The Jo Fletcher Books Anthology Read online

  The Jo Fletcher Books Anthology

  Copyright

  First published in Great Britain in 2016 by

  Jo Fletcher Books

  an imprint of

  Quercus Editions Ltd

  Carmelite House

  50 Victoria Embankment

  London EC4Y 0DZ

  An Hachette UK company

  A Bane Returns © Frank P. Ryan 2016

  A Special Taste © Markus Heitz 2003

  Translation of A Special Taste © Sorcha McDonagh 2016

  All Aboard © Christopher Golden 2007

  An Imaginary Friend © Sue Tingey 2016

  Discordances © Stephanie Saulter 2016

  Frontsman © David Towsey 2016

  Hebe’s Ocean © Naomi Foyle 2016

  Karle’s Hunt © Snorri Kristjansson 2016

  Mountain Radio © Tom Fletcher 2012

  Saving Face © Aidan Harte 2016

  The Curious Affair of the Deodand © Lisa Tuttle 2011

  The Discord of Being © Alison Littlewood 2012

  The Girl who went to the Rich Neighbourhood © Rachel Pollack 1984

  The King’s Poet © John Matthews 2001

  Three Gwenhwyfars © Caitlín Matthews 1995

  Cover art © Howell Illustration 2016

  The moral right of the authors listed above to be

  Identified as the authors of this work has been

  asserted in accordance with the Copyright,

  Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication

  may be reproduced or transmitted in any form

  or by any means, electronic or mechanical,

  including photocopy, recording, or any

  information storage and retrieval system,

  without permission in writing from the publisher.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available

  from the British Library

  EBOOK ISBN 978 1 78429 790 9

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters,

  businesses, organizations, places and events are

  either the product of the author’s imagination

  or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to

  actual persons, living or dead, events or

  locales is entirely coincidental.

  Typeset by CC Book Production

  Bibliography

  All Aboard, first published in the Stoker Award winning anthology Five Strokes to Midnight, edited by Hank Schwaeble and Gary A. Braunbeck, published by Haunted Pelican Press, 2007

  Mountain Radio, first published in Weird Fiction Review #3, published by Centipede Press, 2012

  The Curious Affair of the Deodand, first published in Down These Strange Streets edited by George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois, published by Ace Books, 2011

  The Discord of Being, first published in Where Are We Going? edited by Allen Ashley, published by Eibonvale Press, 2012

  The Girl who went to the Rich Neighbourhood, first published in Beyond Lands of Never, edited by Maxim Jakubowski, published by Unwin, 1984

  The King’s Poet, first published in The Song of Taliesin, published by Quest Books, USA, 2001. This story has been slightly revised for this edition.

  Three Gwenhwyfars, first published in Within the Hollow Hills edited by John Matthews, published by Floris Books, 1995

  Title

  Edited by Nicola Budd and Sam Bradbury

  Contents

  Introduction • Nicola Budd

  On Continuation • Sam Bradbury

  A Bane Returns • Frank P. Ryan

  A Special Taste • by Markus Heitz

  All Aboard • by Christopher Golden

  An Imaginary Friend • by Sue Tingey

  Discordances • by Stephanie Saulter

  Frontsman • David Towsey

  Hebe’s Ocean • Naomi Foyle

  Karle’s Hunt • Snorri Kristjansson

  Mountain Radio • by Tom Fletcher

  Saving Face • Aidan Harte

  The Curious Affair of the Deodand • by Lisa Tuttle

  The Discord of Being • Alison Littlewood

  The Girl Who Went to the Rich Neighbourhood • by Rachel Pollack

  The King’s Poet • John Matthews

  The Three Gwenhwyfars • by Caitlín Matthews

  Introduction • Nicola Budd

  Introduction

  Nicola Budd

  Almost two years ago now, JFB decided it was time to bring you a free ebook featuring all of our fantastic authors. Why? We wanted to make sure that everyone had the chance to experience some of the newest and freshest fantasy, SF and horror writing around (and hopefully you’ll want to check out some of the authors’ full-length novels afterward; trust me, they’re well worth it).

  Having had this idea, we immediately wrote to each of our authors to find out if they had any stories they would like to donate to the project, entirely voluntarily – some stories have been in print before, and some are originals written specifically for this ebook. To our delight, we had a fantastic response: stories from JFB authors all over the globe, from Barbados and North America to Ireland, the UK and Europe, and I set about editing and collating them into one large document.

  Unfortunately I left JFB before the project could be completed, but with the help of my successor, Sam, this project is finally off the ground. I do want to note something that is particularly important: each author has donated their time, their work and their skills to this project, they’ve been involved in the editing process, just as they would have been writing a full-length novel, and I hugely appreciate their positive response. They all deserve a massive thank-you.

  So, without further ado, I’m going to hand you over to Sam, who saw this ebook through . . .

  Nicola Budd

  London 2016

  On Continuation • Sam Bradbury

  On Continuation

  Sam Bradbury

  Starting a new job can be an odd process. Everything is new; you spend the first few months either full of excitement for the new experiences you’ll have and the new opportunities that are coming your way, or terrified about those same new responsibilities and the new opportunities to do something wrong. But at the same time, nothing is new. Even if you aren’t directly replacing someone, you will usually be taking on at least parts of someone else’s previous role and can often be thrown into the deep end of someone else’s work-life.

  I was lucky. Nicola had been at Jo Fletcher Books for four years and so she knew the ins and outs of the role like the back of her hand. She also stayed on for two weeks after I started to show me the ropes, which meant that taking over from her was a walk in the park compared to other jobs I’ve started.

  So this anthology is dedicated to her. I may have helped it cross the finishing line, but it would never have been started if it wasn’t for Nicola, and it certainly wouldn’t have been completed to such a high standard if she hadn’t done the groundwork, both in terms of planning and in training me to Jo’s exacting specifications.

  This ebook might not look or read exactly as it would have if Nicola had finished it, but I hope it is just as enjoyable: after all, it’s still the same stories and the same fantastic JFB authors, with the same amazing talent and the same generous natures.

  Sam Bradbury

  Nicola’s old desk, London 2016
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  A Bane Returns • Frank P. Ryan

  A Bane Returns

  Frank P. Ryan

  As the first shadows of evening deepened over a surviving clump of wild woods, a fox scented its prey. Its nostrils twitched, amber eyes alert and glowing amidst a jumble of lichen-encrusted stones. In the cruel dance of hunter and the hunted, a field mouse scurried through brambles and bindweed, while rain pattered against the stones in a staccato rhythm.

  These stones were ancient ruins: hammered, but in too rough a way to indicate a iron mason’s chisel. They were what you might find at the centre of a small stone circle, if the standing stones had long since fallen, or been taken, and the central mound and surrounding ditch were all but obliterated.

  For four-thousand years or so the sacred ground around these particular ruins had endured its neglect. Now, the air crackled with a blue-green electrical charge. It was as if the sudden lunge of the fox, the heart-stopping squeal of the mouse, and the dripping blood were capable of evoking deeper memories of what had been commemorated here; the lingering echoes of a long-ago battle, warfare savage and devoid of quarter, ending in banishment . . . entombment . . .

  Just a few droplets of blood over a stone! The fox could not know that the stone on which he caught the field mouse was a pentagonal capstone over a minuscule sepulchre, any more than it might be expected to recognise the stone as jet, known for its ability to store a curse. The pentagon bore the carved image of a skull-like mask with empty eyes – a ward etched into the jet by a bronze-bladed dagger. The fox was startled, and reared back as the capstone fractured with a sharp crack. And now – the seal broken and the ward lifted by the offering of blood – a vaporous exhalation, no more substantial than smoke, rose out of the crack and gusted and whirled about the mossy stones.

  For several minutes its existence was a mere confusion of rage – all that had nurtured it during its age-old imprisonment. The emergent being had no eyes to see with; it had no physical senses at all. What flesh it had previously gathered about itself was long rotted away, clawed back by the unstoppable cycles of nature. Yet it retained an elemental awareness; enough to suggest that a living creature was nearby. The fox was entranced by the strangeness of the swirling cloud of greyish vapour sending out tentacles of mist in various directions, as if probing the rain-soaked world about it. The tentacles came close enough to be sniffed at by twitching black nostrils and then to be swiped at by a resentful paw.

  In that shocking moment, as first physical contact was made, there was time for the fox to squeal – but the pain and fright were quickly silenced by the alien whisper that had taken hold of its mind. The paw was consumed as if a virulent acid had swept over and through it, absorbing its physical substance and form. Slowly – the pleasure was not to be hurried – the emergent being subsumed its living meal. It exulted in the growing awareness of its nature and the insatiable need that was its being.

  Even as it assumed a more solid form, it sniffed through borrowed moist black nostrils. It accustomed itself to the scent of dirt and nature, to the pattern of the rain on living flesh, to the taste, on a lolling tongue, of alien chemicals that polluted the air it now breathed. A thunderous bedlam in the near distance afflicted its hearing, a noise so offensive to its new-found hearing that it suggested a very different world from that which it had been forced to abandon long ago.

  Having assimilated this new host form, the fox-being began to move, clumsily at first, but adapting to the surety of sensitive paws. Darkness was rapidly falling; still, it kept close to the shadows. It slipped through an even darker tunnel in a tree-lined hedge to confront the source of the bedlam. A continuous stream of chariots charged by at extraordinary speed over a broad series of smooth blue-grey glistening tracks. Horseless chariots, with piercing eyes of blinding light and billowing stinking exhalations in their wake. Instinct bade it crouch low in the tall grass of the verge, eyes wide with alarm, nostrils twitching with the rank chemical smell. The shock of the spectacle caused the fox-being to retreat, its belly to the ground. Such a violence of speed, faster than any horse could possibly achieve, even the mightiest in full battle charge. And yet . . . It paused, now all the way back within the enclosing hedge. Now it had time to observe more closely, within each chariot were beings that looked cursedly human.

  It crouched low in the verge, trembling and twitching, and all the while it continued to observe, welcoming the turn of evening into night.

  One of the chariots came to a stop a short distance ahead, with two crimson eyes directed backwards, burning unblinkingly in the squalling rain. Consumed with curiosity, the fox-being slid through the grass to discover a human male outlined in a harshly bright light through the open door of the chariot. It peered up into the human’s face; a long face whose eyes were shrouded by rings of horn in which crystals were fixed. The human was consuming something: crumbs remained on its lips and fell over its lap, where fragments that smelled of meat lay discarded in a crumpled sheet of brilliant silver. Long-fingered hands now patted pockets within its covered thighs, discovering an oblong box from which it extricated a small white cylinder. Taking the cylinder to its mouth, it ignited the end with a flame and then inhaled the smoke. Slinking closer, adopting the host creature’s instinctive patterns of behaviour, the fox-being entered the outer halo of yellow light, to gaze aslant up into the smoke-shrouded face, its eyes alert.

  The face of the human was periodically reddened by the glow of the cylinder, which it retained with marvellous balance within its lips. Only when the cylinder was consumed was it withdrawn from the mouth, to be discarded, in a fiery arc, into the surrounding dark. The fox padded closer, entering the oblong of bright illumination falling through the open door. It peered up at the bemused human within the chariot, at the discoloured tablets of its teeth, among which tiny tendrils of smoke still eddied.

  ‘Hello there!’

  The fox blinked, whiskers twitching.

  ‘What you up to? Come for a little nibble?’

  An arm was reaching out, those long, brown-stained fingers offering a fragment of the meaty food. They dropped it, with a gentle flick, so the morsel landed at the fox’s feet.

  The fox sniffed at the food. It edged still closer, its head uplifted, every muscle trembling, ears erect.

  The human reached down to brush the fur between its ears. The amber eyes of the fox gazed up into the blue of the human’s, watching for the change. They widened in concert with those of its new host in the moment the agony registered. The scream was lost in the thunder of the passing chariots.

  Assuaging its appetite, it took longer to assimilate the human male, absorbing new knowledge, new memories. There was wonder to be gathered in this strange new world, with its extraordinary changes from the old – this world of machines! New opportunities were already presenting themselves. Another chariot had halted close by, a larger chariot that was a lurid orange in colour. In the looking glass above its human head, the being that was now part fox and part human watched as another human emerged, approaching the open door.

  It was pleased to confirm that this host was a female. Her hair was tinctured an impossible shade of purple and bunched at the back of her head – like a closed fist – with a purple band. The foxy part of its being inhaled the curious mixture of odours that exuded from her presence – the hint of flowers mixed with the sweat of labour.

  It spoke with the voice of the consumed man: ‘What you up to? Come for a little nibble?’

  Her smile turned to a frown as she gazed in through the open door. ‘What’s the trouble?’

  The man-face smiled.

  It was close enough now to witness its reflection in her eyes. It saw its own pallid face, white as candle wax, and the circles within it that were its eyes. It spun the head through half a circle, to witness the woman’s head jerk in a frightened movement, as she stared at the fox’s face, with its amber eyes aglow with anticipation. A s
ingle long-fingered hand reached out . . .

  The female screamed even before the shock of contact was made.

  There was no rush to ecstasy this time. It savoured the pain of a much slower, inescapably messy consummation, the frenzy of terror that embroiled the mind. In time a third face was added to those of the fox and the man, the new face caught in what was now a never-ending scream. The compound oozed out of the chariot in a fluid amoeboid motion, discarding the coverings of male and female, which lay crumpled in the dirt.

  Within its head a voice was calling. The response of the emergent being was still weak as a mewling new-born, lost in a world of incomprehensible change.

  Some lingering instinct caused it to spit into the palm of a protruding hand and then wipe it, unconsciously, on the nearby bare flesh of an ample hip.

  The composite being of fox, man and woman, gazed up into the night sky through three separate pairs of eyes, seeing not stars but the reflected lights of a great encampment. From the collective minds of its human hosts it had extracted a name: London. It perceived within the corrupting glow a telling conflagration of lines of force, converging onto a single focus . . .

  The Sword is calling.

  I heed! I come . . .

  Frank P. Ryan is a multiple-bestselling author in the UK and US. His other fiction includes the thrillers Goodbye Baby Blue and Tiger Tiger. His books have been translated into over ten different languages. Born in Ireland, he now lives in England. His YA fantasy series The Three Powers, which includes the titles The Snowmelt River, The Tower of Bones, The Sword of Feimhin and The Return of the Arinn, is published by Jo Fletcher Books

  A Special Taste • by Markus Heitz

  A Special Taste

  by Markus Heitz

  Translated by Sorcha McDonagh

  ‘Could this be something for us?’ He took the magazine from the top of the pile and threw it across the breakfast table at her. ‘I’ve marked the place.’