Author's Note: So, this is my first Supernatural fan fiction. I literally picked a random town on the map and did my best with what Google gave me. If you happen to live here and I got it wrong, please feel free to correct me. I apologize profusely.
Otherwise, hope you enjoy!
Chapter One:
Bement, Illinois
Rafaela Kincaide knew that having headphones in when walking home alone at night was a bad idea, but she didn't particularly care. Work had been murder, and she needed the dulcet tones of Fall Out Boy falling through her eardrums. Rafa hummed along to the song as she fumbled for her keys. Trade all my tomorrows for just one yesterday…
She'd probably be singing something along those lines tomorrow when she had to go back to work and face her boss. What was she going to say? I'm sorry I screamed at you and called you a creep when that's what you are? She wouldn't lower herself apologizing when she wasn't sorry in the least. Rafa pushed the thought out of her mind and tried to focus on the more immediate task.
Informing her parents why, come tomorrow, she most likely wouldn't have a job.
Choosing to skip out on college had been one thing. Getting hired as a barista at Starbucks was another. But getting fired for a situation where she could very well have bit her tongue would be the last straw. If only she'd already saved up enough money to move out. But she hadn't.
Her keys clattered to the hardwood of the porch, sliding through one of the cracks. Rafa groaned. This day just kept getting better and better. She walked down the steps and got down on all fours, putting thoughts of snakes and spiders to the back of her mind as she slid under and began feeling about for her keys.
It was true, she didn't have to speak up. Defending herself was one thing, something that her parents could get behind, would get behind, would tell her was a good plan. In fact, even if she hadn't, they probably would insist she start working somewhere else. But she hadn't told them about the one time Noel had tried making a move on her. And he had left her alone after she, with no uncertain terms had told him exactly where he could go.
That had been before he'd been promoted to manager – which he'd bullied his way into. He now used his powers for evil, like pushing around those lower on the food chain than him. Rafa stayed out of his way, he stayed out of hers.
But not Mara. Mara didn't know what had hit her when Noel had started paying her more attention than the other workers. Mara was fifteen, just barely able to work legally, and a perfect target for Noel. He was being a creep, and Rafa had told him so. She remembered, as she flailed her hand around, longing to touch on metal, the scene vividly.
Mara had looked back and forth from her boss to her slightly surly older co-worker. Rafa wasn't' usually the type to befriend the newbies – they had to earn her respect first. But she was going to protect the younger girl when Noel tried his crap, that was for sure. Mara was a red-headed, baby-faced child who didn't know what she was up against.
"Mara, why don't you go take the order for me?" Rafa said. Noel's black eyes had glittered at her as Mara muttered, "Um, okay," and went out front, leaving the other two in the room alone.
Rafa let loose with all the fires of hell her namesake, the Angel of Death, was supposed to bring. "You son of a – She's just a kid! What do you think you're doing? Do you know the meaning of the word pedophile, Noel? Cause that's pretty much what describes you right now."
They'd kept on arguing. It was a doozy, one of the worst she'd ever been in – with anyone – and she wasn't the type to avoid confrontation. Rafa had left work that day with a warning – and she was pretty sure it was going to come back to bite her tomorrow. Fall Out Boy was the closest thing to soothing she had on her playlist, so she'd plugged it in and started the trek home. It was only about five minutes back – this was a small town, reasonably too small for the Starbucks she worked at.
Rafa finally found purchase with her keys – submerged in some kind of warm liquid. She curled her lip back in disgust. She really didn't want to know. It had been ages since Dad had gotten under here – not since… Rafa shook the memories away. After the day she'd just had, the last thing she needed was to think of Abel.
She started up the porch steps. Speaking of small towns, did Noel honestly expect that he'd be able to get away with harassing a fourteen-year-old kid? Mara likely had a dad and a few older brothers who knew their way around shotguns and weren't afraid to use them. If she liked him, Rafa might fear for her boss's life –
Her thought was barely finished before she saw it. She'd inserted her key in the lock, and the door swung open. But Rafa stayed completely still, staring at her hand, then looking back at the key in the door. Red smeared her fingers and dotted on the gold metal of the key.
It had been lying in a pool of blood.
Rafa's breathing turned suddenly ragged. Maybe it was coincidence. Maybe it was a weird form of moldy water. But why had it been warm? Did certain types of mold affect the temperature of water? She wasn't sure.
Attempting to rub it off and remain standing on her shaky knees, Rafa stumbled into the house.
"Mom! Dad! I'm home!"
Her voice was way too shaky. Dropping her purse in its usual spot on the doorside bench, she shrugged off her jacket and hung it up on the pegs above. Why were Mom and Dad not answering? Catching herself, she rolled her eyes. They probably were in bed. It was ten, after all.
On trembling legs, Rafa stumbled into the bathroom to wash the red liquid off her hands. She looked up at the picture staring her in the face, on the mirror shelf. Mom and Dad had insisted that they keep all the family pictures up after Abel died. As if Rafa didn't feel guilty enough for being the lone surviving child without constant pictures of her brother's smiling face blaring at her all day.
She couldn't blame her parents, she guessed. True, she'd lost a brother, but she couldn't imagine losing a child. Especially the way her brother went. Brutally murdered, mutilated, and scattered all over the marshes south of town was kind of rare in general, but unheard of in this small town. A year had passed, and Rafa still couldn't shake the memory of her little brother from her mind. His smiling, toothy grin, still forever ten in her mind, would fade to images she didn't want. Visions of what his death must have been like, what she imagined his screams sounding like echoing in her ears. Rafa shook her head, even now fighting off the ghosts that haunted her waking and sleeping hours.
The red came off in liquid form – like blood. It smelled metallic like blood. But there was no way it could be blood, right?
She turned around as their cat, Athena, slid in and rubbed against her legs. Pure white, Athena was like some kind of ethereal creature, gliding in and out of a room, displaying affection on her own terms, and leaving just as quickly. The one unsettling thing about her were her pure red eyes. Mom had asked the vet about that. He'd said that Athena was probably an albino tabby. Rafa bent down to rub Athena's back –
And realized her eyes weren't the only things about Athena that were red.
The white cat was decorated with splatterings of red everywhere.
Rafa could no longer deny it. That was definitely blood. Yet for the amount, her cat should not be up and around, moving as freely as she did before. This was not Athena's blood. Rafa's beating heart soared upward, somewhere behind her mouth. Athena looked up and meowed pitifully.
Rafa burst out of the bathroom, almost tripping over the cat. Running toward the stairs, she nearly vomited when the beige carpet revealed spots of blood making a trail up the stairs.
"Mom?" she called, running upstairs, avoiding the blood stains. "Dad? Are you guys there?"
She was met with nothing but silence. Then…the sound of wind blowing through an open window. It was early April…in Illinois. Winter was barely losing its chill. There was no way her parents would leave the window open this time of year without good cause.
Rafa reached the top of the stairs and froze. Her parents' bedroom door was open, and an arm lay sprawled across the threshold. Bile rose to her throat. Was that still attached to a body? Either way, this was bad.
"No," she muttered under her breath, running over. "No, no, no, no, no – "
It wasn't attached.
Fighting off the scream threatening to break out into the air, Rafa dared to glance into her parents' bedroom. This time, she did nothing to stop the scream. It tore from her throat, echoing out into the night.
Unfortunately, no one would notice anything was wrong until the next morning. And that would be when the neighbor, walking his corgi by their house, would discover a severed human hand under the porch – right where Rafa's keys had fallen.
Two Days Later
"You'd think they'd at least have a decent bar in this town."
"Dean. It's 1,300 people. Why should they have a bar?"
"If it were one person, they should have a bar. It's just a common courtesy."
Dean Winchester rolled down the window of the Impala and squinted out at the cold, bright sunlight of the Illinois morning. He'd been to Podunk before. Heck, he'd spent the first four years of his life in Podunk. But this…this was a whole new level of backwoods.
"I can practically hear Dueling Banjos," he growled, staring at the "crime scene."
"It's not that bad," Sam muttered, looking over his brother's shoulder at the red pickup parked in front of the not-quite mobile home.
"Sure," Dean said. "You stay in a town like this, it's where freedom goes to die."
"Yeah, well maybe freedom isn't the dead body we should be focusing on right now."
Dean looked back at the house, with local cops and state troopers swarming all over. Sam was right – this time. It didn't mean he had to admit it. Seeing the American flag hanging off the porch, he gestured toward it as they got out of the car. "Don't be so sure."
There were maybe two cops who looked local – Dean could tell from the way they stood off to the side, looking clueless and pissed off. The local sheriff, his belly threatening to break out of the white shirt currently containing it, was having a rather heated debate with a state trooper. Eyeing Sam, Dean jerked his head at the two other men.
"Two big cheeses over there?"
Sam nodded, pulling out his wallet and making sure the ID was correct – well, as correct as a fake one could get. Dean did the same before they sauntered up to the cops.
"And I'm telling you, things like this don't just happen here! It had to be someone from out of town!"
"Look, Pete, with the kid a year ago, and now his family, that's not coincidence. And the exact same way? Don't tell me you're stupid enough to think – "
"Gentlemen," Sam said, taking over. Dean might resent the fact that he had to let his little brother take charge, but he still wasn't quite comfortable in a suit yet. Sam was more confident in one than Dean ever would be, so when they posed as FBI, Sam did the talking. Dean figured he could make up for it by coming up with some embarrassing story for Sam every time they pretended to be civilians.
"Agents Cassidy and Kid. We're with the FBI, here to check out the Kincaide case?"
The trooper eyed him suspiciously. "I don't remember calling in the feds." He whirled on the sheriff. "Did you call in the feds?"
"I didn't ask for you to be here, you know," the sheriff growled. "Do you honestly think I'd call in anybody higher up?"
Old Bushel Britches may have his pants in a twist over the presence of the troopers, but there was no contest when it came to who was in charge. The trooper nocked his thumbs in his belt loops and eyed the newcomers. "How'd you boys hear about these murders so fast?"
"We have an ear out," Sam said simply. "It's just routine for us to check in when it's something this violent."
"I'll say violent," Sheriff Pete muttered, looking away. The trooper glanced back at him, his hard gaze softening a little.
"You'll have to excuse us," he said. "As I'm sure you've probably noticed, Bement is a small town. Pete was a friend of the family. His son and the Kincaide boy played soccer together in high school. I stopped by Quentin Kincaide's store every time my patrol took me through here. These were good people."
"The Kincaide boy?" Dean asked, frowning. "Wasn't there just a daughter who went missing after her parents were murdered?"
"That's the thing of it," the sheriff said. "Abel was murdered in the exact same way a year ago yesterday."
Sam's eyebrows went up, and he looked sideways at Dean. "We hadn't heard that," he said. "If the pair of you don't mind, I'd like to ask you a few more questions while my partner takes a look around."
The cops looked at Dean suspiciously. He gave what he knew was a winning smile – at least, it usually was. And usually was when women were involved. With guys, it was usually fifty-fifty.
"I won't make a mess, I promise."
Unconvinced but not seeing that he had much choice when it came to the FBI, the trooper nodded reluctantly. Pete was a bit less eager, but he kept his mouth shut. Dean walked away, leaving Sam to process the information about the Kincaide's son. Weird that no one had mentioned that in the papers.
Chicago had been rough – really rough. They'd almost gotten both themselves and Dad killed. Dean really needed to talk to Sam about his taste in chicks. Jessica hadn't seemed too bad, but Sam had picked one hell of a rebound. Having a thing for blonde chicks, Dean could get behind. Girls who liked wearing Smurf T-shirts in bed, that was okay, too. But demons? That was a step too far.
Meg had pulled a fast one on Sam, but at least she was out of the picture – for now. Dean wasn't letting Sam know, but it killed him to leave Dad behind after they just got him back. With this demon after them, there was a possibility they'd never see him again. Dean had a flashback to what he thought of as "the good old days," on the road with Dad and Sam, spending holidays killing werewolves and poltergeists. He'd kill to have those days back again, once they were old enough to help out and Dad didn't just ditch them in motels for days on end.
Lately, though, since leaving Stanford with Sam, an image had been creeping into those memory that Dean had never noticed before: Sam was never smiling. He never wanted to go on the hunts with Dad and Dean. Dad dragged him anyway, because it was better that he know how to defend himself. Even if he just stayed in the car and watched Dad and Dean waste the sucker, it didn't matter. At least he was there. At least Dad knew he knew how to handle a run-in with one.
Sam didn't want to know, though. And even now, with this new vendetta he had to find the demon that killed Mom and Jessica, even with his willing return to the hunter's life, Dean could tell Sam still didn't want to know. He was still angry with the way Dad raised them.
Sam just didn't get it, Dean thought bitterly as he walked around a pair of state troopers examining Mrs. Kincaide's severed arm, which had been thrown from the bedroom window. Dad didn't have a choice for how he raised them. He knew something was out there, and if he didn't get it, someone else's wife and mom was going to get hurt. Sure, his mission had gotten a little sidetracked. But that just meant Sam and Dean were better equipped against the things that went bump in the night than someone else's kids.
Better equipped than the Kincaide's had been.
Before slipping in the back door, Dean glanced back at his little brother, still talking with the cops. The two of them looked like they'd gotten into another argument. Sam was barely keeping them from ripping each other's throats out.
Where freedom goes to die, and feuding settles down for the night, Dean thought, stepping around a ring finger with a white chalk line drawn around it.
As soon as he was in the door, a state trooper with buck teeth was on top of him.
"Hey, you can't be in here! This is a crime scene – "
"Yeah, I'm familiar with those," Dean said casually, not even deigning to look at the trooper as he flashed his badge. The guy backed away, muttering something along the lines of "Sorry, Agent Kid" as he shuffled into another room.
The place was a complete mess. The couch had been turned over, a glass vase shattered all over the floor. On top of all the glass shards, a photo frame lay face down. Dean pulled a pair of rubber gloves out of his pocket – a new institution Sam had insisted on whenever they were posing as FBI agents. He had to hand it to him, Sam thought of pretty much everything. Pulling one on his right hand, Dean crouched down and picked up the frame.
It was one of those collage frames soccer moms were into – and it sounded like Mrs. Kincaide had been one of those. This one only fit two pictures, but they both had the Kincaide kid in them. One showed Quentin Kincaide, balding and dark-haired, a fishing hat on his head, with an arm around his son. The boy had a fishing pole in one hand and a huge trout in the other. What had Sheriff Pete called the kid – Abel? He looked like a good kid. You could always tell the difference between the ones who were fake smiling in family pictures and the ones who were genuine. Dean had a picture of Dad, Sam and him from twelve years ago that was a perfect example. Dean was smiling for real. Sam was smiling because it was what you did when someone took a picture of you.
Dean looked over at the side table, which somehow managed to have escaped the rampage. A pair of smaller pictures with a boy and a girl – he assumed the Kincaide kids – stood like sentries on either side of a bigger family picture. The parents sat on a park bench, with Abel sitting cross-legged on the ground in front of them, that genuine smile on his face. Behind them, the older sister, Rafaela, stood behind the bench, her arms resting on the top of the bench next to her mom's shoulder. Her smile was there. Anyone who hadn't seen a kid like Sam might miss it. But Dean could tell. She was just smiling because she'd been told to.
What was up with that? Dean looked back at the second picture in the collage frame. It was of Rafaela and Abel. Her smile was different in this one. She had a graduation cap and robe on and was looking at her brother. He had braces on in this one. They both looked younger than in the family pictures. They were probably about four years apart – same as Dean and Sam.
Buck Teeth had come back into the house. It seemed weirdly empty for how many people had been crawling over the yard. Dean poked a patch of dried-up blood on the carpet with his toe then looked back at the frame in his hand.
"Sheriff said the boy died about a year ago? Same way as the parents?"
"Yep," Buck Teeth shook his head. "He was a bloody mess, too. And I don't mean that in the British sense. He was literally a bloody mess. We've got a swamp south of town that the murderer scattered him all over. I mean, at least he wasn't left all over his yard, but still – Abel Kincaide was a good kid. Hate to think of him dying that way, his folks, too."
Dean crouched down, pretending to examine the blood patch. "What do you think happened to the girl?"
"Rafa?" Buck Teeth snorted. "She probably got out of town as soon as she saw her parents were dead."
Dean looked up at him, eyebrows raised. Buck Teeth seemed to notice how harsh that sounded and stammered, "Um, I mean – it's just, I went to school with her. You always knew she wanted out. And in a town like Bement – "
"You only get out if Mom and Pops bite it," Dean said, matching the insensitivity. "Yeah, I get the picture."
That was a new one. Was it possible that Rafaela Kincaide could have killed her family? Looking at the way she smiled at her brother, he doubted it. She didn't look like a cold-blooded killer. But maybe…with a whole year passing before the family was killed, they weren't dealing with anything supernatural at all. It wasn't like the suckers he and Sam dealt with to wait that long.
At least, none of the ones they'd dealt with yet.
Dean frowned at the picture frame, set it down, and started up the stairs. More voices came from the second story of the house, so maybe he'd have more luck up there.
Sam didn't have a weak stomach. Being raised the way he was, you kind of had to get over any squeamishness you were born with. But as he listened to the trooper, who he'd found out was named Marshall Davis, describe the way Abel Kincaide had been murdered, it was a bit more of a struggle than usual to keep down the salad he'd managed to talk Dean into earlier that day.
"This was a year ago yesterday?" he asked.
"Yep. Damn tragedy," Davis said, shaking his head in genuine grief.
Sam stared past Davis at the open upstairs windows. What was off about that? A dead kid's family being slaughtered in the exact same way on the eve of the one-year anniversary of his death? It could be some sicko with a sense of irony coming back to finish the job. Or it could be something supernatural. It was completely up in the air at this point.
"Did Quentin Kincaide have any enemies?" he asked. Davis shook his head.
"I honestly can't think of anybody who'd want to kill Quentin. Or Elisa. They're good people, respected. Pete tells me a few of the guys were talking about nominating Quentin for mayor. There's nothing that doesn't line up with either one of them."
Sam noticed Davis said they're, not they were, as though it still hadn't quite sunk in the Kincaides were dead yet. He didn't blame him. The first few weeks after Jess died, he'd continued to talk about her as if she were still alive. Only Dean's silence brought him back to reality – she was gone. Present tense didn't really work anymore.
Clearing his throat, Sam asked, "And what about the girl?"
Davis looked distinctly uncomfortable. Sam hoped that was because he didn't know how to respond, not because she was possibly responsible for her family's murders.
"Rafaela keeps to herself a lot of the time," Davis said. "Didn't know her nearly as well as the rest of them. One of those kids who wanted to get out of town as soon as she turned eighteen but didn't. I'm guessing her brother was what kept her here."
"What makes you say that?" Sam asked.
"Well, that kid was her entire life. Elisa Kincaide was bedridden for a lot of Rafaela and Abel's childhood. Bad breast cancer. She'd actually just gone into remission a few months before Abel was killed. Rafaela basically raised Abel. He looked up to her, she'd die for him. It killed everyone in their family when he died, but Rafaela died with him, in a way."
Sam mulled that over. "So you're saying she might have left if her brother wasn't here?"
"And he's buried here. She didn't want to leave him behind."
A twinge of guilt worked its way through Sam's abdomen as he eyed the house again. That sounded uncomfortably familiar. He wondered if Abel had appreciated his sister's loyalty or if he was planning on ditching this town and her as soon as he graduated high school. That would be even more familiar.
Suddenly, something caught his attention, and he frowned at the top story of the house. "Marshall Davis, did your troopers open those windows?"
Davis eyed the windows uncertainly. "No…they were open when we were called in."
Who had the windows open in early April? It was sunny out, but it wasn't exactly balmy. Most humans would close the windows when they were done tossing out the chosen body parts. And why only the one part – the woman's arm? This obviously wasn't a creature that was killing for food…but it wasn't one that killed for pure pleasure, either. It had some sort of vendetta. That left the girl to consider…
"You said there was no sign of the girl?" Sam asked. Davis shook his head.
"Nothing," he said. "But I'll tell you this – she didn't run off."
"Why would she run off?" Sam asked.
"Some of the boys have been talking," Davis said. "A few of them went to school with Rafaela. She kept to herself then, too, and in a town where everybody knows everybody, that's suspicious. I might believe them – but her purse is still here. So is her daddy's truck. She didn't run off. She didn't have any way to do it."
Rafaela and Abel. The Kincaides sure had picked obscure biblical names for their kids. Abel, he could understand. In fact, if it turned out Rafaela was behind her family's deaths – all of them – it would be downright ironic. And Rafaela… Sounded freakishly like Raphael. The archangel of death.
Sam frowned, then turned to Davis and shook his hand. "Thanks for your help, Marshall. I'll go find my partner now. We'll look around a bit more and then be out of your hair."
"Agent Cassidy?" Davis said just as Sam turned to walk away. Turning back, Sam was surprised to see the man looked almost sheepish. "I'm sorry about the reception we gave you earlier. You caught us a bit off guard. Truth is, we could really use your help with this case. I've got nothing to go on, and I don't want this to become another Dateline special without an ending. I want to get whoever did this. When you say get out of our hair - ?"
"Just long enough to find a place to stay for the investigation," Sam assured him.
Davis breathed a sigh of relief. "In that case, I'll make sure my boys stay out of your way. Do whatever you need to do. Be quick about it, though. We've called a coroner in to – to clean up. He should be here within the hour."
Sam nodded and walked toward the house. The missing girl. The open windows. The weird coincidence with the boy's death a year ago. None of it made sense – and yet it all weirdly tied together. He needed to find Dean.
Dean knew coming upstairs was a good idea when he saw who seemed to be in charge. A short woman with curly, jet-black hair stood around writing things down and giving orders.
"Hey! Johnson!" she was yelling when Dean came in. "That's evidence. And it happens to be the foot of a lady I admired a lot. So if you could please keep your gross little fetishes to yourself?"
Johnson turned red and exited the room quickly, brushing past Dean. Dean entered in his place, eyeing the woman up and down.
"He a necrophiliac or just really into feet?"
She shrugged, giving him a suspicious look. "Neither. Just has very little respect for the dead and reads way too many murder mysteries. You are?"
Remembering that thinking with his head was probably still a good idea, Dean fumbled in his pocket for the badge. He held it up and she examined it. Apparently she deemed it was legit enough, because she reached out a hand and shook his.
"Leah Moray," she said. "Deputy. How'd you hear about this case?"
"We've got a pretty long ear," Dean said. "You know them?"
"Elisa Kincaide was my mom's best friend," Leah said. "They both had cancer at the same time. Elisa made it. Mom didn't. I can't imagine who would do this, but if you ask me…" Her voice lowered. "It was probably Rafa."
"Rafaela?" Dean asked. "Her daughter? Why would she kill her own mother?"
"Because she wanted her to be the one who died, not my mom," Leah said. "If you ask me, she should have been grateful hers was still around."
Dean wasn't quite sure what to make of Leah Moray. She seemed like she was a good cop and might be useful to have on his side if need be. But thinking that Rafaela had killed her own family because she was somehow jealous that Leah was orphaned was a bit far-fetched. He decided now was probably a good time to put in some sympathy.
"Look," he said, "I lost my mom when I was four. I understand what you're going through."
Leah looked instantly contrite. "I'm sorry," she said. "I sounded really angry there, didn't I? I'm not. It's just – "
"Dean," Sam's voice sounded from the door, and Dean gave Leah a brief smile.
"Excuse me."
He walked over to his brother, who eyed Leah suspiciously.
"You weren't flirting, were you?" Sam asked. "You actually met a woman and treated her like a human being?"
"Hey, that's a little harsh, don't you think?" Dean protested. "What'd you find out from Andy Taylor?"
"The Marshall can't think of anyone who would want to kill the Kincaides. No enemies. The most likely suspect, if we're dealing with a human, would probably be the girl, and the Marshall's pretty sure she hasn't run off."
"Well, who says we're dealing with a human?" Dean said. "Even if it is her. We've seen weirder, Sam. I don't know if you remember me getting strung up to a tree by those psychos who sacrificed their own niece to a freaking scarecrow, but that one's definitely sticking in my memory!"
"Okay, so it could be the girl. But there's something else. I don't think she would have killed her brother. The Marshall said that she basically raised him. He thinks the only reason she was still in town was because of the kid, not wanting to leave him behind, you know."
Dean thought back to the pictures. "Makes sense," he said. Jerking his head toward Leah Moray, whose back was turned, he said, "The deputy over there doesn't think so, though. She's pretty sure it was Rafaela who did the parents in, anyways. We could honestly just be dealing with a human here."
"Maybe," Sam said, but he shook his head. Dean felt himself shivering.
"It feel cold in here to you at all?" he asked.
Sam nodded toward the windows, which were wide open. Most of the cops seemed to notice the chill and were pulling their jackets closer around their chests. Leah, however, stood tall and straight, completely unaffected by the wind blowing in through the windows. Now that was a woman.
Dean turned back to his brother, who asked, "You ever heard of anyone leaving their windows open in early April?"
Shaking his head, Dean replied, "Not in the Midwest, I haven't."
They turned away, walking down the stairs. Normally blood didn't bug him, and it didn't now, but Dean felt for some reason, after seeing Leah's reaction to Johnson, that he should avoid stepping on the blood stains. Sam did the same. Once they reached the ransacked living room, Dean went over to the picture frames he'd left laying on the side table and picked them up in his rubber hand. Buck Teeth, still patrolling the downstairs, eyed him.
"Evidence," Dean said in a tone that dared Buck Teeth to question him.
Dean followed Sam out the door to the Impala. "They don't have a bar, so what do you think the odds are that they've got a decent motel?"
Sam scoffed. "Next town over, maybe."
Althea Robinson watched the two men get into the Impala and drive off. She'd been sitting on the other side of the road, in the shade of a tree in someone's yard, watching them ever since they'd arrived.
"Cool car," she muttered.
They weren't FBI. That much she could guess. For one thing, the FBI usually drove SUVs, not awesome vintage cars from the 60s. Not always, but usually. Maybe they were just a bit more And she'd never seen an FBI agent walk out of a house with a pair of picture frames in hand. Plus, they were usually a bit more clean cut. Less stubble than the short one, less hair than the tall one. Bringing her camera up, Allie snapped a picture of them. She'd need to recognize them later.
Bement was a little Podunk establishment compared to where she was from. As far as cities went, Arlington wasn't… well, huge. Only 50th on the national list. Of course, she'd been just enough of a nerd to look it up. But she'd tracked this thing here once before, exactly a year ago, and to a whole bunch of little towns like it. Arlington had been a weird case. An aberration. But a personal one, and one she wasn't going to let slide.
Allie glanced back over her shoulder. She'd positioned herself just so no one would be able to see her from the living room window looking out on the yard. Their car was in the driveway. A big, ugly maroon-colored minivan. Kind of like the one her mom had driven. Allie grit her teeth. Now was not the time to think about Mom. Or Jarrod and Bobbi.
She slid up the tree, the bark grating on her leather jacket, the textural equivalent of nails on a chalkboard. The lady of the house wasn't in the living room, but a toddler played on the floor, her head just barely reaching eye level with the window. She didn't look old enough to talk yet. Allie wasn't concerned about this little blabber. She stepped out and made her way across the yard, eyes always on the window in case she had to bolt.
She had almost made it to the edge of the yard when a little boy walked into the living room.
Both Allie and the kid froze. His eyes, the color of a Sprite bottle, bored into her blue ones. She should have been running. She really should have. The boy looked like he was about four, old enough to call for his mother. On a sunny day like this he should have been playing out in the yard, like a normal, small-town child. It would normally have been safe enough, in a little place like this. But with a murder just across the street, his mom was not going to let him outside for at least a couple of weeks.
He looked exactly like Jarrod.
It was only after he opened up his mouth, glancing just slightly over his shoulder, that instinct kicked back in and she took off running, kicking up dirt in her haste to get out of the yard. The very same reason his mother wouldn't let him play outside would be the reason she called the police about the strange woman her son saw in the front yard. Whether he looked like her brother or not, she wasn't sticking around to reminisce any longer.
She cut through the back yards of Bement, careful to avoid the streets, where more people would see her. No one was out back today, not after what had happened to the Kincaides. This was a small town. They were all practically in mourning. She wouldn't have been surprised to see everyone walking around in black. Eventually, she reached her truck.
It was hidden from this side of town, behind the railroad tracks. The train sitting there hadn't moved for at least a week, so Allie tentatively assumed she was safe.
That was how long she'd been here. A week. Usually she arrived after the thing that had ruined her life and so many other families, long after. By then she couldn't do anything about the deaths, just investigate them and make sure she was on the right track. But this time she'd gotten there before. This time, she'd thought maybe… maybe… maybe she could stop it. Put an end to the destruction once and for all.
It wasn't the first time she'd failed to save the victims, but it was the first time she'd thought she actually had a chance at it.
Allie looked at her truck and grinned. Well, technically, it had been Dad's truck, but he'd been dead ten years. Longer than the others. Mom could have sold it, but she saved it for Allie. No one but Mom had used it for four years when Allie started driving, and then it had only been enough to keep it running. It was a bright, cherry-red F150. Now that she knew enough to form opinions of cars, Allie preferred Chevy. But a Texas girl needed a Texas truck, right?
Unfortunately, it wasn't exactly surreptitious. Mom had always said that people who drove red vehicles were automatically bad drivers, and Allie was pretty sure it held true in her case. She hadn't killed anyone, passenger or otherwise. Yet. And a big boy like this? He stuck out in this town like a fly in a fancy restaurant.
So hidden he was.
Allie opened the back of the canopy, put one foot up on the tailgate, and clambered in. She never saw herself living out of the back of her truck, but here she was. There were ways of making money on the road, but she wasn't a good liar, didn't want any man touching her body without at least taking her to dinner first, and, as demonstrated back with the kids in the house, usually slipped up somehow when she was sneaking around. So, usually hotel rooms were out of the question. She usually camped just close enough to a body of water to get a weekly bath but, who was she kidding? Basic hygiene had kind of gone out the window a year ago.
Sliding under the canopy, she clicked the lock shut. Bolted it.
It knew she was here, and she didn't want it getting inside.
The lock wasn't really going to keep this thing out, Allie knew. It could get at her very well, and nothing she did would stop it. So far, it hadn't noticed her following it. But this time, it had left the girl alive.
What the cops and those suspicious looking FBI guys would sit around and puzzle about for days, she knew was a direct message to her.
I know you're here. I see you. And I'm not scared of you one bit.
Sliding onto the mattress she called a bed, Allie eased around the papers scattered all over the rest of the floor – which wasn't a lot of space, if she was being perfectly honest. Even with a twin mattress, there was only about a foot and a half of space at the back and to the left side of the truck bed. Big, bold letters glared up at her from the paper lying in the middle and just slightly on top of the rest – penned in her left-handed scrawl.
GREEK MYTHOLOGICAL ENTITIES
Allie shuddered. It really shouldn't be scared of her. She had a vague idea of what it was, based on all her studies, knew its habits, what it did to families – particularly the sons – but had no idea how to kill it. If it caught up to her, she was pretty much dead.
It did have a job to finish, after all.
She pored over her research, trying to figure out what she was missing, what this thing's weakness was. It focused on the boys, that much was painfully obvious – both from the families she wasn't able to save, her research, and her own experiences. Finding nothing of use among the meticulous notes she'd taken, Allie reached under her pillow and picked up the book on Greek mythology she'd bought when she was fifteen. She'd bought it because she thought it was interesting. Other cultures – especially ancient ones – were kind of her thing. But it had gone from an interest to essential knowledge. Something that might be the difference between life and death.
Even though it hadn't been much help where her quarry was concerned, it had been immensely helpful in other areas. With Greek cultural relics, where one creature was, the others tended to congregate as well. She'd run into harpies, demigods, even one very angry Gorgon that she'd managed to accidentally behead by looking at her in the rearview mirror of the truck as she drove away. Allie thought about the case of weapons she'd acquired over the year in the backseat. She'd told herself that machete would come in handy eventually. Most creatures could be easily dispatched with a gun, depending on the kind of ammunition you used, but Gorgons were an entirely different matter.
Angry Greek spirits were a lot harder to figure out.
She flipped to page 54, and the story was laid out before her. She needed to get down to the basics, figure out what she was missing. There was no better place to go than the original myth.
Jason and Medea
And when Jason had come to Colchis, Medea, daughter of the King, fell deeply in love with him. She vowed to helped him secure the Golden Fleece and claim his inheritance and throne, if he would only marry her and take her away from her father.
Details. Allie rolled her eyes. She didn't need to know about Jason, only Medea. She was the important one here. Allie skipped ahead until she saw the woman's name again.
…Colchis finally made Jason kill the dragon which guarded the Fleece. Medea put the beast to sleep with narcotic herbs. Jason, upon stealing the Fleece, made off with Medea. However, once they had thought they were safely beyond Colchis' shores, the lookout sounded an alarm. A ship was pursuing them.
Medea's brother Absyrtus boarded the ship and demanded that his sister be returned. When Jason refused, a fight broke out. However, rather than slaying Absyrtus himself, Jason let Medea do the honors. After killing her brother, Medea dismembered them and scattered his parts on a nearby island, knowing her father, likely following close behind, would retrieve them for proper burial. By the time he had finished burying his son, his daughter was long gone.
Medea and Jason stopped by the island of her aunt, Circe, who was a sorceress as well. Circe cleansed Medea of her blame for the crime of fratricide and they were on their way.
The story went on to talk about Medea's murder of hers and Jason's children, but Allie paused. She'd forgotten that part. It was all of two sentences in the story – a passing thought, practically an idea. Oh, and Medea was cleansed of her guilt for murdering her brother. Allie gave a short, barking laugh. She hadn't even been around to save her brother, and was still trying to absolve herself of that guilt, let alone if she'd been the one to chop him into pieces.
The image of Absyrtus' body parts scattered all over an island brought bile to her throat – only suddenly, it wasn't Absyrtus. With effort, Allie swallowed it and resumed her line of thought.
She skimmed ahead. There was no mention of such a visit to Circe after the murder of her children. It seemed like she just lived on the run, and trouble followed her wherever she went. Thebes, Athens – none of them treated her much better than Corinth. Allie thought it was a wonder she hadn't started murdering families back before – well, whenever she'd started. The woman had been dead for over thirty centuries.
Was she only sticking around, continuing to wreak havoc on families, until someone absolved her of her guilt over murdering her own sons?
Well, crap. How was Allie going to go about that? It seemed like it would be much simpler to just kill her, and, for that matter, much more satisfying. Allie wasn't about to tell the woman who'd killed her family that she was no longer guilty. Spirit. Woman. Whatever she was. Maybe someone else could do it. The daughter of this family – the spirit hadn't killed her, she'd taken her. That wasn't unusual, despite what the cops thought. Maybe if Allie could find her, save her, maybe she could…
Allie rolled her eyes at her own stupidity. This girl's family had just been murdered, Allie had had a whole year to mourn and let live. No way the Kincaide girl would be more willing to forgive Medea. Not now.
She lay back on the mattress with a huff, growling up at the ceiling. How was she supposed to destroy a murderous spirit when she'd rather die than utter the words, "You are innocent"?
Greek logic was so flawed. Who just declares a woman innocent after she's brutally hacked her own brother to pieces? Evidently, her aunt. Play favorites much, Circe?
As though someone had slipped a firecracker under her and lit it up, Allie shot straight upward. Circe! Of course! If Medea was still around, couldn't Circe technically be, too? She flipped open to the back of the book. Underworld, underworld, underworld…
Page 200. The very last story.
Figured.
Allie turned to it and began reading. In fact, it wasn't so much a story as a rather detailed description. The Greek afterlife didn't seem too bad. Most spirits were given a choice – and she wasn't really sure how anyone ended up in the Fields of Punishment as a result. If she'd been less-than-good in this life, she'd have just chosen to stay in the Fields of Asphodel. Better to be eternally stagnant than in eternal agony.
Speaking of the Fields of Asphodel…
Spirits who picked the Fields of Asphodel remained in a state of constant waiting. They would not receive the benefits of Elysium or the Isles of the Blest. Nor would they suffer the punishment which came with the Fields of Punishment or, worse, Tartarus. These spirits would remain where they were, in never ending fields, to wander for all eternity. In the event, however, that someone were to travel to the Underworld, they could retrieve one of these souls and bring them back to the land of the living.*
Following the asterisk, Allie read,
See page 34.
Allie turned to page 34, keeping her finger in the later pages as a placeholder.
And Orpheus, being so bereft at the loss of his beloved Eurydice, traveled to the entrance of the Underworld. Playing his lyre, he lulled Cerberus into a deep sleep and crossed the River Styx to Hades' Palace, demanded the return of his wife to the land of the living.
Hades was unconvinced, but Persephone, swayed by the moving plea, begged her husband to reconsider. The king of the Underworld relented at his wife's urging, on one condition.
"Your wife will meet you across the Styx," he said. "But you must not look at her until she reaches the land of the living. If you do, she will be returned to the Underworld forever."
Orpheus crossed the River Styx. He saw the shadow of his wife, but refused to look at her as he continued on his upward journey. Halfway up, however, he began to wonder. Suppose Hades had lied to him? Suppose Eurydice were not really behind him and her shadow had all been an illusion?
Okay, okay, Allie got the picture. She'd read this one before. In fact, it had always been her favorite. She liked things that made her cry, and the complete futility and frustration of the last part – when Orpheus failed and looked back only to see Eurydice vanishing back into the Underworld for eternity – did that rather well.
Would she have to enter the Underworld to bring Circe back? And who in their right mind would have done the same thing with Medea?
Allie rubbed her forehead, her face scrunched into what her sister had, during their worse fights, described as looking like a wad of chewed up gum smushed under a desk. She was far too turned around to make sense of this on her own. She needed someone's help.
Unlocking the canopy, she pushed it open with her foot and climbed out, dropping down to the ground more or less successfully. She'd need to find a nearby body of water. Wonder of all wonders, the town of Bement had a library. And most librarians she knew preferred their patrons to be relatively clean before helping them find information on the Greek Underworld.
Allie drove the five minutes to the lake. It was nestled between a park and the Bement County Forest Preserve. It was high noon, and she'd thought there would have been more people taking advantage of the water. Maybe it was the recent murders. Maybe the lake was preserved, like the forest itself. That was the more likely option. Either way, Allie wasn't going to complain. It gave her the perfect opportunity to hide behind her truck and strip down. Hoping desperately that the cops wouldn't drive past, she slipped into the water. It would be a shame to come so close to revenge and get arrested for public indecency.
She wasn't sure where the drop off itself was, but after a while of poking around, it became clear it was farther out than usual here. Allie smiled. Perfect. She could stand up and wash off. It was so much easier to conceal the fact that she was skinny-dipping that way. She'd had enough experience with this over the past year to hide her bare, white butt cheeks pretty well. Enjoying the feel of the cool water on her skin, she remembered the one time the police had found her like this. It probably would have entertained some people to see her jump in her truck and take off, completely naked for the world to see, but the memory made her want to speed up just a little.
Without soap, Allie had to make do by letting herself soak. It wasn't very fast, but eventually, it would be effective. She thought she'd been there about long enough to be considered clean when the sound of a car pulling up made her heart freeze. Allie sunk down, only her face showing at this point. Anyone who was close enough could probably see her, but as long as they stayed away, the only thing that mattered was that she could see them. And hear them.
A car pulled up next to her truck, a pair of men getting out. The shorter, stockier one, a blond, appeared to be eyeing the truck. She couldn't really tell where his eyes were going from this distance, but how could he not be? It was a huge, bright red Ford in the middle of the wilderness! Allie mentally cursed herself, wondering if she couldn't have painted it black or something at some point, made it less conspicuous.
Allie stared at the men. They looked familiar, as did their car.
Wait a minute…
These guys were the "FBI agents" from earlier. Yeah, right. They were dressed in civilian clothes now, baby. If she could, she'd have given herself a high-five. No way FBI guys were out here unless they thought maybe the Kincaide girl's body had been dumped in the lake, and even if they were, they'd have diving teams, cadaver-sniffing dogs, and all the rest of their entourage with them. Allie shivered, glad they didn't have the dogs. Otherwise, they might not be finding a dead body, but a very alive, very naked girl who was starting to get cold.
Whatever they'd come here to do, she hoped they'd get it over with quick and get out, before she died of hypothermia.