Robin Jarvis - Dancing Jax

Dancing Jax

Robin Jarvis

For my mother, who loved dancing.

Sticks and stones may break our bones, but words can do so much worse. I used to take words for granted. But words hold tremendous power. Arranged in the right order, they can make you cry with laughter or understand a stranger’s pain. And yet it only takes one to hurt another human being. In some countries there are laws against the use of certain words, and that’s a good thing. Those words are charged with hatred and need to be locked away until they and their power are forgotten.

The same is true of books, only more so.

Some books are harmful, even dangerous. They twist people’s minds and feed the darkest recesses of the human soul. They should be banned or destroyed. This is a story about one of them, written by one of the most evil men ever to have lived. I hope there are enough of you left out there to read it and believe and resist – before it’s too late.

Martin Baxter, yesterday

Welcome, sacred stranger. Enter the magickal Kingdom of the Dancing Jacks, with a brisk step and blessings upon you. Your place at Court is reserved and your presence long anticipated. Within these rousing pages, rewarding new friendships await. You are warmly invited to learn our ways and stories. Walk and play with us, repair by our fires and share our dreaming and restorative pleasures. Herein lie the understanding, acceptance and belonging you have so yearned to find. Join us, cherished reader, and escape the travails of those earthly measures that daily erode your humble spirit. Come to us – we shall coddle you, safe and close.

So mote it be.

Austerly Fellows, Imbolc 1936

Contents

Cover

Title Page Dancing Jax Robin Jarvis

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

The dance will go on…

Addicted to Dancing Jax?

The Wyrd Museum, Book One: The Woven Path

The Wyrd Museum, Book Two: Raven’s Knot

The Wyrd Museum, Book Three: The Fatal Strand

Copyright

About the Publisher

Chapter 1 Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Chapter 31 The dance will go on… Addicted to Dancing Jax? The Wyrd Museum, Book One: The Woven Path The Wyrd Museum, Book Two: Raven’s Knot The Wyrd Museum, Book Three: The Fatal Strand Copyright About the Publisher

Beyond the Silvering Sea, within thirteen green, girdling hills, lies the wondrous Kingdom of the Dawn Prince. Yet inside his White Castle, the throne stands empty. For many long years he has been lost in exile and thus the Ismus, his Holy Enchanter, reigns in his stead — till the day of his glorious returning and the restoration of his splendour evermore.

THE DOOR SHIVERED. One more powerful kick and the lock ripped from the rotting frame.

It burst inward with savage force. Splinters and crackled paint exploded into a large, deserted hall and decades of dust rose up in a dry cloud. For the first time in too long, fierce daylight bleached its way in and insects clattered their escape over bare and lifting floorboards.

A pair of greedy eyes darted round the empty house as the man leered across the threshold.

“Nice one.”

Dragging the back of one grimy hand over his mouth, he stepped inside and the glittering dust whirled around him.

“Damp and the urination of rats.”

He was describing the stale must of the house, but the description suited him just as well.

He was a wiry stoat of a man, dressed in scuffed jeans and a torn biker jacket that had known three different owners, in almost as many decades, before it had come to him. He liked that it had a history and often claimed that it owned him, rather than the other way round.

His face was always alert, never still – feral and filthy and hostile. The skin that clad it was white and clammy and poorly nourished. When other substances were available, food was spurned by Jezza.

Even now his nicotine fingers were trembling and twitching. It was half eleven in the morning. All he’d had was a can of Red Stripe and that was only because he’d finished the last of the stolen vodka the night before.

Behind him a female voice asked, “Was this worth our last spit of petrol then?”

Jezza’s magpie eyes danced over the dingily patterned wallpaper that ran up the stairs to the landing. It was blotched here and there with black mould. The house was a big one and must have been impressive in its Victorian heyday, but now it was dark and damaged through years of neglect. Yet the man knew there were treasures to be harvested.

He was determined to gut the place and make a few quid. There was a bloke in Southwold who paid cash without questions for this salvage junk. Original fireplaces were bloody good money. If they’d already been snatched, there were always copper pipes, taps and internal doors. Most of the windows were boarded over and those that weren’t were smashed so there was nothing to be had there. Jezza’s rancid gaze ran over the banister rails. Yes, even them.

The girl edged in behind. She was no more than twenty, but the knockabout life with Jezza and the others had leeched the bloom of youth from her face. The peroxide had long grown out of her dark hair and now only the spiky tips remained a lifeless yellow. A straggling streak of turquoise at one temple was the last effort she had made, but that too was faded.

“Told you it was a big old place,” she said. “Keep us juicy for months this will.”

Jezza shrugged his narrow shoulders.

“Depends what’s left,” he answered, swaggering down the spacious hall towards a blistered door. He paused to circle a covetous, dirty finger around the tarnished brass knob, sourly reflecting that it was exactly the same colour as her hair tips, except that the doorknob had retained some shine. He wrenched it around.

“Sod all come here,” the girl muttered to his back. “I told you.”

Behind her, two figures pushed through the entrance. The first was around six foot tall. The other had a much shorter, slighter build. The burly one was dressed in a shapeless camouflage jacket, with a long, ratty ponytail hanging down his back and an unkempt beard half covering his face.

“Hello, home, I’m honey!” he announced, throwing his arms wide.

The other gagged as he pushed him inside. “Have you blown off again?”

“I’m a fart starter – a twisted fart starter!” sang the laughing reply.

“Your backside makes my eyes bleed, man.”

“Mmm… Bisto. You can dip your bread in that one, Tommo.”

The man called Tommo dodged around him and fled deeper into the hall. He wore grubby denim and his brown hair was loose and curly. “There’s got to be a rotting alien in your guts, Miller,” he spluttered. “Them guffs aren’t human.”

“Grow up, for God’s sake,” the girl told them irritably. “We should’ve brought Howie and Dave instead.”