Surprise Agent Invasion #15

Title: WICKED SPIRITS

Genre: urban fantasy

Word Count: 80,000

Query:

Demon bartender Vess hasn’t been able to love in over four millennia,

and it’s her own damn fault.  She goes on blind dates with no hope of

falling into love or falling into bed, and she has had enough.  One

night, she discovers the only way to break her 4,000 year loveless

streak is to trigger the apocalypse.

No big deal, right?

Only, Vess is a Promise demon—a supernatural notary—not a freaking

harbinger of death!  She enlists the aid of her rag-tag group of

barfly friends—an ailing muse, an elderly restaurateur with

supernatural vision, and an amorphous blob who sells magic rocks.

Together, they concoct a plan which could trigger the end-times. But,

just as the gang starts to wrangle some relics, Vess gets a wakeup

call in the form of a samurai assassin sent to kill her.  Too bad he’s

insanely cute and Vess can’t tell if he wants to kill her or kiss her.

Vess has to jump through a million flaming hoops to put the pieces of

the apocalyptic puzzle together.  She has to infiltrate a demon

mega-corporation that sucks human stupidity through reality TV.  She

must bring down the house in Vegas, attend a human senior prom, and

even work a shift at a strip-club just to assemble her artillery. With

a little help from her drunken demon cohorts, Vess fumbles andcarouses

her way towards the big, shiny red button.

But when the time comes, can she bring herself to push it?

First 250:

If my best friend wasn’t already dying, I’d kill her for this. The man

in front of me eyed me with a cold glare, his gaunt face a mask of

displeasure.  I inhaled slowly and tried to center myself with some

yoga breathing.  He noticed my discomfort and smirked.

I wondered at the cruel jest my life had become as I stared down one

of the four horsemen of the apocalypse.  My body tensed, deciding

between fight or flight.

Then I remembered my promise to her and mustered the courage to give it a shot.

“Diah didn’t mention your name when she set this up,” I said, busying

my hands with the napkin in my lap.  “I’m Vesshana—Vess for short.”

“My name can only be properly pronounced in the throes of agony,” he

answered, taking a sip from a sweating glass of ice water.

“Oh,” I answered, suppressing a cringe.  I certainly didn’t plan on

ending up in any throes tonight, let alone agony.  “So what do you go

by?”

The ice clinked against his teeth before he answered, “Walter.”

“Ok, Walter.  So what do you do for fun?” I asked, despite my

hundreds of misgivings and millennia of rejection.  Diah wanted me to

make another attempt at a date, and so once again, I relented and let

her set me up.

And she only gave me a half-hour’s notice to get ready.