From Trust A Few by E.M. Swift-Hook

Jazatar Baldrik sat at a table beside the cairn of stones in the Last Hope, his back against the solid rock wall, a plate of cut fruit on the table in front of him, watching the doorway and thinking about trust.
Hell’s Breath had been named by some unknown explorer, who Jaz thought must have been a real joker. Perhaps wanting to prove they somehow survived the freezing surface conditions and the spectacular plumes of burning gases released as the rock decayed, that first visitor left his or her anonymous mark in the form of a small cairn of stones. It got kept, like some historical monument, behind protective screening in the bar of The Last Hope.
The Hope happened to be the best hotel on Hell’s Breath, which didn’t mean so much anymore as it also happened to be the one hotel still left open on Hell’s Breath. Built, like much of the settlement, with most all of its rooms in and under the rock.
It was hard to believe today, but beneath the small complex of geodesic domes which trapped the thin atmosphere and allowed it to be conditioned, enriched and made breathable, there had once been a wealthy and thriving community.
Jaz read a brief history on the public link saying how Hell’s Breath made its name as a stop-over on the first long-haul treks from Central to the Middle Worlds, way back in the days when that still took years. It had, according to the same source, been in its time, a naval base, a luxury resort and a ‘bohemian escape for the literati’, whatever that meant. But history long since passed it by and FTL changed it from prime location to pointless backwater.
Nowadays it survived as a tourist destination and the final resort for those like Jaz himself, who wanted to go somewhere other than where they came from and weren’t too bothered where that might be. Little more than a lump of rock, twirling through space, with a civilian port facility used by the most shady and least wealthy of the freetraders who needed a no-questions-asked fix or conversion done. As a place to hide it suited Jaz: close enough to civilisation to allow him to keep tabs on events and far enough out of the minds of civilised people to let him keep a low profile.
He had known Vel at the Hope since his earliest mercenary days and she hadn’t even blinked when he showed up, penniless and exhausted, fifteen years – more – after he last walked out of her bar. A clean up, sleep and meal later, though it had been different.
“Word has it you settled down in the ‘City years back. I’d not expected to see you around here again.”
Jaz, still nursing a pounding headache he gained from travelling the previous few days in the poorly pressurised cargo store of a ship with no proper passenger accommodation, didn’t reply. But, as he suspected that silence wouldn’t be a problem for Vel.
“So what happened, presh? She throw you out on your useless, no-good backside? Wake up to the fact she could do a whole lot better for herself? Or are you just running from a little ‘misunderstanding’ with the authorities?”
“All the above,” Jaz admitted, his voice glum and Vel’s face softened as he knew it would.
“I don’t do charity here, Jaz.”
“I know. I’ll get work. Trust me”
She gave him a thin smile, marred by the scar pulling down though her left cheek and eating into the corner of her mouth. Her hand came out in a brief gesture and touched his, as it curled around his drink.
“I know you will, presh.”
The promise meant taking whatever he got offered and Jaz found himself running crates with a small time smuggling outfit. So small-time, the ship, the best part of which belonged to Vel’s cousin, did smuggling on a very part-time basis, when it wasn’t being hired out to the occasional tourist who came to Hell’s Breath on a Pioneer Trail Adventure. They all wanted to gawp at the famous flares, which were best viewed from low orbit.
The smuggling runs were not frequent and always without incident. Jaz sometimes wondered why Vel’s cousin even bothered to hire him as muscle. The nearest he came to needing to use violence happened one time when a small group of wiped out tourists stumbled into the dock just as the two of them were unloading a cargo, demanding a sight-seeing trip out and refusing to leave until Jaz persuaded them to come back the next day.
In between runs, he lent a hand with the maintenance of the aging ship, took tourists out to see the flares, helped out in the Hope, battled with the accounts and taught Vel’s cousin’s little girl how to pull scary faces.
In his free time he worked out or sat at a table in the bar of the Last Hope, accessing the news or entertainment channels through Vel’s remote link and wondering if it would ever be safe for him to return to the ‘City. He often thought about sending a secure message to Shame Cullen to see if there was any word on how the land lay, But that would have meant betraying his location and he knew from experience no matter how secure a secure link was supposed to be, someone could always unsecure it. And right now, he liked no one knew where he had gone. It made him safe from the CSF and whoever else in the ‘City might have felt the galaxy would be a better place without him being a part of it.

E.M. Swift-Hook

Best sung loudly to the tune of 'Clementine'

There’s a w****r, in a tanker
See him driving like a prat
Through the village, like a pillock
And he wears a silly hat

If I catch him, I will smack him
For he scratched my bloody car
I will shout him, and I’ll clout him
Send him crying to his ma.

Mister w****r, take your tanker
Never come this way again
Or we’ll grab you, make you blab you
Great big hairy stupid pain

©️jj 2018

Good morrow my little scholars.

It is your beloved pedagogue.  Yes, one is here, Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV, creator of that seminal work of epic science fantasy ‘Fatswhistle and Buchtooth’ and all-round genius. One lifts one’s head from contemplation of the sheer beauty that is one’s own sun-bronzed torso merely in order to assist one’s spiritual children in their search for narratorial clarity and shine. Lazing as one does today with one’s head in the shade and one’s body soaking up Helios’ health-giving rays always makes one consider the immutable rules of grammar. And with a muted ‘pfft’ of disgust one seeks to debunk one such piece of iconic mythology…

But why then, one hears a voice from the back of the class speak up, are you troubling to teach us about these grammar rules at all? Detention on the naughty step for backchat. If one is to write with the flow and perfection of the greats, one needs to know the expected rules – and learn which one must observe and which may be discarded at will, oh foolish neophyte!

Now, read and learn.

How to Write Right – Lesson 4. The Write Infinite Splits

Grammar has about as many rules as there are stars in the gleaming firmament. And most of those rules were put there by grumpy old men in long dresses with unkempt beards. Men whose sole function was, it often appears, the rendering of language impenetrable and the making of writing the blandest and least appetising porridge imaginable.

Let us consider an example. The split infinitive.
You don’t know what an infinitive is?
Very well.
 Permits oneself a small sigh of utter weariness.
Those who are unaware of what constitutes an infinitive can just remove themselves to the naughty step immediately, taking with them their copy of ‘Practical English Usage’ and studying same until they can at least reliably identify the parts of speech.
The rest of you can jolly well stop flicking ink pellets at Metheringham Minor and pay attention or one will be amongst you armed with malacca. Better…

Hands up those of you who are ‘Trekites’, as we cognoscenti in the science-fiction world call fans of ‘Star Trek’. No. Do not disagree with your master, as his patience for such things is thin. However, you are all of you familiar with an iconic infinitive split: ‘to boldly go’
Wonders idly if there is such a thing as a grammarian Trekkian or if that might be a truly alien race.
Turns attention back to bewildered class.
The infinitive of the verb is – to go. The word boldly inserted between to and go splits the infinitive.
Not allowed.
In order to achieve strict grammatical correctitude, Captain Kirk and his chums should have been adjured to go boldly, which, in one’s exquisitely tasteful estimation has not nearly the same impact. And perhaps even feels as if the meaning is not quite the same.

Consider the following
To walk quietly
To quietly walk

In theory, these mean the same. But do they conjure in the inner theatre of your mind’s eye the same result? Most certainly not! Knowing the mode in which the action is taken helps prepare the mind to add that action upon the screen of that inner theatre more perfectly than if the action is known before how it is being performed. Simple.

Think on this as you write: ‘To split, or not to split. That is the question. Whether ‘tis nobler to suffer the slings and arrows of outraged grammar Stasi…’

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to cleverly write, to eagerly learn, and to humbly accept.

Nanu-Nanu.

Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV

Adoring Fans Facebook Group

London, 2020, an August night so hot the roads are soft underfoot and even the feral dogs are staying at home. The decoy stalks the meanest streets, wearing thigh-high needle-heeled boots and a whitish trenchcoat. The puddles underfoot are dirty and scummed with fuel oil, as she steps in them her feet fracture the rainbow reflections into millions of shards of light.

Above her, Jack looks down and his mouth spreads into a rictus grin.
“Such a naughty girl,” he mouths as his hand fidgets with the ten-inch blade he is holding. “Just a little closer. Please.”

The woman keeps on coming and the coat swings open exposing her bare flesh to his heated gaze. For a moment he wonders that she cannot feel his glance, but soon loses interest in that thought as the prostitute, for that is what she must be, steps into the pool of sulphurous light under his streetlamp.

He jumps, meaning to land on her back and bear her to the ground, but he misjudges his leap and lands beside her. She turns and he aims a slash at her unprotected throat. Only she isn’t there. She’s behind him.
“You are under arrest on suspicion…”
Before she can get out another word he leaps screaming wordlessly.

A straight-arm jab to the larynx kills him instantly.

The golem removes its mask and wig and its red eyes glow briefly before it reports.
“Suspect apprehended. Unfortunately he didn’t come quietly.”

© jane jago 2017

 

 

Tales From Alternate Earths 2 is the new anthology from Inklings Press and is out on 27 July. Enjoy these extracts from two of the stories.

 From The Dust in the King’s Library.

“Drat this dust.” Jean sneezed explosively and reached up her sleeve for a handkerchief. “Why did I ever decide to study old books?”

She jumped as a voice answered her largely rhetorical question. “Because you love history, love the words written down by people that are themselves dust. As you read, so shall you sneeze.” The tall man smirking at her in the doorway of her small basement office was unwelcome, and Jean favored him with a glare.

“What do you want?” She walked across the book-cluttered room to put the table between them, and picked up a hardcover copy of War and Peace.

“What if there was a way to talk to those now dust? To change that which we thought unchangeable?” He gave her a paper cup. “I brought you a coffee.”

“Look, Edward, firstly try and remember I hate coffee,” Jean replied, dumping the cup in the sink. “And secondly, I have had a long day, and I am not going on a date, nor do I want to get involved with your crazy talk about changing history. You are the youngest professor of Physics the university has ever had – surely you know that time travel is impossible?”

Edward stepped up to the table under the fly-specked light bulb, and Jean could see the sweat globules running down his temples. She frowned; he had never been the healthiest looking man, but tonight he was a sickly greenish colour, and his hands trembled. He caught her glance, and steepled his fingers on the table, leaning towards her. “You are wrong,” he whispered. “So very wrong.”

Cindy Tomamichel

 

From ‘Pillars of the Past’

Her father would not have approved. He warned her not to go, not to involve herself. Her politics were dangerous and a shame on her family. Even so, Maria Sobel slipped on her mother’s black angora sweater, and stole out into the grey-dawn darkness. Her sheepskin boots made quiet, yet satisfying, crunching sounds on the gravel square in front of her family’s Brownstone, as she eased toward the awaiting burnt-orange Citroen taxi at the curb.
She arrived at the Costa Coffee on Broadway in Upper Manhattan, across the street from her classes at King’s College soon after. Yet, there was no class today. All New York and the rest of New England was in preparation for the vote. By the end of the day, Maria re-assured herself with a nod and a mental affirmation, New England would no longer be part of the British Empire.
She handed the cabbie a tenner, slid out, and joined the trickle of half-awake people on the sidewalks. The first rays of sun speared through a shield of grey clouds. The smell of rubbish bins tinged the sweetness of the bagels in the coffee shop, and the early morning work crews in prison-yellow jumpsuits stifled yawns while eyeing Maria suggestively.
She strode past Teddy and his shaggy golden-retriever Buddy, asleep on the sidewalk by the doorway, and stepped inside as the taxi sped off. A few minutes later, she returned holding a small cup of coffee, her peanut butter-smeared bagel, and the lone coin she’d received as change.
“This is for Buddy. For food. Okay?” Maria opened Teddy’s hand and pressed the pound into his palm. She sighed at the “help wanted” sign that was stuck to the window behind him. “For Buddy, remember?” Occasionally, she brought a bag of dog food with her. She had no way of knowing what he did with the money, but Buddy looked just on the safe side of starved, so he was eating. Something.
Buddy padded over to lick Maria’s hands. There was no bark, certainly no bite, to the older dog anymore. He stood on shaky legs, a forlorn look in his eyes, while Maria scratched behind his ears and smiled sadly at his master. Teddy doesn’t have too much bite or bark left in him either. There are too many people like him, neglected by the Crown. Leaving England will help us better help them. We must succeed today. We must secede.
“He loves it when you visit,” Teddy slurred, as he pocketed the change within the layers of flannels and his threadbare camo army jacket. “I do too.” There were clean rectangles where his nametape, rank, and unit patches had been. Last week, a gang of kids ripped them off, angry with the homeless man for having the audacity to go to war for the British. Like he had a choice in what the Queen expected of him. “Good luck in class today, Maria,” he slurred again. “God bless.”
“Thank you, but there’s no class today,” Maria said. She was a junior-year political science student on normal days. When New England eventually gained their independence, they would need new leaders. She was going to be one of them. Perhaps even President. But that was only if today went as planned.
“Oh? It’s not one of them demonstrations again, is it?” Teddy pulled his dull blue beanie down further over his ears and eyebrows, until tuffs of unkempt grey hair poked out above skeletal sockets. “If the Sons show up, there’ll be trouble. You could be in danger.”
“Depends on which Sons.” There were moderate groups, like hers that called themselves the Sons of Paine. Others, the Sons of Liberty, were known to be more violent and extreme in their practices. Of course, people on the other side, like her friend Alexis, often lumped the groups together. “I’m a Son. The peaceful kind. All we want is freedom from Britain. Freedom to make our own choices and serve our own people. Like you.”

Brent A. Harris

 

 

The smoke which filled the interior of the Dreaming Room sneaked around the edges of Kanu’s thoughts, whispering of what was to come.
“You must lie here,” the High Priest declared, gesturing with his staff of office to a place on the stone floor which had been marked around by engraved with holy symbols. They glittered darkly in the sputtering light of the torches, having been filled freshly with the blood from the sacrifice just made to send Kanu on his journey.
He wanted to say no, to protest this was a mistake that the birthmark he bore was just that and not a sign that he would be the one to fulfil the prophecy. But the eyes of the High Priest were without compassion and the expressions on the faces of the two strong women armed with fire-spears who flanked him were invisible behind their beaked masks.
So Kanu lay down in the sacred place in the Dreaming Room and closed his eyes. The rolling chants of the priests in the god’s sanctuary reached in through the doorway lifting his inner self like waves on the shore.
Then he was standing on the shore beneath a dark star-filled sky on the shores of a blood-red sea.
“Look!”
The voice was that of the High Priest and yet also that of the god. Kanu looked into the water and saw his reflection. Talons. Wings. Horns. A towering body with primal strength.
It was true.
The prophecy was true.
He was indeed the Destroyer.

E.M. Swift-Hook a flash fiction inspired by the art of Ian Bristow.

An extract from Ashes of Empire: Imperial Sunset the first book in a thrilling new sci-fi series from Eric Thomson.

Imperial Sunset is the first instalment in the Ashes of Empire saga.  It tells the story of a desperate attempt to stave off the darkness threatening to smother humanity’s interstellar empire and send civilisation back to the Stone Age.

“The flagship, sir — it’s gone.”  Disbelief, mingled with outrage and not a little fear.
Captain Jonas Morane, commanding officer of the Imperial Starship Vanquish, turned tired, blood-shot eyes on the cruiser’s combat systems officer.  His angular face bore the weary, almost resigned expression of someone who knew his life was changing forever.  If they survived the next few hours or days. 
“What?”
“Valens’ subspace beacon vanished.  She’s either been taken or destroyed.”
“I guess we’ll find out which it is when the visuals reach us.  In approximately three minutes, right?”
Lieutenant Commander Annalise Creswell nodded.  She was an athletic redhead whose normally bright green eyes were dulled by the stresses of fighting a losing war.  Fatigue and worry lined Creswell’s pale features, giving her the appearance of someone ten years older.
“Three minutes, sir.”
Subspace radio was practically instantaneous within the confines of a star system.  But it still took coherent light a second to travel three hundred thousand kilometers, and Morane’s ship was fifty-four million kilometers from the main force engaging the rebels near Toboso, the Cervantes system’s sole inhabited planet.
Vanquish, a long, wedge-shaped fast attack cruiser and its three consorts sat athwart the 197th Battle Group’s escape route, waiting for the main force to disengage from a rebel ambush so they could flee through Wormhole Cervantes Two.  Hopefully toward a system still in the hands of naval units loyal to the empire, although they were getting fewer each day.
“What about the others?”
“Still transmitting.”  Creswell hesitated.  “Cancel that.  Stilicho just went dark as well.”
“Damn.”  Morane ran a hand through his short, black hair as his mind tried to deal with the rapidly deteriorating situation.  Two more heavy cruisers either taken or destroyed by Admiral Loren’s rebel fleet.  On top of their earlier losses. 
He’d told Rear Admiral Greth, the 197th’s commanding officer, it was too risky entering the Cervantes system.  The rebels surely controlled such a significant wormhole junction and were ready to attack any unwary loyalist vessels passing through.  But Greth wouldn’t hear about falling back toward the imperial capital and saving his battle group’s strength until they could join others still faithful to their oaths. 
For the sin of objecting to aggressive action against the rebellion, Morane and his fast attack cruiser were left out of battle.  Their mission was to protect the 197th’s most vulnerable units, the replenishment ship Narwhal and two frigates damaged in their previous engagement with Loren’s forces, Nicias and Myrtale.  Greth considered it a punishment for lacking the right fighting spirit. 
Morane, who was increasingly doubtful about the wisdom of fighting the rebellion head-on, voiced no objections.  He didn’t want to court a needless death.  If that made him a coward in some eyes, so be it.  The empire was finished, he could feel it in his gut, and the rebellion wouldn’t fare much better.  No entity born of such violent dissolution could last. 
 

Ashes of Empire: Imperial Sunset is available now!

 

A bite of... Eric Thomson

Q1: Would you rather be James Bond or Batman?

Clearly James Bond.  Not only do I have a fondness for martinis and an appreciation for cars, my favorite protagonist, Zack Decker hero of my Decker’s War series, is sort of a 26th century James Bond, a science fiction military intelligence agent who’s larger than life.

Q2: Have you ever written somebody you dislike into a book, just so you could make them suffer?

I’ve done so regularly.  Whether they recognize themselves or not is another question altogether.  But it’s not so much to make them suffer as to make them appear like fools, which is worse than a fictional death.

Q3: Have you ever written somebody you love into a book?

My two eldest dogs, a pair of lovely Yorkshire terriers who were brother and sister from different litters, passed away in 2015.  Each has a cameo in one of my books.  It’s my way of immortalising them as a thanks for all the love they gave me over the years.  I’ll do the same for my third yorkie once his time comes.

 

Eric Thomson is the pen name of a retired Canadian soldier with thirty-one years of service, both in the Regular Army and the Army Reserve.  He spent his Regular Army career in the Infantry and his Reserve service in the Armoured Corps.  He worked for a number of years as an Information Technology specialist before retiring to become a full-time author.

Eric has been a voracious reader of science fiction, military fiction, and history all his life.  He assiduously devoured the recommended Army reading list in his younger days and still occasionally returns to the classics for inspiration.  Several years ago, he put fingers to keyboard and started writing his own military sci-fi, with a definite space opera slant, using many of his own experiences as a soldier as an inspiration for his stories and characters.

When he’s not writing fiction, Eric indulges in his other passions: photography, hiking and scuba diving, all of which he’s shared with his wife, who likes to call herself his #1 fan, for more than thirty years.

You can find Eric Thomson on Twitter, Goodreads, his own website and his blog.

Back in the quieter warmth of the old rectory, Danny and Paul had finished packing the camper.
“We were going to make an early start tomorrow,” Danny said. “But now we’re thinking we could start right away. Get a few miles under our belts before we find somewhere to sleep.”
“Okay,” Anna said equably. “I’ve been online and added you two to the insurance. Give me fifteen minutes and I’ll have some sandwiches made for your supper.”
Danny kissed her affectionately before he ambled off.
“You are a good, kind girl.”
Sam grinned at her.
“You are indeed. Do you think a couple of flasks of hot drink might be a good idea to go with the sandwiches?”
“Oh yes. But do we have flasks?”
“Many. In the garage. All clean. Two enough? Maybe three. If you have soup…”
“I do. One coffee, black. One hot chocolate. One soup. That would be brilliant.”
Sam disappeared and returned quite quickly bearing a large cardboard box. It contained about two dozen thermos flasks. Anna raised her eyebrows.
“Mrs Jackson used to give me flasks of soup. Home made and nearly as good as yours. But between us we kept losing flasks. So…”
Anna laughed and rooted in the box.
“Blimey, Sam. These are all expensive jobs.”
“Yeah. They keep soup hot for twenty-four hours. Which is why I didn’t throw them away. Now. Which do we use?”
“You making the beverages?”
“Course.”
“Okay. This one of coffee. This one chocolate.”
“I’m on it.”

By the time Danny and Paul were ready, there was a neat pile of sustenance on the kitchen table. Paul raised his eyebrows.
“Coffee. Drinking chocolate. Chicken soup. Sandwiches. Cake. Brownies.”
Anna ticked things off on her fingers as Sam packed a large cloth bag. Danny hugged her.
“Thanks baby.”
“S’okay. Sam made the coffee and the chocolate. Which is the proper sort.”
“I’m not hugging him. But thanks.”
“Where’d the flasks come from?” Paul asked idly. “These big ones run out about fifty quid each.”
“Sam’s lady friend used to give him soup in them. And they just mounted up.”
Danny grinned.
“Talking of mounting up. It’s time we weren’t here.”
He kissed Anna, stroked Bonnie, and thumped Sam on the shoulder. Paul picked up the bag and followed him, turning to wave from the doorway.
“See you on the twenty-seventh or the twenty-eighth if the fish are biting.”

Then he was gone too. The camper could be heard starting up and Danny’s voice adjuring Paul to get the side gate. For a few moments there was a small bustle of departure. Sam and Anna went to the front door to wave goodbye. The camper made its stately way out and both Paul and Danny waved frantically. Then they were gone and Sam shut the gate.

He jogged back and grinned down at Anna.
“I’m guessing,” he said “that your Danny is not a man given to hanging around.”
“No,” she said in a small, sad voice. “Dad used to call him sudden Daniel. He has always been the same. Here one minute, gone the next. The only person he can stand to be around all the time is Paul.”
Sam grabbed her in one of his bear hugs.
“That must’ve hurt when you were a kid. At least you’ve got me now, so you won’t be lonely ever again.”
Anna rubbed her face in his chest.
“It’s such a novelty to be understood. And you’re right about how he used to hurt me, though he never meant to. I always felt bereft when he went, and I suppose I expected to feel like that now. But I don’t. I have you now, and pleased though I was to see Danny, he isn’t the centre of my world any more. You’re that.”
Sam bent his head and kissed her slowly and with immense tenderness.
“You’re the centre of my world too,” he said lovingly. Where that might have gone is anybody’s guess, but Bonnie chose that precise moment to wriggle between them and insert her canine kisses into the mix.
“Want a walk minx?” Sam asked lovingly; Bonnie wagged her tail and jumped about excitedly.
“We’ll take that as a yes, shall we? You walking Anna?”
“Yeah. Why not? Let me just change my shoes and grab a jacket.”
“Ditto. I’ll race you.”
By dint of a bit of cheating, Anna managed to get to the front door about half a second in front of Sam, who grinned good-naturedly and clipped on Bonnie’s lead.

They had a long tramp, and returned home muddy, tired, and happy.
“That was so good,” Anna laughed. “For the first time in my life I’ve found somebody who likes walking as much as I do. Or are you just being good natured Sam?”
“Nope. Love a good brisk walk. What I don’t like is jogging. It’s bad for your joints, and it’s bloody pointless. How many so-called joggers did we pass by just walking briskly?”
“Lots,” then she giggled. “Sam. You’ve got a soapbox too. I wouldn’t have believed it.”
His grin was wry.
“Got a few actually. I’m just dribbling them into the conversation slowly so as not to frighten you off.”
“Okay. I’m with you on the utter pointlessness of jogging. Gimme another while I’m nice and mellow.”
“Elective cosmetic surgery.’
“Fair enough. Vanity gets on my tits too. I take it we’re not against reconstructive stuff?”
“No. Just vanity ops. Especially as a lot of silly young women are getting tit surgery in back street clinics in Eastern Europe, where it costs peanuts, then coming home and needing NHS time and resources to clear up the resulting botch jobs.”
“Yes. That is bad. Bad and stupid.”
He dropped a kiss on her head.
“You even agree when I’m on my favourite soapbox. Christina couldn’t get her head around that one at all. She felt it was admirable that these young girls wanted to look their best.”
“That’s just plain sad. It comes from the same place as anorexia and other eating disorders, don’t it?”
“It does. And it scares me. How can we stop it?”
“We can’t. It’s gone too far already. When you consider that a girl who is a size ten is called ‘plus size’ in the world of fashion, ordinary kids are on a hiding to nothing. Not to mention websites dedicated to being thin, websites full of ways of making yourself thin, and websites ridiculing fat people. Fat-ism is the only politically acceptable form of bullying now sexism and racism are out. Oops. My feet on soapbox now.”
“Don’t apologise. You are only right. I’ve had to reprimand junior doctors for ridiculing bigger people, and I’ve even heard suggestions that fat people shouldn’t be treated. Makes me very angry, when people of perfectly normal body type are being told they are fat. Particularly as many of my colleagues in general practice lack the moral fibre to tell the really obese what they are doing to their bodies. It’s so much easier to get a normal woman to drop half a stone, and claim your bonus for treating obesity.”
“Oh. Does that really happen?”
“Regularly. It’s much the same with prescribing statins. Write a script and get a bonus. Shouldn’t happen, but it does. Anyway. Enough of my soapbox. Coffee?”
“Please.”

Jane Jago

The perfect husband’s perfect wife
Perfect children, perfect life
Perfect home in perfect taste
Perfect backdrop for her face
Perfect teeth and perfect hair
Pretty, clever, self-aware
With carefully perfected style
And somewhat else behind her smile
The perfect husband’s perfect wife
Slits her wrists and ends her life

© jane jago 2016

The beach party had been on the calendar for weeks, so when Mikhail came home the night before and announced he had to take a rain check Kat wasn’t too pleased with him. She snarled and he shrugged his big shoulders.

“Responsibilities…”

And that was unarguable, so Kat just shoved her disappointment into a drawer marked ‘stuff that goes with being married to Mikhail’ and got on with making the best of things. 

As it turned out things might not be as bad as she first feared because Mik got another message saying that the meeting he was required at shouldn’t take more than a couple of hours.

“You go ahead Kat,” he said. “I’ll come along on the trike as soon as I can make it.”

Kat snorted. “You do love to make an entrance don’t you.”

He laughed and picked her up in his strong arms swinging her around until they were both dizzy. 

So it was that Kat drove herself in her snazzy little jeep down the long track to the white sands of Varg Bay. She had many friends in the group and apart from the slight annoyance of pushy teenagers trying it on with a lone female she had a pleasant time. Mik messaged at noon to say he should be able to get away pretty soon, but that he had been unable to avoid bringing Gandalf and Vix with him. Kat relayed that information to the big, quiet man who was hosting the party. Trey replied with a white-toothed smile.

“What’s that old bastard doing around these parts?”

Kat shrugged. “Big meeting, that’s why Mik isn’t here.”

“There was me thinking it was because he doesn’t like sand up his arse crack.”

“There’s that too.”

They laughed together and Kat went back to her book in the shade.

It was quite some while later, after she had clipped one particularly annoying adolescent firmly across the back of his head, that her old friend, and mate to Trey, Freja came and sat down beside her blowing out her cheeks in frustration.

“What’s up Frej?”

“Teenagers. Proddy bloody teenagers. Somebody is going to have to do something and it’s too nice a day.”

Kat was about to reply when the sound of big, hairy motorcycle engines could be heard.

“Who?” Freja asked tautly.

Kat listened. “Two engines. One is Mik so I’m guessing the other is Gandalf – and Vix.”

Freja swore with some feeling. 

“We really need them two here with the adolescents so stirred up right now.”

“I know. But nobody questions Dalf; and she’s worse.”

“She is,” the other woman said glumly, “she so is.”

Kat got up and pulled Freja to her feet.

“Come on Frej. Let’s not give her any excuse.”

So it was that when the two big trikes trickled gently down the sandy track there was a small reception committee awaiting them. As soon as Mik stopped his engine Kat could see there was something badly wrong, so she stepped to his side. He pulled her into a half hug but said nothing. It was the rider of the second trike who spoke. He was a tall cadaverously thin gent with long grey curls and an even longer beard. For all his thinness he was an oddly impressive figure, and his voice was deep and commanding.

“Who hunts in your valleys, pack master?”

The host spoke firmly, but with more than a little surprise evident in his tone.

“None with permission. All of mine are here.”

A small, lithe figure with curling scarlet hair, and talons to match, uncurled herself from the seat behind Gandalf.

“Well then, pack master,” her voice was thick with sarcasm, “perhaps you would care to explain the training pack that came at us as soon as we turned off the main road.”

The big, quiet man snarled, and Kat spoke up before things could deteriorate any further. 

“Manners Vix. Trey is our host and it behoves you to be polite. If he says they were none of his…”

The redhead opened her mouth, but the look on Kat’s face made her change her mind.

“Any casualties?” Trey looked at Mik.

“No. A few lumps and bumps, but nothing serious. We don’t make war on cubs.”

By this time all the beach party attendees had crowded around, and an older man held up his hand.

“If it was indeed the young in training, then there are two families who might see themselves as having permission to hunt across our land.”

Trey sighed. “Indeed they might. And a lesson in manners was no more than deserved.”

Gandalf combed his skeletal fingers through his beard.

“Truth. But their teacher must be a fool to go up against us.”

One of the heavier set young men threw back his head and laughed derisively.

“Why should such as we fear to go against a skinny old man, a whore, and some guy who lets his woman party without him.”

Trey sighed again. “You might want to reconsider that comment.” The brash young man pushed out his chest, and made as if to spit at the pack master’s feet. There could have been bloodshed had not Vix laughed high and clear.

“Young fool,” she said.

At that, the attention of the whole group of young males became concentrated on the quartet by the trikes. The air thickened with menace, and the scent of musk and pheromones filled the nostrils.

Gandalf laughed, but it was a sound without mirth.

“You permit pack master?”

Trey stood back and spread his hands as if to say he had no further interest in the proceedings.

The grey one spoke a single word and it was as if a disguise fell from him and he sat astride his machine naked except for the tattoos that covered his whole body. His face changed, becoming both older and younger at the same time. He held a yew wood bow in one hand and a quiver-full of blood red arrows rode high over his left shoulder. At his side the redhead made her own change seamlessly and a fox the size of a small horse wrinkled her nose in a snarl. 

A good half of the adolescent males moved away. This was a shaman and his familiar. And nobody with any sense goes up against such as they. 

But not everyone has any sense. Six young fools made their own changes and stood shoulder to shoulder as grey wolves.

“We will see about you and yours,” one growled, “and then I shall challenge the weak fool who calls himself our pack master.”

Mik stepped off the trike and looked each young hothead in the eye. None flinched, so he growled deep in his barrel of a chest.

“On your own heads be it.”

He and Kat made the change simultaneously flowing into their true forms as smoothly as a knife flows into its scabbard.

The male lion shook his mane before he roared.

Six young wolves lit out across the sand dunes as if the devil himself was in their wake.

Mik laughed and changed back.

“Did anybody save me a beer?”

Trey passed him a bottle. 

©️ Jane Jago 2018