Space is a vacuum, so what the smeg was the guy tapping on the window of my flitter even breathing. I was deeply rattled and that must have been why I opened communication with the hull.

“Who are you?”

“Adam.”

I laughed.

“My name is Eve.”

“You? Eve?”

“Yes.”

He put his hands on the airlock door and just pulled it open. He appeared on the bridge, threw me over his shoulder and walked out of the ship – into the unexpected.

This planetoid is called Eden, and all on it belongs to us save for the tree and the snake…

©️jj 2019

By daylight, with sunshine streaming in through the high, narrow, windows, the room looked like something from the set of an exotic fantasy vidcast drama.
The bed itself, dominating most of one side with its intricately embroidered thick felt curtains and broad wooden pillars reaching up to a canopy above. The wide-mouthed hearth, edged round in coloured bricks and painted tiles, and the floor of polished boards, scattered over with thick, fleecy, rugs here and there. In one corner there was a carved screen, inlaid with parquetry and coloured stones and against the wall opposite the fireplace, was a magnificent shelving unit, carved and decorated. In the middle of the room, near enough to the fireplace to benefit from the heat, were two comfortable chairs.
There were incongruous touches though – as if someone tried to slip in reminders of the high-tech reality that lay out there beyond the sky. One of the chairs was a regular, cheap, office style recliner and the shelves held a diverse selection of odd items which were so out of place it was hard not to laugh. There was a broken vidcast device sitting proudly displayed next to the remains of some food packaging, which had been encased in a clear-sided display box to preserve it. Half of a remote link visor nestled beside the innards falling out of some hard screen unit. There was even a three-fingered prosthetic hand gripping the kind of disposable cup you’d get from any drink dispenser.
More demanding of her attention was the figure sitting in the recliner, holding a book and looking at her.
“Morning, Sweetpea. Blondie had to get up and see to some things with our host.”
“What is that?” She had to ask. The sight of Jaz with a book was the most incongruous thing in the room. Jaz held up the book and looked surprised as if he’d never seen it before.
“This, Sweetpea, is called a book. It’s a bit like a handheld fixed screen only the text isn’t interactive.”
Charis felt herself colour.
“Yes, I know that. I mean what book? Why are you -?”
Jaz swung the recliner upright.
“It’s one of a set of classics.” He gestured to the shelving unit where there were two shelves devoted to an odd assortment of books. “I think it’s a set called ‘Great classics of literature no one ever made into a vidcast because they were just too long and too dull’.”
She found it impossible not to smile at that.
“I didn’t think you’d be interested in those.”
Jaz gave a slight shrug and closed the book. “Not sure I am. But there is not a lot else to do so I think I’ll likely be really well educated in classic literature by the time we leave here. Guess at least I’ll be able to impress people with all the quotes.”
“Except no one else will have read them so they won’t know what the quotes are from.”
Jaz gave a brief laugh. “That’s too right.”

From A Walking Shadow the final volume in Haruspex Trilogy of Fortune’s Fools by E.M. Swift-Hook.

At Christmas, Dad played a trick on the cat. He fed her a chocolate with mustard in the middle. She was very sick. Mom was cross. “Never piss off a cat,” she said.

Dad laughed.

August, and we were packing for a family trip to Florida. Dad was in a good mood, fooling around with my baby sister and kissing Mom on the mouth. Then he tripped over the cat. Broke his hip and his knee. We left him in hospital and got on the plane.

Mom looked at me and winked.

“Never piss off a cat. They don’t forget.”

©️jj 2019

Death is for the Living by JC Steel is an adventure of Tropics, yachts and vampire hunters.

By day, Cristina Batista is a deck girl on a Caribbean charter yacht, with all the sun, smiles, and steel drum music that entails. By night, she and her crew hunt the monsters that prey in the dark: the powerful vampire clans of the New World.
Unfortunately, Cristina’s past is hunting her in turn – and it’s catching up. Without her partner, sometime pirate, sometime lordling and ex-vampire, Jean Vignaud, Cristina wouldn’t simply be dead. She’d be something she fears far more.
Cristina and Jean are experienced, motivated, and resourceful. One faction wants them despite it. The other wants them because of it…

At night, it was all too easy for the hunters to become the hunted. 
Cristina Batista, her feet slipping in the sand, hauled the dinghy down to the water in a near-silent, scraping rush. With even the mosquitoes whining around her seeming inordinately loud, it sounded more like an avalanche.
Something fingered her leg, and she jumped violently, cursing under her breath as she recognised the touch of bottom-growing weed. The night had begun to wear at her nerves several hours ago, but the scent of the sea was a welcome change, clearing the stench of expensive perfumes, fear, and blood from her nostrils.
Another figure, heavily burdened and struggling with it, broke free of the shadows of the trees, dressed much as she was in black trousers and a long-sleeved, off-black shirt. Cristina judged her partner’s balance and leant on the gunwale, steadying the boat against the sudden weight of the limp body he decanted into it.
Seawards, the horizon was defined by the line where the blazing stars ended, and the bay’s headlands bulked dark against the sky. Unlike the luxury motor yacht moored to the dock on the far side of the bay, a towering white slab in the night, the eighty-five-foot schooner she was looking for was invisible, carefully anchored to take advantage of the darkness.
Her partner straightened from the side of the dinghy, still gasping for breath. “Let’s get out of here.” The murmur of his voice barely carried over the soft sounds of sand and sea as the dinghy floated free of the beach.
Cristina slotted the oars into place and headed just inland of the tip of the northern headland, rowing as quietly as rowlocks and wooden oars permitted. With the breeze audible in the trees fringing the beach and the repetitive, arrhythmic swishing of the wavelets on the sand, it was unlikely that the faint noise of her oars would attract attention, even from the inhumanly sensitive ears that could be on their trail. It was why they used oars, not outboards, on these trips.
Her feet bumped against the man her partner had been carrying, and she jerked away, her heart knocking against her ribs. He was sprawled in the bottom of the boat in the kind of boneless collapse that only the dead and the truly unconscious achieved, but the rational knowledge that he was unconscious and bound was very little reassurance for her imagination.
“Is he still out?”
Sean leant forwards, a pencil beam playing over knots in the darkness. The boat swayed a little under her with his movement, and she compensated automatically. The glow rested momentarily on the bound vampire’s face, and for an instant, present and the past collided, stopping her breath. Harsh shadows along lips and bones drew similarities where there surely were none, summoning memories from their pit.
“Looks like it.” Sean paused, oblivious to her reaction, and squinted at the view over her shoulder. “Don’t worry, he has my—nearly—undivided attention.” Her partner’s habitual American drawl sounded a slightly strained. “Remind me just one more time: why did we rescue him?”
Every stroke of the oars taking them further from the dangerous shore, Cristina managed to laugh. It sounded a little forced, even to her ears. “Because you and I both wanted to know why vampires would kill another vampire.”

A Bite of... JC Steel

Q1: How much of your writing is autobiographical?

Usually I can look innocent and say almost none; the majority of my books are military sci-fi, so if they were autobiographical, I’d probably be having this conversation through a necromancer. Death is for the Living, on the other hand, contains a lot of material drawn from my childhood aboard a sea-going yacht in the Caribbean (obviously not the vampires part… um). But the day-to-day of life aboard a yacht all comes from personal experience. I wrote the first draft years ago, when I was penned up in a boarding school in North Yorkshire, and, not very surprisingly, very homesick for the yacht, the freedom to go outside alone, and, by far not least, sunshine.

Q2: What is worse, ignorance or stupidity?

I’d have to say ignorance. You’re born with a certain IQ level, there isn’t much you can do to change it. Ignorance, on the other hand, is absolutely in your power to change. Read. Research. Apply a healthy dose of scepticism. Travel. Talk to people. Ignorance, unlike stupidity, is a choice, and it’s one the world can’t afford for much longer.

Q3: How much of what you write could be classed as therapy?

Hah. Great question. Most of it. I have a fairly high-stress day job, and coming home to a sci-fi or urban fantasy adventure is a great mental break to mark the end of the day and also fantastic escapism. I get to follow a career mercenary through space battles, hunt vampires, explore new planets, and, when I stay up too late researching, accidentally type things like ‘coronal mass ejaculation’ into my search bar (don’t do that at home).

Born in Gibraltar and raised on a yacht around the coasts of the Atlantic, I’m an author, martial artist, and introvert. In between the necessary making of money to allow the writing of more books, I can usually be found stowing away on a spaceship, halfway to the further galaxy.
Science-fiction and urban fantasy are my favourite genres to write in. I grew up on a rich diet of Anne McCaffrey, Tolkien, Dorothy Dunnett, and Jack Higgins, and finally started to write my own books aged fourteen. I can’t point the finger at any one book or author that set me in my current direction, but I blame my tendency to write characters who favour drastically practical solutions on some mix of those. If I can toss in a bit of gender- and genre-bending, so much the better. Status quo is boring.

You can find JC Steel on Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, Instagram and her own website. You can purchase the book from Amazon, Smashwords, Barnes&Noble, Scribd, Kobo and iTunes.

Madam Zorosa sat behind a rickety table with a sullenly uncooperative crystal ball between her fingers, while giggling teenage girls held hands and wanted to know about their love lives.

Suddenly, the crystal awoke to a sulphurous glow, and displayed the face of that we all dread, smiling his cadaverous smile and holding his scythe aloft.

Zorosa was sure it foretold imminent death for one of the children before her and felt a little pity, but she spun them the bright fairytales they craved and sent them away happy.

The pain in her breast was sharp.

Death chuckled. “Wrong conclusion.“

©️jj 2019

The boys were on their second slices of cake when Sam and Anna appeared. For a minute Anna looked a bit shy, but Charlie got up from the table and put his arms around her waist. She smiled down at him.
“Don’t be blushing,” he said, “we’re family.”
“I guess you are. Did you eat all the cake?”
“No. Mum wouldn’t let us. And she also wouldn’t let anybody touch the coffee machine.” He grinned up at Sam. “I really like that frothy cappuccino.”
Sam ruffled his hair.
“Okay. I reckon I can do something about that for you.”
He looked at the crowd around the table.
“Anyone else for beverages?”
Of course everyone wanted a drink, so Sam and Anna got busy, while Patsy found another cake.

Everyone got his or her drink and piece of cake and sat around the table. The twins shuffled their feet a bit then Matt spoke up.
“Sam,” he said, “that bout with Uncle Rod was something to see. We’ve watched a few training bouts, and Uncle Rod usually creams people but you kept up. We was amazed.”
“Yeah, well it would’ve been different if it was a real fight. I’d probably be dead.”
“Not so sure about that,” Rod broke in. “You really are a good kick boxer. Nice balance. Fast. Strong. It’d be nip and tuck I think.”
“We’ve had this argument before. You are bigger than me, and faster. I’d get creamed.”
Jim laughed.
“Can we just agree that it was something to see. There’s another thing we need to talk about.”
“Is there?” Sam looked a bit puzzled.
“Yes. Rod gave us a bit of information. Do you remember a kid that got knocked down by a hit and run driver just before last Christmas?”
Sam scratched his head then grinned.
“Wasn’t his name Andrew? Fifteen-year-old promising footballer?”
Jim nodded.
“Yeah. We did good work there. He’s back playing and is reportedly as good as ever. But why do we have to talk about that?”
“Because he’s a Cracksman.”
“Ain’t. I don’t remember his surname, but I’m sure it wasn’t Cracksman.”
“No. It isn’t. But his mum was a Cracksman before she was married.”
Sam screwed up his face in thought.
“That fits. I’m just calling the family to mind. As I recall, his dad is a little bloke – looks a bit like a jockey. Mum, on the other hand is built like a brick shithouse. She glowered at me a lot until  it became clear that Andrew was mending properly. Then she cried on my shoulder. And so?”
“So the Cracksman family is in your debt…”
Sam stood up and actually banged his fist on the table.
“Oh no. I’m not having that. Nobody is in anybody’s debt. I am a surgeon. Part of a team. We did what we do. Mending broken people is what we do. End of.”
Patsy got up and came to kiss his cheek.
“You do, do you you? Okay Jim, leave it. Sam’s right. Just be glad he’s our friend.”
Little Charlie put up a hand.
“Can I say something?”
“You can, little man,” his mum said.
“Isn’t Sam family? Anna’s family, and he’s her husband. So don’t that make him family too?”
“It does.” Bill put in firmly. “Plus. Even if some people have forgotten what he done for me, I haven’t.’
Sam came around the table and put one hand on Charlie’s shoulder and one hand on Bill’s.
“I’d be honoured to count you two as family,” he said.
“Us too,” Cy spoke for the twins.
“And me,” Jamie said a bit shyly.
“And us grown ups,” Jim, Patsy and Rod spoke in unison.
Sam’s face crumpled. Anna got up and put her arms around him. He buried his face in her hair for a moment before sniffing loudly.
“Sorry about that, but it’s a bit overwhelming suddenly getting a whole new family. Until recently I’ve been pretty lonely…”
Bill got up and threw his arms around Sam’s legs.
“Well you shan’t be lonely any more. We won’t let you.”
“Thanks, Billy boy.”

After that somewhat emotionally charged exchange, Jim looked across the table at Anna.
“You’d better take Sam somewhere quiet and point out the disadvantages attached to becoming an honorary Cracksman.”
“I will. Sometime. But I think it’s already too late. He’s in, and he’s the sort that sticks.”
‘Well in that case welcome to the Cracksman clan you poor deluded fool.”
“Woss wrong with the Cracksman clan?” Cy asked indignantly.
“Apart from you and your brother being part of it?” Rod grinned at the two identically scowling faces.

Before the twins could push their luck with Rod by retorting, their father’s phone bleeped. He picked it up and looked at it, then he frowned.
“Sorry. I gotta take this.”
He strode out into the garden and Patsy stared after him.
“That seems ominous.”
“I expect he’ll tell us,” Anna spoke quietly.
Bill and Charlie went to their mother’s side and put their arms around her.
“Don’t worry Mum,” Charlie stretched his eyes and smiled winningly.
“It’s okay men,” Patsy patted them affectionately.

The silence was tense, and it stretched out for quite some time. Jim came back looking grim.
“Boys. Out,” he said firmly.
Nobody with any sense argued with Jim when he used that particular tone of voice.
“Where?” Jamie asked.
Sam led them across the hallway to the sitting room and gave Jamie the remote for the TV.

He went straight back into the kitchen. Jim was standing by the open back door staring unseeingly into the garden with his shoulders absolutely rigid. Sam went over to his side.
“Spill it Jimbo.”
Jim came back from wherever he had been with a jolt.
“We have a problem.”
“So I gathered,” Rod’s voice was a dull, dangerous rumble.

Jane Jago

The Sunday Serial is taking a short break but will return soon.

Elspeth was a big, plain girl, with wide hips and hands like washboards. But she was the innkeeper’s only child. 

She refused all offers of marriage, and her father would not push her into anything she didn’t want, so she remained unwed.

During the worst winter in living memory, a handsome, clerkly looking man and his servant were snowbound in the village and spent some weeks at the humble inn. They rode away without a backward glance as the snowdrops pushed their noses out of the warming loan.

Elspeth smiled a secret smile.

In the autumn, she bore a son.

©️jj 2019

Today nobody knows my name
They patronise with ‘dear’
I’ve been nameless for so long
My identity’s unclear
I’ve been child and daughter
I’ve been sister, I’ve been wife
I’ve been mum and mother
In the different hours of life
I’ve been grandmother and granny
Been a number on a bed
But now I’m just an elderly
All of whose friends are dead
I sit here in this window seat
With one thought in my brain
I’m sure I’d feel the benefit
If I anyone knew my name
I think no-one knows or cares
Who lives inside this skin
All full of bags and wrinkles
And uncomfortably thin
I sit and I remember
And the memories crowd my mind
Of all the things I used to be
Back when I had the time
Of how I burned so brightly
Until life snuffed out my flame
I think I might die happy
If just someone spoke my name

 ©️Jane Jago 2018

A flavour of Who Put Her In? by Jane Jago. Just one of the books that isn’t free...

…not a word to the gruesome twosome until we have everything settled. Speaking of whom…”
My ears caught the sound of small bare feet on parquet, then came a polite tap on the door.
“Mummy, Daddy, it’s Roz. May me and Ali come in?”
Ben went and opened the door, as the latch was too high for them to reach. They beamed up at him and dashed over to me.
“Have you got treats, Mummy?”
“Might have.”
The girls scrambled up onto the bed and surveyed the bedside table with some interest.
“Cappuccino,” Ali said with some satisfaction, “and chocolate biscuits. It’s a good job we came in time to help you Mummy.”
I couldn’t help laughing, and Ben’s face was filled with unholy glee as the twin tyrants stacked his pillows against the carved wood of the headboard before sitting back expectantly.
“Please Mummy and Daddy,” Roz was scrupulously polite, “may Ali and me have a biscuit.”
I held up my hands in defeat and gave each of them a chocolate digestive. They sat side by side eating tidily and carefully, with expressions of absolute bliss on their small faces. They are not identical twins, but they are very alike, both have smooth blonde hair, and peachy fair skin, but while Roz has her father’s startlingly blue eyes Ali has inherited dark brown from me, which is arresting against her hair and skin. I sipped my coffee and just watched them, thinking how lucky I was to have two perfect daughters after years of failing to conceive. Ben must have read my thoughts because he came and stood behind me rubbing my back through the fine cotton of my jammies jacket. The girls finished their biscuits and looked hopefully at me. I handed over the last third of my coffee, which they shared with careful fairness holding the cup in gentle hands and scraping out every inch of froth with a teaspoon. When they finished, Ben took the cup.
“Thank you Daddy.”
I stretched until my bones popped.
“Time for a shower. You two showering with me this morning?”
They beamed and scrambled off the bed, heading for my bathroom as quickly as possible. Presumably so I wouldn’t have time to change my mind. Ben grimaced.
“Darn it. I was just working up to a quickie in the shower.”
“Were you? Oh dear. That would have been a good kickstart to the day…”
I batted my eyelashes and gave the little wriggle he could never resist. He grinned, with a hint of retribution at a later date in the back of his eyes, before ambling into the bathroom to collect his towel and shower gel.
“I’ll just go use the twosome’s shower then shall I?” He turned back in the doorway with his face full of laughter. “They are sitting naked in the bath, batting their lashes at the bubbles.”
I grinned and went to break the news that it was a shower and a hair wash. 

Do check out this event on Facebook!

Anne answered the door to a thin woman with a sour mouth.
“You get your claws out of my father, or you’ll be sorry.”
Anne chuckled, and her uninvited visitor hissed.
“I only have to click my fingers. Especially when I tell him how you slapped my face.”
Anne shrugged an ample shoulder and obliged.
“Now piss off before I decide a black eye might suit you.”
She shut the door and turned a laughing face to the tall man who came out of the kitchen.
“Sorry about the slap.”
He smiled.
“Maybe I should have done this years ago.”

©️jj 2019