Surprise Agent Invasion #18

Title: WITCH WAY DOWN          

Genre: Urban Fantasy

Word Count: 109,000

Query:

Grace Taylor is a practicing psychic and struggling witch who works with the New Orleans Police Department to help solve monster-related crime. When Grace reads the living, she sees images from their past, present or future, but when Grace reads the dead she relives the person’s death. She sees it, hears it, and feels it. What’s worse is she remembers it—forever. 

Since monsters are Grace’s worst fear, she is willing to do almost anything to help keep the city’s monster population in check—except work with them—but when a psychotic vampire comes to town intent on taking control of the city’s monsters, Grace must learn to do just that.  The city’s current master vampire wants to use her, the local monster hunter wants to date her, and the bad guy wants to kill her. Grace must overcome her fear of vampires and learn to control her magic before she becomes the next victim.

First 250:

The choking stench of burnt flesh filled the air.  It sat on the back of my tongue and slid down my throat.  Standing with a hand clenched over my nose and mouth didn’t help; it just made me look like I didn’t belong.  The hollow throbbing sound in my ears made me take a step back.  I didn’t want to take a header into the greasy pit of ash and human remains at my feet.  If I passed out, though, maybe I wouldn’t have to touch it.  That was my happy thought. 

“Grace, you okay?” March asked without his usual sarcasm. March was Sergeant Robert Marchand of the New Orleans Police Department, and I blamed him for the acid churning around in my stomach, threatening to spew all over his crime scene.  

Nodding, I didn’t say anything, because I didn’t trust what might come out of my mouth.  Nearly a year since I’d been roped into helping with monster-related investigations, it should’ve gotten easier.  If March could stand here looking all calm and collected, I should be able to do the same.  I needed to work on my magic, figure out a spell to make a rotting corpse smell like strawberry jam, or pine trees, or dog shit—anything else really.  “Can we just get this over with,” I demanded, forcing the words out.

A six-foot circle of charred grass held the remains of at least three people.  I stared down at the gruesome pile and forced my brain to stop counting body parts.