Lissette E. Manning

First: the giveaway, we’re offering an ebook copy each of Entanglements and Fated Hearts to one lucky reader. All you have to do is comment on this post with your name and email address so that we can contact you should you win.

 

 

The audience is led into a darkened room illuminated only by the flickering light of three small candles in holders on a corner table. There are no other furnishings aside from a wooden easel at the room’s center. Mounted on the easel is a large, ornately framed mirror. On closer inspection it’s clear the room has been painted black and the windows have been obscured by heavy drapes.

 

Moderator: Hello everyone. We are in store for a rate treat. An interview between KIZZY TAYLOR, fifteen-year-old heroine of the Urban Fantasy novel, ENTANGLEMENTS (by P.R. Mason) and His Royal Highness, the Prince Leopold, monarch of the British Empire of Dorcha.

 

First of all, Kizzy, can you tell the audience a little about yourself?

 

Kizzy:  I didn’t realize this would be about me. I don’t want to talk about myself. I’m just here to gather intel from my enemy, Prince Leopold.

 

Moderator: Just a little background for the audience? Please?

 

Kizzy: Well……I’m not really fifteen. I’ll be sixteen in a few days. I enjoy urban spelunking, which is exploring abandoned buildings and tunnels, with my friends. There’s not much else to tell. I’m pretty average except for the fact that my father tried to kill me and I just discovered my blood can open a vortex leading to an evil alternate dimension.

 

Moderator: How about telling the audience where we are?

 

Kizzy:  This room is a psychomanteum.

 

Moderator:  Psycho—what?

 

Kizzy:  It’s a visioning tool. The basis for the psychomanteum dates back thousands of years. Staring into reflective objects such as pools of water or mirrors has been considered a conduit to communicating with spirits or other dimensions since the ancient Greeks.

 

Moderator: How does it work?

 

Kizzy: The room is set up so that I can reach a meditative state. Once, I get into the right frame of mind, the prince should appear in the mirror. At first when I started using this thing it was hard to get into the right headspace. But it’s been easy lately.

 

Moderator: Why do we have to use a mirror to talk to the prince?

 

Kizzy: Duh. Since Prince Leopold is the ruler of an empire in an alternate universe, it’s the only way to talk to him. I’m certainly not about to open the portal between our worlds and allow him to come here to be interviewed in person.

 

Moderator:  Who is Prince Leopold?

 

Kizzy:  He’s the son of Queen Victoria. He was born with hemophilia, a blood disorder that prevents clotting. In our dimension he died in 1884 as a result of internal bleeding from a trip and fall.

 

Audience: Awwwww.

 

Kizzy:  Don’t feel sorry for the prince. In his alternate world, Queen Victoria employed a warlock to try to save his life. But the cure went wrong and he was turned into a vampire. He became monarch of the Empire of the Dark after killing off his entire family, including his mother. Since then he’s been busy creating a vampire aristocracy and gathering all sorts of paranormal creatures into his sphere. Only trouble is, humans are becoming scarce in his world so he’d like to get control of me so I can open up other dimensions for conquering.

 

Leopold (Laughing as he appears in the mirror): Kizzy, you make me sound so evil.

 

Kizzy:  Hello Highness. I didn’t realize you’d already arrived. I’m just telling them a few facts.

 

Leopold:  You’ll have these nice people thinking that I’m some kind of villain. While it’s true I will do anything and everything to do my duty to my subjects, that clearly makes me the hero, not the villain.

 

Kizzy: Whatever floats your coffin.

 

Leopold: I do not understand this idiom.

 

Kizzy: Never mind. So, what new schemes are you plotting against the human race these days?

 

Leopold: You do not expect me to reveal my plans so easily do you?

 

Kizzy: It was worth a try.

 

Leopold (shaking his head sadly): Am I really so different from you? You want to save your friends and family. I merely want to save my people.

 

Kizzy: You used my friends as your personal sippy cups. Should I thank you for that?

 

Leopold: My subjects — vampire, ghoul and the like— require humans as food. Am I to disregard my duty and allow them to starve? To perish in the most horrible of deaths? No I must provide for them. In this world, all free-range humans have been or soon will be rounded up and placed in the feedlot system. But we need an influx of new food sources and the only choice is to go outside this world.

 

Kizzy: So you admit you’re killing people.

 

Leopold: All human feedlots in my empire are run to the strictest of industry standards for production. Food stock is treated in the most humane way possible.

 

Kizzy: Yeah. You suck ’em dry and use their bones for toothpicks. Real humane.

 

Leopold: Would it be better to allow them to be hunted down in the wild? No. It is better this way. Our system ensures that the humans do not feel pain or fear. They are virtually unconscious. In a trance.

 

Kizzy: Like zombies.

 

Leopold: No. Zombies are brain-eating fiends. They are rotting flesh. I would not suck on them if—

 

Kizzy: I get it. There’s a difference.

 

Leopold: Let us not argue, dear Kizzy. We will agree to disagree. But let me say how happy I am to be here today to communicate directly to my fans in your world.

 

Kizzy:  Fans? What fans?

 

Leopold: Come now, Kizzy. I am a ruler of great power and wealth.  If I may be immodest for a moment, I also possess good looks and charisma. I embody a very attractive combination. Of course I have fans in your world.

 

Kizzy: No, I don’t agree.

 

Leopold: Besides, you Americans love British royalty. I have heard, for example, about your admiration for one of the descendents I would have had but for my transformation. The wedding of Prince William to a girl named Kate was quite a popular event in your world by all accounts.

 

Kizzy: Yes, but that’s different. They are a beautiful young human couple in love and living a romantic fairy tale. You’re a…a …

 

Leopold: Blood sucking monster?

 

Kizzy: If the fangs fit.

 

Leopold: Is that sarcasm?

 

Kizzy: Oh no. Not a drop.

 

Leopold: Just because I used a couple of your friends for —what did you call it? — a sippy cup, does not require a fit of ill manners on your part.

 

Kizzy: Why don’t we try a few questions about your likes and dislikes for the throng of “fans” you imagine you have out there?  I’ll throw a few choices out and you go with your first answer.

 

Leopold: Ah yes. This is bit like word association. My psychoanalyst has utilized this technique on me to explore my Oedipal issues.

 

Kizzy: Your psychoanalyst?

 

Leopold: Yes. Sigmund Freud.

 

Kizzy: Is Freud a vampire in your dimension?

 

Leopold: Of course. You may find it hard to believe, but I was quite traumatized by my childhood. I am not ashamed of requiring therapy. Dr. Freud was one of the first humans I turned after my transformation was complete.

 

Kizzy: My question was legitimate. He could be a ghoul. Those creatures are created by you vampires, right?

 

Leopold: Yes, but you don’t think I’d divulge the innermost workings of my psyche to a mere ghoul do you?

 

Kizzy: Well he could be a werewolf or—

 

Leopold (snapping fingers): Me talk to a dog? Please. Now you are just being ridiculous. On to your questions.

 

Kizzy: Okay. First of all, messy or neat?

 

Leopold: Neat.

 

Kizzy: Mozart of Beethoven?

 

Leopold: Mozart.

 

Kizzy (mumbling): Figures…he was crazy.

 

Leopold: What did you say?

 

Kizzy: Nothing. Chocolate or Vanilla? Oops sorry. You don’t eat do you?

 

Leopold: In fact, I find chocolate quite delicious when added to some pickled brain. It’s the perfect combination of savory and sweet that—

 

Kizzy: Moving on. Dog or cat?

 

Leopold: They’re both tasty.

 

Kizzy (shaking head): Team Edward or Team Jacob?

 

Leopold: I have no idea who theses “teams” are. Do they play rugby or football?

 

Kizzy: Never mind. It’s a stupid question. All these are stupid questions. Let’s wrap this up.

 

Leopold: All right, but before I go I’d like to say thank you, Lissette, for having us on your blog. I hope you didn’t consider the animosity of my exchanges with Kizzy discourteous to you or your readers. I really would like to visit you all in person one day.

 

Kizzy: I bet you would. Interview over. I’m shutting this down.

 

Leopold: You may run away now, Kizzy Taylor, but be assured you will not be able to run forever. I will find some way to open the portal between our worlds again very soon.

 

Kizzy (She steps away from the mirror and the prince’s image fades to fog): Not if I have anything to do with it.

 

 

Synopsis: Accidentally opening a vortex sucks!

Fifteen-year-old KIZZY TAYLOR is just hoping for an evening of fun when she joins her friends in a spelunking expedition through an under-city tunnel. But fun turns bizarre when Kizzy accidentally opens a vortex and her stepsister is swept through to an evil alternate dimension. The only way to rescue her stepsister is to reopen the vortex and go in after her…unless her new boyfriend, Rom, kills her first. And even if she can get past him, will Kizzy be able to return home?

 

 

About The Author:

Pat writes steamy contemporary and paranormal romance under the name Patricia Mason and Young Adult paranormal romance and Urban Fantasy as P.R. Mason. She escaped from the snowy Midwest winters of her youth by moving in 2001 to a beautiful, historic city in Georgia to pursue her dream of being a novelist. Before being published, Pat won first place in the Sandhills writer’s conference novel category and third place in the Georgia Romance Writer’s contest known as the Maggies.