The Infernalia Chronicles serial
Chapter 1/13
Darkness. It began with darkness.
Darkness and the sharp, acrid scent of blood.
Shadows blotting out the moon, a flash of luminous blue eyes in the night, the thunderous flapping of feathered wings coupled with the wet gurglings of someone dying.
Flashes of the faces of two men, both stunning in their chiseled and exotic appeal. One porcelain pale with eyes a glowing biohazard green, the other with a darkened expression and black eyes deeper than the Mariana Trench.
Carmelia stood between them, clad in nothing but a simple and flowing white dress. Both men extended their hands to her as if to ask for a dance, one caressing her cheek with cool fingertips, the other slapping her hard across the opposite cheek with a hand that felt as though it should burst into flames. She raised her shaking hand to touch the blazing place on her visage where his hand cruelly connected, stunned to find cool wetness there.
Trembling harder, Carmelia brought her hand in front of her face to inspect it, surprised to see the specks of crimson that hovered on the tips of her fingers. A bead of it quivered momentarily before falling from her hand to crash onto her pristine garment, the droplet suddenly becoming a deluge that soaked her from head to toe.
Carmelia Jianni Sarvino awoke with a scream trapped in her throat, falling out of bed in a tangle of sweaty sheets and her own twisted pajamas. The world around her swam into focus and she reassured herself that it had only been a dream. She frantically touched her face, heaving a sigh of relief as she discovered that her skin hadn’t been raked open by a pissed off looking Asian man in a suit. And she wasn’t swimming in blood—her own, or anyone else’s.
A glance at the red LED of her alarm clock shouted into the darkness that it was 3:33 AM. Standing before the two gorgeous men like a bride being forced to choose had obviously been a dream. However, it had a weighted sensation to the images, like her other dreams that carried shades of the future in them.
The wings and shining blue eyes from the first portion stood out to her, and a twinge at the back of her brain had her reaching for her cell phone and dialing her friend, Officer Naomi Briar. As it rang, she grabbed the last teddy bear her father had given her, a plush sandy brown creature wearing a camouflage hunting cap and vest. She didn’t care that she was in her early twenties; sometimes reassurance came in the form of a plushie your dad gave you.
She clutched Huntington to her chest, gripping it tighter as the line clicked and she heard a heavy exhalation come from the speaker. “CJ? What’s wrong?” The other woman’s voice was coarse and gravelly from being dragged out of a thick slumber.
“Naomi! I’m so sorry… I didn’t even think that you’d be out cold.”
Naomi scrubbed a hand across bleary eyes, squinting at the clock and noting the time. Practically the witching hour. She wasn’t surprised. “Normal humans are usually asleep now, hun. But that’s not the point. I know you wouldn’t call me in the middle of the night for nothing. Hit me with it.”
After describing her grotesque and weird dream in great detail to the girl who'd been her closest friend since early high school, CJ concluded with: "And it's just like the other ones, Naomi. I woke up at the same time, and everything. But there’s something about those eyes and wings… I think you might be coming across some weird crime scenes soon, if no one's dead already."
CJ stretched and paced back and forth across the carpeted floor of her bedroom, unsure if she should try going back to sleep. What she did know was that she needed a change of scenery, so she headed downstairs to stand on the cooler tiled kitchen floor while she chatted. She didn’t bother to turn the lights on, but something about the sensation of the blackness around her set her nerves on edge.
Pulse rapidly increasing as she focused on the cause of her unease, she paused at the bottom of the stairs. Blinking quickly so her eyes would adjust faster, her stomach dropped to her toes. Seated at her kitchen table, washed in the glow of moonlight from a gap between the curtains, was a broad-shouldered man with dark hair.
Stealthy as possible on bare feet, she grabbed a wine glass from the metal rack above the island as she approached him from behind. She threw it at the back of his head, shouting: “Get the fuck out of my house!” She flipped on the light switch and witnessed the glass collide with the far wall, exploding into a glittering mass of prismatic shards.
Nobody else was in the room with her. She was entirely alone. “What the fuck?” she asked quietly, perplexed and disturbed as her quiet query echoed off the walls of the empty kitchen.
“CJ, you okay?! Do I need to head over there?” Naomi had gotten dressed while CJ detailed her dream. She wasn’t sure where she was headed, but her friend’s hunches and dreams had helped her get the jump on a few cases. She couldn’t afford to discount this one, if it meant potentially saving lives.
“I could have sworn there was someone at my table just now, Nomi. He looked like the guy from my dream…” Her voice quaked as the childhood nickname for the other woman fell from her lips. “Am I going crazy?”
Naomi checked her guns, zipping up her leather jacket and buckling her helmet on before grabbing keys and heading into the stairwell of her apartment building. She didn’t want to wait on the elevator. She moved down the four-story staircase quickly, her footfalls echoing in the concrete enclosure. “You’re not crazy, hun. Just a little weird. And I love you, anyway.” CJ’s response was a laugh that sounded choked off by a sob.
“Did you see anything else other than the eyes and wings? Anything in the environment that might help me figure out where things might be happening?” Naomi knew the seaside city like the back of her hand. Even the smallest detail would be helpful to her.
CJ shook her head, and felt like an idiot when she remembered they weren’t video chatting so Naomi couldn’t see her. “Location?” She closed her eyes for a moment, thinking back to the dream.
Flashes of high stained-glass windows and elaborate arches flared to life behind her eyes. Crumbling white stones. "A church? An older church, maybe? I have no idea where it'd be, though." She cried out suddenly in pain and clutched at her head, almost dropping the phone.
Immaculately mussed blond hair, a full lower lip that begged to be kissed, with a lit cigarette dangling from that luscious mouth. A tender embrace, and those same lips sliding along the flesh of a wrist gripped between slender fingers full of hidden power.
Eyes that glowed red in the darkness, a helpless insect crushed beneath a booted heel.
"Fuck me..." she half-sobbed as the pain intensified, her knuckles turning white as she gripped at her head. CJ felt like she was trying to keep her skull from splitting in half, and her desperate fingers were the only things keeping her brains from spilling onto the tiles. Random visions were one thing. Trying to harness the power and focus on one that had already come and gone was devastating. And leading to more of them.
"I'm having full-on visions while I'm awake, Naomi. This can't be good." She ignored the rivulet of blood that trickled from her nostril, sniffing lightly.
Naomi’s heavy sigh carried the weight of her exhaustion through the phone. CJ's 'gift' was both a blessing and curse. It helped with some of her police work, but the distress and pain it caused CJ wasn’t worth it. To Naomi, having a clairvoyant bestie made the world… Different.
She hated to admit it, and would never say so to Carmelia, but being so close to a seer was frightening. The darkest parts of the world being so clearly displayed felt like having her innocence ripped away by uncaring claws. According to indie news outlets, similar cases of future sight and other abilities had been popping up all over the world lately, with increasing frequency.
Her train of thought ran in circles that swirled and blended the images from the dream, and she almost forgot she was still on the phone. After a long moment of comfortable quiet between them that lasted until she exited the apartment complex, the potential location from CJ's vision struck Naomi. "Saint David's Cathedral!"
The rush of the early morning breeze whipped against her face, the chill savage and searing. She shuddered, feeling the numbness in her fingers crawl up her arms. Naomi moved across the parking lot, jogging between cars and trucks belonging to other tenants, blue eyes flicking about as she searched for her ride.
"Are you sure you're going to be alright?" The visions usually came at night, and by the time the convoluted images were interpreted, the killer had fled the scene. Naomi was on her way to the old church, without backup. Ill-advised, but she couldn’t take the chance of not capturing this villain in real time.
CJ ignored the question. "Are you going there all by yourself? Give me a few minutes and I’ll head that way, too." She tilted her head back, sniffing lightly, dismayed as she noticed that it wasn't clotting. CJ grabbed a napkin to keep from dripping all over the kitchen floor and herself, holding it lightly to the bottom of her nose.
Naomi had no intentions of dragging Carl—Chief Steiner—into this. Not before she scoped things out. He'd piss and moan about being woken up at this hour, demanding that she wait for him and “appropriate backup”. There wouldn’t be time for that, if what CJ had seen was happening now or about to happen, cryptic though it may have been.
She thrived under pressure. 3 a.m. with no coffee, Fruity Pebbles, or Chief Steiner breathing down her neck… These were all the ingredients for a perfect storm of a night Naomi knew she wouldn’t soon forget. But she also couldn’t risk CJ getting hurt in the process.
“I’m a big girl. I'll be fine. Take care of that nosebleed, hun.” She hung up without saying goodbye, something she regretted but didn’t have time to correct.
CJ sighed as the other side of the line went dead, stuffing the cell phone into the waistband of her shorts. She felt wetness on her fingers through the napkin she held against her face and hurried to the bathroom. She tossed the paper towel in the waste basket and leaned over the sink, breathing shallowly through her mouth.
There was no need to bother with the light, the cream-colored tiles being bright enough for her to see clearly even in the darkness, especially with the moonlight filtering through the frosted glass of the window. A few moments passed and, although it hadn't totally ceased, the nosebleed seemed to finally be slowing.
Through the distorted crackle pattern on the glass, Carmelia was being watched. Shaggy blond hair shaded the eyes of the figure that stared at her, transfixed, as she dabbed at her nose. He’d been drawn here through the darkness. Pulled to her. To that sweet, decadent aroma.
He hadn’t sought blood direct from the tap in a long time, but this woman’s scent was an ambrosia he wouldn’t deny himself. Long, slender fingers trailed down the windowpane and with a slight push, the glass shattered and burst into the room.
Author’s Commentary!
Thanks so much for being here! You’ll be getting the fun final revision of this first season before I publish it over on Amazon! Also, follow me over on Twitter! I’m fairly active there, and post sneak peaks and such.