A/N: This is my first fic here in this area, so treat me nice, ok?

Thought of this while watching Shawn of the Dead, Most Haunted Live, CSI: Miami, The History of Vampirism, and reading a boxful of Renaissance and Gothic stories (real Goth as in A Rose for Emily) on Halloween night.

Horatio and the CSIs belong to some one else, not me. The rest are mine and my sister's.

1, Deal with a Demon

The sonorous moans and gasps of desire rang hollow in the district attorney's office. The veteran officer's clear glass door was ridden with droplets of sweat as the moment of passion reached its resolution. A female's voice giggled while her silhouette rose from the shadows.

"You're a naughty cop aren't you?"

"Well, one's gotta do what you have to do to get in this business." A not so subtle grope up to the woman's thigh and she was at his mercy.

"Baby…I want a gift."

"Hey, even with all the bribes, I still don't make enough…"

"Get my boss a pet…anything will do." The woman moaned.

"…And you'll still be my bitch?"

"…Always."

"It's a ludicrous world when you delve in it. To dominate the Sun doesn't mean that you have the Moon's in the bag. No, far from it," so said the blood-written message on the wall. Lieutenant Horatio Caine stared and reread the message for the umpteenth time, things didn't add up. The murder itself was as bizarre as the message; the corpse of Marla Ruez lay on the floor, far paler than a normal body in its stage of decomposition. He then slipped on a pair of latex gloves and turned the head slowly to the side. Nothing out of the usual, he thought. The body was in an awkward position, her hands outstretched, her left hand crumpled in a white sheet and her right as to be roaming around the polyester rug. The familiar screech of Jeep brakes signaled the officer that his team had arrived along the Miami stretch. Detectives Calleigh Duquesne and Eric Delko walked into the scene with equipment at hand.

"What's the situation here?" Duquesne asked matter-of-factly, kneeling before the carcass with gloves and examining it with precision.

"Marla Ruez, forty, single, secretary for a defense attorney. Preliminary cause of death, split neck." The lieutenant explained, reading some of the information given to him by the neighboring residents.

"By the rate of decomposition on her skin, she looks at least five days old," Eric deduced as Calleigh sampled the woman's lips for any foreign DNA.

A roadblock dropped onto the officer's mind, the neighbors had reported seeing her walking around just fine a day and a half before the body was found. After not showing up to work, the defense attorney sent someone to check out her lavish home. To the man, he would find the body at 2 in the afternoon, on his lunch break.

"That has to be a mistake, the victim was alive not even three days ago."

"Time can vary especially during daylight savings time."

"That doesn't change the fact that the physical evidence does not corroborate the testimony," Horatio claimed just before his cellular phone rang. His expressive face became passive as a female's voice spoke. After a minute, he hung up and directed his attention to the two CSIs on the scene.

"When I come back, this body better be in Alexx's hands and a full report on the crime scene," he requested as he exited the rental apartment and hopped into a DADE Jeep. As he sped off, Duquesne and Delko returned to the body.

"How much are you willing to bet it's 'personal business'?" Eric humored as he knelt by the body, taking fiber samples carefully with a pair of hand pliers.

"I'm not going to bet, I'm short for this weekend. Fixing my car took me back until the 15th," the forensic stated, her diligent hands processing Marla's mouth through latex gloves. Just as Eric was about to head towards the nearby kitchen, he was greeted with the strong scents of oxidized copper and of decaying meat. Upon closer inspection, the scent was tracked to the metallic sink. Eric immediately took out a flashlight and with caution, drew nearer to the sink. There, a bloodstained knife shone crimson to the afternoon sunlight.

Okay, where did this come from? The rest of the home is spotless and there's not a clean-up crew able to clean this up without being noticed.

The investigation had momentarily stopped with the arrival of the last member of Caine's team, a Detective Ryan Wolfe, who had just dogged the continuous media stream.

"What did I miss?"

"You missed H. And you are now on body duty," Calleigh replied as she removed the gloves and threw them into a black Hefty bag.

"Crap. And the photos?" the younger detective smirked.

"That too."

Ryan took out the Nikon Camera, the cutouts and laid them near any of the fluorescent markers left by the neighboring police department. As he took pictures, Ryan could almost swear a subtle shift in Marla's joints. A second glance dismissed the shifting as rigor mortis and the detective continued his work.

Meanwhile, Delko was having some problems with the knife he had just found. Nothing in the sink's tubing, tank or the surfaces surrounding it had any blood other than the falling pattern from the knife, even with the ultraviolet light. The knife was an anomaly in the scene and telling the rest was common sense.

"Calleigh, Ryan come over here, I think I may have something."

After the initial processes of swabbing, photographing and identifying was completed, the knife was sent to the main office, along with the body of Marla Ruez. The body was carefully placed onto the carrier and with a light step, was carried out. Just before Wolfe left with the rest of the forensics, all saw what they believed was the corpse cracking a smile.

"Tell me some else saw that," Duquesne flatly acknowledged, her stern face partially able to hide the creeps that climbed in her spine. She may have been a ballistics and forensic expert but what happened was a split second scare.

"We all did."

"Oh boy, those paramedics are not gonna make it to the hospital," a man's voice said from the outside.

"You are a sick little puppy aren't you?" a younger voice replied with sternness.

"Not really my fault they have no experience with the monsters," the first answered, laying a quick peck on the other's cheek.

"Should we intervene?"

"Nah, not yet. Let them find out what they're getting into."

A/N: So how was it? Reviews are greatly appreaciated