The mirror was a birthday present from Bella’s husband, and her reflection in its greenish depths pleased her. Some puckish impulse drew her to blow a kiss. 

The reflected face touched its cheek and smiled. 

Bella shook her head in disbelief, even as the woman in the mirror continued braiding her green-gold hair. 

As she watched, the surface of the mirror seemed to become fluid, and a delicate hand reached outwards.

Half mesmerised, Bella leaned forward and all but fell into the eyes that watched her. She awoke screaming, with blood dripping from a gouge in her white cheek.

©️jj 2019

“I hope you slept well.”
“Thank you. I slept very well indeed.”
She seemed to feel embarrassed by his presence and turned to leave, but his words called her back. “You have been more than generous to us, Lady. I will not forget your kindness.”
Her eyes darkened.
“It is not I but my husband who has shown you that kindness.”
“But it is you who have tended to our needs, lady, he but asked you to do so. My gratitude is therefore to you.”
A flush of colour flamed her face and she looked quickly away from him.
“Save your gratitude,” she said and her voice was suddenly bitter. “What I have done, I have done for my husband and may the gods forgive me for loving him too well.”
In two strides he was beside her.
“What do you mean by that?”
She did not answer him and tried to leave, but he held her elbow and turned her face to him.
“Let me go, you are hurting my arm,” she said in a low voice, sounding frightened, her eyes on the verge of flooding with tears.
“I mean you no harm, Lady,” Jariq assured her. “But you speak as if you would not have us willingly here.”
She looked up at him sharply.
“Willingly?” she echoed, incredulous. “No, I do not willingly entertain the murderer of innocent children. I don’t know what you are doing here and I don’t care. But don’t worry your secret is safe, I shall not betray you, I love my husband too well for that.”
For some reason the familiar accusation coming from her cut Jariq deeply.
“Never fear, Lady,” he returned coldly, “I am not in the habit of repaying hospitality with bloodshed. You are quite safe and will be pleased to learn that you will not have to put up with my presence in your house for much longer. If you would have a meal prepared, we shall take our leave as soon as we have eaten.”
He released her arm and she turned quickly away and almost ran from the room, her breath catching on a choking sob as she fled. Jariq’s mood was broken and his face was grim as he went in search of Durban. A house-slave informed him that the gentleman was in the kitchens and as he was making his way there Durban emerged from the courtyard wreathed in a cheerful smile.
“Did the lady of the house reject your advances?” The amber eyes were alight with mischief. “Don’t tell me the famous charm hasn’t worked for once, that one fair flower of Temsevar is immune to your appeal?”
Jariq was not in the mood for Durban’s humour.
“The lady of the house is of no interest to me, and, as I understand, it objects virulently to harbouring a mass murderer under her roof.”
Durban grinned.
“Alas, you are defeated by your own legend – perhaps you should give up slaughtering innocents before it ruins your love life completely.”
“I think,” Jariq returned, containing his rising temper with difficulty, “that there are more important things for us to discuss before we leave.”
If Durban noticed the harsh edge to his tone, he gave no sign of it. Instead still smiling he linked his arm in Jariq’s and started leading him towards the great parlour.
“Of course,” he said brightly. “We must have a serious discussion and where better than here with the comforts of home close at hand: food, wine -” he glanced up with arching eyebrows “and women.”
Jariq pulled his arm away.
“Death of the Gods, Durban, don’t you ever give up?”
“Not whilst there is breath in my body and the pleasure of watching you rise like a fish to the bait.” The amber eyes mocked him. “You really must learn not to be so sensitive. Just because some woman calls you names, this is no reason to sulk like a spoilt child.”
Jariq felt his tolerance slipping.
“Leave it,” he snarled. But Durban showed no sign of having heard him, he opened the door to the guest parlour and went in, dropping with a contented sigh onto a cushioned couch.
“Ah, the simple joys of life. You take things too much to heart and life is too short for that.” Durban reached out for a delicate crystal goblet and filled it with dark wine from an inlaid jug. “Now, what was it you wanted to talk about?”

From Transgressor: The Fated Sky volume one of Fortune’s Fools by E.M. Swift-Hook

The unblinking eyes of the chessmen stared at her as she figured out her next move, while the man opposite leaned back in his chair the picture of cocksureness.
What had started as a joke suddenly became serious.
This asshat deserved beating and she was gonna do it if I killed her. Switching off her emotions, she put the cool mathematical side of her brain to work calculating the odds as she made each move.
At first he didn’t notice, but then he stared playing fast and reckless.
She smiled coolly, as she tipped over his king.
“Checkmate,” she said.

©️jj 2019

Hyos: the Sleep Machine by Jane Last.  Man thinks that he is shaping the planet, but little does he realize that the planet is shaping him.

Year: 9,000-9,600 Hyos Time Scale (HTS)

Location: Planet of Hyos

Hyos was intensively studied as from year 8,500 HTS, when the first scientific expeditions landed on the planet. The next hundred years were followed by many subsequent expeditions, and even permanent settlements by various research teams. There were many interesting features on Hyos that kept the scientists busy for a long time. It was a time when vast amounts of money were readily available for planetary exploration, and scientists had unlimited funds at their disposal. Authorities on Earth had channeled enormous resources for space exploration, planet discovery and identification of suitable planets for the establishment of human colonies. On every newly discovered planet, research work was ongoing to optimize its environmental conditions for its potential colonization.
The atmosphere of Hyos was similar, though not identical to Earth’s. In addition to oxygen, nitrogen, carbon dioxide and water vapor that human beings were used to, its atmosphere contained sulfur dioxide, hydrogen, methane, several acidic gases, ash and dust in various proportions. The gas mixture was dependent on one’s location and proximity to volcanic sites as the ongoing volcanic activity emitted large quantities of carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide and hydrogen as well as heat. The planet’s climate was hot and stormy with strong dusty winds and occasional light rainfall for one hundred and ninety days. Similarly, it was very cold and dry for the same length of time depending on which of the twin stars was closest to it. On any day, the sky looked yellow with an orange tinge and the twin suns were clearly visible during day-time. The sky color changed to bright red at sunrise and sunset, which lasted for a long time to allow both suns to rise and set.
Although the planetary mass of Hyos was greater than that of Earth, surprisingly its gravity matched Earth’s exactly, and the first men who arrived on the planet immediately felt at home. One would logically have expected that the gravity on Hyos would be greater on account of its larger mass, so this was an unusual finding. Scientists had a rational explanation for this. Surface gravity was a function of both mass and radius and they compensated for each other. Moreover, the physical composition of the planet and that of the atmosphere also had an effect on the surface gravity of Hyos making it similar to Earth’s gravity.

A Bite of... Jane Last

Q1: How much of what you write could be classed as therapy? 

I started writing at a difficult time in my life. I had not previously thought of myself as a writer at all. In fact I am used to writing scientific publications, research proposals and dissertations. I read a lot of a variety of books and I guess that I think a lot. I had been vaguely thinking of writing fiction for some years and then one day I had a dream. It was so vivid that I started writing it down. It became the basis of the story Hyos, The Sleep Machine. Maybe it was a therapeutic release.

Q2: Chocolate cake or coffee cake? And give reasons 

I love chocolate cake. It’s rich and dark and comforting and so-self-indulgent. I feel I deserve chocolate cake regularly. It’s so important to have something that makes one happy.
I believe in happiness as an objective in life. So many people spend so much time depriving themselves of simple things that would make them happy as they are pursuing something else.
They deprive themselves of sleep, quality time, family life, simple comforts, calorie-rich foods and so many things that are within reach for something that may be unattainable.
Chocolate cake makes me happy. It is therapeutic. I have it for breakfast regularly.

Q3: How much of your writing is autobiographical? 

My writing is not at all autobiographical but I think a lot of my beliefs and philosophy are reflected in my writing. For example my book Hyos, The Sleep Machine is about a society adapting to underground living in a volcanic planet and to an outbreak of mental illness that they cannot understand, but at its essence, it’s a story about choices that we make in life and the human need to make choices. It’s about freedom. 

Jane Last is a free thinker who likes writing original stories. She is herself an avid reader interested in history, politics, society, literature, art, statistics and science-fiction. If she is not reading, she is watching the latest films. She has a scientific background and is especially interested in human physiology and brain function and how humans will adapt in the future. You can connect with her on Twitter.

It was just a bowl of chips, glistening with sea salt and sprinkled with herbs. Christabel could feel Malcolm daring her to touch even one.

She was tempted to obey him as usual. But she had had two glasses of wine so she took a delicious forbidden treat. 

“I thought we agreed no fries.”

His pseudo-transatlantic accent grated on her overstretched nerves.

“I agreed nothing.” She took another chip and bit in.

“We’ll discuss this later.”

“Oh. Find somebody else to discuss calories with.”

He threw down his napkin and stormed out. 

She smiled and took another fattening chip.

©️jj 2019

The women were coated and booted and out of the door almost before Anna finished speaking.
“So. What do we have to do about bedrooms? It isn’t hoovering, is it?” Jim asked with some unease.
“Nah. We just have to make some beds and put towels in some bathrooms. After which, I suggest dragging the hounds out for a tramp in the rain.”
“Sounds like a plan to me.”
“Is. I’ll phone Anna just before we set out in case there are further orders.”
Jim grinned.
“Good thinking. Let’s keep those girls sweet. One angry is bad news, but on the rare occasion I’ve managed to piss both of them off together I’ve been very, very sorry.”
“I’ll bet,” Sam concurred with some feeling. “Anna only has to give me that single raised eyebrow and all my manly courage deserts me.”
“So. Let’s do our duties then. Do we know which rooms?’
“Yeah. We’ll stick them all in the annexe. Then Rod can keep an eye on the boys.”
“He’s used to that. He bloody well invited himself anyway, so we should put him in the shed.”
“Nah. He might touch my lathe.”
Jim roared with laughter, then said.
“You got a lathe? I’m jealous. I’ve always wanted to learn wood turning.”
“Stick with me. I’ll gladly teach you all I know. I’ve got some holly wood and I’ve been making bowls for Anna, but she don’t know yet. I’ll show you later.”
Jim grinned like a schoolboy.
“I’d like that if you’re serious.”
“Oh yeah. I’m serious.”

They cleared up the kitchen and loaded the dishwasher before making beds and folding towels. Then Sam called Anna, and was graciously given permission to take the dogs out – but warned to be back by twelve-thirty if he wanted lunch.
“Will do ma’am.”
He ended the call before she could singe his ears for cheek.
“C’mon Jim. If they are calling twelve-thirty lunch, I reckon they are expecting to be back here about noon. So. If we are back here by quarter to we can gain many, many points by unloading the shopping.”
“You crafty brown-nosing bastard! I’m impressed. Let’s get to it.”
They frogmarched the dogs around a brisk couple of miles and were home with coffee on and dogs wiped before the Range Rover rolled onto the drive.
“You do the cappuccinos. I’ll start unloading,” Jim grinned and sprinted out.  The girls came in dripping and giggling, and Sam took their coats before presenting each with a foaming coffee.
“Mmm. You certainly know how to make a girl feel welcome,” Patsy grinned and took a restorative sip.
Sam bowed, and sprinted off to help Jim with the groceries.
“What are those two up to?”
“Oh. It’ll be Sam. He’s an expert at acquiring brownie points. It’s a kind of a game we play. Why?”
“Just wondered if the buggers had been up to no good. Which is unfair. Comes of being the mother of five boys – at least one of whom will be up to no good at any given time.”
The men staggered in laden.
“You weren’t joking about a big shop. Do I need to crawl to the bank manager for a bridging loan?”
“No,” Jim interspersed “you’re okay. We’ll sell one of the brats.”
Then they charged out into the rain again.
“They are having fun together,” Patsy remarked ruminatively. “Which makes Sam the first non-Cracksman Jim has seen fit to befriend. Part of it will be because he’s yours, but it seems to me like they actually like each other. Which is amazing. And very nice.”
“Is. But we have a mountain of groceries to put away. Or I do. Can you get a pan of quick bread dough going for pizzas?”
“Can do. Point me at the ingredients.”

So it was that the kitchen was serene and the four of them were settling down to loaded pizzas not much after the stated twelve-thirty. After a few moments of concentrated greed, Sam spoke.
“Why do I get the feeling you think I’m mad inviting your kids here. They’ve been here before with no terrible outcome.”
“True,” Jim said, “but we never had the twins with us.”
“No,” Sam agreed “you didn’t. But do you reckon they are likely to be troublesome?”
“About bound to,” Anna said wryly. “Matt and Cy have to try their boundaries. And now you are family they won’t hold back.”
“She’s right,” Jim’s grin was half proud and half wary. “Any trouble. Belt ’em.”
Patsy agreed firmly. “Yeah. But if you do, make sure it smarts a bit.”
“Right got that. Two supplementaries. The twins. You almost always seem to refer to them as that, rather than Matt and Cy. I wondered why? Plus. Jamie is invited to Daniel and Paul’s wedding, but not the rest of the tribe?”
“Last first,” Jim grinned. “Daniel is Jamie’s sponsor. Like Rod and Bill.”
“OK. I get that.”
Patsy smiled at him.
“The Twins. That’s a bit more complicated. One: they only answer to their given names to me, their dad, and their grandmothers, but if you yell ‘twins’ they generally tip up. If they ain’t too busy. Two: they are currently joined at the hip – though that may change when sex rears its ugly head – so it’s difficult not to think of them as a single entity. Three: it’s easy and they prefer it. So. You can call them what you like, really. Jim’s Dad calls them ‘that pair of fuckers’, which they like a lot. Take it as a compliment. Grandpa Cracksman calls them ‘Solomon and David’ which makes them just about piss themselves. And  Anna….”
“Calls them Dickhead and Shitface, if memory serves.”
She went very pink.
“I might have known you’d remember that.”

Jane Jago

As the sun dipped below the horizon the hunted woman slipped into the forest. Her pursuers kicked their mounts into a triumphant gallop. Stopping at the very edge of the trees they waited for the malevolent entities that ruled the woodland to spit her out.

When her bare feet touched ancient loam their quarry felt hostility, but when the wildwood came to know what it harboured the warmth of welcome spread from her toes to her head.  

She made the change, and turned her saurian eye on the waiting hunters.

The queen dragon roared and the men scattered like chaff.

©️jj 2019

My muse today is on the lash
And talking proper tripe
He’s on the rum without a splash
And seriously ripe
He filled my chapter nine with c**p
And vomited some verse
He’s really riding for a slap
Or something rather worse
My muse is one who rides his luck
As bad as he can be
Why is my muse a useless *BLEEP*?
Maybe because he’s me…

©jj 2019

Dai watched the familiar countryside roll by and tried to forget, rather than obsess about, the fact that he was lying to his bride of less than a month – and on two issues. Well, lying by omission. He had promised himself he was not going to keep anything from her about his working life. She had lived it herself and her security clearance had been higher than his until his sudden promotion.
Even his friend, and newly appointed Senior Investigator, Bryn Cartivel had warned him. Slapping him on the back the day before Dai’s wedding as they were taking a final drink in the Londinium taberna that had seen so much of their custom over the previous eight years.
“Two bits of advice from a long-married man to one about to take the plunge. One is never forget she is always right, even when you think you are and two – never – and I mean never – keep secrets from her.” Bryn burped loudly and adopted a fatherly look. “You see, if you get to the day you think you’re always right and she’s wrong or start finding there are things you can’t tell her – well, that’s the day your marriage hits the rocks.”
“You can’t tell your wife everything,” Dai protested. “I mean half the stuff from work is -”
“Everything she wants to know,” Bryn cut over his protest, then dropped a heavy wink. “But then my Gwen she’d know if I was keeping things from her. She’s descended from a long line of Druids on her mother’s side.”
The trouble was Bryn was right and these were things Julia would want to know – things Dai wanted to tell her. But it was not in his hands. These were secrets he had been ordered to keep from her.

***

The first had arisen in a conversation with the Tribune in charge of the Praetorians in Britannia – Decimus Lucius Didero, foster-brother to Julia. He had summoned Dai on the pretext of a meeting about some legality around the marriage and had not been at all repentant about his duplicity.
“This is serious, Llewellyn and is a big part of how I swung this post your way. Our intelligence people are saying that a lot of dangerous contraband is getting in through the coast there and Viriconium is the hub of it. We need someone who is accepted by the British community and who we can trust. You fit the bill.”
“And here I was thinking I got the job on my merits as an Investigator alone.” Dai made no attempt to keep the cynicism from his tone. He had been wondering why this had come his way and was not too surprised to find it had been for reasons other than those put out for public consumption.
Decimus grinned at him.
“Well my sister falling for your baby-blue eyes helped as well,” he admitted, then he switched back to the clipped tones of before. “As if the smuggling isn’t enough we are talking a major anti-Roman group somewhere in the area and they have their fingers deep in our pies. We need to know who they are and how they are being financed and supplied before they start out on a major terrorist campaign. I’m sending you out with twenty of my lads under their own decanus, a good man Brutus Gaius Gallus. You may need them. We have no idea how high or deep this thing goes – even the Magistratus is not in the clear. So trust no one there and I mean no one.”
Dai took a moment to digest the implications. He had known it was going to be hard enough taking on a post he had been over-promoted to fill. But he had been looking forward to learning his way in and doing so with Julia’s sharp insight and wisdom to help. But Decimus had just taken that fond daydream of a bucolic honeymoon easing into things and blown it away. He realised now why, when he had asked for permission to relocate with some of his old team he had not met with more resistance.
“Julia will need…”
“Julia will not be told anything about it, Llewellyn.” Decimus sounded almost ferocious. Then he drew a breath and sighed. “She has been through too much, I am not having her dragged into this. She needs a chance to have some simple happiness with no more to worry about than what colour she wants to paint the guest bedroom.”
Which, Dai reflected rather grimly, probably showed more of wishful thinking on Decimus’ part than any true understanding of what Julia would want or need.
“I think she might notice Brutus Gaius Gallus and his men hanging around,” Dai said pointedly. “My wife is many things, but she is neither unintelligent nor unobservant.” And you of all people should know that, he added in the privacy of his own mind.
“Relax, Llewellyn. They have an official reason for being there and wandering around wherever. Amongst his other talents, Gallus once served as a bandmaster and all the men with him can play instruments. They are going to be there to learn some traditional British music as part of a ‘Hearts and Minds’ Arts initiative – a real one, believe it or not, from those effete, money-wasting idiots in Rome. But it gives them the cover we need for this, so some good comes out of it.”
It was sounding more and more complex and Dai’s heart plummeted.
“So you are pitching me in against smugglers, terrorists, corrupt Roman administrators, and whoever is behind them?”
Decimus pulled a face.
“You about have the size of it. But you are not exactly going in alone. You’ll have my praetorians and your own people and as soon as you have anything solid we can act on I’ll bring half a legion in to clean up if need be. But we can’t pounce until we have a target.”
“Don’t you have undercover people doing that kind of stuff? I don’t see how I’m going to succeed where they have failed.”
“This is deep Britannia, Llewellyn,” the Tribune reminded him. “The arse end of the Empire, hanging over the edge half the time. Hell man, you should know you grew up there. These are people who only trust someone they have known from birth and who has a British pedigree you could unroll from there to Londinium. We don’t have that many such people just lying around – in fact we have one. You.”
There was no answer to that and Dai had finished the meeting being briefed about what little was known of the situation in Viriconium and along the coast. It left him in a foul mood.

From Dying for a Poppy by E.M. Swift-Hook and Jane Jago.

He brought the world to fever pitch awaiting the seminal novel of the century. He studied the picturesque in his dress and posed for the press with beautiful women and erudite men. He dribbled words and paragraphs out across social media, and he argued his concept with cover artists and editors across the globe.

If anybody suggested the man was less genius and more inspired self-publicist they were shot down in flames.

Eventually his book appeared. It was beautifully designed, exquisitely illustrated and wholly incomprehensible.

The beauty of it, of course, was that nobody dared say they couldn’t understand…

©️jj 2019