A/N: Thank you all for your reviews and sorry for the delay in updating the next chapter. University got the better of me and kept me quite busy. I'm doing my best to post more regularly, if you want me to.

Chapter 3

With a heavy sigh, Horatio closed his front door behind him and for a few moments he just leaned against the cool wood. "What a day," he thought, but immediately corrected himself. "Better make this a week." Since almost two weeks the whole Miami Dade Crime Lab was searching for anything that could lead to their serial killer, but they hadn't come up with anything so far. This guy was good, Horatio admitted, but he knew he was better; he had to be better than him.

Slowly he pushed himself from the door, kicked off his shoes, got out of his jacket the same time and shuffled into his spacious kitchen. There he opened his fridge, grabbed something to eat and wandered into his living room. After putting his food down on the coffee table, he pulled his dress shirt out of his trousers and made himself comfortable.

With a satisfied 'mhm' he savored his dinner and closed his eyes while doing so. This case was getting him and he knew it. It became more and more difficult to calm the chief who demanded results; results Horatio didn't have.

"I can't perform miracles," he said to himself and opened his dress shirt in order to pull it off. Since he didn't need to be dressed formal at home, this would be much more comfortable. "That's better," he said and threw the shirt towards one of his reading chairs. Normally he would go upstairs and change, but right now he couldn't bring himself to do that.

Instead he stayed on his couch, stretched out his legs and grabbed a journal, which was lying on the table. Horatio was still a bit restless because of this whole vampire thing, even though Alexx had told him about it a week ago.

It wasn't that he didn't believe in vampires. He did, whether he was a scientist or not. In fact he had kept personal records about supernatural activities in Miami. He knew that there was some kind of vampire community in the city, as weird as this may sounded, but the vampire, he and his team were dealing with, was new in the city.

He was probably new in the city, but he wasn't unfamiliar to Horatio. No, he had sort of met him before, many years ago, while he had still lived in New York and this didn't make it any easier for him. It was a good thing that Alexx didn't know about that, or she would be around him 24/7, asking all kind of questions he couldn't answer. This woman had always been interested in supernatural things and he knew that as much as this vampire scared her, she was also curious about him.

So why was he here? Why Miami of all places? Horatio didn't know, but he was determined to find out. There was just the question of how. The community was rather very secretive when it came to one of their own and getting information would be a hard task.

"Why do I always get the vampires? Wouldn't a normal serial killer be okay once in a while?" he asked no one in particular, opened the journal and fumbled for a pen. He had written down all the latest vampire activities in the last six month and nothing hinted that this guy had been here in Miami whilst that. He had also checked cold cases, but to no avail. The vampire was very effective. He seemed to look for a victim, get them to the beach and then kill them. After that he disappears for a while and suddenly comes back. The modus operandi was always the same and yet they couldn't catch him.

"He's fooling with us, playing cat and mice and we let him play." This wasn't Horatio's liking, but for now he couldn't change it. The team was still searching for some freak, who enjoyed brutal killings and for now it would remain like this. Alexx thought it would be so easy to tell people that they were dealing with something already dead, but she was wrong. In his past he had seen a lot of people regarding other people as crazy when they claimed that vampires and other nightly creatures existed and even though he hoped that his team wouldn't react that way, he didn't know for sure.

And in fact, what kind of difference would it make anyway if he told them about the true nature of their suspect? Absolutely none. They still needed to catch him. Period.

He quickly wrote down some notes and ate the rest of his meal. No need to make Alexx angry, when she found out that he wasn't eating regularly. Upsetting momma bear was never a good thing, no matter how old you were.

A look at his watch told him that he needed to go to bed in order to get at least some hours of rest, knowing that the next stressful day was already waiting for him.

Making a mental note that he would give his team the day after tomorrow off if they didn't find any new leads, he made his way upstairs to his bedroom. Now he would just have a quick shower to get rid of the grime and then slid under his cold sheets and let sleep claim him. Maybe tomorrow he'd solve the different problems he was dealing with.

Tbc if you like