Pages of Tales for The Prediction

This week I posted episode 112 of John Pettinger's 'A change of focus' and episode 49 of 'Threshold' on the http://predictionfiction.blogspot.co.uk/   Each can be read in their entirety in the tagged the pages above.

'The blacksmith's wife' - published with illustrations - was the first serial I attempted and 'From Rhodes' a 58 episode sequel, dealing with the blacksmith's brother.

Can't say enough how much this weekly exercise has help in the honing of my craft as a writer - particularly now that I'm trying to reduce 'Step so grave' from ~135K words to nearer 90K.

Updated serials

'A Change of Focus' and 'Threshold' - serials progressing week by week, prompt by prompt via Prediction Fiction, and available to be read in their entirety on the above pages - have been updated; John Pettinger's adventures now having reached episode eighty-two.

Callipygian and A Change of focus

A change of focus [32]
‘Yanno, no,’ Raptor’s expression pained, ‘how could I have killed him?  I was with you, he in custody...’
Pettinger grunted. ‘No... released on diplomatic bail... as per the fucking handbook.’   Then, doggedly reverting, ignoring the turbulence of messages from his superior, questioning his absence,  ‘How come my brothers knew, when I did not?’
‘Guessed.  I sent you here, paid for your education.’
‘Manufactured reasons for me not to return?
Sharp gleam of surprise, not sufficiently fast-hid, ‘Kept you safe...’
‘Why not protect me there?  Since you need me to eventually return.  And why, for fuck’s sake, why the tinpot embassy?’

A change of focus [33]
Raptor’s smile a recrudescent memory.  ‘Part of their grand scheme to wrest power; naïve belief that allying themselves with Britain in these turbulent times...’
‘Christ, don’t tell me they’re stupid enough to trust the EU handbook?’
‘They wanted a hand-out to support their fight against the Dubnovaskis.   I merely encouraged.’
‘Is Khakbethia really that poverty-stricken?’
‘It’s known hunger... as I know hunger now.’  Standing, ‘Time to eat, Yanno.’
‘You still have to tell me about Sally-Ann.  You knew her, had her, passed her on to me...’
Quietly, ‘Did not kill her.’
‘But caused her to be killed?’
Raptor strode ahead.

The most recent  entries for the Prediction which required the inclusion of handbook, grunt, and  turbulent.  And with thanks to my younger son for the word 'callipygian'

A change of focus

Decanting truth from a flagon – a vat – of  lies, lies long-distilled from fear-straddled infancy, had become second nature for John Pettinger. 
Childhood fear had been triple-dealt.  Siblings, father, his mother’s brother Raptor:  least physical but most frightening, because of tearing  notches in his mind.
Was that why today’s interrogation had brought recognition? Understanding?  Sense of like-mindedness?
Why he’d let him go, arresting his brother in Raptor’s place, to placate his boss and provide a perpetrator for the crimes committed by his uncle?
Did that stem from his oh-so-superior understanding of the truth?
Or had Raptor cynically brainwashed him once again?

‘I could lose my job for this...’ Pettinger, behind the wheel.
‘Could come and work for me.  Could do so anyway, straddle both worlds...’
‘Good and evil?’
‘Here, and there.’
‘Tell me about Sally-Ann.’
‘She’s the first I decanted your way...’
‘Why?’
‘Why first?  Your brothers had become ungrateful...’
‘You regularly supply them?’
‘Having tried and tested, yes.  Hopgood had brains, though...’
‘They don’t?’
Grunted affirmation. ‘Had ambition too...’
‘So it wasn’t you who killed her?’
‘I don’t kill women...’
Raised eyebrow ‘There’s notches enough say you lie.’
‘Not since...’
‘Not since my mother?’
‘Yanno, it had to be done.’

[episodes 26 and 27 in John Pettinger's tale, this week's prompts from  The Prediction being 'decant', 'notch' and 'straddle'   The tale in its entirety can be read by clicking the page tab above]

John Pettinger at the Khakbethian embassy

This, episode 22 of the serial 'A change of focus', was voted last week's winner of the Friday Prediction challenge by host  Colleen Foley.  
Predictioneers were required to incorporate 'articulate', 'whorl', 'pelt'  into a  sci-fi, horror- fantasy or noir tale of no more than one hundred words

‘Excellency!’
Strangled articulation announced the entry of  the pensioner hired to disguise the whorls of dirty espionage which hung about the Khakbethian embassy.

Skull-knuckled hands clutching the double doors, he hung for a moment then slowly sagged until his badger-pelted head lay on the carpet, arms perforce rotated back- and upwards,  nine inches of knife-handle protruding from his spine.

The ambassador  and his officially-unacknowledged brother turned as one to watch him, their  mutual observation interrupted by the appearance of the man presumed responsible, the sight of whom brought relief to one brother, terror to the other, in roughly equal quantities.

 
Earlier episodes can be accessed by the 'A change of focus' page link above.

A change of focus [2]

Suspicion, and a single question, swelled like a tumour:   why?  
Why her?
Why now?
She’d been due to return tomorrow, to the farm she’d vividly described, red earth, big skies and far distant horizons.
But someone had prevented that;  at least, not permitted her to return alive.
He’d understood she knew nobody here.
And only mentioned one man there:  Jake.
Who, she’d said, in the lucid moments between waking, guilt-entwined in the furrow-sheeted dawn and her engulfing him again, would never forgive what she had done.
‘Need he know?’ he’d asked, matching rhythm.
‘He always knows,’ she’d told him, distant-eyed.

Took some time but this is a response (one of three - the others are already posted)  to Phil Ambler's Prediction prompts:  farm, tumour and lucid]