Note: I had to revise chapter three since I didn't know song lyrics were allowed. Just a heads up should you go back for any reason. It saddens me, really. The song lyrics fit in well for what I have planned. And thanks again for the many reviews. I cannot give enough thanks, really. I'd give fruit baskets, but I can't so here are some imaginary ones.

Ch. 5

No Rest for Anyone

No rest for the weary, no rest for the wicked, no rest for the good, and no rest for the bad. If Danny could call going to bed at one in the morning and waking up four hours later rest. It was said that the body needed at least eight hours of sleep to be fully rejuvenated, and Danny tried to sleep that much when he could. He got by on less when needed, but today waking up seemed particularly painful. The ringing of his cell, small sound though it was, still became the equivalent of a drill burrowing into his brain to drain it of dreams.

Danny reached out to the bedside table and groped until his hand finally landed on the obnoxious little plastic whiner. He then propped himself up on one elbow, placing the phone to his ear and blinking the dryness from his eyes.

" Messer," he said with a poor attempt at sounding awake. His room was a mess of blurred, shadowy shapes outlined by the wan blue light of the approaching day.

" Messer, it's Stan."

Danny collapsed back onto his bed with a sharp sigh, massaging his aching eyes with one hand. " Yeah, Mavin, what's up?"

" Well, you for one thing. Or at least you'd better be. A new body was found; night shift called it in. I'm heading over there now and I want you to meet me. Got pen and paper ready for the address?"

Danny sat up, snatching his glasses from the table and placing them on his face. He then clicked on his lamp and rummaged through his desk until he found a pencil and a scrap of paper that appeared to be an old receipt.

" What is it?" Danny asked in a flat tone that betrayed his irritation. Mavin rambled off an address, then directions on how to get to the place.

" I may be a while," Danny said. " I need to check in at the crime lab first."

" Whatever, Messer. Just hurry."

With that, Mavin hung up. His mind still too foggy for him to even properly scowl, Danny tossed the phone onto the bed then fell back onto his pillow, using both hands to rub his face.

" I'll hurry when you put a gun to my head and make me," Danny murmured darkly. He then forced himself from the warmth of bed before he could slip back into the sweet oblivion of dreams. Following that, he did everything he needed to in getting ready except hurry.

CSINY

Danny arrived at the scene of the new killing around six a.m., feeling rather smug. He had been slow about coming, but Mavin would never know for certain if it had been deliberate, which was how Danny wanted it.

The new crime scene was the basement of a cheap looking apartment complex with few tenants and a landlord who didn't really care about much. The landlord had discovered the body after several of the tenants began complaining of an odd stench coming from the heating ducts. It wasn't until the landlord smelled it himself that he finally went down, only to run back up and call the police.

The basement was small but still a maze of rooms all poorly lit and smelling of mold. The cement floor was stained in water, and rust stretched like dried blood from the ceiling to the floor.

A uniformed cop took Danny through the water-damaged rooms to the far back where the heating and cooling system hummed monotonously. There, hanging from exposed rafters by a twisted bed sheet stained dark red, was a stiff and somewhat bloated body. Below it was a metal wash basin like the kind women would use to clean clothes before washing machines were invented. Strangely, however, the basin was only splattered with blood and not filled with it, and the blood appeared dry.

The body was the first sight Danny's eyes went to, and for a moment he noticed little else around him.

" Hey Messer, what took you?" an angry Mavin demanded from the left-hand side of the room. He was facing the concrete wall, shining his flashlight on the two-headed serpent scrawled there. He was staring at Danny contemptuously as though the young man had personally offended him with his presence. Danny, suppressing a pleased smirk, shrugged.

" I said it might take a while."

Mavin just shook his head in a disgusted way.

Danny set his kit down by the door but not the camera around his neck thumping against his chest whenever he moved. He checked it, making sure there was film, then lit the shadowy room up in white-lightening flashes as he took pictures of the gory mess. The body was of another young woman; this one with dark red hair cut shoulder length. She was wearing a sleeveless pink, knee-length dress that looked uncomfortably tight, though that was mostly due to the fact that her body had swelled in the onset of decay.

" That's weird," Danny murmured to himself. But in the small room not even a whisper could go unnoticed. Mavin was at Danny's side in a heartbeat.

" What? What's weird?"

Danny began circling the body, studying the graying flesh and the dark blue web-work of veins. He bent to look beneath the hair at the pasty white face with the clouded eyes and gaping mouth.

" She's been here a while."

Mavin snorted. " Gee, doc, you figure that out all by yourself? The landlord said they smelled something nasty comin' up from the vents. I don't think nasty smells like that come in a day."

Danny straightened, narrowing his eyes at Mavin. " You don't see it Mavin? The first body Mac and Stella found? Obviously, that ain't the first death, this one is. How many days were the people here smellin' something foul?"

" It started the day before yesterday."

Danny nodded. " Two days. Add an extra when the body was put down here, plus all the moisture, mold, and heat. That would speed up decay pretty quick. Ten to one when Hawkes takes a look at her he'll mark her death at three days ago, give or take. So congrats, Mavin, you're actually working the first killing," Danny finished with a hint of his own disgust.

Mavin's mouth quirked up in a lop-sided grin. " You're better than I thought, Messer. But you think I didn't know that? Any idiot could tell how long this corpse has been here."

Mavin pushed the body's leg with his gloved finger, getting it to sway a little and cause the rafters to creak. A cold thrill of alarm shot through Danny's blood.

" Don't do that," he stated heatedly.

" Do what? Touch the body?"

" Yeah, Mavin, touch the body. You're messin' with the crime scene," Danny snapped with a sudden rush of desire to slug the guy. Was Mavin messing with him or was he actually a moron? Danny was leaning toward the latter.

Mavin shoved his hands into the pocket of his brown over coat. " Messer, you really need to learn to chill here. You got what you needed; 'cause in all truth pictures are all you're gonna get. Go ahead; swab away, stick your nose to the floor and body to sniff out hairs, prints, and semen. You're not going to find anything. We're done here, I promise you that. But, go ahead and try."

Mavin's unwavering certainty was gnawing at Danny's already fiery nerves. Danny managed a nonchalant shrug as part of his response. " I intend to."

Danny went on with his picture taking. He looked away from the body only once to see Aiden walk in purposefully and apparently well rested.

" Need any help?" she asked, setting her kit down across from Danny's. Danny held up the camera.

" Got the pictures. You could take some blood from the wall."
Aiden nodded and opened her kit to retrieve a few swabs.

Mavin eyed Aiden as though she were a bad piece of meat. " Who the hll sent you?"

Aiden brushed past Mavin without looking at him. " Mac. He wants two forensics working the scenes."

Mavin looked at Danny accusingly as though this were somehow his fault. Danny responded with a challenging gaze of his own, giving the man a reply through eyes alone that said 'yeah, she's here, she's going to help, get over it.' Neither backed down nor even flicked their eyes until Flack walked in, drawing Mavin's cold attention. A bitter smile split the older detective's face.

" Mac sent you too?"

Flack smiled back just as sourly. " Yeah, nice to see you too Mavin. I'm here with Burn. Is that okay with you or am I invading too much of your space? 'Cause you can leave if I am."

Danny couldn't help a small smile at this. Mavin held up his hands, his scathing grin becoming a more pleasant smile. " Not at all. Feel free to invade, I don't care. My boy Messer here's doin' most of the work anyway."

Mavin's last statement made Danny strangely nervous. The last thing he needed was for a competition to break out between teams that would have everyone turning against him. He looked at Flack, but Flack was too busy having his own stare-off with Mavin. So he looked at Aiden with an apology spilling from his gaze. Aiden shrugged one shoulder in a silent show of 'don't worry about it.'

Flack shook his head. " You're really full of it, Mavin, you know that?" He held his arms out to either side. " This isn't a competition. Let's stay on the same team here." Flack said this genuinely enough but Mavin shook his head in a cynical manner.

The exchange made Danny wonder, and not for the first time, what it was that made Mavin out to be such a jerk. Was it natural, did he really want people to hate him, or was there a whole history behind it? Danny favored history, a history involving the murdered detective. Then again, Mac had said the guy was a jerk even before then. But had he always been? Was it an ex-wife issue?

Danny did not know why he was thinking this over. It was not as though knowing would make a difference, and Danny wasn't into the whole psychologically searching the depths of someone's emotions to understand their behavior. Whatever Mavin's reasons for being a jerk, the fact remained that he was still a jerk.

Mavin turned to focus his attention on Aiden. As Danny headed to his kit to move it closer to the body, he watched Mavin out of the corner of his eye, waiting for the leer he was sure would spread over the older detective's face. He seemed the type to leer when looking at a woman. Danny was hoping Mavin would so that Aiden would lay out some of her Brooklyn-born attitude on him. When Aiden held her own it was like poetry, as well as art, since it was as much fun to watch as it was to listen to. There was very little in the world that could intimidate Aiden Burn.

Danny picked up his kit and moved back to the body. He continued to watch Mavin as Mavin observed Aiden. There came no leer, only a deep, profound scrutiny. Mavin wasn't simply watching Aiden to be watching her. It was more like he was making certain she did everything she was supposed to, the way she was supposed to.

" Hope you got lots of pictures of that snake, Messer," Mavin said without taking his eyes off Aiden. Danny had to hand it to the man. He truly was serious about this case.

CSINY

Mavin had freed Danny from the invisible shackles binding them, and let him and Aiden head back to the crime lab with the body. Flack and Mavin were staying behind to question the tenants.

Once back at the lab with the body safely in Hawkes' possession, Danny and Aiden went to hand the blood off to Mac and Stella. Danny would have liked to deal with the blood himself, but they had scoured the scene for the better part of the day. It was lunchtime and he was hungry, so he followed Aiden to the break room.

" So," Aiden began conversationally, " having fun yet?" They entered the break room, and Danny yanked open the fridge to grab the sack containing the sandwich he had bought before coming.

" Total blast," he replied, trying to slam the fridge door, but Aiden caught it to get her salad. Danny turned and tossed the sack onto the table, then pulled out the chair and dropped into it.

" He really get to you that bad?" Aiden asked, sitting more gently in the seat across from Danny. Danny shook his head as he opened the bag and pulled out the sub.

" No, I'm just kind of tired. He had me up half the night telling me horror stories about the Hangman."

Before taking a bite, Aiden arched her eyebrow. " That's it? I only met the man today and I was ready to deck him. He sounds so freakin' sure of himself…" she shook her head and shoved lettuce and a crouton into her mouth.

Danny unwrapped his sandwich slowly so it wouldn't fall apart. " We've dealt with creeps before."

Aiden started slightly in surprise. " Wow, Messer, you're really taking this in stride. I thought of all people you'd be the one to lay him on his butt first."

Danny glared at Aiden under a lowered brow. " Gee, thanks for the faith Aid."

Unfazed, Aiden took a sip from her bottle of ice tea. " Come on Danny. Even you have to admit that you get wound a little tight sometimes. Don't take it personally, it's just the way you are. You don't put up with a lot of crap, which isn't a bad thing. I don't like putting up with crap. But out of the two of us you're normally the one to react… unnecessarily, I suppose you could say."

Danny bristled at this, holding his glare on Aiden though she continued to brush it aside as though it weren't even there.

" Sorry Danny, it's the truth. You're doing it right now."

Danny's shoulders sagged, realization slapping his face red, and suddenly he found that he could not help a small, caustic chuckle at this. " You really think you got me so pegged, Burn?"

" Not really. You're kind of proving me wrong with this whole Mavin deal."

This helped to brush away remaining irritation, and Danny was finally able to dive into his sandwich without his appetite being hindered by tension. As they ate, Danny got his revenge on Aiden by describing the horror scenes Mavin had talked of the other night. Beside slit throats and hangings, there had also been gutting such as the removal of a liver, spleen, kidney, lungs, and heart. Danny went into details about entrail bits left over in the tubs and buckets, which brought about a satisfying look of repulsion on Aiden's face.

" Messer, I'm trying to eat here. Can it already."

Danny snickered and finished off the rest of his sandwich just as his phone rang. He was still snickering some when he answered it.

" Messer."

" Something amusing you Messer?"

Danny tilted his head back and let out a sharp breath. " What do you want, Mavin?"

" I want you to sit tight so I can come pick you up. We're going to seek out an old buddy of mine."

Danny lifted his head. " Yeah? Who?"

" Jake."

CSINY

Stella was baffled, a state of mind she loathed. She couldn't help it, though. Spread before her on the lab counter were four sheets indicating the blood types of the samples that had been gathered. It had helped to put together a nice little puzzle, but it seemed she had an extra piece left over.

" Hey Mac, come and look at this," she said. Mac was at another table putting some piece of evidence into a bag and labeling it with a sharpie. He moved over to stand by Stella's shoulder and look the papers over.

" See anything strange?" she asked.

Mac placed his index and middle finger on the first two sheets. " These two are a match, but not these two."

" Exactly. The blood used for the snake at our crime scene is the same blood type as the victim's blood found at Danny and Aiden's scene. The blood for the snake at Danny and Aiden's scene does not match the blood of the vic at our scene." Stella turned to look up at Mac, alarm tightening her chest. " Do you think there's another body we haven't found yet?"

Mac was silent for a moment and his gaze distant with thought. " Maybe. I want to try something, though. It shouldn't take long." He picked up the paper with the blood type that had no match. " Let's compare this with the blood types of previous victims. The killer liked collecting blood as you recall. Perhaps he kept some of it over the years."

Stella nodded as her own mind began turning. " And if we have a match with anyone, DNA too to play it safe, then we'll know that this isn't a copy-cat killing. No one would just leave blood lying around for someone else to find and use."

" I'll get the file," Mac said. He left the lab, only to return a few minutes later with a manila folder in hand. He pulled out sheets one at a time and compared them, then set the ones aside that were the same blood type as that on the sheet. They ended up with three matches, with Mac still holding the third.

" My money's on this one." He handed the sheet to Stella. The name on the top was that of Detective Megan Myers.