AN – The original chapters were removed 'cause they didn't seem to fit right with the style of previous stories, and basically I just didn't like 'em that much. I think I tried to write without really knowing where the plot was going. Bad idea. But I've finally broken through the Writer's Block of Doom and got my groove back on track. Thank god.

Bela's seance is more or less the same, but has been edited in places to fit in with the story.


Last time, on Supernatural: Cursed.

Seven years after all Hell broke loose, order has finally been restored. Sam is one the road back to sanity, Dean has managed to escape from Hell, Jo and Ellen have gone off hunting on their own, and Bobby has become responsible for the part-time training of new hunters.

Allies have been found, enemies have been made, and mysteries have been unearthed. Who is the Henry Colt that Captain Wandell is desperate to find? Who exactly is the other Winchester? Will the insane Succubus catch up to Dean?


Bela had done this several times before in her life. Setting up the séance. Contacting the dead. Asking them to help her find objects, people. Even occasionally asking them advice when she was really desperate. But, in all that time, she had never conducted a séance with more than one other person in the room.

Ah, well. There was a first time for everything.

Her apartment suddenly seemed painfully small as the others slowly trickled in through the door. Bela's poor cat yowled each time a new face entered, his fur standing completely on end. His owner wasn't much better, standing with her arms crossed and her mouth pressed into a thin line.

"Bela?"

"Oh, you're here." Bela said stiffly. "I was beginning to think all this was a little too pedestrian for you."

Sally Wandell smiled patiently. She was used to getting attitude from the other woman. If Bela didn't put up that front, the take-it-or-leave-it facade, she really didn't have anything else left beneath the surface. Yes, most of life was about faking it and how well you could do it.

"Why are you smiling? I don't like it when you smile. It means you're going to kill something."

"You know me so well." Sally threaded her arm through Bela's. "I'll introduce you to the others."

Bela let her guest reluctantly lead her further back into the apartment. "You never said you were bringing anyone else." She tried to rustle up as much indignation as she could, but somehow her callousness and rudeness had fallen flat on its face.

The other woman shrugged. "I never said I wouldn't, either." She said slyly. For a moment Bela seriously felt the urge to knock her to the ground and throttle her. "Come on. I hear you're the best. You aren't getting cold feet, are you? I'm sure that someone else could use the money, if you aren't interested…"

"You bitch." Bela growled out. Sally flashed her a toothy grin, completely unruffled. And then suddenly they were both sixteen again, young, beautiful, not a care in the world. It was unbelievably depressing how much they'd changed. "All right, you win." Bela conceded her defeat. "Let's do this thing."

"That's my girl." Sally gave a bright smile, the deep lines set in her face temporarily disappearing. But even with that merry expression on her face, there was still an almost menacing aura around her.

There were three people in the dining room when Sally and Bela walked back in. One Bela recognised straight away, a tall man with sunken cheeks and streaks of white through his black hair. The moniker he'd oddly been stuck with was 'Spots'. Out of the so many million in the world, Spots was a man Bela truly respected. Walking past, she gave him a wink and Spots shook his head, a smile playing about his mouth. There was a woman with bright red hair and a rather sour expression, and Bela had to look at the last person in the room twice, before clapping her hand to her mouth in shock.

"Adrian!" Oh my God. "You're supposed to be dead!" The last she had heard was that Adrian Jones had gone up against a succubus and lost. Knobbed to death, for want of a better expression.

"Hey, kid." He was cleanly shaven, which was strange, and had his coarse brown hair freshly combed, which was even stranger. Bela couldn't help herself from reaching out to pinch him to see if he was actually real.

"Ow. I'm not dead. Really." He said, a hurt expression on his face.

"Oh my God, you really aren't." Despite her abhorrence for open displays of affection, Bela threw her arms about his neck and gave him a swift hug. She sniffed. "You smell like purfume. Why aren't you dead?"

"I thought out of anyone, you'd be able to smell a set-up." Adrian smiled wryly.

"Maybe I'm just getting old." She replied. "I should have known you were capable of faking your own death. You were the best con I ever knew."

"I am." He corrected.

"If you say so," Bela dismissed. "Oh, I have to tell Palmer. The kid was all cut up and cringe-worthy at the thought of you being-"

"No." Red spoke up suddenly. "No one can know that Adrian is here. And no one can know that the rest of us are here."

"Oh, yeah?" Bela sneered, pissed off that someone had the balls to tell her what to do in her own place. Her cat curled around her ankles and spat and snarled at the woman who spoke.

Red looked down with distaste at the animal. "Two of a kind, you two." She said coldly. "Both hissing at whatever makes you feel uncomfortable. Kind of small and pathetic, really."

"Watch your mouth." Bela barked. "And just who the hell are you meant to be, Red?"

Red bristled but did not rise to the bait. Instead she took a breath, tossed back her dark auburn mane, held out her hand and answered in a civil tone. "Detective Elizabeth Montgomery. Please to meet you, Miss Talbot."

Bela dropped the woman's hand as if it was a poisonous plant. "You're a cop?" There was horror and loathing in her voice. Bela just absolutely hated the police. They always got in the way, blundering in, making a mess, and stopping your car along the highway just because you happened to have clawmarks through the driver's side door.

"No! Not a cop!" Adrian held his hands up in that expressive way he had when he really wanted to get the message across. "Are you kidding? We'd never bring a cop into something like this."

"I'm a private investigator." Red said into Bela's stunned expression. "Sort of like you. Only legal."

Alright, that stung. Just as she opened her mouth to reply, Adrian took hold of her shoulders and pushed her back. "Let me go so I can floor the bitch." She hissed.

"No. Hear me out first." Bela pulled away from him and folded her arms, waiting expectantly. Adrian pulled in a breath, and ruffled his neat hair. "It goes like this. You're the best in your stuff. I'm the best in mine. Spots is the pro in his. Same with Sally."

Bela threw the older man a sunny smile as he patiently waited for the younger people to finish their games. Sally had picked up Bela's cat, and the animal was now purring contentedly in her arms. Sally sighed and rolled her eyes good-naturedly.

Meanwhile, Adrian Jones was still talking. "-You're great, Bela, but there are still some things you miss. With Elizabeth on the team, we've got all our bases are covered and we're basically guaranteed to work."

Bela raised an eyebrow, and was about to ask him what the hell he was on about when it dawned on her.

"She's a damn psychic detective?"

"Could we please just pretend to be civil and get a move on?" Sally sounded a trifle exasperated. Bela and Elizabeth glared at each other, silently declaring a truce. Stiffly Bela assumed her place at the head of the table.

"Make sure one finger is on the glass." She instructed.

Elizabeth Montgomery squeezed herself in between Adrian and Spots. "Shouldn't we all hold hands or something?"

"Whatever turns you on." Bela retorted, not taking her eyes from the board.

"You know you don't have to set up the atmosphere for us, right?"

"Shut up." Both Adrian and Sally snapped at the same time.

"We call on the spirits." Bela intoned. Someone coughed. Someone else sniggered. It was like a damn kiddie pyjama party. "We call on the spirit of Bill Harvelle."

Spots shot up straight, though he did not take his finger from the glass. Sally shot him a stern warning glare, but Bela did not notice, as engrossed as she was. Her body felt light, like she was there at the table, and yet somehow not. "We call on the sprit of Bill Harvelle."

"Are you with us, Bill?"

The glass began to grow hot underneath their fingers, but Bela did not notice as the glass slid over to Yes before beginning to spell out LEAVE ME ALONE.

"Bill, we need to ask you some questions."

No.

"This is very important." Adrian said.

GO AWAY.

"We really need your help." Sally put in.

AM DEAD. WANT TO REST. LEAVE ME ALONE.

Bela opened her eyes. To her it was as if everything had been covered with a light scattering of powder, and she saw the dark shape at the other end of the table, almost directly behind Spots. His face was obscured, but she could clearly make out the edges of his long coat and his ripped blue jeans, even though none of the others could.

No doubt, to the others it looked like she was completely spacing out.

"Where have you been?" Bela asked the figure.

AWAY. HEAVEN, HELL. THE SAME.

"The same?"

Yes.

God, it almost sounds like he's in limbo. "Do you know who I am?"

Yes.

"Do you know why we're contacting you?"

Yes.

"Why?"

SECRETS AND LIES. THE STORM COMES.

"The storm?"

EVERYBODY DIES.

"Bill, this is important. We need you to answer some questions."

Yes. No. NO MORE QUESTIONS.

"Please?"

The glass was still. Everyone in the room instinctively looked to Bela. "Please. They're only questions. Please help us."

No.

There was a moment where everybody in the room seemed to be almost holding their breaths, and then the glass shuddered underneath their fingers, forming the hunter Bill Harvelle's fragmented thoughts.

ONE QUESTION.

Spots looked back down at the table, his face a jumble of emotions. Elizabeth Montgomery still looked sceptical, and Adrian and Sally exchanged looks. The dead hunter had passed an ultimatum: one question left on the table. Make sure it's the right one.

Whoever said you lost your self-awareness when you were dead hadn't known many hunters.

"Any question?"

ONE.

"And you'll answer truthfully?"

For a moment the glass hovered between Yes and No before finally settling on Yes.

"Do you mean that?"

Yes.

Bela looked up at Sally. One chance, make it good, and there was no guarantee that he would tell them the truth anyway. Yes, this was quite a bit different to holding séances for old ladies wanting to talk to their dead cats, or even contacting the dead to track down the article that killed them.

Because Bill Harvelle knew exactly why they had called him back, and there was no way he was going to make it easy for them.

"Will you tell us," Sally began to speak. She paused and straightened out her words so there could be no confusion. "Tell us where we can find the last of the family Colt." There. A straightforward and haughty command.

GONE FROM HERE.

That was too much for Sally, who snarled. "We know that, you old ghost. Where did they go?"

ONE QUESTION. ANSWERED.

"You didn't answer properly!"

ONE QUESTION. DEAL.

"You did promise."

The glass stopped quaking, and for a moment she thought he must have left. But then the glass began spelling out one last word, moving so fast that she almost didn't catch it. Journal. "Who's journal?" Bela asked.

THE OTHER ONE.


Ellen was cleaning.

It happened every year at around this time, there was less and less to clean up. No Bill to leave his socks in the most unusual places. No Jo to track mud in on all the floors, and no Ash to dump all his computer stuff all over the counter. Even her regulars weren't showing no more, the ranks were thinned every year. Seventeen to seventy, it made no difference. It's like her own daddy used to say, we're all born dyin', just some of us don't know when to lie down.

Her old man. Lived long enough to see little Jo come into the world, survived his third wife by fifteen years, faced horrors of hell that his little girl couldn't imagine, and was finally taken down by, ironically, the damn measles.

Battling to get into the storeroom among the precariously stacked boxes and the haphazardly ordered bottles, Ellen swore and damned her new kitchen hand to hell. Sure, the kid was a pretty good hunter and he used to cook for one of the ritzy places downtown which meant his stuff was actually edible, but his organizational skills had gone to crap.

"Ow!"

She had just tripped over a large wooden crate that had been pushed up behind the door. As she glared ruefully down at it, she noticed something in the lid. The smallest thing anyone else would have ignored. She ran her thumb over the stratches in the wood.

BH4EJ.

The box was hers. It had gone with her when she had hauled ass into the new place, only 'cause she'd shoved it to the back of the safe when Bill died and forgot about it until the Roadhouse turned crispy.

A box of memories, she used to tell Jo when the kid was small.

Jo's first knife, a Swiss Army one a friend got her when she turned five. A squashed up finger-painting from her first day of school. Bill's black leather gloves that Ellen had tried to steal the first time they met in their early twenties, still kids 'emselves. Photos of her dad. Candid shots of his brothers. A card that was passed around the Roadhouse when her and Bill got engaged. The journal she could never seem to bring herself to open.

Looking at the last snap of her, Bill, and a very little Jo standing around the Roadhouse smiling, it suddenly hit her. A profound insight so shocking, it was almost like a bolt of lightning.

She was sitting with a box of memories in front of her, a box of memories she had kept close for so long that she had subconsciously refused to live beyond these shining fragments. She had become obsessed with keeping things as they had been, before…

Just before.

"My god." She said aloud, and slowly pushed to box aside. Stiffly, she stood, deciding that she would keep it as it was, a box of memories. But because that chapter was over didn't mean that the story had to end.

It was finally time to move on, no more dwelling on the glory days. Obsession wouldn't bring anyone back.

Breathing easier, she left the storeroom without tidying up. Eh, let a box of peanuts fall on the boy's fool head next time he comes looking for spring water. Life was too short to be stuck cleaning. It was like a weight had been lifted from her shoulders, a weight that had been there for so long that it had almost become a part of her. Envigorated by her sudden epiphany, Ellen never finished looking through the box. She didn't see that Bill had written another chapter to his own story.

At the very bottom of the crate, there was a yellow A4 envelope. Inside that envelope were several letters written in a steady hand. One to Ellen. One to Jo. One to 'the Old Crew'. One to John.

One to Henry.

And inside the journal that Ellen Harvelle never dared to open, the first clue to a puzzle patiently waited to be found.