Author's note: Whew. You guys bombard me with reviews…not that I'm complaining! Many thanks and keep them coming! In addition to my usual disclaimers (they belong to CBS, blah, blah, blah) I forgot to mention that the title "New Messiah" is actually the title of a song by the Philosopher Kings. I will cite that better when I use lyrics from it later on, but for now, just know that it's not mine.
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3 days earlier……
The crime lab was its usual hubbub of activity on the Tuesday morning where our story starts. Warrick and Sara were working a hit and run case, Catherine and Nick were investigating a gang related shooting and Grissom was giving Ecklie hell for over working Greg in the lab. There was certainly nothing out of the ordinary, save for Grissom's sudden transformation into Greg's biggest supporter. There was nothing that suggested to any of them that they were being prepared for a test. They were all about to be pushed to the very limits of their emotional capacity. They were going to travel down a road that no one should ever have to go down. And it was likely that one of them wasn't going to make it back alive.
The wheel of fate was set into motion by a phone call.
"Grissom? It's Brass. Listen, I need you and your guys out here ASAP. We just found human remains about 50 miles east of Vegas. This is bad Gil. Really bad…" Brass trailed off ass his eyes burned the image before him into the very core of his being.
"Jim?" Grissom's voice pulled his mind back to the moment. "What is it? How many victims? Give me something that I can tell the team."
"Two victims, just the bones. Birds must have picked them clean; there's not a piece of flesh anywhere. It's horrible. It looks…well it looks ritualistic"
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Grissom and the team wordlessly made their way to the spot that Brass had called them to. They were on the outskirts of nowhere; at the crossroads of desolation and abandonment. From the highway it was impossible to tell that there was anything amiss. The scene had been discovered by sheer chance. A trucker had pulled over and climbed out in order to consult his map. The wind had taken the map and carried it across the dusty nothingness before laying it to rest on what was now their crime scene. Strange circumstances, but that is all life really is anyways. A set of interlinked circumstances that work in conjunction with one another in order to make a story. The crime scene should have stayed hidden, but nature has a funny way of revealing to us what would have otherwise remained unknown. Nature shares her secrets only when she needs to, but when she does reveal them they are worth making note of.
This wind, which had been the catalyst for this eerie discovery, was silent now. It held its breath as the band of investigators made their way towards the newly christened burial ground. As they walked past, the crowd of people parted. It was like Moses parting the Red Sea. Except here it was not Moses leading the Israelites out of danger, but rather Grissom leading his investigators into it.
When they reached the victims not one of them was prepared for the acute sense of horror that would resonate through every fibre of their bodies. Bones were arranged on the ground, remarkably intact. Whatever body parts were present (there were still many parts unaccounted for, most notably the entire torso of the victim on the right) were placed very carefully. The arms were outstretched towards the heavens, making a crude crucifixion. More disturbing were the skulls which where turned away from their bodies. On the ground, written in such a way that they encircled the bodies were the words: I AM THE NEW MESSIAH. The words were scrawled in what looked horribly like….
"Blood" whispered Nick breaking the interminably long silence. Grissom looked at him sharply as though Nick had just sworn in church. Nick recoiled from the glare as though he had been slapped. It is uncharacteristic for Grissom to be so short tempered, but this crime scene feels different somehow. It carries with it the sense that even breathing on it will disrupt the souls that have been purged from the bodies. It is increasingly difficult to dissociate the emotional from the analytical. Even for Grissom. He walked around the crime scene, forcing himself to look at it with the trained eye of a scientist. As he looks at the skeletal remains, he finally sees the crime scene for the first time as a CSI. What he sees makes him sicker by the second. He looked away, but could not erase the images or the facts. He looked up at the team and in a sombre, morose voice that didn't suit him, said:
"These are the bodies of children"