The Fallen King: The Bellum Sisters 4 (paranormal erotic romance)

THE
FALLEN KING

The Bellum Sisters 4

By T. A. Grey

Chapter
One

The dead girl lay on her back
facing whoever had ended her life. Her left arm curved around her head in a
plié and her right knee bent out towards the street.

“All right, Krenshaw, do your
thing.” Mike Waxell gave her a nod then went back to surveying the scene. Mike
was the lead detective on the case tonight. She’d worked with him a few times
before.

Abbigail sucked in a deep breath
and blew it out through her nose. She already had her latex gloves donned and
cloth booties covering her shoes. The booties weren’t always necessary, but in
this case there was so much blood the whole team had to wear them. Everything
would have to be processed. With stabbing victims the murderer often cut
himself too so the his or her blood may be on the ground too.

First
,
Abbigail took in the scene just as the detectives
would do. It helped her to get an idea of how the attack took place. She was
new at this, still had a lot to learn, but she was pretty good. She’d had an
excellent mentor who’d trained her under his wing and helped her to get this
job. God, she missed Stan.

They’d already determined the
girl to be a shapeshifter from a local pack who’d gone missing two nights
before. An elderly woman walking her poodle before she went to bed found the
body at the back of an alley between two brownstone city apartment buildings.
The residents of the Green Tree apartments peered down at her from their little
windows up above. Others, mostly curious neighbors passing by, watched the team
work from behind the yellow tape closing off the crime scene.

The alley was typical with A/C
units and small windows facing each other from both apartment buildings. This
path was only here for maintenance men who needed to work on the A/C units or for
the utility companies to check their power lines. A six-foot tall fence stood
at the back of the alley, and the girl’s body was found right in front of it on
a patch of concrete.

Abbigail looked back down the
path where the faces watched with morbid, avid curiosity. She noted the alley
to be only about twenty feet wide with the AC units taking up a good four of
that from either side. A small pathway. She’d spotted the large community-sized
dumpsters as she’d pulled into the lot. Why hadn’t the killer just dumped her?
Did he want the body to be found? Was he interrupted and had to be quick about
it? If he just happened upon her here and killed her that’d make sense. Except that
a shapeshifter being out this far away from her pack alone didn’t make any sense.
Shapeshifters stuck in groups, or at least the females did.

Abbigail squatted beside the
girl. She had brown hair, the natural kind that had hints of blonde from being
out in the sun. Her eyes were open, her face tilted towards the alley. The
majority of the blood had spilled from a neck wound. Abby leaned down to inspect
it. Could be a throat cutting or garroting, but more blood covered her abdomen
wetting the girl’s brown t-shirt to her skin. A cartoon cowboy riding a horse
and lassoing a whip above his head sat on her shirt. Above it in pink scrawling
text it said: Ride me cowboy! Abby cleared her throat and moved in with her
inspection.

One shoe had come off which had
been found at the beginning of the alley. The shoe probably came off during a
struggle.

As associate medical examiner for
the paranormal unit of the Fort Collins Police Department in Colorado, Abbigail
got to touch the body first. She shouldn’t even have the job she had. She was
too young, but she’d graduated high school a year early then went through a
special FBI program, a brand-new unit on studying supernatural cases. She’d
been surprised to find her classes not filled to the brink. Who wouldn’t find
learning about the supernatural beings of the world utterly fascinating?
Apparently many since her classes had sat half empty. That’s when she met Stan
Haubermann, a middle-aged detective turned behavioral profiler who’d started
the program. He’d taken her under his wing and taught her everything he knew.
Not that she was special; he’d done it to other members from her graduating
class. She was just the only one to already have a job practicing his teachings.

Abbigail gently pushed the victim’s
head back, to the left, and then right. The cut was deep and clean. Not a
serrated blade, and the wound wasn’t thin enough to be from a garrote.

“Definitely a blade,” she called
out. “Rigor mortis has set in. She’s been here at least four hours but probably
no longer than twelve.” Her skin had already begun to turn a purplish hue. Her
muscles were beginning to tighten.

Abby arrived at the scene at a
quarter passed eight. That meant the girl had been killed during the night.

The detectives quieted and came
closer. Detective Mike leaned down next to her as his keen eyes professionally
scoped out the body. Abby pressed her fingers around the neck to feel for
splintered or broken bones but found none. She lifted the shirt and the
detectives leaned over to peer.

“Stabbed her a good four times
then took out her neck I bet,” Mike said.

“That’d be my guess,” Abby
agreed, eyeing the deep red cuts in victim’s abdomen. “Arm bent that way, I’d
say he was holding her from behind and she’d reached back to try to get his
hair or pull his arm away, something. That’s when he slit her throat. She fell
down just like that, still reaching for him.”

“Check her hands,” Mike said.

Abby lifted each of the victim’s
hands paying specific attention to her nails, fingers, and palms. “Defensive
stab wounds.” They happen during knife fights or on victims of knife homicides.
The victims throw out their hands to try to dodge or block the swinging blade
and their own hands get cut in the process. Blood was caked under the victim’s
fingernails making them look murky brown.

“How old do you think she is? The
local shapeshifter alpha said the girl they’re missing is about seventeen.” He
glanced down at his notepad. “She fits the description. Went missing last
night.”

“Yeah, I’d say that’s right judging
from the size of the body, the facial features, and her teeth. Definitely a
teen. I’ll know more once we get her back to the lab.”

Mike stood, pulled out his
notebook, and scribbled down some notes. “Anything else for us?”

Abbigail looked back down the
path. “Definitely got stabbed at least the first few times at the beginning of
the alley. Blood drops lead us back here to the body. He dragged her here and
she lost her shoe in the struggle. She fought back, maybe even got away from
him for a few seconds when he started slashing at her giving her the wounds on
her hands. Eventually he got her turned around and slit her throat for the
final killing blow.”

“All right, we’ll have the body
sent down for processing. Let me know if you get anything else,” said Mike.

“Will do.” Abbigail walked down
the path then removed her bloodied booties and gloves, handing them over to
another crime scene investigator who held open a trash bag.

“Any luck?” he asked.

Abbigail shrugged. It was too
soon to say.

She headed to her car and saw
that it wasn’t even ten in the morning yet. Time to head home and try to get a
quick nap before they got the body down to the lab. She let out a jaw-cracking
yawn then took off for home.