Disclaimer: I obviously do not own CSI: NY. I just own my car, my laptop and my crazy muse who seems to want to write 4 different stories at a time. I also do own any characters that you do not recognize. You can borrow them if you ask permission first!

A/N: Okay. Thanks to everyone that read and reviewed! Here's the next chapter!!! Many thanks to Aphina and Axellia for the beta. I don't own the chapter title either. That belongs to Wednesday 13. Okay, I must warn you that the ending of this chapter is pretty gruesome, so read with caution!!! Also, if you want to learn what actual case inspired this madness, read my author's note at the end!!

Chapter 24.

Put Your Death Mask On

Upstairs, Mac and Danny had made a full circuit and were both standing in front of the final door in the hallway. Mac nodded to Danny, who turned the door knob. It was locked. Danny fiddled with it for a couple of seconds, with no result before growling in frustration.

Mac put a reassuring hand on his arm before sighing. "Why don't you go downstairs and see if one of the locals has a battering ram."

Danny nodded and quickly walked back to the stairs. He had just reached the bottom when his phone beeped. Quickly he glanced at the phone surprised to see that he had both a voicemail and a text message. Quickly, he checked to see who the missed call was from and hit ignore when he realized that it was from Cory. He opened the text message and smiled. "Hot damn! Montana had her baby!" he exclaimed before walking out the door. His heart leapt with joy as he addressed the uniform nearest to the door. "Do you have a battering ram?"

The man looked at him, before nodding slightly. "I think we have one, would you like it?"

Danny nodded. "Yes, and then please come upstairs when you get it. We have a locked room that we can't get into." He watched as the uniform hurried to get the tool and then made his way back upstairs. He found Mac crouched by the door, looking to see if he could somehow force the lock. "Hey Mac. Lindsay had her baby!"

Mac looked up, shock on his face. "But she's not due for another three weeks."

Danny shrugged. "I don't know, but I got a picture text from Adam showing her holding the baby." He pulled out his phone and then furrowed his brow. "Weird. I don't have any service up here. Do you?"

Mac pulled out his phone and shook his head. "None."

Danny was about to say more when the uniform showed up. He nodded to the man to break down the door, and once he was done the uniform scuttled back downstairs. "Why are they so freaked out?"

Mac looked thoughtful. "They've never seen anything like this. We've seen scenes that are just as bad, but to them this is a nightmare." Danny just shrugged as he made his way inside.

"This must be the master suite," he called over his shoulder as he looked at the small room that contained a love seat and a couple of comfortable looking chairs. He noticed a laptop—which was intact—sitting on a table. "This is weird, Mac. In all the other rooms, there was standing water on the floor from the sprinkler system, but this one looks like the sprinklers never came on."

Mac nodded as he shined his flashlight around, seeing a connecting door. He moved towards it and tested the doorknob, grateful when it opened easily. He walked into the spacious room, taking note of the massive mahogany canopy bed in the center with the matching bedroom set gracing the walls. He walked over to the bed and pulled the curtains, to find the bodies of two elderly people lying there. "I think I found the owners," he called over his shoulder.

Danny walked into the room, and glanced at Mac. "Really?"

Mac nodded. "I see multiple stab wounds on the man and it looks as if his wrists have been slit." He bent over to study the man's wounds. "Why don't you check her out?" he suggested to Danny.

Danny walked around to the other side of the bed, and shined his flashlight on the grey-haired woman. "I see three stab wounds on her, upper chest," he reported before stopping short. He had noticed a movement out of the corner of his eye. "Shit! Mac, she's still alive!"

Mac's head shot up at that moment before he quickly ran out of the room. Danny bent over the woman, noticing that her chest was barely moving with her breaths. Inhaling, he bent down and started to mutter to her encouragingly. Within moments, Mac was back, with Hawkes and Stella hot on his heels. Danny moved quickly out of the way so Hawkes could examine the woman.

"She's barely alive," the doctor reported. "Looks like she's lost a lot of blood and I don't know how she managed to hang on so long." He looked around the room, noticing the lack of soot covering everything. "Someone get me a towel," he ordered.

Stella walked to a door that was slightly ajar and quickly grabbed a towel from beside the bathtub. She handed it quickly to Hawkes who began to apply pressure to the wound. "We need an ambulance," she stated. "I'll go get the locals to get one."

Mac nodded as she left the room before looking at Danny and Hawkes. "We need to find out what happened in this house. What did you find on the first floor?" he asked Hawkes.

Hawkes sighed. "All of the people in the dining room had shock collars on. Even if they wanted to escape, they could have possibly been killed by the repeated voltage. One of the bodies had two broken legs, but it didn't look like any of them actually tried to escape."

Danny just closed his eyes. "Why? Why would they be wearing shock collars?"

Neither Mac nor Hawkes could answer that question; instead all three of them directed their attention to the woman barely clinging to life.

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Adam had finally gotten his heart to stop pounding after Flack had shown up and ushered Lindsay and little Ryan to the hospital. He sat back down at his computer and began the search for Mikhail and Nadezhda Pasternak. He first did a New York driver's license and identification card search and came up with pictures of the two elderly people. He quickly sent those pictures to the four people at the scene, hoping that it would help them.

Then he began to search all the different databases, coming up with something extraordinary. Before December of 1989, there were no records of the couple, not even from immigration. Puzzled, he did a world wide name search and still nothing appeared. This is very strange, he thought to himself. There has to be some record of them coming to America.

Puzzled, he chewed on his lip for while, trying to piece together a scenario in his head. Finally, he had the stroke of inspiration to do a reverse aging process on them to make them look twenty years younger and ran the photos through the vast immigration database. He knew that the likelihood of actually matching them to identities was slim, but he wanted to make sure that he covered all the angles.

As the facial recognition software was running, he rolled over to a different computer and began to pull all of the financial records for the Pasternak's. Once that was done, he emailed them down to the forensic accounting department, with an email stating that it was urgent for him to know if anything was off about them. Glancing at the clock, he grimaced, knowing that no one from that department would be in at one a.m. in the morning. Sighing, he decided to rest his eyes for a bit, to recharge his energy. Within moments, he was asleep at the computer.

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After the woman had been taken to the hospital, Mac and Danny resumed searching the rather unscathed master bedroom suite. Danny was studying the bookcases on the wall next to the bed, thinking that perhaps there was a safe behind one of them and was fascinated by the sheer number of books with Russian lettering on them. "Mac? I think that our victims may have been from Russia?"

Mac raised an eyebrow. "Their names give you that?"

Danny laughed a little. "Nope, the sheer number of books that are printed in Russian did." As he said this, he skimmed his finger along some of the titles before trying to move one. It didn't budge an inch. Curiously, he set his kit on the bed and began to try to move more books, until he heard a click. "Boom!"

Mac looked up from the blood pool beside the bed. "What?"

Danny just smirked. "I feel like I'm in the Clue house. I just found a secret doorway," he said triumphantly.

Curious, Mac got to his feet and walked around the bed to join Danny, who was swinging the bookcase towards them, revealing a brightly lit set of steps. "Why is there electricity in here? I thought the power was out to the whole house?" Danny asked in confusion.

Mac shrugged. "Maybe it's on a separate power line or even a generator," he reasoned.

Danny cocked his bed, thinking about that. "Could be," he said as he began to walk up the steps. Mac followed right behind them and within moments, they were standing in front of an imposing steel door. "God, I hope that this isn't locked. I don't think a battering ram could open it," he quipped, his mind racing at what they could possible find inside. His mind conjured images of priceless works of art, gold, jewelry. In fact, for one brief second he had an image of Scrooge McDuck diving into his swimming pool of gold coins and had to smother a rather unprofessional laugh at the thought.

Taking a deep breath, he grasped the door handle and began to pull the door open, to allow him and Mac to see inside. Whatever his mind had conjured up, nothing could prepare him for what lay inside. He dropped his kit and it landed with a metallic thud as he fought down the rising bile in his throat. Unable to articulate anything, he turned his eyes and stared at Mac, whose face had turned ashen at the sight. Finally, Danny found his voice. "Jesus, Mac," he whispered. "What the hell were these people doing?"

Mac surveyed the sight as dispassionately as possible, but was also fighting down nausea, for what he saw was beyond his comprehension. In the room—which was probably intended to be an attic that ran the length and width of the house—lay a multitude of mutilated and desecrated bodies. There were five operating tables, each with the mangled remains of a human body lying on it and chained to the wall were more bodies.

The bodies chained to the wall presented a sight that he could not imagine. The woman closest to him had her stomach cut open and what clearly had to be her intestines wrapped around her waist like a belt, it was even tied into a bow. On the other side of the door, the body of a woman lay, her legs and arms at odd angles to her body, angles that Mac knew could not be natural. Feeling Danny brush past him, he grabbed their cases and quickly followed the younger man downstairs and outside to the SUV, only to find him throwing up in the grass.

He looked at Danny, sheer willpower keeping him from doing the same thing. "I think we'd better go find Stella and Hawkes to let them know what we found," he said quietly.

Danny just nodded too nauseated to respond with words.

AN: Okay. I did warn you about the gruesomeness!!! I'm being really mean to Danny right now, but I have hopes that my muse will play nice with him in the future. As for the case, it is based off of a case in New Orleans in the 1800's. If you search for Lalaurie House in New Orleans, you can read the case details. I first heard about the case when I took the ghost tour in NOLA and just the energy of the house (before I even knew the story) gave me the chills.

Maddy - You get the cookies!!! I would have been very disappointed if you didn't guess it! I think Cory and Danny may butt heads for a while, but I do love having them fight occassionally. They are just both strong individuals that the drams is good. Armando is okay, he at least gave her some info! And truly, I don't think he knows exactly what is going on. :p Here's some more of the case. I can promise you that it's going to go on to at least chapter 28 (since I just finished 27).

angelbaby03usa - Thanks! I'm glad you like it!!!