Maire was sitting quietly watching the darting forms of the iridescent blue dragonflies as they skimmed the slow-moving waters of the lazy little stream.

Of a sudden, the dragonflies scattered and the sound of marching feet and stamping hooves came to the girl’s ears.

She slipped into the undergrowth, then climbed into the concealing branches of a venerable oak tree.

The witchfinder passed within two manlengths of her hiding place, but his long nose never so much as twitched.

Marie made a sour face. The fools passed her by and wasted their steel on harmless old fools with cats…. 

©️jj 2019

From Transgressor Trilogy : Times of Change by E.M. Swift-Hook. You can listen to this on YouTube.

Outside it was dark and the air was cold. Ralik took a moment to find his charge since Zarengor was braced against the wall, his lean body almost invisible against the rough stonework.
“Don’t you have a home to go to?” The Black Vavasor’s voice sounded weary. “I am old enough to be out on my own, you know.”
Ralik said nothing. There was nothing to say. It was easy enough to understand the level of frustration that the other man had to contend with.
“Don’t you just love these Harkerans? They think themselves so civilised and superior – regard war as unreasonable, think a man who can write poetry or design a building is of more value than one who can use a sword, they regard their women as their equals in all things and even give legal rights to their slaves and their animals.” His voice was very slightly slurred betraying the amount of alcohol he had consumed. “But when it comes to good old-fashioned affairs of the heart, they are as quick as the next man to leap to the wrong conclusions and draw their blades.”
Ralik watched a group of young Harkeran noblemen leave the inn. They were obviously looking for something, or someone and two carried lights.
“It is getting late, Honoured One,” he said carefully. Zarengor, when drinking, could be persuaded but never pushed.
“Then you go home,” the other man suggested, his voice quite friendly, “I was thinking of finding another Harkeran matron of high standing to ravish, your Castellan’s wife perhaps.”
Ralik stiffened at the insult but said nothing, knowing it was deliberate, knowing Zarengor was goading him and knowing also it was the frustration and the drink that spoke through him. The Harkerans were getting closer and the mood Zarengor was in, it could easily end with blood on the street – their blood.
“Death of the gods, Ralik, what does someone have to do to get under your skin?” Zarengor sounded amused more than irritated.
The Harkerans had heard the voice if not the words and were moving now with intent. Ralik moved closer to his charge, who seemed to notice the threat for the first time and groaned aloud.
“Oh joy, children with swords and pistols. Just what I needed to make my day complete.”
The five young men, none of whom could have seen more than twenty summers, moved to confront them, throwing the burning torches to the ground and two of them had drawn swords, a third rested his hand on the butt of a finely crafted pistol. Zarengor still rested against the wall.
“Tell them I’m not hungry, Ralik, I have eaten enough babies today.”
“I’m more a man than you are, butcher,” the ring leader called out. Zarengor laughed briefly.
“Of course you are, that’s why you have your four friends with you. Brave child, go home to your mother and suckle some more then you might grow up big and strong one day.”
The Harkeran made a sound of incoherent fury and launched himself forward. Zarengor barely seemed to move away from the wall, his sword suddenly in his hand and cutting down through the youngster’s guard, drawing blood on his shoulder. The Harkeran stepped back, but found he could not escape the blade which seemed to be everywhere. Then as his sword went flying and he tried to jump aside, Ralik’s own blade came up and caught the death cut at the last moment and moved ready to parry again as the deadly blade disengaged.
“He is only a boy!” Ralik said the words urgently and ungently, part of his mind furious at Zarengor for allowing himself to drink to the point of such judgement loss and for the rest, afraid that he himself might now become a target for the feral sword. But the Vavasor seemed to come to himself, hesitating to attack through Ralik, and the youngsters took advantage of the moment to escape, disappearing into the darkness at speed.
For a moment, the two men stood facing each other, swords in their hands. Ralik waited with the point of his own blade towards the ground in a defensive gesture. He could not afford to surrender any advantage, Zarengor, drunk or not, was by far the superior swordsman. Then the Vavasor sighed and lowered his sword slowly.
“We should find the ponies,” he said heavily, sliding the blade back into its sheath. Ralik allowed himself to relax and stepped back carefully before putting his own sword away.

E.M. Swift-Hook.

Angie’s whoring years were coming to a close. Every morning she looked at the lines on her face with something like despair, and every evening she slipped into something slinky and slapped on a smile. 

The jobs still came, but they were mostly half-hour quickies with guys too mean to leave a tip.

The cowboy had about a yard of shoulders, and big, hard hands. All the girls sat up a bit straighter but he saw only Angie.

“Ma’am,” he said in his slow Texan drawl. “Would you?”

Thirty years later, he could still melt her with a smile.

©️jj 2019

The Rabid Readers Review ‘Last Fight of the Old Hound (Lost Dogs Book 1) by Nils Ödlund

Lycanthrope cage fighters, blood and, ultimately, death. Only that isn’t really what this book is about at all. It’s about decency being forced to bend the knee to corporate ambition.

One man and his wolf expected to throw their last fight.

What we have here is an exploration of duality, and of the twisting of decency to serve the purpose of expediency.

It’s handled with sensitivity and a certain good humour, making it easy reading.

A solid four stars.

Jane Jago

Science Fantasy Meets WWE

Roy van Waldenberger is an entertainer – but he entertains by fighting. He is also a therianthrope – a werewolf. But unlike the traditional idea of a lycanthrope he is very much in control of his wolf – most of the time. Roy is looking forward to winning a last big title then retiring. but then he learns that he is expected to throw the fight and that runs completely against the grain for the fighter once known as The Honest Man.

What I Really Enjoyed:
This is a fully a realised science fantasy setting and the feeling of depth and breadth is there right from the start when Roy wanders into a local bazaar. It is not over described it is carefully and cleverly woven into the story as part of a seamless fabric.
The characters are very convincing and well drawn. Roy is someone it is easy to empathise with and the relationship between himself and Jen is one of the most realistically presented cross-gender friendships I have ever read.
The author very cleverly introduces the way therianthropes are and how they fit into the world as a whole. These are not classic lycanthropes. Instead, it seems more of a symbiosis between the animal spirit and the human. I really liked this fresh take on an old notion.

What I Struggled With:
Two things – one a technical issue the other a bit of a story issue. One: the author had the bad habit of building tension brilliantly then putting in a paragraph of something that completely shattered the moment. Two: the possible responses to Roy being told to throw the fight were presented as a binary option when even I could think of at least three other ways the problem could have been tackled within the context of the story. Considering the amount of time Roy spent thinking about it and discussing it, and how incredibly significant it was to find some solution, I found that very hard to believe that no other ideas were even mooted.

Overall thoughts:
I really enjoyed this book and want to know how the story goes on. It had that feeling of real people caught up in a difficult situation with high stakes, set in a solid and fascinating world. If you enjoy well-written spec fic of any shade, I think this might well appeal. 4.5 stars, rounded up.

E.M. Swift-Hook

The tree bark was warm beneath simba jike’s belly, as she watched the two-legs try to herd water beasts into a flimsy corral. It wasn’t going well. She wondered at them, until it came to her that this was a hunt and the mtu mweupe with the bang stick was waiting for something. 

Even as she thought this, the king of all the mamba exploded from the water in pursuit of a young water beast.

Bang. Bang. The bang stick sounded.

They left him where he fell, and simba jike wondered if there was good eating on a mamba.

©️jj 2019

Dying to be Roman by Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook is a whodunit set in a modern day Britain where the Roman Empire still rules. You can listen to this on YouTube. If you missed previous episodes you can start reading from the beginning.

Julia Lucia Maxilla stood up to her full four feet and eleven inches and stared at her co-investigator. She saw a tall, handsome man with black hair, pale skin and a square jawline. He glared down at her, and she was surprised by the blueness of his eyes. Her dogs came to lean against her, and this would have alerted her to the idea the man wasn’t precisely pleased to see her if her own intuition hadn’t already made that clear.
“Llewellyn, is it?” she kept her voice cool.
Behind him she could see another man trying to blend into the wall.
“Yes, domina.”
“If we are going to work together, I think we can dispense with such formality. The name is Julia.”
“Julia,” he hesitated fractionally, “I’m Dai Llewellyn. This is Decanus Bryn Cartivel, and is it permitted to ask what those dogs are?”
Julia decided to let the hesitation pass. She summoned a smile.
“Canis and Lupo are wolfhounds,” she turned and indicated the huge Saxon who stood at her shoulder. “The dogs and Edbert guard me. In case you missed it, I’m not very big so if I need to intimidate somebody they help with that too.”
For a moment the Briton actually grinned, then he must have remembered whatever grievance was wearing at him and he started looking sulky again. Julia sighed inwardly. He was going to be difficult and that was a shame because he was really, really pretty. Before she got chance to snap his handsome nose off for him, he surprised her by holding out a hand to Edbert.
“Greetings.”
Edbert actually grasped his wrist and the two tall men stood eye to eye for a moment.
“You play nicely with my lady. I don’t want to have to hurt you.”
Her bodyguard spoke rarely, and when he did his uncomfortably deep voice always reminded Julia of a thunderstorm in some far valley. She winced inwardly, rather wishing he hadn’t chosen to speak now, and was surprised to hear a thread of amusement in the Briton’s response.
“You can be sure I’ll bear that in mind.”
“If you two have finished bonding, I have a visit to make.” Julia turned a carefully blank face to Dai. “You had better come with me. Edbert and your decanus can take a break.”
He frowned.
“Does it pertain to the investigation?”
“No. And yes. It’s a duty visit to the Tribune. The Prefect is just a time server and she’s a complete waste of time as far as I can see. The Tribune is a different matter. Aside from policy, he and I have known each other since we were children.”
“Since you were children?” Llewellyn frowned. “But wasn’t the Tribune born in the Suburra? I heard he was raised in the insulae at the foot of the Capitoline Hills before he was adopted.”
“He was. And so was I. Any questions?”
Dai shut his mouth with a snap. Julia could all but hear him thinking, and took pity on him. It would make little sense to a Briton, who was no doubt raised on TV crime dramas which featured the poverty and criminality of the poorest slum area in Rome, that someone from that place could be in any position of influence or power.
“My father was a soldier, but my mother was a lupa, I think you use the term ‘whore’. My father was killed when he was twenty, in a border skirmish with the Mongol Empire, my mother died soon after of an occupational disease – she succumbed to morbus insu, an STD. I was raised by my father’s family who took me in because I was his only child and I think they wanted something to remember him by.”
“Oh. But how did -?”
“How did I get to be an inquisitor? A long story. And mostly painful, so can we leave it?” She essayed a smile and her new colleague managed a half grin in response. Julia looked at him more closely.
“Your tunic,” she said severely, “is pretty grubby. That fish sauce must be days old. Do you have another?”
He nodded, wearing the expression of a schoolboy caught cheating in a class test.
“Good. Decimus is a fussy blighter. We’ll swing past yours on the way.”

Once Dai was tidied to her satisfaction, Julia led the way to the Tribune’s apartment, which backed onto the barracks housing the cohort of Praetorians that were stationed in Londinium under the Tribune’s command.
“There was a reason I didn’t bring Edbert and the hounds,” Julia admitted.
Dai raised an eyebrow.
“The Lady Lydia don’t like them.”
Dai grinned tautly.
“If rumour is correct, she isn’t seeing people right now.”
Julia treated him to a quick, incurious, glance.
“Oh. Who?”
“One Titillicus. Inquisitor and nasty piece of work. Sent home to his mother in a body bag.”
“Oh. Whoops.” Julia frowned. “Why doesn’t she realise he is never going to divorce her?”

Dai looked down at her, his expression suggesting a genuine curiosity.
“Is she stupid?”
“Probably…”
“I always think bed-hoppers must be the lowest of the low,” Dai told her. “If you can betray your avowed spouse, you are not going to find it too hard to do the dirty in other ways.”
Julia smiled, pleased that they were beginning to find common ground in their values. It eased the conversation as they waited for the Man himself.

Part IV will be here next Sunday. If you can’t wait to find what happens next you can snag the full novella here.

It was a trifling thing. A handmade fan. Out of place among the costly claustrophobia of her existence. 

And yet. To carry it would change her life.

If she was brave.

The young scholar who laid his heart at her feet could offer none of the material magnificence she had become accustomed to, though he was handsome enough to dent her heart and clever enough to go far. With the right woman at his side. 

Wei decided that woman would be her and she carried his paper fan with as much pride as if it was the most precious jade.

©️jj 2019

A chicken with an aching bum
Sits on duck eggs to be mum
All her friends think she is mad
Having ducklings with no dad
But she don’t care she isn’t moody
She’s just feeling fat and broody
Poor old girl don’t give a f%$&
If she gets a fluffy duck

©jj

Pulling the Rug IV by Jane Jago is out Monday and includes ‘The Night Librarian’ You can listen to this as recorded by Tall Tales TV on YouTube.

It was very quiet in this area of the stacks, so quiet that if you listened carefully enough you could hear the books breathing. This portentous silence was broken by a rhythmic squeak as a trolley loaded with grimoires and  magical texts was pushed firmly towards the dark corner wherein such resided.
“It’s no good you being like that,” a determined voice said. “It doesn’t hurt being shelved. It’s not as if any of you are chained. Although if some of you keep misbehaving…”
The rhythmic squeal stopped and the trolley rounded a corner, being pushed by a dumpy girl with a determined looking chin. As it neared the  shelves where arcane and magical volumes were shelved the squeal started up again.
“Does somebody want to be shelved on 99b?”
Silence.
The dumpy girl began shelving volumes with practiced efficiency. She handled the books with care and respect, but would brook no resistance nor any other tricks. One of the grimoires snapped its covers at her and she slapped it firmly.
“Start that with me and I’ll chain you.”
If it was possible for a book to look abashed it did so, coming quietly to hand to be slipped into its accustomed place.
Once the grimoires were tidily placed in their proper positions, the Night  Librarian closed the steel doors around their stack and locked them with a hugely ornate key.
On her way back to the centre desk, she paused briefly at travel and pointed an imperious finger. There was a bit of scrabbling as the books reshelved themselves in their proper order, followed by an embarrassed silence.
“Papua New Guinea, since when have you lived between Jersey and Guernsey?”
A dog eared volume leapt from a shelf and scuttled off. The girl regarded the now tidy stack for a moment before permitting herself a small smile.
“Better.”
She turned on her heel pushing the now empty trolley to the store room where it would be filled by the day staff who were far too busy to ever shelve books.
As they saw it, that was her job and the business of shelving had already taken a goodly part of the night, but at least there was just one full trolley left. She looked at it with some disfavour before grasping the handles firmly. Immediately they turned warm, and furry and she could feel tiny tentacles caressing the thin skin inside her wrists.
“Stop that at once,” she frowned awfully and the trolley behaved as she pushed it past Young Adult, Alternative History, and Romance to its designated area: Erotica.
“Here we are,” she said brightly, “your stop”.
These stacks were somehow claustrophobic, and the air was thick and heavy with what could be felt as either threat or promise. The young librarian appeared to feel neither as she simply proceeded with her work.
“Lesbian romance,” she clapped her hands and a half dozen or so volumes jumped from the trolley and shelved themselves neatly among their peers. She carried on, briskly calling out names and categories and the books kept obeying, even if she did feel the occasional groping hand as they passed her by.
Finally there were just two books left glowering at her from the trolley. “Extreme punishment, am I to assume you are unwilling to shelve yourselves like sensible books?”
There was a sudden sullenness in the air and she sighed.
“You lot are more trouble than grimoires.”
Pushing the trolley further into an aisle, where the atmosphere was warm and redolent of body fluids and full of the sounds of moans and curses, she stopped in front of a shelf where her senses were assaulted by cries of pain and the whistle of the whiplash. She picked up the first book and slipped it into its allotted position with very little difficulty. The second snarled at her as she put out her hand. Nothing daunted, she slapped it on its stained cover. It retaliated, and she felt the phantom bite of a whip across her shoulders. She smiled thinly and picked the volume up by its spine.
“Somebody masturbate on you today?”
The book wriggled at the pleasurable memory and she pushed it into its vacant slot before exiting the erotica stack with as much dignity as she could muster.
Back at the central desk, she began the second part of her duties. She worked diligently inputting details of loaned volumes and returns, clicking her tongue at inaccuracies and omissions as she slowly reduced the pile of official dockets, dirty slips of paper, scented notes and IOUs. She had almost finished when she was interrupted by a polite cough.
“Yes,” she said without looking up.
“Please miss, there’s a something roaming the stacks and we is afraid.”
The librarian turned to look at at the speaker. She was surprised to see a whole deputation of small creatures looking at her hopefully. There were brownies, gnomes, elves, rabbits, squirrels, hobbits, borrowers and too many others to mention. Most of these species disliked and distrusted each other, so their banding together portended something of considerable dark power. She shrugged internally and bent her gaze on the spokesperson: a tiggywinkle.
“What sort of a something?”
The hedgehog dropped a nervous curtesy.
“We doesn’t know ma’am. But we hears it and we knows it is hungry.”
“Oh. One of those. You wait here then.”
The Night Librarian took two things out of her capacious handbag, and two more things out of a drawer beside her left foot.
“Okay. You lot stay here. I will deal.”
She strode off along the silent shelves, noticing for the first time how afraid the books were and how they were all trying to make themselves small and insignificant. Reaching the section of the library given over to Dark Magicks, she checked to see that the grimoires were still locked in before taking a very large salt pot out of her pocket. She uncapped it and began to draw a complex pattern on the stained stones of the floor. When she was satisfied she put the salt pot away and brought out a spray bottle of water, which she uncapped before stabbing her thumb with the silver pin of the brooch she wore at the neck of her modest little blouse. She allowed a carefully counted number of drops of blood to mix with the water before briskly recapping the bottle. Walking around the salty pattern, she carefully sprayed a mist of the pink solution around the edges of the pentagram. She smiled thinly and stepped into the centre of the design. Placing the bottle on the floor between her feet she muttered an incantation. And waited.
At first nothing happened, but then a slithering sliding sort of noise, overlain by a toothache-inducing scrape became audible, and the girl in the pentagram felt a sense of resistance. She muttered a few more words and the slithering came closer. A reptilian head with glowing yellow eyes came around the corner, followed by a scaly winged body balanced on short front legs and longer legs at the rear. The creature boasted powerful hindquarters, and massively muscled shoulders decorated with dark leathery wings. As it drew near, the uncomfortable scraping sound could be traced to the creature’s talons fruitlessly digging the ground as it tried to resist the pull of the Librarian’s incantation.
It stopped at the edge of the pentagram, swishing a tail whose spiked end could disembowel a man. Peering shortsightedly into the centre of the salty lines it snarled at the unimpressive figure who had nonetheless managed to drag its unwilling carcass across the floor without breaking a sweat.
“I hunger. I thirst.” It hissed.
“I expect you do, but there is naught here for you.”
“You are here.”
“And I am protected within walls of power.”
The dragon, for dragon it was, sneered and swiped at the salty lines with one clawed forefoot. Nothing moved. It hissed again and tried harder.
“Even if you could disturb the pattern, that which is written on stone and sealed with holy water and blood cannot be removed until I release it.”
The dragon ground it’s teeth and hissed viciously, but the Librarian would not be intimidated. She narrowed her eyes and concentrated briefly.
“Stop that T’Drell. Instead of being stupid tell me how you got here and why you came here.”
The dragon shook its head.
“I do not know. I cannot tell. Asleep I was. Then found myself here. Wandering. Alone. Hungry. Angry.”
“Would you return to Dragonheart?”
“I would.”
“Very well. Be still.”
T’Drell laid his head on the stones and became absolutely motionless as the Librarian began her incantation. As he began to fade he lifted his eyes.
“Thank you,” he whispered.

By Jane Jago - You can read the conclusion of this story in Pulling the Rug IV

“No child of mine could ever be a vegetarian.” Father was in such a rage that he sprayed his morning blood around the dining room.

Mother coughed. “Are you suggesting that Violentis is not your child?”

“No. No of course not. But how can a vampire be a vegetarian?”

“With difficulty. But the decision is her own to make.”

Father retired behind his newspaper harrumphing.

Violentis drunk her tomato juice.

Six months later, Father was the only one in the household still drinking blood. But then he scented a profit. 

Writing ‘Vegetarianism for Vampires’ made him a very wealthy man.

©️jj 2019