A brutal fantasy tale of piracy, friendship, romance and revenge on the high seas…

In a surprisingly short time, the choppers reckoned the wreck to be free. Jack couldn’t hear what they had to say, but their gestures were interesting as they cajoled, or bullied, the Spanish contingent into putting their shoulders to the wreck. They must have all pushed together as the skeleton of the Santa Hosefina shot out of the clutches of the reef like a cork out of one of the bottles of fizzy wine the hidalgos so prized. The pieces of ship floated quite nicely, which was more than could be said for the mercenaries, most of whom still wore their steel breastplates. It looked as though the sailors on the reef were trying to reason with Gobby in the matter of the fate of the sinking Spaniards.
Jack mentally wished them good luck with that little project, before turning his attention to the approach of the Pink Pig. He knew he need not worry, and that Mary’s seamanship was of the highest order, and she was at the wheel herself, but he had just seen a ship tear herself apart on the unforgiving coral. He had to force himself to breathe as the Pig manoeuvred her nose into the gap. Almost before he had chance to really worry the sleek little barque was bobbing gently in the quiet water of the lagoon. The crew furled sails before ‘out oars’ was called.
As soon as she came alongside, Jack leaped aboard.
“Nice sailing love.”
Mary grinned. “A bit less dramatic than yours. Or the eeejit in charge of the galleon. What was he thinking of?”
One of the huddled sailors spoke up. “Gold. He were thinking of gold. A lot of gold.”
“That’d do it.”
Jack wandered over to where Don Esteban lay tied hand and foot and with the beginnings of a prizewinning bruise blooming on the white skin of his jaw.
“I’m glad you belted him, love, but I’m curious to know why.”
“Oh him. See the sailor over there with the bandaged leg?”
Jack nodded.
“Well. Your proud hidalgo there slashed him so he’d bleed in the water and attract the sharks. If it hadn’t been that you’re so set on killing him yourself I’d have made his face bleed and chucked him in the water as shark-bait hisself.”
“Oh he is a brave nobleman ain’t he. Do you think he’s still asleep? Or is he pretending?”
Mary’s grin grew just a bit vicious and she snapped out an order. Two of her brawny girls picked up the hogtied nobleman and carried him to the side of the boat. They tied a rope around his ankles and threw him into the sea headfirst. After a minute or so they pulled him up sufficiently so they could see his furious face. Mary looked at Jack.
“I reckon he’s awake now.”
“I reckon he is my love. Would you mind telling the girls not to hurry pulling him in. We fight an hour before sunset. Once I’ve killed his ass for him we should be able to catch the turning tide and get our ships out of this lagoon.”
“Right. Fine.”
Mary snapped a sarcastic salute and Jack retaliated by pulling her head down to his level and kissing her with embarrassing thoroughness. She came up for air with pink cheeks and slightly unfocused eyes.
“I’ll get you for that Jack Stainless,” she promised.
He grinned unrepentantly and leapt back onto his own ship.
One of Mary’s bolder girls looked at her captain and winked. “You bit off a mouthful with that one. If you ever needs a hand…”
Mary laughed and aimed a halfhearted blow. “That’n’s mine. Hands off.”
“It weren’t my hands I was thinking of.”

Jane Jago

There will be more from Bony Mary and her crew next week…

The Amazon delivery man
Plays a game whenever he can.
He hides your packages with such care
You’d never guess that they were there.
It’s not under a bucket or beside the shed,
It’s in your recycling bin, though he never said.

When you get home all tired and worn
You wish that man never was born
Out in the garden, you search with a torch
Why didn’t he leave it safe in your porch?
You look under a bucket and beside the shed,
But not the recycling bin, cos he never said.

E.M.Swift-Hook

The big man, with his little dog trotting at his heels, walked out of the Tavern quietly and without waking anyone. Which was probably just as well, Archanbor decided, as Ritter wasn’t in a good mood. He didn’t like being locked up. Outside the streets of Keran were mostly deserted and Archanbor moved with silent speed avoiding those few who were up and around.
“No point startling folks is there Ritter?” Archanbor observed as he opened up the low shed beside the workshops attached to the spaceport. The small dog seemed to agree and watched as his master rolled the heavy felt cloth back over the body of a PTV.
“Well, if he’d not locked us up I’d have offered him a fair hire price – but he doesn’t bloody deserve it now – that was so not a nice thing to do.”
“What isn’t nice, Drum?”
Archanbor spun on his heel and would have fired if Ritter hadn’t barked a sharp warning and run over to sniff at the figure standing in the door, his tail wagging happily.
“Pan? You look as beautiful as ever,” Archanbor opened his arms to offer her a hug. She didn’t move from the doorway, just stood there arms crossed all disapproving.
“You borrowing Gernie’s PTV then Drum?”
Archanbor lowered his arms sheepishly and tucked the energy snub away out of sight. He nodded.
“Oh aye. I was planning on it. Me and Ritts we need to get to Tabruth and it’s a bloody parlous long walk and swim if not.”
Pan nodded agreement.
“It would be. Not at all safe,” she agreed. “So what business do you and Ritter have in Tabruth? I hear that’s where the Overlord has his capital – you got trade with him, Drum?”
Archanbor rubbed his nose a few times and glanced down at Ritter for inspiration.
“Of a sort,” he said eventually.
Pan looked almost stern.
“You mean – your old trade? The one you promised Ritter you’d give up?”
That was so not fair. Even Ritter growled.
“What’s it bloody matter to you?” Archanbor demanded.
“To me? Not much. But to you it could matter. I know for a fact the Overlord has visitors right now and they are a bit out of your league for nowadays, Drum. I just wouldn’t want to see – see Ritter get hurt.”
Which showed what little she knew.
“If I don’t go Ritter will get hurt. And it’s not like I’m going to drop anyone. Just borrow – like I’m borrowing Tavi’s PTV. It’ll all be fine in the end.”
Pan was shaking her head.
“You go borrowing people you could wind up breaking them, Drum. You don’t want that. We’re all getting too old for it. Why don’t you come have a cup of tea with me before you go, at the least? I got a biscuit for Ritter too.”
He looked at the little dog who was standing head on one side.
“He’s not been eating biscuits recently. I think he’s off them,” Archanbor shot a worried look at Pan. “You think he might be not so well?”
She looked anywhere but at the dog, her face considering.
“He might be. If he is, taking him off out to Tabruth won’t help him get any better. Why not come have that tea and let him curl up by my fire for a few, Drum? Maybe that’ll help him some.”
Ritter barked and showed what he thought of that idea. Archanbor laughed. He wouldn’t be sorry to have some tea, it might help settle out his hangover.
“Alright, lass – and thank you.”
Pan’s domain was always a mix of the domestic and the workaday. She scooped a mug of tea for each of them from the pot and then stirred the embers of the fire to life and put a small log on to burn, before joining him and allowing a space for Ritter on the small rug before the hearth.
“A fine brew this, Pan,” Archanbor told her.”You know if you had not up and bloody married I’d be making you a proposal myself.”
“You’d be in the queue then Drum,” she said, her tone good natured. “But you know, you could always settle down here – find someone nice who’s local. You know you have a lot of friends here, people who’d be glad to see you stay. And Gernie would appreciate the help you could give – he could probably even get you on the official payroll. It would be steady for you – and Ritter, of course.”
She meant well. She always did. Heart of gold – like Gernie. He shook his head.
“Bit late for that now.”
Pan shot him a strange look, like he’d said something rude.
“It’s never too late, Drum. You just stop running, sit down, put your feet up and root in. It’s what I did. And how many other places have you got good friends? People who will look out for you?”
“I have Ritter,” Archanbor told her, smiling slightly at the little dog.
“Of course you do – and you’ll always have him. But maybe he’d like it if you settled down? No more running all over the galaxy.”
Archanbor thought about it and looked enquiringly at the little dog. Honestly, sometimes it was as if Ritter could read his thoughts.
“What you think Ritts? Should we take Auntie Pan’s advice? She’s bloody right you know.”
The small dog yawned and stretched then stood up and put his head on one side.
“What does Ritter think then?” Pan was asking, looking towards the fire.
“I’d say that looks more like he thinks we ought to be getting going,” Archanbor said, feeling just a touch regretful. It would be good to be able to sit here, drink the tea and then maybe spend the day working on mending or building something. He’d enjoyed that in the past. “Maybe when we get back. Maybe then. What you think to that Ritts?”
The wagging tail said it all.
“It might be a bit late then,” Pan said quietly. Archanbor laughed.
“Make your bloody mind up, lass. First, you’re telling me it’s never too late and then you’re saying it will be.”

From Haruspex 3: A Walking Shadow by E.M. Swift-Hook

The ball glitters
Under the lights
Glams the sham
Of disco nights
Adds glamour
To a sweaty youth
And spinning wildly
Hides the truth

©️jj

Prunella teaches you how to cook like a toff!

The biggest test of any woman’s cookery skills (as well as her patience and tolerance for alcohol) is luncheon for a group of her own sex.
The best advice, honestly, is to never allow oneself to be inveighed into hosting what can only be accurately described as a bitchfest.
Should you be foolish enough I have a few words of consolation.
However badly the occasion falls out there will always be worse in living memory – with the proviso that you remember the three golden rules.
Never serve chicken (by some intervention of Beelzebub it will always be raw in the middle)
Never run out of booze
Never allow your husband/offspring/brothers within shouting distance (they will find it terribly funny to cause mayhem and leave you apologise for them)
So, ladies, to our muttons. Now might indeed be a good time to break out your finishing school cookery. Or it might not. Perfect salmon en croute may be the normal order of the day for you, but with fifteen arch-critics at the door, failure is guaranteed. Burned pastry with raw fish inside is the best you can expect. Do. Not. Attempt. Anything complicated. If you must show off your culinary talents I strongly suggest a casserole which can be perfected the day before and merely heated on the day.
But. Having, unbeknownst to me, been made a member of a group of ‘ladies who lunch’ (I believe my unlamented mother-in-law to have been responsible) I have developed a coping mechanism which I am prepared to share here.
The food.
Tapas. Consisting of whatever you can find at your nearest German supermarket (not Waitrose, or Samantha, Lucinda et al will even be au fait with the price). Shove your purchases onto the best Coalport serving platters and smile your best humbly self-satisfied smile.
The booze.
Unlimited amounts of sangria and/or Agua de Valencia. Shakes head at puzzled young women. These drinks are both ironic and carefully lethal.
Mix as follows.

Sangria

2 litres red wine
1 litre Fundador or similar sherry-based brandy
2 tablespoons muscovado sugar
2 large oranges sliced
1 large lemon sliced
2 punnets strawberries
1 cinnamon stick
2 star anise
1 litre lemonade
Mix all ingredients except lemonade in large jugs at least three hours prior to luncheon. Add lemonade at the last minute.

Agua de Valencia

2 litres orange juice
4 sliced oranges (blood oranges for preference)
1 bottle cheap gin
1 bottle cheap vodka
4 tablespoons granulated sugar
2 bottles cava
Mix all ingredients except cava beforehand. Add cava just before the wenches descend

And there you have it. A no-fail luncheon for your natural enemies.

Just one last thing. Make no attempt to hide the supermarket packaging the food came in. If you do, your husband’s ex-girlfriend will seek it out and parade it about the room. Which bitchery there is no point to if you leave the packets in a neat pile on the kitchen worktop. Benefit two of this strategy is that when a mildly intoxicated young woman demands to know if the king prawns were prepared to Mary Berry’s recipe or Nigella’s you can recommend her to go and read the packet.

Look out for more tips on how to cook like a toff next week!

The world woke up one Monday morning to find its orbiting sentinels had all died: no GPS, no satellite television, no spy in the sky.

The biggest inconvenience?  Satnav.

Older drivers got out their maps. 

But the young.

In one hour the world lost sight of 100 bicycle couriers, a thousand Uber drivers, and more fast food delivery operatives than you could count.

Within a week governments started printing up to date atlases.

Within a month the world had mostly learned to cope.

Within a year nobody cared. 

Except the mothers of the pizza delivery boys who never came home…

©jane jago

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…

This time the door opened into a big room, with floor-to-ceiling windows and a view over the rooftops of Level 39 to where trees and grass grew in the only municipal park in this level.
“That you, Nero?” a voice called from what I guess was the kitchen.
Katie Scarlett swayed like a leaf in the wind and I braced her with my hands around her slender waist.
“Yes it’s me. And I have your daughter with me.”
O’Halleran barrelled out of a door to our left and grasped Katie Scarlett in his brawny arms. I signed to Myk and Zig and the three of us went to enjoy the view. The low-voiced conversation behind us went on for some time, and it seemed to me that Mister Aitch was having some small difficulty pacifying his little girl.
I heard the staccato snap of high heels crossing the floor and Katie’s hand sneaked into mine.
“If I asked nicely, would you lend me a shooter, Sam?”
“What happened to your little stingy gun, babe?”
“Had to lose it when I shot some kid through the leg.”
I laughed. “Taking liberties was he?”
She nodded. “Now. About that shooter.”
“No. I’m not lending you heat so you can shoot your daddy. No matter how pissed off you are.”
Her laughter was lazy, and throaty, and warm.
“I wasn’t really going to shoot him. Just wanted to scare the cold bastard as much as he scared me.”
“Fair enough. But the answer is still no.”
“Spoilsport.”
She left hold of my hand and I heard her walking back to daddy, only this time her footfalls didn’t sound so all-fired mad.

Myk put a big hand on my shoulder and I turned to see a smile in his eyes. He signed “good work,” and we fist-bumped.

We carried on looking at the trees as they speared their way into the ‘sky’ until the voices behind us finally wound down. I turned to see Katie Scarlett with her arms around her father and her face buried in his shoulder.
“Not crying, I hope. You’ll mess your face up good if you are.”
“Nope. Not cryin’ just settlin’.”

O’Halleran motioned to a big table that looked as if it might have been made of real tree wood, and we all took seats. There was a bottle in the middle of the table, and a tray of crystal glasses the like of which I didn’t think I had ever seen before. Katie Scarlett poured ten-year-old bourbon with a lavish hand.
“And now,” she fixed me with a steely gaze, “I think Mister Nero has some explaining to do.”
Zig signed something to her, but the moves were so quick and so subtle that I didn’t catch any of it. Whatever it was brought red flags of embarrassment to her cheeks, and she cast down her eyes.
“Sorry Sam. Uncalled for.”
I handed around my best good old boy grin.
“No worries, babe. And I do have some explaining.”
I touched my wrist unit and Sugar appeared in the vacant chair at the foot of the table. O’Halleran licked his lips, and that riled me.
“A little respect, now, or we walk.”
He glared at me for a long moment, and opened his mouth to say who knew what, but Katie Scarlett forestalled him.
“Manners Daddy. Sugar may only be a hologram, but she is still entitled to be treated respectfully.”
The big man subsided and I nodded to Sugar.
“We are here,” she spoke briskly and not at all in her usual breathy little girl voice, “to talk about why anybody might find it worth their while to poison Mister O’Halleran’s mind against Sam and Katie Scarlett. I have some information that might clear things up a bit.”
As soon as she stopped speaking a short movie played itself out on the white wall opposite her chair. It was night and two figures walked along an unfamiliar street. The woman was wrapped around the man like a morning glory vine, and they stopped under a convenient street lamp for a bit of canoodling. The man’s hands were all over the woman, and as she lifted her face to be kissed Katie Scarlett’s features were revealed. Then the man turned his head.

For an instant Katie Scarlett stared, then she sprung up from her seat like a vengeful goddess.

She’s fast, but I’m faster and I was on my feet in time to catch the clawing hands and hold her away from me as she kicked and screamed. It took her a goodish while to recognise that she was getting nowhere, and soon as she started running down I transferred both of her wrists to one hand and used the other to lift her chin.
I made my voice hard.
“Katie Scarlett, you need to stop acting like a baby and just listen to me. You’re all over snot and you’re making an exhibition of yourself. Capiche?”
For a long moment her reaction hung in the balance, then I felt the tension leave her body. I handed her my handkerchief and she blew her nose firmly. She made to hand the crumpled square of linen back, with the ghost of her three cornered smile hovering above her lips.
“You keep it babe.”
“Thank you most to death, Sam. But who? That’s not me? Isn’t you either is it?”
“No. It isn’t either one of us.”

From ‘Sam Nero and the Case of the Dutiful Daughter’ one of the stories in Sam Nero PI by Jane Jago

The door opened.
The line of light widened and Jacob’s heart beat a tattoo of terror.
It was too late to be dad, he had blundered up the stairs two hours ago shouting, yelling, drunk as always. Jacob had kept hidden under the duvet, cuddling Mr Tomkins.
No. Dad would be fast asleep and snoring now.
But the door still opened and a shadow fell over Jacob’s bed.
Then he saw who it was and the terror fled.
A few minutes later he was bundled up on the back seat of mum’s car, still clutching Mr. Tomkins.
They were escaping.

E.M. Swift-Hook

His Sister’s Keeper is a brutal dystopian sci-fi new from Jane Jago

The two female figures were hurrying – as much as was safe on the cracked and buckled asphalt of a street right on the edge of civilisation. They were well wrapped against the frozen rain, but acutely aware of the eyes of scavenger children with their fingers and toes blue from the cold. The smaller of the two stopped in the sickly yellow glow of a dying street lamp. She took a few coins from her pocket and placed them in the circle of comparative light.
“Eating money.”
Her companion snorted. “They’ll only buy burny.”
They fell silent, and had walked only a little further when a dark-coloured van screeched around the corner. It came at speed, accelerating from the main street, with its cheap bars and whorehouses, into the foetid quiet of the alley. It halted in an area of deepest darkness and the side door opened with an electric whoosh. Something heavy was thrown into the gutter and the vehicle was reversing away almost before the watchers in the darkness had time to compute its presence.
The two women ran to where the contraband had landed. It was as they had feared. The woman was naked, and lay like a discarded doll in the filth. They turned her over and she made a small noise.
“Not dead.”
“No. Not yet. We taking her in?”
“I guess…”
The big woman bent at the knees and lifted the body with ease.
“There’s nothing of her.”
After which the silence fell again, save for the sound of footsteps, and tiny mewing noises from the broken lips of the one being carried. Behind a disused refuse recycler there was a scarred brown door. It opened at their approach and a wide figure stood in the lamplight. He held out his arms and the bulky woman gratefully handed over her burden.
As he turned the light fell on the face of the woman he carried and even the two hardened whores who had picked her up drew in their breath in pity. She had been so severely beaten that her face resembled a lump of offal, and her thin body bore a variety of bruises of various colours – from the red and purple of fresh weals to the green and yellow of healing injuries.
“Yesu. How is she alive?”
“I don’t know. Look at her hands.”
The younger of the two whores looked and felt her stomach rise into her throat. “Why does she have no fingertips?”
“No fingerprints. No identification. Somebody went to a great deal of trouble to make sure she wasn’t recognised.”
“Oh. Yeah. Poor little bitch.”
The big man looked kindly at the two working girls. “You gave her half a chance, before the sewer rats got to her.”
He carried his burden to a small, but well-equipped infirmary, where he laid her on a bed and managed to get an IV line in her arm. Morphine to ease her pain was the first necessity. Once she was as comfortable as he could make her, he gently cleaned and dressed her wounds. She didn’t seem to him to have any broken bones and he elected not to move her to the X-ray machine. Having done all he could he pulled a chair to the side of her bed and sat down to think.
“You pissed off some serious money and power, didn’t you?”
Needless to say she didn’t answer.
It was to be many days before she showed any sign of life at all. One of the older whores was doing a bit of cleaning when she heard a kittenish mewing noise coming from the bed where the unknown woman lay. She went across and looked down to find the girl’s eyes were open although they seemed to be staring without seeing. Acting on instinct, the whore put a gentle hand on the least bruised bit of flesh she could see.
“You’re safe now, luv.” The eyes slowly tracked to her face and she could feel the effort in even that small action. “You just rest. Ain’t nobody here gonna hurt you no more.”
The words seemed to get through, because the broken girl sighed and her eyes closed. The whore went to the red plastic phone that hung drunkenly from the wall. She jiggled a strange, circular dial and waited. When a deep, masculine voice replied she spoke.
“Markus. The kid Bronwen and Sal brung in woke up. Briefly. I told her we wasn’t going to hurt her and she went back to sleep. Only it seems to me like now it’s actual sleep, not being unconscious.”
“Thanks, Ella. I’ll come and see.”

You can keep reading by snagging your own copy of His Sister’s Keeper from Jane Jago

Cherie wanted a dog with every fibre of her being, but the doctors wouldn’t countenance the hair or the drool, so her loneliness grew and each day she faded a little more.

Schnitzel started life as a poster on Cherie’s bedroom wall, his face made her laugh and she seemed to take comfort from him.

When money is no object very little is impossible and Cherie awoke from a fitful slumber to find her favourite poster made ‘flesh’. 

“Schnitzel,” she whispered. 

Who knew that a million dollar artificial dog could give a precious child the impetus to try and live.

©jj 2019