Thrall II [Sequel, PG13, GSR, hints of g3 and Sandles, vamp]

C

Crysthala

CSI Level One
Okay, here be Thrall II. Before you read it, read the original Thrall. Seriously, please do. It's good, and you will have no idea what's going on otherwise.
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thrall II- prologue (in which the stage is set)
several thousand years ago, shortly before the rise of Greece-

Helios walked to the crest of the hill, his ice-blue irises tightening as they faced the sun directly. "Knivvus," he said. "Where is your wife?"
"She's dealing with the blood mage," replied the demon. "Did you say goodbye?"
Helios shook his head. "I don't want to."
Knivvus glanced at him. "Why not?"
Helios shook his head. "She might convince me to stay."
Knivvus sighed. "Would that be a bad thing?"
"Yes." At his friend's uneasy glance, Helios elaborated, "I could kill them all. You know... I'm something... else, now. I'm not... human. I've realized that."
"You're right," Knivvus said. "You aren't human. But you aren't a demon, either."
"No. So what am I?"
"I'm not sure... This sort of thing has never happened before. Demons and Undead don't normally copulate, and even if they did, I hardly think their children lived long enough for their blood to enter a human. No, you are something else entirely. You should think of a name for yourself."
"Why?"
"It seems fitting, I think. Demons normally choose a name for themselves when they turn fifty."
Helios darted a sharp glance to his side. "Fifty?"
"We live a lot longer than humans, Helios. Do you want to take a name for yourself?"
Helios blinked. "I think I will choose one when it occurs to me. Shall we go?"

"Who's Knivvus?" Sara asked when her lover paused in his story.
"My father," he answered. "And his wife is my mother, killing the last blood mage."
"So your family is responsible for the destruction of a species."
"Blood mages are evil. They feed on energy, not surplus energy, but energy that's being used at that moment. They're one of the few species Earth evolved possessed of the innate ability to defeat demons, vampires, elementals, the like. Obviously, they can kick human ass, too."
"And here we think we're superior," Sara said dryly. "So how did your mother kill that one?"
"The last one? Well, blood mages really aren't a problem if you have a Soulslayer sword."
"Soulslayer sword?"
"A family tradition. Sends you straight to oblivion, bypasses the afterlife entirely."
"Nasty."
"Quite. I have one, perhaps someday I'll show it to you."
"So what did Helios end up naming himself?"
"Dracula," said a voice next to them. Sara jumped and whirled around. A tall guy, at least six feet, with black hair that tumbled down to his shoulders, had appeared in the room. Sara was perfectly happy to have him there; he looked like Hayden Christiansen. He turned to Grissom and said, "Neko. I need to speak with you."
"Excuse us, Sara," he said, rising. They left, and Sara heard them speaking quietly on the other side of the door in a language she'd never heard before.

"Catherine and Warrick, you have a dead body in North Vegas. Greg, you have a trick roll, and Nick, you have a robbery."
They headed off to their assignments, everyone but Nick, who stood, glaring silently at Grissom. Sara, who would be working with Grissom, was present as well.
"What?" Grissom asked.
"What the hell is this, Grissom? Greg has been a CSI for like, a year. He's a CSI 1. It was years before you let me work solo."
"Nick, we're tapped out. We have two homicides and a robbery and a trick roll, protocol dictates that there must be two CSIs present at a murder scene, and we have six people on this shift. There's nothing I can do."
Nick shook his head, clearly still pissed, and left.

"Sara? I just wanted to let you know... don't let this scare you, okay?"
"Why would it scare me?"
"You'll see when we get there." Grissom made a right at the light and continued, "It was, ah, an accident. He lost control."
"Who's 'he?'"
"Dmitri. He should be arriving at the station at around one to confess."
"Dmitri? Dmitri who?"
"Akalov."
"That rings a bell," she said.
"Yeah, he's quite a character. Turned three hundred years ago by Dracula himself, vanished off the face of the earth the day the first signature was put to the Declaration of Independence? A portrait of him stolen from a museum a few years ago?"
"That Dmitri Akalov."
"That one, yes. I'll be sending you off to the lab with some evidentiary cargo for you to take to DNA. Conveniently enough, he will be arriving soon after, and you and Brass can interrogate him. I should be arriving near the end of said interrogation."
"And then what?"
"Good question."

It was exactly as he'd predicted.
They arrived at the scene, in which a woman had had her blood drained rather neatly. Evidently, it had all ended up in Grissom's friend Dmitri, as not a stray drop was to be found. Sara swabbed some saliva from the wound and lifted a fingerprint from the nightstand. Grissom collected a pair of fibers and got a print from the doorway. Grissom ordered Sara off to the lab with the evidence they'd collected, and not five minutes after she'd arrived, a man arrived and confessed to the murder.
He looks rather a lot like Nick, Sara realized. And he did- he had many of the same facial characteristics as Nick; that same heroic jaw, and his eyes were shaped the same way, as was his nose. Other than that, however, there was no resemblance whatsoever; Dmitri was several shades paler (as vampires were wont to be), his voice smoother than velvet, his hair dead black, and his eyes... Sara found that she couldn't stand looking into those eyes. Empty wells of blackness, with no discernible pupils, just... solid black. No color whatsoever.
"For the record, state your name please."
"Dmitri Akalov."
Brass blinked, Sara knowing it was because of the bell his name rung in his head. "And why are you here?"
"I'm confessing to the murder of Eris Ares."
"Really. Wanna tell us what happened?"
"Well... first, let me explain something."
"And what's that?"
"I'm a vampire. A real one. I need blood to survive, Detective Brass."
"I see, I see."
"You don't believe me."
"No, I don't. But please continue."
"I was feeding. I chose Veronica Ares. It was a mistake. I... I should have been more careful. I'd been working on my latest project a lot, and I hadn't fed in a few weeks."
Sara shifted uncomfortably.
"I should have gone to a friend and asked for a donation, to get it under control first, but I was so hungry, and she was only a few blocks away. So, I started feeding, and... I couldn't stop."
"So you killed her."
"It was an accident! By the time I realized what I'd done, she was already dead."
"So what did you do?"
"I got the hell out of there, is what I did. I went to a friend of mine, and he told me to confess, so I waited until one and came in."
"Why did you wait?" Sara chimed in.
"To give you guys some time to investigate the scene."
"I see, I see. So, Dmitri. You say you're a vampire. Prove it."
"What do you want me to do? Turn into a bat?"
"No. No, but that would be pretty interesting. Can you do that?"
"Nope. I can make it look like I have, though."
"So do it."
"I can't."
"You just said you could, Dmitri. Pick one."
"I have the ability to do so, certainly. But I am forbidden from doing so in front of humans. We do have laws, you know. Also, we're obligated to obey human law. Which means confessing if we kill someone, as I'm doing."
"You know, I've met a vampire. Bastard took advantage of a close friend of mine, went by the alias Angel? Ring a bell?"
"I know who the Angel is, yes. But another law of ours, I'm not allowed to tell you who he is in his human life."
Brass opened his mouth to say something, and Sara cautioned, "Brass."
He glanced at her, sat back, and sulked, staring at Dmitri. The two men made eye contact. The staring contest lasted about thirty seconds before Brass looked away.
Sara blinked. She'd never seen that happen before. Then again, she'd never seen eyes like Dmitri's before, either.
As if on cue, the door opened, and Grissom stepped in. "Jim, I need to speak with you. Sara, you too."
----
You get to read the next chapter? Later. Tommorrow, maybe. Probably. With all these RPs taking up all this space (hint hint), I'll have to. It's like the show, except daily. And this would never be on the actual show. Haha.
Reviews make me giddy with delight.
 
Re: Thrall II [Sequel, PG13, GSR, hints of g3 and Sandles, v

sry. i just am happy that u r one of my bffs! <inspirational tear>
 
Re: Thrall II [Sequel, PG13, GSR, hints of g3 and Sandles, v

<sniff> I feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
CHAPTER UNO!!1 Apologies for the wait, I've been a bit absentminded lately.
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thrall II- chapter 1 (in which much speculation is made)

"There's gotta be some mistake. This guy confessed to it, Gil."
"We have nothing to prove that he actually did it. The fibers I found turned out to be from the vic's jacket, DNA couldn't get anything from the saliva, and both prints matched the victim. We have to let him go, Jim."
"Gil, this guy knows..." Brass glanced at Sara. "This guy knows who the Angel is. We could catch him."
"No, you can't," said Sara. "He's gone. Vanished."
Grissom's eyes were a bit wide, and Sara wasn't entirely sure he was acting when he said, "Did he say anything?"
"Not a damn thing. Said that some law prevented him from saying anything. Not a law I've ever heard of."
Sara looked at the ground. Grissom sighed heavily. "Jim, we still have to let him go."
"But-"
"Jim."
Brass sighed. He remained still.
Grissom entered the interrogation room. "You're free to go," he said.
Dmitri blinked, confused. "But-"
"We found no evidence linking you or anyone else to this woman's murder, Mr. Akalov. You're free to go."
Grissom turned around and left. Sara followed him to his office.

Brass watched Dmitri leave. Dmitri seemed a bit shaken himself, but it could be an act. Probably was an act. "Damn it!" he growled aloud.
"What's with you?" Warrick queried from behind him.
"Bastard got away with it," Brass snapped. "And he knew who the Angel was, and-"
"Woah, woah, woah, slow down."
Brass told him about Dmitri Akalov and how he killed Eris Ares, and how they couldn't find a damn thing on him even though he confessed. Then he said that Dmitri knew who the Angel was, but wouldn't tell and since Sara had decided not to press charges against the vampire, there was nothing they could do. Warrick nodded in understanding. "That sucks, man. That really, really sucks."

Brass popped into Catherine's office close to the end of shift. He glanced around quickly, then shut the door.
"What's wrong with you?" Catherine asked.
"It's, ah, just... this... okay."
For the second time that day, Brass explained about Dmitri Akalov.
"Well, I see why you're upset, I am too," Catherine said. "But why are you freaking out so much?"
"It's just a suspicion, but..." Brass took a deep breath. He told Catherine of his suspicions regarding the Akalov case, then made her swear not to allow their conversation to leave the room. "I mean NEVER. You say nothing about this to Grissom, to Sara, to God Himself. You got that?"
"Yes, Jim. You have my word. Now for Christ's sake, what IS it?"
"You know the holdbacks?"
"Yes." Grissom, Brass, and Catherine had two holdbacks about the Angel case, that none of the rest of the team knew about. Sara knew of one, but was completely in the dark regarding the other.
Catherine and Brass held a whispered and very short conference, ending with-
"Angel," Catherine breathed, and muttered the kind of word she'd have grounded Lindsey for eternity for saying.
 
Re: Thrall II [Sequel, PG13, GSR, hints of g3 and Sandles, v

yey yey yey! thrall 2! i've been waiting for everrrrrr for this. lol.

very good! :D
 
Re: Thrall II [Sequel, PG13, GSR, hints of g3 and Sandles, v

Tee hee, I'm glad somebody's reading this. Dreadfully sorry, I've been forgetting to post... Personally, I find this chapter quite humorous. Abyss gets why. Tee hee. ^.^
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thrall II- chapter 2 (in which the stage is set)
"Dmitri Akalov. Where have I heard that name before?" Brass mused. "Dmitri Akalov..."
After thinking over it for about ten minutes, he finally decided to Google it.

"Main article I came up with was about a painting someone stole from a museum in New York three years ago. It was a portrait, finished just before the object of the portrait disappeared. Right before the Declaration of Independence was signed. The object of the portrait?" He handed her a printout.
Catherine blinked. "Dmitri Akalov."
"Visually identical to the one that we had in our interrogation room."
"That would make him two hundred-some-odd years old."
"I know."
"So what in the freaking hell was he just doing in our interrogation room?" Catherine growled to thin air. The walls made no answer, and Brass had none either.

Catherine drove home after work, took a quick nap, then went to pick Lindsey up from school herself. After dropping the child off at home, she went to the grocery store.
While looking for some sparkling water, she found she needed to use the restroom.
She entered quietly, closing the door behind her. She found the bathrooms were actually in okay shape, although an OUT OF ORDER sign was taped to the door of one of the stalls. She checked the one nearest her- someone hadn't flushed. Wrinkling her nose with disgust and muttering, "Friggin' tourists," she checked the next stall and shrieked.
A vampire seemed to leap out at her, a female one, her eyes open, round, and staring, the slitted pupils a creamy white that glared through the blackness of the bloodsucker's irises, the whites covered in a thick, dark red substance- blood. Her mouth was opened impossibly widely, exposing dangerous looking fangs- top and bottom, on both canines. The vampire was still, however, and an odd smell radiated from her. The elaborate spiderweb of veins in the vampire's body were standing out, white as her pupils, from her skin.
"Oh, dear," someone said in a British accent behind her.
Catherine shrieked again and whirled around.
A strikingly gorgeous woman stood before her, though it was an evil sort of gorgeous. High cheekbones were framed by waist-length, dead black hair, long eyelashes accentuating large, almond-shaped eyes with slitted, bloodred irises. She held up two lightly tanned hands, long-fingered and spiderlike, and said, "Please, don't be alarmed."
Catherine could not look away from those eyes. She was going to back up, but remembered the body of the creature behind her, and went to the side instead. "Keep away from me," she hissed, stumbling a bit. The woman chuckled, and a chill went down Catherine's spine. She'd seen a flash of fang as the woman had smiled. "You're a vampire too," she spat.
"Hardly," she sniffed. She appeared quite offended. "Demon, dear, there's quite a distinction. I say, would you happen to know a Sara Sidle?"
"Yes," Catherine said. "Why, do you want to take a bite out of her?"
The she-demon rolled her eyes exaggeratedly. "Why does everyone always assume that? People aren't the only things I eat, you know. Well, if you could tell Sara to tell... ah, Grissom... that he's in great danger. He won't listen to me."
"Who exactly are you?" Catherine asked.
"Cecilia Sesthiri. I'm supposed to say 'at your service,' but really, I'm not, so no reason to create the illusion... I say, that's a bit unpleasant, isn't it?" she intoned, glancing over the corpse Catherine had discovered. "Oh, dear," she repeated, her British accent more accentuated than ever. "Oh, double dear. It would appear he's back... I'd like for you to leave, and not tell anyone about this incident, if you please," she said, addressing Catherine. "Otherwise, things could become quite... unpleasant. Thank you," she added as Catherine practically ran out.
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Stick around for thrall II- chapter 3 (in which the angel is attacked).
 
Re: Thrall II [Sequel, PG13, GSR, hints of g3 and Sandles, v

Oh god! The suspense! THE SUSPENSE!
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thrall II- chapter 3 (in which the angel is attacked)
He was bent over, tying his shoes. How odd, Sara found herself thinking, that he still does that... he could easily have tied them without even thinking, and yet he still bends over and does it by hand...
"Oh, you know what? I have a different case today... um... I'm going to call in sick, all right? Catherine found a dead vampire in a grocery store bathroom, I'm supposed to investigate. Have a nice day, hon." He pulled her close, and they kissed.
"Be very, very careful," she instructed him. She didn't want to think about what could possibly kill a vampire. "Bye," she said, smiling at him, and left.
Her night passed quite uneventfully, an assault at Stripperama and yet another trick roll. Nick and Greg had returned to their friendly banter, Catherine was flirting again, and Warrick had gotten his sense of humor back. They all seemed rather lighthearted, especially as they had not heard from the Angel in six months. Everyone was a bit off-balanced because of the absence of Grissom, which seemed to be the topic of the day: the whole lab knew within five minutes of the start of shift.
The interesting case came about an hour before the end of shift.

By the time he heard it, it was too late; the arrow pushed itself through his throat, clipping his spinal cord, partially paralyzing him; the rest of him was paralyzed by the sensation that someone was pulling his veins right out of his body, a feeling centralized around his throat. He screamed with pain. It came out more a roar, and the sensation grew twice as painful. There was a flash of light, a bang, and he realized he'd lost control of his aura. The thin layer of energy that normally coated him snapped into shape, a tendril of excess power that whipped around the room, leaving a gash in a table and sweeping several books off a shelf. They fell to the floor with a loud series of thuds, and then the pain worsened yet more. The tendril dissolved and formed a stream of molecular particles of energy, a tiny river in midair that flowed to the figure behind him.
I've never had the blood of a prince before, something hissed in his brain. Really, it's quite good.
Grissom groaned loudly, and whatever it was vanished with a small pop and a roar, leaving the blinds open.

He couldn't move.
Not only that, he'd completely lost control of his aura, the tendril thickening as excess power stored up inside of him flooded out as through a leak in the Hoover Dam, and he sighed inwardly. If this kept up, he was going to punch through the wall.
The line dissolved and settled on the floor, and he was merciless to defend himself from the sun's energy. The world turned black as his consciousness trickled away.
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Aiiiieeee! THE SUSPENSE!
As a side note, the last few paragraphs were actually originally in chapter 4 (in which someone is kidnapped... and it isn't Sara), which will likely be coming up tomorrow, but I decided it was pointless to put them there. The Angel getting knocked out is so much more dramatic than the bad guy leaving, don't you agree? Anyway, stay tuned (those of you gifted people listening) for the aforementioned next chapter...
 
Re: Thrall II [Sequel, PG13, GSR, hints of g3 and Sandles, v

I know, I know, I'm a horrible person. Please don't kill me.
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thrall II- chapter 4 (in which someone is kidnapped... and it isn't Sara)
"What did you say this was again? Double?"
"Triple. Body in the kitchen, two in the bedroom. Electricity's been cut. No lights, no A/C."
"Then why is it so cold in here?" Catherine asked, setting her kit on the cracked and broken tile floor.
"Dry ice," Warrick informed them, emerging from the living room. "Buckets of it."
"Grissom picked a hell of a day to get sick," Warrick sighed. "And it's near end of shift, too..."
"Greg, why don't you go take a look at the body in the kitchen?" Catherine requested.
Greg didn't move.
"Greg?" Sara asked gently.
"Something's very wrong here," Greg said. "Something's not right. Can you feel it?"
"It feels like something's crawling on my skin," Warrick said. "It feels like something's... watching us."
"Something is," said Greg, and Catherine screamed.
"Where'd she go?" Warrick asked. "Where the hell did she go?"
"I don't know!" Sara shrieked. "Catherine!"
Dust and plaster showered down from the ceiling, and Catherine screamed again.
"Catherine!" Warrick bellowed. A vein was ticking in his temple, and Sara noticed that his eyes had turned an amber color, and his hands were clenched. His tendons were standing out. Quite suddenly, he relaxed, not in relief but defeat. Every sound had stopped, and the only thing they could hear was their own breathing.
"I thought you cleared the scene," Warrick growled at Brass.
"We did!" Brass insisted. He pulled out his gun and ran up the stairs. He returned a few minutes later. "Nothing there."
"You were supposed to clear the scene," Warrick repeated.
"We did, and there is no... damn... way... that anyone-"
"Stop," Greg said harshly. "It's not Brass's fault."
"Like hell it isn't!" Warrick proclaimed. "It's his job to prevent stuff like this-"
"How can he keep something from returning to a scene that is of a race that's been concealing itself for thousands of years?" Greg snapped. "If there's one person to talk to, it'll be a vampire."
"You mean a vampire took her?" Sara gasped.
Greg nodded.
"You think so?" Warrick asked, distracted from Brass for the moment.
"I know so," said Greg. "The Angel made me feel similarly, but this is... different."
"How so?" Warrick queried, not wanting to know how it was Greg knew this.
"It doesn't care who it hurts," Greg said. "It wants something, and it's perfectly capable of acquiring this... whatever it is. And it's dangerous to more than humans."
"You mean, it can hurt other vampires, too?" Sara asked, alarmed. She remembered that Catherine had been the one to find the vampire in the bathroom, according to Grissom.
"It's not a vampire. Not exactly. And it can... kill... vampires, not just hurt them."
Warrick breathed, "Oh, God. It can kill things that are already dead."
"Vampires are not dead," Sara snapped. Turning to Greg, she asked, "Greg? Do you think the Angel can help with this?"
"Is there a way to find out?"
"Angel?" Sara asked timidly, into thin air.
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Whee. I'll just put the next chapter now.

thrall II- chapter 5 (in which Brass very nearly puts two and two together)
The Angel materialized from thin air in front of them. Warrick stumbled backward, Brass pulled his gun, and Nick yelled loudly, but Sara stepped forward and embraced him. He grunted. "My God, Angel! What happened to your face?" she cried. The right side of his face was horribly burned, like someone had lit it on fire, except it was... different, somehow.
"The same thing that took Catherine tried to take me," he rumbled. Nick quivered.
"Why?" Sara asked, stroking his cheek gently.
"I don't know, but it can't be good."
"Why should we believe you?" Nick asked, growling a bit. "How do we know you didn't take her?"
"Believe me, if I knew where she was, she'd be back already," he replied. "However, I don't, which means she's been taken by something more dangerous than I am."
"Sure. Right. Because that exists," Brass scoffed.
"I assure you, compared to some other things out there, such as the thing that took Catherine, I am quite tame," he chuckled. "Actually, I think I hear a helicopter. We should go see what that's all about."
"We should bring Grissom," Brass said.
"Grissom has also been taken by the Viper."
"Viper?" said Nick. "Is that the bastard that took Catherine?"
"Cecilia and I think so, yes."
"Okay," Sara said. "Are you okay? Will you be all right?"
"I'll be fine," he said, smiling down at her.
Greg and Nick looked away as they kissed. Brass looked furious.
Quite suddenly, Nick dove for Brass's gun, leveling it at the Angel's head.
"Nick!" Sara shrieked.
"Oh, come now, Nicholas," the Angel said. "Don't waste our time. Let's head to the car."
"He's going to kill you!" Sara cried.
"Yeah, I am," Nick confirmed.
"He doesn't have the guts," the Angel said. "Come on."
His hand trembled as he followed the Angel's path with the detective's gun. He tried to squeeze the trigger... His blood pounded in his ears, very nearly overshadowed by his labored breathing. Do it, a voice in the back of his head ordered. Do it...
Nick sighed and handed the gun back to Brass. The detective took it, staring at the dark-haired CSI.

The car ride didn't take very long, mainly because the Angel drove like an absolute lunatic. He drove them out to the hills near Sparks, close, thought Brass, to where their most recent incident with Lady Heather had occurred.
"Does he know where he's going?" Greg asked Brass in a whisper.
"Yes," said the Angel, up front. Greg stared at him, awed. "I have very good hearing, Greg. Keep your eyes out for that helicopter. It should be off to the west."
They all returned to looking out the window.
The next few minutes passed in silence (except for the occasional squeal of tires) as they all looked out the window, watching for the helicopter, which was broken when Nick noticed, "You look like Grissom."
"A fact I'm not proud of," the Angel replied coolly. "Keep such observations to yourself in the future, please."
Sara knew why he was saying that; he didn't want them all making such observations and putting two and two together. She glanced backward at Brass. He was looking at the Angel as though seeing him in a new light.

"I think Grissom knew that Akalov committed the murder."
Catherine's eyes widened a tiny bit, and she leaned forward.
"I think he also knew that we wouldn't be able to get anything on Akalov, and I think he knew that Akalov knew who the Angel was, and that Akalov wouldn't tell who the Angel was even though he confessed to the murder we couldn't pin on him."
"So you think Grissom knew everything."
"Yes."
Catherine took a deep breath that echoed Brass's and sat back in the chair. "Why?"
"Everything was just a little too convenient. Now, I don't think Sara was in on it at all, we might need to talk to her."
"What do you mean by 'convenient?'"
"They arrived at that scene at eleven thirty? Grissom sent Sara back to the lab with their evidence- all the evidence they were going to get- at one. Not five minutes later, in waltzes Dmitri Akalov, who confesses to the murder. And as soon as he's done, Grissom arrives and informs us that none of the evidence collected panned out. And Akalov leaves."
"That is kind of weird," Catherine agreed. "They finished with that scene in an hour and a half?"
"Yeah. A bit fast, don't you think?"
"Unheard of... Jim, there's something you aren't saying."
"I want to see if we can find out where Grissom was at the time of the murders and immediately after, right up until he arrived here at eleven."
Catherine glared at him. "You don't consider him a suspect?"
"Look, Catherine, all I'm saying is... it's all just a bit..."
"I see what you're saying, Jim, but you can't just go accusing him of murder-"
"No, no no no. I don't think he killed anyone. I'm just saying-"
"Jim. You can't seriously think he helped this Akalov person clean up the scene."
"Look, I don't know. All I'm saying is that we need to make sure."
"There's still something you aren't saying."
"I can't. Not yet. I need... I need more evidence."
"Well, if you tell me what the hell is going on, maybe I can help you find it."
"Okay, but what I'm about to say never leaves this room."
"Okay."
"I mean NEVER. You say nothing about this to Grissom, to Sara, to God himself. You got that?"
"Yes, Jim. You have my word. Now for Christ's sake, what IS it?"
"You know the holdbacks?"
"Yes." Grissom, Brass, and Catherine had two holdbacks about the Angel case, that none of the rest of the team knew about. The first was that, in his letters, the Angel referred to Sara as "my darling." Sara knew this, of course, but they'd very strictly instructed her not to tell a soul. The second was the fact that the chalk recovered from Sara's apartment wasn't chalk at all, but abrated epethilial cells in a vast quantity- inhuman epethilial cells which consumed themselves shortly after collection. "Which one?"
"The Angel's name for her."
Catherine blinked.
"Last week, they were in the layout room together. He called her 'querida,' and guess what she called him back? 'Angelo.' Querida is Spanish for 'darling,' and Angelo-"
"Angel," Catherine breathed, and muttered the kind of word she'd have grounded Lindsey for eternity for saying.

"I see it!" Greg shouted. "That way! Look!"
He pointed, a dozen eyes followed his finger, and the Angel took the vehicle offroad.
----
Double whee! I bet you can hardly wait for chapter 6 (in which catherine falls), eh?
 
Re: Thrall II [Sequel, PG13, GSR, hints of g3 and Sandles, v

GASP! Chapter 6! And 7! At once! WOW! Yay, it's vampire combat.
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thrall II- chapter 6 (in which catherine falls)
They looked out over the desert, shrouded in nighttime, though the sun was sneaking up behind them. The full moon was setting, and the outline of what looked like a stolen news helicopter was silhouetted in the same vanilla light that shone over Sara's and Grissom's first... experiences together.
Sara held her Angel's hand, his gorgeous blue eyes unchanged by the banishment of the illusion he'd been under. "Do you need blood?" she asked him quietly. Their friends all jumped and shouted admonisments. He nodded, and she held up her wrist. Greg ran up and pushed it away. The Angel looked at him, and he seemed to shrink several inches. He turned away and swallowed.
Sara and her pet vampire were offered no further resistance.
"Angel!" something roared. The epithet echoed across the desert to them from the helicopter. "Angeeeeel!"
"What?" the Angel screeched back, his voice impossibly loud. Sara winced and covered her ears.
"You should have let me kill you earlier, Angel."
"Where's Grissom?!" Nick bellowed.
"Oh, I'll tell you where he is-" started Viper.
A bubble rose in her throat. Fear. Viper was going to expose Grissom. Sara interrupted, "Why are you doing this?"
Grissom could see the Viper's eyes from where he was, and those eyes were burning black. He could see the faint outline of Viper's features. He looked like Voldemort, with flat, slitlike nostrils and no nose... although, he was also green. The Angel could have sworn he even saw scales. Viper's head was bald, completely without hair, and he had no eyebrows. His mouth opened. His teeth were jagged and uneven, like a shark's.
He could also see Catherine. Her chest was marred by a massive gash that ran from her right collarbone to just above her left breast. She was breathing hard, eyes glazed, staring at Viper like a fly caught in a web.
"She's bleeding," he said. "I think maybe he missed, bringing her into the copter."
Warrick had a sudden vision of one of those silhouetted helicopter blades cleaving through Catherine, winced, and bit his lip.
"Are you happy, Angel? This is what you get for bringing humans into our world!"
"Humans ARE the world, Viper," the Angel replied in a scream. "Give Catherine back!"
"Oh, I will. She'll just be a smear on the floor of the desert."
They heard Catherine's scream from where they were as she fell from the helicopter.
----
GASP! Suspense!

Catherine uses one of the Seven Dirty Words you Can't Say on Television. Just warning you.
----
thrall II- chapter 7 (angel)
Grissom broke into a run and jumped off the cliff, praying that he wouldn't be too late. He covered a quarter of the half mile he needed to go before he started plummeting to earth, and felt the snapping release in his back that meant his wings were coming free.
Sara screamed as the clothes on his torso shredded, thinking he'd been hit with some sort of weapon, but then she saw the black bone structure of his wings, spreading toward the sky like a hand reaching through a bubble. A thin membrane spread between the four fingerlike extensions, and, quite suddenly, Sara's Angel had wings. Not the feathery, cute, tiny kind usually portrayed by artists; these were massive, each as big as the Angel himself, with four long bones serving as support. The backs of the wings were shiny and dead black, and as Grissom flew toward the helicopter, Sara saw that the other side of the thin, webbed membrane was a deep blue that matched his eyes.
Nick shouted as something blew past them, leaving a trail of dust in its wake.
"Dracula," Sara gasped, as the ancient vampire did a series of flips going off the cliff, landed on Grissom's back (Grissom didn't seem to notice, and he didn't even fall an inch) and launched himself toward the helicopter. A blast of light about a foot in diameter hurtled toward him, but it bounced off and ricocheted into the tail of the news chopper, blowing it apart. The chopper spiraled out of control.

Catherine had the distinct impression that she was falling, but she wasn't quite sure. She thought she could see the chopper above her, shrinking rapidly, spinning and sending spirals of smoke into the starry night sky. Her chest ached more than she'd previously thought possible, and droplets of blood seemed to follow her down.
She jerked to a halt.
Well, that wasn't so bad, she thought to herself. It didn't hurt as much as she thought; given how high helicopters generally flew, shouldn't she be dead or hurting horribly?
A draft of air, moving against the stiffly blowing wind, passed by her right ear. Catherine looked blearily around, and saw a pair of glowing red eyes looking back at her.
"More goddamn vampires," she muttered, her own words lost to her on the wind. She looked down and shrieked.
She was flying.
More accurately, the Angel was flying, and had her in a fireman's carry. It was an extremely odd feeling. She distinctly felt like she was falling, but all of her other senses told her she was not.

Grissom swooped low over the desert floor, dodging the blasts of energy Viper was throwing their way. He did a barrel roll, turning over lengthwise several times, and came up over the edge of the cliff. Warrick shouted when he saw the gash on Catherine's chest. The Angel handed her over, then took off again.

Dracula gritted his teeth, reflecting another energy ball from Viper. Despite his thousands of years of exile to an outer plane, he seems quite healthy, he muttered to Neko's mind.
Indeed, his friend replied. Catherine's safe. Let's go.
Dracula unleashed an attack of his own, which Viper reflected. The blood mage miscalculated and the offensive seared through the roof of the chopper, completely obliterating half of all four blades and sending them whistling harmlessly off into the sky.
A searing blade of heat screamed past the ancient, missing Viper but cutting cleanly through the nose of the aircraft. The copter was completely incapable of handling any more of such abuse and plummeted to earth, taking Viper with it. The Angel grabbed Dracula's arm and pulled him through the air, arching his wings, sending them hurtling toward the earth.
One... two... three! the two vampires thought to one another, and unleashed their attacks in unison. A five-foot-thick wall of power exploded from their four hands like a bullet from a gun, blinding the mortals with the accompanying blast of all-consuming, bleached white light. The wall collided with the chopper, disintegrating it, but Viper was gone. The energy not consumed in the blast made a crater, a foot deep and two feet wide, on the desert floor, lined with smooth black glass.
 
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