A/N: Okay, so my muse, Branwyn, has come up with a new idea for a fic. I wanted something a little darker than what I normally do. Which is where this fic comes in. A little warning of such, this first few chapters talk about vampires. Please, please…PLEASE don't compare this to 'Buffy' or 'Angel'. I assure you, this is NOT a crossover of any kind. All information about vampires and all other strange creatures are my own thoughts, and thoughts I have come to believe.

Title: The Sinful Rose

Summary: When bodies start turning up, the only link between them is a single rose bud found at every scene. Can Booth and Brennan track down the murderer while the whole of DC is the hunting ground? And what happens when Booth's dreams take a demoniac turn? Can a soothsayer help discover what they mean?

Rating: 'T', for now….

Disclaimer: I don't own 'BONES' (I know, that sucks). I do own the plot line contained within, so that's been © WolfMyjic 2006.

UPDATED 12 November 2006 - this chapter has been added too.

Chapter One:

Demoniac Dreams and Vampire Killer

Special Agent Seeley Booth tossed and turned in his bed. His head was full of hellish nightmares and strange mixes of mutated faces. Sweat beaded across his forehead and his face was drawn up in a tortured mask. He had the sheet clenched with both hands, his leg muscles twitched, and soft groans and cries of worry fell from his lips. He was stuck between the world of dreams and reality, knowing that what he saw wasn't real, yet he was unable to wake himself. The movement behind his closed eyelids became more rapid as his thoughts became even darker. A shrill sound cut through the air and in Booth's dream it came from a large wolf. The demoniac, black monster threw back its head to howl, releasing an awful piercing sound that echoed in his head. The forest in which he stood grew darker as the battle between he and the black wolf raged. From the corner of his eyes, Booth saw his only hope, a much smaller wolf with shimmering silver fur and turquoise orbs shining at him. Again the black wolf threw back its head and howled. This time Booth sat straight up, the sheet falling from his bare chest. He closed his eye briefly against the darkness of his bedroom, but quickly opened them as fragments of his nightmare came back. His breath came in short, rapid gasps and his lungs burned with the effort of breathing. Booth reached up and wiped at his mouth and down his neck. He took a deep breath to steady his heart, before he reached over for the real shrieking beast- his cell phone. "Booth," he said, cursing his own voice for sounding shaky and hoarse.

"Are you okay?" the voice on the other end, Doctor Temperance Brennan, asked.

Booth fell back in bed before he spoke his lie, "I'm fine."

"You don't sound fine."

"Any reason you're calling at this God forsaken hour?" he asked, putting his free arm over his eyes.

"You haven't talked to Cullen?"

"Why would I?" he asked, before swallowing down the emotions that had began to settle in his throat as bits of his nightmare came back to him.

"We have a body," Brennan said. "Cullen said he was going to try calling you again."

"Again?" Booth questioned as he removed his arm and stared up at the ceiling.

"Yeah, he said that you weren't answering your phone. That's why he called me." Booth let out a frustrated sigh.

"You still at your apartment?"

"Waiting for you."

"Be there soon." Booth snapped his phone shut, slammed it against the softness of his mattress and closed his eyes. He took another deep breath trying clear out the last remaining fragments of his dream away. His heart began to race as the image of the black wolf run across his mind. He opened his eyes and sat up. "Get moving, boyo," he said out-loud.

Booth pulled to a stop in front of Brennan's apartment building, where he found his partner waiting just outside the main doors. He watched as Brennan made her way down the walkway to the SUV. "Are you sure you're okay?" she asked as she got into the passenger seat.

"I told you I'm fine." Booth waited for her to settle her kit on the floorboard between her feet and then strap herself in.

"You look a little pale, that's all." Booth pulled the SUV away from the curb, before glancing over at her.

"Just…a bad dream," he said.

"Ah." The rest on the drive was done in silent, neither one in the mood to talk. When Booth pulled to a stop in front on a row of houses, one of which had a sign that read 'Mi Casa' in front of it, Brennan spoke, "What's Mi Casa?"

"It's a non-profit program," Booth began, "that was established in the early nineties. They help provide inner-city homes to low and moderate income families." They both got out of the SUV and made their way to the house with yellow crime tape. Booth flashed his badge then lifted the tape and followed Brennan under it. "Agent Wilson," Booth said as an agent approached. "What do we have?" Albert Wilson was a tall man, hovering slightly over Booth. His shoulders were more apt to that of a quarterback than an agent.

"The damnedest thing," Wilson said, his white teeth were set off by the darkness of his skin and in the pale light of dawn, Brennan noticed his brown eyes rivaled those of Booth. "A burned body that's missing the head." Booth and Brennan exchanged looks, before following Wilson into the row house. The first thing to reach their noses was the smell of burnt flesh. Booth pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and placed it over his nose and mouth to help filter the air. "The body is in there," Wilson said, nose pushed into the bend of his elbow. Brennan slowly advanced toward the living room fireplace. "This place has been empty for about three months," Wilson continued. "A neighbor called it in when he noticed smoke from the chimney."

"Have you found the head?" Brennan asked, looking up at the agent.

"Yes, ma'am," he said, pointing up. "Upstairs fireplace."

"Did you find anything else in the house?" Booth asked, as Brennan turned her attention back to the body.

"Just this, sir," Wilson said, holding up an evidence bag. "Found it next to the window there." Booth took the bag and studied the object- a black rose bud.

XxXxX

"Isn't it exciting?" Zack Addy said. Booth drew his brows together as he swiped his card and bounded up the steps to the center platform.

"A char-broiled body is exciting?" the agent asked.

"No, sir," Zack said, looking over at Booth. "But the fact that three point three-million-year-old fossilized remains of a child-like female- Australopithecus afarensis- have been uncovered in a sandstone slab in Ethiopia is. It's taken five years to completely remove it." Booth raised an eyebrow at Brennan.

"Translation, Bones."

"A set of bones dating back pre-modern human. Like the adult skeleton found in 1974."

"Lucy." Both Brennan and Zack turned and stared at Booth with their mouths open. "Right?" He asked, slightly nervous under their gazes, worried that he had gotten it wrong.

"You're correct," Brennan finally said.

"Oh, come on, don't look so surprise. I'm allowed to watch PBS sometimes, right?"

"They even found the hyoid bone," Zack went on. "That's not normally preserved in the fossilization process."

"Hyoid?" Booth questioned, brows drawn together in thought. "The tongue bone?"

"Correct again, Booth," Brennan said. "You've been paying attention after all."

"The hyoid bone reflects how the voice box is built and perhaps what sounds a species can produce," Zack piped in.

"Speaking of telling us things, what can our well-done body tell us?" Brennan took the hint and turned her attention to the remains before her.

"Well," she began, "our victim is male, between the ages of eighteen and twenty-two. His right fibula is broken; along with his left and right ulna, his right wrist and right elbow."

"So if we put that with what we knew at the crime scene, what do you have?" Booth asked.

"A burned body that's been beaten, stabbed through the heart, and decapitated," Brennan answered, turning toward her partner.

"So pretty much nothing."

"You know," Doctor Jack Hodgins said, coming to stand near the small group. "You kill a vampire by stabbing it through the heart."

"A vampire?" Booth questioned.

"Yeah, it's one of the only ways to kill them."

"And the chopping the head off?" Booth asked, his voice halfway serious but his eyes were laughing.

Hodgins crossed his arms. "Do you know nothing?" he shot. "After you stab a vampire, then it's good practice to behead it and burn both body and head. Just to make sure it's dead."

"I don't think our vic was a vampire," Booth said.

"Since they're not even real," Brennan pointed out.

"There are some who would disagree, Dr. Brennan," Zack said, earning three pairs of eyes on him. "After all, a few serious but rare diseases cause sensitive to sunlight, which many believe is the bases of the vampire myth."

"Myth, Zack," Brennan said. "Just because you get sunburned easily doesn't make you a vampire."

"Then how do you explain the evidence?" Hodgins questioned.

"I can't…yet," Brennan said. "But I'm certainly not going to say that some crazed vampire killer is stalking the city."

"Since we're talking about crazed people stalking others, where's Angela?" Booth asked.

"She took a few hours off," Hodgins informed him. "Said she had some person things to take care of."

"Have her do a sketch as soon as she can. See if she can give us a face for Dracula."

"That's not funny," Brennan scolded.

"Have you been able to identify the rose we brought back for ya?" Booth asked Hodgins, ignoring the glare Brennan was shooting him.

"I'm still working on that," the entomologist said. "But it shouldn't take too long."

"Good," Booth said with a nod and then turned his attention back to Brennan.

"I'll see what I can track down about the owners of the house. See if any of the neighbors saw anybody hanging around. I'll be back by later."

"Zack and I will keep working on the body," Brennan said. "See what the bones can tell us."

XxXxX

"I've come to the conclusion that neighbors aren't what they use to be," Booth said, walking into Brennan's office unannounced.

"Let me guess, nobody saw anything."

Booth flopped down on her couch with a groan. "Except for the old guy who called the cops, nobody saw anything. Half the people couldn't even tell me how long the family had been gone." Brennan folded her hands atop her desk.

"So who owns the house?" she asked, as she watched Booth lay down on her couch. One leg was thrown over the back and he put an arm over his eyes.

"The Kendrick family," he said, and then covered a yawn. "Ron and Gail Kendrick. Moved to Nevada a year ago with their three children, Max, Emma and Katie."

"Booth, are you okay?"

"Yeah, just a little tired."

"It's already eight," Brennan said. "Why don't you go home? We can go over finding tomorrow."

"I'm fine," he said, moving his arms to under his head. "What did you and the Zack-a-Roo find out? And did Angela give out a face?"

"No face yet, but Angela said she should have it tomorrow. The stab through the heart killed him. He received his other injuries before, possibly from a fight. The head was removed after the fact. Zack is trying to identify the tool used, although we're thinking it's an axe. Booth, are you listening?"

"What? Yeah, an axe."

Brennan stood from her seat and walked around the desk. "Go home," she said, pulling Booth's legs from the couch. "Go get some sleep." Booth nodded and agreed around a yawn.

"See ya tomorrow, Bones."

--

So there you have it. Not too dark yet, but I hope to turn it that way soon.

Important Notes: The Australopithecus afarensis child found in Ethiopia is true and it is considered more complete than 'Lucy'.

After killing a Vampire, it is good practice to chop off the head, and burn both body and head separately.

'Mi Casa' is a real non-profit program in the DC area.

And the dream at the beginning will be explained later.