Angel in the Shadows (Jaxon Malone) Read online

  © Mary Heath, 2017.

  This publication is protected under the US Copyright Act of 1976 and all other applicable international, federal, state and local laws, and all rights are reserved, including resale rights. You are not permitted to give or sell this book to anyone else. Any trademarks, product names, service marks, or named features are assumed to be the property of their respective owners, and are used only for reference. All rights are reserved.

  The names, events, and character depictions in this novel are not based on anyone or anything else, fictional or non-fictional

  Angel

  in the

  Shadows

  By Mary May

  A note from the author….

  Hi, I wanted to drop in this small disclaimer stating that this story is strictly a work of fiction. While we are in a spiritual battle and will be until the Lord’s return, this story line is not biblically accurate. I created the idea of a Muharreb (Spirit Warrior) because I thought it was a fun idea to have humans and angels team up and fight evil side by side. So, with that being said I hope you enjoy Angel in the Shadows!

  God Bless!

  Mary May

  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  CHAPTER 1

  Jaxon punched the workout bag like it had insulted her mother. Giving it a series of short jabs, she wheeled around and nailed it with a high roundhouse kick. Ignoring the sweat that soaked her short dark curls and trickled down her face, she narrowed her eyes in concentration. The pain in her side and the throbbing in her hands and wrists were only slight distractions that she didn’t waste time acknowledging. She focused on the task at hand, which was to defeat the nameless, faceless, foe that was every criminal that had ever escaped her. Standing five foot four and barely weighing in at one hundred and twenty pounds, she had to keep the element of surprise on her side, and the surprise was, she was a second-degree black belt in karate and could kick your butt, if you gave her any opportunity.

  “You’re going to break your wrists if you keep hammering that bag like that.”

  Jaxon stopped, turning in the direction of the low raspy voice. Mitch had been her partner for over three years now. He was like the big brother she had never had. Like the father she had never had as well.

  “Here, at least wrap ’em up,” he said, tossing her the tape.

  Jaxon caught the tape one-handed then started pulling on the ties of her glove with her teeth.

  “For the love of Pete, are you trying to pull out your teeth as well?” With a deep sigh that spoke volumes, he walked over to untie the laces of her workout gloves. “I don’t know why you didn’t wait until I got here to work out. You knew I was coming.”

  Smiling up at his crinkled face, Jaxon just shrugged. “I could be done and showered by the time you hauled your old bones down here.” She watched as he gently wound the tape snuggly around her wrists and in between her fingers, being careful not to wrap them too tightly.

  “Old bones, huh? Seems I recall outrunning your bones the other night when we had to chase down Miguel.”

  Jaxon flexed her wrists after he was done then pulled her gloves back on. “I don’t recall that at all. What I recall was the fact that Miguel stank to high heaven and I had no desire to roll around on the ground with him. That’s what I recall.”

  “What are you saying? That you let me outrun you just because his smell offended your delicate snout?” Mitch held the bag while she continued her workout.

  She stepped in and out, dodging the bag as he would swing it at her. “Maybe, maybe not,” Jaxon said with a wicked little grin.

  Later that afternoon, they walked down to the evidence holding room. Jaxon was turning in the evidence that they had gathered up the day before. It was supposed to be turned in yesterday. Oh, well…oops! she thought.

  “Hey, Danny, how you doing? Have you lost weight? You look great! Seriously.” The officer in charge of logging in the evidence gave her a less-than-amused look.

  “Don’t even try it, Malone. You know good and well this stuff was supposed to be turned in no later than last night. Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t report you.”

  Jaxon sighed and dark blue eyes looked up at him from under a heavy fringe of naturally-thick, sooty lashes that rarely saw a mascara wand.

  “I can’t think of any reason, Danny. If you feel like you need to turn me in, then I understand.”

  The officer looked at her with narrowed eyes. “One more time, Malone. I swear one more time and I will nail you to the wall… tell me you understand.”

  Nodding her head while keeping her twinkling eyes downcast, Jaxon murmured, “I understand.” She turned in the evidence then walked back down the hall just barely keeping her grin hidden from view. She couldn’t count on both hands and both feet how many times Danny had given her that speech. She knew the rules and most of the time she was good about following them. But sometimes things slipped her mind. Like turning in evidence on time.

  “You know… you’re wrong for that. He could get in a lot of trouble. I have never seen him not turn someone in for not turning in evidence on time but you. He just lets you slide time and again.”

  Jaxon laughed as they walked out into the cold November air. “It must be my irresistible charm.” When Mitch grunted at her, she laughed. “Oh, lighten up, Mitch. It’s not the end of the world. What difference does it make if the evidence is turned in today or tomorrow, as long as it’s turned in?”

  Mitch shook his head at her. “I’m not even going there with you.”

  As they left the police department, Jaxon slid her sunglasses down onto her nose. The weather was balmy for this time of year in Detroit. Usually by late September the weather was turning cooler, but here it was the fifth of November and she didn’t even need a jacket. Walking to their patrol car, Jaxon kept one eye on the shadows that hugged the buildings and alleyways. She wasn’t one to be easily spooked, and she wasn’t now; she was ticked off! For the past week or so every time she would turn around she would get a glimpse of someone watching her. All she could see was a tall form in a dark hoodie. She got a glimpse once of a shock of white hair and dark sunglasses, but that was it. He would be there one second, and when she would look again he would melt into the crowd or back into the shadows. At first, she didn’t pay him too much attention. This was Detroit. The town was full of people that lived on the fringe of society. They would come out to see what was going on; then they would slink back to their burning barrels and hidden homes. But this guy, he felt different somehow. She didn’t get the homeless vibe, or the strung out and wasted vibe of a drug addict. He was all power and control. Whoever this was, he was no random bystander. But she would figure out his game; she always did. Jaxon didn’t make detective by the age of twenty-eight because she wasn’t smart. Shadow man’s time was ending and he didn’t even know it yet.

  “Looks like someone is having car trouble.” Mitch’s voice jerked her out of her inner musings. She looked up to see a blue sedan with its hood up sitting on the side of the road. She didn’t see anyone around.

  “Hang on, Mitch. Wait before you get out. Let’s drive by first and look things over,” Jaxon cautioned.

  Driving by slowly, they saw a woman sitting in the driver’s seat. She smiled and waved when she saw the patrol car. Jaxon pulled over and M
itch started to get out when the dispatcher’s voice crackled on the radio.

  “I got it, Mitch. You go see if you can help our damsel in distress.” He nodded then hefted his big body out of the car. Jaxon watched in the rearview as she reached for the mike of the radio. She saw the woman get out and smile at her partner right before she pulled out a pistol and started firing.

  The sound of the back windshield exploding had Jaxon diving for the floorboard in a shower of glass. She grabbed the mike on the way down.

  “Shots fired! Officer down! Repeat, shots fired! An officer is down! Requesting backup at Fourth and Madison!” Jaxon inched her way out of the car, exiting on the passenger side. She kept the car between her and the shooter. Belly crawling around to the front, she looked from under the car. From her location, she could see Mitch face down on the pavement. He was trying to reach his sidearm. She saw the feet of the woman approach him; then she heard another shot… his body flinched hard once more. Then it was still.

  “Oh, God…no, no, please no,” Jaxon begged the entity she didn’t believe in.

  The woman nudged his body and when she seemed satisfied that he wasn’t getting up, she started walking back to her car. Jaxon got to her feet with her pistol up, pointing it straight at the woman’s back.

  “Drop your weapon! Stop or I’ll shoot! Drop your weapon!”

  The woman stopped but kept her back turned. Jaxon stayed partially hidden behind the open driver’s side door.

  “Drop your weapon and get on your knees! Now!” She yelled out the order.

  The woman slowly turned around to face her and what happened next seemed to happen in slow motion. The woman raised the pistol once more, aiming it directly at Jaxon. Then there was the sound of gunfire. The woman jerked and fell face first to the pavement, a pool of blood quickly surrounding her head. Jaxon watched as Mitch’s arm fell one last time, his pistol sliding across the pavement. Running over to him, she lifted his head into her lap. The scream of sirens in the distance said help was coming. Mitch had most definitely saved her life but she knew it was too late to save his…

  The funeral service for Mitchell Roland Krause was very nice as services go, or so Jaxon heard. She didn’t attend. She knew she had made a lot of her fellow officers angry because of that, but she didn’t care. The only one she cared about they put in the ground, and he wouldn’t know if she was there or not. The only thing that mattered was getting back to work. Getting back to the only thing that made any kind of sense in her world, finding the bad guys and putting them away. Rubbing her burning eyes, she read the toxicology report once more. The woman who killed Mitch was out of her mind on the newest and latest batch of homemade brain rot. People on the street called it Hell Hash. She personally thought it was a fitting name for the crap, because surely it came from the very pits of hell, cooked up by Satan himself. Countless people both male and female, young and old, rich and poor totally got wasted on the stuff. Most were hooked after one try and they were the lucky ones. The rest got real dead…in a real painful way. Detroit City P.D. had no idea where this mess was coming from or who was making it. It just showed up out of nowhere a couple of months ago. Even their informants were clueless, or maybe they just weren’t talking.

  Jaxon wanted to slam her head against her desk sometimes. She hated drugs with every fiber of her being; no matter how hard she tried, drugs were always taking someone away that she cared about. Drugs had been a major factor in her life for as long as she could remember. Growing up on the “wrong” side of the tracks, her whole life had basically been one long episode of cops. Marcy Malone, her mother, was in and out of jail Jaxon’s entire childhood. Whenever Marcy was given a long “visit” in the state hotel, Jaxon would go stay with her grandmother.

  Staying with Grandma Lily was like staying in her own prison. She would force her to go to church and tell her that God was always watching her and she had better be good. Jaxon felt like God was just itching for any reason to toss her into the fiery pits of hell. Grandma Lily had already given up on her daughter, so she was trying her best to save Jaxon’s soul, or so she said. She used God and the Bible with all the finesse of a swinging sledgehammer. Jaxon would stay and endure her grandmother’s spiritual concentration camp until her mother was released from jail; then she would go back home until the next time, and there always was a next time.

  No matter how hard her mother tried, she couldn’t shake the drugs’ seductive call. When she turned fourteen, her mother finally had her final strike against her and was sent away for six years. It was while in prison that Marcy Malone finally found her release from her addiction. Unfortunately, it was from an overdose of poorly-made prison crack, leaving Jaxon alone.

  Jaxon had never known her father. She didn’t know the first thing about him except that he had split when he found out her mother was carrying her. So, she felt no love for him at all. Other than Grandma Lily she had no other family. When the day came that she knew she would be living with her grandmother on a permanent basis, Jaxon felt like she was being punished as well. Standing on her grandmother’s front porch with her bags at her feet, she decided that hell surely couldn’t be much worse than staying here…

  Jaxon stooped down to examine the body propped up against the brick wall a little closer. All the signs pointed to suicide, but the victim’s girlfriend wouldn’t believe that. After looking over the scene with more of an open mind, Jaxon wasn’t so sure either. It did seem an odd place to end it. She figured to each his own, but she doubted anyone would pick a parking lot of the local grocery store.

  “I’m telling you, Daryl would never take his own life. He was too self-centered to do that, not to mentioned too chicken. Someone is trying to make it look like a suicide, Detective.” The girlfriend, a bleached blonde named Tiffani Richards, would alternate between fits of hysterical crying and declaring her undying love to making scathing comments about the deceased. In Jaxon’s mind, that pretty much ruled her out as a suspect. True killers usually spoke so lovingly of the victims, almost to the point of worship. They wouldn’t go back and forth like this one was doing.

  “If that is the case, we will find the person who is responsible.” Jaxon watched as the woman nodded, her eyes filling with tears again. The medical examiner had already started taking pictures and detailing how the body was found. Something he said while speaking into his recorder clicked with her. She turned back to the girlfriend.

  “Ma’am, was your boyfriend left-handed, right-handed, or ambidextrous?”

  Tiffani shook her head. “I’m sorry I don’t know what that one word means, but Daryl was right-handed.”

  “Ambidextrous, it means he could do things equally well with either hand,” Jaxon explained. “Did you ever notice him using his left hand a lot? Even if he wrote with his right hand, someone who was ambidextrous would still use his left more than someone who wasn’t. It’s usually pretty obvious.”

  “No, I don’t think he was…whatever you said. Why would you ask me that?”

  Jaxon walked over to the medical examiner. “Correct me if I’m wrong, Doc, but don’t most people cut both wrists when they choose this method of self-extermination?”

  The doctor nodded. “Yes, usually, but not always. I have found that the ones that were the most serious about leaving this world will cut both wrists very deeply, leaving nothing to chance. This cut is very shallow, barely nicking the artery. I would imagine it took well over two hours for him to bleed out. To me that would mean he either wasn’t very committed to seeing this out or…”

  “Or someone opened his vein up for him. If he were going to cut one wrist, he would have used his right hand to cut the left wrist, not the other way around. Not to mention there isn’t enough blood here for this to be the place where he bled out.” Jaxon walked back over to Tiffani.

  “I think you’re right. I have enough proof to hold the body for a few days.”

  After the body was loaded into the medical examiner’s van, Jaxon walked slowly b
ack to her car. This was when she missed Mitch the most. Right now, they would have been discussing the case, throwing ideas and theories back and forth. They would most likely go to the nearby diner and order something. Her meal would be a salad with steamed fish. His would be a double bacon cheeseburger with a triple chocolate shake. She smiled when she remembered how she would eye his loaded cheeseburger with undisguised lust while stuffing lettuce down her unwilling throat. Mitch would chew and moan in culinary delight to tease her. She never understood how he could eat pure garbage every day, never hit the gym except to aggravate her, and his health be near textbook perfect. No high blood pressure, no high cholesterol, even his bad cholesterol was good! Life truly was not fair.

  “I miss you, my friend. I hope you’re eating your way through a never-ending cheeseburger, wherever you are.”

  Jaxon reached into her pocket for her keys when a movement against the building across the street caught her eye. There he was again! Shadow man! There wasn’t anything going on out on the street right now for him to be interested in except her. The dark figure quickly faded back into the alley.

  “I got you now!” she whispered as she tore off after him. He had just made the mistake she had been waiting for. The alley he ducked into came to a dead end between two buildings that were over ten stories. There was nowhere for him to go unless he could fly.