It slithered, no crawled…..no glided through the gutter. Stopping at ever drain to sniff the air that emanated from the sewers, something would capture its gastric juices…
-oOo-
"Got another one Boss," DiNozzo shouted over his computer, "Got another one, as in, we got another, half-eaten body of a sailor at Norfolk, third in a fortnight. Ziva, you sure you're not pregnant?"
Ziva looked at Tony and her pupils dilated and then grew large, Gibbs noticed, but then his eye twitched. There was something about Ziva…. She rose from her desk and faced her accuser, "Tony, you and I come from two totally different places. In my world, you grow up... fast." Turning and walking back to her desk, giving Gibbs an icy look.
Gibbs wondered what in this world made her say that.
"Oi, you two…..Ziva get down to Norfolk…..take Tim…..Why?" seeing the look on her face and in her eyes, "Because I don't want any more arguing from you two. Tony I want you to look at this picture and tell me what you think." now handing Tony a 4A photograph of a male Marine.
"Different from the females…this would look like its innards have collapsed, while the females have been devoured from the outside. I remember reading something about a parasitic twin…or was it the X-files, the twin lived in the body of its brother; scurried about at night eating the livers of unsuspected persons."
Gibbs' eye twitched, and his gut hurt, this was not good. The bodies had been, yes, half eaten but not how you would imagine. It was almost as if they had been eaten from the inside out. He rose and went to find Ducky.
-oOo-
He entered autopsy the doors sliding effortless open for him to enter.
"Ah Jethro….I was wondering when you would appear, well not so much appear as arrive…..I have always found it amusing and strange, or should I say star-range, you always manage to appear before anyone actually expects you to. I just have to think of something and well here you are. It is almost as if you have perception beyond this world." Dr Mallard said not looking up.
"You got something?" Gibbs asked Ducky.
"Not sure. Whatever it is, it is not human. I am not sure what it is, but it likes soft tissue, the kidneys, liver, lungs, heart and finally the brain." As Ducky turned, to face Gibbs he continued, "I would hate to say this but these lights are used in Haggis, also the heart and liver in English faggots, but the brain and this is where it gets interesting. The brain has DHA….."
"An important omega-3 fatty acid which is also referred to by the technical designation of 22:6, and is found concentrated in mammalian brains. Fish also have a high concentration." Gibbs relied.
"Quite so Jethro, but this fish, if you want to call it, reminds me of, Trichomycteridae. Trichomycteridae may actually include the widest range of trophic adaptations within any single catfish family, only the two subfamilies Vandelliinae and Stegophilinae are considered to be parasitic fishes, including the infamous Candiru or…"
"Vampire catfish; feared by some people, for its habit of entering into the urethra of humans." Gibbs replied.
"I'm afraid so Jethro….but I have no idea what on earth we are dealing with. But may I also say the body or should that be the bones are devoid of marrow. "Ducky added.
"Why not the muscle, and flesh?" Gibbs enquired.
"I would say too tough and sinewy," Ducky concluded watching Gibbs now leave the room.
-oOo-
The skeletal limb took the blender, and smiling, placed the sharp rotating metal blades into the mixture, slowly at first and then speeding up. The body parts now fragmented into a satisfying red liquid, the creature lowered its proboscis like tongue into the fluid and drank until sated.
-oOo-
Abby was beavering away in her Lab as Gibbs strode into the room.
"What you got for me? Found anything?" he questioned.
"As Ducky said the soft tissue has been removed, I would say by some means more advanced than the ancient Egyptians. The brain used to be dragged out by a long hook., but you want to know why the marrow…blood, DNA….whatever we are dealing with, needs what humans are made up of," now turning and looking at Gibbs with what seemed a triple blink.
-oOo-
"Tony, Tim, Ziva search all data bases for similar cases….in say past 10 years….no make that 7 years," as he looked at Ziva.
"Boss, what exactly are we looking for?" Tony now enquired.
"Half eaten corpses….anything like our victims. Try sci-fi magazines, try stories of supernatural reality….anything, because whatever ate these humans is not itself human." Gibbs snapped.
"Gibbs," he heard Ziva whisper, "We need to talk."
"That so….what about, you holding out on me?" he questioned.
"Not here…..I will buy coffee." She answered, walking to the elevator.
"So, what is so important?" as the doors shut.
-oOo-
Vampires," as she handed Gibbs a coffee, "We walk." as she turned.
"Ok talk." Gibbs smiled.
"When Director Shepard and I were in Eastern Europe, Romania, Transylvania to be exact…..I know what you are thinking, but Vampires…..no try Visigoths…..don't scoff," she started to say.
"Hey Vampires scoff, as in eat people, but continue." Gibbs replied.
"When we were there, we say many animals, and I must say a couple of humans….deformed in the way we have now. Jenny and I followed something to Egypt…the Tomb of the Kings. It was one night in Cairo, we had been out for a meal, and we were crossing Tahrir Square, when one of the snake charmers' creatures made a spring at Jenny. I killed it with my knife, but it shriveled into something never seen before, and the owner stuffed it into the basket and made off."
"So what are you saying?" Gibbs asked, but his gut hurt…he needed steak, vegetables were a no-no, he needed protein.
"I'm saying that whatever killed in Europe has followed me here….." Ziva replied.
As Gibbs leaned over to Ziva he whispered in her ear, "Or are you following it?"
-oOo-
Gibbs walked back to the Navy Yard alone, he needed to think. He wondered. Something bothered him….whatever he was dealing with, was known to Ziva. But he suddenly knew. Ziva had stayed with Abby on a couple of occasions. Abby didn't appear to sleep, or eat…what she drank was a lot of caf-pow…but it was red….what if…..as he went round to spy through the lab window. As he watched, he saw Abby pour something into the caf-pow, the liquid was dark and thick, and if he wasn't mistaken, the texture of congealed blood. He felt sick the feeling of nausea overpowered him, but he turned and walked back into the building, and down to the lab. He was going to confront the beast.
-oOo-
Gibbs entered the lab slowly and gingerly walked until he stood behind Abby, "I know about you," he began to say, "I know what you are. How many of your kind are there on earth?"
Abby turned and looked at Gibbs, and smiled, her eyes slanting. "I never sleep and I never give up. Help, I'm losing power," as Gibbs grabbed the caf-pow container, "But that hasn't stopped me, nor will it ever, because I am the energyof forensic science. You're right. I need DNA. It's my lifeblood." Abby hissed back at Gibbs, grabbing the container back with a thin skeletal limb.
Gibbs went for his weapon but, with the gun poised as Abby, they didn't see the other person materialise from what might have been nothing, all he felt was the swish and then the thud, as the knife dug hard into Abby's neck.
"Hey Gibbs what happened to Rule #9: Never go anywhere without a knife. Did you not know, or should that be remember, that this form of herpetile, splinters into many thousands of clones when shot or hacked. The only way to annihilate it is to go for the jugular on a human, or the centre of the web in this creature." as the two watched Abby now began to form into a snake, but a snake not of Earth.
"Never asked you Ziva, what planet you from?" Gibbs now questioned.
"Actually I'm Aviz, and we are a military body of Knights, determined to bring justice throughout the Universe or the Galaxies. You?" as she looked at Gibbs; and then back to what had been Abby.
"Me? I'm from a planet far beyond the realms of this place. But," as he laughed, "Shall we say this Third Rock from this Sun is not too bad."
"Somehow I think our work is not over here, but I need to get the sweepers to rid this planet of that," pointing at the dead creature.
Gibbs watched as Ziva took a strange cell from her pocket and began to talk in a language that was so different from his own native tongue.
The End.
"Herpetology" is from the Greek for "creeping animal", some of Abbys actual words here came from "Road Kill" as did Ziva's line, and finally Aviz do/did exist [url=.org/wiki/Order_of_Aviz] Order of Aviz [/url]