The girl lay motionless on a stained, filthy mattress. Her eyes were wide open. Unmoving.

The one-room apartment housed nothing but that dead girl, that mattress and a rusty, old sink. There was no bed; no television, no shelves, no toilet; it reeked of old food, of sweat and unshifted filth. The smells alone were enough to make one's stomach turn. Debris littered the floor; cigarette butts and broken liquor bottles, and in the far left corner lay a used condom.

The girl was clad in a short, black dress, barely reaching the top of her thighs, and torn fishnet stockings clung to her skinny legs. Across her pale neck blue bruises had blossomed in the distinct shape of fingers, the fingers that had squeezed the life out of her days earlier. Her small breasts peeked out from the top of her dress, both of them covered in bloodied, savage bite marks where the flies now gathered to feast and lay their eggs. Her full lips were chapped and slightly parted, allowing a glimpse of yellowing teeth damaged by the excessive use of narcotics and tobacco.

A rookie police officer keeled over to relieve himself of his breakfast, the scent of bile mingling with that of the decomposing corpse burned itself to everybody's memory and refused to let go.

"Remind me again why we're here?" I murmured to Elijah at my side, keeping my voice low so to not be overheard by the police and forensic scientists that gathered around the body in intervals.

"What do you see?" Elijah asked me, and I directed my gaze back to the girl.

"A murder victim."

Elijah frowned briefly in annoyance as if he thought I wasn't putting up my best effort.

I raised my brows in confusion, stabbing my brother with an irritated look right back. That'd show him.

On the drive over here from the French Quarter, he hadn't even mentioned we were going to a crime scene. In fact, he had lured me out under the pretences of getting coffee and ice cream, and though I wondered why such an adventure would take us all the way to West Riverside, I had remained optimistic.

Sneaky Originals.

The apartment complex was already swarmed with cops by the time we got here, but Elijah had no problems getting the two of us past the barriers that kept the rest of the public out. I wasn't sure if he had used compulsion or other means, but no one even batted an eye at us as we moved to examine the unfortunate victim.

"Look again," he urged, gently nudging me forward.

"What am I looking for?" I sighed in frustration. Honestly, his vague approach to this whole thing was starting to become ridiculous.

"What killed her?"

My eyelids narrowed as I looked back at Elijah over my shoulder, incredulous.

"How am I supposed to know?"

He gave me another glower, his jaw tightening just a tad. I got the feeling he thought I was being difficult. I felt the exact same about him.

"Use your...sight," he gritted out.

I removed my hands from my coat pocket and folded my arms across my chest.

"I'm not a psychic, Elijah," I hissed, a little more agitated than I usually would have been. He had promised me coffee after all, and I had none. His betrayal still stung.

"I can't just look at people and instantly know their life stories."

"No," he agreed. Unlike me, Elijah managed not to sound like the air being let out of a balloon. "But you can see things I–" he paused to subtly gesture to the other people in the room, the ones that did not even seem to notice we were there, "–we, cannot. Supernatural energies."

I frowned, casting a glance back at the dead body. One of the forensic scientists were taking photos of the bruises on her neck.

"You think something supernatural did this? Is that why we're here?"

Elijah nodded, his eyes on the girl as well.

"I know it. She's not the first. I just don't know what."

The bloody bite marks on her breasts would indicate a vampire, and yet I had seen my fair share of vampire attacks over the centuries. The teeth mark didn't match. No fangs. Besides, from what I could tell and had overheard from those now examining her, she had not been drained of blood.

"What makes you think this wasn't the work of a human?" I asked my brother, shuffling a little closer to him to keep our conversation just between the two of us.

He gently took my arm and guided me a few steps away, our backs turned to the others.

"According to my contacts at the city morgue, the other victims, much as this one, were all female, all bitten, and all strangled. As well as...violated." Elijah hesitated before uttering that last word, a look of distaste briefly ghosting across his features.

My lungs seized and I couldn't help but sneak another glance back at the girl, seeing her from a new perspective. There was nothing worse than rape, and my heart suddenly ached for her. I forced myself to take a deep breath and turned back to my brother.

"Sounds like a serial killer. Human serial killer. It's not like atrocities like this haven't occurred before."

"The saliva from the bite marks," Elijah continued, "the semen found inside these women, it's not human. Nor animal. Nor anything my contacts at the morgue has ever encountered before. That includes vampire and werewolf. They're stumped. Which is why they contacted me. We may have a new predator in our city, and I would like to stop him before it gets out of control."

That explained why Elijah had taken an interest in this case. Ever the protector.

I turned back to the dead girl. The forensic scientists were pulling away and asking for the body to be wrapped up and brought back to the morgue. A new group of people instantly gathered around her to make the arrangements, closing the window of opportunity for me to get close.

"I can't see anything," I told Elijah, watching as his face fell in mild disappointment. "However, if I was to get access to the body somewhere private, I may be able to get a few answers."

He seemed intrigued by the thought.

"I'm sure we can visit the morgue once the workers have finished their examinations and gathered evidence. What are you going to do?"

I slowly started for the door. Without the body present, there was no more use in us staying here.

"I'm going to ask her a few questions," I said, watching my younger brother with a grim expression. "But I doubt you will appreciate my methods."