Title: Life with the Dead
Author: random shoes
Rating: T (language only, at least right now)
Disclaimer: Joss is the boss. Give him your money.
Author's Note: Yesterday was me birthday! Yes, I am talking like a pirate (or possibly Kendra?). No, I don't know why. Anyway, in celebration I present...dead bodies. Cheery.
"Six victims, four female, two male, all in their twenties and thirties. I can't determine cause of death conclusively until we get back to the lab, but these five look like they died from blood loss—puncture wounds in each of their necks, looks like they hit the carotid artery. The newest of them is extremely pale, and the way the older ones are decomposing suggests major blood loss—"
"Right. They bled out. So where's the blood?"
Cam glanced around the warehouse, then back at Booth. She shrugged. "I have no idea."
"You think they were killed somewhere else?"
Cam looked skeptical. "Maybe. But the victims died at different times—about a week between the oldest and the newest."
"And why would the murderer kill them somewhere else, bring them back here, and then leave them lying around for anyone to find?"
"Exactly. I think they were killed here."
Booth felt his stomach begin to tighten. He didn't like the direction this was heading.
"Which brings us back to my original question: where's the blood?"
"The only explanation is that someone intentionally, uh, collected it."
Booth closed his notebook. He wasn't having a good night. First he'd lost his gun to some absolutely tiny blonde woman, and now he had a crazy blood-letting serial killer on his hands, and the impossibly fast blonde woman was his number one suspect, and he didn't know her name or have any idea how to find her, and had been too embarrassed to tell anyone about her yet, which meant he was going to be forced to have a very uncomfortable conversation with Hacker before he could start looking for her, and...
"Seeley?"
"What?"
"You had a little space-out there."
"Sorry, I was just wondering what this sicko could possibly want with that much blood."
Cam shrugged. "Yeah, I'm just going to let you figure that out."
"That's very generous of you, Camille."
She snorted.
"What about the last victim?"
"Her? What you see is what you get. Essentially, her throat's been ripped out. No blood missing on that one."
"Yeah, great, no blood missing. I'm gonna go see what Hodgins has for me."
He crossed the warehouse, surveying the carnage. Five of the bodies had been tossed into one corner, but the sixth one was slumped on the ratty couch, now soaked and spattered with blood. It was a young woman—no older than twenty-five—and she had died only a few hours ago. He was pretty sure he'd heard her scream.
•••••••••••••
He had been on his way home when the call had come through: "suspicious activity." He was close by, so he took it. He should have learned by now that taking calls out of the kindness of his heart never ended well. Last time he'd done that, he'd been blown up by Santa. Although, that had ended in Bones undressing him...
Dispatch had sent him to an abandoned warehouse. He assumed it was no big deal, teenagers throwing a party, drunk squatters, nothing that couldn't be handled by a badge and a little fear.
Fear. That was what he heard as he drove up to the warehouse. The scream had him out of the car and sprinting towards the building in an instant, nearly two decades worth of instinct and training kicking in smoothly, gun out, adrenaline fueling a tight control, slow motion and fast forward, routine and terrifying. Do what you have to. Get there in time. He didn't. Glassy eyes and blood greeted him when he threw open the rusty metal door. The warehouse was empty and eerily quiet, no sound except the crunch of...
Adrenaline again, across the wide space and out the door, running silently after the footsteps.
•••••••••••••
Hodgins was squatting in front of the couch, scooping dust off the grimy floor, a look of indecent excitement firmly plastered to his face. Booth felt a little like hitting him. That scream...it had made her real to him, too real, and Hodgins' enthusiasm annoyed him more than usual.
"Got anything for me?" he snapped.
Hodgins didn't seem to notice his tone. "Yes, as a matter of fact, I've got something very, very strange here."
"What, dust? I've got plenty of that in my apartment, thanks."
Hodgins stood up, holding the vial out towards Booth. "Not dust, ash."
"Ash?"
"Yeah, ash."
"...so?"
"So there's no burn marks, no fire pit, no evidence of anything burning, but there's ash everywhere. There's probably several pounds of the stuff."
Booth squinted at the ground, realized what he was doing, and quickly stopped. "So what does that mean?"
Hodgins smiled that utterly happy smile that Booth knew came right before—
"I have no idea."
"Wonderful. I've got blood that should be here and isn't, and ash that shouldn't be here and is."
Booth could swear he saw Hodgins' ears perk up, like a cat who hears a mouse...
"Blood?"
"Yeah, Cam says the vics died of blood loss, but we can't find any blood."
There it was. The crazy glint in the scruffy squint's eye, the glint that meant this was going to be one of those cases, the glint that came right before the man transformed from scientist into nut.
"What, Hodgins?"
"Well, come on. Blood loss, ash, two small punctures in the neck, what does that add up to?"
"I have no idea."
"Use your imagination, Booth!"
"I'd prefer not to." But he had a sinking suspicion he knew where this was going.
Hodgins leaned in, glancing around conspiratorially before whispering: "Vampires, Booth. Vampires."
Booth closed his eyes. This was not what he needed tonight.
"Do you ever listen to yourself?"
"People see vampires all the time, Booth. Most of them don't live much long after they do," he nodded toward the pile of bodies, "but sometimes people get away. The truth's everywhere on the internet, you just have to know where to look."
"Yes, because crazy people on the internet are always telling the truth."
"Come on, it's the only thing that makes any sense," Hodgins argued, still whispering. "The victims drained of their blood, the puncture wounds, and—"
"And it's not possible that we're dealing with some lunatic with a vampire obsession?"
"Sure, except that still doesn't explain the ash."
Booth tried very hard to stay calm. He mostly succeeded. "Well, that's your job, isn't it? Find me a scientific explanation for the ash."
"I was just trying to help."
"Well, don't—don't do that anymore."
Booth stalked away. Vampires. Un-fucking-believable. Apparently Hodgins had gotten crazier post-Angela. Vampires? Really? At least his conspiracy theories had always involved humans in the past.
He waved goodbye to Cam, nodded towards the officer at the door, and headed for his car. He needed this day to be over. Tomorrow he'd deal with the missing blood, the ash, the blonde. The blonde. At the very least she was an eye witness, at most...well...he didn't really think she'd murdered all those people. She'd held the gun like it was a dead animal, disarmed it, and then given it back to him. She could easily have hurt him (how had she moved so fast?) but her only interest had been protecting herself. Still, she had said some weird things (something about an angel?), and if she was crazy in some way...
It made more sense than vampires. He needed to find her.
