you…”
“You are not the only one with secrets, Greywolf,” Gaby said. “But that will have to wait, there is work to do.”
Both Fionn and Gaby jumped, attacked, dodged and parried the blows coming from the creature. But after every attack that the creature suffered at the hands of Fionn and Gaby, it regenerated immediately. It was growing angrier by the moment, picking up trash cans and throwing them, breaking walls and destroying the windows of the shops and pubs. The creature kept throwing things at them, forcing them to take cover behind a semi-crumbled wall. Behind the cover, they saw the men-spiders returning, attacking the scared patrons who were trying to get away from the creature.
“Those civilians need help. Would it be too much to ask you to help them?”
“As much as I would hate to leave you with all the fun you are right. They need me more than you do.” Gaby winked at Fionn. “Be careful.”
“I’m always careful.”
Fionn could only smile at her with admiration in his eyes. Gaby ran towards the running people, not losing a second in attacking the men-spiders. Her blades were streaks of red and blue light in the dark. Parts of the spider-like creatures started to fly off. She was efficient, Fionn thought, too efficient even for a Sister of Mercy. There were so many things he wanted to ask her. But that would have to wait. A girl, running away from the conflict, broke a heel and fell in front of the path of destruction of the larger creature. Its collection of sharpened teeth was in full sight in a mockery of a smile. Seeing that, Fionn ran towards the girl, covering her with his body as the claw descended upon her.
“Oh shit,” Fionn managed to say before the creature hit him fully in the back with all its strength, sending him flying away with the girl in his arms. He managed to twist his body mid-air to absorb the blunt force of the imminent impact when they hit the ground. His jacket and the skin of his back were torn to shreds and he was bleeding profusely. His head was spinning. Fionn looked at the girl who was scared and crying, but safe. He shook his head to clear it and smiled at her.
“I will distract him while you escape. Can you run?”
The girl only replied with a nod and Fionn let her go.
She ran away into the streets. It was then that Fionn noticed a faint cut on his right cheek, a cut that started to heal amidst tiny green sparkles of energy.
This is gonna hurt tomorrow.
A Bite Of… Ricardo Victoria
Anime wise? Probably Vision of Escaflowne, Slayers, Ruronin Kenshin, Robotech, Saint Seiya and Shadow Skill. But my influences also come from similar sources, namely old school RPGs such as Final Fantasy VI and VIII, Secret of Mana, Baldur’s Gate and even Xenosaga.
The easy answer would probably be Science Fiction or perhaps horror. But in reality I have been suffering from an itching to write either Slice of Life stories with a touch of fantasy (again due out anime influences) or something pulp/researchy set in the real world, in the vein of Indiana Jones. I’m not sure if I would be good at it though.
Pizza. Although I can’t eat much of it anymore. But pizza, in the immortal words of the poet known as Michelangelo from the Turtles, is “a flying saucer food delight”. And technically can have all the basic food groups all bundled together.
Born in the frozen landscape of Toluca, Mexico, Ricardo dreamed of being a writer. But needing a job that could pay the rent while writing, he studied Industrial Design and later obtained a PhD in Sustainable Design, while living in the United Kingdom and working in a comic book store to pay for his board game & toy addiction. He is back now in Toluca, living with his wife and his two dogs where he works as an academic at the local university. He has short stories featured in anthologies by Inklings Press and Rivenstone Press, and he was nominated to a Sidewise Award 2016 for the short story “Twilight of the Mesozoic Moon”, co-written with his arch-nemesis, Brent A. Harris. He also won a local contest for a fantasy short story during college. But hey! That one doesn’t count, does it?
Tempest Blades: The Withered King, his first novel, has been in the works for quite some time. He really hopes you get awed by its kickassery now that is available for preorder. While you wait for it to appear you can check out his other published writing, read his rants, some fiction and opinion pieces on his own website and stalk him on Twitter.
