Supernatural Heroes
Part 1: Every rose has its thorn.
Along a stretch of lonely highway, the Winchester brothers were driving. The grumble of Dean's beloved 1967 Chevy Impala could be heard over the pelting rain and the sound of 'Welcome to the jungle' playing on the tape deck. Yes, tape deck. Dean didn't want to douche up his car with an ipod jack.
"Guns n' Roses? Really?" Sam raised his eyebrows as he looked over at his brother Dean who sat behind the wheel of the Impala.
"Why not?" Dean replied with a shrug of his shoulders, he didn't think there was anything wrong with his music selection.
Sam rolled his eyes and returned his gaze to his phone's screen, which he held in both of his hands. Dean glanced over at Sam and asked,
"Have you figured out who this Rebel is yet?"
"Dude, like I told you before, No, I haven't. The e-mail just said to go to this address in New York City," Sam said exasperatedly and sighed.
"I still don't think we should even bother with this anyway. We don't even know how this Rebel found us or anything. It's probably a dead end,"
"Well, I think we should at least see this thing through, Dean. This Rebel obviously needs our help. They could be another hunter,"
"Okay," Dean replied, even though he didn't agree entirely with his younger brother.
The rain thrashed harder against the windscreen and the wipers scraped faster to and fro.
"What the hell is that?" Dean asked as he slowed down the Impala and squinted in the distance through the glare of the headlights, which were beamed at a dark mass lying in the middle of the road. The car slowed to a stop before it. Sam and Dean both stared through the windscreen.
"I think it's a person," answered Sam.
"Well, what the hell is it doing here?"
"There's only one way to find out," Sam replied. He put down his phone on the dashboard and got out of the car. Dean followed him, taking his gun filled with rock salt with him, not before turning off the engine and leaving on the headlights so they could see.
Sam looked over at his brother, "You're not bringing that with you?"
"It's just a precaution," Dean pointed to the person on the road lying motionless. "It could be anything,"
Sam shrugged his shoulders and they both crept closer. It was a person, they were lying on their side with their back to the boys. Sam knelt in front of the body and turned it over onto its back. Dean was at the ready with the shotgun aimed at the guy's head. Sam checked the guy's vitals, he wasn't dead, just unconscious. He was wearing a black singlet, jacket, black jeans and boots.
"Dean, come over here and help me get him in the car,"
"What? Put him in my car?"
"Well, what else do you want me to do? We can't just leave him here in the middle of the road,"
"Yes, we can,"
"Look, Dean. At least help me wake him up,"
Sam was frustrated now, Dean could be so stubborn. Dean opened the trunk of the car, put the gun down and returned to Sam and the guy with a silver flask and splashed its contents on the guy's unshaven face, which woke him up.
"Who are you guys?" He asked drowsily looking up at the boys.
"I'm Sam and this is my brother Dean," Sam replied. Curiosity got the better of him, "What were you doing in the middle of the highway?"
"Uh, can I sit down some place?"
"Okay,"
Sam led the guy to the back seat of the Impala, all the time ignoring Dean's protests of letting a stranger into his car. Dean got back behind the wheel and turned around to face the guy, who was still a bit groggy.
"So, who are you and what were you doing in the middle of the road?" Dean asked him a little angrily, because he was impatient and wanted to get to NYC. Sam shot him a 'Dean' look.
The guy looked up at Dean, and then looked at his watch. He wondered if he should tell them that his name's Sylar, but he didn't know if these guys had ever heard of him and he didn't know who these two guys were. Sure he could take them both down with just a flick of his fingers if they turned out to be trouble for him. So instead, he went with the safer option.
"My name's Gabriel," he answered.
Sam, by then had slid back into the front passenger side seat and exchanged a look with Dean. Dean turned to face the steering wheel, rolled his eyes and said,
"Great, another Angel," he mumbled under his breath. Then he turned back to Gabriel. "Are you an Angel? "
"Far from it,"
Other than keep having a conversation in the middle of the road, Dean decided that it'd be safer for them if they'd continue on their road trip. Sam turned around to face the back seat.
"Hey Gabriel, we're on our way to NYC. Can we give you a lift somewhere?" he looked sideways at Dean, who was a bit disgruntled at having to change their plans for some stranger, even though he didn't want to go to New York City in the first place.
Gabriel looked up at Sam. "I was heading there myself actually,"
"Great," answered Sam.
Dean started the engine and the Impala roared into life.
Dean pulled the car in at a Motel that was along the highway; he went into the main office and ordered a room, which left Sam and Gabriel alone in the car.
"Is Dean always like this?" Gabriel asked Sam. He meant by Dean's gruff attitude, Sam looked at him in the rear vision mirror.
"Not always, but you do get used to it after a while" he paused. "He used to be a lot more relaxed about things. Well, that was before…"
"Before what?"
"Something happened to him a while ago and I think it's still affecting him" Sam didn't want to say any more than that. He was referring to the time Dean spent in Hell, and not knowing Gabriel that much, he wasn't sure how much he should open up to him.
"Oh," Gabriel wanted to push Sam into telling him more.
Dean came back then, with the room keys and moved the Impala into the car park in front of their room.
"I'm sorry, but this is the only room that I could get that was big enough for us," he said as they all stepped into the room, which had two Queen sized beds. "Uh, seeing as you're an unscheduled passenger," he looked at Gabriel and then continued speaking. "You're gonna have to take the couch. Is that Okay?"
"Yeah, it's fine," answered Gabriel, curiously looking around the room. His deep brown eyes setting on an old looking couch at the far end of the room.
Gabriel opened his eyes at 2:30 am to hear Sam and Dean talking in hushed voices. Little did they know that Gabriel had super-hearing and could hear everything that they were saying. Sam was on his laptop, looking at the local online newspaper.
"Hey Dean, I found something,"
"What?" Dean was sitting in the chair opposite Sam at the table.
"It says here that the local High School is holding a memorial service for past and present students who have committed suicide,"
"What's weird about that? High School is torture,"
"There's a suicide every year,"
"Must be a pretty bad school," Dean joked.
"Dean, be serious," Sam said exasperatedly. He was really getting annoyed and impatient with Dean's sarcasm. "Do you think that this is something we ought to check out?"
"We're supposed to be going to New York and you want to go hunting?"
"Look, we don't know who this Rebel is, like you said. If it was that urgent, the message would've said so, wouldn't it?"
Dean shrugged. "Yeah, maybe," he looked over at Gabriel, who was pretending to be asleep on the couch. "Um, what do we do with him?"
Sam looked over in the direction to where Dean's head was faced and shrugged. "Bring him along?" Sam asked questioningly, unsure of what Dean's reaction was going to be.
"Bring him along hunting with us? We still don't even know this guy. For all we know, he could be a psycho killer,"
"Well, he's come this far with us and you seem to be comfortable with bringing a 'Psycho Killer' with us to New York,"
"Okay, fine Sammy. We'll go hunting, since you suggested the idea, you can tell him,"
Gabriel, who was still listening to Sam and Dean, wondered why going hunting had any thing to do with High School student's suicides. He stirred, sat up and brushed his dark brown hair away from his eyes. Sam and Dean abruptly stopped talking.
"Sorry, did we wake you?" Sam apologised.
"No," Gabriel looked at his watch, "what are you guys still doing up?"
"We might as well tell you," said Dean looking at Sam.
"Tell me what?" asked Gabriel as he got up from the couch and joined the boys at the table.
"Do you believe in Ghosts?" asked Sam.
"Ghosts?"
"Yeah, you know spirits, the supernatural," Sam explained and searched Gabriel's face to try to gauge his reaction.
Gabriel was unsure of what Sam meant. "Uh…" he shook his head. He wondered if his abilities had anything to do with the supernatural.
"We're hunters. That's what we do,"
Gabriel knew they hunted, he was hoping that they weren't hunting for him, and then hesitantly asked, "What do you hunt for?"
"A lot of things, ghosts, ghouls," Sam answered him.
"Vampires, werewolves," interjected Dean.
"Djins, shapeshifters, pagan gods, wendigoes…"
"Killer clowns," Dean glanced at Sam who shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He had a fear of clowns and Dean never let him forgets it.
"Zombies, tricksters and demons," Dean concluded. "And that's only scratching the surface, there's plenty more out there,"
Gabriel breathed a sigh of relief. He seemed to be safe from them, for the time being. Luckily he could handle them if something got out of hand and they turned on him. He looked at Sam and Dean in turn.
"Demons?" he asked.
"Yeah, in this field of work, they seem to turn up quite a bit," answered Sam.
Demons were something that Gabriel could believe the boys about, he was deeply religious.
"Are all those other things really out there?"
"Yeah," Sam said and nodded his head.
"And you know how to fight them?"
"Yeah, we were trained as kids. Our father taught us, sort of like a family business," said Dean.
Gabriel didn't pry any further. He didn't want the boys to see how excited and eager he was about the whole hunting business.
"Well, we seem to have a job to do before we get to New York. Do you mind if we checked the situation out? You can join in if you want to, to see what we do," Sam asked Gabriel.
"Okay,"
"Good, we'll leave first thing,"
"What's this job about?"
Sam and Dean both filled in Gabriel about the job. Dean gave him a run-down of the hunting business, from researching to weapons and equipment.
All three of the boys were in the Impala; Dean of course was behind the wheel. They drove in silence for a bit until they arrived at the High School, where the memorial service was being held. They got out of the car and stood at the back of the assembled group. Once the ceremony was over, they looked around the school. Directly behind the lectern in the Quadrangle was a circular stone flower bed and in it contained ten rose bushes, each with a plaque underneath inscribed with a name of a student.
While Gabriel and Sam were checking the plaques out, a man who was standing nearby approached Dean.
"It's weird isn't it?"
"What is?" asked Dean cautiously.
"How these students all died the same way," the man said.
"Really?" this intrigued him. "How?"
"By slitting their wrists,"
Dean raised his eyebrows in a thoughtful way. "Hmm, yeah it is weird," he walked back to Gabriel and Sam, and he stood in front of both of them.
"So?" pushed Sam.
"So, as it turns out the students all died the same way,"
"How?" asked Gabriel.
"They all slit their own wrists,"
Gabriel remembered that not long after his first kill, how he was so full of remorse for what he done that he tried to commit suicide too and failed.
Sam looked puzzled. "So, what are you thinking?"
"Don't know, maybe we should trace these suicides back to the first one,"
"I wrote a list of the names and dates on all of the plaques," said Gabriel as he handed the list to Dean.
"Good thinking, Gabe," he complimented and patted him on the back. He studied the list of names.
"They're all girls, and the first chick to gank herself is Sally Egan. We could ask around to see if her parents are in town, see if they can shed some light for us about their daughter,"
"They could still be here," said Sam. He turned and looked around the Quadrangle, where people were milling around the refreshments table.
Gabriel walked over to the table, where a short, bald headed man was pouring coffee. He looked over to his right where Gabriel was standing.
"Want one?" he motioned with his finger as he pointed to the cup he was holding.
"Thanks," Gabriel nodded and took the cup of coffee that the man offered him.
"Did you used to go to school here, sorry, I don't know your name," he extended his hand to Gabriel to shake. Gabriel reached out with his free hand and shook the man's hand.
"Gabriel Gray,"
"I'm Trevor Egan,"
"Egan, that name sounds familiar. Aren't you the father of the first girl who died?"
"Yes, Sally. Her death came as bit of a shock,"
"How so?" Gabriel asked curiously.
"Well, she was always an out-going, sociable girl before it happened, and then,"
"Then what?" Gabriel pushed, eager to hear more.
"She became quiet and withdrawn and then she ended her life. A couple of students found her on the floor of the girl's locker room,"
"Oh, I'm sorry,"
"Thanks. It's nice of the school to plant the roses for the students. Apparently the types of roses that they planted are extremely rare. Sally really loved roses,,," he trailed off.
Gabriel handed Trevor a piece of paper with his phone number and the name of their Motel on it, and told him to give them a call if he had any more information to give them.
While Gabriel was over at the refreshments table talking to Trevor, Dean looked over at Sam, who was casually standing with both of his hands in his pockets.
"I'm still not sure about Gabriel,"
"Why?"
"I don't trust him. I totally regret telling him anything about what we do,"
"Well, we're gonna have to try, aren't we? If he was going to kill us, he would've done so already,"
"Maybe, I just think there's something that he's not telling us. He still hasn't told us what he was doing in the middle of the road,"
"Okay, whatever Dean,"
Gabriel walked back to Sam and Dean, bringing with him coffee and he handed a cup each to the boys.
"What did you find out?" asked Dean.
"That Sally was out-going and then became introverted,"
"You know, this doesn't make any sense,"
"Dean, we gotta look at the facts here, there's a suicide same time, every year from the date that Sally Egan died. That's a connection isn't it?"
"It's a complete waste of time Sammy, maybe we should get back in the car and go to New York as planned,"
"I think Sam's right. We should stay and check it out further," agreed Gabriel quietly.
"Okay, fine, we'll stay here," Dean said clearly upset, but it wasn't like he had a choice about it. It was two against one now, they talked some more and then they left to go back to the Motel.
The police scanner in the car picked up an incident nearby, so Dean changed their route and headed for the scene of the crime. Wearing their garb from the memorial service came in handy as their suits were needed in gaining access to the house.
Once inside, they found the female victim slumped over, her head on the breakfast table with her arms hanging to her sides and her wrists were dripping blood all over the floor. The boys looked around, they were the only ones in there. Sam was looking closely at the pools of blood, while Dean looked in the fridge. Gabriel watched on, unsure of what he could do, but was happy just being there involved all the same.
Sam looked up, "Dean, get out of there and come here,"
Dean hastily shut the fridge door.
"Why?" he asked as he walked over to Sam's kneeling position.
"Look, there's something near the blood," he got out a silver dagger and picked up the object from the floor using the side of the blade.
"What is that?" Gabriel mused.
"It looks like a rose petal, but the question is, how would a rose petal get in here?"
"It probably fell from a vase," Dean answered looking around in search of a vase of some sort.
"There are no floral arrangements here, Dean. They don't even have a garden,"
"Okay Martha Stewart, you're right," he said looking out of the front bay window to view the yard, where a paved courtyard was instead of a garden.
Sam examined the rose petal further, thinking all the while as he did so.
"Hey Guys? I think this petal came from the High School,"
"Huh?"
"Gabriel, didn't you tell us that Sally Egan's father told you that those roses were extremely rare and that they were the only type planted there in the area?"
Gabriel looked at Sam. "Yeah," he answered.
"See, Dean?"
"Okay, well maybe they are connected somehow,"
The boys left and went back to the Motel, once they got inside they sat down at the table.
"So, what now?" asked Gabriel.
Sam shrugged. There was a knock on the door, Gabriel answered it.
"Hello?"
"Hello. I'm Trevor Egan, Sally's father,"
"Yeah, I remember,"
"You told me to call you if I had any information to give you boys. Well, I found Sally's diary while cleaning out a wardrobe. It was hidden carefully and I thought that you guys should have it, in case it helps,"
Trevor handed Gabriel a worn-out brown leather bound book.
"Thanks,"
Trevor left then, and Gabriel returned to the table. Dean took the book from him and leafed through it.
"Oh my god!"
"What?" Sam turned around on his bed where he was laying down, to look at Dean.
"Apparently, it says here that she was bullied by a mob of girls for a while,"
"She was bullied?"
"Yep," Dean nodded, "here's another thing, the bullies named in the diary were also the names on the plaques on the rose bushes,"
"So, she's going after the girls who attacked her?" asked Sam.
"I'm guessing that's the motivation for the killings. I think she's been making them commit suicide because they led her to it. You know what this means?"
"Vengeful spirit,"
"That's a ghost who acts violently to avenge or draw attention to a wrong done to them. Isn't it?" Gabriel asked and he looked at Dean.
"Yes, so looks like we go after this thing tonight," he said looking from Sam to Gabriel.
They got the general items for a vengeful spirit hunt ready: loaded the guns with rock salt, iron rods for dispersing the spirit, containers of salt and lighter fluid. They waited until around midnight to venture out to the cemetery to salt and burn the corpse, but halfway there Sam remembered that Sally had been cremated. Dean stopped the car and left on the ignition.
"That's just great. So what now?"
"There's obviously something that's tying the spirit here,"
"Like what Sam?"
"I don't know," he shrugged. "Maybe the High School?"
"Maybe," Dean half agreed, thoughtfully thinking it over. "The bullying initially started there, so it might be worth a look,"
Dean put the pedal down and drove to the school. When they arrived, it was really dark, it had stopped raining, but the rain clouds were still hanging around blanketing the entire night sky. The school grounds were eerily quiet. At least they were all armed, even Gabriel, who actually was quite adept at using a firearm, but for the sake of blowing his cover he had to act like he was an amateur at using one.
Their footsteps echoed as they entered the Quadrangle, the cool air rustled the leaves of the rose bushes as they passed by.
"What do you think would be keeping the spirit here?" asked Gabriel and when he exhaled his breath came out all frosty.
The spirit turned up, she was wearing a high school uniform, and had deep scarlet slashes across both of her wrists. She went straight for Sam and grabbed him around the neck. As a reflex action, Gabriel was going to use his telekinetic powers, but raised his gun and shot at the spirit, which dispersed.
"Nice shot Gabe!" exclaimed Dean, who was clearly quite impressed.
Sam rubbed his neck and looked around, comprehension dawned on his face.
"The Roses,"
"What?"
"The roses that they planted here after a suicide. The first one was planted after Sally's death, along with her ashes and a lock of her hair,"
"So where's the hair?" Dean asked, looking at the rose bushes.
"Maybe it's long gone by now," mused Gabriel.
"Well, what's keeping her spirit here then? If not the lock of hair?"
"It's the roses Dean," said Sam. "Her father said how attached to the flowers she was,"
Dean shrugged. "There's nothing left for it, but we got to torch the roses," he seemed to say easily without batting an eye lid.
Whilst Sam was sloshing the lighter fluid all over the roses and Gabriel poured salt all over the plants, Sally's spirit returned and this time placed her bloodied hands around Dean's neck. Sam raced straight to save Dean, throwing the empty lighter fluid container in the middle of the roses as he went. He aimed his gun at the ghost ready to fire, Gabriel flicked his finger at the bushes and a stream of blue electricity shot out the end of it, igniting the rose bushes in flames.
Sally released her grip on Dean's neck and vanished in an essence of ash and flames, she was gone. The boys watched the rose bushes burn. Dean turned to Gabriel who had his trademark shifty smile on his face, which none of the others seemed to notice.
"Hey Gabriel, way to back us up with the torching,"
"Thanks," he answered, unsure if Dean saw him light it or not, but then he thought that if he did in fact see, then he wouldn't have put away the gun, he would've aimed it straight at him.
Sirens in the background alerted the boys, that both the police and fire departments were on their way. They all jumped into the Impala and drove back to the Motel to grab their stuff and they headed to New York City in the direction of the rising dawn to start the next chapter of their journey.
To be continued……