Yellow Lotus looked at her lady mother’s rigid spine and sighed inwardly. She bowed three times to the ancestors in their ceremonial vessels then spoke quietly.

“Lady Chi,” she said, “we will not last the winter without money.”

Mother winced, but inclined her head.

“If there was not need to provide a dowry for me there would be food until Cherry Blossom comes of age.” Lotus paused. “The lord Lao would take me as his principal concubine.”

Chi’s pencilled brows drew together. “Do you know what you are proposing?”

“Well enough.”

It was agreed, and Lotus began her glittering career.

©️jj 2018

I swear that I blinked
And missed how
This year just went past,
I’m sure that I sang
Auld Lang Syne
This weekend gone, or last.

But the calendar
Pages prove,
With every crossed-out day
That yet one more year
For us all
Has somehow crept away.

A moment ago
Twas summer
With days of endless sun
But now the weather’s
Cold and wet
Being out is less fun.

I do not think I
Remember
Autumn when it was here,
It must have slipped past
As spring did
In the whirl of the year.

But looking back to
Consider
All the things I have done,
Since last New Year did
Celebrate
Our orbit round the sun,

It suddenly seems
Amazing
How much has taken place.
Those days that went by
Were packed full
Crammed at a break-neck pace.

So I glance at the
Calendar
And heed what the clock read,
But remind myself
They tell lies
Time is all in my head.

E.M. Swift-Hook

The name’s Nero, Sam Nero. Private eye and augmented android. Me and my holographic sidekick, Sugar, operate out of an office on the fifty-fifth level of The Last City. We do okay. But some days are a bit bumpier than others…

If you missed the first instalments you can catch up here.

“Never fails,” Katie laughed. “If Sam gets the live goods we can send some boys to fetch the droids and the security feed disks. Oh, and they can return the weasel to his pit.”
Her daddy aimed an affectionate swipe in her direction. “All that Katie Scarlett said. Plus back here. Couple hours?”
I nodded. Then I had a thought.
“You want them kicking and screaming, or on their own two feet, convinced their little plan has worked even better than they hoped.”
O’Halleran’s flat, shark eyes sparkled with mordant humour.
“The second option, if it’s achievable…”
I nodded and Katie Scarlett laughed, it was a sound like silver bells but underlain with a wealth of malice.
“Do tell, Sam.”
“Simple. The spy they are bound to have in the club will have told them there is something amiss. Depending on how close to you the spy is, they either think your daddy is missing, or they are wondering what the Sam Hill is going on. Either way, I would have thought a cordial invitation from you, Katie Scarlett, would bring them running.”
O’Halleran looked at me with a sparkle of real humour in his killer’s eyes.
“And when they get here, just think how much enjoyment we will have disabusing them of their false notions.” His laughter was absolutely genuine, but it scraped along my nerve endings like some kid running its fingers down a chalkboard. “You just write them a nice little note, my darling, and we’ll have Sam and the twins deliver it.”
They exchanged a look of pure unadulterated malice and I made eye contact with Zig, who favoured me with the merest hint of a shrug.

It wasn’t until a bit more than an hour later that father and daughter felt they had the groundwork in place. I was presented with a note, written on pink scented notepaper, and me and the twins went for a walk. We had to drop two levels and when we got down to thirty-seven the atmosphere was intimidating to say the least.
“Riot in the air,” I murmured, and Myk gave a soundless laugh.

No matter how proddy the local hoodies might have been feeling, nobody had the courage, or the downright stupidity, to want to tangle with Zig and Myk, so we made our way to our destination unmolested. Which, judging from the screams and bumps in the side streets we passed, was far from being the case for everyone.  

Seamus O’Halleran’s home and place of business occupies a whole block, and even has a bit of green space out front. The local hoods leave well enough alone, as Seamus has the reputation of being both humourless and spectacularly vicious.

We ambled along the sidewalk towards the concrete edifice and Myk quirked an eyebrow. Zig went one better, going so far as to ask ‘what business’, with his fingers flying.
“Whorehouse,” I said quietly. “Caters for people with very specific tastes.”
The twins looked down their noses, and I grinned.

Once we set foot on the broad brick pathway to the front door, I could feel the eyes. It wasn’t long before a couple of security droids appeared in from of us.
“Your business, gentlemen?”
They were scrupulously polite, although the bulges in their armpits suggested that things might get less pleasant if we were not possessed of the correct answers.
“Message for Mister O’Halleran from his niece Katy Scarlett.”
Their eyes did that strange skittery thing that indicates that a mid-range droid is processing information, and may even be receiving instructions.
“You may enter Mister Nero, but your companions are unwelcome.”
I turned on my heel.
“Come on boys. We’re leaving.”
One of the droids was stupid enough to get in my way. I picked it up and threw it into a flower bed. It’s compadre stood undecided and just as we reached the sidewalk the front door opened.
“Mister Nero,” the voice was cultured, although not without an element of threat.
“Mister O’Halleran,” I kept my own tones level, but carefully unimpressed.
I turned to face a slimmer, smoother, more urbane version of the shark-cold killer I knew so well. He manufactured a smile.
“Was it necessary to throw security into the herbaceous border?”
I shrugged. “It annoyed me.”
“Fair enough. Now why won’t you come in on your own?”
I looked him up and down a bit.
“I don’t know you. Plus. The streets are getting revved up for a riot, I will not abandon my associates in the face of that.”
He thought that one through.
“Fair enough you can all come inside.”

We entered a lobby as big as most people’s homes and hung a left into a palatial office. Seamus sat and I passed him Katie’s carefully manufactured note. He looked at it without opening it for a long moment.
“What’s it say?”
I lifted one shoulder. “I dunno. I don’t read other people’s mail.”
“A guess then.”
“Probably *help*. Her daddy is missing and she needs a strong right arm.”
Seamus’ smile almost rivalled his cousin’s for wanton viciousness.
“Shall we see…”
He opened the envelope with a shiny paper knife and perused the sheet of pink paper with a curled lip. About halfway through he started to smile.
“Got you, you slimy bastard,” I thought.

I kept my face bland and Seamus squinted up at me.
“Help indeed,” he said as unemphatically as he could manage. “My little cousin wants to see me. Me and Seamus Junior. I’ll just call him.”

He sent a droid to fetch his son, who arrived with a cynical twist to his thin lips. His father passed him the note, which he read carefully. His mouth relaxed as he read, and by the end of the sheet of paper he was as close to smiling as I figured he could get. He turned to look at me and I bore his gaze stoically.
“And what is your function Mister Nero?”
“Messenger. Escort.”
“And your associates?”
“Insurance.”
“Fair enough.”

To be continued…

©️Jane Jago 2018

You can find the first Sam Nero story in Dust Publishing's anthology The Last City together with other stories about his fellow Citizens...

Mary stood before the altar with the grim-visaged black-clad lawyer her father had chosen for her and swallowed nervously. She sat silent at his side throughout the wedding breakfast. When the last bawdy joke had been told, he placed her hand in the crook of his arm and led her to the bedchamber.

“Will you trust me?” he asked.

She could only nod mutely.

Much later she lay sated in his arms, shockingly naked save for the silken strands of her hair.

“Oh my goodness,” she said faintly. “Who knew what a lawyer might hide beneath his robes…”

©️jj 2018

In simple quietude we end the day
No need for tender whispers in the dark
Just once you touch my cheek, as if to say
That Father Time has surely left his mark
Then hand in hand we tumble into sleep
I never think to move or draw apart
As through my dreams, however dark or deep
You stand beside me guardian of my heart
My only light and comfort is your face
Its every feature sharp and clearly drawn
And deep inside I pray for one small grace
That we shall both awaken, come the dawn

©️ Jane Jago 2018

The name’s Nero, Sam Nero. Private eye and augmented android. Me and my holographic sidekick, Sugar, operate out of an office on the fifty-fifth level of The Last City. We do okay. But some days are a bit bumpier than others…

If you missed the first instalments you can catch up here.

The silence around the big table hadn’t quite gone on long enough to be uncomfortable when Myk returned with a bundle wrapped in a sheet slung over one shoulder. The bundle was wriggling. He set it down and the sheet fell away to disclose a thin man, who was trussed up like a joint of beef and had his mouth taped shut. I walked over to him and untaped his mouth. I wasn’t too gentle about it.

“If it isn’t my old buddy Cletus, android tinkerer to the scum of the earth.”
He sneered at me, so I slapped him. Once. It was no more than an open-handed slap, but it rocked his head on its thin neck.
“Manners,” I admonished.
His eyes slid around the room and finding neither support nor sympathy he attempted a shrug.
“Why am I here.”
Before I had the chance to answer, Katie was at my side, moving like a sleek, dangerous cat. She ran one pointed fingernail down his cheek.
“Oh. I think you know why you are here,” she purred.
The skinny guy lost every vestige of bravado and his face paled. He swallowed noisily and I could see the adam’s apple bobbing up and down his scrawny throat.
“You have,” I said quietly, “about ten seconds to start talking before I let my little friend here do her worst.”
He opened and shut his mouth a couple times.
“Nine, eight, seven….”
He slid from Myk’s grasp in a boneless heap. Katie Scarlett sorta poked him with her toe.
“Fainted, who’d a thought it…” she turned on her heel and headed back to the group at the table, where Sugar offered a congratulatory upturned thumb.

When Cletus emerged from his faint he found himself bound securely to a high-backed chair, with the ropes sufficiently tight to cause him some discomfort. I had carefully placed a spotlamp so that its bright light shone directly in his eyes. He tried to move his head, but his overlong hair was affixed to the chairback with a row of staples. Predictably, he started to weep noisily.

Katie moved into his line of vision with a sharply pointed kitchen knife held casually in one hand.
“Talk to me,” she whispered. “Talk to me and perhaps I won’t cut your testicles off.”
“I’ll do anything. What do you want to know?”
“Don’t play the innocent with me.”
She moved so the light fell directly on her face, and it must have been the first time that he had looked at her properly.
“Oh,” he said “that. But they said they would kill me if I talked.”
“Then you are in a fix, aren’t t you? Because I’ll kill you if you don’t talk.”
He must have seen something implacable in her eyes.
“Seamus O’Halleran came to me six months ago with an order for two droids. He had pictures. I just built the droids.” He showed a mouthful of yellow teeth in a rodent grimace. “Made a change from making sexbots.”
“How much?”
“Half a mil.”
“Would’ve been worth it,” Daddy Aitch murmured judiciously. “I’m worth about fifty times that. And my businesses. Who knows? Level one’s the limit.”

Katie looked at the droid maker with real loathing in her eyes.
“What about this carrion?”
“Oh,” I said, “we haven’t finished with him yet.”
“Is there more?”
“There’s always more. In this case we want the security camera feeds from his shop, and we want the details of the tracking devices.”
“What tracking devices?” the O’Hallerans spoke in unison.
“The ones he will have put in the droids. You might think your cousin is a snake in the grass but compared to Cletus here, he’s a straight shooter.”
Cletus shut his mouth tightly, and closed his eyes.

He wasn’t expecting what happened next and it rocked him to the foundation of his being. Zig took something out of his inside pocket, something furry and svelte, something with bright black eyes and sharp white teeth, something that looked hungry. Myk shook the prisoner gently, and as his eyes flew open Zig draped the creature on his face. He screamed for quite a while, then when his voice was getting rusty Katy Scarlett sidled up to him and breathed in his ear.
“Are you ready to cooperate?”

Once Cletus had got himself together enough to indicate acquiescence, Myk retrieved his pet. The O’Halleran father and daughter team went at the droid manufacturer like jackhammers, so I had leisure to introduce myself to what turned out to be a polecat. Looked at closely he was a handsome creature, with golden fur tipped in brown and a triangular face dominated by a pair of gleaming black eyes. He seemed to want to climb onto me, and, once he had established that I had no fear, Myk let him.

By the time the Cletus had talked himself dry, I had fed Riki Tiki with some of his special dried meat and he had curled himself around my neck where he fell asleep. Snoring gently. With every outward breath, his whiskers tickled the side of my neck. I found this warm weight a surprisingly comfortable thing.

Then I realised O’Halleran and Katie Scarlett were staring at me open mouthed.
“Well I’ll be damned. First he charms my little girl, then that damned animal cosies up to him like it was actually tame.”
“Nobody,” Katie Scarlett chimed in, “and that’s actually nobody, except Myk, can safely handle Riki Tiki, it even bites Zig.”
I smiled an amiable but not-too-bright smile – the one I keep for awkward occasions.  Mister Aitch crooked a thick, black eyebrow but didn’t comment.

I broke the silence. “You want I should go pick up Seamus and his sons?”
O’Halleran grinned his killer’s grin.
“I do indeed. Usual rates do?”
“I reckon. If I can borrow the twins and Riki Tiki.”
“You can. Now what to do with our friend Cletus…” O’Halleran didn’t sound like he was planning a birthday party, and, judging by the sudden appalling stench, the droid manufacturer’s bowels agreed with my assessment of the situation.
Katie Scarlett curled her lip.
“Let him go, Daddy. We know where to find him if we want him again. Let him go and spend the rest of his miserable life praying that Seamus’ family don’t find out how much he told us.”
Cletus passed out again.

To be continued…

©️Jane Jago 2018

You can find the first Sam Nero story in Dust Publishing's anthology The Last City together with other stories about his fellow Citizens...

Perkin was a serial abuser, but he was also the adored only child of the most influential woman in the industry. So he got away with it. Because anybody accusing him of being anything but a paragon of all the virtues soon found themselves unemployed.

Until the night he picked the wrong woman.

Nobody knew who took such exception to his attentions, but his body was found half in and half out of a recycling bin. Minus his dick.

Which some wag posted to his mother in a pretty box. To add insult to injury they sent it ‘small packet’.

©️jj 2018

“I’m tired of trying to see the good in people.” Clarence stalked around the pen with his wattles waving distractedly. You get fond of people and they just go away and leave you. Last week there were five thousand turkeys in the barns. Yesterday there were five hundred. Today there is just me.”
The only other occupants of the fifteen-acre field eyed him in something like contempt. “Didn’t the same happen last year?” Gloria asked waspishly.
Clarence stopped and looked down at the fat little chicken and her sister.
“Did it?”
“Yes, Clarence, it did.” In contrast to Gloria’s waspishness, Florence just sounded tired. “And the year before.”
He looked puzzled.
“I don’t remember.”
“No, you never remember. But it’s always the same. From now until the winters end it will be just the three of us. Then there will be baby turkeys. Then they will grow up. Then they will go away.”
“But why. Where do they go.”
Gloria came as close to a shrug as a chicken can.
“We should know…”

The two humans who sat on the fence looked at the trio with some amusement.
“Have you never wondered what they think?” the man was feeling whimsical.
“Does poultry think,” his companion leaned on his shoulder.
“Presumably. On some level they must. Ergo, do they wonder where the rest of the turkeys go?”
“You may as well ask if that turkey cock wonders why he is still alive.”
“He might not wonder, but I do.”
“He was a mistake. We only sell hen birds. And the hatcheries aren’t supposed to send anything else. But three years ago he arrived with the girls. Dad thought it would be interesting to keep him and see just how big a turkey can get. But he pined on his own, so we got him the chickens for company.”
“How compassionate.”
“It’s no good you looking at me like that, and at least our birds have a decent life.”
“What there is of it.”
The woman lifted a pettish shoulder and they fell silent.

No more was said until the turkey-cock stalked across the field to where they sat.
“Poor old boy,” the man said. “I wouldn’t like it if somebody took you away and replaced you with a chimpanzee.”
His companion laughed and moved into his embrace.

Clarence peered shortsightedly up at them.
“Excuse me,” he said politely. “Can you tell me where my chums have gone? The chickens are very nice, but a chap wants his own kind, doncha know.”
But they all they heard was gobble-gobble, and the women threw him a handful of grain from her pocket.
He ignored the corn. “I don’t mean to be impolite, but I did ask you an important question.”
Of course they didn’t answer, and in the end he gave a doleful sniff and went to back to where Gloria and Florence were scratching in the dirt and squabbling over earthworms.

©️jane jago 2017

It was Jessie’s fifth birthday. All she wanted was chocolate cake. But we had no money to buy one. So we went and looked at one in the confectioner’s window instead. In the end she sighed.

“Was we always dirt poor?”

“So long as I can remember.”

Then we went home.

Mum saw us coming down the alleyway and waved frantically. We ran. Afraid of what might have happened.

She sat in her wheelchair with slow tears running down her face.

“Go look in the kitchen…”

And there it was. The chocolate cake from the shop window. Jessie cried too…

©️jj 2018

This list is not an exclusive list of all the great Indie books out there – or even all the great indie books we have read this year. It is a well-considered recommended reading list of books we have enjoyed in the last twelve months, consciously spanning genres and all books we have given 5 stars in a review.

The main thing is we recommend these books wholeheartedly and if you have yet to read them you should consider doing so if they are in a genre you enjoy.

So, onto the list. This is given in alphabetical order of author name and there is no ranking. All are stonking good reads!

The Working Title Blog 5 Star Golden Reads for 2018

Tales from the Seaside – Claire Buss
Little stories with a light touch and an innate sense of pace.

The Nest of Nessies – Chrys Cymri
Can we have our submarine back, please? Dead merwomen, were-sharks, and missing boats. What could possibly go wrong?

Bad Candy – India Emerald
Its the sheer imagination that gets you.

Duke Grandfather Saves the World – James Maxstadt
Brilliant, moving and funny, about fighting crime in a fantasy city.

In Numina – Assaph Mehr
Togas, daggers, magic and an elusive hint of romance.

Whiskey Kills – Lolli Powell
A fast-paced contemporary whodunit with a very engaging female main character.

Dark in Death – JD Robb
Without spoiling the story, this is a murder mystery with special relevance to novelists everywhere.

5 Minute Vacations – Cindy Tomamichel
Beautifully relaxing mini-meditations which help to take the stress from your day.

Pirats: A Tale of Mutiny on the High Seas – Rhian Waller
A wonderful children’s book of daring-do with the heroine of the story being a ship’s rat!

Rafferty Lincoln Loves – Emily Williams
An incredibly powerful story of real teenage life and challenges, truly unmissable reading.

And here’s to another year of great reading in 2019!

Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook.