Chapter Two
Grissom walked up behind Sara and placed his hand on her shoulder. She turned her head and gave him a smile. "I need to get the film to the lab..."
He nodded and looked back at the wall. The word screaming at him silently. He let his hand slowly fall from her shoulder and come to a rest beside hers, brushing against it slightly. "Why don't you bring the pictures with you when you come over for breakfast and we'll go over them after we eat..."
Her smile widened slightly. "Sounds good, Griss."
He gave her a small wink and turned his eyes back towards the wall. Taking a few steps forward, he stopped and looked down. He knelt down and pulled his tweezers out, plucking a small white fragment from the carpet.
"Find something?"
He looked up to see Warrick looking down at him. "Yeah...could be...a piece of...tooth, maybe..." Bringing himself back to an upright position he glanced around the room. "What do you have, Warrick?"
"Vic's blood. All over the place."
His eyes were drawn back to the crudely written word on the wall. "What about that?"
"Yeah...written in the vic's blood. Catherine lifted some prints, Nick found a few boot impressions in the blood."
Sara stood quietly beside of Grissom, her eyes studying a picture on the mantle. "Freak..."
Her one-word utterance brought both sets of eyes to rest on her. Grissom spoke gently. "What?"
"Someone considered him a freak, right?"
Warrick nodded in agreement. Grissom stood still, patiently awaiting Sara's theory.
"But...in these pictures...there's nothing freakish about him. Mainly, a 24 year old male would be considered a freak if he had multiple visible piercings, tattoos, odd hair color...something that would make him LOOK like a freak...Peter Marsden looked like an average clean-cut 24 year old Pre-Med student or something."
Grissom spoke calmly. "Maybe what made him a so-called freak wasn't about outward appearances."
Warrick glanced at Sara. Seeing that she wasn't going to say anything, he began to speak. "Well, there's nothing to indicate that he had a physical handicap, or that he was mentally unstable. He didn't have a criminal record..."
A smile slowly formed on Sara's face as she watched Grissom's eyes. "What aren't you telling us?"
"Nick found a glass of blood in the kitchen. The sister says it's her blood." He paused momentarily. He looked into Sara's eyes before glancing at Warrick and then continuing. "She says that she was Peter's donor."
"Donor?" Sara's eyes widened slightly.
Grissom nodded. "She claims that Peter was a vampire and she donated her blood to him to keep his energy levels up."
Warrick took a deep breath and exhaled. "Well, that's definitely on the freakish scale..."
Sara shook her head. "So...Peter's a vampire, Susanne's his donor...and some unknown person shoots him in the face...why?"
Grissom tilted his head slightly and looked at her. "Fear."
Warrick looked back at the wall. "Fear of the Freak?"
Grissom turned towards the young man and shook his head. "Fear of the unknown."
~~~~~~~~~~~~
He walked quickly down the hall to the interrogation room. Sara had gone to drop off the film, Warrick and Catherine were working on the prints and fragments, and Nick was tucked away in the lab with Greg analyzing blood samples. It was obvious that Susanne didn't care for Nick, and Grissom figured it would be best to talk to her alone...well, with Brass. He didn't really blame Susanne. He didn't care for Nick's tone himself. I'll have to have a word with him about that later. But...first things first.
He calmly walked into the room and sat across from Susanne, who was engaged in conversation with Brass. She looked from the Detective to Grissom and tried to force a small smile, failing miserably. "What can I do to help, Mr. Grissom?"
He leaned forward in his chair, placing his arms on the table and clasping his hands together. "Tell me about your brother."
A faint smile graced her lips for a brief moment. "What do you want to know?"
"Everything you can tell me."
She nodded and reached for the box of tissues that Brass had placed on the table beside of her. "Okay, I'm assuming you want to know about Peter post-vampirism."
"Yes...and...how did he become a vampire?"
She smiled gently at him, her dark eyes shining with tears. "Peter was born a vampire. He was Latent until two years ago."
"Latent?" Grissom's question was not condescending. He was merely trying to understand.
"Yes...kind of like...hibernation, almost. He didn't even know he was a vampire. Not until he started going through his Awakening."
She didn't even wait for Grissom to ask, she could see by the look in his eyes that he wasn't familiar with the term. "Awakening is the process of change. When the vampire's nature begins to emerge."
He nodded slowly. "How does that happen?"
"It starts with unexplainable nightmares. Ones that he couldn't remember. He would wake up terrified, but not knowing why. Then his energy began to drop. I took him to every doctor in town. None of them could find anything physically wrong with him. They sent him to psychiatrists. They couldn't find anything emotionally wrong with him. He was confused, I was confused. And then it happened."
"What happened?"
"Blood lust. He began to crave it. Like a smoker craves nicotine."
"How did you determine that it was due to vampirism?"
"We met Lucas. Lucas Franklin. He became one of our closest friends. He helped Peter through the rest of his Awakening. He helped me understand what was happening to Peter."
"And...where is Mr. Franklin now?"
The tears welled up in her eyes once again and spilled out onto her cheeks. "He...he was killed in a car accident three weeks ago."
"Ms. Marsden...how many people knew of Peter's condition?"
She shook her head slowly. "In all honesty, I'm not sure. Lucas told him to be careful who he talked to about it. People don't understand. People only know of Bram Stoker's Dracula or Anne Rice's LeStat. They know fiction. They don't want to know the truth. But, Peter was a very trusting person...too trusting at times. He said he wouldn't hide who he was."
As she broke down in tears, Grissom poured her a glass of water and stood. Walking around the table, he set the glass in front of her and sat down on the edge of the table. "Ms. Marsden...we will find out what happened. And we will find out who did this to your brother."
~~~~~~~~~~~~
He was busy setting the table when the doorbell rang. With a smile on his face, he quickly walked to the door and opened it. "Hi..."
"Hi, yourself..."
He closed the door behind her and pulled her into his arms. "Are you hungry?"
Her fingers ran through the soft curls at the nape of his neck. "Actually, yes I am..."
He leaned down and placed a soft kiss on her lips, which she deepened quickly. He returned her passion for a few moments before slowly pulling back. "Sara..."
"Hmm?"
He smiled down at her, his blue eyes shining brightly. "Come on, breakfast is going to get cold..."