LISETTE: [nods] Roland and Sarah helped me.
SHELDON: Why’d you do it?
LISETTE: I wanted to—
ZACH: Chain me up and interrogate me… among other things.
LISETTE: [blushes] Don’t make it sound like that!
ZACH: Didn’t you want to do other things to me?
LISETTE: Were you reading my thoughts that night?
ZACH: No, but your blush tells me I guessed correctly.
LISETTE: Next question, Sheldon.
SHELDON: Dude. She chained you up. That’s so hot.
ZACH: I agree.
SHELDON: Great. Now his eyes are glowing.
ZACH: Perhaps we could continue this interview another time?
SHELDON: You’re totally going to ask her to chain you up again, aren’t you?
LISETTE: Sheldon!
SHELDON: Right. I’m out. Thanks for the interview.
June 2015
A Sorceress of His Own Blog Tour
Although A Sorceress of His Own is part of The Gifted Ones series, I opted to include the character interviews I wrote for the blog tour. For those who have not read The Gifted Ones books: Marcus is a teenaged squire in A Sorceress of His Own, and Seth and Roland both appear in it.
SHELDON: So…
MARCUS: So?
SHELDON: Thanks for doing another interview.
MARCUS: Why exactly are we still doing these? I thought they were to make the humans who work for us at the network feel more at ease around us. Haven’t the other interviews helped us on that front?
SHELDON: They did for a while. But recent events have sort of freaked everyone out at network headquarters.
MARCUS: I assume you’re talking about—
SHELDON: Yeah.
MARCUS: I suppose I can understand that.
SHELDON: So we’re starting the interviews up again.
MARCUS: All right then. Ask me whatever you’d like.
SHELDON: You’re an Immortal Guardian now and have been for centuries. But you were different even before you were transformed into an immortal. Can you tell the newbies at the network a little bit about that?
MARCUS: Of course. We called ourselves gifted ones then. Gifted ones are men and women who are born with extremely advanced DNA that lends us special gifts ordinary humans lack. Unfortunately, I knew nothing of DNA when I was mortal because I was born near the end of the twelfth century.
SHELDON: So you didn’t know why you were different?
MARCUS: No.
SHELDON: That must have sucked.
MARCUS: [laughs] Yes, it did. I was later transformed into an immortal, as you know, by a psychotic vampire in the early part of the thirteenth century.
SHELDON: It’s such a trip that you lived in the Middle Ages. What gift were you born with?
MARCUS: I see dead people.
SHELDON: [blinks] Dead people, as in ghosts?
MARCUS: Yes. [narrows his eyes] Laugh and I’ll kick your arse.
SHELDON: I’m too busy trying to decide whether that’s cool or creepy.
MARCUS: Well, how would you feel if you were racing along at insane speeds on your motorcycle at three o’clock in the morning, caught a glimpse of movement from the corner of your eye, and looked over to find the ghost of a man walking alongside you, keeping pace.
SHELDON: Dude.
MARCUS: Exactly.
SHELDON: Were both of your parents gifted ones?
MARCUS: No, just my mother.
SHELDON: What was it like, being a gifted one in the twelfth century?
MARCUS: It was very dangerous. Many a gifted one was slain by those who feared or hated anyone who was different or who possessed abilities they didn’t understand. I’m afraid our gifts, when revealed, were more often linked with evil than they were with miracles.
SHELDON: That blows. Did you hide your gift?
MARCUS: Yes. Even Robert, the man I loved like a brother, knew nothing of it.
SHELDON: Did your mother hide hers, too?
MARCUS: Yes.
SHELDON: Who was the first gifted one you met other than your mother?
MARCUS: A woman named Alyssa. I met her when I was a teenager, shortly after I declared myself Sir Robert of Westcott’s new squire.
SHELDON: Can you tell us about her?
MARCUS: [smiles] Alyssa was quite remarkable. While the rest of us hid our unusual gifts in an attempt to avoid being burned at the stake or stoned to death or—in my case—deemed utterly mad, she used hers openly on a daily basis.
SHELDON: How’d she manage that?
MARCUS: She served as Lord Dillon’s wisewoman.
SHELDON: Who was Lord Dillon?
MARCUS: Lord Dillon was Robert’s older brother, the very powerful Earl of Westcott. He was both known and feared throughout the land for his ferocity on the battlefield.
SHELDON: Did you fear him?
MARCUS: I was… intimidated, I admit, when I first met him. He was a man of few words. And those words were often gruff.
SHELDON: Sounds like Roland.
MARCUS: [laughs] Dillon wasn’t antisocial like Roland. He was just scary as hell on the battlefield and gruff whenever he was off it. But… [shakes his head] once I saw how he was with Alyssa, how he accepted her gifts—her differences—and protected her from anyone who wished her ill because of them…
SHELDON: You liked him?
MARCUS: [nods] I admired him as much as I did Robert. Times were different then. Women were largely considered subservient to men. Yet Dillon respected Alyssa, had no difficulty admitting she was a brilliant strategist, and often sought her counsel.
SHELDON: Cool.
MARCUS: And earls did not wed illegitimate peasants back then. At all. Period. They didn’t even take peasants as lemans for more than the briefest length of time. It simply wasn’t done. So the odds of those two getting together and staying together…
SHELDON: Were pretty damned slim?
MARCUS: Yes.
SHELDON: He must have loved her a lot.
MARCUS: Enough to defy his king. And she loved him enough to risk her very life for him. Theirs was a tale that was told by bards for generations.
SHELDON: [arches a brow] Much like yours is a tale that has been told by immortals for generations?
MARCUS: [sighs] I admit I’m not thrilled by their fascination with it.
SHELDON: And most don’t even know the best part.
MARCUS: Ami?
SHELDON: [nods] And Adira.
MARCUS: [smiles]
SHELDON: Did Alyssa know you were a gifted one?
MARCUS: Not at first. But she learned it eventually when she healed me with her hands after I was injured. It’s impossible to hide something like that from someone who can learn so much about you with a touch.
SHELDON: What did she say?
MARCUS: Nothing.
SHELDON: Then how do you know she—?
MARCUS: Because she watched over me as she would a younger brother from that day forth. Went out of her way to be kind to me when I was at Westcott. Covered for me whenever this or that spirit startled me so others wouldn’t think me mad.
SHELDON: Wow. She sounds really nice.
MARCUS: She was. And she was as fiercely protective of Dillon as Ami is of me.
SHELDON: Did she ride into battle with him?
MARCUS: Many times.
SHELDON: Strong women are so hot.
MARCUS: [grins] Yes, they are.
SHELDON: [offers his hand] Thanks for the interview.
MARCUS: [shakes it] Anytime.
June 2015
A Sorceress of His Own Blog Tour