Another Psychic in the Family

May 2007

Santa Barbara, California

Sam Winchester drove through the streets, trying to find the apartment complex he was looking for. He'd seen the article in the newspaper involving several "freak accidents" in the Santa Barbara area. He had suspected something strange from the start. His older brother Dean would've already been on the jump from the moment he spotted the article, but…Sam had to make due with what he had.

Dean had been missing for two years. Their father John had called him at Stanford the last week of spring semester in 2005, saying that he hadn't heard from Dean in two weeks. Sam had immediately left college—after explaining the situation to his girlfriend Jessica Moore—and joined his father to search for Dean.

John had told him that he'd gotten a call a week ago from an impound lot in Palmdale, California. The guy was calling to report that the Impala was in his impound lot. It had been sitting abandoned in the street outside a hotel for a week. They had found John's information in the glove box and called him. Thankfully, they needed a warrant to search the rest of the vehicle, so no one found the arsenal in the trunk.

John and Sam had immediately headed out to Palmdale, searching for Dean. But it was like he just vanished. There was no record of someone with Dean's description in any of the local hospital or jails, and they knew Dean would not just abandon the Impala like that. They followed the trail of the hunt John had sent Dean on, but neither he nor his remains were in the rawhead nest. They had searched the past two years, but had not found him.

Sam had visited Jessica often, who always asked about his family. Sam helped his father hunt in the meantime, hoping that he would find Dean during one of his hunts.

What was also occupying Sam and John's research was the hunt for the demon that had killed Mary…especially after what was starting to happen to Sam. About a year and a half ago, Sam had started having weird dreams. The random dreams would inexplicably come true. At first, he'd said nothing about them to John, but when he started having them while he was awake, he'd finally let his father in on the whole thing.

The visions were beginning to get more intense, and Dean's absence was growing more and more worrisome. Where could he have gotten off to?

Sam climbed out of the Impala outside the apartment complex, adjusting his suit jacket and tie as he closed the door and locked it. As he approached the cop waiting at the entrance of the complex, Sam reached into his suit jacket.

"Afternoon," Sam greeted him, taking out an FBI badge and showing it to the officer. "Agent Simmons, FBI."

The officer nodded and stepped aside to let Sam enter. Sam headed up to the third floor, showing his badge again for the officer standing at the door.

About nine or ten cops scurried about the room, collecting evidence and taking photos of the stabbed body on the living room rug. Two cops stood by the body on the floor, dressed in suits. One was a blonde woman as tall as Sam's shoulder, and the other was a man Sam's height with salt-and-pepper hair and a strong Irish brow.

Sam pulled out his badge as he headed over to them. "Excuse me. My name is Sam Simmons. I'm with the FBI, and I'd like to ask you some questions."

"I don't think so," said the male detective. "Not until we're finished with this scene." He turned to another tall officer in the room. "McNab! Bag this." He handed the officer a pair of tweezers with some hair follicles grasped at the end of it.

McNab pulled out an evidence bag, slipping the tweezers inside.

"I understand you're preoccupied at the time, but this will only take a moment," said Sam.

The male detective glared at him, and Sam found himself intimidated. It wasn't often that an authority figure was on the same eye level as him.

"You think I'm gonna share clues so the feds can just swoop in and take over the case?" he said. "This is our jurisdiction, our case. You can come back later and—"

"Lassiter!" hissed the female detective. She smiled up at Sam. "I'm sorry. He takes his job very seriously. I'm Detective O'Hara, this is Detective Lassiter. What can we help you with?"

"Whoa!"

Sam, Lassiter and O'Hara turned to see a brown-haired guy wearing a green plaid shirt and jeans with a smoothie in his hand standing in the doorway of the apartment with an African-American guy in a black suit with a purple shirt.

"Spencer, out of here!" said Lassiter.

"Now, Lassie," said the plaid-shirt guy, "Spencer," as he headed into the apartment and walked over to them. "Is that any way to ask for help? Especially when the spirits have told me that you've missed me lately."

Lassiter rolled his eyes as Sam frowned at Spencer. The guy was a few inches shorter than him with dark-brown hair and hazel green eyes and a strong jaw. Something about this guy was familiar—Sam could sense it—but he couldn't quite put his finger on it. He'd certainly never seen this guy before.

Spencer frowned at Sam's suit for a moment and looked up at him. "Who's the fed?"

Sam frowned at him. "How'd you know I was a fed?"

Spencer startled for a moment, seeming to play the effect up. "Oh, I'm sorry. Sometimes, I can't turn it off." He extended his hand towards Sam. "Shawn Spencer, head psychic for the SBPD." He gestured to his African-American friend. "This is my associate, Gus 'Goody Two Shoes' Jackson."

Gus rolled his eyes at Shawn's nickname.

Sam shook Shawn's hand, his eyes widening. "Psychic?"

Had Sam just stumbled upon one of the psychic kids he and his father had been searching for the past few months?

"I know, I know," said Shawn. "You don't believe in psychics, right? Well, let me astound you."

He immediately turned towards the crime scene with his friend Gus, moving around the room.

Sam turned back towards the two detectives. "Is he really a psychic?"

"Yes," said O'Hara. "He's solved many cases for us. He really is quite amazing."

Lassiter glared at O'Hara and looked at Sam. "He's decent…for a lazy slob."

Sam nodded, sensing that Lassiter and Shawn didn't get along very well. "Do you have any leads?"

O'Hara glanced down at the body. "Well, we don't really have any leads, because this wasn't a murder. Forensics have found no fingerprints on the knife except his own. We believe he was using the knife to eat—" she pointed at the plate of half-eaten food on the coffee table, "—and tripped over something, falling onto the knife."

Or…a shapeshifter killed him, Sam thought, nodding at O'Hara. That would explain the fingerprints…

"Oh!"

Sam turned to look at the crime scene, where Shawn was bent over the body, his hands at his temples.

"Oh, the humanity!" exclaimed Shawn, wrenching himself to his feet and throwing himself against the wall behind him.

"He's having a vision!" said Gus, watching Shawn in apparent panic.

Shawn's arm flung out to the side, his hand clenched as though he were holding something. He looked over at the clenched hand, his eyes wide. "No! Please!"

Shawn moved the clenched hand towards himself, and he used the other hand to grab hold of that one. His two hands appeared to struggle with themselves.

"No!" Shawn exclaimed. "Don't hurt me!"

The clenched hand won out, jabbing into his chest in the same spot where the knife stuck out of the victim's body.

"Ah!" Shawn cried, grasping at the "wound." "No!" He fell to his knees, doubled over.

"Spencer, what the hell is this?" asked Lassiter, glaring at Shawn.

Shawn's head snapped up, his eyes wide. "This was no accident…" He looked up at Sam and the detectives. "This was murder!"

Shawn's vision that the victim had been killed wasn't what made Sam's eyes suddenly frown in confusion. A necklace had fallen out from under Shawn's shirt when he was slumped over. It now hung from his neck, swinging slightly back and forth: a bronze amulet of a humanoid head with bull-like horns.

Sam's eyes widened as he stared at the necklace. There was only one necklace like that, and he knew who it belonged to.

"Dean?" Sam whispered, staring at Shawn.