Title: Perverse
Author: Larry Rodness
Series: Stand Alone
Genre: YA
Supernatural/Vampires/Paranormal
Publisher: Itoh Press
Release Date: Dec 2012
Edition/Formats Available In: eBook
& Print
Blurb/Synopsis:
18 year old Emylene Stipe, a 2nd
generation Goth, is shaken to the core when her make-believe world turns out to
be real.
BRIEF
SYNOPSIS:
A supernatural fiction about a
2nd generation teenage Goth teen named Emylene Stipe who finds a charcoal sketch in an
antique shop. When she brings it home an image of a young
girl appears in the sketch and
then materializes in her apartment.
Emylene introduces this girl whom she nick-names ‘Poinsettia’,
to the local Goth crowd and the two become fast friends. But
Poinsettia has an ulterior motive
for her sudden and strange intrusion into Emylene’s life which causes Emylene to question her
whole belief system.
Book Links:
~ * ~
Excerpt:
Defiant, Emylene continued down the street under the assumption that it was her anger that was driving her, unaware that she was subconsciously being pulled toward Other-Town by another force entirely. Soon she found herself caught up in the hustle of the street, people wide-eyed with excitement, as if they were on their way to a Beatles reunion or a motocross death race. The closer she came to Other-Town the more she felt a palpable buzz in the air, short-circuiting her thoughts and reaching deep into her loins until all she could feel was an over-riding erotic urge that threatened to take over her entire being. A feeling Laszlo knew all to well. Just a few more steps and she’d be there.
"Emylene, one more step and
you'll never see your parents again! I guarantee it because you will have
become one of them!"
Laszlo's croaking plea must have taken
hold somewhere in her because she stopped dead in her tracks right at the edge
of the demarcation line. Gazing through half-stoned eyes, she peered across the
street at what earlier today was a ghost town. Now the area was alive in
strange and wonderful ways! Buildings were lit with a seductive liquid neon,
and music filled the air with fat, juicy beats. Even the pavement was alive
with thousands of sparkling, crimson tendrils, an illuminated pathway welcoming
everyone to a Mecca of sensual mayhem.
"They named it 'Other-Town',
you know, to make it sound bland, almost harmless. But that's not what you're
feeling now, is it? Look…" said Laszlo.
He pressed his toe hard on the
ground, and the tendrils oozed playfully under his boot like a school of dancing
minnows.
"Pretty, aren't they? Do you
know what that is? That is the blood of the victims who crossed over and never
came back."
Just then, four brash youths
pushed their way past Laszlo and Emylene, acting like they were on their way to
Spring Break.
"Let me go! I don't need
your help!" argued Emylene.
"Of course you don't. Maybe
those boys will help you."
Emylene watched the youths enter
the first bar they saw, lured by the music.
"They are acting on the same
impulses you feel now. It will seduce them and then it will feed on them. Some
will return, some won't. Those who make it back will find themselves a little
weaker the next day, like that waitress back at the restaurant. They'll laugh
it off, call it a hangover. Except this hangover will never be over. After the
first encounter they'll be compelled to return again and again until they have
been used up and their lifeblood becomes part of the flow you see beneath your
feet. Then those tendrils will stretch a little further to take more of the city
until, inch by inch…. Emylene, I told you about the Vrykolakas back in the old
country. What you see before you is different, worse. This is not one demon,
but a town full of demons, built to ensnare its victims and grow with each
conquest. You and I are the only ones who can stop it."
Emylene pressed her toe onto the
glittering tendrils. Like everyone else who touched them, she felt a slight
tickle, and became giddy.
"I'll make you a deal,
Emylene," he continued. "I will do everything I can to help you find
your parents. In turn you will do everything to help me find my wife. And I
promise, if I can't cure her, I'll kill her. Emylene?"
No reply. Laszlo was not getting
through to her. The tendrils were becoming so magnificently overpowering now
that if Emylene’s life had slipped away then and there, it would have been all
right with her. But, something pulled her back. It might have been Laszlo's
promise or the chanting from a group of Cowled Men in a distant land or a
chilling breeze coming off the snow drifts on a cold, Croat farm. Whatever it
was, it imbued Emylene with enough resolve to pull herself back from the edge.
The light that had gone out in her eyes briefly had returned.
"Good girl," said
Laszlo.
~ * ~
FULL
SYNOPSIS:
19 year old Emylene Stipe is like
any other teenage girl searching to find her place in the
world except that Emylene is a
2nd generation Goth princess who finds it doubly difficult rebelling
against a family of rebels.
Especially when her parents are figureheads of the community and
owners of the local Goth club
called ‘Pall Bearer’s Paradise’. Eager to get out from under her
parents’ shadows and experience
life on her own, Emylene moves to a small downtown
apartment and finds a job working
in a textile store. It’s not long after that she takes up with a
mysterious, older gentleman named
Stelio. During a romantic walk one night Stelio is captivated
by a sketch he sees in an antique
store. Hoping to lure him up to her apartment and finally lose
her virginity Emylene buys the
piece of art the next day. But when she brings it home she is
amazed to find a girl about her
age in the picture who was not there before. And it appears as
though the poor waif is being
pursued by a band of ‘Cowled Men’. Emylene reads the girl’s mind
and helps her escape from the
sketch to Emylene’s apartment.
The girl appears to be a ‘tabula
rasa’, a blank slate with no name or history. Because it’s
The Christmas season Emylene
nick-names the girl ‘Poinsettia’ and introduces her to the local
Goth community, a friendly group
devoted to all things dark and vampiric. The girls become fast
friends until shocking events
occur. One day news comes of Stelio’s sudden and mysterious
death. Shortly after that Emylene
becomes estranged from her parents. And that night Emylene
awakes to discover a fire burning
down her apartment building. The two girls escape to the
Goth club where the sketch now
hangs. It’s here that Poinsettia reveals her true motive for her
intrusion into Emylene’s life.
Emylene and her community have been ‘playing’ at the vampire
experience for years. What they
don’t know is that such a life exists and Poinsettia should know
because she is the real thing.
She banishes Emylene to the phantom world of the sketch in order
to assume her position and lead
the unassuming Goth community into a new and dark chapter in
their history. Emylene’s friends
and family are led to believe that she died in the fire. Poinsettia is
now free to initiate her unholy
quest.
16 months later drastic changes
have come over the city. A sector of land has
sprung up around Pall Bearer’s
Paradise known as “Other-Town”. By day it is a desolate ghost
town but by night it turns into a
kind of Mardis Gras that allows people to indulge in every type of
sin or fantasy. Of course there
is a price to pay. Some will perish immediately while others will
return only to slowly waste away.
All will pay with their blood. As the visitors from the city increase
so do the borders of
“Other-Town”. Only one elderly man knows how this came about and is
prepared to stop it. One day this
man sneaks into Pall Bearer’s Paradise and steals the sketch
that Emylene has been banished
to. Using an ancient magic he rescues her and brings her back
to the present. The old man is
Laszlo Birij, owner of the antique store where Emylene purchased
the picture originally. He
informs Emylene that Poinsettia’s real name is Mira and she is really 67
years old. He knows this because
Mira is his wife and the one responsible for creating what is
now called, “Other-Town. He wants
to stop Mira but this can only be accomplished by both of
them working together.
Laszlo explains that Mira was not
always evil. Back in 1962 Mira and Laszlo met while
working on a luxury steamer
traveling the Mediterranean Sea. The two fell in love and were
married by the ship’s captain who
allowed them a 3 day honeymoon leave on the romantic Greek
island of Santorini. What they
didn’t know was that the island was also a burial ground for
Vrykolakas (vampires). Deep in the
cargo hold of the ship was one such demon named Stelio
who was on his way to the island
to be executed. Resigned to his fate Stelio made peace with
himself until he sensed Mira
onboard and was inspired to survive. When the ship reached the
island Stelio escaped and made
off with Mira. With the help of 2 native Greeks, Laszlo rescued
his bride and spirited her back
to the ship but not before Mira had been turned. Laszlo convinced
the captain to sail them to his
village in Croatia so that the town elders could help him cure his
bride, unaware that Stelio was
still in pursuit.
Back in his village Laszlo
pleaded for help, but afraid, the elders sentenced Mira to
death. Frantic to save his wife,
Laszlo sought out his aunt Madja, a witch, who drew a charcoal
sketch of the surrounding land
and magically bnished the girl into the picture which was ruled by
their well-meaning ancestors, the
Cowled Men. Laszlo then fled to America with the sketch to
await the day when he might
redeem his bride.
Years passed and Laszlo gave up
hope. What he did not know was that Stelio had
followed him to America, just as
anxious to bring Mira back. Upon meeting Emylene, Stelio
sensed she might have the right
‘magic’ to free Mira from her captivity. He manipulated Emylene
into buying the sketch and
released Mira who then traded places with Emylene so that she could
take over the Goth princess’s
life. Over the following 16 months Mira began to build the new
empire her master, Stelio,
envisioned.
After Laszlo brings Emylene up to
date they strike a bargain; she agrees to help him stop
Mira and he agrees to help her
find her parents whom she believes may still be held captive in
Other-Town. One night while
gathering information the two are ambushed by the Vryolakas and
Laszlo is captured. Emylene
escapes to the safe side of the city and the very next day she bumps
into her mother, Vandy Stipe, who
is working at a local shopping market. Vandy tells her daughter
that after she and her husband,
Theo, thought Emylene died in the fire, he went into a depression
and joined Mira, but Vandy
wouldn’t. As far as Vandy knows Theo is ‘one of them’ now.
Meanwhile Laszlo is brought to
Mira whom he hasn’t seen in almost 50 years. She offers
him the gift of eternal life if
he will join her and help rule their ever-expanding Other-Town. She
even lets him leave to make the
decision of his own free will. When Laszlo returns to the city he
finds Emylene and Vandy and all 3
vow to bring down Other-Town and Mira. However, in the
back of her mind Emylene suspects
that Laszlo may still try to save his wife.
On the night of reckoning the 3
enter Other-Town and are approached by Theo who
tries to persuade his wife and
daughter to be turned and join him. Emylene and Vandy reject
Theo and make their way to the
Goth club to confront Mira. There they encounter Stelio, the
master vampire, whom everybody
believed had perished. Stelio has a story of his own to tell.
Over 200 years ago Stelio was a
Polish military hero who retired to the small island of
Mykonos and ended up saving it
from marauders. There he fell in love with the mayor’s daughter
but the mayor refused to let them
wed because he was jealous of Stelio’s growing stature in the
community. The mayor went so far
as to sacrifice his own daughter to make sure the two never
wed. Stelio was also put to death
but was revived and returned to avenge his lover’s murder by
her own father. From that time on
he became an avenging angel, murdering corrupt men
wherever he found them. Eventually
Stelio was captured and sentenced to perish on the isle of
Santorini. Locked away in the
ship’s hold, he fell in love with Mira who was about to wed Laszlo.
When the ship reached the island
he escaped and pursued Mira but was foiled by Laszlo.
As was related earlier, Stelio
followed Laszlo to America where his intuition told him that
Emylene had the magical power to
restore Mira. What he and no one else knew was that Laszlo
and Emylene’s family were related
by blood and descended from the ancient Ostrogoths who
ruled Europe in the fifth
century. Emylene, as it turns out, was a true Goth princess and the magic
she possessed had been passed
down from generation to generation.
Stelio tries to persuade Laszlo,
Emylene and her family to join them in eternity but a fight
ensues. Theo, who was
masquerading as a Vrykolak, comes to the aid of his wife and daughter
and together they succeed in
wounding Mira and killing Stelio once and for all. Other-Town burns
to the ground and the city is
saved. But somewhere hidden away in the burned-out quarter,
Laszlo, who has survived, nurses
Mira back to health.
~ * ~
Author Info:
Larry Rodness began his
entertainment career as a professional singer at the age of 19 and has been performing
in Toronto for over 35 years with his wife and singing partner, Jodi, at venues
such as The Old Mill, Royal York Hotel, Skyline and Bristol Place Hotel as well
as countless corporate and private functions.
In the 80's Larry studied musical
theatre writing with PRO under Broadway conductor Layman Engel, which led him
to write for dinner theater. He then moved into the screenplay arena where he
has written over a dozen screenplays and has had 3 scripts optioned to date. In
the past 2 years he has also become a published novelist.
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