A near-death experience left her a physically indestructible, high-IQ shapeshifter. But is this superhero ready to dive into a magical underworld?
Dr. Sandra Carboni has mastered the art of spin. And though the media-savvy millennial is in control of her day job, her superpowered nighttime alter-ego is giving her growing pains. But when she loses the ability to repress her crippling self-doubt, her PTSD surges as she discovers an unethical vampire hunter is claiming innocent lives.
Finding her fanged foes to be frustratingly elusive, Sandra worries her already fragile composure will crack before she roots out a killer. And with teens dying and a huge tech conglomerate trying to capture her for study, the manipulative perfectionist fears a chaos-driven narrative will permanently tar her as a villain.
Can she confront her inner turmoil before it destroys everything?
Sandra is Phoenix is a dark contemporary urban fantasy novel. If you like flawed characters you can root for, interconnected shorts with overarching narratives, and stories that take on real-world issues, then you’ll love Greg Neyman’s witty tale.
Buy Sandra is Phoenix to rise from the ashes today!
Content Warning: Depictions of Intimate Partner Violence, Suicide, PTSD, Body Horror
The city had a rare moment of repose in the predawn hours. The bars had long closed. A few pairs of headlights cut across the roads in the distance, and the streetlamps revealed the occasional pedestrian.
A slight female shape ran in the street, close to the curb. The loose fabric of her baggy sweatpants and jacket fluttered and bounced as her hood obscured her peripheral awareness.
She bent over at a street corner, catching her breath. She pulled a water bottle from her small backpack and checked her pulse.
A shape that skirted the light grew closer, pausing its advance the few times she looked about her surroundings.
Her face grew concerned, and she began a stiff jog down the street. As she did, footfalls dogged her through the shadows. Her eyes wide and lips thin, she darted into a narrow alleyway.
At a dead end, she spun around, only to find her pursuer blocking her escape. The light from a nearby streetlamp cut at an odd angle across the blond hair and sallow skin of his face. She began to stammer and sputter. "I don’t have my wallet. Only my phone.” Her shaking hand held out a small rectangle in a sequined case.
He opened the case, and his eyes looked down with enough time to see the display was dead. When he looked up again, she was lunging for him.
He dropped the phone and tried to take a step back, but her speed had her grabbing his shirt and lifting him into the air. She ran, slamming him into the wall, knocking the breath out of him.
Her eyes glowed red under the hood. The light from a streetlamp could now enter, and her face was unnaturally white, which seemed even more out of place compared to her bright red hair and stylized flames crawling up her cheeks like living tattoos.
The man struggled and flailed against her, but despite her smaller size, she didn’t budge. Her feet seemed anchored to the spot.
“Now then,” she began, “let’s get out the most important detail. I’m not going to call the police. As far as I can tell, no crime was committed. You just stood there, and I handed you my phone. Perfectly innocent. But more importantly, I can’t testify.”
She paused, letting her words sink in.
"Now, I want you to feel this is a safe place." He kicked her in the chest. Still, she didn’t budge. “If you feel up to discussing how you came to be in this alley with me, I’m all ears.”
He struggled fruitlessly against her and grunted as he lashed out.
“Okay then. Since I don’t have much to work with, I hope you don't feel offended if I paint with a broad brush." A paper business card came floating out of her right forearm until it bobbed disturbingly in the flesh of her wrist. "If you're an ex-con and having trouble getting a job, this is the phone number of someone with some opportunities you can explore."
Another business card floated up from her left forearm. “If you’re struggling with drug addiction, this is a nonprofit that can help you navigate through the process.”
The man’s expression went from frightened to utterly confused.
"Look, I know I'm being awfully stereotypical, but... I figure whatever the... issue, I have other re... sources to call upon, and I'm… trying to have an impactful... conversation. Please, stop... kneeing me in the face."
Suddenly, a dull thunk drew both of their attentions to the shaft of wood sticking out of her ribs. Even the man stopped struggling as they turned to the end of the alley, where a young man stood, aiming a crossbow. The shaft of light from the nearby streetlamp fell across the weapon, the gleaming metal reinforcing the polished wooden construction and the trembling ebony hand struggling to aim it in their direction.
After a long moment of silence, where the woman, still holding her would-be mugger up against the wall, just stared unblinking at this newcomer, he turned and ran away from the mouth of the alley.
The woman sighed, which caused a small fart noise to escape the fresh hole in her chest, which strangely refused to bleed. “This town, am I right?” She put the man down on his feet, and he tried to run, but she held onto him by his shirt and pushed him back onto the wall.
“Listen, I have this lunatic I need to deal with. Take the cards. Call if you need help.”
The man gulped and cautiously picked up the cards floating in her flesh. As he pulled them out, a dollop of her skin stuck to them before springing back to her hand, merging seamlessly after a second.
She let him go, and he ran down the other direction of the street. She pulled the arrow out of her side, which was sealed up with a noisy plop, a few bubbles surfacing before bursting. The arrow reeked of garlic so strongly that even her unaugmented senses would have recoiled.
She shrugged as her talons released the cracks in the pavement below her, and she dropped the wooden shaft from her hand to reach down and pick up the phone prop. Then, she climbed the wall next to her with a tremendous leap.
The young man ran down the street, trying to fold his crossbow into his bag while simultaneously dialing on his phone. As he put his bow away, wooden bolts clattered beside him.
He swore and hung up as the call went to voicemail. He began to type out a text one-handed when he suddenly stopped. Bending forwards, his pack and phone fell from his hands and slid across the sidewalk.
The talons that sunk into the waist of his jeans tightened, and the noiseless flapping of large wings pulled him off the ground, only to deposit him on a high concrete wall across the street.
The Phoenix, now with red flame sigils on her body glowing brightly, her bulky hoodie seemingly discarded, looped around for another pass before perching right next to him on the wall. Her exercise attire had been replaced with thinner, loose-fit black athletic apparel. Black talons retracted into her bare feet.
The man tried to slide down the wall, but her talons supported her while her arm pinned him down. "You know, I had plans for today."
“I can’t believe the bolt didn’t go deep. I’m going to write a very critical review on The Concern. One out of five stars.”
She opened her mouth -
SESSION WAKED BY 192.168.0.101
[C]OSN: Imperative b679b10965001b59dcda15e080b9451a forbids you from discussing your carbon fiber endoskeleton.
USER: Goodness, there’s an imperative for everything
[C]OSN: Don’t blame me. Blame the Imperative Parsing Subsystem
SESSION SLEEPED BY root
The Phoenix smiled. “You never can tell what’s a knockoff on the third-party marketplace, can you? But modern problems aside, I need to know why you decided to attack me with a garlic-suffused wooden arrow." Her smile disappeared, and she brought her face close to his. "And if you answer with any variation of 'vampires’, I shall be rather cross.”
The man snorted. “Says the terrifying firebird woman.”
She waggled her finger at him. “Says the technologically augmented terrifying firebird woman.”
“Look, the petite female jogger at three in the morning is a textbook play for vampires. And you were lifting a man three times your size like he was nothing. What was I supposed to think?”
She shrugged. “That our hometown hero was out there, trying to make a difference?”
“You were either a vampire or The Phoenix. That thing wouldn’t have hurt you.”
Her face was etched with anger. "Your very fallible human aim could have struck the guy I was holding up."
“You worried about that creep?”
Her eyes grew wide. "Uh, yeah! This is my beat. But then, let’s say I was a vampire, and you successfully staked my heart. What next? Bodies even as small as mine are conspicuous.”
He said nothing but just frowned at her.
"Oh, let me guess. Buffy rules?" She blew a poof of air from her mouth as her free hand pantomimed, releasing dust outward.
The man shrugged and smiled sheepishly.
“Well, that’s narratively convenient, isn't it? But it also would release a great deal of energy simultaneously. Like, explosively. So the Mythbusters would say implausible.”
The man harrumphed. “Look, vampires are a real problem around here. No one cares about what happens to us. If we don’t take care of them, no one will!"
She frowned. “What are we talking about? Missing persons? Unexplained homicides?”
A van that was passing on the street suddenly opened the side door. Her attention snapped to it as it drove closer. She attempted to enhance the visual feed inside the dark cabin when something shot out of the open door.
She sprung upwards as quickly as possible, which is why it struck her chest instead of her head.
SESSION OPENED BY 192.168.0.101
[C]OSN: Neural systems have been reactivated. You may now think about the cabin.
USER: What happened?
[C]OSN: Sensory feeds are still booting and being collated. Queued messages from other subsystems are being spooled. Please wait.
Her vision resolved, and she looked up at the washed-out night sky and the sides of the nearby buildings. She tried to get up.
[C]OSN: Frame management subsystem urgently reports a non-ready state and requests user command override. Master controller has granted request. Please wait.
USER: Any more information?
[C]OSN: Preliminary analysis indicates severe thoracic trauma, taking your heart and left lung offline for repairs. Neural and other high metabolic activities were shut down so resources could be rerouted to repairs. Your core systems are now operational.
USER: Why can’t I move?
[C]OSN: Load-bearing elements are still under repair. Relevant subsystems estimate 2-3 minutes remaining. Except - onboard resource reservoirs have been depleted. Muscle mass and wings have been scavenged for critical system repair. Enough has been left to allow you to get up and walk, but just that. There will not be enough left over for repairs to be completed. Or get home.
USER: My bag has corn oil. If I could move, I’d grab it.
[C]OSN: Incorrect. The bottle was broken open by either the injury or your fall.
USER: Strat man?
[C]OSN: Strategic management subsystem has just come online and is weighing options. Expect recommendations shortly. In better news, your frame is sufficiently operational to sit up. But your left arm is nonoperational. Also, Frame management has posted a request for you to not breathe too hard, as your chest wall is only temporarily patched.
She sat up, using her right arm for support. Her left arm hung battered and misshapen at her side. A broken wooden pole, the width and length of her forearm rolled off her chest. It was blood-stained, which she remarked was unusual. A small section of her chest bowed outward as she exhaled, only to suck inward as she inhaled.
[C]OSN: Strategic management reports optimal path. Peter Jaroslaw lives close enough for you to walk to him with available reserves.
USER: What about a convenience store?
[C]OSN: One moment, awaiting recommendations. There are a few nearby, but you did not take your wallet. Do not risk them not comping you something to eat to effect repairs.
USER: I’m a mess. Should I call first? Or is it okay to show up as a half-broken superhero?
[C]OSN: Strategic management definitely recommends calling. He might not be home.
USER: Line of sight?
[C]OSN: Established. Initiate on your command.
USER: Confirmed.
[C]OSN: Auxiliary Communication reports low bandwidth to your phone. Text only at this time. Please decline offers for voice.
PETER: Hey, not expecting your text ...
USER: I know it’s late. Were you still up?
PETER: Uhh, yeah, I actually was.
USER: I was hoping I could come over. Is that okay?
PETER: Yeah, that’s fine.
USER: Okay, I’ll see you soon.
USER: [C]OSN, sleep the chat, please. Can you map me a route?
[C]OSN: Loading into native spatial sense. Please note the stretch where Police Domain Awareness is absent. You’ll return to human appearance in that zone. Make certain you are in the dark, and nobody is watching you.
SESSION SLEEPED BY root
Sandra had to lay into the doorbell a third time. Her fiery appearance was tempered, and gone was the svelte physique. [C]OSN warned her that her normal larger profile had to be filled out with air due to loss of mass, so if Peter touched her, things would balloon oddly. Which fit right in among the reams of helpful advice she routinely received since becoming a superhero.
She was considering extruding lock picks from her fingers when Peter finally answered the door.
"Hey, Sandra," he said, bleary-eyed, with a day's worth of stubble and mussed hair. It was dark in his apartment, and the fluorescent light in the hallway had cast his face in a blue glow, making him seem paler than normal. He had, at least, put on a decent shirt. And for the second time tonight, she was hit by a wave that would have wrinkled her human nose.
She smiled, turning herself so he wouldn't see her left arm or the odd bubble of her chest wall. "May I come in?"
SESSION WAKED BY 192.168.0.101
[C]OSN: Urgent update from Strategic Management. Peter is likely high on cannabis.
USER: Wow, really? How could it tell 🤦♀️?
[C]OSN: This is important, Sandra. Strategic management is advising a change in plan. You are NOT to tell him you are The Phoenix.
Sandra stopped astride the threshold. Peter was clearing clutter from inside. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t expecting company, obviously. Gimme a second to make you some space. Would you like something to drink?” He paused as he slowly looked downwards, his gaze stopping at her feet, which he stared at for an uncomfortably long time. “Where - are your shoes?”
USER: This doesn’t seem right. He’s going to have questions.
[C]OSN: Much fewer now.
USER: We’re taking complete advantage of him.
[C]OSN: Imperative Parser has added that this goes all the way to Imperative Beta and has received permission from the Master Controller to override any attempts to tell him that you are the Phoenix.
USER: That means I don’t have a plan anymore.
[C]OSN: A wise woman once said, 'Plans don't survive contact with weed'.
USER: Flattery will get you nowhere.
SESSION SLEEPED BY root
Sandra allowed the Psy Ops subsystem to craft the perfect giggle. “Yeah, I seemed to have lost my shoes. Isn’t that crazy?”
A long pause passed as his eyes crawled up to meet hers. He seemed to have something to say, but it couldn’t get out.
“I’m just going to help myself to something to drink, okay?”
He nodded, seemingly relieved to be freed from the urgent task of replying to the weighty information she had just handed him. She turned around awkwardly in the narrow hallway so he wouldn’t see her left side.
She rifled through the cabinets as he returned to the living room to clear some space on the couch. She found a third of a bottle of cooking oil, which she downed, and an extra large jar of peanut butter, almost completely full. She heard him head back toward the kitchen, so she just pushed the hastily opened jar through her abdominal wall under her shirt. She would have to keep him from touching her shirt because he might feel the divot she had excavated in her stomach wall.
“You, uhh, find everything okay?”
She turned so she could face him but hid her arm. [C]OSN informed her that Repair was working on her arm as quickly as possible but to hide it for a bit more.
“Yeah, Peter, listen. I - I don’t want to be judgy or anything. But I didn’t come here to get high. And when there are two people, one is high, and one isn't, it's weird for so many reasons. I shouldn’t have come. I'm sorry."
Peter managed to look disappointed and relieved simultaneously, mostly by failing to react. "That's okay," he finally said after a painful pause. After a moment, he came close and said, "It was good to see you."
She found herself in a position where she could no longer hide her injury. His brain then caught a slippery hold of an unexpected thought, as [C]OSN advised her thirty more seconds for her to be able to use her arm passably. ”What’s the matter with your arm?”
She furrowed her brow. "What's the matter with your arm?" Sandra thought it shameful how well it worked, with him tediously considering first his right arm and then his left before turning back to her.
“Uhh, nothing?” he replied but was uncertain.
She raised both her arms, mimicking his pose. “Me too, then!”
He then laughed and laughed and laughed.
She laughed with him as she slowly made her way to the door. "Listen, Pete, I'll see you on Monday, okay?"
He managed to wish her well between his guffaws, closing the door as she left. She was relieved to be out before the heat from her repairs became noticeable.
Ulrich heard the door open behind him and footsteps emerging. He stood up straight, tossing his blue hair up, as he put the basket down. “I feel like I’m still spitting up that white stuff from last night. And don’t go for the obvious joke! Not only is it offensive and makes for a hostile workplace, but it’s also shooting fish in a barrel, which is beneath your dig-”
Ulrich had turned around to face the impossibly tall man emerging from the inner office, ducking his head sideways under the lintel. The man rubbed his hand on his shaved head, and stubble formed on his cool tawny skin. He straightened his suit coat to accommodate his broad shoulders. He fastened the top button, adjusting his muscular body in the suit. He stood in silence, lips thin, staring at Ulrich.
“Oh, hey, Oscar. Sorry, I thought that was Kumar in there.” Ulrich smiled and laughed nervously. “Is he ready for me?”
Oscar nodded and grunted. “Praesto et presto,” he muttered in a baritone that vibrated Ulrich’s organs. He walked towards the door that led to the hall, and Ulrich dodged out of his way.
“Semper Fi to you too, pal,” Ulrich replied as Oscar passed.
Oscar stopped in his tracks, and his head took a geologic epoch to turn to face Ulrich.
Ulrich shrugged. “Sorry, man, it’s the only Latin I know.”
Oscar’s face morphed to show the only expression it performed with any regularity, utter disgust. “Semper … Fidelis?”
Ulrich walked to the open door toward the inner office. "Yeah, sure, if that's also thrown in for the deal."
Oscar turned away and grunted as Ulrich walked in.
A man with greying curly hair at the temples that stood in stark contrast to the umber skin of his face sat behind a handsome wooden desk. The windows of a nearby highrise and a cut of the sky were the only things visible to Ulrich from the doorway. The man pecked the keyboard before his computer. “Ulrich, close the door, sit down,” he said, his attention still on his screen.
The latch hadn’t even finished clicking before Ulrich started. “About last night, I have no clue what happened, but we did it with no minor peril to my life.” Ulrich took out a tissue pack and coughed into one he whiped out. “I KNOW drywall dust got into my lungs. Just my luck, never smoked a day in my life, now I’m gonna die from lung cancer.”
Harland sighed and sat back in his chair, which inched towards the window. “Ulrich, this is-”
“Sir, when I signed on, I told you, no field work! I told you, put me behind a computer, and I’ll give you the music of the spheres! But I am constitutionally unfit for actual confrontation!”
Harland rolled his eyes. “Ulrich, you know the Legion doesn’t kill people. Right there in their manifesto. You were perfectly safe.”
Ulrich scoffed, but it turned into another coughing fit. Wiping tears, Ulrich replied, "yeah, because everything floating out there is accurate. We both know it’s about who controls the narrative. And right now, the ball is firmly in their possession. That’s why you hired me, right? And even if the Legion didn’t get me, I may have died on the whim of Scary Poppins. Did she tell you she made me jump out of the umpteenth-story window when she could have just as easily -”
“Ulrich, that’s enough!”
Ulrich was quiet, except for a threatened cough that suddenly couldn’t leave his chest.
“Sit down. You’re not here to talk about last night. You identified the data the Legion wanted, ensured they didn’t get it and made it out. You did a great job, as far as I’m concerned. Case closed.”
“I still don’t want field -” Ulrich was silenced by a stern glance.
Harland turned to look out the window behind him. “They’ve come to a decision. My bosses.”
He turned to face Ulrich again.
“The Concern can no longer afford to ignore her.”
Ulrich looked confused. "Her?" Ulrich's face drained of color as he finally sat in the proffered chair.
An older doctor rubbed his bald, golden pate and squinted at a scrub-clad group outside a patient’s room in the hallway. A younger doctor rubbed the dark stubble on the pink of his freshly washed face, before clearing his throat to begin. The other doctors and medical students angled their heads to pay attention.
“Patient is a 13-month-old male, fully vaccinated, with no known underlying health issues. Presented to the Emergency Department last night with a two-day illness of vomiting, diarrhea, and poor feeds culminating in status epilepticus, which prompted parents to call 911. Glucose read 'Lo' on the glucometer, so IV dextrose boluses and drips were initiated by EMS. The patient was found to be mildly dehydrated and postictal on the initial exam. Besides glucose which drops rapidly on cessation of drip, vitals, labs, imaging, and serial exams remain normal. We plan to downgrade him from PICU today as he has been seizure-free overnight. Neuro and Endo consults are pending."
"It could be MCAD," Sandra said from the doorway over. She seemed to be concentrating on the computer bolted outside the room. She wore scrubs, a bulky, oversized fleece hiding much of her body, and a surgical cap. She had yet to look over at them. "Was the patient a home birth? May not have had state genetic testing."
“Doctor Carboni!” The older doctor scolded her. “I am trying to instruct residents here. Kindly take your casual brilliance and leave, thank you.”
She turned to face them after she logged off the computer. She pointed into the room and said, "All set for 8 AM operating room time." She then turned on her heel and walked down the hall.
She had almost reached the unit's doors when her name was called. She turned to face Peter.
“Hey, can we talk?” he asked, nodding his head to the med room.
Sandra nodded. “I have a few more pre-ops to do.” She followed him into the small room that he unlocked with his badge.
As soon as the door closed, Sandra started, "Listen, you don’t have to worry. I didn’t come over to harsh your vibe. You didn’t show up to work baked. I don’t feel like I have to tell anyone anything." She waited a bit before concluding, "We're cool, okay?"
Peter scratched his face, which was now clean-shaven, and glanced out the window before looking at her. "Yes, thanks, but that's not what I wanted to discuss."
Sandra asked her [C]OSN to simulate a perfect blush, and the relevant subsystem obliged. "Yeah, I was out, lonely, and just wanted to be with someone. I know, it wasn’t cool that I showed up and just bailed, but -”
Peter interrupted her, frustration creeping into his voice. "No! Not that, either!" He came in close, so he could whisper while maintaining a wide-eyed gaze with her. “Are you The Phoenix?”
Immediately, her subsystems replayed her memory of entering the room. It didn’t appear that there were any microphone-enabled devices in the small room. Her phone was in a pocket as was his, which was a problem. The key was to ensure he didn’t repeat the phrase 'The Phoenix'. It would probably slip past any content detection algorithms if he didn't.
She got an optimal response out before he noticed a delay. "Is - is this something we shouldn’t discuss?" she replied normally.
He looked stunned.
Sandra pursed her lips and made a show of pushing through a confusing interaction “I grew up in the northwest suburbs. I’m pretty sure my whole family has been around here since the late 1800s. But I don’t understand why you are so tense over this.”
Confused, he could only move his lips soundlessly as he shook his head.
"I've never even been to Arizona, but I want to see the Grand Canyon someday,” she added, shrugging her shoulders.
He smacked his hand against his forehead. “No, I didn’t say ‘Are you from -’”
“Are you from -” she said at exactly the same time as he did, throwing off his sentence and forcing him to stop.
“No, I said, ‘Are you the -’”
"Are you the -?" she repeated, breaking his sentence again.
“Why are you doing that?” he cried out, drawing a glance inside from out the window, making him blush.
"I'm just trying to help," she replied. "Oh, I get it! Are you asking me if - if -?" She giggled, put her elbows on her sides, and waggled her forearms.
“Yes! Are you The -”
Sandra burst out laughing, the noise echoing painfully in the small room, drowning out his next word.
"I wish!" Sandra added as her laughter died, wiping a tear from her eye. "She doesn’t look like she struggles with stubborn belly fat. Or cellulite.”
Peter's face grew flush with anger. "Will you be serious? You came to my apartment wearing the same black athletic pants and tank combo she does!"
Sandra scoffed. “Yeah, I guess you haven’t noticed, but it’s all the rage in boutiques since she showed up. It’ll be a few more months before it dies, and we get ACTUAL fashion back."
"And you didn't have shoes!"
Sandra blushed. “Look, you have to promise not to tell anyone. I got a little drunk, my shoes were new, they hurt my feet. I took them off to carry them and then - forgot where I put them down. Don’t you DARE laugh!” she growled to his face as he threatened to smile.
“What about your arm?”
She paused, waiting for him to elaborate. When he didn’t, she filled the silence with "Non sequitur?"
“Your arm was all mangled! It looked like it was hanging on by a thread. But now it’s fine. In fact, it was fine before you left my apartment!”
Sandra frowned and stroked her chin. “Look, I don’t want to be ‘that friend’, but are you certain your supply wasn’t laced with something else?”
Peter grumbled and turned his face away.
Sandra made to go out the door. "Look, you know how surgeons yell at anesthesiologists for any reason. I don’t want the cases delayed because I'm lollygagging here. Can we talk later? As long as it’s about anything else?”
“What about the peanut butter?” he asked, causing her arm to drop back to her side just as it had connected with the doorknob.
She turned to face him again. "I can't read your mind, Peter. Please tell me all about it."
“So I got the munchies, as you do, and that giant peanut butter tub I was hankering for was gone. Gone, Sandra."
Sandra shrugged.
“But not the lid. That was lying on my counter.”
“Your reasoning is flawless, Holmes,” she replied, affecting a poor imitation of a British accent. “How do you do it?”
They stood in silence for a moment.
Sandra sighed. “That’s my snarky way of saying none of your evidence adds up to anything."
Peter crossed his arms and turned away from her. "I know what I saw."
“Peter, you were so high, I couldn’t scrape you off the ceiling long enough to exchange a sentence. Maybe reconsider what it is you think you saw. Please. Dating didn’t exactly work out, but I want to be friends. If that doesn’t work out, we still need to be at least professional colleagues. I don’t think we can be either if you try to drag your visions back into the sobersphere.”
Peter rubbed his face briskly, trying to work out the tension that stubbornly stayed. Finally, he sighed ponderously. "Yeah, we're both on the clock, anyway."
She put her hand out, cooling it rapidly from her ongoing repair processes' continued high metabolic demand. "Shake?"
He shook her hand before they left of the room.
It was still early enough at night for some people to be out and about. Sandra had turned off her red eyes and flame sigils and had an urban camouflage pattern drawn on her skin and clothes. She was crawling along the walls above the lights of an alleyway. Her wings were not yet functional to support her weight, so she had to forgo the normal glide she used in her patrols.
Suddenly, she got a strong odor of garlic. Her [C]OSN denied there being a restaurant or its dumpster nearby.
She stopped crawling and looked at the dumpster, in the shadows between lights, below her. She then let go of the wall and used her wings to twist about in the air, all while applying normal coloration to herself, activating her eyes and sigils. She landed silently next to the dumpster. She opened the lid and pushed a few of the top bags away until she found the source of the smell - a body.
It was the guy who’d crossbowed her the previous night. He was riddled with bullet holes. Sandra randomized her fingerprints before searching his pockets for a wallet - none.
She looked over the body as she had her [C]OSN call on the cell network by 911 Only protocol. The wounds didn’t seem to have bled very much.
And curiously - there were two very closely spaced bullet holes in his neck, overlying his jugular vein with no evidence of bleeding.