Title: Power Play
Rating:
R
Fandom:
Criminal Minds
Universe: Creatures of the Night (Part 1)
Pairing: Morgan/Prentiss; JJ/Hotch
Genre:
Supernatural/Drama
Summary:
Tensions are running high when a vampire joins the BAU, but all differences must be put aside as the team investigate a series of suspicious werewolf murders. AU.
Author's Notes:
Betaed by Windy City Dreamer.

Chapter Seven

It's ten minutes before the entire team congregate in the conference room, JJ carrying the thick pile of files that is responsible for this morning's briefing. Morgan's mood had momentarily worsened, upon having learned of the thirteen related cases. It creates an air of tension that Emily is uncomfortably aware of.

She's trying to keep things running smoothly with the werewolf. She's smiling, trying to be down-to-earth about the whole situation. But part of her knows that the timing really sucks. Of course, her mother just had to go and ravage the team she was going to join. Couldn't have attacked any other team in the entire FBI.

No time to think about that now. It's time to think about the fourteen dead werewolves. Fourteen. It doesn't seem that big of a number, but knowing that fourteen people have left behind families, left behind loved ones, left behind legacies. That seems a lot.

In other departments, Emily had never had to deal with anything like this. Any serial case had been either handled by the local PD, or passed on to the BAU. Of course, she's dealt with death from a different perspective far too often.

'Fourteen 'wolves stabbed in the chest with a silver knife over the last year,' JJ starts, in spite of the fact that the majority of the room's occupants already know the pertinent details of the case. 'The most recent one was killed last night, body found in the William Kenbridge Lycanthrope Sanctuary this morning by Andrew Lyman, the local pack alpha.'

'What was he doing there?' Emily wonders aloud, and she's sure that if anyone else had voiced the question, they wouldn't have been on the receiving end of slightly scathing look from Morgan. She almost gives her own less than polite gesture in reply, but then thinks better of it. 'It's just…I thought that sanctuaries were only supposed to be used on the night of the full moon. That's three days away.'

'In the days leading up to the full moon, the Sanctuary is inspected for safety reasons,' says Morgan, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. And it is pretty obvious, being standard procedure across the country and all. Emily curses herself for being such a dolt. It's an all too frequent occurrence. 'Andy doesn't have anything to do with this.'

'How close are the pack?'

Morgan narrows his eyes. 'A wolf couldn't have killed him. The knife was silver.'

She bites her lip. 'I wasn't suggesting that one of them did. But if there's someone in the pack that knows him well, they might be able to shed some light on why he was in the Sanctuary.'

'They're not that close,' he answers tersely, and Emily is immediately intrigued by his phrasing. They're not that close. Not we're. Almost as though he doesn't even consider himself one of them. That fits with what Garcia had said earlier. He's one of them, but he's not one of them. 'A few of them have formed friendships, but nothing on a pack-wide scale.'

'And did Conrad have any shifter friends?' asks Rossi, and Emily's almost relieved that someone else has taken over the line of questioning. It lets her know that at the very least, she's on the right track.

'A couple,' Morgan shrugs, his voice sounding a little less scathing. 'I don't – didn't – really know him that well.'

Hotchner nods. 'We'll need to work out why he was there. He might have been there to meet the unsub.'

'It's also possible that he was lured there by the unsub,' adds Emily, meeting Morgan's eyes as she speaks. She knows he had wanted to bring up the same possibility, and she can hear his heart beating a little bit faster, but she doesn't think he's angry. Not about that, at least. 'If they put him into a trance, he would have been pretty acquiescent.'

She's holding her breath slightly until Hotchner speaks up. 'You're right,' he says, but he's looking at Morgan for a reason that Emily's pretty sure she could work out. 'We'll go to the Sanctuary first – all of us – and then split up. JJ, Morgan and I will talk to Conrad's acquaintances; Rossi, Reid and Prentiss can focus on the supernatural angle.'

It's a good thing that everyone seems accepting of this arrangement, Emily thinks, because Aaron Hotchner certainly hasn't left room for argument.

***

The parking lot is underground. There are a few spaces scattered outside, but considering the fact that at least a quarter of the building's employees are vampires means that plenty of sunshine isn't exactly high on the list of needs.

David Rossi is curious though, as to how this particular vampire is going to deal with the whole sunlight issue. No-one's brought up the topic yet. He figures that she'd probably have said something by now if it is going to be an issue. In any case, he brings it up casually.

'I'll be fine,' she says, as if that's all there is to it. There are some vitamin supplements that let a vampire walk about during the day. A cocktail of medications that deter a lot of them from even trying. They'd rather stay indoors than deal with the side effects. Even then, you don't usually see them going out without some form of protection from the sun – a hat, a full bodysuit, sometimes. Sunscreen. Emily Prentiss has little more than a pair of dark sunglasses.

'You're sure?'

'I'll tell you what,' she says, her expression twisting into a smile. 'If I burn up into a pile of ash, then you can read a poem at my funeral.' There's a pause. 'Nothing too dark, though. Something light. Maybe with trees in it.'

'Frost?'

'Mmm. Maybe Dickinson.'

'She was a vampire,' says Reid matter-of-factly from the back seat. He's staring out the tinted glass windows, not paying attention to the conversation, and yet hearing every word of it. 'Though I'm curious as to why you'd consider her poems a source of levity; a good deal of them were about death.'

'And immortality,' adds Rossi, and from the way Emily flinches slightly at that word, he figures that there's some information he's not privy to. He wonders just how old this person sitting beside him is, that she can walk in the sun without ill effects, and react that way to mentions of immortality. Two hundred, at least, he thinks. Probably older.

And he's banking on the fact that she spent a lot of that time alone.