In Contact (Instinct Theory #1) by Ian Bristow, when the world is running out of options man looks further afield for survival…

“Mensi, we’ve captured strange trespassers.”
A low, gritty voice reached Madelyn’s ears. She was sat, bound at the hands and feet and her head was throbbing. Thankful that her captors hadn’t removed her helmet, which housed the built-in translator, she opened her eyes and tried to locate the speaker without making any unnecessary movements. But a full sweep of her visual range without turning her head revealed nothing but the blank expanses of a canvas wall across the dirt floor she was sitting on, leading her to assume she was in some sort of tent-like enclosure. The voice spoke again.
“They seem to have some kind of magic, just like Calitari predicted.”
“How many were there?” The replying voice, which Madelyn guessed belonged to Mensi, carried an unmistakable note of arrogance.
“We didn’t get an exact count, but we killed the aggressive ones—at a somewhat significant loss of our own—and captured four… Three escaped.”
Madelyn’s heart skipped a beat. Three of the others had gotten away.
“Escaped? Neza, I task you with keeping threats out of our great lands and you allow three unknown magic wielders to escape? This is not your first or even second blunder in recent times. Your persistent failure is intolerable.”
“I will personally see to it they are—”
The sound of something swiping through air cut Neza’s words short, and hopeless gurgling noises replaced them, followed by the sound of dead weight crumpling to the ground.
Horrified, Madelyn realized she had just heard Neza die for allowing three of her companions to escape. Such brutality toward one of his own did not bode well for how this Mensi figure might treat her and the others.
“Lintu,” Mensi yelled.
“Yes, lord.”
“Come here. Your services are required.”
Chancing a small movement, Madelyn peered to her left and saw a Xantarian running toward the enclosure through a break in its flap-covered doorway. One of the flaps swooshed open and light poured in, stabbing at her pupils. Her head pounded in revolt and she closed her eyes.
“Three others like these four are out on our lands somewhere,” Mensi said.
These four? For the first time, Madelyn had reason to believe she was not alone in the tent. Whoever else had been captured were here as well.
“They are magic wielders, so you will need to be cautious in your hunt. Use the Manori if you need to. I want them returned here alive if at all possible. I believe they might have answers about the moving stars.”
“Your will is mine,” Lintu said.
The sound of multiple footsteps faded away, and she risked a more revealing look through the open flap. No one was standing there. Now feeling it was safe to do so, she wriggled around and found Lexi, Cameron, and Mitzu all huddled nearby, which meant Chiara, Charlene and Peter had escaped.
“Have they gone?” Lexi whispered.
“I think so,” Madelyn said, looking around again.
Her vision fell to Neza’s body a few yards away. Lifeless eyes and a deep wound across the throat spoke of the cruel fate this creature had suffered. She couldn’t be sure if it was a male or female, but its body looked similar to that of the one Hodgson had called a male during the briefing in Liverpool. That day could have been a lifetime ago now. She could still remember her growing excitement and Jonathan’s encouraging expressions as the mission started to sound more and more accessible.
Jonathan.
His smiling face materialized in her mind and tears surfaced. Her fate was now less certain than ever before in the field. If she died, all her worries and fears would come to an abrupt end, but Jonathan would be left to mourn, surely questioning if her death was his fault. Feeling like he had encouraged her to do something that ultimately resulted in her passing would destroy him.
The tears were flowing freely now.
“Maddie…”

A Bite Of… Ian Bristow

Ian is a writer, artist, and musician. A true renaissance man. But what makes him tick?

Q 1: Why do you write?

I write for several reasons. Chiefly because I love to create. I’m drawn to the way it feels when two characters interact on a page and no longer feel two dimensional. Or when words are able to paint the image in my head (though I sometimes struggle to find the exact words to do so. But when I do manage, it feels really good).

Q 2: Have you ever written someone you dislike into a book just so you can make them suffer?

I modelled one of my antagonists on someone I dislike, but not so I could make them suffer. It was just that the person was a perfect model for the sort of antagonist I wanted to write. When I first started writing the character, I hadn’t considered modelling them after that person, but the parallels started to emerge, and once I noticed, I then made a conscious effort.

Q 3: How much of your writing is autobiographical?

None. Some of my characters have personality traits that are similar to me, but that’s only because those elements of my personality are quite common, making it easy for any believable character to have similar opinions, beliefs, etc. I’m not sure I’ve had an interesting enough life to write autobiographical-based stories… LOL!

Ian Bristow is a freelance artist and the author of Instinct Theory – Contact, Hunting Darkness and the Conner’s Odyssey trilogy. He is currently working on the second and final instalment of the Instinct Theory duology. When he isn’t writing or creating works of art, he enjoys playing music or spending time with his family and friends. You can visit him on Facebook and Twitter.

Ever since the Explorer returned with stories of exotic alien females and what they would do to a man in freefall, the world salivated and wanted that experience for itself.

The planet’s first freefall room opened with a waiting list of two years.

The day Joel’s turn came, he could barely contain himself. As the light dimmed and his body became weightless he felt as if his heart would burst. 

In the darkness he felt the featherlight touch of fingers before those hands pressed a point behind his ear and he knew no more.

Another fool and his money parted…

©️jj 2020

‘Much Dithering in Little Botheringham’ is an everyday tale of village life and vampires, from Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook.

Back home after the unbelievable events that had just transformed her life completely, Ginny made herself a soothing cup of rosehip and chamomile tea and wondered why she didn’t feel the usual mix of dread and panic that anything so stressful had always induced in her in recent years.
If anything, she decided after a little self-reflection, she felt calm, confident and even invigorated. Part of that she was sure came from whatever physiological changes being undead provided (undead—she quickly pushed the uncomfortable word away), being a vampire provided, but there was also the simple sense of belonging. Ginny had never ‘belonged’ before, and now she suddenly did. She had a Nest, sisters and a village. That thought left a warm glow deep within.
But part of belonging meant commitment, a giving as well as a taking and right now that meant she had to do her bit to protect both her new communities from the grasping hands of Ronald Dump and his enabler-stroke amanuensis Dom Schilling. She glanced at, then put to one side, the pile of booklets Anges had given her:
Vampires and Other Supernaturals—a spotter’s guide.
Sucking for Amateurs—a new vampire’s guide to blood
Community Manners or How Not To Get Your Face Eaten Off—social regulation in the supernatural community
These things Can Kill You—what to avoid for a long and happy unlife
It was not that she wasn’t interested or didn’t need to know, but right now other things had to take priority. If what she had been told was correct she would have decades or even centuries to get around to reading them.
Ginny also ignored a missed call from Lucinda Lorinski, one of her superficial and supercilious London set—no doubt calling up to either gloat and patronise, or to whine and vent as she seemed incapable of any other variety of social interaction—and instead started rummaging in some of the unpacked boxes looking for her ‘important papers’ locked file. She was pretty sure it still contained some of the research she had done on Schilling when their paths had crossed before.
When she finally unearthed it she had then to spend another half hour looking for the key before she could sit down with a fresh cup of tea and walk through a little of her own history.
There were copies of certificates and awards, letters from celebrities—actual letters not printed out emails—insurance for places and things that no longer existed, or at least not in her life, an entire book of long-forgotten passwords and another of addresses and phone numbers belonging to people who also might no longer exist and had not touched her life for many years.
Ginny was close to giving up as she reached the last thin section of documents. Perhaps she had thrown them away in one of her less lucid moments, when expunging the past had seemed the only way to make the present bearable. Or perhaps she had put them somewhere else, deeming them no longer so important as to take up space in her secure file. Or perhaps…
The folder was manila brown and sat between two large card backed envelopes which contained—respectively—her degree awards and her marriage and divorce certificates. It had one word written on the front in block capitals—BASTARDS!
Sitting back she held it unopened for a while, collecting the reserves she needed to face the painful past. Then she slipped it open and started scanning the documents. She was not entirely sure what she thought she would find there, maybe nothing of real use to the present, maybe just a reminder of how much winning this mattered to her personally as much as to the village.
An hour later, feeling more determined, she put the papers away and locked the file, knuckled away tears that were surely of anger over what had been done than grief at her personal loss, surely, and then gathered the corners of her courage and determination and picked up the phone.
“Major Harmsley-Gunn? This is Virginia Cropper, I just wanted to apologise for being a bit distracted when you called on me before and to say that I would be delighted to take up the vacant seat on the Parish Council. You’re so right, I certainly want to bring along some much needed common sense about progress in the village.”

Part 24 of Much Dithering in Little Botheringham by Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook, will be here next week.

Writing with a crayon
On yellowed pads
I’m not allowed a biro
Because I’ve been bad
I’m not allowed the Internet
Because I swear and cuss
And if I want to keep my crayon
I better not make a fuss
Writing words that flow like silk
From my imagination
In this room with its white walls
That smells of desperation

©️jj 2020

Excerpt from the bestiary of Thomas Bookbinder: There is a race set apart from the rest of us, who are in appearance half Man and half demon. They call themselves The People and their function is to maintain the balance between good and evil. They are a force for the right, and they are said to speak with Angels…

PROLOGUE

When Aascko son of Aasgo became a fully fledged Hunter his pride knew no bounds. He had learned diligently, and his Teacher had even managed to shake some of the moral certainties that a rigid and unimaginative upbringing had rooted in his head. He was no longer the arrogant youngling who had reported for training, and he knew that his further development would depend on who had been chosen to partner the greenest rookie in the pack. His first winter saw him paired with a stolid oldster, who steadied him and taught him who might be trusted and who he should be wary of. 
Then the old Hunter retired, leaving Aascko partnerless and vulnerable. He went on a couple of low grade jobs before being called to the home of the Master Hunter to meet his permanent partner. He found himself more nervous than he had been since his first day of training and was forced to wipe sweaty palms on his trousers before knocking on the door of the Master’s office. The old Hunter stood up to greet him.
‘Welcome Aascko. Come and meet Aaspa.’
Aascko felt a cold finger on his spine. Of all the Hunters in the pack,  he was to be paired with the Abomination. He steeled himself and held out a hand. A slight figure uncoiled itself from the chair in the corner of the room and he beheld her for the first time. She was beautiful, slender and strong, with silver-grey skin, aristocratic features, and a crest of night black curls. Then he saw her eyes and it was all he could do not to recoil. He held firm, and kept a smile of polite greeting on his face. Even so, she saw the revulsion in him and the pleasant smile on her own face faded.
‘Forget it’ she said shortly. ‘This one has too much baggage.’
The Master a Hunter held up a hand. ‘Please Aaspa. Do this for me. Aascko deserves a chance.’
‘With respect, Master, I don’t think he wants a chance. He can barely bring himself to touch my hand. What sort of a partnership will that be? How should I trust a partner who thinks my very existence violates the rules of being? The first chance he gets he’ll betray me.’
Aascko felt his cheeks flame with embarrassment. ‘No lady. I would not sink so low.’
She turned to look at him and he saw the hurt that lurked in those blue eyes. It hit him like a hammer blow.
‘The eyes of The People are brown and no other colour’ she said bitterly. ‘I expect you were brought up reciting that alongside the other commandments.’
‘I was. But I’ve already had most of my certainties shaken. That one is about due to be amended too.’
‘Why should I believe you?’
‘I can give you no reason, save my oath.’
‘And why would you give your oath to Abomination?’
He met her gaze straightforwardly. ‘Because I need a partner and so do you. Also, I have heard of your skill and I would learn from the best. I would not offer friendship to anyone on first meeting, but I would promise my loyalty. Will you accept my word?’
She regarded him solemnly for a moment then nodded. He bent his knee before her.
‘Huntress Aaspa I pledge my fealty from this day forward.’ 
Then he stood up and offered his hand. She took it, and he noticed how finely boned she was. 
‘I’m sorry’ he said honestly. ‘I find myself ashamed.’
She favoured him with a twisted grin.
‘Forget it. It happens all the time.’
‘I dare say. But that don’t make it right. It makes it worse.’
‘Maybe we do have a chance at forging a partnership’ she bumped knuckles with him. ‘We’ll give it a go.’   

Two years later: Aaspa herself takes up the story.

CHAPTER ONE

The naked woman knelt before the huge male vampire with her hands held carefully behind her back. She looked hungrily at his alabaster flesh before raising her eyes to his face. He ignored her, making her await his pleasure. She moaned softly and he backhanded her with casual cruelty, before turning his white eyes towards a corner of the dusty room, where a pile of flesh and hair attested to the fight the woman’s hounds had put up before they were ripped to pieces. Draped across the dead hounds was the body of a Helper, his flesh grey and lifeless and his wings all but torn from his body. The Demon Hunter thought him dead too. The vampire wasn’t so sure, but he was sure he could allow himself a moment of indulgence before seeing to details like the death of a mere Helper. He looked down into the woman’s face and nodded. She leaned forward and took him in her mouth.
I crouched on a beam in the bat-smelling roof and worried. I knew my Mate wasn’t dead, and I also knew he would die very soon without help. But I had to wait. If I got this wrong, the rogue vampire would kill both of us.

Carry on reading about Aaspa, her family, friends and enemies for FREE in Aaspa’s Eyes and for 0.99 in Aaspa’s Imps this weekend.

The streets are a-dancing in autumn’s lost gown
A scatter of leaves that sprinkled the town
Blown with the crisp packets to catch on a hedge
Swept with the dogends under each ledge.
Played with by the children, in drifts in the park
Lifted by blustery winds for a lark
Packed by the tramp of feet, wet from the rain
Swirled down the gutters and blocking the drain.
Golden and orange and yellow and brown
Streets filled with the beauty of autumn’s lost gown.

E.M. Swift-Hook

Hands up if you, like me, watch cookery programmes on the box.

We’re not talking about them ones where a very thin person pretends to cook and then counterfeits eating with a mouth that looks like a cat’s bumhole.

Neither are we even mildly interested the ones where a ‘celebrity’ chef ponces about putting baby vegetables on a sea of something obscene. 

I never watch either of the above – unless of course it’s Nigella, whose substitution of food for sex is to be applauded. But I digress…

Today’s exposition of emotion (okay, maybe a tiny rant) centres on competitive cooking on the telly. 

Firstly, cooking is not a bloody competition. It’s the means whereby something earthy and boring like a potato becomes a delicious calorie filled treat like a chip. 
Secondly, watching capable people cook isn’t interesting (Nigella aside).
Which leaves us with why.

An educated guess suggests economic pressures with a side order of sadism.
These cookery competitions must be as cheap as chips to produce and the prizes are crap too. A wooden spoon with a bow in it and a kiss from an oleaginous presenter are scarcely gonna break the production company bank.

And the sadism? You really haven’t noticed the delight the producers take in fallen soufflés, burns, cuts, meltdowns, and tears? 

The winner usually appears very little because she/he is busy being boring and efficient, while Edna from Liverpool who is obviously only there because she was pissed one night and entered for a laugh is far more fun to watch.
So…. 

Given that if the competitors all produced well-cooked examples of whatever and neither failed disastrously nor had loud meltdowns in the public eye the programmes would be about as interesting as watching your nail polish dry, there has to be a catch someplace.
Something has to be done to glue viewers to the screen.

And what have they done?
They have set up the rules to ensure failure…
Don’t look at me like that. They bloody have.

One show never gives the competitors quite enough time to get the required dish done.
Another encourages rank amateurs to attempt recipes a Michelin starred chef only cooks with the aid of three sous chefs and a kitchen porter.
A third has some scary bloke patrolling the place to scare the cooks shitless.
And so on.

And that’s why we watch.
Schadenfreude.

And the hope that in some galaxy far far away a person in a creepy apron will so far lose it as to twat one of the supercilious presenters – for preference with a half-iced strawberry gateau.

Surianna was born a slave, albeit one of superlative beauty. Her mother was the property of a superior whorehouse, and by the time she was sixteen years old Surianna was accounted the loveliest of the city’s exquisite hetairae.

When the sultan gifted her with freedom, she should have had a glittering career before her.

Why was it, then, that she wasted her smooth-skinned loveliness on a humble charioteer with no money and no prospects?

As she washed the paint from her eyes, and swapped her silks for workaday linen, Surianna was truly giving herself where she chose. At last.

©️jj 2020

At some time on the interminable journey, Sergeant Adam Adamson had passed from annoyance, through bitter indifference, to weary acceptance. The job of guarding a convoy of acolytes on its way to the dragon temple wasn’t arduous, but the would-be priests were about the most dislikable bunch of pious, yet self-indulgent, proselytisers it had ever been his misfortune to meet. They were supposedly humble supplicants, but the guard soon found out that nothing could be further from the truth. Each seemed to feel himself entitled to grovelling respect, and to having his every wish acceded to. They looked down their patrician noses at the stocky hard-muscled soldiers in their plain leather breastplates, and made little effort to disguise their contempt for their social inferiors.
Notwithstanding the arrogance and rudeness, Adam’s men tried to accommodate the grey-robed ones, but he quickly saw the unreasonableness of the demands being made could only lead to disaster. He issued the order that nobody but him was to speak to the putative priests and the acolytes were told not to address their guards. This more or less staved off mutiny, although the grumbles were close enough to the surface for him to casually mention a fat success bonus.
It had been three months since they left the city and even Adam’s normally monumental patience was wearing thin. Although the acolytes were mounted on sturdy mules, while he and his men walked, they had still barely managed the allotted daily mileage. In fact, it could be a good deal less if they reached a roadside sanctuary, as the mealy-mouthed majority always insisted it was their duty to spend time in such places fasting, and praying for the souls of those who walked the roads. One of the oldest soldiers in the detail spoke for all of them when he spat in the roadside dust.
“If them little shits is fastin’ and prayin’ why does them need so many young ‘priestesses’ and so much wine?”
“Good question. You gonna ask them?”
“Nah. I’d only wind up takin’ the flat of my sword to somebody. And they ain’t worth a court martial.”
“Ain’t that the truth.”
Then one of the brighter veterans laughed a nasty laugh. “They’m in for a shock when we hits the mountains in’t ‘em. No mules. No sanctuaries. No wine. No women.”
“That and the way the landscape shifts,” a leathery old soldier spat a stream of yellowish tobacco juice.
It didn’t take long for the rest of the detail to catch on, and the sour mood was replaced by one of sardonic amusement. Adam let them settle before adding his two penn’orth.
“When we get there, you lot need to remember that nobody carries none of their gear. No matter what they offer. If they want it, they hump it. Understood?”
There was a general grunt of acceptance and he left it at that.
Today was the day they turned off the highway and started the climb into the foothills. The mules strained forward, knowing their cozy stable awaited, and even the acolytes seemed to sense something in the clear autumn air.
Adam grinned sourly. Things were going to get a whole lot less pleasant for his human cargo very soon and he found himself supremely indifferent to their upcoming discomfort.
It was sunset when the column rounded an almost conical hill and found itself in the last valley before the climb. There was smoke rising from the chimneys of the squat, fieldstone buildings beside the mule corrals, and he guessed it spoke to the acolytes of dinner and warm beds. He and his men, of course, knew better. He held up a hand for a halt and a high-pitched and querulous voice from behind demanded to know what he thought he was doing. He didn’t bother to answer, instead he watched the skies, ignoring the moaning and mumbling from the grey-clad figures astride their mules. Adam looked westerly and was rewarded by the sight of a graceful winged creature flying towards him, stained blood red by the setting sun.

From The Dragon Riders by Jane Jago in the Game Lit anthology Rise and Rescue – Volume One. 

Pearls of wisdom from an octogenarian who’s seen it all…

People who use posh words for everyday things

You know who I mean, the kind of person who invites their pals over for drinks of an evening and calls it a ‘soirée’ or for a coffee in the morning and offer you a ‘latte’. They don’t have a bedroom like the rest of us mortals they have a ‘boudoir’ and they don’t eat chips, it’s ‘pommes frites’.

They have everything ‘au gratin’ when they usually just mean it’s got cheese on it and then eat it ‘al fresco’ rather than outside.

Seeing a pattern here? I am.

Call it something in French or Italian and you posh it up beautifully.

So if you’ll excuse me I’m talking my chien to il parco for a pisciare and a merde!