A/N: In the previous chapter I said that the bodies that were found were two hundred years old. As the bare outlines of a plot (v. tentative but it is there somewhere) have begun to form I wish to change the 200 to 80.

Also please excuse the lame forensic details. I've been reading Patricia Cornwell et al since 1994, but the details were the bits I would skim read.

Thank you for all the reviews - especially Sonnet Lacewing, Feyrey, Lime 63 and Goldeneyedwildmage from the Tamora Pierce ff part! I will PM review replies, so those who reviewed anonymously - thank you!

Chapter 3

Booth noticed the look of worry etched across Brennan's face and had an almost uncontrollable urge to touch her porcelain white skin. He refrained from doing so as usual, his brain searching for a witty announcement that would distract him away from his feelings. "Was there anyone unusual hanging about yesterday or anyone particularly interested in the bodies?" The witty comment had by passed him.

Brennan's eyes looked hard with thought. "There were a few odd noises late last night, before I went up to the office. I thought it was just my imagination with being so tired. But no one can get in here without a pass…" She shook her head in disbelief and headed to the phone.

He watched as she dialled a number, probably Zack or Angela. In thirty minutes or so the rest of the squints would be here, and he would have to share Bones with the rest of them. He bit down on his lip slightly, wondering when he was going to get over his infatuation. It would have to be quick.

"Zack, Hodgins and Angela are on their way. I didn't say what had happened, just that they were needed here urgently," she had begun to make a list of what had gone missing. "Why take this? Its not a modern case, no one's going to go to prison for it. I don't understand."

Booth had begun to search round for anything that might give them an idea as to who had been in the lab. He was getting angsty himself now, wondering if someone had been in while him and Brennan had been asleep n her office. The thought was making his skin crawl. "There are going to be complications with it, Bones," he tried to pacify her, and himself. "The house where the bodies have been found is being demolished to make way for the building of a hotel. This is going to put all of that on hold. They won't be able to do any more construction work until the investigation has been completed, so expect some pressure over doing this quickly." Booth's cell phone began to buzz. He searched his pockets and answered it. Brennan stomped off to the place where the third skeleton had been kept.

He watched her as he carried out his phone conversation, beginning to overlook the body and making quiet notes into her dictaphone. From the look on her face there were obviously similarities between the third body and the two she had already examined. At one point she stopped, and focused on one part of the femur. He widened his eyes at her, as if to ask what she had found. She replied with a familiar expression that practically shouted at him to get off the phone. He ended his conversation rapidly, giving his attention back to her, although he had some important news that he knew was likely to grab her interest.

"Look here," she directed him to the spot on the femur she had been examining. "See those strange marks?"

He nodded. "They look like someone's had…" he squinted and looked a little closer.

"I'm not one hundred percent, but I think they're teeth marks," she said in her usual matter of fact manner. He raised one eyebrow.

"You're suggesting cannibalism?" He said, feeling the chicken in black bean sauce churning over in his stomach.

She nodded, going back to the unit where the other two bodies were and pulling one of them out. "I've noticed similar markings on some of the bones of the other two women, but not as defined as this."

"Before you begin what you're about to you may want to hear this," he said, resting his back against a filing cabinet. She looked up, semi interested. "The phone call I had was to say that they have discovered four more bodies. It's officially an FBI case. They've left the bodies in situ as they thought you'd want to examine them yourself."

She pulled of the latex gloves and dropped them into the waste. "Give me a minute to make sure everything's secure."

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Brennan called Zack and told him and Hodgins to meet them at the crime scene, and then left a message for Angela giving her instructions to begin on a facial reconstruction of the first woman. Booth drove infuriatingly slow as always and she felt the inexplicably urge to yank the steering wheel from his hands and take control. That had to be one reason why they would never have a successful relationship out side of work; they were both control freaks.

He pulled up outside the red tape that cornered off Moreton Street and flashed his badge with an authoritative grin. Brennan took out her own ID and showed it to the man on duty. He waved them through and Booth parked up facing the house.

Most of the street had already been demolished. The process was a slow one as there were occupied houses in the nearby vicinity so there had been no quick explosions. It had been two rows of terraced houses, built to serve a local factory that had long since been converted into modern offices. The houses had stood empty for at least twenty years, some of them for longer. Many had been boarded up with safety notices hanging outside, although that hadn't stopped a few of them from being broken into and used by squatters and vandals. Brennan had already noticed a couple of needles. She pointed them out to an officer who was standing close by, seemingly doing nothing and asked her to dispose of them safely.

Booth led her to the second to the end house, now roofless and a good part of the second storey removed. The door had been taken off, although there was now tape in its place. He held the tape up so that Brennan could step under it and enter the house. She felt the damp first, the years of the building being uninhabited. What would have been the sitting room was small with remainders of nineteen seventies design wallpaper peeling off the walls. They stepped further in toward the back room, where an old table still stood, abandoned by the last people to live there. It was here where the floor boards had begun to be pulled up and Brennan immediately saw the remains of what appeared to be four more bodies, buried what would have been only a couple of inches below the floorboards.

She bent down, onto her knees and opened the case she had brought, taking out various implements. The remains had been packed together closely. From what she could see immediately there were no signs of any clothing.

"Is this where the first three bodies were found?" She asked. Something wasn't quite sitting right.

Booth looked up at a scene of crime officer who stood nearby. The young man shook his head nervously. "No, Dr Brennan. The first bodies were found in the cellar."

"Has the entire cellar been excavated?" Brennan asked. The man shook his head again.

"What's biting you?" Booth asked, looking at her curiously.

"These bodies aren't as old as the ones that I've already examined. The earlier ones are from about one hundred years ago, roughly – I haven't had chance yet to run any conclusive tests on them. On first impression I'd say that these bodies have only been here thirty years." She studied a skull that was partially visible closely. "See, there's modern dental work." She gestured to a capped tooth.

Her eyes met his. For a split second that strange jolt of electricity crossed between them and the new discovery paled into insignificance. She brought herself round and forced herself to focus on the task in hand. "So we have two lots of bodies, looking like suspicious deaths. What is this place? Murder Street?" Booth said, almost to himself.

She heard two steps of familiar footsteps and looked up to see Zack and Hodgins enter the room, incredulous looks on their faces.

"This is awesome," she heard Zack say in an undertone and noticed Booth glare at him. "What do we have?" She began to explain to him what they had discovered. Within ten minutes both she, Zack and two of the scene of crime officers were removing the bodies from their undignified graves, while Booth had gone downstairs to the cellar to overlook what had gone on there and see if any more skeletons were about to be uncovered.

Each bone recovered was photographed in its place of finding and logged. Once removed a peg was placed in the ground with a corresponding number to show where the bones had been recovered from. Photographic evidence was continually captured, particularly as it now looked as if the crimes they were uncovering were more recent than originally thought and there would now be the chance of bringing the killer to justice.

By the time Brennan had returned to the lab, the remains of seven more bodies had been found with the possibility of more not erased. The four that had been reported to Booth that morning were almost complete although she doubted that they had been buried in the place that they had died. She had already noticed similar marks on some of the bones as to what she had see on the three skeletons that were already in the lab. This puzzled her. At least thirty years separated the deaths. Why were there similar markings on all the skeletons. She considered ritualistic murders. If the house had remained in the same family, or at least within people who could be connected to each other then there was the potential for some form of cult or sect to have used the house as a place to dispose of the remains of the sacrifices it may had made. She shook her head. Too much speculation! That was Booth's thing.

Once she had scrubbed up she began to examine the three bodies that had been recovered from the cellar. All were female, with their estimated ages at the time of death being between twenty six and thirty five years old. From the six skeletons that had been dug up from the cellar, five had been dead for approximately two eighty. The sixth Brennan estimated to have been buried less than twenty years ago, after the house was declared unsafe for living in. The four bodies that she and Zach had recovered all dated from being buried around twenty five to thirty five years ago. She had gotten Hodgins to begin tests for pollen and bugs to see if they could identify the whereabouts of the actual murder; Brennan was doubtful that it had been done inside the house.

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Booth returned to lab just as the sun was setting, armed with a selection of sandwiches and cans of pop and bottles of water. "Thought you squints might need feeding," he said, dropping the provisions down on one of the tables. There was a mad dash from Hodgins and Zack to grab the BLT, resulting in Angela stepping in and claiming it for herself.

"So," Booth began, looking woefully at the tuna salad he had been left with. "What news do you have for me?"

Brennan sighed. "All ten skeletons have the same marks on their upper right femur, indicative of a scraping with human teeth. Five of the women look to have been murdered approximately eighty years ago, they are the remains that we found in the cellar. The other five skeletons were buried much more recently, between two and four decades ago."

"All of the more recent bodies have traces of fusarium oxysporum on them," Hodgins said between mouthfuls. Booth looked blank. "It's a disease that onions get. But wherever these bodies have been it seems to have been common. Their bones were practically covered in it."

"How's Angela doing?" Booth looked to where Angela was sat, typing information into a computer.

"She's working on the faces of the women who were killed more recently. We've also been trying to collect as much information as possible on each of the women. Hopefully we'll be able to cross reference what we have with missing person reports which may help us to identify the victims," Brennan answered. "We should know more by the end of the night."

Booth shook his head at the woman in front of him. "You and I have a few more jobs to do," he told her. "I've got the address of Dean Lammork, who was the last known resident of number 34, and we need to pay him a little visit."

"Well, where does he live?" Brennan asked, a little thrown by being told what to do.

"Craigon Avenue in Bridgiton," he watched her face react.

"That's a fair way, it's going to take at least two hours to get there," she protested.

"And we'll probably have to stay overnight, so you'll need that overnight bag you keep here," he kept his voice low and calm.

"But there's a lot I need to be getting on with here."

He noticed Angela step forward, her eyes twinkling at both Booth and Brennan. "And we will cope. You have your cell, so we can contact you. Go, be gone!" She waved her hand dramatically.

Booth looked at Brennan. It was going to be another interesting night together.

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