Free Rise of a Phoenix: Rise of a Phoenix by phill syron-jones

get a glimpse or an interview. As she pushed forwards, microphones were thrust into her face as requests from the press for any information and comments such as ‘was this one connected to the other killings?’ She sighed with incredulity at how quickly the media people had got there.
    Moving through the hordes of police she found herself with the ME, Tina, who was kneeling holding a clipboard looking over the remains of what appeared to have been a woman.
    “Is it the same guy?” McCall asked her friend, afraid of the answer.
    “Well, hi to you too!” Tina snapped at her without turning round.
    “What? Oh sorry Tina, Hi” McCall quickly apologized, with a ‘naughty puppy’ look on her face. “But is it the same guy?”
    “Well, our vic has had both arms removed and she has no blood present in her body, but until I get her back to the lab I can’t say for sure, although it has all the hallmarks of our boy, but till then...” Tina suddenly looked worried as she noticed something.
    “Strange thing, is this fresh?”
    McCall looked puzzled. “What do you mean, fresh?”
    The M.E stood up and called for the waiting orderlies to take the body away. “The others were at least a couple of days old, but this was done recently and quickly.”
    A chill went down McCall’s spine.
    “You figure that he’s stepping it up?” Tina nodded.
    McCall waited for CSU to do their sweep of the area, taking photos and searching for fibers and prints. Once they were finished, the female detective and her team went in. Tony stopped at the entrance and looked around.
    “Where’s Steel?” he asked.
    The others stopped and looked up and down the street to find no trace of the most recent addition to their team.
    “I don’t know and I don’t care.” McCall’s look was stern, she didn’t have time to babysit: if Steel wanted to be there he would have made the effort.
    “Screw him, that brother smells like trouble if you ask me,” Tooms’s voice bellowed. He didn’t give a damn about this John Steel, the case was his priority. The team made their way into the alleyway taking it inch by inch, searching for pieces to the puzzle.
    Each of them had spent at least an hour scouring through drains, under boxes, in fact anywhere a clue might be. Tony was doing door-to-door interviews to try and find someone who may have seen anything unusual in the last few hours, but turned up nothing.
    “God, sometimes I hate this city,” Tony grumbled. “I can’t believe nobody saw anything.”
    “Hey, that’s New York, man, if it don’t concern nobody, no one is interested.” Tooms had had enough, they all had. The case was burning them out, and the sooner it was finished with the better, but McCall had a bad feeling about this one. This was trouble.
    “OK,” she told them. “We can’t do any more here, so let’s head back to the station and pick it up from there.” The others nodded and they moved off. It’s going to be a long night , thought McCall, great, that was all she needed.
    High above them a figure knelt on the edge of a rooftop, his gaze following them to their vehicles as they made their exit. He stood up and his coat took to the breeze like some mythical bird, his shape silhouetted by the moon that shone brightly creating a long shadow on the rooftop. A cloud crept across the sky, briefly blacking out the moon, causing everything to go dark. In those seconds he was gone, as if he’d been carried off by the darkness.
     
     

ELEVEN
     
     
     
     
    The next morning at the station there was an air of panic as the news of yet another killing spread through the precinct, and it wouldn’t be long before the newspapers and TV stations had the grim information plastered all over the place, instilling panic throughout the city, a panic that the Captain was trying to avoid.
    The team searched through missing persons records, and took calls from possible witnesses as well as doing their best to fend off the press.
    McCall