Become an Agent #5

Title: THE KILLING MOON
Genre: (Adult) Urban Fantasy
Word Count: 100,000 words

Query:

Anna Marlowe needs a steady paycheck without going back to dancing in “butt floss.” She’s so desperate she heads to Piedmont Park for what she swore she wouldn’t do — use magic for the first time in years. Instead of throwing a spell for some luck, she finds a corpse infected with dirty magic so toxic it can stop the heart with a touch. To Anna’s trained eyes it’s the work of an alchemist who can twist power and science into an abomination of magic. A killer targeting witches for deadly experiments.

Atlanta’s Supernatural Investigations Unit needs an outsider like Anna. She might be an unlicensed necromancer, but she isn’t compromised by local supernatural politics and as a dead-talker she can help when their only witnesses are on a slab in the morgue.

The last thing Anna wants is to involve herself in the hunt for a magic-wielding serial killer. She’s scared using her powers again will turn her into the same kind of monster the cops are hunting, or worse, the same kind of monster who trained her. But she can’t walk away when people are dying, and the local coven she refuses to join already blames her for the murders. If she doesn’t find the killer, they’ll make sure she pays with her life.

250:

Atlanta’s Piedmont Park was a place to commune with nature. The dead woman hanging in a tree ruined it for me.

Raw poisonous power infected her body, leaving a quicksilver shine to her skin and an angry shimmer in the air like a magic bomb had gone off in her heart. I breathed in death, tasting ashes and tears. She had been tortured.

Anna, you are so screwed.

Tonight, I’d planned to throw a spell to keep me from going back to stripping or waiting tables. Some extra luck getting a job with a dental plan and without guys grabbing at me. Instead I sat on the back bumper of a police car at four in the morning while cops decided whether or not I should wear handcuffs.

The patrol officer had taken my statement and now I waited for a detective to repeat the process. I wanted to go home and sleep.

The medical examiner was taking pictures with a digital camera. His hands kept twitching the same way a kid at a museum tries to resist fondling the statues.

“Don’t do it,” I said under my breath. His plastic gloves wouldn’t keep him safe, but warning the cops about dirty magic required answers I didn’t want to give. My finding the body was suspicious enough. I walked away from necromancy five years ago and wanted nothing more with that world of ghosts and death. I was already pushing it with this luck spell, if I ever got the chance to do it.

Title: DEADTALKER (renamed)
Genre: (Adult) Urban Fantasy
Word Count: 100,000 words

Query:

Anna Marlowe needs a steady paycheck without going back to dancing in “butt floss.” Desperate, she hits Piedmont Park to use magic for the first time in years. Plans for a good luck spell are shattered when she finds a corpse infected with dirty magic so toxic it can stop the heart with a touch. The newest victim of a rogue alchemist twisting science and magic into deadly experiments.

Detective Wynn needs an outsider like Anna to help solve the case, so he offers her something she can’t refuse. A job. She might be an unlicensed necromancer, but she isn’t compromised by local supernatural politics and she can help when his only witnesses are on a slab in the morgue.

Anna might rely on sharpies instead of wands, but she is scared using magic again could turn her into the same kind of monster the cops are hunting, or worse, the same kind of monster who trained her. When a local coven blames her for the murders it becomes too late to back out. Helping the cops means confronting the seductive power of forbidden magic and risking a death warrant. But if she can’t prove her innocence, the coven will make sure she pays with her life.

First 250:

Atlanta’s Piedmont Park was a place to commune with nature. The dead woman hanging in a tree ruined it for me.

Raw poisonous power infected her body, leaving a quicksilver shine to her skin and an angry shimmer in the air like a magic bomb had gone off in her heart. I breathed in death, tasting ashes and tears. She had been tortured.

Man, I am so screwed. Dinner wanted to abandon my stomach for the safety of some tall wet grass.

Tonight I was in Piedmont Park for a spell to keep me from going back to stripping or waiting tables. Some extra luck finding a job with a dental plan and without guys grabbing at me.

Luck. Hah. Now I sat on the back bumper of a police car at four in the morning while cops decided whether or not I should wear handcuffs.

The patrol officer had taken my statement and now I waited for a detective to repeat the process. I wanted to go home and sleep.

The medical examiner was taking pictures with a digital camera. His hands kept twitching the same way a kid at a museum tries to resist fondling the statues.

“Don’t do it,” I said under my breath. His plastic gloves wouldn’t keep him safe, but warning the cops about dirty magic required answers I didn’t want to give. My finding the body was suspicious enough. After walking away from magic five years ago, I wanted nothing more with that world of ghosts and death.