Rise of a Phoenix: Rise of a Phoenix Read Online Free PDF Page A

her from her quarry.
    “Police, move ... NOW!” she yelled, holding up her badge. The carriage driver quickly whipped at the steed and they took off. McCall looked around, but the mystery man was nowhere to be seen.
    “OK, this guy is really starting to piss me off,” she thought to herself.
    Detective Sam McCall clenched her fists and screamed to the sky, as if to blame someone up in the heavens for sending this man to torment her.
     
     

FOUR
     
     
     
     
    It was another warm cloudless night and the stars in the heavens glistened like the millions of lights of the city below them, and the moon was full and massive, its brightness beamed upon the city, giving it a shade of icy blue. People went on their way to-ing and fro-ing, cars easing their way down the busy streets, but all had the same agenda: going home. A shadow passed down the street and slipped unnoticed into an alleyway. Silent as a whisper the man made it to a point in the darkness of the passage. He knelt down and scanned the area. Suddenly he rose up with the same ease as before, and moved to the row of large, heavy-looking garbage dumpsters. Something caught his eye and, slipping his hand between two of them, he grasped something; it was two dirty pairs of gloves, perhaps once owned by a homeless person. He examined them for a brief moment and slipped them into his jacket pocket.
    From down the far end near the entrance, two beat cops with flashlights approached the white coloured outline of a figure on the ground. The pair were discussing how in a couple of years they would be detectives, busting heads and getting rid of scumbags like the fella who did this murder. All of a sudden, they looked up to see a shadowy figure in front of them.
    “What the?” one of them yelled.
    “Hey you aint meant to be down here, buddy!” He reached for his pistol. Right at that moment the moon’s minimal light faded as a cloud covered it, rendering the alley pitch dark for a few seconds. The cloud passed and the alleyway was once more lit up like a winter’s morning. However the policemen were alone, the shadow of a man had disappeared.
    “Frank, let’s not tell anybody about this, right?”The larger of the two men said. His colleague just nodded and they both got out of there as if they had seen the Devil himself.
     
     

FIVE
     
     
     
     
    The morning brought a red sunrise that blazed across the sky as if the heavens themselves were on fire, and a multitude of colours filled the canvas of the early morning sky. Sam rose and started her normal morning routine as if it were ritual: get up, make coffee and hit the shower. As she sat and had her usual large bowl of sugary cereal, McCall scanned the news for what the media were giving away on this case. Luckily they had nothing, just some babble about a serial killer. Fine , she thought, the less that these vultures knew the better, for the moment at least; there were too many times when the press had messed up a case because they were too eager to put out information. She dressed and headed for work.
    The main hall of the precinct was full of people, some waiting to report something, others to get booked. McCall passed the desk sergeant, who waved to draw her attention.
    “Hey, Sam,” the large white-haired officer said, handing her a post-it note,
    “The Doc says she wants to see you.”
    “Thanks, Sarge,” she replied, then headed for the elevator.
    “Morning, Tina,” McCall greeted her friend.
    Tina Franks was slightly shorter than McCall but had more of an hourglass build. Where McCall had a more athletic look about her, Tina had more the build of a cheerleader. Her father was a marine whose family had come from the Jamaica’s and her mother had been a Brazilian law student studying in New York; her parents had met at a mutual friend’s party many moons ago.
    “Well it’s about time, girlfriend,” Tina replied jokily.
    “So what we got?” asked McCall, eager to get some news.
    “Well the