Fallen Angel (Book 1 of the Caelli Rivers series)

By Naomi Lara

Melbourne is in the grip of fear as a serial killer stalks the streets, murdering innocent people in gruesome ways. There are no clues, no suspects and no end to the carnage in sight. Caelli Rivers is a homicide cop caught between two worlds as a three thousand year old banshee living among humans. She needs to stop the killer, otherwise all hell just might break loose.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Naomi Lara
• Release date: Dec 26, 2010
• ISBN: 9781458097040

Naomi Lara

I've been writing for more years than I care to count, but I love it. Fallen Angel is a story that's taken me about two years to write and it's been a wonderful journey. I am working hard to publish this story, so if a publishing company is interested, please feel free to contact me. Fallen Angel is Book One of my series. I'm already hard at work on the sequal, Dark Autumn, which is going to be mind-blowing. A little about me: I am an adventure lover; I kind of wish I was born about 150 years ago - I'll be one of those crazy girls trailblazing through the uncharted Amazons or Australia. I'm also really interested in playing sports and in challanging myself by doing things such as climbing, splunking, hiking and all that fun stuff. I also am a volunteer with a rescue organisation, so I'm involved in all sorts of things that have given me the opportunity to learn some great skills and to have some amazing experiences. To contact the author, please email at: [e-mail]

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Fallen Angel

Naomi Lara

Fallen Angel

Naomi Lara

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

Copyright 2010 Naomi Lara

Smashwords edition published: December 2010

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and id not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my evil minions who vetted my book and braved my wrath by making helpful suggestions. Renai, Aiden, Shaun, Rosaria, Raven and Penny, that especially includes you – I appreciate all of the little nitpicks and specialised information that you guys agreed to share with me. Joe, you also get a thanks for suggesting to me an alternate idea. I also have to thank Mr. Hollingsworth – you found the writer in me and gave me wild dreams to follow. I got there in the end. Thank you.

Chapter One ~ Monday Mourning

Her hand tightened spasmodically on the grip of the gun; cold, ridged plastic meshed tightly with hot, sweaty palms as she shouldered the utility door open. The stairs swept down into a featureless corridor, interspersed with doors at irregular intervals. Cautiously, she descended the steps. The door closed with a bang behind her.

Shadows danced about, flickering in the light of the overhead exit sign, taunting her with plenty of places for a monster to hide. Caelli muttered under her breath and blinked her eyes rapidly. The shadows flittered around her in disregard. She was still night blind from being top side.

Now she was stuck in the service corridor with a killer who wasn’t quite so unfortunate.

Come out, Thomas. I know you’re here.

Silence.

She felt the cold permeating her thin clothes and seeping into her bones. The freezers must be nearby. She could feel their rumble under her feet as she stepped onto the floor proper. Caelli swept forward, muzzle of the weapon angled down to the floor. Where the hell was back-up?

He couldn’t have escaped. The entire building was sealed and all exits were covered. Moment by moment, the net was closing on the killer, driving him into a corner. And when rats are cornered, they fight back.

Maybe she should have stood by and let the special ops group handle this.

Coulda, shoulda, woulda. Hindsight was a bitch. You would think having the accumulated wisdom from three thousand years of living would be an advantage. Not today.

Footstep behind.

Caelli whirled, her arms and gun rising. They were intersected with a metal pipe that drove the weapon from her hands and somewhere into the darkness under the stairs. Pain flared up her right forearm and she strangled down a scream. No time to even do that.

She jerked backwards, the backswing of the pipe rived the air in front of her. Thomas came around again for seconds. Caelli stepped into the swing, catching Thomas’ arm against her forearms and braced. The pipe swung impotently past her. Her hand latched onto his wrist while she sunk her elbow into the flesh of his gut, the manoeuvre followed through with the back of her fist into his face.

Now in taekwondo practice, it was considered good form to hold still for a fraction of a second while a wrist lock was applied. Apparently, Thomas had a very different idea. He hauled the pipe back and broke free of her grasp and shoved her in the chest.

She staggered backwards, trying to get some fighting distance between her and Thomas, only to have her high heel snag on a crack into the linoleum. Caelli fell backwards onto the floor with a curse.

Thomas hefted the metal pipe over his head and grinned. Fuck you.

The pipe came racing down, with every ounce of anger and strength he possessed in his wiry frame. Caelli scissored her legs against his, her leg hit the front of his ankles, and the other kicking viciously behind his knee and she threw her body to the right in a roll.

Thomas’ pipe flew over her head as with a gasp, his knees gave out from under him. He sprawled face-first onto the floor as she leg-locked him. Taking advantage of his downfall, Caelli untangled her legs from his and lunged forward to shove her knee and all of her weight into his spine. She couldn’t help but smirk with satisfaction at feeling muscle grinding against bone. Thomas screamed and bucked but couldn’t dislodge her.

She ignored the stream of obscenities. Some people were just sore losers. Thomas Hudson, you’re under arrest for the murder of Tyler and Grace Hudson.

Doors burst open on either side of the corridor, flashlights bounding off the walls, driving away the shadows as the rest of the team decided to crash the party. Sam pushed himself free of the milling cops in combat uniforms and helped her onto her feet while Thomas was thrown to the special ops group.

Cal? You okay?

Sam’s suit was covered in dust from the search. Caelli doubted her dress was in any better shape. Just peachy keen. A quick look confirmed her worst suspicions. She tried to brush the worst of it off the green stain, but it was tenacious.

Damn it. Bridgit was going to give her hell; that had been her favourite dress.

Caelli cased her eyes around and saw the muzzle of the semi-automatic poking out from under the stairs. So that’s where Thomas had been hiding. She had assumed that the stairs were solid, but only the top section had been sealed, with the bottom portion open and accessible. Oops, rookie mistake.

She grabbed her weapon and holstered it. Not a bad effort for a night that was supposed to have been spent observing Thomas. Pity he sussed it out and made a run for it, it kind of forced their hand. End result, they collared the bad guy. Bonus. That lead to paperwork and debriefing, not so great.

Yippee.

All she wanted to do was crawl into bed and curl up.

~~~~~

The radio in the kitchen blared ‘American Woman.’ Caelli wasn’t American. She wasn’t even from the North American continent. But she definitely was a woman.

She sang along with gusto as she rushed around, getting ready for work at the last minute.

She hurriedly yanked a brush through her long mahogany hair, wincing as a hank came out, she deftly pulled the long tresses into a ponytail. It fell half way down her back in rich, glorious waves.

You know, you could sleep in for half an hour. Your boss isn’t going to mind. You only got home five hours ago. Warren poked his head into the bathroom, brown eyes twinkling in bemusement and his voice laden with good-natured humour laced with a touch of concern. Unlike her chaotic morning ritual, he was already dressed in typical business attire.

Give me a cup of coffee and the world will be well. Caelli grinned and bounded out of the bathroom, letting her fingers trail across the soft cotton that covered his stomach playfully. She lingered for a moment, inhaling the woody scene of aftershave.

Mmmm, very nice. She strode to the bedside table and pulled out the .40 semi-automatic pistol from the top drawer, where it had not been lying on top her Victoria Secret lingerie. A quick check of the magazine and slide assured her it was intact and loaded and none the worse for wear from last night’s little trip.

Satisfied, she slid it into the holster and called over her shoulder, I do need you to…oh.

Warren towered over her, complete with a mug of hot coffee with a self-satisfied smirk. His strong body was the result of many years dribbling balls up and down a basketball court. He was athletic, handsome, witty and very domesticated.

She took a gulp of coffee and took a moment to appreciate the view. Gah! She spluttered in disgust. She kept forgetting that coffee before brushing her teeth was the way to go. Thanks. She said sheepishly, slipping her warrant card and badge into her pant pocket. Will you be late today?

Probably. I have three boxes of evidence to submit to the court and two witnesses to cross. He was a criminal prosecutor. In her book, that made him one of the good guys.

I’ll keep dinner in the oven then. Caelli was alternatively gulping down coffee and zipping up her riding leather jacket. ‘American Woman’ wound down, and then kicked up into ‘Who Are You?’, and she was dancing around again. Morning radio was so chipper.

A little thought tickled in the back of Caelli’s mind as she was about to walk out the door. Shoot! Got a class tonight; I’ll pick up a pizza.

Don’t forget your uniform. Warren’s calm voice followed on her heels.

Shoot!

Warren laughed as she tore down the hall, re-emerging after a few moments with a backpack slung over her shoulder. See you, gorgeous. He gave her one last kiss before she bolted out of the door.

Caelli zipped up her leather jacket as she flew down the stairs to the apartment complex’s garage. She hurried over to the black Kawasaki Ninja propped up against a wall, shrugging her backpack on. Two minutes later, she was roaring down Woodland Street, a gleeful grin hidden under her dark helmet. Life was good.

~~~~~

Caelli was a banshee, a Celtic harbinger of impending death. Thousands of years ago, Caelli and her sisters littered Ireland, screaming their cries before the death of a person. Thousands of years ago, the gods and goddesses roamed the earth and meddled in the affairs of ordinary men and women. They started and ended wars, they goaded and tricked warriors into breaking their geas’, they drove lovers apart or brought them together.

Today, it might have almost seemed like a late-afternoon soap opera.

The gods had real power back then. Physical, tangible power, that was fed by the sacrifices and the devotion of the masses.

But in the thousands of years between the height of their power and today, the sacrifices had stopped and devotion of millions had waned to a mere trickle interested in the Celtic revival – many thanks to Michael Flatley.

Stripped of their power and lowered to the status of a dead, pagan religion, they surrendered their grip on Ireland and Gaul and slipped quietly away into the Celtic fairylands, known as sidhes. Most of the spirits and supernatural beings, such as the fey and leprechauns, joined them. In their sidhe, life could continue as it once did on the Earth’s surface.

Some were like Caelli and preferred to live among the humans despite the waning of their powers. Humans were interesting creatures; they could be noble and beautiful, or petty and monstrous. Whatever it was, a lot of fey immersed themselves into human society. In some ways it mirrored their own, while still being alien enough to be intriguing.

As a harbinger of death, Caelli used to be feared and venerated by all of Ireland, but particularly by the Kavanagh family. She was their personal banshee. She had haunted them from the creation of their dynasty in the 12th century. The problem with the Kavanaghs was that through various treacheries, double crosses, murders, poisonings, and duels, they succeeded in polishing themselves off. Oh, and pissing off the English and Oliver Cromwell didn’t do them in good stead either.

The line died out in 1632. Which was just as well, she had gotten bored of them.

Finally freed of her duty, Caelli became a free spirit. She did the death knell for everyone now, equal opportunity death warning.

As a supernatural spirit made flesh, the woman had three attributes going for her: she was immortal, immune the twin scourges of age and disease, and she possessed the blood-curling, straight-out-of-hell scream that she and her brethren were famous for.

As a banshee, Caelli was drawn to death; fed off it. It was probably why she felt so at home as a homicide cop working the Melbourne beat.

~~~~~

Unzipping her jacket she strode purposefully into the non-descript century old cottage in Parkville. Even the division headquarters for the homicide squad went undercover.

You’re late again. Peters chided her over the partition between their desks. He was a product of an earlier generation who believed that doughnuts and coffee were the staples of police food. It showed. His greying hair was combed over his scalp in a half-hearted attempt to cover the ever-increasing bald spot, blood shot eyes watched her, rimmed with the faint yellow of jaundice from too many nights of hitting the bottle to dull the pain.

He was due for retirement in just over a year’s time, if his liver didn’t fail him first.

Citylink, traffic was gridlocked.

You ride a motorcycle.

Yeah… She had no witty retort to that and chose to ignore it instead. She sat down and flicked on her computer, humming snippets of ‘American Woman’ under her breath as she impatiently drummed her fingers. The Window’s log in screen came and went and she started to finally be able to pry through her emails.

Apparently ‘Lustful4U’ thought she needed penile enhancement. Delete.

Several similar messages followed it into the trash. Engrossed at weeding out spam mail, she missed seeing her supervisor heading in her direction.

Detective, my Office. Bring Sam. Senior Detective Gleeson’s gruff voice behind her made her jump.

Yes, boss. Caelli called out to his already departing back. She glanced over at Peters. What’s that all about?, she asked after he was safety out of earshot.

Peters leaning forward conspiratorially. There was another murder last night in Maidstone. Scuttlebutt says it’s a serial.

Got to have more then one to be a serial. Caelli frowned. After a moment, she frowned. Has there been more then one?

Peters shrugged. Not enough info…yet.

It took Caelli a few minutes to find Sam who was in the small old-fashioned kitchen with his nose in a paper and a coffee in his hand Hey Sam, we’re up!

Sam shook his head, his shaggy blond locks bouncing in disapproval. What did you do this time? He tipped the sludge that passed for percolated coffee down the sink away and they headed back down the long narrow hall towards the office area.

Caelli gave him a withering look. Ha ha, very funny.

Call it a wild guess, but I suspect we have a job?

Read the newspaper this morning?

Nope. What happened?

Suspicious death in Broadmeadows.

Broadmeadows? Probably a drug hit or a domestic gone wrong.

That’s what they always say.

~~~~~

It was a job.

But not in the bogan capital of Broadmeadows. This crime took place in the small suburb of Maidstone.

Five murders in four months. There was another one last night. Gleeson welcomed them into his office, gesturing for the last one in to close the door. He flipped them a large case file as he verbalised the basics of the story. Originally considered to be separate murders, we’re beginning think they’re actually connected.

A serial? Sam asked as he leafed through the case notes and photos.

Definitely, but they’re erratic. There’s no discernable pattern to the timing.

So we’re looking at an opportunistic killer? Caelli suggested.

Perhaps.

Bennet tilted his head at the photos, uncannily reading more into them than most. The photos spoke volumes to him. There’s no pattern in the vics here.

What is consistent is the lack of consistency. Gleeson agreed. You’re going to have to work hard and fast on this one. Command is assembling a task force on this one, and when that happens, you’ll be off the case. I want to get the bastard before that happens.

Sam perused the files, shuffling paper around. Caelli craned her neck to catch bits and pieces of information, three males, two females; different ages, ranging from childhood to middle-aged; different locations; different methods of murders. He muttered, his brain cataloguing and analysing the information.

Not a very neat killer. Caelli noted, her eyes registering the blood splattered locations of the murders, all of them having copious amounts of blood loss, although interestingly enough, each had a different MO. Stabbed, slashed, battered…anything went for this killer.

The only thing linking them were trace amounts of impure calcium carbonate dissolved in external blood. Gleeson added. Coroner’s last two blood samples came back positive. He’s rechecking the others.

From the victims? Caelli asked quizzically, flicking through the papers.

Under them. They suspect it may be limestone powder. He shrugged helplessly. As to the reasons….

Sam and Caelli shared a look. We’ll get to work on it. Bennet assured their boss, speaking for the both of them.

149 Ashley Street, Maidstone. High tail it before the brass knows you’re there.

Yes, boss."

Good. One last word, keep it quiet. Once the media get wind of it, it’s going to be plastered on every street corner. We’re going to have the politicians breathing down our backs not to mention the media dogging us and mass panic on the streets. I don’t need it or want it.

Chapter Two ~ Victimology

Sam stepped over the threshold of the small Californian style bungalow. The carpet underfoot was in bad shape, tattered and threadbare, its edges frayed with age.

The cluttered living room was being dusted by forensic scientists garbed in blue coveralls, having completed the primary scene.

Sam turned his head towards Caelli who was following behind, hands clasped behind her back. Do you smell that? He asked quietly as they slowly paced through the house, eyes darting around to spot anything amiss, trying not to step on any evidence.

Blood. The coppery tang of it cloyed the musty air, making it thick and heavy. There was something else underneath it. Caelli sniffed the air, peeling back the layers. Smoke. It was getting stronger as they neared the sleeping area of the house. Wormwood, maybe sandalwood, certainly organic matter. She identified the elusive scent. Incense and herbs.

They stopped outside the master bedroom when another police officer briskly strode out, his hand up in warning. Whoa, you may not want to go in there. It’s not pretty.

Sam and Caelli both displayed their badges. Detectives Sam Bennet and Caelli Rivers. What can you tell us about the scene? Sam asked stepping to the side, signalling to the uniformed officer to move away so that Caelli could duck into the room.

Middle aged male, identified as Mark Worthington, self-employed gardener and handyman. He glanced and saw Caelli smoothly slide into the room.

Sam cleared his throat, getting the officer’s attention. Anything particular about the scene when you entered? Noises, footprints, objects left lying around, cars outside? He asked, notepad open and pen poised.

No, nothing like that. The officer shook his head and submitted to Sam’s questions.

~~~~~

With questions time done, Sam stepped into the room allowing the uniform to leave.

Well? Caelli asked as she stood quietly at the foot of the bed, her hands still clasped behind her back. She appeared serene despite standing in a room splattered with gore. The remains of Mr. Worthington were lying across the bed, his arm outstretched towards the opposite wall. It looked as if he had been clubbed to death, his head visibly deformed. His throat was cut almost to the spine.

Coroner’s on his way. Sam replied softly.

Any witnesses?

Nothing reported. We’ll check with despatch and CrimeStoppers when we get back to the station. He paused and leaned forward, trying to make heads or tails of the bloody mess of the man’s chest. Anything of interest?

No, not that I can see, but the Columbian neck-tie is rather grotesque. She stepped back from the bed and very carefully tip-toed over to the glass sitting on the bedside table. Slipping on latex gloves, she gingerly picked it up and held it under Sam’s nose.

Nothing. He shrugged.

I think tox is more effective then a sniff test. Caelli grinned as she replaced the glass. Her new position had given her another angle of observation. Hey…limestone powder. There seemed to be a line of it on the cream bed sheet in the triangle between the chest and the left arm.

Sam leaned down over her as they looked at the neat line. That’s not powder…its chalk. Looks like there’s more underneath him, the pattern seems to be circular. He indicated the gentle arc that disappeared underneath the bloody body. He was itching to move the body to satisfy curiosity.

Forget it, the blood underneath would have disrupted the chalk, anything that was there is gone now. Caelli straightened up and stepped back so she wouldn’t mess up the scene. You think it’s a giant X – here marks the spot?

No idea. Sam made a mental note to check the five previous deaths for chalk.

The uniformed officer returned, ducking his head in the room. It appears that he came in through the back door.

He? Sam turned and glanced at the senior constable. It’s dangerous to have assumptions like that without proof. He said softly as he followed the officer towards the back room.

Caelli heard them leave and took a deep breath. The stink of blood didn’t bother her. She observed the site clinically. The use of some sort of incense might indicate a ritual, the chalk drawing too. The problem was, her supernatural antennae weren’t picking up any hinky vibes. Sighing, she quit the bedroom and followed the hall back down to the living room. A quick glance at the bookcase confirmed that