A/N: Well, thanks to all who reviewed, not that there were too many of you -g-, and I think one review get totally lost somewhere on the net, so if not for my mail, I wouldn't even know about it, lol.

Thanks as always to my Beta TangledPencils.

Fire and water

by Nicol Leoraine

Chapter 5

When Nick entered the office at the start of his next shift, he was all but rested. Despite his hope that Travis would just take the hint and let him have some rest, the man did quite the opposite. As Nick found out, the few beers he offered were hardly the first drink Travis had had. After thirty minutes of silence, the man started pouring his heart out and Nick was unable to stop him. So he just sat there, listened and tried to say all the right words. Travis finally fell into an alcohol-induced sleep and Nick decided he'd try to get some sleep too. But it felt as if he had just lay down when his alarm clock started ringing and with a groan, Nick crawled out of the bed.

He splashed some cold water on his face, put on some clean clothes and walked into the living room, half hoping that Travis would be gone. No such luck and Nick scrunched his face in disgust when he smelt the booze mixed with sweat hanging in the air. On the couch was Travis, looking dead to the world, only his snoring indicating that he wasn't one of Doc Robbins' patients.

Deciding against any attempt to wake the man, Nick quickly scribbled a note saying that he had to go to work and that Travis should just call a cab and shut the door on his way out. By the way Travis looked, he would be lucky if he came to himself before Nick returned from work.

With a sigh and a rather unpleasant headache building, Nick drove to the office. Once there, he headed straight to the DNA tech's lab, somehow dismayed to find Greg singing along with a heavy metal band. Nick cleared his throat but it didn't help, so he reached for the CD player and turned down the sound, effectively getting Greg's attention.

"Hey!" the lab tech protested before he turned and saw the visitor. Then he whistled.

"Wow, you look worse than me after three days of drinking," Greg smirked and Nick rolled his eyes.

"You mean one day of drinking, and two days of coma, right?" Nick snorted.

"Really man, you don't look so hot," Greg said and Nick had to smile at the concern.

"I just didn't get much sleep, that's all. So, do you have something for me?" he quickly steered the conversation to the case. Greg took the hint and grabbed some paper from the desk, already prepared for Nick.

"I ran the sample through CODIS, but there's no match, sorry. But I ran a DNA analysis and checked it out under the scope. You brought me several samples of head hair. They were from four different individuals. One of course was our victim. I already compared that sample to what Doc Robbins sent me. The other two samples had a male indicative Y body in the cells. I can also say with some probability that both of those men were Caucasian. One had a shorter, brown hair, the other is light, almost reddish."

"That would be Travis," Nick mumbled with a frown, getting a curious look from Greg.

"Go on, Greggo. What about the fourth sample?"

"Sorry, it was an incomplete hair sample. All I can tell you is that it was dark, probably Caucasian. There were no follicles, so no DNA to analyse."

Nick grimaced, not very happy. True, they could compare the DNA from the hair sample to a future suspect, if they found any. For now, Travis was as good a suspect as anyone else and Nick truly feared what would happen if Travis were to be taken in for interrogation, which would likely happen.

"Ah, but I didn't finish," Greg pulled him out of his thoughts and Nick looked at the lab tech with growing curiosity, seeing the grin on his face. "Bet you can't guess what the chemical analysis showed me." Greg winked and pulled out another paper, waving it before the CSI's eyes. With a hardly concealed impatience, Nick grabbed for the paper. Reading the results, he looked at Greg with surprise.

"Methamphetamine?"

"Yep, and I doubt it was the first dose either," Greg replied grinning.

"Which sample?" Nick asked suddenly, feeling the fear creeping back. Greg didn't notice though.

"The short brown male."

Nick let out a relieved sigh. He didn't think that Travis was capable of using drugs, but that didn't mean anything, especially not for the detective investigating the case. He would still be considered a suspect, at least until he provided them with an alibi.

He was heading for Grissom's office, when he saw the man in question walk toward him, his gait easier and Nick wondered if Grissom's earlier grumpiness wasn't just caused by the boring cases they'd got the last few days. Maybe the boss needed something harder to set his teeth into and Nick pushed back a smile at the thought.

"Nick," the older man acknowledged his presence with a nod, pausing at the haggard look. Before he could open his mouth though, Nick preceded the question with a grumbled: "Don't ask. Long night or day, whatever."

Grissom's raised eyebrows was the only reaction he got as the man accepted his answer.

"I contacted a profiler from L.A. that worked as a consultant on the Cornwall case. She'll send us all her material about the case, along with her personal notes as soon as she puts them together. Jim should be here in a hour to discuss the case, so we better go to work and check out the rest of the evidence you collected from the scene."

"Uhm, I'm on it already. Did you see Greg?"

"I'm just heading his way," Grissom said with a sigh.

"Well, I'll save you the trip Here's what came out from the chemical analysis of one of the hairs I found in the car." Nick handed him the sheet and as Grisom read it, he relayed all the other details Greg had told him. Finally, Grissom nodded and resumed his walking, only this time in the direction of the break room.

"Good. Now go on and finish with the clothes of the victim. I'll page you when Brass arrives. Till then, I need to give out new assignments."

Nick raised an eyebrow at that.

"We got new cases?"

"Just Warrick and Sara. Catherine's still working on her robbery and 'we' need to focus on this one. It's important and if I'm right, there will be more than one victim," Grissom said and turned, not waiting for a reply.

It was closer to two hours later when Nick heard the beeping of his pager. He had another hair sample from the band of Jamie's watch. She must've grabbed for her assailant when she was attacked, because there was also an epithelial on the hair, indicating it was forcibly removed. By the length and color, Nick thought it could belong to the suspect with traces of Methamphetamine, but he still needed to get it to Greg for confirmation. He also checked the footprints and came to the realization that there were definitely two people by the car, and neither of them was Jamie.

But there was absolutely no evidence indicating that Jamie was on the parking lot in the last few days. Of course, taking into consideration that the murder happened several days ago, it was quite possible that his assumptions were wrong, simply because there was plenty of time for the evidence to get lost. Not to mention that the parking lot wasn't a secret place, so with all probability, the footprints could've belonged to anyone who'd been in the car park during the last couple of days.

With a sigh, Nick put away the clothes and headed for Grissom's office, secretly hoping that Brass had come up with a name, a suspect that they could compare the samples to. But the office was empty and with a frown Nick tried the conference room. They usually used it only if the whole team needed to get together to discuss the evidence. That meant that either there would be more team members, or that Grissomhad already received the files and simply needed the bigger table. As he opened the door, Nick found out it was the latter reason. There were documents scattered across half of the table. Jim Brass was leaning against the table, sipping on his coffee, while Grissom sat behind him, frowning in concentration at a file. He didn't notice Nick's arrival, but when Brass shifted, Grissom also looked up.

"Hey Nick," Brass said with a slight smile. "Take a seat and join us."

"Hey Jim, thanks. Anything new about the case?"

The detective sighed and gulped down the last of the coffee before answering.

"I paid a little visit to the Las Vegas Centennial where she worked as a journalist. Had a talk with the chief editor and the secretary, who were supposedly the last to see Jamie Collins alive."

"Did she tell you anything?" Nick asked, pouring himself a cup of coffee, hoping it would stop him from yawning and pay better attention.

"Yeah. Mrs. Collins had a meeting with her source in a restaurant. The secretary heard her call in the reservation, but she didn't hear the name of the restaurant. Mrs. Collins left the office at noon. The camera from the parking lot caught her when she entered her car. She was alone and in good health. She wasn't supposed to return to work that day, but later that night, the secretary got a call from Travis Andrews, her husband. She said that he sounded nervous and was asking if Jamie had mentioned any name or place where she might have been going."

"Did the secretary mention any weird visitors or phone calls for Jamie?" Nick asked, not even noticing that he used the first name of the victim, which wasn't usual. He realized it quickly though when he caught Grissom's questioning look and shrugged.

"Nope, just the usual. And Mrs. Collins took most of her phone calls herself."

"What was her job specifically?" Grissom asked for the first time.

"Journalist. She had her own column called Legal Advice."

"So she could've easily made some pretty big enemies," Grissom commented.

"What do you mean?" Nick asked with a frown. "I thought you said this was the work of some cult or serial killer?"

"No, what I said was that I saw the symbol on the victims of a serial killer. But as he is dead and the details of those murders were all around the news, this would with all probability be just a copycat. Not necessarily a crazy man either." Grissom explained slowly.

"What does that symbol mean, anyway?" Nick asked, slightly flustered by the quiet reprimand in the other man's voice. He took a picture from the table and looked at the down turned triangle carved into Jamie's forehead.

"That's one of the details that made Cornwall's victims so specific. It is a symbol of one of the five elements."

"Five?" Nick blinked, confused. "I thought there were only four basic elements. Air, Fire, Earth and Water."

"Depends on who you ask, Nick. For example, you refer to the four classical elements defined by Greeks, which Hippocrates used in describing the human body. Aristotle added Aether as the fifth element, the quintessence. Also in Taoism you can find five elements, but instead of Air there is Metal and Wood, each of them associated with a planet. There's of course the fantasy seven element theory, which I find interesting, but I won't go there right now."

"Ookay," Nick dragged out, taken aback by all the information Grissom managed to give him in only a few seconds, not entirely grasping it. He found it almost funny how interested Grissom looked in the theme, but when he realized that maybe Cornwall's case was what initiated this interest, the urge to smile was gone. "So, what does this have to do with the whole mumbo jumbo Cornwall spouted thirty years ago?"

"Like I told you Nick, we never found out all the facts. You should read some of these notes, I think that Mrs Poller who profiled Cornwall did a good job."

Throwing a dubious look at all the files, Nick looked at Grissom wearily.

"Can you give me the short version now? I'll read this later."

With a sigh, Grissom stood and walked to the white board, grabbing a black marker. He quickly drew a pentagram.

"The pentagram represents a human body. It was often used as a symbol of protection in several religions. In Christianity it represented the five wounds of Jesus. The five vertices of the pentagram also represented the five elements for some, while others exchanged Aether for another element. I don't know in which context it was used by Cornwall, only the way he applied it in the killings. If you'll look at the closer shot from the scene where Cornwall and his followers were found, you'll see that in each corner of the pentagram is a drawing of a symbol – one of the five elements." Just to point out his words, Grissom drew the symbols on the board, pointing at each of them.

"This one you saw on the forehead of Jamie Collins. The symbol of water was also the first to appear thirty years ago. Then came Earth, Fire, Air and Aether as the final one." Grissom put down the marker and turned, surprised to see Brass talking on his cell. With a frown he realized that his hearing was gone, once again. Grissom blinked, then tried to focus on Jim's mouth. He knew that something was wrong, by the way the detective's face turned into a grimace. He saw the frown on Nick's face, as the younger CSI paid attention to whatever was said. Finally, Brass ended the call and turned to the criminalists. Grissom saw his lips move and scrunched his eyebrows in the effort to actually read what he was saying.

"What?" he asked, frustrated when he didn't catch the words.

"I said that we got another body. Are you okay, Gil?"

"Uhm, yes," Grissom said, feeling the mixed emotions. Relief that he heard the last comment, but also apprehension from what it meant. He was right. There was another murder. And if they didn't find something soon, there would be more.

TBC

I promise there will be action, you just have to be patient.

By the way - Reviews?