This story takes place during Season 5 sometime between Episodes 11 and 12. There are a few spoilers so if you haven't, for one reason or another, seen the show/season up to that point, you may want to skip this and come back later...

With that said, I am a writer so when I write, I write novel length (most of the time) so this story will be lenghty. I try to keep my chapters to about 10-11 pages (in Microsoft Word) and that hasn't been too daunting when I transfer over to this site. My stories wind up being about 20 - 22 chapters, but, please, don't be frightened! If you want to send me a comment in regards to that, please do! Let me know if I should combine chapters or something...I'm always up for comments about it all!

As always, reviews of any and all kinds are greatly appreciated.

Of course - Disclaimer: I do not own anything associated with Supernatural (which is a bummer, really...) except for the creations of any OCs within this story and anything else that may have been developed in the Laboratory of my Mad-Scientist-Brain. Thanks!

And - with that - READ ON!

One

Lightning flashed bright, leaving a hazy white ghost along the horizon. The sound of thunder rumbled overhead, rolling across the sky in an angry wave of sound. The rain, which had started as lazy droplets, now poured steadily from the heavens, coating everything in an icy veil. The wind, whipped into frenzy by the immense storm, blew through the trees, ripping off branches and launching them through the air like arrows shot from a bow.

Amanda Reese shuddered, the black wool jacket and denim pants she wore making her feel like she was wrapped in a layer of ice. She was crouched in the bushes, hidden in the shadow of the Colmar County Library, her eyes squinted against the water that flowed over her face.

"C'mon," Amanda growled as another bolt of lightning lit up the sky, leaving a trail across her vision. She shifted her position, trying to ease the numbness that was creeping up her legs and seizing the muscles in her calves and thighs.

There was a crash from inside the library and Amanda tensed, her eyes focused on the dark doorway to the old building, her hands clenched into fists. There was a second crash which was almost completely concealed by another clap of thunder. It was followed immediately by the sound of shattering glass.

Amanda cursed under her breath and began to rise, her left hand dipping inside her jacket for a moment. When she withdrew her hand, her slim, long fingers were clenched around the handle of a shot gun, its twin barrels cut down well below legal length.

"Screw this."

Amanda darted from the shadows, running along the edge of the building, her body hunched against the pounding rain and fierce wind as she moved towards the doorway. Just as she was approaching the entrance, a figure burst through the glass doors, slamming them open so hard that they shattered against the brick façade.

Amanda reached out, grabbing the tail of the brown suede coat as the figure tried to bolt down the stone steps, and yanked it to a sudden stop. The figure rounded on her, swinging with a right hook. Amanda instinctively threw her hand up, catching the figure's fist by the wrist.

"Dammit, Jones! It's me, Mandy."

"Sorry," a timid voice stuttered out.

A sudden flash of lightning illuminated the street and the two people standing just inside the library doorway. Amanda focused her bright blue eyes on the smear of crimson slashed across Jones' left cheek and threw her hands into the air, the shotgun forgotten for the time being, as she waved it around her head in frustration.

"It was supposed to be an easy salt and burn. All you had to do was go in, find the freakin' reliquary, and douse the damn bones inside it."

The young boy in front of her wilted, his sandy blonde hair flopping into his soft blue eyes as he reached up and gently rubbed at the skin around the still bleeding gash. "I know. I screwed up," he grumbled halfheartedly. Jones stared down at his feet, digging at the sidewalk with the tip of his sneaker.

Amanda paced back and forth, her breath coming out in tiny puffs of white steam, her hands hanging at her sides, the shotgun bumping against her soaked leg. Suddenly, she stopped and spun to face the street, bringing the gun up. Jones' head whipped up to follow Amanda's eye line.

"Relax, kids. It's just me," a deep voice echoed across the empty parking lot. A man approached his silver hair a beacon as he moved towards Amanda and Jones. "I thought I told you two to leave this job alone?" There was no anger in his tone, no irritation, just mild amusement.

"Yeah, we know," Jones muttered out. "Mandy thought you were being too overprotective," he managed to get out before Amanda's hand whipped out, hitting him in the diaphragm, forcing the air from his lungs.

The man chuckled lightly and stepped onto the stoop. "I figured as much." His dark brown eyes took in their disheveled appearances and the man chuckled again.

"C'mon, Dag. Jones and me have been around this stuff our whole lives," Amanda groaned.

"Yeah, well. How about living a little bit more of those lives before you jump into hunting full time?" Dag reached out and laid his hand on Amanda's shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze before removing it again. He glanced at Jones, finally noticing the cut on his cheek. "I'm guessing things aren't going as smoothly as you had hoped."

Amanda grunted and shook her head. "Only because I let Jones talk me into letting him take point." She shoved the shotgun back inside her jacket and pulled it tight around her. "Should have known he couldn't handle…" she began to mumble under her breath.

"Hey!" Jones cried out, hurt heavy in his voice. "It's not like you could have climbed in through that back window." His lips curved up in a small, satisfied smile as he saw his words dig into Amanda's bravado. Her pale cheeks flushed pink and she took a menacing step towards him, her hands balled into fists.

"No, you're right about that," Amanda snapped, her tone turning cold. "Only a scrawny little…"

"Enough," Dag barked, cutting her off. Both flinched at the command and backed down. "You two came here to do a job so now you're going to work together to finish it." Dag narrowed his eyes, the lines around them deepening. Amanda rolled her eyes and Jones, his eyes once again cast down at his feet, slowly nodded his head.

"What do you know about the job?" Dag prompted, his face softening as he watched the two kids before him. There was a long beat of silence.

Finally, Amanda gave an exasperated sigh and slumped against the wall of the library's entrance. Dag focused on her as she began to talk. "In 1854, Enid Harman opened Colmar's first non-profit orphanage. For the next three years, she ran the orphanage as if it were a Vietnamese sweat shop.

"When the children would complain, they were severely punished. She went as far as chaining them in place in the basement, in the dark, and leaving them there without food or water for days."

"Then, in 1872, the orphanage caught fire," Jones cut in, his voice pitching with excitement at the sordid turn he knew the story was about to take. "By the time the fire was put out, Enid and five kids were dead." Jones could feel Amanda's angry eyes on him as he talked. He smiled in triumphant when Dag's eyes traveled to his face, watching him intently. It was short lived.

"Afterwards, the town discovered how Enid had been treating the children and decided it would be distasteful to rebuild the orphanage," Amanda continued, smirking when she saw Jones' shoulders slump in defeat as Dag turned his attention back to her. "So the land stayed vacant for thirty years until a land developer bought it to put up a housing community."

"Three men died during construction," Jones jumped in, stepping forward eagerly as Dag's focus returned to him. "Two were found in the basement with what looked like chain marks on their skin. The third died from…"

"Smoke inhalation," Amanda blurted out. Jones glared at her as she stepped away from the wall. "After the development was completed, five more people were killed, all of their deaths suspicious. It was then that the townspeople discovered that the woman they'd known as Enid Harman wasn't who she said she was."

"Enid Harman had been a witch," Jones eagerly jumped in. This time, Amanda didn't look angry that he'd interrupted her again. She focused on Dag, watching the older hunter intently. "Enid, or rather, Olivia Hunt, had been accused of practicing witchcraft in Salem, was sentenced to die by hanging, but disappeared before the townspeople of Salem had their chance to carry out the sentence.

"As the locals began to dig deeper into the truth about Enid or Olivia or whatever her name was, they realized that what she'd really been doing was using the children for spells and rituals."

"It was discovered that on the night of the fire," Amanda finally cut in, "Enid had been performing a ritual she believed would give her immortality." Amanda stared up into Dag's face, fixing her fierce blue eyes on his dark brown ones. "Something went horribly wrong, obviously, and the ritual was never completed."

"So why did the town's priest dig up her corpse and place her remains inside the reliquary you were so delicately trying to procure?" Dag asked, his tone light and expectant. Amanda and Jones both knew that Dag already had the full story of Enid Harman/Olivia Hunt and that he was testing them, making sure that they had done their research.

"Father Tompkins, the last official priest in Colmar, believed that it was the restless spirit of Olivia that was murdering people living inside the newly built development. He sanctioned a box be built, the reliquary that we were trying to get out of the library, to try and seal Olivia's spirit within it," Amanda answered after a beat. She glanced over at Jones and watched as embarrassment colored his cheeks.

"So what went wrong?" Dag asked.

"I found the box and broke it out of the display case. That part was easy," Jones stated, his voice carrying none of the eagerness it had before. He continued to stare at his feet, his lanky frame huddled in on itself as he stood with his hands shoved deep into the front pockets of his blue jeans. "But what I didn't figure on was ol' Olivia being attached to the box."

"You always have to assume that the spirit will be attached to their remains, Jones," Dag explained, his voice reminiscent of a professor or teacher as he looked down at the kid. He reached out, clapped a hand onto the boy's shoulder, and gave him a smile when Jones finally tore his eyes away from his sneakers to look up into Dag's face. "It's okay, son. Some hunts don't go as perfect as we planned."

"I don't get it," Amanda cried out in exasperation. "We had all the details, everything planned to the "T"…"

"But did you make sure that you had all the details," Dag asked, raising his eyebrows as he stared at the two teenagers. Jones and Amanda exchanged confused looks before turning back to Dag. He sighed and shook his head. "There was a reason I warned you two to stay away from this job."

"What?" Jones asked before he could stop himself.

"Well, for one: you didn't know that after the deaths stopped at the development, that after Father Tompkins sealed Enid Harman's bones within that reliquary, the killings didn't just stop completely." Dag paused, watching the two young hunters in front of him as they began to wilt under this knew onslaught of information. The corner of Dag's mouth twitched with the ghost of a smile.

"There were three more fatalities until the box was secured inside this very library." Dag pointed into the interior of the library, into the shadows of the stacks. "You also didn't know that reliquary was placed inside the display box on top of a protective sigil, containing the spirit of Enid Harman inside, keeping it chained down and safe."

"Dammit, Jones! You didn't bother to look at the case before you tried to take the box?" Amanda yelled, her voice echoing around them.

"I didn't know…" Jones mumbled, blanching under Amanda's rage. "If I had known…"

"It's okay, Jones," Dag stated, raising his hand at Amanda as she opened her mouth to rage some more. "You two are young. You're going to make mistakes, but those mistakes need to be ones that aren't going to cost you, or others, their lives. Tonight should be a good learning experience for you." Amanda growled in frustration and Dag turned hard brown eyes on her. "For both of you."

The storm continued to blow around them, but it was dying down. The thunder that rumbled in the sky was from a distance now, the lightning getting less and less frequent. Dag stared down at Jones and Amanda, watching them with intense eyes. "Now, I need to know if you were actually able to remove the box from the display case, Jones, or if it's still secured above the sigil?"

"I…well…" Jones stammered out.

"Did you move the damn box or not?" Amanda shrieked. Jones slowly nodded his head yes.

Immediately, the atmosphere around them changed. It became charged with electricity, an energy, that radiated out of Dag. Gone was the calm, amused look and in its place was a cold, calculating power. He reached inside his jacket and brought out a nylon pouch about the size of a grapefruit and a bottle of lighter fluid.

"I want you two to listen to me," Dag barked, his voice hard and commanding. Both teenagers reacted to the tone, their postures straight, their attention focused on Dag like soldiers snapping to attention under their superior. "I parked my car at the end of Maple Ave, two blocks that way," Dag lifted a finger and pointed straight across the parking lot. "I want you to go get the car and bring it here." Amanda nodded her head and reached for the set of keys that Dag was now offering her.

"You should have back up," Jones said hesitantly.

"I'll be all right. Just go get the car and bring it here." With that, Dag turned and stepped through the broken door into the library. A second later, a beam of light flashed on and pointed back towards the entrance.

"Get a move on," Dag called from the middle of the library, his flashlight bouncing from one face to the other. Both teenagers took off at a jog, disappearing into the black night.

V V V V V V V V V V V V V V V V V V V V

Henry Dagwood had been a hunter for almost twenty-six years when the Apocalypse began. Dag, to his close friends and family, had killed werewolves, vampires, djinn; everything that haunted your nightmares and even some you couldn't even imagine existed, and managed a meager life on the outskirts of humanity.

When the Apocalypse started, it didn't start with a bang like the high-powered movie gurus created in their blockbuster movies. Hellfire didn't rain from the skies. Locusts didn't descend on millions of people, although there were outbreaks of the pests destroying plants and crops all over the world. When the Apocalypse started, nothing changed. Nothing that the normal world could see anyway.

Sure, there were more suicides, more murders, more overall death and destruction, but the regular people - the ones that didn't know that the things that went bump in the night really did go bump - just chalked all that up to humans being humans and dismissed it. They didn't know that their neighbor Bob, who stabbed his wife and two kids to death before putting a gun in his mouth, was actually possessed by a demon. Or that the teacher who opened fire on his nine o'clock History 101 class did it because he was compelled to.

No, the June and Ward Cleavers of the world, with their two-point-five kids and their cookie cutter lawns, were blissfully ignorant to the bleeding underbelly of the supernatural world.

"Lucky bastards," Dag muttered under his breath as the beam of his flashlight bounced over the books and magazines that filled the bookshelves of the Colmar County Public Library.

The building was eerily quiet, the storm that had been hanging overhead moving off as dawn began its approach over the horizon. A faint golden light crept into the library through the broken front doors, reaching into the dark corners and slowly chasing away the night.

Dag made his way towards the back of the library, zigzagging between the stacks, his chocolate brown eyes focused and alert. The drawstrings to the bag of rock salt he carried hung around his right wrist. In that hand, he held a bottle of lighter fluid and a black Maglite. In his left, he clutched a Smith and Wesson 9mm loaded with consecrated iron bullets, the gun already cocked and the safety off.

As Dag rounded the end of the last set of bookshelves, he saw her. Enid Harman, or rather, Olivia Hunt stood beside the display case that had previously housed the box that trapped both her and her remains. It now lay on the floor at the base of the display, the box propped on its side.

When she was alive, she would have been considered attractive, pretty even. Her black hair was tied back in a bun, the high-necked white blouse and long black skirt accentuating her slender figure. If it weren't for the ancient clothing and haunting brown eyes, Olivia would have reminded Dag of his late mother, Suzanna Dagwood; her appearance and the way Olivia paced, like a caged wild animal, her face an ugly twisted mask.

"Looks like more than a hundred years of pent up rage don't bode well for the complexion, huh?" Dag stated to the ghost. He didn't expect to get an answer so when Olivia screamed and sent several encyclopedias flying about the room, Dag merely raised his gun and fired, the iron rounds dispersing the ghost of Olivia Hunt with an inhuman shriek.

Dag knew he had only a matter of seconds before Olivia rematerialized and started her temper tantrum all over again. He rushed forward and dropped to his knees, laying his flashlight, the bottle of lighter fluid, and gun on the tile floor. Dag yanked the bag off his wrist and set it next to the lighter fluid, preferring to keep his gun at the ready while he tried to figure out how to break the ornate iron lock on the reliquary.

The box itself looked rather ordinary. It was made of balsam and about the size of a toolbox. Intricate carvings were etched into the lid and sides that, to an ordinary eye, would seem like vines and flowers. Dag knew better. He knew that the carvings were actually an ancient Latin prayer, the words strung along the box to form the protective barrier that had once contained the spirit of an evil witch.

As Dag lifted the box, keeping an eye out for the ghost, he noticed that the hinges were broken. They had rusted clean through do to poor upkeep and temperature control and when young Jones had dropped the box, the hinges had finally snapped.

"So that's how you got out," Dag muttered under his breath. He opened the box and began to pour salt over the ivory white bones inside.

Suddenly, the air around Dag turned frigid, his breath rising in clouds around him. He froze, raising his gun and searching the room around him. His eyes were so focused on the darkness that he didn't see Olivia standing behind him. She screamed, a primal cry that raised the hair on his arms and neck before lunging at Dag. He spun, trying to bring his gun up, but with a swipe of her hand, Olivia sent the gun flying from his hand.

Olivia shrieked again and swatted Dag's head, sending it back into the bottom of the granite display case. Stars exploded across his vision, his head a throbbing mass above his shoulders. Olivia came at him again, her face twisted and ugly, her hands curled into claws.

Just as she was about to descend on Dag there was a loud bang. Olivia screamed and disappeared, her primal cry of pain leaving an echo through the library. Dag blinked, trying to clear his blurry vision, and saw Amanda standing there holding his gun.

"Thanks, kid," Dag groaned as he pushed himself up. Amanda rushed to his side and helped him sit up, propping him against the display case. "Did you bring the car?"

"Yessir," Amanda replied automatically. "We waited twenty minutes and then I figured I should come in and see if you needed any help." Dag chuckled at the sheepish grin that played along Amanda's lips.

"I'm glad you did, Mandy."

He pushed himself up and grabbed the bottle of lighter fluid. As Amanda scanned the library, keeping watch for Olivia's spirit, Dag pulled out a small, silver lighter.

"Rest in pieces, you crazy bitch," Dag spat out as he tossed the lighter into the reliquary. The flames licked hungrily across the bones, consuming everything in bright orange and red.

As the flames consumed the skull of Olivia Hunt, the eye sockets glowing a bright yellow, they heard a crash from the left. Amanda spun towards the sound, raising the gun to point it at the spirit. Olivia screamed, her shriek reverberating around them like a sonic boom and charged Amanda. Instinctively, Amanda curled in on herself, the gun forgotten in her hand, and waited for the ghost to send her flying.

Nothing happened.

Slowly, Amanda lowered her arms, which she had flung up around her head, and looked around.

"She's gone, Mandy."

Amanda turned towards Dag's voice, a sheepish look creeping over her face. "Sorry," she mumbled, embarrassed that she had reacted so…childishly. Dag staggered to his feet and Amanda shot up, immediately offering him some assistance as he began to teeter.

"Let's get the hell out of here, what do ya say?" Dag said, giving Amanda a small smile.

Amanda nodded her head and returned the smile with a bright one of her own. Together, with Dag's arm draped over Amanda's narrow shoulders, they made their way out of the Colmar County Public Library and into the dawning day. As Dag eased himself into the backseat of his Toyota Corolla, Jones riding shotgun and Amanda behind the wheel, he thought to himself that, so far, the Apocalypse didn't seem so bad.

***So, this first chapter is just a set up to the rest of the story and is sorely lacking our two favorite hunters. I promise - they will be in the next one! I am hoping to post a new chapter once every two weeks (or perhaps a bit sooner depending on my buddies Muse and Inspiration) so I hope you will check back then. I will post my Musical Playlist at the completion of this story. Thanks to all of you who want and will keep on reading! You're support will determine whether I continue posting so...Thanks!***