So as my last post stated I began writing a story. Well, it's turned into a 5 chapter story. The aforementioned friends have also asked to read it, so I caved to peer pressure. Here is the first chapter of the yet to be named story. Critics are welcome, but be gentle, I'm not a published author or anything. And of course enjoy.
Xander began to head to the window when he heard the knob to the door begin to turn.
Chapter 1
Every breath burned. He couldn’t stop running though. It was there. He could feel it’s eyes upon him.
More rain water hit his face as he stomped through a puddle next to the curb. It would have been refreshing, had he stopped to think about it. That wasn’t an option right now.
He rounded the corner, slamming into an older couple on their nightly walk. He continued running through the barrage of curses. He couldn’t stop. He could feel the eyes upon him.
Xander sat at the edge of the roof. He watched the man run into the older couple, but that didn’t slow him. Xander must have really put a scare in him. He thought that unusual for a familiar to be that scared of him.
He inhaled deeply. The city usually smelled like garbage, but the rain seemed to clear it for a bit. He loved the feel of it upon him. He could feel every drop. It felt cool and refreshing.
He shook the water from him and began to move across the rooftop. He easily leapt the space between the apartment buildings.
Xander kept pace with the man easily. He knew where the man lived, so it wasn’t an issue of losing him, but he wanted to talk to him as quickly as possible. He leapt the distance between buildings, picking up more speed.
He quickly overtook the man and sped past him. He glanced down. The man obviously thought he was still behind him by the way he kept looking back.
Xander stopped at the edge of the building he was on. With the ease of a cat, Xander chuckled at the thought, he dropped down to the fire escape. He vaulted over the side of the fire escape and down to the alley below. He landed lightly and quickly backed into the shadows.
He didn’t have to wait long. The man spun around the corner, sliding on the slick pavement. He kept his footing, using the opposite building’s wall to stop himself and barrelled down the alley. The man stopped a few feet away and braced himself on the dumpster Xander hid next to. He doubled over, his breathing erratic.
The man took one last look back and smirked. Obviously he thought he’d lost his pursuer. That made Xander smile.
The man walked past Xander’s hiding place, and in a flash Xander was on him. He shoved the man into the wall. “Hello Fink.” He growled.
The man’s eyes popped out of his head as he felt Xander’s hot breath in his face. “Xander, what’s up?” His obviously Levity of the situation didn’t sit well with Xander. He slammed the man into the wall again. It produced a whimper from Fink.
“Don’t play dumb with me! Where is he?”
“Where’s who? You have to be more specific.” Fink just didn’t learn.
Xander picked the man off his feet and easily flung him into the fence at the end of the alley. Five feet away. He advanced on Fink.
“You’re pushing your luck Fink. I may not be considered the worst of us, but you’re only a familiar. I can easily tear you apart.” This put the fear in Fink. He tried to back away, but only met the fence.
Xander reached down and grasped Fink by the throat. He slammed the familiar into the building again, this time it produced a pop. Fink groaned, but the hand at his throat stifled anything beyond that.
Xander dropped him to the pavement. “I think you broke my shoulder.” Fink mewled.
“I can do worse. Now where is he?”
“I’m not sure where he was taken. I know it’s down on the west end, where a lot of fronts are.”
Xander thought for a moment. It made sense to take him to the warehouse district. A lot of empty buildings where no one could hear a boy yelling for help. That was a lot of warehouses to look through though. Many of them Fink’s boss owned. Xander shivered off the rain that had accumulated on him and looked down at Fink.
“Who would know?”
Fink looked up at him. He shrugged, which produced a howl from him. He grabbed the man again and threw him against the dumpster.
“I don’t know!” He cried. “I only know there were a couple of them there when the boy was taken!”
Xander’s lips curled into a smile.
Fink watched as the dark shape cleared the ten feet to the ladder of the fire escape. In no time at all he was over the edge of the roof and out of site. Fink leaned back against the cool dumpster and breathed a sigh of relief.
Everything stopped when Jenny walked into the room.
It wasn’t that Jenny Cooper was unattractive, quite the contrary. She stood taller than average, almost six foot, with most of that legs. Her brunette hair hung midway down her back, usually pulled back in a pony tail. She had large, deep blue eyes that were very captivating, set above high cheekbones. She considered her eyes her best feature. She wasn’t gorgeous though, at least not by her standards.
Yet everytime she entered a crime scene everything stopped. I guess when you dealt mostly with addicts and prostitutes, anyone else was considered a supermodel.
She walked through the small, but very spacious, house to the two sheet covered bodies on the floor. From what she’d read in the file in her hands, it was quite a sad story. The two were Rex and Anne Smith. They weren’t well known by any means, but as far as Jenny was concerned, they’d been important to someone.
The two were foster parents. In the past year seven kids had passed through the house all happily adopted. To have two caring people like that murdered in their own home was a sad thought to Jenny. The parents weren’t her focus right now though.
“Have you found anything.” She said to the hunched over figure next to the bodies.
Ian Ratwood stood up and about choked on his tongue when he realized it was Jenny that was addressing him. Typical she thought.
“Uh, no.” He stammered. “About what?”
Jenny rolled her eyes at him. She stood a couple of inches taller than him, so it probably didn’t help his confidence for her to be looking down at him. She couldn’t help that.
“The file says that these two had one child in the house at the time.” She looked at the file. “A boy named Sam.”
“Oh, yes.” He ran his hands through his dirty blond hair, then adjusted his glasses. “Follow me.” He said starting off down the hall.
They walked to a room off to the right. The room had obviously been made up for a child. Sky blue walls, with a sunshine and clouds mural painted on over it. The room had lots of toys and a t.v and VCR combo in the corner. All in disarray.
“It looks like there was a struggle here.”
“Yeah, that’s what I deduced.” He must of thought that sounded rude because he followed up with an apology. Jenny didn’t even register it, she was busy scanning the room.
“It looks like the boy was hiding under the bed.” The bed lay on it’s side, mattress half fallen off. There was a large gouge in the wall where the post had hit it from being flung.
“Yes. That’s what I thought as well.”
Jenny walked over to the bed. She scanned the post. “What’s this?” She asked looking at four furrows taken out of the wood.
“That’s a good question.” Ian said. “I’m actually very interested in those.” He moved around to stand next to her to get a better look at the gashes. At least that’s what Jenny hoped.
“It’s odd, because here around the other side is another gash. That would lead me to believe that a human hand lifted the bed up and threw it.”
“But human nails wouldn’t leave a channel in the wood like this.”
“Exactly.” He nodded emphatically. “It looks more along the lines of a bear or a caninie.”
He headed back to the living room area, motioning Jenny to follow. The made their way over to the bodies. “I’ll show you the woman, she’s less torn up.”
He pulled back the sheet, revealing a short, dark haired woman with a round plump face. The face of someone who liked to cook. Deep, bloody cuts were scored across her face and neck. It looked as if she should have been attacked in the woods.
“It looks as if whoever broke in here brought an animal with them.” Ian stated.
“That doesn’t explain how an animal could throw a bed like that.” Jenny said nodding toward the bedroom. “Also it didn’t look like forced entry when I walked in. If someone had an animal that could do this, I doubt they would have let them in.” She wagged a finger between the two corpses.
That seemed to have stumped the forensic scientist, because gave a conceding shrug. Jenny looked around the house, but the crime seemed to be contained to the front and bed rooms. She gave Ian her card and told him to call if he came up with anything. He began to fumble over himself when she said it didn’t matter the time.
Jenny got into her car outside. She sat there for a moment, planning her next move. She would probably want to start with who would want to take the boy. She browsed through the file again. Nothing on where the boy had come from. She would need to find out who the boy’s social worker was and talk to them.
Xander watched the female detective pull away from the curb. She was beautiful he couldn’t doubt that, but he could smell trouble. She was trouble.
He’d have to wait until the cops left to be able to get into the house and corroborate Fink’s story that some one from a clan had been involved. He wasn’t sure he had that kind of time. He may just have to risk it.
He snuck up to the house through a neighbor's yard. He climbed through a large bush that left needles all over his clothes and made him itchy. He tried to ignore it as he snuck up to a back window. Luckily night was falling, so he’d run less risk of being seen by neighbors. He quickly glanced in the window. The window belonged to the bathroom. He ducked down and continued to the next window. He peeked in, this was the one he was looking for.
He climbed through the bedroom window and stood amidst the wreckage that had been left by the attacker. He didn’t need to be here long, just long enough to confirm the presence of one of the attackers.
He bent down to the deep furrows in the wood. He took a deep breath of the wood. Bingo. Killian had been here.
Cool stuff, man! Keep it going!
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