Dark Wings Descending

Goodness may appear in many forms; evil need only take one.

The Chicago PD Deviant Data Unit specializes in the dark and cruel aspects of criminal behavior. When a serial killer who leaves his victims oddly posed starts terrorizing the city, Detective Rafe Douglas leads the team tasked to find this sadistic killer. Still recovering from severe injuries sustained in the line of duty, Rafe’s tenuous hold on what is real is further tested by someone who wants in on the case and won’t take no for an answer.

Private Investigator Ashley Scott experiences the world through unveiled eyes. She alone can see that Hell’s inhabitants are breaking free from their confines and are bringing their evil to Earth. She believes the killer isn’t human and knows she has to convince Rafe there are more things happening in the Windy City than anyone could possibly realize. Only together can they solve the secrets revealed in the killer’s brutal slayings.

Dark Wings Descending

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Dark Wings Descending

© 2012 By Lesley Davis. All Rights Reserved.

ISBN 13: 978-1-60282-700-4

This Electronic Book is published by

Bold Strokes Books, Inc.

P.O. Box 249

Valley Falls, New York 12185

First Edition: May 2012

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

Credits

Editors: Cindy Cresap and Stacia Seaman

Production Design: Stacia Seaman

Cover Design By Sheri ([email protected])

Truth Behind the Mask

Playing Passion’s Game

Dark Wings Descending

Thank you, Radclyffe, for your untiring support and fantastic encouragement always.

To the Bold Strokes family of writers and staff that bind us all together stronger than any Force I know!

For Cindy Cresap, who constantly has to tread through the mine field of Brit speak and does so with such grace, and amazingly, very little swearing! I appreciate everything you do for me and the care you take with my writing. You truly rock.

Thank you, Stacia Seaman, for making sure that nothing sneaks past on your watch! You are a great companion on this writer’s journey!

Thank you, Sheri, for another amazing cover that just blows my tiny mind! You’re fantastic!

For Wayne Beckett, for always supporting me in all I endeavor to do.

For Jacky Hart and Jane Morrison for never ceasing to offer support, friendship, and gentle hints for me to put my controller down and get back to writing for them!! Thanks guys!!

And for Cindy Pfannenstiel, with much love and thanks to you always.
xx

To the ones who watch over us and keep us safe from harm.

The dead woman was laid out in the alley like a grotesque mannequin, half-naked and fixed in pose. She lay on her back with one arm reaching up above her head while the other lay at her side. Her blond head was tilted as if to follow where her arm was pointing, her sightless eyes fixed on a point somewhere down the dark alley. A dark red stain spread underneath her from waist to shoulders. The blood fanned out, glistening like an oil spill framing her upper torso. Clouds shifted across the pale moon, and for a brief moment, the horror of what lay in the alley disappeared from view. Lost to the dark that blanketed the city. Dead to the night.

Ashley Scott leaned a little further out over the fire escape railing. The flashes from her camera lit up the alley like bolts of lightning. She stepped back into shadow as she heard the familiar wail of sirens racing to the scene she had just anonymously called in. She checked her watch. “Three minutes. Guess three murders in just over a month will make you skip a few red lights.” Carefully, she picked her way down the fire escape steps, then settled herself out of sight in a doorway well out of light’s reach. She watched the police cars draw up and scanned the faces of the officers who began to secure the scene. She didn’t spot the forensic team’s black SUV and strained to hear the conversations of the busy police as they cordoned off the area until the team’s arrival. She garnered the exact piece of information she needed from their chatter and furtively cast a look around. “Where’s a telephone booth when you need one?” she muttered, then stepped out of the doorway and strode purposefully toward the crime scene tape.

Ashley nodded at the policewoman guarding the alley entrance. “Evening, Officer Atkinson.”

“Hi, Jim,” Officer Atkinson replied and lifted up the crime scene tape for Ashley to slip under. Ashley headed straight for the body, snapping off photographs on her way to document the whole scene from close quarters. She took as many photos as she could, aware that the medical examiner was standing nearby.

“Evening, Jim,” Dr. Joseph Alan greeted her absently, patiently waiting for her to finish so he could get back to his own work. “Third dead woman we’ve been called out to looking like this. I hate to say it, but I’m beginning to see a pattern emerging.” He looked at the sky. “There’s not some strange planetary alignment going on that we don’t know about, is there?”

Ashley edged closer to the body, clicking her camera the entire time. She carefully stepped around the spreading blood. “I think Jupiter is right where it should be, Dr. Alan. Some people don’t need their stars aligned to kill.”

He shook his head. “What is the world coming to when a killer can’t leave a calling card so we can identify him from the rest of the crazies?”

“There was still nothing left on the body at all?” Ashley was aware of the previous victims. She’d been at the last one’s final resting place too. She steeled herself to stand over the woman and her eyes swept down the posed body. She couldn’t prevent the shiver of horror that chilled her to the bone at the look of abject terror frozen on the dead woman’s face. “She took a nasty blow to the head this time.”

Ashley’s camera flashed to document the injuries. She noticed how the woman’s hair had been swept out of its natural parting to hide the wound. Did the killer regret what he’d done and had made some attempt to make her beautiful once more? Ashley found herself unable to look away from the woman’s face. What had once been a pretty visage was now a contorted mask of fear. “Nasty neck wound too.” Ashley saw the deep slash that had slit the woman’s throat wide open.
Hope it was quick
. She made her way down the posed body, noticing how the woman’s clothes had been ripped to shreds. “I can’t get my head around this one, Doc. The killer rips open their jackets and shirts and pulls down their skirts or pants, but there is no sign of a sexual assault.” She took a few more pictures, frowning at the state the clothing had been left in. “The clothes are cut off strangely,” she said to herself. “Almost like they were just in the way. As if leaving the body unclothed wasn’t to defile them, it was just a simple act of moving the cloth out of the way so he could get to what he wanted.” She took a step back and called the medical examiner forward. “Care to do the honors, please?” She moved around so that the doctor could ease the body over for her.

Ashley grimaced as she saw the familiar trait of this particular killer. “And again with the ripping open of the back.” She took her photos, making sure to capture the horrendous wounds. The skin had been cut right through to the bone, exposing the spine itself. Jagged cuts ran from the base of the neck down to the hips. The skin was pulled back and everything else had been hacked at to reveal the bones inside. “Why would you kill someone just so you could rip open their body to expose their backbone?”

“Maybe he’s searching for one of his own?” Dr. Alan said as he placed the woman back on the ground reverently once Ashley signaled she was finished.

Ashley spared him a look. “He doesn’t even take a piece of disc with him. You’d think if he was cutting someone open to get to their spine he’d want something specific from it.” She watched as he got back to his feet with a groan. “You okay there?”

“I’m too old to be dragged out of bed to come to yet another dead woman in an alley,” he grumbled.

Ashley looked him over, seeing a balding, slightly overweight man in his late fifties who had seen death in all its forms for way too many years. “I’d say you still have plenty of years left, Doc. Then you can retire on that yacht of yours with Mary and kiss Chicago good-bye.” She looked at him over the top of her camera. “You’ve got grandbabies to bounce on your knee one day before you even think about getting too old.”

“I hope you’re right. I’d rather deal with them than any more of these.” He stared down at the body. “I estimate time of death at being barely an hour ago.”

Ashley nodded, knowing that was roughly the time she’d been informed that another body had been left. “And no one saw or heard anything again, I bet.” She looked up at the surrounding apartment buildings that crowded the alley like protective monoliths.

“This killer strikes so fast they don’t have time to make a sound.” Dr. Alan pointed at the victim’s neck wound. “He comes up behind them and cuts their throats open, very effectively silencing them.”

“He’s got to be covered in blood,” Ashley said, looking at her feet. She had been making sure her boots didn’t touch any of the blood that stained the ground. “Yet there are never any partial prints left behind.”

“He’s clean and efficient all right. It’s like the devil himself slips in and brings his own hell on earth.”

Ashley’s whole body tensed at his words. She forced herself not to react and just continued taking photos. She looked at the dead woman, her sightless eyes wide open and her last terrifying moments etched permanently on her face. Her mouth was left open in an endless silent scream as she lay posed reaching for…what? Ashley shook her head.
Salvation maybe
?
Someone who could stop the madman?
“I think the devil’s been here all along, Doc, but only a few of us recognize his handiwork.”