Lorne in Vegas

Please note: The following is fan fiction, written to entertain fellow fans free of charge. Many of the characters and figures that appear or are mentioned in the following story belong to the television series "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Angel" and were created and/or developed by Joss Whedon and David Greenwalt; other characters belong to "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" and were created by Anthony Zuiker.

Lorne is a demonic looking fellow from a parallel universe. He is green with little horns sticking out of his forehead. He is, however, far more good-natured and civilzed than most of the beings in his dimension. He used to operate a Los Angeles club where demons and humans could meet in peace. Unfortunately, a vampire hunter named Holtz, trying to attack Lorne's vampire friend Angel, threw a bomb into Lorne's club and destroyed it. Eventually, Lorne decided to leave L.A., bound for Las Vegas. That much is established by "Angel, the Series." The following was my fantasy of what might happen to Lorne in Vegas before the actual TV series "Joss-ed" me--meaning that the series came up with its version of what happened to lorne in Vegas. I still like my version.

Lorne�s body lay on the hotel room bed, staring glassily at the ceiling. He was mostly still green, although his face was blue. There was a long wire around his neck with one end wrapped around the doorknob to the bathroom and the other tied to the TV remote.

�Yeah,� said Warrick Brown, examining the night table. �Nothing in a hotel room is ever as securely nailed down as the TV remote.�

�Actually, it�s not nailed, it�s bolted down,� Gil Grissom said almost absentmindedly as he watched Catherine Willows dust the doorknob for prints.

�Do you mind?� asked Willows, not bothering to turn her head toward him. �You�re blocking my light.�

�Actually,� said Grissom, �it�s not your light. It belongs to the hotel. The vic was paying for it, but the killer left it on and now it�s the hotel�s.�

�That was inconsiderate of the perp,� said Nick Stokes in a muffled voice. His feet stuck out from under the bed so that Warrick had to be careful not to trip over them.

�I wouldn�t cry too much. The casino can afford the electricity,� said Warrick.

�Not simply inconsiderate,� Grissom answered Nick. �Very likely it was deliberate.�

�Finding any suspicious dust bunnies, Nick?� It was Sara Sidle. Wearing latex gloves, she was going through the victim�s luggage.

Captain Jim Brass walked into the room and made a beeline for the body. He peered at Lorne curiously, careful not to step too close to the bed for fear of disturbing evidence. �What do you make of the green skin?� he asked.

�Huh?� said Grissom. He turned and studied Lorne carefully. �Oh, that. Warrick? When you have a moment, take an epithelial sample from the vic and rush it over to Nellis. Ask for Colonel McNutt, and see that you hand it to him personally.�

�Will do.�

�So, you think he�s an alien?� asked Brass.

�Alien? Hah, hah, hah. I�m a man of science, Jim, not a fruitcake. There are no aliens.�

�Then what do you make of this foreign passport?� asked Sara.

The passport showed a smiling, green-faced Lorne. Grissom squinted at it and began working his mouth silently. Finally he sighed and announced, �I can�t pronounce the name on this passport.�

Brass spoke up. �The hotel register says that the occupant was named Lorne, no last name like Cher.�

�That�s poetic coming from you, Brass,� said Sara, �I mean, adding the reference to Cher.�

�No,� said Brass. �On the hotel�s register it says�and I quote: 'Room 502, Lorne�No Last Name Like Cher'.�

�Interesting.� Grissom stroked his chin and went into the bathroom, closing the door behind him. Willows blinked, annoyed as the object of her deepest concentration pulled away from her. At the same moment, Lorne's body sat up in bed, the wire pulling taut as it raised the corpse.

Later that day, Grissom responded to an urgent pager message from Dr. Robbins.

�Don�t tell me. It�s the Lorne case,� said Grissom, swinging open the door to Autopsy without any greeting to the coroner. �What did you get from the autopsy?�

�Well, you see the wire on the table?�

�Yes, that�s the wire used to strangle the vic, but� where�s the body? Don�t tell me some military types or guys in black suits have been in here.�

�What military? What black suits?�

�Never mind,� said Grissom, recovering himself. �What happened as far as you know?�

�I�m not really sure. I unwrapped the wire from around the victim�s neck; then I turned around to get my scalpel. When I turned back, he was gone.�

�Gone? Where could he go? He's dead!� Grissom was unusually excited.

�All I know,� said the coroner, �is when I looked around, the door was still swinging back and forth as if someone had just left in a hurry.�

�Is there anything else that you can tell me?� asked Grissom desperately.

�Just that my camel hair overcoat and identification badge are missing. Where are you going?�

�To check the video from the camera trained on people leaving the building!� Grissom called as he raced out of the room. The door swung by itself after he was gone.

Lorne entered the Kitty Box, coming in from a cool October night. He took in the room. It was one of the many smaller venues that tourists, visualizing big, glitzy casino-hotels, would not think of as being part of Las Vegas; nevertheless, a lot of them wandered into these places sooner or later. Some of these joints were arcades or frowzy restaurants. Others were like this dive-�a gentleman's club that was dark enough to obscure its smallness as well as a crying need for some paint and repairs.

The only thing that all had in common was a row or two of slot machines. The Kitty Box also had a nude dancer on a little stage behind and slightly above the bar. It was the only well-lit spot in the room. Still wearing panties but completely topless, the dancer swung round and round on a metal pole, undulating to a Madonna hit.

The lanky man with long, dark brown hair who was tending bar ignored the throbbing canned music and hummed Annie Lenox�s �Sweet Dreams� to himself while he toweled down the counter. Lorne hardly had to read him to know that the bartender was a vampire�actually a bit of a hungry one. Not that there was any immediate call for alarm on the part of the few patrons at the far end of the bar and in the booths. The barkeep was nursing a drink that looked like a Bloody Mary, but Lorne knew better�and there was probably more where that came from stored beneath the bar.

Before sliding onto a stool right in front of the bartender, Lorne buttoned the top button of the camel hair overcoat that covered his otherwise under-clad body. Aside from the coat and his under shorts, all Lorne had on were a pair of running shoes and some ill-fitting, calf-length dress socks that he had found in the car parked in the space reserved for the coroner. Keys in a pocket of the overcoat had fit the ignition lock perfectly.

�Good evening,� Lorne said, desperately trying his best to seem friendly.

�What�ll it be?� asked the bartender.

�Scotch and soda, and don�t go near the ice.�

The vampire served him and said matter-of-factly, �We don�t see many of your kind in here.�

�My kind?�

�Demons, I mean�no offense intended.�

�None taken,� said Lorne, offering what he hoped was an ingratiating smile. He glanced up at the nude dancer who had by now slipped off her panties but still wore a g-string. The bartender watched her as he sipped his drink. Lorne noticed that the vampire's blood-drink did feature a wedge of lemon. �I thought a dancer named Justine worked here,� Lorne said casually.

The vampire savored the blood on his tongue before he answered: What you see is what you get.�

�Maybe she comes in on the next shift,� Lorne persisted. �When does that start?�

�When I leave,� said the vampire.

Lorne�s patience was beginning to wear thin. Someone had tried to kill him, and now the police were looking for a green demon wearing nada but the coroner�s overcoat�a description of Lorne to a tee. �Hey, I�m not asking for the moon here,� he said. �Just wondering when Justine comes in.�

�Well, Let�s see. Unless the police academy has drastically changed its policy of only accepting humans, you�re not a cop; so why should I tell you anything?�

�It might be in your interest to know that the woman I�m looking for has killed a few of your kind,� said Lorne.

�What kind is that, now?�

Lorne leaned forward so that only the two of them could hear. �Vampires.�

The bartender smiled slowly and said, �I�ll try keeping that in mind�in case I ever meet someone by the name of Justine.� Lorne sipped his drink while the vampire eyed him suspiciously. �You�re no friend of Justine�s, are you?�

�If I were,� answered Lorne, �why would I have warned you?�

The bartender smiled for the first time. �So, you don�t like vampires, but you like this Justine less,� he mused.

�Something like that,� said Lorne, �although, actually, one of my best friends is a vampire. Ah�I didn�t mean that to come out so patronizing.�

�No offense taken. My name�s Andreas.� They shook hands as Lorne introduced himself. �How did you know Justine works here?� Andreas asked.

�You just told me,� said Lorne. �I�ve been to several dives in the Frontier Street area �cause that�s all Justine told me when I saw her last night at Caesars. You see, I came to Vegas to check out the lounge scene. I once had my own club in Los Angeles.�

�A long story. Let�s just say that one of Justine�s associates had something to do with its demise. I don�t really have a beef with her about that, but she and her associate did do some pretty nasty things to that friend of mine who�s a vampire. So it was a little tense when we ran into each other at Caesars.�

�So how come you�re looking for her? You want to kill her?�

�Not before I find out how and why she tried to kill me.�

�When did this happen?�

�Last night. After I left her in the lounge. I went up to my room, went to bed, and the next thing I know I�m on a slab in the morgue with this pudgy guy in a white coat about to cut my chest open.�

�Jeeze,� Andreas said. �Wait a minute, You don�t remember her trying to kill you? You must be a sound sleeper.�

�Not so much, really.�

�Well, look, I�m not defending Justine. I might even have a taste of her myself one of these nights, but how do you know she tried to kill you? You admit you have other enemies.�

�Yeah, but none in Las�,� Lorne�s face froze before the last word escaped his lips.

�What?�

�The lounge act! Of course, how could I forget?�

�What lounge act?�

Lorne recounted the events of the previous night:

The lounge act had been a comic named Orlando Oswald, a graying, bearded, man with a paunch, who absent-mindedly picked lint from his dark sport coat as he paced on the stage before his audience. Justine and Lorne had just noticed each other as they sat at adjacent tables. They nodded to one another, but tacitly agreed to leave it at that.

"The department of motor vehicles wants to jerk my license," the alleged comic was saying. "They say I can�t drive because I periodically lose control of my right arm." Oswald's right hand dropped his microphone. He picked it up with his left. "OK, but I can still drive with my other arm." He dropped the microphone again, then picked it up with both hands. "They claim these spasms are so painful that I might lose control." He paused. "Only the excruciating ones do that."

Bah-dah-dumb, thought Lorne. Only a few drunks were laughing, and Lorne wasn't sure they were listening to the alleged jokes.

"I know what you�re thinking," Oswald continued unperturbed. "'Oswald,you need a reality check'. But I say, what good is a reality check if you can�t put it in the bank?"

One drunk did seem to be listening. "How do you get to Carnegie Hall?" He called.

"That's an old one," said Oswald. "The answer is 'practice'."

"Well'at's what you need, pal," said the grinning drunk. "And lots of it."

"Practice makes perfect�how many times have I heard that before?" chuckled Oswald. "You�re as helpful as a newborn mosquito during a malaria epidemic."

The comic didn't seem at all flustered, Lorne noted, even if his retorts seemed lame. Lorne turned to see how the drunk would respond. To his surprise, the drunk was not responding in any conventional sense of the term. His arms were out to his sides quivering rapidly. his back was arched as if he were about to take off. He was, in fact, hopping onto the seat of his chair and thence onto the table which teetered dangerously yet surprisingly didn't fall over. From deep within the man's body, a high pitched hum began to build until it became a disturbingly familiar buzz. To Lorne it was immediately reminiscent of a Pylean dragonfly (not the same--nor as benign--as a dragonfly in this dimension), but it was also like the sound of a mosquito, only much louder as if Oswald's heckler were becoming a very big mosquito. Not for the first time, Lorne and Justine stared at each other in mutual puzzlement. The audience laughed now, but nervously.

Lorne looked at Oswald, wondering whether he was responsible for this transformation. The mask of concentration directed toward the heckler combined with the mirthless and complacent smile on Oswald's face told Lorne that he was. Was Oswald a hypnotist?, Lorne wondered. He turned again toward the mosquito-man--only to see that no man was left. Every eye in the room now seemed to be looking around for the missing heckler, but he was not to be seen. Lorne heard the faint buzzing of an insect go passed him and as the doppler effect diminished the sound, he caught sight of a tiny creature spiraling toward the stage.

"Ah!" cried Oswald, just before he slapped his palms together in front of him. "Sic semper hecklerus," said Oswald.

It dawned on Lorne then that Oswald was a master magician. What puzzled Lorne next, of course, was why Oswald persisted in tryingt to make it as a comic instead of a magician. Why use magic as an adjuct to his comedy routines rather than the other way around? It must have been vanity that compelled him to keep going for the laughs and, failing that, to punish his detractors with a vicious trick. And who would dare assert that they had seen him turn a man into a bug and then kill him? So it was that Oswald continued making jokes that only those who hadn't seen what he had done-or who had no sense of humor to begin with-could laugh at.

As for the paucity of Oswald's talent in his chosen profession, Lorne had begun to deconstruct the routine already. He knew how this type of second-rate comic operated. His A material-most of which was stolen from George Burns, Steve Martin and other superior talents-had done its trick. Having hit his stride with an audience primed with alcohol, he brought out his B material because, at this point, he knew they were giddy enough to laugh at anything.

�You�re a fabulous audience,� Oswald said. �I love you, and not only I love you, but the hotel loves you�as long as you keep spending money.� It wasn�t that funny, but they laughed nervously anyway. �Money,� Oswald added. Then he sang an old pop tune�softly, without pushing it too hard, because he could not really sing, �Money, money, money�mo-ney�.� He repeated the refrain three times. Suddenly a powerful impression struck Lorne. As usual, it came like an stray television signal interrupting the main signal of his everyday awareness-but it was loud and clear. Lorne could read Oswald�s intent, which was to rob the casino using magicks.

Ordinarily, Lorne would have gotten the entire picture of how Oswald meant to do it, but Oswald�s mind was powerful. Just as suddenly as Lorne had received its image, the signal from Oswald shut off. Worse, Lorne realized that it was shut off because the comic knew someone was reading him. Oswald scanned the room and met Lorne�s eyes with a powerful gaze. The comic seemed make a mental note before returning to his routine.

Afflicted by a case of the willies, Lorne quickly excused himself, having forgotten the unfinished business he had with Justine. After waking up in Autopsy, though, he believed that Justine may have had unfinished business with him�or perhaps she simply did not want Lorne telling Angel or Wesley or other of her myriad enemies back in L.A. where she could be found. But now Lorne was not so sure about this theory of the crime.

�Orlando Oswald?� Andreas was saying. The awe in the vampire�s voice betrayed respect and perhaps even a tinge of fear. Lorne felt queasy. Not many creatures can inspire fear�even a little fear�in a vampire. More powerful vampires could. Slayers certainly could. Certain demons and�.

�He�s a sorcerer,� said Andreas.

�That figures,� sighed Lorne, �and a powerful one no doubt.�

�Well, yeah.�

�And it�s funny that I never thought of this before,� said Andreas, �but I remember seeing those signs on top of the taxis advertising his act at the Karnak when the Karnak was robbed, then he was at the Reve when that place was hit. Damnedest thing because most casino robberies never get started. Those that do, the robbers are caught before they can get to the door. Security here is virtually foolproof unless��

�Unless you have some tricks up your sleeve�and I�ll bet Oswald has some doozies.�

�So you�re wasting your time looking for Justine,� Andreas said. Just then, a new customer took a seat at the opposite end of the bar. �Don�t go anywhere,� Andreas told Lorne before looking after the customer. Lorne stared at his drink.

�Looking for me?� a familiar voice asked. Lorne swung around to face Justine. She wasn't dressed to the nines like last night. Now she had on a sweatshirt and jeans. Over her shoulder she carried a large black and lilac gym bag.

�I was, but not anymore.� He turned back to face his glass.

�You took off like a bat out of hell last night,� said Justine. �You know, for a guy who wants to make it in this town, you almost missed an opportunity. You still might miss it if you don�t go back to Caesars and find Orlando Oswald.� Lorne turned back to her with what must have been a surprised look. �That�s right, green boy. I don�t know why I�m bothering to tell you this, but that comic must have noticed you--and not just because you walked out on his act. He came over to the table afterward and was pumping me about the unusual guy with the green skin and shiny silver suit. He wanted to know who you were and where you came from and whether you had an act. And by the way, nice coat, but didn�t they have one your size?�

�What else did Oswald say, exactly?�

He said� and what�s with those pools of black fabric clinging around your ankles? I thought you dressed loud but stylishly. Now you look like�.�

�What did he say, Justine?�

�Let me see if I can get the exact phrase he used. He said you have a �real quality� about you. At first I thought he was really trying to hit on me, but I think he�s genuinely interested in you. Watch your step, though. Not that it's any of my business where your�or his�sexual proclivities lie, but he could be gay�-or a maybe just a perv who likes those little horns in your forehead.�

�Did you tell him my name and that I was staying in the hotel?�

�Yes, but when I saw him again as I was leaving, he told me you had checked out of the hotel. Now what�s the matter with you?�

�Justine, I�m sorry I misjudged you,� Lorne said as he stood up and drained his glass. He then planted a kiss on Justine�s lips before she could react. She recovered and shoved him, but Lorne was already walking away.

�Hey!� she said. �You may not be vulnerable to a stake through the heart, but I�ll bet you�re not that hard to kill.�

�Don�t count on it, baby,� said Lorne as he went out the door.

Outside, Lorne started toward the car he had "borrowed" from the coroner, but he saw from a block away that it was surrounded by police. Uttering the proverbial barnyard epithet, Lorne ducked into an alley. He stopped after a few feet and looked back to see whether anyone had followed him from the street.

�Lorne,� said a male voice.

�Ahh!� Lorne turned again to meet the piercing eyes of Andreas. The vampire calmly stood a foot in front of him. It was as if he had been in the alley before Lorne.

�How did you get�,� Lorne began. �Never mind. Don�t sneak up on people like that�-unless, of course, you intend to bite them!�

�So, are we taking my car or yours?� asked Andreas.

Lorne grabbed Andreas by the lapels. �You�ve got a car?�

Andreas' car careened along the strip, nearly hitting several other cars and a drunken pedestrian who miraculously dodged in front of them without spilling an over-sized novelty drink.

�You sure you want to come along?� Lorne asked, watching nervously as the vampire drove.

�Hey,� said Andreas, �what�s the point of living forever if you never take risks?" Andreas paused. "So, basically, Justine told Oswald who you are and where to find you.�

"Yeah."

"And you kissed her. I woulda drained her dry on the spot."

"That, my dear Andreas, is one of the many differences between you and me. Besides, she thought he wanted to help my career."

"Career as what? Don't tell me you're a stand up. Last thing this town needs is another comic."

"I sing."

"Oh, God. I stand corrected."

Their car pulled into the parking garage at Caesars. As they made their way to the lobby, Lorne explained his plan of going up to his former room.

"How're you getting in without a key? At the morgue, didn't they take your clothes and everything in your pockets?" asked Andreas.

"Pyleans have storage cavaties you don't have."

"Where?"

"You don't want to know."

"Well," mused Andreas, "I'm going to wander through the hotel, maybe catch up with Oswald and keep an eye on him. Whadya say we meet right back here in an hour?"

"OK. Just don't get distracted and lose track of time."

Andreas straightened up indignantly. "Hey, I'm no tourist. I don't gamble."

"I am refering to the fact that you're a hungry vampire."

"Don't bust my chops if I do what comes naturally," Andreas said and walked away through an archway guarded by a huge statue of a man in a toga.

"Would it make any difference if I did?" Lorne asked himself.

Lorne stepped out of the elevator and went down the corridor toward his former room. He stopped at the door and looked about to make sure that no one was watching. Then he bent his knees and reached under the skirt of the coat. He brought out the key card from a deep recess and dipped it in the lock. The door clicked and Lorne opened it. He flipped on the light. The room was very much as he remembered but for the remarkable exception of the wiry, gray-haired man in steel-framed glasses resting comfortably on the bed. Lorne noted that the fellow was reading a book with the word "entomology" in its title.

"My name's Gil Grissom. Mind if I call you Lorne?"

"Not at all."

"I thought you'd come back to the scene of the crime," said Grissom.

"How did you figure that?" asked Lorne, expecting that he would need to do some fancy talking to get out of this situation.

"There was no card key among your possessions," Grissom said. "I guessed--evidently correctly--that you had it somewhere."

"Look," said Lorne, "I suppose you have a lot of questions, but, honestly, I don't have a lot of answers, I swear."

Grissom fixed a steady gaze on him. Lorne found unsettling. Finally the human said, "Exactly what planet are you from?"

Andreas cruised the aisles of one of the many, pricy gift shops in the casino. He came up behind a young brunette who was closely studying a miniature zen rock-and-sand garden. She was all but scratching her head when Andreas helpfully interjected, "If you'll take that little rake there--yes, that's right. Now, just draw it gently, making curves around the little rocks--right, like that. You've got it!"

"And the point is?" the brunette asked as she dutifully raked the sand until shapely ridges wove around and between the rocks.

"Now use your imagination," he said. She looked at him quizzically. "Look at it. What does it remind you of?"

She concentrated and finally said, "It sort of looks like a lake. Or the ocean. See? The sand is the water and the stones are islands."

"Good. That's the idea," said Andreas.

"What do you see?" she asked him.

"Me? To me, the sand is a thick cloud cover and the stones are the peaks of mountians poking through the clouds."

She smiled seductively at him and said, "Man, would I like to try whatever you're on."

Andreas smiled back at her.

"So, what planet?" asked Grissom.

"Uh, of course you've never heard of it, but it's called Pylea."

"Pylea," Grissom repeated knowingly. Then, "Where's that?"

"Without a star chart, I couldn't begin to tell you, but let's just say it's in a solar system far, far away."

"Well, I have a star chart back at my office," Grissom began.

"Why am I not surprised by that?" said Lorne.

"We can look at it later, and you can show me. Can you tell me why you came to our planet?"

"Honestly, I came for economic reasons. Things aren't so good in--on Pylea."

"They're better here?"

"Well, when I left home several, uh, light years ago, they were. Now I stay just because I like the music."

"You're a musician?"

"Singer."

"Oh," said Grissom. He frowned and looked away.

"Why is everyone in Vegas so negative?" asked Lorne.

Andreas took the brunette by the hand and drew her after him into the shadow of the potted palm. He had found this spot yesterday on an upper tier of the casino. A shop had recently closed, and while the space would not be closed long, it was relatively dark here for the time being, especially in the shadow of the tropical plant in front of the abandoned shop. Andreas knew that someone could walk by in four or five minutes, but he would be finished by then.

He kissed her mouth and cheeks and worked his way down to her throat. She threw back her head and willingly offered him free reign. Her blood pounded beneath his lips. Andreas put on his game face and opened his mouth wide, ready for the kill. Suddenly he heard footsteps racing quickly toward him. He looked up in time to see Justine dressed in black leather coat and pants with a crossbow in one hand and a bandolier full of stakes across her torso.

Lorne explained that "on his planet" he could not necessarily be killed by strangulation or beheading.

"So, what do you know about your, ah, attempted murder?" Grissom asked.

"I can't prove it, but I think Orlando Oswald tried to kill me."

"You mean the comic?" asked Grissom.

"Well, that's a matter of opinion, but, yes. I don't know how he did it, but he must've put that wire around my neck while I was asleep."

"You see," said Lorne, "I have the ability to read minds. Not ordinarily--I couldn't tell you what you're thinking right now--but I can read the mind of someone who's singing. What I didn't know is that Oswahld has the ability to tell when his mind is being read."

"He isn't an alien, too, is he?"

Lorne hesitated before answering. "Not as far as I know. I don't suppose that you believe humans have such abilities, but I know it's possible."

"Could you read my mind if I sang?" asked Grissom.

"I suppose I could," replied Lorne, surprised by the suggestion.

Grissom casually began singing the Irish ballad, "Danny Boy," in a surprisingly good tenor. Lorne was impressed by Grissom's combination of ease and understated but palpable feeling. Of course, he saw a great deal more about the man. More than he would need to tell him--which was good, because he was reluctant to expose the darkest recesses even of a good man's soul. Now Grissom looked at him expectantly.

"O.k.," Lorne began slowly. "You already suspected that Oswald has been robbing casinos. It's not a case you've been actively working on, because he never tried to kill anyone before." Before continuing, Lorne looked at Grissom's face, which was a blank without any telltale reaction. "You are a man who feels strongly that what you do is a high calling. You're called to right wrongs, but you are most comfortable behind a mask of pure reason. You are, paradoxically, an innocent spirit. This puts you in danger sometimes, because, although you are mature and wise, you also have the curiosity and trust of a child.

"You feel passionately about the people you work with, and you respect them, but you are afraid to tell them how you feel. At the same time, you are often puzzled by their unexpected feelings toward you." Lorne paused.

"Anything else?" Grissom asked.

"Only that you don't seem like a man who would log so many hours on the rollercoaster at New York, New York that they ought to make you an honorary safety inspector."

Grissom finally showed a reaction in that his eyes widened a bit. "What about the future?" he asked. "Can you see what I'm going to do, the way you did with Oswald?"

Lorne took a breath. "I see that you will soon be in danger because of your desire to help someone. You'll be in a dark place and travelling. That's all I know," said Lorne."

Grissom looked thoughtful. "You are very right about one thing," he finally said. "We did already suspect Oswald. Now I'll tell you what else I know," said Grissom. He went over to the TV. Lorne hadn't noticed when he entered the room that the TV now had a VCR connected to it. Grissom raised a remote and turned it on. "These are security tapes from the hotel," he told Lorne. Lorne saw a picture of a busy hotel corridor. "Now, I'll slow it down," Grissom said pressing another button. The screen became a series of still images. The movements of hotel patrons and personnel changed only slightly with each frame.

"What are we looking at?" asked Lorne. "I'm not sure... Oh, hello."

Grissom brightened. "You see that shadow?"

"What the heck is that?"

"I don't know," said Grissom, "but if it is an actual moving object, it must be travelling at a speed of more than 700 kilometers an hour--weaving in and out of foot traffic without ever bumping into anything. I have something else, too." Grissom picked up a piece of paper. It was blank except for the imprint of Caesars Palace with the hotel's address and phone numbers in the upper right corner. It came from the same kind of stationery pad on the desk in every room in the hotel.

"What is it," asked Lorne.

"It's from Oswald's room. I realize that it looks blank, but we analyzed it and found the faint impression of the words 'Abracadabra' and 'Book of Celerus'. Does any of that mean something to you?"

"No," said Lorne. He felt the back of the paper, but there were no tell-tale ridges of the kind he would have expected if the original sheet that Oswald wrote on had only been one or two sheets above this one on the pad.

As if he knew what Lorne was thinking, Grissom explained that Oswald must have taken several of the sheets, between the one he wrote on and this sheet, in an effort to prevent someone from reading his note the old fashioned way--by rubbing the edge of a pencil over the impressions on the subsequent sheets. "We have a device that can scan for faint impressions fifty sheets beneath the one he wrote on," Grissom said.

Justine side-stepped the brunette but caught her by the wrist with her left hand while pointing the crossbow at Andreas with her other. Momentarily, Justine lost her balance. Her shot went wild, the dart missing Andreas and lodging among the leaves atop the potted plant. Andreas took this opportunity to knock the weapon from her hand. Justine grabbed a stake from her bandolier, but Andreas laid into her with a right cross to the jaw. Justine staggered backward but held on to the stake.

Andreas seized both of her wrists, forcing her to drop the stake and pushing her backwards. She grasped his wrists in turn and used his momentum to lead him. She took her feet off of the ground, placing one against his groin and the other between his legs; then she let herself fall backward, keeping her head tucked toward him. All of this took a fraction of a second and then Justine's back hit the floor. She pushed up against his groin with all of her might and watched him sail through the air, head over heels. With a crash so loud that it should have been heard above the cacophany of casino bells and boisterous voices below, Andreas landed against the balcony, the impact of his body leaving a fissure from floor to rail.

Justine looked over her shoulder at the brunette cowering in the doorway of the abandoned shop. Quickly Justine put away her stakes and picked up the crossbow."

"Come on," she said. "You'd better get away from here unless you want people asking you a lot of questions you can't answer. And, by the way, next time you pick up a guy, at least make sure he's human."