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| "Crimson Shadow: Noir" debuts 9/10 from Tiger Dynasty Publishing |
Book #1 of the Crimson Shadow series, "Noir", releases this coming Tuesday. While many have had the chance to meet the mentally tortured and anguished protagonist of this gothic paranormal thriller, here's your chance to get inside the head of Xander Stryker:
Stan
had been right about Xander's suicidal ritual not working...
He
was always right about those types of things. Xander sighed and wondered in
silent anguish how he could know the fate of his nightly ritual but not know what
the future held.
His
new Zippo, however, worked like a charm, giving quick life to his cigarette,
which he held tightly between his lips as he went to work on mending the broken
chain. When he was confident that it would hold, he slipped on his mother's
pendant and set it on the nightstand. The ruby caught the light from the last
burning candle, which he concentrated on and, after some effort, magically
snuffed.
Lying
back, he focused on the glowing red tip of the cigarette in his mouth. Trepis
talked, though most of the conversation was one-sided, and Xander closed his
eyes and let his mind wander to strange worlds where he felt welcomed and
meaningful.
A
world where…
His
grandma coughed suddenly from her room.
Xander
blinked, noticing that the ash of his cigarette had grown too long and was
about to collapse. Carefully, he took the dwindled cigarette from between his
lips and put it out in his ashtray.
What
had he been thinking of?
He
closed his eyes again, hoping to revisit the serenity he'd had a moment
earlier…
It’s
dark, and a sliver of light emerges like a gash.
Light
bleeds into Xander’s shelter and the screams follow. He wants to get out—needs
to get out—and digs and pushes against a mountain of coats to get free.
The
claustrophobic darkness closes in until it's too much to bear and he throws
himself forward in one last effort. An opening emerges and he slips
free—feeling born again. As he turns towards the womb he'd just emerged from
he's greeted by a screaming, bloodied corpse with a writhing creature inside
its depths.
Before
the monster can free itself, there's a flash and the blinding light wraps
around the body as it morphs into a towering figure. It stands over Xander,
looming and making him feel scared and weak. Somewhere in the blinding light, a
woman screams and Xander looks around frantically.
"Mom!"
He
sees her necklace; sees her ghostly silhouette coming into focus—struggling to
fit itself with its jewelry—and reaching out to him in desperation. Sound dulls
and time slows and Xander hears the metallic snap as the necklace is torn from its rightful owner’s neck.
It
echoes…
The
sound ripples the scene and the image distorts before it explodes and he finds
himself watching five monsters crawl over a shrieking angel. Blood and feathers
fly from the mass as it's torn apart and a horrified Xander stumbles back as
the gore pools on the floor and spreads like a hungry stain. The screams echo
and warp into a swarm of angry bees that sting at him inside and out.
He
cries out and runs—hating himself for his cowardice—to the coat closet and
slams the door shut against the monsters and the stinging screams.
It’s
dark—so very, very dark—and a sliver of light emerges like a…
"NO! NO! NOT AGAIN!"
Xander
pounds on the wall and the world shatters like a mirror. He is trapped as the
shards swirl around him, leaving fragments of the horror in their path. The
images of the monsters appear in the fragments, which grow spider legs and rise
until they tower over him. He closes his eyes and when he opens them again he’s
lying with his mother as she reads him a story.
As the melodic words of Dr. Seuss flow
he looks up towards their source and cowers as her face begins to melt away and exposes an orb of maggots and
flies that buzz at him and try to crawl up his nose and into his mouth.
As
he fights the nauseating invasion, Kyle emerges, breaking through like a
summoned demon, and stands in front of him. Kyle's approach continues, and as
he does he begins to grow into a monstrous creature.
Xander
drops to his knees in tears.
The
Kyle-monster's laughter echoes as its face stretches until the mouth’s edges
wrap halfway around its head, its teeth gapped and allowing dark horrors to
spill out.
And
still he grows; stretching into the darkness like a demonic balloon. His mother—the
corpse—continues to read, unaware of her fate, and the growing monstrosity
plunges its sharpened hand into her left breast again and again. Silence
spreads and sucks everything into it.
Xander
twists and plummets into the nothingness and sees salvation in the shape of a
closet door.
It’s
dark, and a sliver of light emerges like a gash…
The
calm, quiet night shattered as Xander shot up in bed, screaming in rage and
agony. The sweat-soaked sheets clung to his cold, clammy skin and he thrashed
to get free from them, falling out of bed. The walls strained, groaning, as he
released wave upon wave of energy that finally shattered through the windows.
Still
screaming, the magical energy collected and hurled his bookcase across the room
where it smashed into the wall, littering the floor with horror and fantasy
novels. He stood and staggered backwards and bumped into his desk, bruising his
hip. Heaving, he turned to steady himself on the surface only to have it crack
in half down the middle. His rage poured forth and his energy picked up and
whipped texts and pages in a furious tornado around the room.
He
couldn’t control it.
He
couldn’t stop it.
Behind
him, his grandmother opened the door and calmly approached him through the
magical whirlwind, finally taking his left hand in her right. Xander felt the
touch like a soothing chill that relaxed him. He felt his eyes flutter as tears
formed and he looked into his grandmother’s face. She released his hand,
looking back at him, boring into his eyes as if there was an answer to the
madness hidden within them.
Xander
collapsed on the floor and whimpered, the images of his dream slowly fading
from his mind. He was distantly aware that Trepis was talking to him, but he
couldn’t decipher the words.
With
his vision fading, he uttered the only thing left bubbling in his mind:
"Mom…"
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