Welcome to the blitz for The Unseen by J.L. Bryan, hosted by Xpresso Book Tours. Today we have an excerpt and a guest post from author J.L. Bryan along with a fantastic giveaway!
The Unseen
J.L. Bryan
Horror
Release Date: October 31, 2013
Available at Amazon B & N $0.99 thru Halloween!
Synopsis:
Cassidy is a young tattoo artist living in the Little Five Points neighborhood of Atlanta. She’s always suffered terrible nightmares, and sometimes the hideous creatures seem to follow her out of her dreams and into her waking life, though she’s the only one who can see them. Drugs and alcohol can blot them out, but never entirely chase them away.
When a demonic cult begins to take control of the people in her life, including her younger brother, Cassidy discovers that the unseen world of monsters is very real. She can no longer avoid it. To protect those she loves, she must accept her own hidden supernatural talents and face the forces of evil before the sinister cult achieves its twisted goals and casts the world into darkness.
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Excerpt: From Chapter One
“Let’s go,” Barb
said. She closed her eyes. “Are there
any spirits—”
“Come talk to
us, spirits!” Reese interrupted, closing her eyes and also swaying from side to
side. In her best drama-club voice, she
projected, “Speak to us, give us messages from the world of the dead...”
The glass
trembled under their fingers, and Cassidy gasped. Everybody leaned in for a closer look, but
the glass became still again.
“You should say
only good spirits,” Tamila whispered. “Or we could end up talking to
demons, or evil ghosts, or dead murderers...”
“Calling all
demons, evil ghosts, and dead murderers!” Reese cried out in a slurred voice,
then doubled forward, laughing.
“Be serious,
Reese,” Barb said. In a louder, more
formal voice, she asked, “Are there any messages from the Other Side? Like from our spirit guides or totem
animals?”
“Totem animals,”
Reese snickered.
“We all have
one. Mine’s a frog,” Barb told her, and
Reese laughed and shook her head, tossing her blond hair.
“You look
like a frog!” Reese said.
“Sh! It’s moving,” Cassidy told them.
The wine glass
shuddered again, and this time it began to slide over the poster board, the lip
scraping and smearing a few of the still-wet letters, gathering glowing paint
around its rim.
The glass moved
across the alphabet to the word YES in the upper left corner of the
poster, scraping up glue and glitter from a sparkly red pentagram along the
way.
“Who’s doing
that? Are you doing that?” Reese asked
Tamila, who shook her head, her wide eyes fixed on the board.
“Hello? Are you a spirit?” Barb asked.
The glass slid
half an inch, then right back into place.
YES again.
“Who are you?”
Barb asked. “I mean, to whom do we have the pleasure of speaking?”
The wineglass
lay still for a moment, then vibrated and hummed as if someone had plinked it
with a fingernail. The glass slid over
the alphabet.
Cassidy felt her
heart racing. She hadn’t expected it to
work at all, and it was starting to freak her out. She wished they hadn’t turned off the lights.
The wine glass
smeared its way across the board, its entire rim glowing green now. It stopped at the letter N, and
didn’t move again until Barb said the letter aloud. It stopped again on the I.
“N...I...” Barb
said.
“Nipple?” Reese
suggested.
The glass
continued on to the B, then H...A...and
then it stopped on Z.
“N-I-B-H-A-Z,”
Barb said.
“It’s just
nonsense,” Cassidy said.
The wineglass
jerked under their fingers, then flew to the word NO, dragging their
fingers with it.
“Who’s doing
that?” Reese asked. “Is it you, Cassidy?
Barb? It’s you, isn’t it,
Barb? You big Goth girl.”
“Sh,” Barb said.
“Nib...haz? Is that right?”
The wineglass
zipped over to YES.
“What does that
mean?” Cassidy asked.
The wineglass
spelled out N...A...M...E.
“Your name is
Nibhaz?”
YES.
“Sounds like a
demon’s name to me,” Tamila said in a soft voice.
“Pfft, shut up,”
Reese told her. “Like you would know.”
“Do you have a
message for someone here, Nibhaz?” Barb asked.
YES.
“For who?” Barb asked.
C...A...S...S...
Cassidy felt her
blood turn cold.
“Oh, shit, for
Cassidy?” Reese asked.
YES.
“Nibhaz, what is
your message for Cassidy?” Barb asked.
The four girls
watched as the glass crept back and forth along the top row of text. D...I...E...
“Die? It’s telling her to die?” Tamila gasped.
“Sh, it’s not done
yet,” Barb told her.
“Yeah, it’s not
done yet,” Reese echoed, her eyes fixated on the glass.
Cassidy
shivered, trying to think of any non-scary word that started with “die.”
“Diesel?”
Cassidy asked in a shaky voice. She
expected someone to laugh at her, but nobody did.
The glass moved
back to the letter D.
“Died,” Barb
said. “He’s saying he died, I think.
He’s a ghost.”
The glass
whipped over to the word NO, then returned to the letter D.
D...I...E...
D...I...E...
D...I...E...
“Does it stand
for something?” Cassidy guessed, trying not to sound scared. Her heart was thundering inside her chest.
“Is it
somebody’s initials, Nibhaz?” Barb asked.
NO.
“He’s telling
her to die! Are you people blind?”
Tamila snapped. She took her fingers off
the glass and stood. “I’m gone. Forget
this craziness.”
“You can’t let
go until the spirit says GOOD-BYE!” Barb yelled at her. “That’s how people get
possessed!”
“Oh, now
you believe in demons?” Tamila asked, brushing off her knees.
“Please don’t
leave me, Tami,” Cassidy whispered. She
was genuinely scared now. “Not until this is done, okay?”
Tamila looked at
her a long moment, then sighed and reluctantly sat on the floor again.
“Make it quick.”
Tamila returned her fingers to the glass. “I mean it.”
“Nibhaz, is
there more to your message?” Barb asked.
YES.
“What?” Cassidy
whispered.
The glass flew
back to the top row of letters.
D...I...E...
It moved faster,
back and forth, never leaving the top row.
DIE
DIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIE
Cassidy watched
in horror, spellbound as the glass raced back and forth, smearing the top row
of letters into an illegible green streak, but still sliding back and forth,
back and forth, touching the spots where the three letters D, I,
and E had been.
She wanted to
let go and pull away, but her fingertips felt glued to the wine glass. The glass became icy, burning cold under her
fingertips, a crust of smoking frost forming inside the bowl and along the
stem.
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Guest Post: Dear readers, this is a parody...please don't try this at home (or at the neighbor's)
Demon-Summoning Do’s and Don’ts
by J.L. Bryan
So you’ve cast a
circle and you’re ready to bring an infernal spirit into your home for a
visit. Or are you? Summoning demons takes care and
consideration—it’s nothing to jam in between doing the dishes and catching the
new episode of Walking Dead.
These simple
tips will help you put together an exciting evocation, without all the messy
embarrassment of getting your soul ripped from your flesh and devoured.
DO offer a blood sacrifice. Your guest has traveled across endless
darkness from the lower pits of Hell and will be expecting a snack. Chicken or lizard blood will do nicely for a
lesser spirit. For an archdemon, you’ll
want to sacrifice a human being instead—anything less is considered rude. Virgins are still preferred, but no longer expected
by more modern demons. Finally, an
activity you can do with that annoying neighbor you’ve always wanted to
eliminate from the earth!
DON’T call up the wrong kind of demon. Incubi and succubi will arrive with certain
expectations, because these unholy hornballs only have one thing on their evil
minds at all times. If you’re not ready
for a swingers’ sabbat, avoid them. If
you do summon them, you’re going to need a little more protection that the
typical enchanted circle provides—the beasties get around. Also avoid gluttony demons, because these
corpulent creatures not only look like disgusting mountains of flab with
enormous mouths, they’ll also destroy your snack bar and leave an unpleasant
flatulent odor that takes weeks to remove from your carpet.
DO be polite. Powerful demons resent being summoned by mere
mortals, but minding your manners can go a long way towards creating a more
pleasant evening. When you say, “I bind
thee and summon thee, foul Mephistopheles!” and the enraged horned demon
appears in a flash of fire and brimstone, don’t forget to add, “Thank you!”
DON’T expect them to bring wine or a hot
dish. Again, they’ve come a long way and
can’t be expected to carry host gifts up from the abyss. Also, demon food tends to be rotten and vermin-infested,
so how badly did you really want that casserole, anyway?
DO remember to take pictures! Remember, the only reason to do anything
extraordinary in life is so you can brag to your friends on Facebook. A picture of you and Beelzebub with his host
of flesh-eating flies will totally shut up that one friend who’s always
bragging about the time she met Colin Farrell on an airplane.
DON’T forget to banish! If you don’t send that demon right back to
Hell when you’re done, it may move onto your couch and stay there for
months. Demons don’t pay rent, they
don’t do chores, and they never, ever give up control of the remote. They will, however, watch home shopping
channels twenty-four hours a day and max out your credit card to ordering
useless knickknacks. They won’t take
subtle hints to go home, either, no matter how many you drop—you have to order
them out. Exercise your right to
exorcise!
Following this
list is sure to make your demonic encounter a more successful one! When you summon horrific spirits from the
fiery underworld into your living room, you don’t want it to ruin the rest of
your weekend.
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About the Author
The Unseen by J.L. Bryan has a special
release price of 99 cents through Halloween. See his website for
details and links: http://jlbryanbooks.com/books/theunseen.html
J.L. Bryan studied English literature at the University of Georgia and at
Oxford, with a focus on the English Renaissance and the Romantic period. He
also studied screenwriting at UCLA. He enjoys remixing elements of
paranormal, supernatural, fantasy, horror and science fiction into new kinds of
stories.
He is the author of The Paranormals series (starting with Jenny Pox), The
Songs of Magic series, Nomad, and other books. He lives in Atlanta with
his wife Christina, his son John, and some dogs and cats.
Website: www.jlbryanbooks.com
Twitter: @jlbryanbooks
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