I posted this way back when I first joined and thanks to some very much need help from Snoink I edited the first chapter...and here it is, tell me how you like it or don't as the case may be. I'd like any critiques you can give me.
cheers CL
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Slaying the Dreamer
Cry “Havoc,” and let slip the dogs of war.
Act III Scene 1, Julius Caesar; William Shakespeare
Chapter One
Tis Crane stepped out on the railing and surveyed the drop.
“Ten stories is a long way to fall.” but she murmured that just loud enough for the ghosts to here.
Pulling a pack of cigarettes from her jacket pocket, she tapped the box before drawing out one white stick with her teeth. Then tucked the pack inside her jacket, flipped the lid of her silver lighter open, and blew into the cigarette
She turned to face the young man from the crime lab that had shown her in, “This was how she did it?”
“Yeah, dead upon impact.”
“I would imagine so.” Tis looked out over the balcony of St. Mary’s Psych Ward, searching for something out of the ordinary.
“You might want to visit the guys from the morgue, they’ll know more.”
“Thanks.” She turned from the ledge to face the last person in the world, heaven or hell she wanted to talk to right then.
“What is she doing here?” The grimace that split his clean-shaven face seeped into his voice as well.
“It’s not as if I can’t hear you, and as for what I’m cleaning up your mess? How many girls does this make now, seven?” She smirked.
He stood facing her eyes pinned to the ground. Shifting from one foot to the other slowly, his movements echoing an abrupt uneasiness it seemed as if he wanted to run straight from that spot very far, far away.
But Detective Mark Rodriquez remained silent, his hand busying itself in his short obsidian black hair in nervousness.
Finally he looked up, his brown eyes mysteriously cold.
“Why are you here?”
Tis leaned in and growled, “This, my friend is what they call payback.”
Tis found her way through the bounds of yellow tape, the reporters trying to get in, and the police guard dog Dash. The crime scene was a mess, blood clotted in pools on the cement, and the guys from the crime lab, were bent over the dead body of Ms. Jena Parie.
“So, guys, what can you tell me?” She crouched down near the closest, and took her first up close look at the body.
The young woman was in a hospital nightgown, though most of it was torn and sprayed with blood. She was curiously facing up; her arms stretched wide, legs together in the shape of a cross. Her face was free of any signs of trauma or contusions, but mouth was frozen wide open in some kind of fear.
One of the crime scene guys turned to her, “From what we can tell, she died from impact.”
“You found her like this, then?”
“Yeah, never seen a jumper like this though.”
“There’s a first time for everything, but thanks.”
Tis got to her feet, brushed a strand of hair behind her ear, and continued to tour the scene. The only thing that seemed unusual was the placement of the body, the rest of the scene was clean, but until forensics finished she wasn’t going to rule anything out.
The piece of shiny metal caught her eye, and she reached down to pick it up. It was some kind of coin, made of steel, but the inscription had been rubbed off. Tis placed it in her pocket; she’d look it up later. Back at the crime scene they were just putting the body into the ambulance. Out of the corner of her eye, Det. Mark Rodriguez was talking with one of the other beat cops. Tis thought it best if she found another way there.
“What do you want to know, Crane? The guys were right, death upon impact. Falling from that height will kill anyone,” the coroner took another look at Tis and began again, “well almost anyone.”
“Just if there is anything unusual, apart from the way she was found.”
“Nothing so far, but if there is anything out of the ordinary, I’ll give you a call.”
Tis eyed the coroner skeptically; she wasn’t in the mood for leaving.
“You probably should be scarce soon, or Rodriguez and the Captain will be on me for letting you in here.”
“Right, call me at the office will you.”
Apartment Number 2D on Gallagher was small but it made a nice office space and living quarters now that she was freelancing Tis liked it even more. It was her uncle’s before he passed, and she couldn’t quite sell it after what happened. She walked down the hall, to see if Allene was back from Carnivale yet, but the door was open and the bed was empty. She went back into the living room and took a seat in the swivel chair. Tis clicked the power to the monitor and began to type up her report.
It was the seventh one, in a string of suicides that Tis found just this side of peculiar, but problem was that there was nothing peculiar about them. All the vic’s were either mentally insane or junkies. The only thing connecting them was that all were young, under the age of thirty, and female.
Victim #1: Mary Page, DOA, 21 years old, bi-polar, prescribed lithium, jumper, Time of Death: 12:01 am
Victim #2: “Raine Saige”, DOA, street name of one Dolly Hudson, known prostitute, 24 years old, drug overdose--cocaine, Time of Death: 9:21 pm
Victim #3: Collete Brunell, DOA, student at Cayhill Medical College, Time of Death: 10:34 pm,
Victim #4: Presea Quinn, DOA, high school senior at Sacred Oaks, prescribed anti-depressant Paxil, Time of Death: 2:30 pm
Victim #5: Aubrey Mayfair, DOA, self employed, owner of 13 Moons, Time of Death: 4:30 pm
Victim #6: Marilyn Everston, DOA, waitress at La Ville, divorced, 2 kids, prescribed Prozac but Zoloft and Cocaine were found in system, Time of Death: 11:55 pm
Victim #7: Jena Parie, DOA, resident of St. Mary Psych Ward, schizophrenia, hospitalized since June 02, 1999, jumper.
Remembering her findings from earlier, Tis dug into her pockets. The silver coin shined in the soft light, and its gilded surface practically glowed. Leaving in next to the monitor, Tis reconsidered her work load and decided that a bath might just do the trick to loosen up her tightened muscles.
Sitting on the side of the bathtub, she turned the silver handles, and then tested the water. When it was to her liking, she stripped off her clothes and settled herself in the water. Drifting off to sleep, her eyelids fluttered closed, and Jena Parie’s body appeared in her mind.
A burning sensation simmered on the skin and then rushed up her arms and into her body. Fire, her body was on fire. At first she fought against the bonds of fire that licked at her limbs, but then a figure flashed in her mind; a strawberry blonde, with blue eyes. Jena Parie and then the image disappeared, and she felt her body morph into a new shape. Then she was on a balcony surrounded by orange braided gold flames, the fear was wrought with in her. It filled her body and suffocated her, so it choked her at the neck. She spun this way and that, invisible hands tugging at her pliable body. Suddenly she was facing away from the edge and paralyzed with fear. Tis didn’t now you could be scared shitless like this. Hard, invisible hands clasped her shoulder and shook her body widely, even as it fought back. The railing of the balcony brushed up against her back, as the invisible onslaught advanced. In one swift movement she was falling, falling into the flames where flames skimmed a body that contorted, and Jena’s body appeared again reaching out for Tis but melded into the flames before Tis could catch hold.
Ring, ring. Ring, ring.
Tis wretched herself from the vision and searching for air in the water-logged abyss, she pulled herself from the tub. Just barely missing her bath robe, she sprinted for the phone.
“Tis Crane speaking, who is this?”
“It’s Barker, down at the morgue I think you should come down here.”
“On my way.”
“So what did you want me for?”
Tis slipped into the morgue where Barker stood over the corpse of Jena Parie.
He raised an eyebrow at her quick entrance, “Uh…how did you just get in here?”
Tis smiled widely, “I really don’t think you want to know that sir.”
“I don’t think I do, now that you mention it.”
“Look at this.” He drew back a piece of skin on the young woman’s forearm. The flesh underneath was white with blood loss.
“Her whole body is like this, so I went to look at the others, to see if they were the same.”
“So you’re telling me that all these suicides are now suspicious.”
“As suspicious as they come.”
Tis drew in a large breath, “And you’re telling me, that with seven suicides so far not a one linked until this? That kind of thing doesn’t pass even pencil fucking residents.”
“It shouldn’t but what with the bodies at first being at Central and then here, and with all the differences, I imagine it slipped right past them.”
“And Crane I know what you’re thinking and I dearly hope you’re wrong.”
Tis Crane didn’t even bother with listening and slipped out the door. Listening and talking, that was pointless now; the perp probably already had his next victim picked out. Information was what she needed the kind that could answer all her questions. And there was only one place to go if you wanted the kind of information she desperately needed.
Tis stepped into the velvet padded room to find the old cynic staring at her.
“Thought you’d come around soon. And put that out, you know those thing ‘ill kill you” He said gesturing to her and then flicking a curling blond strand back behind an ear.
“Nice to see you still care, it’s so uplifting,” She flicked her cigarette out in the ashtray by the door. “Gabriel.”
“Well, now, I always take an interest in the living, and it seems to me you’re in that category, for now.”
“Thanks.”
“Much obliged.”
Tis sunk down into the chair across from him.
“So what have you come for today?”
“Like you don’t know,” she scowled.
He just stared back blankly.
“It’s the suicides, the ones in the papers.”
“Didn’t know you were back on the job?”
Tis didn’t even think that deemed an answer.
“You bloody well know I’m not back on the job and quit asking so many damn questions, especially the ones you already know the answers to.”
Silence carried over, and Tis watched hawkishly as he flipped through the book on his desk.
Damn, he always gets me riled up.
“Jena Parie was a medium”
“Really?”
“Yes really. Damn you half-breed…she was a M-E-D-I-U-M -- I don’t think I need to spell that out to you -- well technically she still is, just not on our plane, but you knew that already, and you probably already know that she and the rest of the suicides are shall we say…bloodless…for lack of better term.”
“You don’t say.” He looked up at the book he’d been reading, “You’re a bit testy this morning, don’t you think.”
“Oh fuck you!”
He just smiled.
“Unless that’s an offer dearie, no. You might do better reading this?”
He passed the dark, leather bound book he’d been reading over to Tis.
Tis just narrowed her eyes and snatched the book.
She flipped open the worn pages, to the part she thought he had been reading.
“Fucking hell,” she dropped the book open on the table, “it’s in Latin.”
“Really,” He just raised an eyebrow, “I hadn’t noticed.”
Tis mumbled to herself something along the lines of “of course you hadn’t noticed” and then something about “strangling someone with their tie”.
“Anything else,” He smiled again and leaned back in his chair, his suit ruffling at the movement.
“As a matter of fact no. But thank you for the…uh…book.”
“My pleasure as always.”
Tis lifted herself out of the chair, stuck the book in her jacket pocket and headed for the door.
“And by the way, try starting at page seventy, the rest of the book is pretty useless.”
Tis shut the door on his smiling smug face.
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