Title: Dead Skin

Author: Officer BudBabe

Summary: Angel/CSI Crossover. Kate Lockley needed a new life. She needed to shed her dead skin and become human again. Somewhere where nobody would know her… where she could just start again. But the past never stays in the past.

Genre: Angst/Romance/Mystery

Rating: K+

Disclaimer: This story has been written for entertainment purposes only and no Profit has been made on the Author's part. Really. I just like watching George Eads… Grin

Thank you to leothelion04, everybetty, and mma63 for my first three reviews!

Chapter Four – Looking At You

XXXX

Hurrying down the corridor Kate's heart was beating a mile a minute. What could she do? Greg was surely going to ask her about the stake. Her self defense excuse hadn't been the best story she could come up with.

If she tried to tell anyone at the crime lab, they would think she was crazy and she would lose her job.

Things were going to get bad, that she was sure of. Greg must suspect something now, and pretty soon Nick probably would. She wasn't working with cops anymore. She was working with scientists. Smart people.

Who could she get in contact with? The only person she knew who would believe her was Angel and he was in L.A with his own problems, no doubt.

Kate was so lost in her thoughts she didn't notice someone walking in the other direction, engrossed in an autopsy report.

"Oof!" Kate slammed into Nick, causing him to drop the file he was carrying and spill his coffee down his shirt, making him wince as the hot liquid came into contact with his skin through his shirt.

"Oh god, I'm sorry. I hope it wasn't too hot?" Kate stooped to pick up the scattered pieces of paper. Nick smiled through gritted teeth as he bent down to help her.

"No no, just enough to take the top layer of skin off is all." Taking the pieces of paper she held out to him he enquired "What were you thinking about?"

Kate refused to meet Nick's eyes, instead becoming interested in wiping up the small coffee spatters on the floor with her shirt sleeve "Uh… nothing important."

Nick frowned "Must have been pretty important."

This time Kate's gaze did meet Nick's. She was starting to look slightly irritated "No, it wasn't."

Nick exhaled heavily, but chose not to pry into things any further. There was something slightly strange about Kate, but he just couldn't put his finger on it. She seemed defensive when anyone asked her what she was thinking, and her approach to the case they were working was a little more than slightly secretive. She still hadn't told Nick or Greg about her excursion to the funeral home the night before, and she had been so insistent on being at the autopsy.

"You seem to be spending a lot of time on the floor today, Kate." Greg observed as he wandered up behind her "Is it interesting down there?"

Kate straightened immediately and brushed herself off "No, I uh… Just walked into Nick that was all. I wasn't paying attention." Turning to Nick she frowned apologetically "I'm sorry about your shirt. It's not ruined is it?"

Nick shrugged "No, it's OK. I've got plenty more anyway. Greg, did you pull up those case files for Kate?"

"Yeah they're in the break room." Greg confirmed. Nick nodded.

"OK, well I've gotta go change my shirt."

Nick walked past Kate and Greg towards the Locker room. Kate glanced at Greg with a smile and a parting shot of "Thanks Greg, I owe you one." Before hurrying off. Greg nodded in response and waited until Kate was out of sight before following Nick into the Locker room.

"Nick, we need to talk about Kate."

Nick turned and raised his eyebrows at Greg "Look Greg it doesn't matter how many times you say it, you cannot call dibs on every woman you see."

"What?" Greg sat down on the bench next to his co worker "No, man. Doesn't she strike you as a little… odd?"

Nick frowned "What do you mean?"

"Oh come on. Are you telling me you weren't a little mystified when she insisted on going to the funeral home with that body last night?" Nick shrugged.

"Maybe a little. But what makes you so sure all of a sudden that she's a couple of ants short of a picnic?"

"I'm not saying she's crazy, Nick. But when she came in a little while ago, she dropped her bag on the floor and all her stuff fell out. I went to help her pick it up and you know what she's got in there?" Nick shook his head.

"Wooden stakes and a crucifix. She said they were for self defense."

Nick raised his eyebrows "You're kidding."

"No way." There was something in Greg's tone, something sincere that made Nick believe him.

"You think she thinks that the murderer isn't human?" he asked, throwing his coffee stained shirt into his locker and pulling out a new one. Greg shrugged.

"I don't know. She never struck me as the type to believe in all that stupid stuff. It takes all sorts, I guess."

XXXX

Kate sat in the Break room poring over the reports, analyzing every detail. Greg had also pulled up a missing persons list from the past three years. The amount of disappearances had increased, and the number of corpses found with puncture wounds to the neck had gone down. This, in theory, confirmed what Jake had said. More and more people were being sired. So fast in fact, that it appeared they were evolving.

Three of the cases Greg had given her had supposedly been 'solved'. Someone had been caught, brought to trial and sentenced to life in prison. Kate was willing to bet a lot of money that those people were innocent.

As she read on, Kate's hand unconsciously wandered to the faint scar on her neck that Angel had left her with after biting her during a museum heist. He had saved her life that night, and that hadn't been the only time.

The scar was barely there, but Kate never wore her hair up anymore, paranoid that someone might see it. Every time she saw it in the mirror she was reminded of things she was never supposed to know about. Things she would rather forget.

Kate leaned back in her seat and rubber her already-tired eyes. Her gaze fell on her cellphone lying on the table.

'It would be so easy to pick up the phone and call him.' A tiny voice in the back of Kate's mind whispered.

It would. So very easy to just pick up the phone and dial the number that seemed forever etched inside her mind. Kate could almost feel her hand reaching out to touch it. Her fingers itched to feel the smooth surface of the little machine.

Something was stopping her. Something so unbelievably petty. She would have to talk to Angel, let him know where she was.

Let him know she needed help.

Kate had never needed a Knight in Shining Armor to gallop up and rescue her in her hour of need. She had always said she never really believed in such a person, adamant in convincing people that she was fine as she was.

Before her father died, before she ever met Angel, Kate sometimes allowed herself to secretly long for someone to realize that everything she ever said about not needing anyone was bullshit. For a short period of time, Kate had thought Angel was that person, the person who heard the words she wasn't saying. She even allowed herself to believe that maybe he was her Knight, just for a second.

If he came to Las Vegas she would have to speak to him, to be honest not something she had planned on doing ever again.

"Get a hold of yourself, Lockley. People are dying here." She muttered angrily to herself, reaching out and grabbing her Cellphone from the table top. Punching in the number she held the phone to her ear and listened, her muscles tensing with each ring. It seemed an age before Cordelia answered.

"Angel Investigations, We help the hopeless…. Hello?"

"Kate?" Kate turned to see Nick stood in the doorway with two cups of coffee in his hands. Kate, suddenly glad of the interruption, clicked her cellphone shut and gave Nick her full attention "Yeah?"

Nick ventured into the room and set the coffee down in front of her "It's only your second night and I didn't know how you take your coffee, so I just stole some of Greg's Blue Hawaiian and put two sugars in." He explained, taking a seat opposite from her.

"That's great, thanks." Kate took the coffee gratefully, concentrating on the way the delicious aroma filled her nostrils and how the warmth from the cup was spreading over her fingers. Nick gestured to Kate's cellphone "Who were you calling?"

Kate's heart gave a sudden jump when she remembered who she had been trying to call "Oh, uh… just someone I knew in L.A on the force. I'm pretty sure we had a case like this a while back and needed confirmation that I wasn't remembering anything wrong." Nick nodded, seemingly satisfied with her answer. They sat in silence for a while, Kate pretending to be avidly studying one of the case files. Nick's voice finally brought her from her reverie.

"Is there any kind of link between them?" Kate seemed to pause for a second, as if weighing up what she could tell him. Nick took the split-second opportunity to study her.

Kate's features were delicate and her skin looked soft. She looked more like a Pixie than a Crime scene investigator. Her ears seemed elfin, but were only shown when she tucked her smooth, honey blond hair behind them. Her lips looked pale and smooth, like porcelain. Kate's eyes were the color of the ocean, and seemed to hold thousands of secrets and inhibitions. There was a certain shyness in them; a sense of holding back that surprised Nick a little. There was no innocence in these eyes, just a sadness where innocence must have once been. Nick wondered what they had seen.

He was jerked from his avid studying of her face by a frown that had settled over he features "Why are you staring at me?"

Now it was Nick's turn to stammer "Oh… I – uh… thought you reminded me of someone."

Kate didn't look like she believed him, but carried on with what she had been saying without further argument "Look," She passed her notes to Nick and leant across the table to point out her findings. "By looking at the number of disappearances over the past few years – they've gone up – you can compare them to the number of bodies with neck wounds, which has gone down." She was leaning close to Nick, and he could just catch the scent of her shampoo. The fingers that were pointing to certain figures were slender and long. Every so often they would brush against the tip of his thumb; her skin was soft and warm.

Kate sat back in her seat, leaving Nick feeling dazed. What was happening to him? He didn't normally go for women like Kate. He liked wild redheads with blazing green eyes. They were more spontaneous and sexy and exciting to be around. But there was something that drew Nick to Kate. A quiet strength, an unfailing ambition.

A need to be rescued.

Kate didn't look like the girl who needed to be rescued. In fact, she didn't look like the girl who wanted to be rescued. She could stand tall on her own, and probably take countless hits. But something in her eyes seemed to argue with the way she carried herself.

'Get a hold of yourself Stokes.' Nick thought scornfully, 'You don't even know her that well. You're only on your second shift with her. She's an attractive woman. This is normal.'

"Guys." Greg stood in the doorway to the break room, startling Nick from his thoughts. Kate looked up from her notes "Yeah Greg?"

"I had Archie run searches on all the people on the missing persons list. There's a pattern in where they come from." From behind his back Greg drew a map. He walked to the table and set the map down. Nick and Kate leaned forward to get a better look.

"It's a spiral." Nick stated. Greg nodded.

"The disappearances started here," he pointed near the top of the map, "And moved inwards, towards this point on the strip." Indicating a point on the Las Vegas strip right next to the Castaways Hotel and Casino.

"It's too neat to be a coincidence." Kate murmured. Greg and Nick nodded in agreement.

"So we're thinking serial killer, probably with a penchant for Horror movies. What I want to know is why we found some of the bodies, but not all of them." Nick rubbed his eyes in exhaustion.

"Don't forget that he's using some funky blood substitute to leave in the victim's mouth." Greg added "Kate, what do you think?"

Kate had been staring absently at the table for the last few minutes. She peered up, startled "Um… I'm not sure. Would you guys excuse me for a second, I have to make a call." She stood and hurried out of the break room. Greg turned to Nick "We have to talk to her. She's acting far too weird."

Nick just stared after Kate's retreating figure, a look of confusion in his eyes.

XXXX

Kate peered into the Las Vegas night from where she stood on the front steps of the crime lab, her cellphone clutched in her hand.

This was serious. Something serious was happening in Las Vegas and Kate had no idea how to deal with it. Her fellow coworkers thought she was crazy and this was only her second shift.

Taking a deep breath Kate lifted her phone and began to dial.

"Help." A quiet voice from the shadows startled her. Kate looked around for the source and upon finding none, scolded herself inwardly for being paranoid.

"Help me." There it was again, louder this time. Kate turned and looked for the speaker "Hello?"

A girl emerged from the shadows, sporting a bloody lip and a bruised cheek "Help me." She whimpered quietly. Kate shoved her phone in her pocket and went to help the girl "What happened to you?"

"S-something bit me." The girl began to cry. Kate fished a tissue out of her jacket pocket and handed it to the girl "Are you OK? What did they look like?"

"A little like this." The girl snarled, her face morphing into its true form. Kate froze, momentarily shocked by what she saw. The Vampire lunged for her, taking them both down to the ground. Kate struggled underneath the monster, who was trying to get a good grip on her neck. The vampire swiftly backhanded her across the face. Kate tasted blood but carried on grappling. Drawing its fist back, the beast took a swing at Kate, catching her across the cheek. Kate yelled in pain, feeling her world spin out of focus.

Suddenly, the vampire screamed and shrank back, clutching her hand, which was smoking slightly. Kate remembered her Cross necklace and took the opportunity to kick it in the stomach, forcing it to reel backwards. This gave her a few seconds to rummage through her pockets, cursing herself for leaving her stakes in her locker. Finding a pencil Kate brought it out and prayed it would hit the target. Throwing herself on to the vampire Kate buried the pencil in its chest with as much strength as she could muster.

The vampire exploded into dust underneath her, causing Kate to fall forward on her front. Lying face down on the concrete for a moment, Kate tried to get her bearings. Heaving herself into a sitting position, Kate fished her phone out of her pocket and sighed when she saw the cracked screen. She dialed and listened for the ringing sound, giving a yell of triumph when it came through loud and clear.

"Angel Investigations, we help the hopeless." Cordelia answered yet again.

Kate cleared her throat and took a deep breath "Cordelia… It's Kate Lockley."

"Oh. Well… You sound like you're fine so I'll spare the pleasantries. Are you calling for Angel? He's out. Saving lives, you know, actually making a difference?" Cordelia's tone was sarcastic and Kate had expected nothing less. If she strained her ears she could hear another voice in the background. The British man… what was his name? It didn't matter. Kate could hear him trying to wrestle the phone from Cordelia.

"Miss Lockley? Yes we've met before, I've no doubt you remember," The tone was slightly less cold than Cordelia's had been… but only slightly. Kate hugged her knees to her chest and wiped her bloody and rapidly swelling lip with her free hand "My name is Wesley Wyndham-Price. Angel is currently out at this moment but I would gladly take a message for you."

Kate had an idea "Actually, um… no, that uh, that won't be necessary if you can help me."

Wesley sounded surprised "I don't see how I can help you Miss Lockley."

Kate took another deep breath "I'm in Las Vegas."

"Ah. That is a problem." Kate could hear the sarcasm creeping in and hurried to explain "No, You see, I'm in Las Vegas and they've got a real vampire problem. Something's happening that I can't really explain. I'm on my own here. I can't handle this alone." Taking yet another deep breath, she croaked "I need help."