Love Triangle Entry #24

Name: CRACKED

Genre:  YA Urban Fantasy

Word count:  66,000

Query:

At seventeen, Meda Melange is already an experienced serial killer.  It's not her fault, she doesn't do it because she likes it (though she does). Meda eats souls, and there's really only one place to get them—and it's not the Piggly Wiggly.  Then Meda learns she's not the only soul-eater; she's actually part demon, and the other demons are out to get her.

Fortunately, Meda finds the perfect place to hide—in a community of demon-hunters.  The modern Knights Templar are dedicated to fighting demons and protecting Beacons, people marked by God as good for mankind. Because the demons are determined to kill her, the Templars are convinced Meda is a Beacon trying to fulfill her destiny.  Meda's goals are far less saintly.  She just wants to find out why the demons are out to get her and, well, that's easier to do with back-up—even if her back-up would kill her if they knew the truth.  

A blend of horror and humor, my YA urban fantasy CRACKED is told from the point of view of the ethically-flexible Meda as she navigates the equally dangerous battlegrounds of Good vs Evil and human teenage relationships. It's fast-paced and humorous, but the real story is the relationships between the characters as described through the lens of the unreliable protagonist—who's a lot more human than she likes to think.

First 250:

There are some people you know you ought not anger because it isn’t right. Like your mom—if she’s the nice sort. 

There are other people you know you ought not anger because they have the authority to punish you. Police officers, politicians, insane asylum wardens, your mom—if she’s the bad sort. 

But there are some people you ought not anger that you don’t know about, because no one ever survived to warn you.

I’m the third kind.

I eat souls. The packaging can be tricky, but fortunately I am blessed with special skills to pry my meals from their pesky shells. My teeth rip skin, my jaws snap bones. I am fast, lightning-fast, snuff—oh-was-that-your-life?—fast. I try to stick to bad souls, in the memory of my own mom (who was the nice sort). There were other reasons, reasons I used to understand, but they are reasons for a good person. I am not that. 

That might be why I feel so at home here. 

Small rooms, thick walls. Hushed whispers and ear-grating wails. A symphony of misery set to the beat of beatings. An insane asylum, prison of the cracked and grey.

Cracked windows, cracked walls, cracked minds. Don’t make them angry or there will be cracked skulls.

Grey-painted walls, grey-tiled floors. Once-white nightgowns, now grey. The skin of the inmates. Grey. The metal-framed bed. The bedding. Grey, grey, grey. The bars on the window…

Black. Imagery ruined. Correction—prison of the cracked, grey and black.