Give Me A Ring

Gloria felt like spoiling herself, which was why she was at the perfume counter in Harrods, testing the most expensive scents she could find. There was no reason nowadays why she shouldn't buy them, too, if she chose. As a princess of Galorvia, with all the riches of her country at her disposal, or half of it, anyway, why not? Yet years of hiding who she was, pretending to be as impoverished as her contemporaries had ingrained in her a certain amount of caution. She still baulked at the price tags on some of those bottles.

She replaced a large bottle of Chanel No. 5, and strolled over to look at the jewellery counter. Having done that, she told herself, if she still felt the desire to buy the perfume, she'd come back and jolly well do it. She made her way through the crowds of shoppers. She heard someone call her name.

She turned and scanned the throng of shoppers for a familiar face. She saw one. 'Gloria, it is you!'

'Fiona?'

'Who else!'

'Why, how long has it been since I saw you? Two years? Three?'

'Something like that. It was our last day at school, I remember that much.'

'We never kept in touch, did we? Not like we promised.'

'That was my fault,' Fiona Kingston-Parker said ruefully. 'You remember I was going to go to Cambridge? Well, I didn't make it. I ended up at Birmingham, and I can't say I was too pleased. I didn't want any of you to know. By the time I'd come to terms with it, it was too late; we'd already lost touch.'

'As if any of us would have cared which university you went to!' Gloria scolded. 'Anyway, I haven't heard from any of the others, either, apart from Jade, of course. So what brings you up to London?'

Fiona blushed. 'Looking for an engagement ring.'

'Really? Congratulations! Is this him?' Gloria peered at Richard.

'This is him. This is Richard.'

'Richard? You look familiar - have we met?'

'I don't think so,' Richard said.

'You probably saw him on TV,' Fiona said. 'This is Richard Miller - the athlete.'

'You're kidding! Does Jenny know about this? She had such a crush on him.'

'Yes. She's fine with it.'

'So when's the big day?'

'Well, Ideally, I want to get my degree and work for a bit before I get married. Unless I have to give in to Richard nagging me to do it before. Meanwhile, we've come down here to buy a ring, haven't we, Richard? You must give me your address so I can invite you and Jade to the wedding.'

'That will be great!' Gloria said with enthusiasm. 'I'll look forward to .... what's that?'

There was a commotion. People were shouting. Three masked men ran through the aisles waving rifles. 'Everybody on the floor! If everybody does what my friends and I tell them, nobody needs to get hurt!'

The customers, including Gloria, Fiona and Richard, complied, as did the staff.

The largest of them, clearly the leader, advanced towards Fiona menacingly. 'All right, Sweetheart. Hand it over.'

'What?' Fiona asked.

'Don't play the dumb blonde with me. That ring. The Decembrian Diamond you just bought.'

Gloria boggled. Decembrian Diamonds? She'd always known Fiona's family were rich, but Decembrian Diamonds? She glanced at the three thieves. No match for one of the super-powered crime-fighting team, the Chain Gang; but as herself, Gloria Prince, she couldn't just lay into them. Not with her old school-friend and her fiancé watching. Not when her identity was supposed to be secret. She wondered if any of them would notice if she slipped away...

Fiona and Richard exchanged meaningful glances, too. The three armed men wouldn't be any match for Target and Ivory of the Freedom League, either - but their identities were a closely guarded secret, too.

Richard gripped Fiona's shoulder. They knew each other well enough for his meaning to be quite clear. Target and Ivory would get those guys outside. To the casual observer, Richard appeared to be paralysed with terror, oblivious to Fiona's glance, silently begging him to do something, to defend her, to get her engagement ring back.

Gloria was as taken in as everyone else. She couldn't help feeling Richard was a bit of a wimp. In his position, she'd do something. He just stood there, rooted to the spot and did nothing. At least Gloria the super-heroine would get her friend's ring back. She could fly after the robbers and apprehend them outside. Let them think they were getting away with it. They'd soon have another think coming.

Slowly and deliberately, Fiona handed over her ring. Gloria gasped as she caught sight of it as it changed hands. Even her father's state ring, the one her twin sister wore on a chain around her neck, wasn't as impressive as this one. The leading raider snatched it from Fiona, and they made for the exit. The leader fired a warning shot at the ceiling, shattering a light fitting and showering the cowering customers with sparks.

They hadn't counted on being pursued by members of the Freedom League and the Chain Gang. As they made their getaway along Kensington High Street, they came to an abrupt halt as their path was blocked by a masked woman in mauve. She stood in the centre of the pavement, arms outstretched. The wind whipped her hair into a golden halo around her head.

'Shit!' One of the robbers spat. 'It's one of them Chain Gang People!'

'Don't just stand there. Go back the other way!' the leader barked at him.

'Erm...' said the other. The leader's eyes opened wide as he whirled around. That way was blocked too - by a masked woman in white and a man in dark glasses. The criminal grapevine knew only too well that the women in the Chain Gang could dispatch a pretty nasty lightning bolt if they chose. They knew the other Chain Gang woman wore green, as a rule, so they had no idea who Ivory was or what she could do. However, even if she didn't do anything, they understood perfectly well the gun Target was pointing at them. It was their turn to be paralysed with fear.

'If you return the ring you just stole, you won't get hurt,' Target said.

There was a pause. The leader of the band put his hand in his pocket and took out the ring. He held it between his thumb and forefinger over a drain. 'If we can't have it, no-one has it,' he growled, and let it fall.

The three bandits made a break for freedom as Target, Ivory and Gloria all dived for the ring. Gloria reached it first, catching it in a mauve gloved hand, millimeters from the drain.

She intended, naturally, to return it directly to Fiona and Richard; but Target and Ivory seemed to have other ideas.

'Let us have it,' Ivory said. 'We'll make sure it gets back where it belongs.'

'No, really, I'll do it,' Gloria said. 'I'll deliver it to its rightful owner. I know exactly where to find her.'

'Perhaps you do, but I think it would be far easier if you let us return it.' Target replied, holding out his hand. 'We could do it much more quickly.'

Gloria didn't move. Fiona Kingston-Parker was her friend; she wanted to give her her ring back, not leave it in the hands of these two strangers, who could want to steal it for themselves for all she knew. As their features were obscured by their disguises, she couldn't see who they were. Nor was she familiar enough yet with the Ultraheroes database to know whether these two were on it, or whether they were good guys or bad guys. She needed to give the ring back to Fiona herself.

Target and Ivory were thinking along similar lines. They had no idea who this woman in purple was; they didn't live in London and so the local reports about the crime-fighting Chain Gang hadn't reached them. The mauve-clad masked woman had to be another thief, bent on taking the ring for herself.

It was an impasse, and all of them knew it. Unless they revealed their secret identities, which none of them were prepared to do, neither side could trust the other to return the ring to its rightful owner.

'Okay, I get it,' Gloria said, at last. 'You don't know who I am, and you don't trust me. How about this. I'll hand the ring to one of the policemen over there.' Three police cars had arrived and the armed thieves were being handcuffed. 'I will tell them the ring belongs to Fiona Kingston-Parker - if you two aren't crooks, you'll accept that is the case - and I assume you'll trust the police to do the right thing.'

Target and Ivory looked at each other. Much as Fiona wanted her ring back right away, this seemed the best course of action they could take without revealing that Ivory was Fiona. 'All right,' Target said.

A policeman was summoned, and Gloria gave him the ring, explaining, 'This ring belongs to Fiona Kingston-Parker. She just bought it in Harrods. She's probably still in there, and if you don't recognise her, you'll know her fiancé - he's the Olympic athlete, Richard Miller. She was wearing a white trouser suit...'

Ivory almost corrected the mauve woman - the suit wasn't white, it was ivory - but doing that could give her away.

'...and Richard was wearing a blue blazer and beige trousers,' Gloria continued, 'and I'm sure the woman on the ring counter will confirm that they bought it.'

'I'll make sure Miss Kingston-Parker gets it,' the policeman said. He knew he was speaking to either Jade or Gloria of the Chain Gang but he'd never got his head around which one wore purple and which one wore green - so Gloria narrowly escaped having her cover blown by the policeman addressing her by name. Instead, he said to Target, 'It's all right. She's one of our team of super-cops, the Chain Gang. She would have returned the ring herself, but she could see you didn't know who she was.'

'Sorry,' Target said, 'but you can never be too careful.'

'I quite understand,' Gloria said, and flew off.

When she had gone, Ivory took the policeman aside, and removed her mask. 'I'm Fiona Kingston-Parker,' she said, 'and this is Richard Miller. We have ID. It's just that we're very careful about who we reveal our identities to.'

A few minutes later, Gloria found Fiona and Richard in the restaurant, having a coffee. The Decembrian diamond was back on her finger, Gloria noticed with satisfaction.

'Mind if I join you?' Gloria said.

Fiona smiled. 'Please do. We need to swap addresses.'

'I see you got the ring back.'

'Yes - the police recovered it, but you'll never believe how that happened.'

'Try me,' Gloria said. 'I just might. Some crazy things happen in London!'

Books featuring these characters:

From A Jack To A King

A royal palace is burning. The King and Queen are dead. The only hopes for an ancient dynasty flee to England for their lives.

A boy runs from his mother and the people he believes want to mutilate him, and vanishes, seemingly forever.

Gary Winchcombe, the experimental "super-cop" pursues a notorious gang of bank robbers, and starts to discover that his friends and neighbours have secrets he never could have imagined.

Tod Reynard wants to turn his life around. When he meets and falls in love with the beautiful Jade, he knows she might just be the one to help him change his life for the better. He cannot possibly know just how much.

When Jade's twin sister Gloria is kidnapped, old rivalries must be put aside and new associations formed in order to save Gloria's life and restore the rightful order of things.

Available from: Createspace, Amazon, Amazon Kindle

Eternal Flame

The Freedom League's numbers have dwindled to three - but leader Unicorn knows his team isn't finished yet. The turning point comes with Russell, a boy with bright red hair and a genetic variant ability to start fires. He's the first of an influx of new members who will take the League into the future. 

Judith and Wil are child prodigies - Judith in physics and electronics, and Wil in medicine. They have another thing in common - they are both genetic variants. And another thing - they both have fiery red hair. They are drawn to one another as their destinies intertwine, but the course of true love doesn't always run smoothly!

Richard is not a variant. He's an Olympic athlete who has picked up useful knowledge from his unusual friends to add to his own natural abilities. A chance encounter with a dying alien throws him into a Freedom League mission in which his skills are put to the ultimate test, along with theirs.

The Freedom League's arch-enemy, the super-villain Obsidian, wants his family fortune all to himself. One person stands in his way - his niece, Fiona. Fiona, devastated by a family tragedy and her failure to get in to her first choice university, is miserable and has few friends. When she realises her brother's death was no accident, and his killer is also after her, she fears it may be too late to gather allies around her and learn how to use her own genetic variant powers.

Available from Createspace, Amazon and Amazon Kindle

A Very Variant Christmas

Last year, Jade and Gloria were embroiled in a bitter conflict to win back their throne and their ancestral home. This year, Queen Jade and Princess Gloria want to host the biggest and best Christmas party ever in their palace. They invite all their friends to come and bring guests. Not even the birth of Jade's heir just before Christmas will stop them.

The guest list includes most of Britain's complement of super-powered crime-fighters, their families and friends. What could possibly go wrong?

Gatecrashers, unexpected arrivals, exploding Christmas crackers and a kidnapping, for starters.

Far away in space, the Constellations, a cosmic peacekeeping force, have suffered a tragic loss. They need to recruit a new member to replace their dead colleague. The two top candidates are both at Jade and Gloria's party. The arrival of the recruitment delegation on Christmas Eve is a surprise for everyone; but their visit means one guest now faces a life-changing decision.

Meanwhile, an alliance of the enemies of various guests at the party has infiltrated the palace; they hide in the dungeon, plotting how best to get rid of the crime-fighters and the royal family once and for all. Problem is, they all have their own agendas and differences of opinion on how to achieve their aims.

Not to mention that this year, the ghosts who walk the corridors of the palace on Christmas Eve will be as surprised by the living as the living are by them.

Available from Createspace, Amazon and Amazon Kindle