SYMBOLIC

Phoebe parked her SUV behind Catherine's car when they arrived at the crime scene. She and Warrick both grabbed their kits and met Catherine at the base of the stone stairs that led up to the extremely creepy looking mansion they were about to enter. It was two-stories high and had obviously been abandoned years before. There was graffiti on the outer walls and the garden was hideously overgrown. And the fact that it was late at night didn't help dial down the spookiness.

Catherine spoke to Officer Sullivan who had come to the house following a call from a neighbour who claimed she'd heard a scream. The officer also let them know that she herself had been there three times in the past couple of years. Two suicides and now a homicide.

"If you ask me, this house is cursed." Officer Sullivan said to Catherine as she led them towards the front door.

"You don't strike me as the type who believes in curses." Catherine said with a smile.

Sullivan turned around. "Yeah, well, I'm not the type to believe in coincidences, either."

"Is this house abandoned?" Warrick asked, voicing Phoebe's thought.

"Bank foreclosed four years ago." Officer Sullivan told him. "Been vacant ever since." She turned and led them under the crime scene tape towards the foreboding double doors at the front of the house. "Neighbour heard a scream. I was the responding officer."

Catherine thanked the officer, who preferred to stay outside, as she and her team stepped into the vacant abode. There was no electricity so they all flicked on their torches as they went into the house. Warrick swung left and headed into what seemed to be the dining room while Catherine and Phoebe headed down the hallway.

"Tell me, Pheebs, why is it vampires can never live in nice houses?" Catherine asked in a low voice as they walked. "Y'know, the kind with colour and furniture…"

Phoebe smiled. "Well, vampires tend to become vampires because of some kind of evil act they've committed."

"Like killing someone and drinking their blood?" Catherine asked.

"Yeah, sometimes." Phoebe told her. "There have been recorded cases of so-called vampires who never ingested blood. For example, some were found to be bathing in it. Anyway, my point is, they became vampires for performing a dark act so they are then forced to live in the dark; no sunlight allowed."

"Or it's Dust-Ville." Catherine surmised with a grin.

"Are you mocking me?" Phoebe asked.

"Pheebs, would I do that?" Catherine replied in a tone that told them both that she absolutely would.

They both laughed lightly as the continued into one of the bedrooms. Before them was David Phillips, the coroner, and he was engrossed with filling out information on his clip board and made no movement to suggest he'd noticed them. Phoebe liked David; so much so that she'd set him up with one of her friends, Katie, in her first couple of months working in Vegas and they were still together now, two years later. Dave was absolutely the sweetest guy she'd ever met. Except for Nick, Phoebe corrected herself. Then her mind flashed back to the conversation she'd had with Warrick in the car. Phoebe made herself push all of that out of her head.

Catherine crept up behind David. "Hey." She said, not at all in a scary way, but Dave jumped out of his skin all the same.

"Yeah!" He screamed, springing quickly to his feet. "Oh, hey." He said, looking thoroughly relieved when he saw Phoebe and Catherine standing in the room with him.

"You okay, Dave?" Phoebe asked smiling as she came further into the room to check out the body.

"Yeah, fine." He said in a slightly shaky voice. "Uh, the jugular's been punctured." He knelt back down to the body.

Phoebe and Catherine both shone their torches down on the dead body in front of them. It was a woman. Well, a girl, Phoebe realized. She didn't look older then seventeen. She was wearing black clothing, heavy black boots and dark make-up. Her hair was also died black and had been styled into dreadlocks. It looked as though it hadn't been washed in weeks. But Phoebe suspected this may have been the look the girl was going for.

David pointed to the puncture wounds on the girl's neck. "Two marks. Possibly bite marks."

"Bite marks?" Catherine asked skeptically. "So this vampire thing wasn't just a rumour round the lab? You think someone bit her neck?"

"Punctures are 32 millimeters apart." David told them. "That's the average distance between the eyeteeth in an adult male's mouth."

Catherine shone her light on the wound and saw two clear, circular marks in the victim's neck. "Right, but those punctures aren't consistent with human teeth."

"Vampires have fangs, Catherine." Phoebe spoke up.

"Fangs?" Warrick came into the room making David jump again. "Come on."

In response to Warrick's skepticism, David opened up the victim's mouth to show not only a pierced tong but two clear fangs on her incisors. "Wounds are deep. She bled out."

"Then where's all the blood?" Warrick asked, kneeling on the spotless floor between Catherine and Phoebe.

"Lividity tells me she wasn't moved postmortem, so, I don't know." David admitted.

"I'm going to keep looking around." Warrick got back up and headed out of the room.

"Pheebs, you're the vampire expert so I'm just guessing here, but if she was bit,
there's spit, and if there's spit, there's DNA, right?" Catherine asked, shining her torch up and Phoebe so she could see her face.

"Well the debate over whether vampires actually have DNA is-" she saw the look on Catherine's face. "Yes, there would be DNA." She over-smiled to try and make Catherine laugh.

Catherine smirked. "Swab the neck, Pheebs."

"Yes, ma'am." Phoebe said, getting to work.

"Catherine, come take a look at this." Warrick called from another room.

Catherine left David and Phoebe to tend to the body while she went to meet Warrick. He'd discovered a red-painted insignia on the wooden floor. Catherine scanned it with her flashlight.

"This looks more like Phoebe's deal than mine." Catherine told Warrick.

"Please tell me that's not blood." Warrick said, referring to the symbol.

Catherine took out a swab and tested the red paint. She confirmed that it was, in fact, not blood and probably just normal house paint.

"Well, we know one thing for sure." Warrick said, scanning his torch around the empty room. "This place wasn't vacant."

xxx