The Writer's Voice Contest Entry

Title: Black Widow Witch
Genre: Adult Urban Fantasy
88,000 words

Query:

Malachi Erami is a witch who has befallen a Black Widow curse; to savagely butcher any man she falls in love with. All because she had a steamy affair with the witch queen's favorite lover, Knave. Now living among humans in exile from the witches' realm, Malachi runs a bar making magic enhanced drinks, but since her curse labels her as high risk, she's also closely monitored. Julian Vira is her latest babysitter, but he's also the first man since Knave that Malachi feels attracted to. Good looking and non-judgmental of the horrible curse she carries? Yeah, he's hard to resist.

While trying to suppress her feelings for Julian, Malachi notices her friends, fellow cursed witches, are getting arrested for murder. The punishment is execution by the queen, since the queen forbids killing humans. Convinced her friends are being framed, Malachi works with Julian to figure things out, which draws them closer together and threatens to activate Malachi's curse.

When the murder set ups reveal a plot to assassinate the queen, which would free every cursed witch, the queen recruits Malachi to stop it, promising to lift her curse and reunite her with Knave in return. Fail and Knave is dead. With her feelings endangering Julian's life, and no guarantee the assassination attempt would succeed, Malachi's only choice could be helping a viciously sadistic queen who might not even keep her promise to break Malachi's curse.

First 250:

Today was the anniversary of the worst day of my life, and I was trying to forget about it by drinking vast amounts of alcohol, as one was supposed to do. The fact that I owned a bar greatly helped with that endeavor. I was deliciously buzzed, and that was an accomplishment since witches weren't easily susceptible to alcohol. Even so, the significance of this day still gnawed at me.

Currently I was behind the bar making a show of mixing drinks by enhancing each one with magic depending on what the customer asked for. Wanted extra stamina to take home to your girlfriend? Sure! Wanted something a little hallucinogenic and trippy?  No problem! Somewhere in the room I could hear riotous laughter, and above that the voice eliciting that laughter. Xiune was having a good night for a change and wasn't holed up in my office. Though considering she was just a head inside an acrylic box, it was understandable that sometimes all she wanted to do was hide.

"Malachi, darling!" Xiune called. "Seven brave and handsome young men have requested the Challenge!"

"They may be handsome, but are they really brave?" I said, smiling slyly. I loved administering the Challenge.

"It's time for the Seven Deadly Sins Challenge!" I announced, filling up seven shot glasses. "Which sin will it be and what will its victim do?" People shouted all manner of crude guesses while I sent tendrils of purple magic, the same color as my eyes, into the shot glasses.