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Friday, February 10, 2012

I'M HEARING VOICES + FRIDAY ROMANCE CHALLENGE

BLOOD WILL TELL HAS JUST HIT #23 ON AMAZON'S TOP 100 BEST SELLING CONTEMPORARY FANTASY BOOKS!

http://www.amazon.com/BLOOD-WILL-TELL-ebook/dp/B0050219BW







I'M HEARING VOICES challenge is :

Emotion Flash Fiction -

Emotion is the engine of a story. Pick an emotion and in a flash fiction piece of 250 words MAKE us feel it! We want to connect with your character.

It is also time for another Friday ROMANTIC CHALLENGE given by the always fascinating Francine Howarth and Denise Covey.


Today's theme is THE LONG, COOL APHRODIASIC.

My 400 word entry is from the sequel to my CREOLE KNIGHTS :




NEW ORLEANS ARABESQUE (in the process of being written.)

The cosmic conjunctions have aligned. The Nameless Ones strain at the unraveling barrier between them and our world.

After 7 years, Maija has released her sister, Meilori, from the bubble of frozen time in which she encased her in a trap of deceit.

Why?

To see her face when she tells Meilori that her beloved Samuel McCord lies dead by the tentacles of an exiled Nameless One he killed before dying.

The undead rabbi, Ben Teradion, is comforting the devastated Ningyo. He is Death’s measure to stop the invasion of The Nameless Ones.

Maija turns to mock the rabbi with the truth of his role, not realizing you simply cannot kill a man whom Death will not take. Shrouded in the Threads of Night, Samuel McCord, bleeding and battered, stands invisible beside her :

Maija laughed. “Death saved you for tonight, rabbi, to speak the name God gave Himself, that when uttered outside the Holy Temple would rend the very universe.”

Ben Teradion said, “No!”

Meilori whispered, “Death has come to revel in the end of life. For her, the death of the entire universe would be ecstasy.”

Ben Teradion husked, “But then --”

Maija nodded. “Nothing stands in the way of the Ningyo Empire to re-enter our home plane.”

The rabbi cried, “No! The Nameless Ones would return to our world!”

“Who cares?”

Meilori gestured, black energy hissing at the ends of her fingertips. “Samuel would have cared.”

The other Ningyo’s circled her as Maija husked, “Now, you die.”

I dropped the Threads of Night. “Don’t make me spank you.”

Maija yelped, “McCord!”

Meilori took a half-step back. “Samuel!”

“Do I know you?”

She looked as if I’d knifed her, and I regretted my joke. “For seven years, what got me around each corner was the hope of seeing you there waiting for me.”

She mewed like a kitten and rushed into my arms, her lips hungrily seeking mine. An electric connection completed deep inside me. The world made sense again.

I was home.

A trilling vibrated around us. Maija’s portal was opening.

I heard feet. The Ningyo’s were about to jump us.

“Padre, trust me. Say God’s name!”

Maija leapt forward. The rabbi bellowed.

His lips worked as if he shouted one word, but I heard the sentence he said two thousand years before as he burned before the Roman emperor.

“The parchment burns, but the words fly free!”

The sound flowed into nothing human --

as if Life had come to know itself by the simple act of hearing it.

It came from all directions. The lower notes rumbled as if from the depths of the earth. Higher vibrations trilled as if from the stars in heaven.

I was a human tuning fork, the marrow of my bones trembling. The vibrations cascaded around me and Meilori in a waterfall of sound.

Her jade eyes, first wild with fear, soon grew as deep as the love I felt for her and she for me. A sunburst exploded with us in its burning honey center.

For the first time in two hundred years, I felt warm. Meilori smiled, then kissed me.

The universe might be ending. I didn’t mind. In her arms, I was finally home.

***

26 comments:

  1. That was an intense reunion. vivid imagery, evocative descriptions, and a love that destroys all enemies.

    I'm intoxicated just reading these adventures Roland :)

    Well done on the prompts.

    .......dhole

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  2. Ooh, that was really brilliant! I am fascinated by the way you use words - they pull me right in! You captured the emotion here so well - I loved it!

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  3. I love the line: as if Life had come to know itself by the simple act of hearing it.

    Wish *I* could write this amazingly. I'm better with dialogue than description. You are superb with both!

    Thanks for Blood Will Tell. I downloaded it and will read and review it soon...!! (And keep drinking water to counteract those cokes!)
    Ann Best, Author of In the Mirror & Other Memoirs
    Ann Best, Author of In the Mirror & Other Memoirs

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  4. That was intense!

    "I was a human tuning fork, the marrow of my bones trembling. "

    Such a great line!

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  5. Intense! You are such a talent! I'm glad to have met you through this blogfest. What an inspiration!

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  6. Donna :
    Your words make my morning. Coming down with a cold -- all this pushing at work and writing have lowered my immune system. Your comment was a great medicine, Thanks.

    Kyra :
    Sometimes I feel as if Samuel were murmuring in my ear as I write, so the credit is all his! LOL. He tips his Stetson to you for liking his reunion with Meilori so much!

    Ann :
    You do write well in your own style which is lovely. I hope you like Luke Winters' tale of courage and love in the dark of the storm.
    Good luck with your free gift of IN THE MIRROR!!

    Sara :
    I am so happy you enjoyed my excerpt. A universe is ending ... just not the one you may be thinkingt of! :-)

    Danielle :
    I'm glad to have met you in this blogfest as well. I have met so many interesting, lovely people. Thank you, Cassie and Angie! Roland

    Alex :
    Yes NEW ORLEANS ARABESQUE is my next Samuel McCord book I'm currently writing. I'm also 55% of the way through Victor Standish's third book, THE RIVAL, as well. Whew! Writing two books at once while working as a blood courier and trying to push my writing career into 1st gear is a challenge!!

    Thanks for always having my back, Roland

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  7. I am a sucker for romance and this was spot on. I felt the love between them and the joy of being together. Bravo!

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  8. Emily :
    Thanks for the fast return visit. Sam and Meilori are my favorite lovers. I am such a romantic! Your entry was evocative as well, Roland

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  9. Wow! So intense with such an interesting story. I love the friction, too.

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  10. Gorgeous imagery! I'm a total sucker for great imagery. It just makes a great story even better. This was a lovely reunion. Nice job :)

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  11. If I'm kissing during the end of the world, I'm totally okay with that too. You are fabulous with imagery and intensity. Beautifully written!

    And human tuning fork... my nerves still crinkling with that one! :)

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  12. Hey, congrats that Blood Will Tell is number 23! My mystery Tainted Souls is, last I checked, number 12,000-something. But it's only been available a little more than a week...so it's sure to shoot up the list.

    Right?

    What happened to the pic of the stunning woman that used to grace this site? I was never less than amazed by that photo each time I saw it.

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  13. Wow, 'intense' is definitely the right word here! I guess that's the stuff legends are made of - love so great you don't care that the universe is ending. ;)

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  14. Miranda :
    Yes, Samuel and Meilori's love is a supernatural Titanic ... with the whole universe in the balance! Maija and friction just go together.

    Angela :
    Thanks for the kind words. I'm happy you like my imagery. Sam gets the credit, of course! I just write down the story as he speaks it to me! LOL.

    I kept to the word limit to the second blogfest. I rather would do the story justice then chop it up. Besides Victor and I race for the thrill not the prize! :-)

    Cassie :
    Yep, kissing as the world explodes around you is definitely the way to go. I'll keep that in mind come December 21st! And there is a next chapter to this one so Sam had a trick up his sleeve!

    Steven :
    I loved that photo, too. But Leonora Roy did such a great job on the cover of THE LEGEND OF VICTOR STANDISH that I thought it a crime not to use it as my header. I still have the lovely lady's photo in my computer though!

    I wish you much success on your own novel! Roland

    Trisha :
    Sam's love for Meilori has given birth to legends in the Shadowlands. But all is not lost. Sam has a gambit he prays will save his Meilori ... and the universe! LOL.

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  15. Wow, I really enjoyed it. Loved the last line!

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  16. Dear Roland,

    please educate me, for your form of expression is something relatively new to me. (Well it is and it isn't.) It's just that it reminds me - in a way - of extremely old literature, for instances Sure Phrases from the Koran or lines from Goethe's Faust. For this reason I clicked on "interesting" as reaction. It's very different what you are doing. But just a word of caution: I tried to do something like this too, by attempting to differentiate between very-old foreign language dialect and modern English in a contemporary work, and my best friend finally wrote me and said, "Ya know... that Yoda-Speak ain't gonna fly with editors I think..." So I had to make some compromises. Other authors don't. Dean Koontz, for example, is the master of sentence fragments, and gets away with bloody grammatical murder in my opinion, but by golly, he's popular. Honest opinion: This piece works a little like a Richard Wagner Opera on me, but that might be the intention. Maybe you're onto something. I don't know if publishers would be enthused, but I am. (Publishers think of books they way farmers think of cabbages.) :D

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  17. Loved that ending - pure ripples of excitement flowing down my spine!

    PS great job on the Amazon rankings!
    Lxxx

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  18. Hi Roland.First of all congrats on the Amazon rankings. I hope you continue to rocket to the top. I will download Blood Will Tell if Amazon lets me but I can't promise to have a review written in time to help you. I am just snowed under with excellent books to read and requests for reviews...but I will try. I know Ann will do a great review for you.

    I was fascinated by Weissdorn's questions re your language. She is our latest RFWer writer and a very interesting person. She does make some valid points as your language is definitely different to the rest of we mere mortals'.

    Love your extract this week. Great that you've managed to get it to do double duty and it fits well for both.

    Denise

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  19. NOTE OF EXPLANATION : I HAVE BEEN AT WORK ALL DAY WITH AN INCREASED WORKLOAD SO THIS IS WHY I HAVEN'T BEEN ABLE TO COMMENT READILY. at least intelligent blood hasn't invaded my world ... yet! (the premise of BLOOD WILL TELL! LOL!)

    Thank you, Nicole :
    And there is a NEXT chapter so things aren't as final as they appear. Well, yes, they are -- but not for OUR universe.

    Weissdorn -

    You are very perceptive. Each of my heroes speak from their own distinct backgrounds.

    Samuel McCord was born in 1799, raised by a Harvard professor, educated by Jesuits (of sorts). His way of thinking and narrating is literally OLD SCHOOL.

    Samuel is a product of the Victorian Age and narrates as such. I make him a series of dichotomies for the drama of irony :

    1.) A educated philosopher/poet forced into the violent life of a Texas Ranger of the Old West.

    2.) A lover of life become undead.

    3.) A former believer in God, whose faith was crushed by what he discovered in the Dachau concentration camp -- he finds himself in mortal combat with a being who calls himself DayStar (the English translation of the Latin name Lucifer.)

    4.) An agnostic whose best friend is a priest -- albiet a vampire priest.

    5.) A man who believes himself a monster fighting other monsters.

    6.) A man, whose inner life is in turmoil, fighting to establish order in the world around him as sublimation.

    7.) A man who feels unlovable transforming a woman, who has killed thousands, into what he believes her to be by his trust and love.

    Victor Standish, his adopted son and street kid, uses slang and profanity.

    Yes, it is a gamble being literary. And it is a Wagner opera in style. I believe you are right. No editor or agent will touch me.

    Which is why I chose to publish through Kindle. John Locke did it with his brash, sexually aggressive novels that were not tame enough for print.

    I am doing it with my linked hero-sagas in my own version of Wagner's Ring Cycle.

    My linked books are all cast against a common backdrop : a World War II type supernatural war. As WWII was not one by one hero, one general, or on any one theater, neither will be this war.

    It is the Trojan War with an assorted mix of heroes, some young, some old, all their own person with their own destiny to embrace or mold anew.

    Thank you for taking such time on my entry. I am very happy that you are enthused about my efforts.

    I am trying for something truly unique, yet truly entertaining. A linked series of novels that can be enjoyed merely on the surface level ... or read for the layers of meaning under the actions and dialogue.

    Thank you for caring to ask and help!! Your new friend, Roland

    Laura :
    I really loved your entry as well. I am struggling to keep afloat in those darn rankings! If you haven't downloaded BLOOD WILL TELL, please do. Thanks, Roland

    Denise :
    Review BLOOD WILL TELL at your leisure. Eric Northman visited me personally, insisting that whenever 10 reviews were submitted, I would bloody well draw for those name or he would go Viking on my a--! LOL.

    As you can see, I took Weissdorn very seriously, answering her concerns and questions as well as I could.

    Truthfully, I grew tired of reading "cardboard" surface adventures, so I wrote what I wanted to read -- stirring adventures with people of depth, angst, and courage ... and most of all, love.

    Thank you for liking my entry. Whew! My fingers are tired! LOL. Roland

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  20. Dear Weissdorn :
    I tried to leave a comment on your entry, but for the life of me I cannot find the POST COMMENT tab. So my suspicions are true, you are a Rhine Maiden! :-) Thanks again for the perceptive words.

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  21. Very intense emotion - what a reunion!
    I thought it was a highly original and interesting piece of fantasy!

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  22. Ah, isn't it great when love conquers all. I love the ending too.

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  23. Fancy meeting you here, Roland. :) I'm here from RFW and always love reading your stuff. The endless wanderer finding home in her arms and the hope that kept Samuel going was what struck me.
    I was also struck by your Lovecraft-esque writing. For some reason I'd never made that connection while reading your work before. Silly me.

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  24. Hello Roland.
    WoW! I'm still trying to catch my breath! Oh to be inspired by our characters. Love rules...even through the ages.
    Awesome excerpt! I've seen that Jane Seymour/Christopher Reeve movie too. Very fitting for your entry.

    Feel better, my friend.
    Thanks for sharing.

    Love Has Seeped Into My Heart

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  25. Powerful and deep. I loved the line; I was a human tuning fork, the marrow of my bones trembling. Excellent job as always.
    Nancy

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