#bb morgan

Excerpt from Chapter 1: 

Alice Malone had spent the last ten of her twenty-two years clawing her way through Belle City’s thieves’ guild, and this last job could be her ticket out. Seamus Sylvester, her mentor, paced on the darkened rooftop in front of her, arms crossed, face straight in contemplation. According to their fence, a ruby the size of a grown man’s fist slept inside the Henry Mansion, and he would pay dearly for it.

           The Henry Mansion, like the rest of the estates on the upper east side of town, had gone dark for the night, save for the occasional driveway lamp that picked the darkness. To the southwest, the orange streetlights of downtown shone bright against the low-hanging clouds, thick with swirling snow. The bitter midnight air nipped at the exposed skin of her neck, and Malone tugged her jacket’s collar up.

Sylvester paused, let his arms fall to his sides, and asked, “What do you think?”

“I don’t see any guards,” Malone answered. Sylvester looked at her with those unreadable black eyes, neither explaining nor withholding what he knew. A sharp winter breeze sliced through her clothes. She shuddered. “But there’s movement inside.”

“What does that tell you?” Sylvester asked, but aimed his question at the third member of his team.

Bert, the illegitimate teenage son of one of the guild’s fences, shrugged his broad shoulders. “They know where they’re going in the dark?”

           Sylvester blinked once, and then turned his eyes on Malone.

           She promptly said, “They don’t need them, or they don’t want to be seen. So, either his guy’s staff works at night or he’s guarding something.”

           “Exactly.” Sylvester gazed over his shoulder at Bert, who rolled his eyes.

           Malone tightened her gloved fingers into fists. The cold leather squeaked. She’d been waiting a long time for a heist like this one, and one wrong move would throw the entire job into chaos. Her gut told her it would be Bert’s fault.

           The white puff of Sylvester’s sigh vanished as quickly as it appeared. “Where’s our entry?”

           “The grounds are open,” Malone said before Bert could speak. “There’s plenty of windows, but it’ll take too long to check them all. The roof is dark, no windows. That’s our best bet.”

           “Bert, what do you think?”

           “Cause a distraction,” Bert blurted. “Draw the guards to one spot and go in another.”

           “Malone, what’s wrong with that plan?”

           Where should she start? “First, it would put the guards on edge. Second, those-”

           Sylvester cut her off. “Exactly.”

           Bert grumbled his guttural annoyance to himself. “Fine. I agree. The roof is best.”

           “Of course you do,” Sylvester said coolly. Ever the calm optimist, he looked down at the mansion with little doubt.

           Malone held back the things she wanted to say, most of which centered on Bert’s impatience and ignorance of thievery. After a pause, she threw her voice into the cold air at Sylvester’s unmoving frame. “Okay, leader, how are we going in?”

           Sylvester lifted a boot onto the roof’s ledge. He had been the one to pull her off the streets, and brought her into the thieves’ guild. The winter darkness framed him in an otherworldly haze, and in that moment Malone saw what the guild underlings saw in him worthy of their unending praise. Intelligent, charismatic, and handsome despite the few early wrinkles, Sylvester calculated the heist before them with a master’s eye.

           At last, he turned to her without a hint of humor. “Aren’t afraid of heights, are you?”

           Malone followed his gesture to the Henry Mansion’s roof. Along the darkness, a domed skylight arched upward. Malone harrumphed, “I’m not afraid of anything.”

           “Neither am I,” Bert said sharply.

           Malone rolled her eyes. Bert had as much field experience as a mouse, and about the brain of one, too.

           Sylvester straightened and cracked his neck to the side. “Ready?”

           Malone tucked her blonde hair underneath the tight black cap, and pulled the scarf over her nose and mouth. Sylvester mirrored her action, except for the hair. His black hair didn’t stand out like a light bulb in the dark. Bert tugged on his hat so that his too-large ears stuck out. Sylvester walked to the roof’s edge, and leaped across the gap to the neighboring rooftop. Malone followed, and winced at the freezing air that needled her eyes. She landed and rolled onto her feet, just in time to watch Bert lumber after her, falling like a dead bird from the sky.

           “Quiet,” Malone hissed.

           Sylvester put his hand up between them, palm out. “Let’s keep moving.”

           Malone shot Bert a glare that he returned. Malone jumped after Sylvester, one rooftop after another, until the three of them landed on the house neighboring the Henry Mansion.

           “Okay,” Sylvester whispered, his voice muffled by the scarf. “See that drain pipe? That’s our way up.”

           “The gutter?” Bert’s voice cracked.

           “You are free to stay here,” Malone mumbled.

           Sylvester’s calm glare rested on Malone for only a moment before he turned on Bert. He pointed a finger at the teenager’s chest. “You got this, kid?”

           “Yeah.”

           “Good. Don’t screw it up.” Sylvester walked to the edge of the roof. The toe of his black, well-worn leather shoe hung off, his knee bent, and with a ghostly grace he jumped across the wide side lawn. He latched onto the metal drain pipe, and snaked his way up to the roof.

           Malone followed his steps to the edge, and took a deep breath. She steeled herself, and a fire burst through her veins. The boiling blood raced through her limbs, filling her with an ethereal numbness that ignored the cold. Shadows lightened. Each dead blade of grass sighed as the wind raked through the trimmed lawn. A few sparse flurries glittered in the air. Birds cawed in the distance, and mice scurried through the garbage behind the house.

           She jumped, not feeling the pull to the earth or the collision of herself and the metal gutter, and climbed to the roof where Sylvester waited. Down below, a terrified Bert looked down over the edge.

           “He was a mistake,” Malone whispered.

           “I think his dad knows that.”

           Malone glared at him, and pointed at Bert. “Look at him. He’s a brainless brute, not a thief. He’s going to get us caught. He’s not even a devil.”

           “Let me worry about that,” Sylvester said, a clear dismissal. He crouched next to the gutter as Bert jumped. He flailed in the air, but managed to grasp onto the drainpipe with a clank. Sylvester sighed, and said over his shoulder, “Go ahead. I’ll take care of him.”

           Malone didn’t give him the chance to change his mind. Bert was a regular human, not like Malone or Sylvester. Devil’s blood gave them the advantage. It made them stronger and faster. Bert didn’t stand a chance keeping up with two devils.  

           The darkened skylight looked down over a sitting room. In the center stood a human-shaped statue with round, empty eyes. Malone shivered from something that had nothing to do with the cold. She ran her fingertips along the panes, and circled the skylight three times before she found the weak link. Sylvester crouched beside her, and together they pried the glass from the frame.

           Bert held out a length of rope, but Malone put up her hand. “Don’t need it.”

           Malone slipped down into the room, and landed on the human statue. She slid down the smooth surface with ease. Once on the floor, Malone crawled to the thicker shadows clinging to the walls. The pitiful amount of light that filtered in fell on the statue’s face, and cast its hollow eyes into deep shadow. Sylvester slid down to the floor without a sound, and Bert came tumbling after.

I’ve spent this week trying to rev up some marketing for my new book, Devil’s Blood, but nothing seems to be working. I made a profile on Good Reads, joined a group devoted to indie pubbers, made a Reddit account, attempted to make friends, but nothing seems to be generating buyers. It’s exhausting and emotionally draining. 

I need to get my book out there in front of people but I don’t know what else to do that doesn’t drain my bank account.