I'm hosting an excerpt from The Magistrate, a science fiction romance novel by author Keira Michelle Telford.
Book Excerpt
It’s after midnight, and in London’s
Square Mile, that means a curfew is in effect. Only Magistrates and police have
licenses to be out on the streets here after the stroke of twelve, and on her
short walk home, Carmen only passes two City Police beat constables and a stray
cat.
Though the Square Mile boundary isn’t
protected by anything but warning signage, the restrictions are usually well
adhered to. The automatic punishment for getting caught in the wrong place at
the wrong time is a one month stretch in one of His Majesty’s prisons, and
you’ve only got to see the inside of any prison once to know that you never
want to go back there.
Besides, most who live outside the
Square Mile wouldn’t be caught dead in it. To them, the Square Mile—home to the
CPS headquarters—is little more than a cage for Magistrates and toffs, and
Carmen still can’t quite believe that she’s a part of it. She should feel
lucky. Instead, she feels like the first rat to leap from a sinking ship. She’s
not an Eastender done good, she’s a deserter and a pretender.
Swiping her Authenticard at the main
door of Victoria House, an apartment building on the corner of Tudor Street and
Temple Avenue, in zone EC4, Carmen exchanges a smile with the night guard and
hits the button for the lift.
On the third floor, her two bedroom
flat is small—barely more than eight hundred square feet—but it’s everything
she needs. The furniture is brand new, the walls and floors pristine, the
countertops granite. If only it actually belonged to her.
No sooner is she through the front
door and her flatmate, Eleri—the flat’s true owner—dashes toward her from the
living room.
“Finally!” she squeals excitedly,
clapping her hands together. “I was almost ready to leave without you.”
“Leave? To go where?”
Eleri snatches up Carmen’s hands and
tries to get her to dance in the hallway.
“I’ve got the fidgets and I want to
burn off some energy before bed.”
Despite Eleri’s best efforts to entice
her into a waltz, Carmen remains reticent.
“Do we have to? I’m so coopered. Not
to mention, it’s after midnight. What about the curfew?”
Eleri laughs. “We live so close to the
boundary line, I can almost see it from my window. For Pete’s sake, I think we
can make a run for it.”
“You want to dance so badly it’s worth
risking a stretch at His Majesty’s pleasure?”
“Maybe you could be the one to detain
me.” She slinks up to Carmen with a wicked smile and her arms outstretched, her
wrists pressed together. “Handcuff me. That way, if the Old Bill sees us, you
can say you’re executing a warrant.”
Carmen sighs.
Eleri’s right, though. The City
Police—who are responsible only for maintaining order in the Square
Mile—wouldn’t dare to question a Magistrate.
“Fine,” she relents, holding up her
index finger. “One hour, and that’s your lot.”
Eleri clasps her hands together and
bounces up and down on the spot. “I’ll be a good girl, I promise.” She shoves
Carmen lightly toward her bedroom. “Now go on, get changed. You look like the
grim reaper.”
“I am
the grim reaper.”
Carmen feels like death, her black
clothes a reflection of her mood. Eleri, on the other hand, couldn’t possibly
be any livelier. Her shoulder-length platinum blonde hair is streaked with
bright pink—matching the color of her lipstick. She’s wearing a strapless white
satin bodice with faux lacing at the front and a hidden zipper at the side.
Her petticoat is three layers of pink
and white ruffles, shorter in the front than in the back, and she’s paired it
with a pair of thigh high white socks and white, patent leather high-heeled
pumps—she looks like a music hall dancer. When she spins in circles to give
Carmen the full picture, her skirt flares up, revealing a pair of hotpants and
a homemade, lacy garter with a bow sewn onto the front.
They appear to be the same
age—scarcely twenty—but Carmen feels so much older. Her mind weighs heavily, as
though she’s aged about thirty years in the last eight, and the road to
adulthood hasn’t been easy for her. In contrast, Eleri is so happy and
carefree. Her exuberance for life makes Carmen feel like an inadequate stick in
the mud.
Under pressure to enjoy herself, she
rummages through her dresser for something appropriate to wear. As she does so,
she senses Eleri lingering in the doorway behind her, watching her, deep in
thought, waiting for right moment to spit out the words that are primed on the
tip of her tongue.
“Did you off anyone today?”
There they are.
“Why are you asking me that?” Carmen
pulls a purple lace corset out of a dresser drawer.
“I want to know.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I won’t break, you know.” She steps
into the room and sits on the edge of Carmen’s bed. “I’m really not so fragile.
I deal with this sort of thing all the time at the group sessions.”
Carmen strips to the waist, not at all
self-conscious about baring herself in front of Eleri. “You’re still involved
with that?”
“Three nights a week. Sometimes more.”
She shrugs. “The CPS leaves behind a lot of grieving families.”
“You’re not a grief counselor, El—none
of you are.” Carmen slips on the corset, lacing it up from the bottom. “Don’t
you think you should leave it to the professionals?”
“The people who really need it don’t
have the coin for it. Besides, our grief centre in Islington has reduced the
suicide rate in that borough by almost fifteen percent. We’re doing good work,
and we’ve petitioned the Ministry of Health to open another centre in Hackney.”
Silence.
Carmen doesn’t want to know the
details. As far as she’s concerned, Eleri’s an outspoken political activist and
the less she talks about her exploits the better. Continuing as if she’d never
spoken, Carmen finishes lacing the corset, pulls a jacket off a hanger in the
closet, and presents herself to Eleri with both palms turned upward.
“Good enough?”
Looking her up and down, Eleri slides
off the bed with a smile. “I’ll make do with you.”
More silence.
Then, “It’s just a job, Carm. It’s not
who you are.”
“Easy for you to say. You weren’t
plucked off the street and thrown into this life. You made choices to get where
you are, but I just rolled with the punches. If I have an identity outside of
this world, I don’t know what it is anymore.”
“You could always quit.”
“I have nothing to fall back on.”
Eleri hangs her head, her brow
furrowed and her lips turned down. “I don’t want you to feel like you’re a
prisoner here.”
Carmen hooks her finger under Eleri’s
chin and forces eye contact. “I hate to be the one to break this to you, but
we’re all prisoners. Prisoners of the CPS, the sodding government, and our twit
of a King. Our laws confine us, restrict us, suppress us, and oppress us.
Nobody’s free here.”
The Magistrate
Title: The
Magistrate
Author: Keira
Michelle Telford
Genre:
Dystopian SF / Lesbian Romance
THE PRISONWORLD TRILOGY -- VOLUME ONE
Poverty is rife in twenty-fourth century London, England. Crime rates are at an all-time high, and living conditions for many are bleak. Capital punishment and public hangings have been reinstated, and Magistrates, in their new role, are tasked with patrolling the streets to enforce arrest warrants and ‘terminate’ any civilians who attempt to evade justice -- which isn’t always a noble pursuit.
The laws are strict, illiberal, and unsympathetic. If you can’t afford to feed and clothe yourself, you’ll be sent to the workhouse. If you fall behind on your rent, you’ll be sent to debtors’ prison. If you’re gay, you’ll be hanged.
For Carmen Wild, the latter becomes a potentially deadly problem when the discovery of a murdered prostitute brings her back into the life of her first love -- the Madam of an East End cathouse -- and the illicit passions between them are swiftly reignited.
Poverty is rife in twenty-fourth century London, England. Crime rates are at an all-time high, and living conditions for many are bleak. Capital punishment and public hangings have been reinstated, and Magistrates, in their new role, are tasked with patrolling the streets to enforce arrest warrants and ‘terminate’ any civilians who attempt to evade justice -- which isn’t always a noble pursuit.
The laws are strict, illiberal, and unsympathetic. If you can’t afford to feed and clothe yourself, you’ll be sent to the workhouse. If you fall behind on your rent, you’ll be sent to debtors’ prison. If you’re gay, you’ll be hanged.
For Carmen Wild, the latter becomes a potentially deadly problem when the discovery of a murdered prostitute brings her back into the life of her first love -- the Madam of an East End cathouse -- and the illicit passions between them are swiftly reignited.
Author Bio
Keira Michelle Telford is the award winning
author of a series of post-apocalyptic, dystopian science fiction books, The
SILVER Series, featuring the character Ella ‘Silver’ Cross, and now also The
Prisonworld Trilogy – a dystopian lesbian romance. She’s a British ex-pat, now
living in British Columbia, Canada with her husband and 10 guinea pigs.
Yes, 10 guinea pigs :)
Fun fact: Her pet guinea pigs (all adopted
from animal rescue shelters) were the inspiration for the monsters in The
SILVER Series, the first one of which, SILVER:
Acheron (A River of Pain), was released in November 2011.
Amazon Author Page: http://www.amazon.com/Keira-Michelle-Telford/e/B0068SARG0/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1343462771&sr=1-1
Website: http://www.keiramichelle.com
Links
Thank you for hosting me! :)
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