TWV B-3: HERITAGE BLADE

Genre: YA Urban Fantasy
Title: HERITAGE BLADE
Word Count: 84,000

Query:

Sixteen-year-old Jay is the most lethal secret walking the streets of Chicago. Trained to hunt rogue Pandorans—supernatural beings who cross into this world through Pandora’s Box—he’s making a name for himself as the boy who smells of blood and magic. But people like Jay, known as Sentinels, are only good at what they do so long as no one knows they do it.

The Sentinels have kept to the shadows for millennia, so when Jay inadvertently reveals himself while rescuing a damsel faking distress, his superiors threaten to toss him down a dark hole for the rest of his life. On top of that suck salad, someone or something has put a price on his head. Now he’s gotta find the jackhole responsible, as well as the girl who started this mess, before everything that goes bump in the night arrives to collect.

HERITAGE BLADE is the Moral Instruments meets The Dresden Files.

First 250 Words:

Seven stories high, Jay paced the ledge of a building like a caged panther; anxious, eager, and irritated. How the hell did a four-legged, supernatural, killing-machine the size of an F150 vanish? Magic was an easy answer but transport spells left remnants—potent ones. He would’ve sensed something like that a county over.

“Not like it took the metro,” he reasoned. The pounding behind his eyes intensified and he pinched the bridge of his nose. If he hit one more dead-end, he’d shoot something or himself. In the face. Think, idiot.

Howlyngs weren’t the Einsteins of their kind. Eat, sleep, repeat.

But this one’s smart enough to hide.

Damn thing must’ve gone underground after its last kill attracted Primetime attention. The newscast flashed through Jay’s mind; a sobbing mother pleading for clues about whoever mutilated her daughter. There was no who.

He gripped his sword, banishing the memory, and scanned the skyline. The Near North Side rose around him with buildings transformed to solid shadows by the overcast night. Sirens crested and faded like the tide. The tangy scent of the lake drenched the air, and the wind belted him with bitter cold, cutting through his leather armor. October in Chicago—arctic.

Police found the girl’s remains in the alley below. She was a petite thing. The howlyng wouldn’t stay sated for long. There was one trick Jay hadn’t tried. It would expose him to the beast but prevent another innocent having their throat ripped out.

He stood. Desperate times…