Prologue

Just what I feel must naturally go at the beginning for now. This scene will definitely be used in the book.

Prologue

            The shade made everyone�"reporters, detectives, policemen, and even a few civilians that weren’t meant to be there�"crawl into the dark, cool alleyway. The wounded man waited for the paramedics to come while the man with the broad shoulders continued to talk with him.

            “And about how tall was she?”

            The man continued to stifle screams as he held his bleeding leg. “A-about f-f-four feet tall.” He grunted as he finished, and resumed his sitting there with his eyes closed. The man with the broad shoulders wrote some notes in his tiny pad, palm flat so as not to crush it. Once finished, he began to rub the bridge of his nose as he glanced at the policemen scanning the area with their flashlights, then quickly went back to the downed officer, still holding the bridge.

            “Four feet tall, and what weight?”

            The officer now looked distraught. “She looked about a hundred pounds!”

            At this the man with the broad shoulders knelt down, his knee an inch from the puddle of blood, glaring with hard amber eyes at him. “Listen,” he began sternly. “Why are you becoming so defensive? I’m asking you simple information about your attacker, the one who downed you. There’s no reason to raise your voice.” His broad shoulders were lowered, giving the impression that he would charge into the officer at any moment.

            The officer, obviously about half the man’s age, cringed away as he spoke. “I’m sorry, o-officer, but I didn’t think you’d b-b-believe me-argh!” The officer brought his leg to his chest, squeezing it for dear life.

            The man with the broad shoulders relaxed a bit, but still stared at the officer. “And why wouldn’t I believe you?”

            The officer gulped. “B-because she didn’t look like a woman.”

            At this the man with the broad shoulders put a (gloved) hand on the officer. “And what exactly did she look like, Swanson?”

            Officer Swanson gulped again, sweating profusely. “Sh-she looked like a little girl.”

            The man with the broad shoulders stood up, as the paramedics came in through the alleyway perpendicular to this particular one. The camera crew them made a scramble to the front, taking pictures of the crying Swanson as he was loaded onto the gurney and quickly and wordlessly taken out of sight to an ambulance a ways away. The man with the broad shoulders somehow managed to squeeze past everyone without being noticed by any of the reporters, making a mad dash to his ever-faithful-and-reliable Lincoln Town Car.

            Once inside, he fastened his seatbelt (just in case) and looked over his notes.

            “Let’s see,” he mumbled rummaging through his notes. “Four-foot-tall, about 100 pounds, with long hair of unknown color and unknown eye color . . .” He rubbed his bridge again, tapping it to make sure it wouldn’t cave in from a mounting pressure. “What a day, Alhart. What a day.”

            Suddenly, he heard footsteps in . . . high heels? He started the engine.

            “Detective!”

            “Start up, damnit!”

            He had to turn the key again. By then a gang of footsteps were on their way.

            “Mr. Detective, please!”

            “One question, detective!”

            But it was too late. His engine roared and, making no eye contact with the reporters at his window, sped after the hospital and its siren.

            He turned on a dirt road, leaving the ambulance and the trailing reporters behind. He then drove slowly, caressing his bridge, mumbling,

            “I have a feeling this’ll take a while.”

Author's Note

I've been out of practice for a while, so please forgive me if this is bad so far. I will be working on the official chapter one tomorrow when I get out of college (11:20 PST).