A Fortune’s Fools story by E.M. Swift-Hook. You can listen to this on YouTube too.

It always began with an explosion.
Any explosion – any one of the hundred or more he had survived.
The explosion would lock him in, trap him, make him a prisoner of his sleeping mind. In the real world, he was safe in bed with a woman curled close beside him. Vel’s cousin, Lea, her body warm and sated. But it was not enough. The moment sleep claimed him the explosion would still come, shredding his sanity. Then the nightmare would run on, making him relive each episode, as vivid as life. Every thought, sensation, feeling, image, as clear as it had been at the time, pursuing him remorselessly until he could – somehow – scramble back to consciousness from the relentless abuse of sleep….

An explosion crumpling the building to his right as if it were paper.
Three more blasts in quick succession, the last close enough to spew out a lethal hail of masonry. The kinetic shielding on his armaments belt protected him so the rubble bounced away, but the screaming beside him was cut off abruptly. What had been two human beings a moment before, was now a pulped mess.
A shattering silence followed. He could see troops advancing – eight  – and five more still in cover behind them according to the Lattice screen. With three bursts he  dropped two of the nearest, the rest scattered for cover.
“Leader Four-Delta from Prime. Withdraw immediately.”
The voice in his ears at last.
“Acknowledged.”
Relaying the order to his three surviving team members, Jaz put down covering fire as they retreated. The Lattice was pounding him with information through his scalp implanted data-port, faster than he could absorb it:  numbers and location of the enemy, their armaments, expected movements, ground plans, suggested paths he could take. More.

Then:
“Leader Four-Delta from Prime.  Lattice is showing you are surrounded. We are unable to support. Repeat. Unable to support.” A pause, before the voice added: “You’re on your own out there, Jaz.”
Bastards.
“Acknowledged.”
Snarling the word, he focused on keeping up covering fire. He knew they were surrounded. He could see what was going on.  The handful of Special Legion troops he had been given for this job were being sacrificed – a feint – so the rest of his unit could hit the main enemy base largely unopposed. Except of course no one had told him that. It crossed his mind to wonder who he had pissed off enough so they chose him for this suicide run. If – when – he got out of this he would find out and make them pay. Then the thought occurred that it was probably nothing personal at all. When you were living out a death sentence, you shouldn’t be too surprised to be treated as completely expendable.
A sudden blossom of light caught one of the three whose retreat Jaz was covering. It impacted in the centre of the spine and the figure’s arms went wide, briefly embracing air that was suddenly red with a haze of  vaporised blood, flesh and entrails. Jaz swore and pulled a grenade loose from his belt, sending it in a skilful parabola back towards the enemy to cover his own retreat.
Another of his surviving team went down to a sniper shot,  but the third was trying to offer what covering fire she could from behind a partially demolished building and was being pretty effective. He ran, rolled, then vaulted the lowest part of the wall, crouching beside her, checking Lattice screens, looking for any way out for them.
More blasts exploded on either side and the world disintegrated. Finding himself suddenly under a pile of tumbling masonry, Jaz shook free of it like a wet dog shedding water.  But beside him one arm was all that was visible from beneath the rubble – that and the blood.

He started running again.
Watching the environment.
Watching the screens.
Checking the Lattice data overlays.
A movement on the screen broke the profile of the low rise building beside him, some kind of accommodation block. Appearing on screen: ground-plans, elevations, positions of people, their predicted paths. The data projected into his visual field, augmenting his reality. He turned, raking fire across the facade. A figure fell and a fusillade of energy fire came his way from the building.
Lattice visual was showing him six men in there. Lattice data telling him they were armed with anti-mech heavy weaponry, which he knew they would now be turning on him. The energy threshold of his kinetic shield would be zero defence against that kind of power. Lattice data flashed up a helpful message warning him of the over-ride risk. Better late than never. He cancelled it and pumped more of the adrenalin based cocktail of drugs through the intravenous clip fixed into his torso. Speed was his only defence now and not much of one.

He ran.
Using cover.
Changing course.
His whole focus on making that speed.
The buildings ended in a high wall and as he made the final sprint towards it, he tried to decide between tracking along it for a break or scaling it and risking exposure. Checking Lattice screens for the information he needed to inform the decision. A close burn sent him diving into the last available cover before the wall but –
The screens all went dark and a mild voice was speaking calmly in his ear:
“You are not logged on to the Lattice. Please be aware when the countdown hits zero your brain implants will self-destruct – you are not -”
Fuck the bastards.
He cancelled the voice and ignored the timer as its chilling digits counted down his heartbeats on the edge of his visual field.  There was nothing he could do. The coms drone has been pulled out leaving him to die. For a moment he felt the futility of fighting. They had abandoned him, he was not going to get out this time.

Then he heard it.
Distant sounds of a fire-fight.
Jaz felt an almost dizzying rush of relief – these were the sounds of death that offered him some small hope of life. A moment later he was up and running.
Freeing the climbing line on the belt, he fired the grapnel, barely waiting for it to impact before swarming up the high wall. He felt incredibly vulnerable  – naked to the guns behind. Then he was flattening himself, sliding over the top, dropping down and sprinting.
The trace of light caught in his peripheral vision, making him break into an evasive diving roll. He saw, not felt, the next splash of energy. The shock of it impacted afterwards, horrific and crippling, tearing out his strength and will.
He hit the ground and stayed down, unable to rise, unable to think, his consciousness hollowed out by the pain.
Time fragmented.
Awareness shrank.
The smell of the dark ground beneath his face, tasting musty and sweet – an alien soil. The beat of his heart timing the steady flick of numbers that counted down to the moment oblivion would devour him.
Then –
Something moving, lifting him, an arm under his shoulder. A voice – his brother’s voice – Avilon Revid.
“Let’s get you out of here.”

….. waking was always sudden and never easy.
Like ripping away flesh.
Then came the disorientation as the two worlds of the past and present battled for supremacy.
Which was real?
His mind was still caught in the snare of memory, vividly relived.  He could feel the cold sweat on his body and the hammering of his heart.  A face, vague in the darkness, Avilon’s? Then another voice, familiar and feminine, full of concern and compassion:
“You got it bad tonight?”
The face shifted, the features softening into Lea’s. She was there for him as she had been the last time and the time before that. And he knew then, with a sudden certainty, she would be there for him every night he needed her. He reached out and her arms slipped around him drawing him close, holding him as he sobbed in relief, like a frightened child.

E.M. Swift-Hook.

The cat followed her home one filthy night. Not proof against obvious need she invited it in.

Now it was a fixture.

A summer Sunday and the beer was icy, but the man wasn’t to be pacified.

“You can’t get around me with a measly bottle of lager. All I’m asking for is a trifling loan.”

“I said no.”

He smashed the bottle on the edge of the table.

“How about five thou not to carve up your face?”

The cat came from nowhere landing on his face, which offered opportunity for the kick to the balls that dropped him.

©️jj 2019

Pterodactyl in the sky
Prehistoric flying by
Ugly to the human eye
Pterodactyl leather wings
Oddest of all flying things
Sharp of beak and made of strings
Pterodactyl in the sky
Shot as it was flying by
Will be pterodactyl pie

©jj 2019

The Working Title crew bring you the exclusive opportunity to enjoy more wisdom from the mysteriously enigmatic Madam Pendulica… You can listen to this on YouTube too.

Aries. 

Aries children are the cuddly lambs of the zodiac. They are warm, charming and utterly without aggression or ambition.

Managing your Aries child

Just lead. They will follow.

Taurus.

Taurean children are sturdily stubborn. They won’t argue with you, but equally they won’t listen to a word you say.

Managing your Taurus child

Get between them and their ultimate gaol and wave your arms about. This sometimes works.

Gemini.

The twins are a conundrum as one side of your child’s complex character will always be obliging and persuadable. Sadly, the other half will spend all it’s waking hours looking to outwit you.

Managing your Gemini child

Dot every i and cross every t. And hope. Unless your Gemini offspring are actually twins, in which case the best advice is to sit back and enjoy the ride. 

Cancer.

Complicated and convoluted of thought, your Cancer child will sneak past you at any given opportunity, and may well nip your arse in passing.

Managing your Cancer child

The ostentatious opening of a large jar of mayonnaise may function as a deterrent to the worst behaviours.

Leo.

Lazy, handsome, amoral and fond of sleeping in the sun. A Leo child will be untroublesome, but also unhelpful and invisible if there is any heavy lifting to be done.

Managing your Leo child 

Just scratch his belly, he will roll over and play dead for hours.

Virgo.

Virgo children are prim and often humourless. This is the only birth sign that voluntarily tidies its bedroom.

Managing your Virgo child

Just tell her how perfect she is. They bask in praise and will bend over backwards if compared favourably to their siblings.

Libra.

Libran children are calculating and weighing up the opposition is their forte. No Libra child will pick a fight with a low probability of victory.

Managing your Libra child

Just make sure they know you are bigger and uglier than they are.

Scorpio.

Scorpio children are intelligent, charismatic, humorous and wholly unprincipled. They are capable of the most monstrous behaviour couched in such a way as to render you speechless with laughter

Managing your Scorpio child 

Good luck with that foolish notion!

Sagittarius.

Pointedly principled, Sagittarian children can be relied on to ask embarrassing questions in public places, in very loud voices. 

Managing your Sagittarius child 

Remember that the centaur has two stomachs. These children may be instantly bribed with chocolate.

Capricorn.

Amiable, clever and organised. You can’t keep a goat anywhere a goat doesn’t want to be. On the plus side they are not picky eaters

Managing your Capricorn child 

Logic works. Threats don’t.

Aquarius.

Interminably busy, these children are often convinced that life is not giving them a fair deal. Can be whiny.

Managing your Aquarius child 

I recommend applying alcohol by mouth.

Pisces.

There are two kinds of Pisces children. The serenely uncomplicated swimmer with the tide and their absolute opposites the bruised, battered and scarred children who spend all their lives battling upstream.

Managing your Pisces child 

The serene sort need no management, the other buggers are unmanageable.

Madame Pendulica predicts she will return…

She was only a dancer in a provincial pleasure house, but those who owned her were wise enough to see her quality and husband her virtue.

It was high summer when curiosity brought the shogun himself to visit. He expected to be bored.

Instead, he was sufficiently diverted to buy the dancer and take her back to the city.

He freed the girl and settled money on her.

“Sometimes,” he said to his favourite son, “ there is merit to be gained in freeing an exotic butterfly.”

His son bowed.

“Besides which,” he added, “sixty is a poor match for fifteen.”

©️jj 2019

You can listen to this on YouTube too.

Our family had been making superior moonshine as a sideline for five generations. But then The Shortages struck and the price of booze soared. We were suddenly making a fortune, but we reckoned it only a matter of time before the bad guys wanted in.

Two immaculately tailored gentlemen paid us a visit. Grandma signalled for us boys to disappear and went to greet them. They were inside quite some time, and then Grandma led them up through the orchards to where the still sat in a deep-walled valley in the icy cold waters of a stream that came straight down from the mountains.

Once they had gone the old lady shrugged. “We may lose some profits short term.”

She was right about losing profit, within six months the big guys’ cheap rotgut had undercut us so far that we just stopped selling. Though we did keep producing and stockpiling,

Then the sickness started. First a trickle, then a flood. Men struck down with stomach complaints that left them vomiting blood. At first nobody much cared, then the sons of wealthy families began to fall prey.  

It almost goes without saying that the cheap rotgut was literally rotting guts. There were repercussions, and Grandma reckoned it time to reopen our bottling plant.

Ma looked the old beldame between the eyes.

“Okay. What did you do?”

“More what I didn’t do Charlaine. I mighta forgot to tell them to clean the car radiators before they made ‘em into a still.”

© jane jago 

Percival’s wedding day dawned and he held his beloved in his arms for possibly the last time.

The ceremony was brief and heartless. 

As they walked down the aisle, his new wife spoke. “I’m sorry. This wasn’t my idea.”

She had huge, frightened eyes, which moved him to gentleness.

“I know that. Our fathers will have done a deal.”

“Aye, but I’m sorry. For both of us.”

“Don’t be sorry. Shall we make our own bargain? Build something worthwhile for us.”

“Can we?”

As it turned out, they could. Though Percival was careful not to ask who fathered ‘his’ heirs.

©️jj 2019

You can listen to this on YouTube too.

Home was her sanctuary — their sanctuary. It had been hers alone for so long that Joah could never have imagined sharing it. Then she’d met Zarshay and the naturalness of the sharing had been something she still found strange. It was beautiful, wonderful, amazing, but very, very strange. Their lives enlaced in many sweet ways, enhancing each aspect: work, leisure, friendships, sex.
“You know Heila has been for lunch with a guy from Undergrove Promotions?” Zarshay murmured.
It was so not the kind of topic Joah would have chosen for post-sex warmth and cuddles. She heaved a sigh and sat up, reaching for a throw-on wrap.
“All right, if you want to talk about it now. I really don’t mind.”
She heard a snort of amusement from behind her on the bed.
“You are the very worst liar I know. You can’t act worth a thing.”
Warm arms embraced her and for a moment she considered giving in and lying back down again. But it felt wrong to be bringing the stress of day-to-day life into their bedroom.
“If we need to talk work,” she said, turning, “I’d rather do so with a strong drink in my hand.”
Zarshay grinned, her face suddenly that of the mischievous teen she had been when they met.
“Always,” she agreed.

*

They sat in the windowed alcove of the apartment, on a cushioned couch, taking in the glorious vista of graceful towers and the spans between them, small vehicles dipping like living creatures in the air between.
“Is it serious?” Joah asked.
“For Heila, everything is serious: everything is a melodrama and everything is always on the edge of catastrophe.”
It was, Joah thought, a pretty astute assessment. “So, we may lose her?”
Zarshay wrinkled her nose in doubt.
“Maybe. But you can’t forget about the Dog factor. There is the huge Hengast and Heila thing all over social media. She loves that and—”
A soft buzz broke into their conversation. Joah looked at the unfamiliar contact details on her phone, then accepted it. It came from the upper floors, which meant it was unlikely to be any kind of time waster.
She flashed the screen at Zarshay as she answered, and the other woman’s eyebrows rose.
“Joah Meer Productions, how can I help you?”

From Star Dust by E.M. Swift-Hook one of the stories in Dust Publishing‘s anthology The Last City.

 

He hesitated in the doorway of the florist’s shop. The girl behind the counter smiled.

“I want some flowers for a funeral,” he said.

“You want to send some flowers?”

“No. It’s my mother. We are having a humanist service and a green burial. But I want just something I can put on the coffin.”

“Oh I see. When do you want them?”

“Now would be good. I’m due at the green burial ground in half an hour.”

The girl hustled off, returning with a simple sheaf of purple iris. He found himself smiling foolishly.

“They were her favourite flowers.”

©️jj 2019

You can listen to this on YouTube too.

At the edge of the carefully cultivated parkland which surrounded the summer palace of the rulers of Harkera, just outside the white-walled city of Cressida, lay a huge expanse of woodland in which nature was given great freedom of expression in return for allowing the monarchs of Harkera and their chosen guests, the privilege of hunting there. Not that the privilege was granted freely – it had to be earned. It was a playground for those whose reactions were fast and whose sinews were strong – those who wished to be tested against the wild.

Karlynne knew that it was not a proper wild forest because there were men who took care of it – vergers and warders, gamekeepers and huntsmen, employed to make sure that the main paths were always kept clear and that there were always plenty of wild game to be hunted by the monarch’s noble visitors. But it was almost a proper forest, such as the ones she had read about in her books where winged ponies and talking animals lived. She had been told never to go there because it was home to dangerous animals, tizarts, therloons and seminarls and dangerous men – land-pirates Turla called them – men who would come to steal the animals and who would be just as happy to steal young girls who were foolish enough to wander into the hunting park alone.

But today the forest did not look at all menacing or dangerous and it would not be the first time Karlynne had ridden there alone with no one any the wiser. It beckoned to her, mysterious and inviting beneath the early summer sky and Turla was sitting in her room resting her aching bones having told Karlynne she should do as she pleased for the afternoon.

With a brief and ephemeral flash of guilt, she reminded herself that was not strictly true. Turla had told her to take one of the grooms if she went riding, but when she had got to the stables to find her favourite pony, Mischief, all the grooms had been busy. Being far too considerate to interrupt their work for her own pleasure, she had sent one of the boys for Mischief’s tack and had saddled him herself, riding out unnoticed.

It was a glorious feeling to canter across the park alone, she who was never allowed anywhere unescorted, and the simple joy of freedom made her laugh aloud. In truth, she had not really intended to go into the forest at all that day, but once she had reached the edge of the open parkland, the fringe of trees with its inviting paths had beckoned her in. Now, she rode beneath the canopy of leaves, thrilling at her own daring and filled with a delicious excitement. Her books and Turla’s tales from nursery days onwards, had always been full of enchanted forests, with magicians, talking animals and handsome young men who always turned out to be the long-lost son of some noble who invariably needed rescue from a dire enchantment, by the hands of a beautiful princess. After which they would fall in love and live happily ever after.

Karlynne decided that she was the perfect heroine for such a romance. Turla had often told her that she looked just like her mother, who everyone said was beautiful, so she must be beautiful too and at nearly twelve years old she was certainly young. Every credential met, she was bound to find adventure, romance and true love sooner or later – and where better to look than in the forest? Not that she expected talking animals and magicians here, of course, they were only in stories – but you never knew and the forest certainly seemed a place for adventure.

From Times of Change, which is the second volume of Transgressor Trilogy a Fortunes Fools book by E.M. Swift-Hook.