Chapter Text
Pontiac, Illinois, wasn't exactly the last place Dean wanted to be, but it ranked pretty damn low on the list.
It was probably a stupid way to feel, but Dean reckoned he was entitled to cut himself some slack. After all, just down the road was the place where he'd woken up six feet under, and the only reason he hadn't been having constant nightmares about those first few minutes of realization (buried alive) was because the whole thing paled next to what had come before. Trying not to think about any of it went a lot smoother when he was far, far away.
Judging by Sam's grim silence beside him, Dean figured the place was getting to his brother too. Or more likely a combination of the place and the date - November 2nd wasn't a good day for anyone in their family. Then again, Sam had been kind of quiet for a few days now, ever since he'd come face to face with the angels. Dean wasn't sure if that was down to some kind of crisis of faith, or because Sam had used his powers to send the demon Samhain back to Hell even after Dean had asked him not to. That was still hanging between them: Dean knew he was going to have to try talking to Sam about it soon, but that conversation never seemed to get them anywhere but pissed off with each other.
Dean drove past the motel where he'd found Sam again (and Ruby, his traitorous mind added), because damned if he was going to get them a room there. It was bad enough being back in the area without staying at that goddamn motel. He pulled in at the Redforth Motel a few miles down the road instead, cautiously optimistic at the sight of the "Free wireless" sign.
Sam got out of the car without a word. Dean sighed and watched the stiff line of his brother's back as Sam headed for the office.
"Room nine," Sam said quietly when he returned a few minutes later, and Dean shifted the car over to park in front of their room.
The routine of settling in was familiar enough to relax the tension somewhat, and by the time they'd both showered Dean felt less like coffin walls were closing in around him, and Sam looked less like he was primed for an attack at any second. Dean laid down salt lines, not so much because he thought something was after them specifically, more because this was a date when he didn't believe in taking any chances.
Sam fired up the laptop, giving Dean a nod to confirm that they did indeed have wireless. Dean flopped down on the bed nearest the door. "So, talk me through this again."
Sam tapped a few keys, bringing up his notes. "Six weird deaths in the surrounding area in the past two months." He paused and looked up; Dean read the silent addition of that we didn't already know about in his eyes. "Five men, one woman, wide range of ages, no obvious connection between them. The cops classified them all as suicides."
"But you think they're wrong," Dean prompted.
"So many suicides in such a short space of time?" Sam said. "I'm not buying it. Anywhere else, I probably wouldn't have looked twice, but here, when we know..." He trailed off.
Dean scrubbed a hand across his face. Anywhere else, it might just be normal deaths, but not much chance of normal with the number of demons and angels and fucked-up Winchesters that have been around here lately.
"Anyway," Sam hurried on, "they don't sound like normal suicides. This article says that the most recent victim, a Mr. Keswick, bled to death after hacking off the fingers of his left hand with a kitchen knife."
Dean grimaced. "Yeah, okay, there are easier ways to end it all. Fingers... I guess it could be a sacrifice, collecting body parts for use in a ritual, maybe."
"Maybe," Sam agreed. "That's the only case where the local newspaper has published details of exactly how the person died - we'll need to investigate to find out whether the rest follow the same pattern. The timing, though..."
"Yeah," Dean said heavily. "You didn't find any cases from before my big comeback?"
"No," Sam admitted. "But we just don't have enough information yet - I might not be seeing some deaths which fit the pattern because we don't really know what the pattern is."
"Fine, we'll check it out in the morning," Dean said. "Nowhere around here will be open at this time of night."
It was true, but not the whole truth. The whole truth had more to do with the date and his desire to keep them both behind the semi-safety of a thick line of salt for the evening. Preferably with vast quantities of alcohol to take the edge off.
"Yeah, okay," Sam said. He sounded tired as he powered down the laptop again. "Beer?"
Dean would have preferred something a bit stronger, but beer had the advantage that they didn't need to leave the room. "Yeah," he said, sitting up. He took his bottle from Sam and cracked the cap off with his ring. He took a long swallow, and tried not to think about demons or angels or the look on Mom's face when she'd told him she didn't want her children growing up the way he had.
"Shove over," Sam said, nudging him.
Dean frowned up at him, but moved over enough for Sam to sit next to him, their shoulders touching companionably. "Look, Sammy, not that I'm -"
"Shut up, Dean," Sam said, cutting him off without rancor. "Tell me about her."
Dean looked at his brother; he didn't need to ask who Sam was referring to. He wondered if Castiel would have sent Sam back in time with him if his brother hadn't been off with Ruby.
"She was amazing," he said finally. "A hunter, a good one - I told you she almost took me out. And a babe, too." He forced a grin. "Guess I got the good genes from her."
Sam elbowed him. "Tell me you didn't hit on Mom, dude, please."
Dean snorted. "And get my ass handed to me? No thanks."
He was painfully aware of the warmth of Sam's body pressed against his side. He'd missed this, the two of them together, solid and unshakable. And though it made him think of other things - Sam's lips on his, hands pulling him closer - he'd missed this more. Things had changed while he was in Hell: Sam had changed, and Dean knew he had too. If Sam didn't want that any more, if it had been some way of dealing with Dean's time ticking down and now his brother had moved on, Dean could live with that. But this Dean needed; he had been feeling off-balance ever since he'd come back and found things... different.
He concentrated on enjoying the comfortable closeness, and didn't let himself feel anything when Sam retreated to the other bed two beers later and turned off the lights.
"I gotta say, Agent Young, I don't know why the FBI's taking an interest in this case," the police chief said, leading the way to the morgue.
"There have been an unusual number of odd deaths around here recently, wouldn't you say?" Sam pointed out.
"Maybe, but near all of them have been suicides," Chief Walsh said. "Clear-cut, believe me. There may have been a run of 'em recently, but it's just... one of those statistical spikes you get from time to time. A few weird accidents mixed in there too - six people were found dead a couple of months ago, eyes burned clear out of their skulls. Best we can figure, there must have been some kind of chemical incident at the diner where we found 'em. There haven't been any new cases since - unless the FBI thinks...?" He trailed off questioningly.
Sam exchanged a quick glance with Dean.
"No, no," Dean said reassuringly. "We've no reason to think that was anything other than a, um, tragic accident. It's the apparent suicides we're more interested in."
"Well, if you say so," Chief Walsh said, and pushed open the mortuary door. "Charles, these two gentlemen are from the FBI - Special Agents Young and Scott. They'd like to take a look at the Keswick corpse."
"Keswick?" the pathologist murmured in surprise, but he crossed to the bank of storage compartments, sliding out one tray. "Here you go. Jonathon Keswick, 64 years old. Sliced off all the digits on his left hand, died of bloodloss."
Sam studied the hand in question, swallowing down his revulsion - he'd seen worse, but it never really got much easier. Only jagged stumps were left on it. "Was the knife found?" he asked, keeping his voice neutral.
"One of his kitchen knives, found right beside the body," Chief Walsh said. "Only fingerprints on it were his."
"Did the autopsy turn up anything... unusual?" Dean asked.
"Not as such," Charles replied. "Nothing to indicate anything other than suicide."
"Isn't it a rather unusual way of committing suicide?" Sam probed.
"That it is," Charles agreed heartily. "But we've had a few similar cases round here recently - seems to be a bit of a copy-cat situation."
"Really?" Dean said. "Did all of the recent suicides kill themselves this way?"
"No, no," Chief Walsh said hastily. "Only a couple."
"Would it be possible for us to receive copies of the reports?" Sam asked. "On all the recent deaths, if you wouldn't mind."
The chief shrugged. "Sure thing. Don't imagine you'll find much in them to suggest anything but suicide, but you're welcome to them."
"Thank you," Sam said.
"You suggested these might be copy-cat cases," Dean said. "Is there any connection between the victims?"
Chief Walsh sighed. "Not that I know of. But this is a small town, gentlemen. It may be that they knew each other by sight, or shopped in the same places: a lot of people here do. And either way, fact is, there's nothing to indicate they were anything but suicides."
Sam took another quick look at the corpse, checking there weren't any unusual markings or symbols he'd missed, anything that might suggest Mr. Keswick had been killed as part of a ritual, but there was nothing obvious.
"Well, thank you for your assistance," he said politely, stepping back, shooting a quick glance at Dean to make sure his brother had seen all he needed too. "Could we maybe get copies of those files now?"
"Sure," Chief Walsh said, leading the way towards the door. "Catch you later, Charles."
"Oh, just one more thing," Dean asked as they headed back up the stairs. "The fingers Mr. Keswick cut off. Were they found?"
"Right next to the corpse," Chief Walsh confirmed. "All five of 'em."
Sam exchanged a meaningful look with Dean. So much for the theory someone was collecting body parts for a ritual.
Dean slapped the last file from his stack down on the bed and leaned back, letting his eyes slip shut as he rubbed his forehead with one hand.
- red and black, agony beyond what he'd thought possible -
He snapped his eyes back open and drew in a sharp breath to calm himself.
"Headache?" Sam asked, looking at him with concern.
Dean forced a smile. "You know me - spending hours reading this shit isn't exactly my favorite pastime. We can't all be research addicts like you, Sammy."
Sam rolled his eyes, and Dean allowed himself a moment of relief that his brother had bought his line.
"Fine," Sam said. "The files I looked at, both victims died the same way as Mr. Keswick. They all amputated the fingers on their left hand and died from the resulting bloodloss. None of the fingers went missing, they were all found at the scene. The knives were found too - they all belonged to the victims, and it doesn't sound like there was anything unusual about them."
"Any pattern to the victims?" Dean asked.
"Nothing obvious that I can see," Sam said with a sigh. "Thomas Dunbar was thirty-five and a happily married father of two, worked at the local hospital. Simon Dunne was forty-eight and divorced, lived alone, worked at a factory down the road. Jonathon Keswick took early retirement a couple of years ago, his wife died a while before that. What about your files?"
"Leon Williams, forty-two, deep-throated his pistol in the middle of the night," Dean said. "Which, okay, might just be a normal suicide and not part of whatever pattern there is here that we're not seeing. Except for the fact that the next night his wife, Susan - you'll like this - carved her own eyes out with a kitchen knife."
"Dude," Sam said.
"Yeah," Dean agreed. "The other guy, uh..." He checked the name. "Yeah, Chester Welles - he washed down his supper with an entire bottle of bleach. Some real nice pictures in here if you want to see."
"I'll pass," Sam said with a grimace. "That's interesting about the husband and wife." He leaned back in his seat and pushed his hair back out of his eyes. Dean tried not to stare at the movement of his brother's throat as he swallowed. "What do you think? There's no obvious pattern to the dates, either, but I can't shake the feeling it can't just all be a coincidence."
"I've never been a big believer in coincidence," Dean said. "The way those three died, plus Susan Williams - that's enough of a pattern for me. Possession, maybe? Some demon's sick idea of a good time?"
"Maybe," Sam said. "Though I don't know, it's unusual for a demon to set out to kill so many hosts. A witch, maybe? Forcing these people to kill themselves?"
"That I could buy," Dean said, considering it. "Hard to see how a witch could have a grudge against so many unconnected people, so it would probably be for a ritual, right?"
"Six deaths - that we know of," Sam said thoughtfully. "That's a lot. It would have to be some ritual."
"So we check out the houses," Dean suggested. "See if we can find any hex bags."
Sam nodded. "Let's go."
Sam kept a close eye on his brother as they broke into Simon Dunne's apartment. They'd decided to start with the homes that would now be standing empty, to get some first impressions before they began dealing with relatives.
Dean seemed okay on the surface: no repeat - yet - of that moment back in the motel room. But Sam had added it to the list of recent incidents he was belatedly noticing, from Dean's reaction to that freaky Halloween mask to the way he'd startled awake while Sam was taking his turn at driving on the way to Pontiac. Tallying it all up, Sam was starting to come to the conclusion that Uriel had been telling him the truth and Dean did remember some of his time in Hell.
He didn't want to just assume, definitely not based on something Uriel had said - the angel obviously hated him, and now that Sam had met an angel for himself, he wouldn't put it past them to lie for their own reasons. The angels really hadn't been what he'd expected at all. So he hadn't wanted to take Uriel's word for it. And he still wasn't certain, but it would go a long way towards explaining the way Dean had been acting. He wasn't ready to confront his brother about it yet, though - not least because he had a feeling that was what Uriel wanted.
The lock snicked open and Sam followed Dean inside, closing the door carefully behind him and forcing his attention onto the matter at hand.
They did a quick sweep of the apartment, weapons at the ready, just to check that it was really empty. Then they started checking out the kitchen, where the man had died.
The blood had been cleaned up, but the floor was still stained, and after reading the file, Sam could picture how the scene had looked far more clearly than he'd have liked. He tried not to look at the stains, instead focusing on searching in the cupboards and behind the fridge, while Dean took the rest of the appliances and the walls.
"Nothing," Dean said eventually, his voice disgusted.
"Maybe it could be hidden in another room?" Sam suggested, unconvinced.
"Maybe," Dean said, sounding equally unconvinced. "But it's usually the room where the death occurred, right? That's where they have the strongest influence."
"Yeah," Sam agreed. "Even if there was a hex bag here, I guess the witch could have retrieved it by now. Simon Dunne died over a week ago."
"Or maybe there was no hex bag in the first place," Dean said. "Check the other rooms for sulfur, I'm going to scan for EMF."
Sam nodded, but he hadn't even made it out of the kitchen before the squeal of the EMF meter stopped him in his tracks.
"Woah," Dean said, and tilted the device so Sam could see the lights. "Check it out."
"So we're thinking a spirit?" Sam said, thinking aloud. "A ghost out for revenge - it would fit, assuming there's some connection with the victims."
Dean was methodically scanning the room, the meter emitting a particularly loud squeal every time he brought it close to the bloodstain. "Works for me," he said absently. He stepped through into next room, and Sam heard the noise of the meter grow a little fainter.
His brother reappeared a few minutes later, pocketing the meter. "There's one other hotspot, in the bedroom - probably where the spirit jumped him. Other than that, the kitchen is the focus."
"Makes sense," Sam said, looking up from the noticeboard he'd been studying.
"Anything there about why a ghost might have had it in for him?" Dean asked.
Sam shook his head. "Bills and reminders. Only thing that seems personal is a photo of what must be his daughter, but it looks like it was taken years ago."
"Don't suppose the daughter died recently?" Dean suggested without any real hope.
Sam shrugged. "Wasn't in the police file, but it shouldn't be too hard to find out. We should probably check out the other houses first, though, at least the empty ones - see if there's EMF there too."
They split up, in the end. Dean dropped Sam off at the Williams' house and drove to Mr. Keswick's place. It was the most recent scene, so Dean wasn't entirely surprised by the state of the kitchen. No one had cleaned it up yet, and the blood -
blood red pain darkness
- brought back bad memories. He took a deep breath or two to steady himself, relieved that Sam wasn't there to see, then pulled out the EMF meter.
The way it squealed over the bloodstain was pretty much what he'd expected. He picked up more in the rest of the house than he'd expected based on the pattern in Dunne's apartment, though. Enough to make him hold his shotgun a little more to the ready, half-wondering if the spirit was still there.
But nothing attacked him. Dean tucked the EMF meter back into his pocket and took another look around the house, looking for any clues as to what connection there might have between Keswick and Dunne and the others. It was only when he was checking the drawers in the bedroom that he noticed the thin dusting of sulfur on top of it - far less than he'd expect from a demon normally, but clearly sulfur nonetheless. He hit the speed dial for Sam.
"Hey," he said without preamble. "Sulfur."
"...Damn," Sam said. "Where did you find it?"
"The bedroom," Dean said. He frowned, looking at the surface again. "It's weird, though, there's hardly any. I don't know, if it's a demon, maybe it doesn't have as bad a case of dandruff as the rest?"
Sam made a thoughtful sound. "Unless it's something other than a demon - or a different kind, or something? I don't know. Maybe it just passed through really quickly, too fast to leave much sulfur."
"But with enough time to turn this guy's hand into a sandwich with all the trimmings?" Dean said skeptically.
"Yeah, I got nothing," Sam conceded. "Huh, okay, traces of sulfur here too, but I see what you mean. I don't know, maybe Bobby will have an idea."
Dean dusted off his fingers and headed back down the stairs. "Yeah. I'm done here. Pick you up in five."
There was dinner, and pie to follow, and the combination went some way to relieving the unease Dean had been feeling since they'd started investigating the string of deaths. He relaxed back into the booth, feeling confident enough to kick Sam's feet under the table, warm and normal and brotherly. Sam kicked him back, aiming a little too well, but Dean grinned instead of wincing.
Maybe things were going to work out okay after all.
"We should take another look at the files," Sam said, voice low enough not to be overheard in the chatter of the busy diner. "See if we can pin down the connection between the victims, do some research into their backgrounds."
"Research junkie," Dean muttered under his breath. Louder, he added, "You better not be suggesting a trip to the library at this time of night, dude."
"Nah," Sam said easily. "Got to save some of the fun for tomorrow, after all." He grinned.
Dean shook his head. There was a retort on the tip of his tongue - I don't know where I went wrong with you, Sammy - but the words twisted their meaning in his head before he could say them, and he swallowed them down instead. Sam eyed him a little oddly, but let it drop.
Back at the motel, Dean was the one to blur his eyes on the files again, while Sam set about researching the victims' backgrounds online, checking into their histories. Dean could see the importance of it, but it was tiring as hell, and there were only so many hours he could spend reading statements about how the victim had seemed perfectly normal, maybe a little distracted, but I never would have thought... before going out of his mind.
He stood up. Better plan: going out of the room instead.
"I need some air. And maybe a drink," he told Sam, who still hadn't looked up from his laptop. "You want to come?"
Sam did look up at that, with a slightly crooked smile. "Nah, I'll pass. Call me if anything comes up."
"Okay," Dean said, grabbing his wallet. He hesitated. It was stupid; it wasn't even like it was the first time he'd left Sam alone since their showdown about Ruby, wasn't like he thought Sam was going to rush off the moment his back was turned and do something crazy. It was just...
Fuck this. Add 'getting laid' to that list.
"It's okay," Sam added quietly. "I'll call if I find anything."
"You do that," Dean said, more emphatically than he meant to. He hesitated a moment longer, then slipped out the door.
It was dark outdoors already. It was things like that which kept catching Dean out. Knowing in theory that he'd been gone for four months was one thing, but getting his head around things like the fact that summer had been and gone and winter was just around the corner - that was another matter. It kept catching him by surprise all over again, every time he thought he'd got it.
He took his time walking, keeping an eye out for a bar that looked like it stood a chance of offering music that wouldn't make his ears bleed, and maybe a quick hook-up to work off some issues. But he was in no rush. The chill in the air was soothing. Dean wasn't as keen on the heat now as he had been, before.
He glanced to the side as a car drove past too fast, engine roaring. It was instinctive to check the source of the unexpected sound, even when he didn't believe it was a threat.
The faint tingling of the palm-print on his shoulder clued him in even before he turned his head back. Castiel was walking next to him, his stride matching Dean's as easily as if he'd been there all along.
Dean inhaled sharply, but didn't say anything, just kept walking, shooting a glance at Castiel out of the corner of his eye. The angel was looking straight ahead, staring at, or maybe through, the street in front of them with an absent expression.
"So," Dean said after a few minutes, when his heartbeat had slowed again slightly, and he'd finally concluded that Castiel didn't seem to be in any rush to break the silence. "What's up this time? The deaths here, they connected to a Seal or something?"
"Not to my knowledge," Castiel said.
"Not to your knowledge?" Dean echoed. "You're telling me you don't know?"
"As I told you, I am not omniscient," Castiel said. "Not everything has been revealed to me. I don't know the nature of every one of the Seals."
Dean stared at him. "Oh, well, that's very reassuring."
"But my Father has not given me any further instructions concerning this town," Castiel continued, ignoring or oblivious to his sarcasm. "I believe it is unlikely that the deaths here are connected to a Seal."
As far as it went, Dean supposed that was good news. Not that it went very far at all. "Don't suppose you know what is going on around here. We found sulfur, but I'm still not sure whether it's a demon behind the deaths or not."
"No," Castiel said simply. "I do not know. The deaths are not why I am here."
"Very helpful," Dean muttered under his breath. "In that case, what are you doing here?"
"Talking to you," Castiel replied. Dean looked across at him again, convinced that he was deliberately choosing to be over-literal, but the angel's expression gave nothing away.
They walked on in silence for a while, and Dean went back to focusing on the cool air and the solidity of the ground under his feet. It was the sort of thing he'd never paid much attention to, before. Before. Now it felt like everything was divided into before and after, and it was something he still hadn't managed to wrap his head round.
"You expect too much of yourself," Castiel remarked, as if Dean had spoken aloud. "You are human. And Hell is not something which can be experienced without it leaving a mark." He was studying Dean with the intent, focused attention that Dean had become familiar with.
Dean glared at him, because he'd really kind of appreciate it if everyone would stay out of his head, fuck you very much. "What the hell do you want?"
Castiel was still studying him with that same grave curiosity, ignoring Dean's obvious hostility. After a moment, though, he said, "I came to warn you."
Dean felt his heartrate pick up speed again. "About what?"
The angel looked away at last, gazing down the street. "To be careful."
Dean waited, but Castiel was silent. "Okay, you maybe feel like giving me a clue? Is something about to happen?"
"I do not know," Castiel said. "I'm not omn- "
"Not omniscient, yeah, I heard you the first time," Dean said.
"I cannot see the future," Castiel said. "This is not a... specific warning. But I am needed elsewhere, for a time. And I may not be able to come if you need me."
Dean stared at him. "It's not exactly like you normally make a habit of telling me when you're about to take off. What's going on?" It's not like you normally make a habit of turning up to help us, either, he thought. Castiel had made it pretty clear he had more important things to do than hover around watching over them - whether he and Sam managed to stay alive was none of his concern. Then again, Dean grudgingly admitted to himself that the angels had found the hex bag hidden in the motel room the other day, so maybe he wasn't being entirely fair.
"More of my brothers have died," Castiel said slowly. "Our numbers are finite. I am needed to protect one of the Seals Lilith is attempting to break."
Dean stopped walking to look at him properly. "You're going up against her?"
Castiel stopped too, and turned his head to meet Dean's gaze. "It may come to that; I do not know. My orders are to protect the Seal. She may choose to attack."
You came to say goodbye, Dean thought, and nodded slowly. He didn't know why it felt logical that the angel would bother to do so, but somehow it did. "Sounds like I should be the one telling you to be careful."
Something like a faint smile flickered across the angel's face. "Have faith, Dean." He looked over Dean's shoulder. "I believe this was your destination?"
Dean glanced back, caught sight of a bar behind him, exactly the kind he'd been looking for. "I guess -"
He cut off, not really surprised to find Castiel gone when he turned back. After all, it wasn't like the angel was going to go have a beer with him. And he guessed Castiel had said all he wanted to.
He could hear laughter coming from the bar, the faint sound of music, and for a moment he thought about going in and seeing if the bartender was hot. Partly because some part of him was convinced that Castiel wouldn't entirely approve, and damned if Dean was going to turn into some celibate, teetotal choirboy just because an angel had decided to take an interest in him.
But if he was honest with himself, the thought of a few drinks and a quick hook-up had lost most of its appeal.
Dean sighed and headed back the way he'd come.
Sam scrubbed a hand over his face and forced himself to concentrate on the screen again. He'd promised himself that he'd keep researching for another quarter of an hour, but after that he was going to call it a night. He wasn't sure if he'd be able to get any sleep with Dean gone, but he could at least try.
Learning to let Dean go was still a work in progress. Sam was just grateful (so far beyond grateful, and even if the angels had turned out to be dicks, he couldn't help but thank God) that he had Dean back. Things were still off and different, but Sam could deal with things not being the way they were before. Dean was back, at least, and that was all that really mattered.
He scrolled down the page of Google hits, skimming it for anything important, and paused. Five minutes of research later, he was reaching for his cell phone, only to drop it again as the door swung open and Dean walked in.
"Hey," Sam said with some surprise. Dean hadn't been gone nearly as long as he'd have expected even for a few drinks, and he'd rather suspected Dean might be looking for more than that. "Good timing, I was just about to call you."
Dean shrugged off his jacket and tossed it on a chair. "Yeah? You found something?"
"Maybe," Sam said cautiously. "I'm not certain yet, I haven't found a pattern as such, but I think this could be relevant."
"Please, not more talking in riddles," Dean muttered. Sam frowned in confusion, but his brother waved it aside. "Tell me what you've got, Sam."
"Simon Dunne," Sam said, turning the laptop screen so Dean could see it. "He was convicted of child abuse in Michigan - served time and moved here afterwards."
Dean leaned in close over his shoulder to read the page for himself. Sam tried not to enjoy the closeness, knowing it was only due to the particularly intense focus Dean always got regarding threats to children.
"Sexual abuse," Dean said, his voice flat. "His daughter killed herself."
"Yeah," Sam said quietly. "Maybe her ghost is out for revenge."
Dean straightened and kicked the other chair back from the table with an understated violence that made Sam swallow hard. His brother sat down and rubbed his forehead. "Okay. Say I buy that - and that's definitely the part I can buy. What about the sulfur? The other deaths? And how did her ghost get here if she died in Michigan?"
"He had a picture of her on his noticeboard," Sam said, recalling the faded photo. "Maybe he brought something with him that belonged to her, and it's anchoring her here."
"But then why wait until now to kill him?" Dean asked, but Sam knew his brother's expression, knew he was thinking aloud, not arguing the point. "Why not kill the bastard years ago? Unless he'd started..."
"Maybe," Sam agreed, before his brother felt he needed to say the words. "But it could be anything, you know what ghosts are like." He paused. "The sulfur I don't get. We didn't even find it at all of the scenes we checked, did we? So - maybe it actually is a coincidence for once? We could be looking at two separate entities killing people here."
Dean eyed him skeptically. "You know damn well, Sam, 'Coincidence ain't a theory, it's the -'"
"'-lack of a theory', yeah, yeah, I remember," Sam finished for him. "Fine. I don't know what's up with the sulfur. As for the other victims -"
"No," Dean cut him off. He shook his head and met Sam's eyes. "If you're going where I think you're going with this, Sam, then 'victims' really isn't the word you're looking for."
Sam nodded slowly. "Well, we don't know yet. But it would make sense, wouldn't it, if that was the connection between the people killed? That they'd all committed that kind of crime?"
"Ghost kills her abuser and goes after other abusers while she's at it," Dean said, an edge of anger in his voice that made Sam want to flinch back, even knowing it wasn't directed at him. "Yeah. Maybe. We need to find out."
"I was just about to start checking into it when you got back," Sam said, shifting the laptop back into position. "You weren't gone that long - what happened, were all the bars playing pop music?" He tried to keep the question casual, because the thought that Dean had come back early because he didn't trust Sam to keep the promise he'd made... That idea hurt. Samhain had been an exception, to save lives, and he'd thought that Dean understood that, even if he was pissed off anyway. But if Dean felt like he couldn't trust Sam enough to leave him on his own for an hour or two...
"Nah," Dean answered. He hesitated for a moment before adding, "Had a divine visitation, that's all."
Sam caught his breath in alarm. "Shit. What - "
"It's okay," Dean said hastily. "It wasn't anything bad." He didn't look or sound entirely convinced, Sam thought. "Castiel just said we should watch our backs. He's going off to try to protect a Seal, so he won't be around for a while."
Sam let his breath out slowly. When they'd first figured out that Dean had been rescued from Hell by an angel, Sam had been relieved and grateful, had thought his prayers had been answered. He'd put Dean's own reactions down simply to his lack of faith, and it hadn't been until he'd met the angels for himself that Sam had finally understood his brother's mixture of fear and fury and confusion. Sam had always known that angels weren't human, but the extent of their inhumanity had come as a surprise. Things were fucked up when Ruby, a demon, had more compassion for human beings than angels did. Sam's own encounter with Uriel had been terrifying. And probably he ought to have told Dean about it already, but that would just lead to another round of Dean insisting that Sam stop using his powers, and things were screwed up enough right now without going over that yet again.
The news that Dean had been visited again no longer classified as good news in Sam's mind, even if the angel apparently hadn't been issuing threats this time.
"Anyway," Dean said into the silence. "It was okay, but it still kinda ruined my appetite, so I just headed back." He sighed. "You going to check out those people?"
"Yeah," Sam said, forcing his attention back to the case at hand. "What about you?"
Dean glanced at his watch. "I want to ask Bobby if he knows anything about ghosts and sulfur. But I'd rather not wake him unless it's an emergency. I'll call him tomorrow. I think I'll grab a shower in the meantime."
Sam nodded. "Leave me some hot water."
Dean snorted. "Whatever you say, princess."
He headed for the bathroom, stripping off his shirt and tossing it onto his bed as he passed it. Sam raised his head and watched out of the corner of his eye, trying not to be obvious about looking at the hand-shaped mark on Dean's arm. He still hadn't had a chance to look at it properly: with the exception of their visit to the psychic, Dean kept his upper arms covered these days. And he didn't think Dean would be too happy to put up with him staring at it. Understandable, given what it represented, Sam supposed.
Dean disappeared into the bathroom, pulling the door closed behind him. Sam turned back to the laptop, and started looking into the background of Mr. Keswick, the person who'd died most recently. He had been older, so there was a wider timeframe to check into, but he had also been a local, so -
Smash.
Sam was on his feet and at the door to the bathroom before he'd even realized he was moving. "Dean!"
When there was no immediate response, he burst into the room. Dean was leaning heavily against the sink, knuckles white where his hands were closed tight around the rim. His head was lowered, and he was breathing fast and hard. Sam wasn't sure his brother even knew he was there.
A glass lay shattered on the floor.
"Hey," Sam said, trying to calm his own racing heart. "Dean. You okay?"
It was a moment before Dean looked up. "What?" His tone was dazed, not accusatory.
Sam took a step closer, carefully skirting the glass shards, and cautiously laid a hand on Dean's bare back. Dean jerked beneath the touch before the tension went out of his muscles.
"What happened?" Sam asked softly.
Dean met his eyes silently for a moment before he seemed to snap out of it. "Nothing. Just knocked over that glass." He forced a grin, but even by Dean's crappy standards when it came to lying, it was weak.
"Knocked over the glass," Sam said, unable to keep the sarcastic edge out of his voice. "Yeah, because we both know how clumsy you are, Dean. How about you actually tell me the truth this time?"
"Yeah, because you're in a great position to lecture me on that," Dean muttered under his breath, shrugging Sam's hand off.
That hurt, all the more because there was a bit of truth to it. Sam took a deep breath and tried to keep his temper in check. "But I did finally tell you the truth about what - what it was like while you were gone, Dean. You're the one who's still lying to me. From where I'm standing, you don't have much room to lecture me either."
"Fine, whatever," Dean snapped. "Will you get out of here so I can have my goddamn shower?"
"Not a chance," Sam retorted, and he could feel his anger really building now. "God, Dean, why are you acting like such an ass about this?"
"About knocking a glass over?" Dean demanded sarcastically. "Because trust me, this -"
"About that 'headache' you claimed to have yesterday! About the mask you couldn't stop staring at, back in that classroom! And yeah, about why you were so out of it that you managed to knock over a glass and didn't even hear me yell your name!" Sam could hear his voice getting dangerously loud, but he was long past the point of caring. "Damnit, Dean! Why won't you just admit the fucking truth, for once?"
"Sam -" Dean said, his voice suddenly weary.
Sam waited, but Dean just stared down at the splintered shards of glass.
"Fine," Sam said finally, unable to keep the edge out of his voice. He grabbed a towel off the rack and bent down, starting to carefully gather up the broken glass.
"I remember," Dean said into the silence.
Sam looked up sharply, but his brother was staring at the wall.
"Not all of it," Dean added. "But... flashes. Nightmares. Sometimes bits of it come back to me."
Sam nodded jerkily. "What..." The question died on his tongue.
"I don't -" Dean said, then cut himself off and started again. "Sam, don't - don't take this the wrong way, but I don't want to talk about it yet, okay? Just - I can't -"
"It's okay," Sam said instantly. It wasn't, not completely, because he needed to know what Hell had been like, what his brother had gone through because of him. He needed to know how close his nightmares had been to the truth. Most of all, he needed to know how his brother was holding it together, and to help if he could.
But he wasn't going to force Dean to relive it now just for his sake. At least Dean had admitted he was remembering at all. That was enough for now.
"I'll clean this up," Sam said. "Go ahead and take your shower."
Dean looked at him for the first time since his confession, then nodded slowly and took a step back, turning away to unbutton his jeans. Sam busied himself with the glass, and didn't look up until Dean was in the shower, hidden behind the curtain.
He wanted, so badly, to pull the curtain back and step in beside his brother, run his hands all over him until he'd satisfied himself that Dean wasn't about to break apart. But he didn't have that right any more.
He forced himself to step out of the bathroom instead and close the door behind him.
Things were more normal in the morning. Sam watched Dean out of the corner of his eye, but he tried not to be too obvious about it, and for his part Dean seemed close to his usual self once he'd had his coffee and a disgustingly huge breakfast.
"I checked into the backgrounds," Sam said when they finally got back to the motel.
Dean looked at him and swore under his breath. "Our theory panned out, didn't it."
"I think so," Sam admitted. "I can't be completely certain, but... Chester Welles' ex-wife had a restraining order out on him. Mr. Keswick's youngest daughter killed herself twenty-odd years ago. I didn't find anything definitive about Dunbar or the Williamses, but they both have children in their early teens."
"Fuck," Dean said with feeling.
"Yeah," Sam said. "I realize it's kind of thin, but..."
Dean shook his head. "Not exactly the kind of thing people go shouting from the rooftops, Sam. There's enough there to sell me on it."
"I'm guessing Mrs. Williams knew what was going on, or at least suspected," Sam said. "I think that's why the spirit, or whatever it is, cut out her eyes."
"Dunbar was married too, wasn't he?" Dean asked. "His wife seems to have escaped. So maybe she didn't suspect anything."
Sam nodded. "There's just one problem with our theory that the ghost of Dunne's daughter is responsible for the deaths - Dunne wasn't the first one to die, he was the third."
Dean looked at him sharply. "Who was first?"
"Dunbar," Sam said. "And both his kids are still alive."
His brother paused, processing that. "Maybe it wasn't his own kids that he abused. He could have caused someone else's death."
Sam shrugged helplessly. "I checked every source I could think of, and I couldn't find any suspicious deaths of anyone close to him. But he worked at the local hospital, so there's no way to rule out the possibility that he abused someone he met there. He must have come into contact with thousands of people, though - I've no idea how we'd even begin to narrow it down."
"Maybe we're coming at it from the wrong angle, then," Dean said. "We should try to figure out what the hell's up with the sulfur we found, and see if we can figure out who might be next on the hit list. Not saying we should necessarily put a stop to it, mind..."
Sam gave a grim half-smile. He wasn't entirely sure whether Dean was serious or not about that. "I don't know what our chances are of figuring out who's next, but I'll give it a shot. You want to call Bobby now and ask him about the sulfur?"
"Yeah," Dean agreed, and went across the room to grab his cell phone.
Sam tuned out their conversation and concentrated on the problem at hand. How the hell was he supposed to figure out who else might have abused their children? He sighed, and decided to start with the easiest things to check: looking at news articles to see if there were any reports of people appearing in court charged with child abuse recently.
Dean hung up a few minutes later. "You want the short answer or the long answer?"
Sam shoved his hair back. "Short first."
"Bobby doesn't know," Dean informed him.
Sam frowned. "What's the long answer?"
"Not even Bobby knows what the fuck's going on with the sulfur," Dean said, gesturing with one hand for emphasis.
Sam sighed in disappointment, though no real surprise. He'd learned a lot about demons since Dean had made his deal, studied them every chance he got, gone through every book Bobby owned and plenty more he didn't, and he didn't have a clue what could be causing the sulfur involved in this case. They had to be looking at a vengeful spirit here. Maybe it really was a coincidence. Even coincidences had to happen every once in a while.
"You have any more luck?" Dean asked.
Sam huffed a laugh. "What, you thought things were going to start getting easy now? I think we're going to need to go to the library for this, man. The website for the local newspaper doesn't archive articles for more than a couple of weeks. And apparently the courthouse is only a block away from the library, the records there might be even more useful."
"Why am I not surprised," Dean muttered. "Okay, then, here's the plan. We grab some lunch and I drop you off at the library. Then I head over to Dunbar's house, see if I can find any clues there about who he abused, who our ghost could be."
"You really think he'd have, I don't know, written something like that in his diary or whatever?" Sam said skeptically.
Dean shrugged. "Worth a try, isn't it? And then I want to check out Keswick's house again. He was the last one to die, so maybe there'll be something there to tell us where the spirit went after that."
"Did you find anything like that yesterday?" Sam asked, unconvinced.
"Nope, not really," Dean admitted. "But I was busy trying to figure out what the fuck it was and why it had picked Keswick."
Sam gnawed on his lower lip, considering. "Okay, sounds like a plan."
Dean left the Impala a careful distance away from the Dunbar house. If anyone spotted him breaking in, he'd flash his FBI ID again and claim to be investigating, but it was better to be careful - it was broad daylight, after all, not the best time for breaking into places. On the plus side, he knew from the police file that Dunbar's wife and the kids had moved in with family and the place should be deserted, which would make things much easier.
Breaking in went smoothly, and Dean did a complete sweep of the house, shotgun and EMF meter in hand. Although the meter squealed a few times - particularly in the kitchen, to his utter lack of surprise - he felt fairly confident they were old traces from Dunbar's death, nothing more recent. The ghost hadn't been back here since, and it definitely wasn't here now.
He set the shotgun down on top of the chest of drawers and started searching the bedroom.
The place was fairly empty, which made things easier; Dean guessed Mrs. Dunbar had taken a lot of her belongings with her. It had been almost two months since her husband had died, and he had a feeling she was probably planning to sell the house rather than move back in.
The bedroom was a blank, though. Dean wasn't sure what exactly he'd been hoping to find: an envelope stuffed with dodgy photographs hidden somewhere, maybe, or hell, why not a tortured confession in a diary, like Sam had sarcastically suggested. There was no reason why he shouldn't strike it lucky once in a while.
Then again, maybe he was just looking in the wrong place. This had been the Dunbars' shared bedroom, after all, so perhaps it had been too risky to keep anything hidden there.
He grabbed the shotgun and headed back downstairs to try the study. It seemed far more like it had been Dunbar's space alone, the prints on the walls a completely different kind of fugly than in the rest of the house. Dean hit the button to start the computer, then turned his attention to the drawers of the desk and the files in them. He pulled out the files and spread them out across the desk, skimming over them. Nothing obviously suspicious, he decided eventually, and checked the back of the drawer for hidden items instead, but there was nothing.
"Fuck's sake," Dean muttered under his breath, and jammed the files roughly back into the drawer, not bothering to try to keep them in order. It wasn't like Dunbar was going to be worrying about it any more.
He looked at the computer, now waiting for him to enter a password. Dean scowled: hacking into computers was Sam's side of things. Still, he knew a few of the basics, so he tried entering as many variations on Dunbar's name as he could come up with - first name, last name, first name and last name, last name then first name. None of them worked.
He pulled out his cell phone and called Sam.
"Hey," Sam answered, his voice low, and Dean figured his brother was still inside the library. Maybe even being glared at by the librarian, if Dean was lucky.
"Hey," he replied. "Hope I haven't gotten you into trouble..."
Sam's sigh hovered halfway between exasperation and affection. "No you don't. You love getting me into trouble."
It was true that there were few things Dean found more entertaining than Sammy cowering before the wrath of a librarian. "Is she a dragon? Or is she one of those hot librarians, with the bun and the glasses and looking all stern -"
"Dean," Sam cut him off firmly.
"Spoilsport," Dean muttered. "Fine. What's Dunbar's date of birth, again?"
"Um..." There was a rustling of paper on the other end of the line. "September 24th, 1973. You trying to figure out his computer password?"
"Yeah," Dean said absently, typing in the digits. "No luck with his name, so I figured..." He tried a different order, then another.
"No luck with that either?" Sam asked.
"Why would my luck change now," Dean said sardonically. "Any suggestions, geekboy?"
"You could try just entering 'password'," Sam suggested. "Sometimes people really do that. Or 'test'. After that, best bet is to try other things that were important to him and meant something, so - pets, wife's name. If it turns out it's his high-school locker combination, you probably don't stand much of a chance, though."
Dean frowned, typing in 'password'. "I was expecting something a little more high-tech than 'just guess', somehow."
"Not like there's much I can do from here, dude," Sam told him.
"Yeah, yeah," Dean muttered, and paused. "Oh. I know what I didn't try yet."
"What?" Sam asked.
Dean didn't answer, thinking back to the file he'd read that morning. The name of Dunbar's oldest daughter.
elizabeth, he typed in, and felt sick to his stomach instead of triumphant when the password was accepted.
"Dean?" Sam said.
"His daughter's name," Dean said quietly. "The oldest one. Elizabeth."
Sam was quiet for a moment. "That doesn't - lots of people do that, Dean. It doesn't prove anything."
"No," Dean said grimly. "It doesn't. The photos I just found, on the other hand..."
Sam swore under his breath.
"Yeah," Dean agreed. He could hear the tightness of his own voice as he clicked through a couple more of the photographs before backing out of the folder he'd found them in.
Sam was silent for a moment, then asked, "Are all the photos of Elizabeth? Is there anyone else in them?"
Dean was clicking his way methodically through the various folders and subfolders. "Can't see any others. He might just have them hidden elsewhere, but since he saved the ones of Elizabeth here, I'm guessing not."
"Okay," Sam said slowly. "But Elizabeth is still alive, right?"
Dean paused as the implication sank in. "She can't be the ghost. There has to be someone else."
"Well, it's always possible there's another victim and Dunbar just didn't take any photos," Sam said thoughtfully. "Or we could be wrong about it being a ghost. Maybe it is Elizabeth and she found a way - mind control, some kind of compulsion... I mean, it seems unlikely, I wouldn't expect sulfur or EMF from that, but..."
"Yeah, well, looking at those photos, Sam, all I can say is I hope she did," Dean said tightly. "Because he got what he deserved."
Sam didn't reply immediately, and Dean didn't know whether his brother was surprised by his vehemence or not. Dean didn't really care if he'd shocked his brother, not this time. Dunbar had had it coming.
"What are you going to do now?" Sam asked finally. There was no judgment in his tone.
Dean sighed and tried to think. "I don't know."
"Come back to the library," Sam told him. "There are a few more things I want to check out, but after that... we could go and talk to Elizabeth."
The last thing Dean felt like doing right then was sitting quietly in a library. What he wanted to do was punch something. Hard. Several times. "I want to swing by the Keswick house again first. It's on the way anyway, and worth checking out again." He didn't really think he was likely to find anything there he hadn't found the day before, but it beat the library idea hands down.
"Okay," Sam said, accepting that. Dean could hear the understanding in his voice, knew his brother had a damn good idea why Dean wanted to check the other scene again, but wasn't about to push him. "I've found a couple of candidates who I think might be at risk, but I'm not quite done yet - I probably need about another thirty minutes. Go check out the other house, and I'll call you when I'm done. Okay?"
"Okay," Dean echoed, feeling a bit steadier from the calm tones of his brother's voice.
"Oh, and Dean?" Sam added. "Not a dragon." He hung up.
Dean stared at his phone, the huffed a half-laugh, shaking his head. Thanks, Sam.
It was starting to get dark by the time Dean reached the Keswick house, but he decided it was probably still safer to leave the car parked a couple of minutes away, rather than right outside. He grabbed the EMF meter and the shotgun, then dug a flashlight out of the trunk as well. He kept it all out of sight as best he could as he walked to the house and broke in the same way he had the day before.
It was just as silent inside as he remembered, apart from the way the EMF meter began screeching as soon as he got indoors. Louder than it had the previous day.
Dean muttered a curse under his breath and raised the shotgun, stepping cautiously further inside, playing the flashlight beam around him. Damnit. He remembered now the moment when he'd wondered if there was a chance that the ghost or whatever it was might still be there. When nothing had come after him, he'd assumed not, but it was starting to look like he'd been wrong.
The kitchen was empty, but the dried blood that had caked the floor the day before was gone; evidently someone had been in to clean up the crime scene. The EMF meter still screamed more shrilly where the blood had been, but then eased back to its previous level, so Dean moved on to the next room, then the next, working his way methodically through the house. He saved the bedroom, where he'd found the sulfur the day before, for last.
Sure enough, the bedroom seemed colder than the rest of the house, and Dean didn't need the screech of the EMF meter to warn him he wasn't alone.
"You gonna show yourself sometime soon, Casper?" he said aloud. "Or are you waiting for an invitation or something? You've got one."
"You certainly haven't lost any of your charm, Dean Winchester," Bela said behind him.