For direct download of your Digest go to one of our retail outlets -

FICTIONWISE

EBOOKWISE

For the Print version go to: READ THE SAMPLES and GO TO THE LULU SHOPPING CART

Libraries can also purchase the Digests for their readers at LIBWISE

Jaded Beast V, Monkey & Rooster

Monkey – The monkey can thrive at most anything they try or do, regardless of their tendency to get readily dispirited. Although they are resourceful and have a very compelling disposition, this being is not always trustworthy to some.

Rooster – Although self-important and self-absorbed, the cocks are brave and diligent and are excellent judgment makers. They always want to learn new things, and are highly proficient in many areas, despite their foolishness.

Softly, Softly, Catchee Monkey – Olivia Lorenz
Xinran steals Konstantinos’ priceless monkey statue and his beleaguered heart. Which will she choose him or the other jaded beast?

Gorilla Tactics, Marguerite Turnley
Anthony escapes from a zoo. Tamsin is lost in the desert. A Jade pendant is the key to her alien heritage. Together they will survive.

Smoke and Mirrors, Mila Ramos
Ana Fiore and Dakota Hastings are rival doctors vying for Chief of Staff position. Snowed-in at a conference, the doctors must face their pasts and feelings.

Crow Like Me, Bridghid Parkinson

Tommie thought The Guardians were just bedtime stories. Her modern Guardian cannot stop the destiny that brings them together, but they will avenge her murder.
 

READ THE REVIEWS

Back to the Top

EXCERPTS

Softly, Softly, Catchee Monkey

By

Olivia Lorenz

Lin Xinran locked the door of the toilet cubicle and checked the contents of her rucksack one final time. She could hear the chatter of a couple of women as they washed their hands, and she tried to detach from their conversation, carefully laying out the items she would use later.

They seemed incongruous, placed on a white plastic toilet seat. Two pieces of cotton cloth, cut to size—ten by fourteen inches, with the longer sides slightly frayed to provide grip—and beside the cloth, an ordinary plastic bottle of hand-cream. Except it no longer held hand-cream, but highly adhesive organic glue.

There was one other item: a small, tennis-ball sized object that had passed undetected through the meagre security at the entrance to this large provincial art gallery and museum.

She glanced at her watch. Timing was crucial in this operation. If the information at the meeting-point was right, the guided tour of the collections should take an hour and a half, and they should be at the Eastern Art gallery within forty minutes. The glue would be tacky, still within its optimal period for adhering to the wall. But if they were held up…

Xinran made her decision. Quickly, she opened the bottle of glue, and with the deft strokes of long experience, she applied the adhesive to the first layer of cloth. Then she laid the second cloth directly over the first, taking care to align the threads of warp and weft to give the combined cloth the extra strength it would need.

She finished by spreading the remainder of the glue in broad swathes across the top surface of the cotton. Using the lid of the bottle, she massaged the glue into the fabric until there was an even spread. Then she tossed both lid and bottle into the sanitary bin.

The bathroom door banged as the women went out, still chatting to one another. In case there was anybody left in the room, Xinran flushed the toilet in her cubicle. The tortuous sound of the plumbing covered her movements as she shuffled open her rucksack and eased the glue-laden cloth inside. She clipped each corner to a frame hidden inside the bag, and then she carefully swung the rucksack onto her back.

Finally, she pocketed the ball-sized item and strolled out of the cubicle to wash her hands. Xinran glanced at her reflection, marvelling at how calm she managed to look in these situations.

Depending upon the circumstances, she would usually dress up in a glamorous gown, or cover her face and body completely. Today she had to look nondescript, like a foreign student. Her dark almond-shaped eyes were free of make-up, and she wore her shoulder-length hair down, rather than in her usual lazy upsweep. Down, her hair swung around her cheeks and blurred the shape of her face.

She doubted whether anyone would speak to her. If they did, she knew she could pretend to mangle the English language well enough. Xinran imagined that most people would discount her, seeing only what she wanted them to see: a demure Chinese woman of average height and small build.

She squeezed liquid soap from the dispenser and rubbed at a smear of glue that had stuck to her finger. It wasn’t her appearance that was making butterflies dance in her stomach—it was the difficulty of the task.

This was her twenty-third operation, but this one was different. The level of skill in executing it required much more than dodging guards and high-tech security. So much could go wrong with this, and even though she’d practiced for several weeks beforehand, this would be the first time she’d tried this technique on a genuine fifteenth-century fresco. If she’d made a mistake with the consistency or amount of the glue, or if it didn’t dry quickly enough, she ran the risk of destroying the fresco completely.

Xinran tried to put that thought from her mind. She dried her hands on a paper towel and then went back out into the entrance hall of the museum.

There was a small group of people gathered at the meeting-point, where a sign listed the times of the guided tours. Xinran had been careful to choose the lunchtime slot, certain that it would be the most popular. She scanned the group—an elderly couple, a few students, some tourists—and then she joined them, standing at the back so as not to draw attention.

As a grandfather clock in the entrance hall sounded the time, a man in smart clothes with an identity badge pinned to his lapel came towards them. He greeted them in a loud, nasal voice and began the tour with a brief history of the collection.

Xinran had done her research before she’d arrived in England. Not just on the piece of art she had come to steal, but also on the city and the surrounding area. In her line of work, it never paid to take anything for granted. Things could go wrong, and back-up plans were a necessity. She knew she could rely on the city’s public transport system to get her away quickly and safely, and if she needed to, she knew she could lay low in the small Chinatown a few blocks away from the museum.

Not that it would be necessary. Xinran was confident that everything would go smoothly today. Now she just wanted to get on with it, before her nerves had time to sap her belief.

The guide led his group through glass doors into a long gallery hung with Pre-Raphaelite paintings. According to his practiced spiel, this was the highlight of the collection. Xinran looked at the romantic, wistful images of sad-eyed women and felt no sympathy for them. She had been raised to ignore romance as a distraction, and this sumptuous reminder of it seemed to suffocate her. Her life might have lacked masculine attention, but she told herself that being free and independent was preferable to being caged like one of these Pre-Raphaelite beauties, pining for the love of a man.

Xinran pretended to pay attention to what the guide said as they continued through the gallery. They were not encouraged to dawdle: the guide’s terse recitation of facts showed that he wanted to be elsewhere. Xinran took this as a good sign.

With each step further along the tour, she felt her heart race. Sweat prickled her hairline and dampened her sides. Her palms felt clammy, and she held tighter to the straps of her rucksack. The guide’s voice seemed to come from very far away, and so she found herself following sheep-like the motions of the other tourists—look here, exclaim there, nod at this, smile at that.

She checked her watch. Half an hour had passed, and only now were they leaving the art galleries for the museum section. Xinran began to worry. For ten minutes, she listened to the guide talking about the city at war, and finally they were on their way upstairs to the Eastern Art gallery.

Xinran could feel the hard stone of the steps beneath her feet as she hurried ahead. She could feel the slight weight of the rucksack. Even though the stairs weren’t steep, her breath caught in her lungs as she approached her target.

She stepped over the threshold and stood back against one of the window bays, loosening her rucksack so she’d be able to swing it down from her shoulders. Her gaze scanned the room, searching for cameras automatically although she knew this museum only monitored the entrance and exits. She gazed at the painting she would soon steal: only six by eight inches big, it had been plastered into the wall along with several other frescos.

Xinran forced herself to look elsewhere, admiring the collection of Chinese, Japanese and Korean artifacts that ranged in date from prehistory through the late nineteenth century.

The rest of the tour party came into the gallery. Xinran moved about quite obviously, touching the lacquered furniture and peering into the glass cases so that others in the group did the same thing. The guide did not stop them, too interested in delivering the next part of his lecture. He pointed out things of most obvious interest to the average Westerner, such as the samurai armor and the Japanese swords or the embroidered screens of the Qing Dynasty. He did not once mention the tiny fresco that Xinran had come to collect.

She inched around the furniture until she was close to the panel that her client wanted so badly. It was a Ming Dynasty depiction of a Buddhist scene, showing Guanyin, the Goddess of Mercy, bestowing a blessing on the Monkey King before he set off on his fabled Journey to the West. To Xinran, it looked unimportant compared to the larger scenes that decorated the wall, but she had long ago given up questioning the taste of her clients. She was an art thief, not an art critic.

A slight movement of the ground caught Tamsin's attention as she sat for a moment to catch her breath. Her lengthy dark hair blew in the wind, the long black satin skirt and blouse she had worn to a party the night before were now covered in dust, her black high heeled pumps totally destroyed. Her gold chain bracelet had disappeared, probably stolen by Billy Marsden, but at least she still wore her jade pendant. If anyone tried to remove it they would receive a nasty shock.

Tall and slim, Tamsin worked hard all her life to stay fit, knowing she might be forced to leave her job and move on to another part of the state, or even move to another country. Staying under the radar had become a matter of life or death.

If she appeared on a database of any kind she could be found. That meant she could not drive a car, could not register to receive unemployment benefits and could not go to a hospital. Being injured with anything more than a slight scratch or a headache could lead to a doctor or a hospital wanting to be paid for their services, a difficult situation if you had no money and no security or insurance. It would also put her on a list of people trying to escape detection. Her photo would show up on video footage of visitors to hospital. The world could be a dangerous place, if you were different and didn’t fit in to the normal family situation, life could be hell.

Her family was anything but normal. Her mother had always kept an eye on her, knowing the family heritage could be a danger to her. When she was a child she knew her father was a man to stay away from. That fear forced her to create a world within a world, a place of refuge. The woodlands behind her home gave plenty of room to hide. One of the places she found to disappear into was a small cave close to the river. Too small for anyone except a small animal or child, the hole in the ground had become a refuge for rats. Small lizards also crawled over rocks to find their way to safety. They became her lifeline to an alternate world.

At ten years old, Tamsin made friends with creatures of all kinds and, because of her talent, she could talk to them and they could talk to her. They shared a common language, accepting each other as part of the same creation.

That talent extended to her teachers and fellow students at school. Able to link into their thought processes, she knew what people were going to say before they opened their mouths. Accused of cheating in exams, she pretended to be less than intelligent, allowing other people to win in arguments, staying out of the way during confrontations.

In reality, she had intelligence far above any they could master. In mathematics and languages she excelled. In Art she could see the world as no one else saw it, a place of beauty and promise.

Uncomfortable with conversations and interaction between her classmates, she became isolated, a loner, a reject in society. None could get near her and soon no one bothered to try.

Tamsin’s mother was called Coral. She also had psychic abilities. During a time of great conflict when her husband accused her of stifling their daughter’s abilities, Coral disappeared for a time, taking Tamsin with her back to their home planet.

She decided her daughter needed to know where she came from and how they lived on Barak. It became a lesson in denial. Coral would show Tamsin places where the family ruled with an iron hand. Tamsin tried to fit in and understand the culture. She looked similar to the Barakians but there the similarity ended. Some lower class Barakians were a tortured race, born to servitude. The upper class, a group in which Tamsin and Coral belonged, lived a life of luxury. Intimidating the poorer members of the world to the point where they could said or did nothing to make their lives worth living. They would obey or be crushed.

Tamsin didn’t want to stay on Barak, so after a few weeks they returned to Earth. Coral told her husband they had been visiting their home planet and to keep him from beating them both, she said they had been to a training school for wayward girls.

Learning the ways of torture and felonious activities was the primary goal of the school and he was satisfied as he continued with his criminal life. Tamsin and her mother were allowed to fade into the background and continue with their lives, unfettered to the yoke of family obligation.

Not long after that time, Coral became a victim of a Barakian virus and died. Tamsin’s life began to spiral out of control as she mourned and all she could do to survive was retreat from her father. He had turned into a madman, with no humanity left. It was time to move on. Planning her escape was easy. She had been thinking of ways to disappear for many years. All she had to do was put them into action. So, like a puff of smoke, she disappeared.

The early morning of a clear and barely lit sky held the promise of a new day. The dawn rays seeped into the expansive six-building complex known as Huntsville Medical Hospital. Night personnel of various trained professionals left for respite, as the day crew took over. Reading over assortments of charts, graphs and medical literature, the rhythmic ballet of the machines and monitors soothe the workers keeping things in a calm and stable motion. At each station, on every floor, the usual barrage of paperwork was filled out by head nurses and signed off via corresponding doctors. On the recently built Pediatrics building, the flow of traffic was special as were the patients. Specializing in several children’s specialties, the Huntsville Pediatrics Building housed the best doctors who had spent their lives perfecting their art.

The second floor of the Pediatric building housed the Neurology Wing filled with the nation’s most brilliant minds. Though the current activity on the Pediatric floor was slow, nurses and doctors kept their usual routine. Patient’s vital signs were monitored and needed medication administered. Down at the end of the hall was one of their most dedicated doctors arguing with Pathology over the progress of one her patient’s reports.

“This is Dr. Ana Fiore still waiting on Pathology reports…Yes I know I called earlier...I see your powers of observation haven’t failed you yet…Well, Deidre, I’m going to explain something called urgency…Yes I know you know what that word means, but it has obviously failed your range of understanding. I have a patient who’s in the Intensive Care Unit, and I need the reports that Pathology has still failed to send. I ordered the biopsy two weeks ago and I still am getting the run around….Yes, I’m sure you are extremely tied up, but how can that procedure take two weeks when normally analyzing and reporting takes a two hours from start to finish?....So when will my report be ready?....Really next week….Well Deidre how about this idea. I expect that Pathology report on my desk in 30 minutes or I’ll walk you through the fine details of work termination with your employer…Do we understand each other Deidre? We do? Oh good, speak with you soon.”

Hanging up the phone, Dr. Anabella Fiore let out her annoyed sigh and stretched her neck. Frustration started with the minute she walked through the building doors the previous night. The flame though had a mind of its own and kept dancing long into the night and now into the early morning. A majority of the irritation was the just recent confrontation with her colleague, Dakota “Cody” Hastings. Dakota had no end to making the day go straight to hell in a hand basket. Most of the irritation didn’t stem from that directly though, the opening of the Chief of Staff position became the winner.

 The candidate list was already made and she had made it along with Dakota and another doctor, Shannon Worth. All three candidates were qualified and respected neurosurgeons, but the final decision came to the current Chief of Staff Samuel Hennessey. After years as the hospital’s head, he was stepping down to ‘enjoy the good life’ for as many years as he could. Though many of the fellow doctors and staff didn’t believe he would actually retire, it seemed this time he was serious. With the list of candidates out and floating through the building, the departure announcement looked more believable.

No one at the current hospital knew that Samuel Hennessey was her father and she wanted to keep it that way. The pressure from his stepping down added to her current anxiety, but she understood that it was time. Strange, that even after all the years she had been working with her father side by side, he still hadn’t mentioned anything about retiring. That was he didn’t mention anything until she forced the issue. When confronted about the issue, he finally stated his intentions. He promised her mother a two month cruise out somewhere and she knew they deserved it. She envied her parents for their marriage. Though married to a doctor wasn’t an easy life, being married to a neurosurgeon wasn’t a picnic either. Ana remembered many days and nights without her father around, but it didn’t stop her parents from giving her the best education and life possible. Neither love or support were in short supply in her life. As the oldest of five, she grew up knowing that even though her father wasn’t able to be around for certain moments in her life, he was there for the most important ones.

When she decided to enter neurosurgery, she changed her last name to her mother’s maiden name –Fiore– and walked through the prestigious doors of her father’s specialty. Her father seemed pleased and in certain senses, she felt the torch finally passed over to her. Going through the exact rigors her father endured, there was a special, unspoken bond between her father and herself. She understood just what he sacrificed those years he had to be gone and the reason he did it.

Years later, she became the doctor, but the situation was a little different. Being the best neurosurgeon in Huntsville Medical made things just down right difficult when it came to different requests, and any medical need that didn’t need a male type of approval. It was hard being one of the few female neurosurgeons in Huntsville, Indiana. Yes, there were some things that could be tolerated, things that could be disposed of with just two Tylenols and a stiff drink.

A small thing to deal with, compared to the accolades she received for her work in Neurosurgery form the many Neurosurgical Boards. She worked hard for her Neurology specialty in Pediatrics. Those who understood the rigors of Neurology knew that it took years for a surgeon to become licensed and specialized in their field. Only the best could perform an operation on the brain, just those who had endured the rigors could proudly be called neurosurgeons. She took that distinction as a badge of honor. With that distinction, she put all her time and effort into the dream that became a reality.

Using part of her salary and constant contributions she received from various donors, the Huntsville Medical Center was able add a floor and add a Fetal and Neonatal Neurological wing. Outfitted with state of the art equipment and staff, it had through time become the best hospital in Indiana. Currently in national hospitals, Huntsville Medical was ranked fifth but she knew after the Pediatric Neurosurgery Gala that would hopefully change. With new incoming surgeons and donors, there would hopefully be more improvements to the quality of patients.

This of course didn’t matter to most of the staff at Huntsville Medical. Through instance and interaction, Ana became known as Dr. Ice. She was cold, callus and the hardest surgeon to work with; she knew and admitted it to herself. It didn’t matter that she spent most of her time taking care of her patients or that the rest of her free time went to the working as chairperson of the Neonatal wing going to conferences, charitable meetings, and seminars to make sure the wing was running smoothly financially.

The hard work strained and taxed her personal life, in more ways than she ever liked. She knew herself to be reasonably attractive. At 5’6, she had several stunning assets, which she thanked to her long and distinguished Irish and Italian heritage. She was blessed with full, luxurious head of flaming auburn hair, each lock fused with the color of sunbursts. The fiery tresses reminded her of a dangerous, wild and untamable woman instead of what she thought it to be, just simple stroke of genetic luck. Many times she would twirl her hair in her finger and lay amazed at its rich shade.

Her mother once said her hair color reminded many of a Phoenix, its radiate flame changing hue and intensity depending on where you looked. Her eyes were purely her father’s, green as the Emerald Isle she descended from and which she would soon one day be visiting for a vacation. Though at times it irritated her, she knew each feature she received from her parents were ones she would never change.

There were times, like any woman, she wanted to change her shape even if it seemed a little bit extreme. There were several instances after working out she would stare at her full figured curves and wish to the imaginative Slim Fairies for slender hips and thighs. She had curves and plenty of them to go around. With almond-shaped green eyes, long thick eyelashes, and lips so full it would make Angelina Jolie jealous; her countenance at times passed her for an impish fairy than for a doctor. It was some of these features that won the attention of a good number of men.

It didn’t matter that her genetics attracted the men to her, most of the men she dated wouldn’t have noticed any of these important elements. To her, in her own honest opinion, they were too self-involved in themselves and their careers to really find out about the woman they could possibly share a few good moments. Pity, some of her dates had some great potential. She learned rather quickly that most men were intimidated by a beautiful and smart women; yet; she could only think it was their fault if they were insecure.

She did have a meaningful relationship once, but that was a matter best saved for when she could dedicate time to truly reliving the memory. Touching the jade stone around her neck, the memory seemed to want its one-point-five minutes of fame. As she took a deep breath and closed her eyes, she let the only relationship that meant the world to her surface from the ashes.

Tommie walked home to chase away the remaining stress from her body. Rather than take the transit bus home, she walked the full distance from her offices in downtown Philly. The rhythm of her feet usually gave her solace as she tapped out her pace, slowing only at an intersection. The blurred sounds of the crowds and the cars normally blended into a drone that could quiet her tired mind. The billboards and concrete at every turn became a familiar escape.

It just wasn’t working for her tonight. At the end of the week, she often looked forward to getting overtime on a Saturday, but tonight she wanted to be as far away from the office as she could.

Her shoes tapped out the pace for her thoughts. Her skirt wrapped around her legs uncomfortably, but her mind wrestled with the problems at work rather than her clothing. She welcomed the chance to go home and relax.

In the last couple of days, work had become worrisome. Usually, there wasn’t much stress when developing games for consoles, and she took great delight in testing the products. Her supervisors were great and looked to her as the person to meet project deadlines. The usual problems with office politics or squabbles between coworkers used to jangle her nerves, but—in comparison to what she found on the server this week—that was nothing.

She started clicking through directories, looking for the new screens to add to the game for the transitions between levels when she came across a picture of a young woman. Although she was wearing makeup, and lingerie, there was a serious doubt in Tommie’s mind whether this girl was legal enough to be posing for any type of sensual pictures.

What are these pictures doing in the screens folder for a PG-13 game?

She stared at the image. The girl on the screen couldn’t be more than fifteen.

Tommie closed the window quickly and opened the next image. The hollow stare of another young Asian girl came back at her. No smile. Makeup created the only luster in her face. The dark haunting eyes were hollow and empty.

This can’t be right.

She searched the folders and discovered hidden directories. Videos, web directories and a transaction server. She made screen shots of the directories and put the images in her home directory. That night, she logged into the work network from home, burned the offending material to DVDs and then deleted it off her Home drive.

She didn’t say anything at first. She went back the next day and discovered her computer login locked up, the main offices reset her user name. She logged in again and her email was flaky. All of her messages showed as ‘read’ and some of her folder messages showed as ‘unread’. She knew corporate policies let the main offices review any email at any time. She never said anything in email that she didn’t want to say over the radio. She was still able to work, and she found she could still access the drives where she found the pictures. She gathered several screen shots and put them in another drive.

The real shock—today—came when she discovered her project permissions tampered with, and the supervisor gave her ‘busy work’ because she couldn’t access her game project files.

After a day of adding action plans to a database, she was ready to choke on the monotony. She couldn’t get access to the drives that had the curious pictures, and she couldn’t even access her own work or the place where she put the screen shots for proof.

What is going on? Keep your mouth shut and work.

These thoughts consumed her as she walked home along Tenth Street. The proximity to Philadelphia Chinatown was comfort for her family and frightening for living in a modern city. Even knowing the dangers of the city, Tommie found it difficult to focus while she walked. Someone at work knew she was in the pornography folders, and they were covering their tracks. She knew the managers could access what she did and her ID left tracks in the log files.

She was also afraid of the implications; someone at work was running a porn server.

She stepped off the curb into the alley. The little rails up to her apartment never looked so good.

She saw a man standing on the stairwell. With his hands in his pockets, he was watching her and waiting. Dark hair had loosened from a ponytail, and it brushed his shoulders. The tunic caught her eye because it fit well over his broad shoulders. He has beautiful dark eyes. He’s mixed Asian, like me. Beautiful.

Tommie heard an engine rev. The horn on the street blared through the mixed sounds.

She turned but couldn’t tell which car had honked, and everything felt like she began moving in slow motion. The traffic on the main street blurred into the noises from the ally.

She looked to the steps of her apartment again, but the man she admired was gone.

From the corner of her eye, she saw the chrome of the SUV.

From the rooftops, she heard a rooster crow.

View Cart