Title: Retribution
Author: FauxFoxx
Rating: T
Summery: Bodies are being found with the chest crushed in. Can Sam and Dean find out what is doing it in time to save others from the horrid death?
Characters: Sam, Dean
Genre: General
Warnings: Graphic Violence and (not character) Death
Disclaimer: I do not own anything related to Supernatural (except for my 10 seasons of DVDs. Those are mine, you can't have em)
Beta'd by Avalion773 and Tmacygin. Thanks guys *hugs*
She gasped, but the weight was so heavy on her chest that it was cutting off her air. The world was going gray at the edges, shot through with red streaks of pain. She could feel her ribs creak against the weight. Could hear the sickening crack as another one broke. The large board on her body dipped sharply as the bones beneath it snapped. The stones piled on the board started to slip off the edge. She got one good, deep breath before her tormentors righted it again. She gagged as the jagged ends of her own ribs ripped her up inside. Another large stone was added to her burden and drove what air she had from her body. She would cough if she had the strength to do so. As it was, blood and thicker things bubbled up from the back of her throat. The next boulder that was added shattered the last of her bones as her chest caved in.
The small police station was relatively quiet. A receptionist behind the desk typed up a report and paid no attention to the Desk Sergeant looking up a file for the FBI agent beside her. The agent, a tall man with short, dark blond hair, leaned against the counter and casually glanced around the station. Almost unconsciously, he made note of all exits to the building, the number of people in it, and where any weapons could be found. It was second nature to him. He didn't actually anticipate any danger at this moment, but he didn't dare let those skills weaken.
The Desk Sergeant found the file he was looking for and turned with a frown. "I'm not sure what the Bureau's interest in this is, Agent Blackmore. It's a tragic case, but suicides happen. The girl jumped from the fifth floor. Sad, but not unheard of." He handed over the thin file folder with a shrug. "You're welcome to it, but I don't see the point of it."
"Honestly? I don't know either. I just go where they tell me to." Dean gave the man a put upon sigh and took the folder, flipping it open. There wasn't much, just the girl's info, the police report (a whopping two pages of it), some photos of the scene, and an abbreviated coroner's report. "Any witnesses?"
"Not of the fall itself. Doorman of the apartment complex she jumped from was the first to find her. Said he heard a scream and found her in the alley way."
Dean snapped the folder shut. "Well thanks anyway" he said as he walked out of the station with his copy of the file.
Dean sat in the glossy black Impala reading the police report. Sam was still in with the coroner and the girl's body, so he was taking his time going over what they knew about this latest death. According to the police file, the body had sustained crushing injuries to the torso. The coroner's report had been suspiciously vague on the damage to the body, so Sam went in for a closer look. Dean flipped the file closed and chucked it up on the dashboard. There was barely any investigation done. Someone came up with the idea it was suicide and everyone just stopped looking at what more it could have been. Dean rubbed his eyes with one hand trying to alleviate the headache that was trying to start. If the girl's chest was caved in then that made one victim a week for the last four weeks. Each from a different city and spread out over two states.
The passenger door opened while Dean still had his eyes covered. Seeing that it was Sam who was getting into the car, Dean stopped the automatic reach for his .45 and relaxed just a touch. "There's no way Susan McClellan jumped from that building." Sam announced. "The only bones broken were her ribs. Her whole chest cavity was caved in. No other damage, just her chest. That's not like any falling damage I've ever seen before." Sam looked completely baffled. "Dean, what are we up against here? This doesn't make any sense."
Dean turned the key in the ignition. As they pulled away from the building, he said, "I have no idea, Sammy."
They found an old Mom 'n Pop style restaurant and got a table towards the back where the noise of the kitchen might cover the grisly talk of the murders they were researching. The slightly dingy steakhouse was fairly quiet. The lunch hour rush was over, but the dinner crowd hadn't shown up yet. A man wiped down the counter getting ready for the evening crowd while the waitress took the orders of a family on the other side of the restaurant. After their food was delivered Dean pulled out a handful of case files.
"Ok, let's run the numbers again. From the beginning." Dean spread out the four manila folders on the restaurant's slightly sticky table. Each folder was stamped as coming from a different city's police department.
Sam snaked the file folder that had Baltimore P.D. written on it over to him and opened it. They had a detective friend they had helped once with a death omen ghost there. She had first put them on this case when the other members of her department were happy to ignore the bizarre death. "Michael Shaunassy, 37, mechanic, husband and father of 2. Found with his chest caved in on the side of a road on July 5th. It was the day after the Fourth Of July so the police suspected a drunk driver hit and run, even though the only damage was to his chest." The body had already gone to the funeral home and buried by the time they had caught the case, but Diana had filled in the details of the damage for them. "The scene wasn't very fresh by the time we got to it, but no sulfur, no hex bags, no EMF."
Dean picked up the next file. A smiling face of a blue-eyed redhead was paper clipped to the inside of the folder. "July 12th, Mara Fitzgerald, 28. Found in her apartment in Springfield, MD, with her chest caved in. Police suspect a domestic disturbance and have her boyfriend in custody. Poor sap." They had talked to Mara's boyfriend while he was in custody. He had a temper and had taken a swing at one of the cops when they started to question him about Mara's death. That put him in lock-up while the district attorney worked to build a case against him for his girlfriend's murder. Sam and Dean didn't truly believe he killed her, but there wasn't much they could do to help him. It's not like they could really go to the cops and tell them Mara was probably killed by a creature, demon, or ghost. "Again, no sulfur or hex bags that we found. EMF was erratic, but the power lines to the building were right outside her balcony." Dean flipped the file closed and took another pull from his beer.
Sam read from the third file as he picked at his left over french fries. "July 19th, Alicia Dooley, 46. Found outside her work after closing by a security guard. Crushed to death like the others." Sam pointed at the file. "This is the one that bothers me. The two deaths before, and the one today, even though they were in different cities, they still all happened here in Maryland, but Alicia died states away in Vermont. Are we sure she's part of the same pattern?"
Dean shrugged. "I'm not sure of anything at this point. We need to get ahead of this thing. I'm tired of chasing it. Whatever the hell it is." They had made an attempt to find earlier victims, but the creatures habit of hopping around not only cities but states made that damn near impossible. And the fact that all the police reports were blaming hit and runs, suicide, and domestic violence made it even harder to research. They had no idea how long this creature had been killing or why.
Sam read up on the newest murder, Susan McClellan, while Dean finished his burger and paid the check. "Ready to check out Susan's place?" he asked Sam. Sam nodded and they headed back out to the car.
Dean pulled the Impala up to the apartment building. The building must have been very fancy back in its day, but peeling paint, worn carpeting, and flaking gilt showed just how much the poor economy had hit the area. A doorman stood just inside the building's lobby dressed in a uniform of burgundy red with tarnished gold trim. He held open the door as Sam and Dean walked in.
"Hello, I'm Agent Blackmore, this is my partner, Agent Night." Dean flashed his fake FBI badge at the doorman as Sam did the same. The trick was to act with complete confidence. Most people will assume you belong there if you act like you do. "We understand you witnessed the accident a few nights ago?"
The man fidgeted and looked a little uncomfortable. "Well, not quite 'witnessed' it," he said with a prominent Carolina accent.
"What do you mean?" asked Sam.
"Well, I didn't actually see her jump. Just heard a god-awful scream and when I ran round the corner I sees her in the alley. All busted up like. Shame too. She always seemed like a nice, happy girl."
"What time did you let her into the building that night?" Sam pulled out a little notebook and pretended to write down information. Another trick to selling the FBI lie.
"That's an odd thing. Miss McClellan, she usually comes home by 10 o'clock nearly every night."
"What's odd about that?" Other than a girl in her twenties with no social life thought Dean
"I don't rightly remember letting her in that night." said the doorman with a frown.
Sam and Dean exchanged a look. Time for the weird questions their job made them ask. So far they hadn't really come up with a way to ask these questions without making them sound like lunatics. Sam asked carefully, "Anything else you can think of that happened that night? Strange, like unusual sounds? Anyone strange hanging out around the building?"
The doorman shook his head to all the questions. "Police asked all the same things. Nothin' really weird I can remember."
Sam nodded and wrote in his book. Trying to act casual as if this was just another routine question he asked, "How about maybe a bad smell, like rotten eggs or anything?"
The man looked at Sam for a moment as if he wasn't sure he had heard Sam's question correctly. "Umm... no?"
Dean asked the next one, "What about a sudden drop in temperature? Have you ever noticed any cold drafts around the building?"
Again the doorman looked at Dean and talked to him slowly like one would a slow child. "I work next to a door. I get drafts all the time. Comes with the job."
Dean frowned at the man and was about to get offended at the man's attitude when Sam cut into the awkward silence, "Thank you for your time. We'll just head up to Susan's room now."
Dean had his back to his brother watching the hallway while Sam picked the lock on the latest victim's apartment. It didn't take long, Sam was very good at lock picking. With a satisfactory click, the door unlocked and revealed Susan's apartment. The room was rather sparse. Very little in the way of furniture, and a lot of Susan's stuff was still in boxes. According to the police files, Susan had only been living there a few months before she died.
Dean pulled out the EMF reader he had cobbled together himself and started his sweep of the place. Other than a couple random spikes you'd find in any home, nothing really showed up.
While his brother was doing the EMF sweep, Sam busied himself searching for hex bags. Under the sink, behind books on the shelves, inside cabinets. It would amaze most people where witches have hidden the blasted things in the past. Despite his thoroughness, he found none anywhere he could even think of to look. While trying to get a good look behind the couch, he spied a large panoramic photo on the coffee table. Extracting himself from behind the furniture he picked it up to get a better look at it. It was a professional photo of a large group of people taken from above them. They all looked up at the camera smiling. Children were sitting in the grass in front of the adults at what might have been a big picnic. A banner held up among them read 'Dooley - Harrigan Family Reunion 2006'. On the back were the words 'Sorry you couldn't make it, Suzie! Here's the picture I promised I'd send you. Love, Alfie'. There was something about the picture that was bothering Sam, but he just couldn't put his finger on it. Folding it in half and tucking it into an inner pocket of his jacket, he went back to looking for hex bags.
After another 15 minutes of searching Dean switched off the EMF reader. "I'm coming up with nothing here." Dean said, shoving the device back in his pocket.
"Yeah, me too" agreed Sam shoving the cushions back on the couch. "Alleyway?"
"Alleyway" nodded Dean.
Broken police tape fluttered at the edges of the alley where Susan's body had been found. Even though the apartment building had once been well-to-do, the alley was a typical trash-strewn alley. Sam looked up, trying to see if it was at all possible for Susan to have accidentally fallen or been thrown from above. The roof of the apartment complex was so close to the roof of the building next to it that it was an unlikely place to fall from. And if she had fallen from above then surely her body would have had more damage to it from scraping on the sides of the brickwork on the way down. The only injury Sam had seen was to her chest. No skin abrasions, no ligature marks from being restrained, just a caved-in chest cavity.
Dean's grunt of surprise drew Sam's attention to his brother. Dean held up the EMF to show the needle buried in the red. Sam's eyebrows raised at the numbers. Over 3,000 micro-Gauss when normally you don't see much over 100 micro-Gauss. The machine emitted a whine and all the little LEDs on the top lit up. A glance around the alley didn't reveal any power lines or electronic equipment that emitted it's own electromagnetic field and could be giving a false positive.
"Well that's something." Sam said.
"Okay, ghost activity is looking like a better possibility," agreed Dean.
"But ghosts typically haunt places they died or have remains at. This one has hit four different towns in two different states. How is it getting around?" Sam asked his brother.
Dean just shrugged. "Hell if I know. Maybe if we could figure out how it's choosing its victims, we could figure out who it is. Gives us half a chance to nuke the spook before it skips town again." He turned back to the car. "Let's head back to the room for the night and see if we can find more victims online. They have to have something in common."
She gasped around the weight on her chest. Surely this was some horrid jest. They were friends and neighbors she had known for years. Some madness must have gripped them. They would never do something this evil if they were in their right mind. Another stone was added and she struggled to keep breathing. Around her, jeers and insults were hurled at her. A calm voice beside her head repeated the same question to her. She would not answer. She would not succumb to the same poisonous gossip that gripped the others. She would not betray innocent friends and family to the hysterics that had gripped these people. A handful of night-soil was thrown from the crowd and landed short of her head. The reek was pungent and unavoidable. She gagged and forced herself not to choke. She needed the breath. Another stone was added as she prayed for the strength not to falter.
"This might be one," Sam called out from behind his laptop. He had been deep into the research for the last few hours. "Padrig Harrigan, 32, Haven, New Hampshire. Factory worker found dead June 29th. They think some large machinery fell on him because his chest was caved in, even though they could never decide what machine it was." Sam paused a moment. "Harrigan... Harrigan... Why does that name sound familiar?" Sam furrowed his brow in deep thought. He had seen that name recently but not in the police reports. Where was it?
"Another state? Why the hell is Casper hopping around so damn much?" Dean replied irritably. His research had turned up nothing and he was getting annoyed at the lack of answers.
Sam suddenly bounced out of his chair and hurried to his FBI suit jacket hanging in the closet. He found what he was looking for and studied some sort of folded paper in his hands carefully. Dean raised an eyebrow at his brother and took another hit of his beer. "Care to share with the class?"
Sam came back with the folded family reunion photo. "Susan McClellan had this picture in her apartment." He handed it over to Dean.
"Dooley – Harrigan" Dean read.
Excited Sam said, "Of course! Our third vic, Alicia Dooley. Do you think this is the connection? You think all the victims are somehow related?"
Dean scanned the photo and saw a redhead with piercing blue eyes he had seen yesterday paper clipped to the inside of a police report. "I think that might be a very good guess." He held up the photo by index and thumb. His fingers were right over the redhead in the photo. "Five bucks says that's our second victim, Mara Fitzgerald."
Sam grinned as it felt like the puzzle pieces were finally starting to click together.
"So we got something picking off a family line. Could be something happened at that reunion and the ghost is picking off everyone who went? Or maybe its haunting the whole family tree." Dean went back to looking over the photo for clues while Sam sat back at his computer. "I don't see our other vic, Michael in here. Maybe he missed the photo-op or maybe he wasn't there. Got a pic of the New Hampshire guy? Harrigan?"
"Susan wasn't there either. Read the back of the photo." Sam said without looking up from his computer.
"Huh." grunted Dean. "Cursed family it is then. What's the lore say? What are we looking at?"
Sam looked up from his laptop. "Family curses are rare. If it is an actual curse I don't think there is much we would be able to do to break it." he said pulling out a few books including their father's journal from his bag. Flipping through them he said, "Most likely this is a ghost of some sort, but ghosts don't usually attack a whole family tree, just an immediate family group. And they don't travel all that much from where they are buried. Banshees are a more common family curse, but they just typically herald when someone is about to die, not cause it. That and I've never heard of one in America. Ghost possession is rare but also a possibility. I think most likely an ancestor either did something to this ghost or is the ghost and is exacting revenge."
"Crap, just how much research are we gonna have to do to track this thing?" Dean wasn't bad at the book work, he just didn't like it much. It was way more satisfying to torch bones and shoot beasts than go blind looking at dusty old tomes. It was beginning to look like they might have to track the genealogy of each victim and and see if they have a common ancestor. Then they would have to find out what happened to that ancestor. Dean's head started to ache just thinking about attempting such a thing.
"Well, we need to find what ancestor all the vics have in common and what happened to him." Sam said confirming Dean's own thoughts. Sam turned back to his computer and started to work busily, tapping at his computer almost like a hound on a scent. He seemed very intent on something, so Dean went back to looking over the case files. Sam seemed to be on to something so Dean gave him the space to work out his lead.
"Ok, seems they can all be traced to a family from Northern Ireland that immigrated to America in 1637. It looks like a family of four, Wilhelm Harrigan, his wife Siobahn nee McDoogal, and their two girls Maeve and Fiona."
Dean just stared at his brother. "Dude. How did you even...?"
Sam looked up. " is a popular website people use to trace their family trees and post it so others can see and add to it. They had a large family reunion. I figured someone had to be a genealogy buff to put it together, so I took a chance that they also posted it on the website."
"You're such a geek."
"You're welcome."
"Ok, so we need to find out about this family. What happened to them?"
Sam clicked through some links and ancient news articles available on the website. "Seems rather normal. Father was a wheelwright, mother a weaver. Fiona looks to have followed in her mother's footsteps becoming a weaver as well. She had a large family that I think I can trace all our victims to one of her children."
"So it's looking good that Fiona is probably the cause of this ghost. Ok, where is she buried?"
"Virginia, I'm working on the exact location now." Sam said.
"I'm gonna get us some food. We'll leave in the morning." Dean grabbed the keys off the nightstand and headed out the door. Sam had the research well in hand. Maybe he'd be able to get out of the whole going cross eyed in front of a computer thing.
"Mm hmm," Sam barely registered Dean's exit as he lost himself in his computer again.
Too much. It was too much. She had tried to be strong. To be brave. But it was too much. Please stop she begged. Or thought she did. She wasn't sure if she could even say anything anymore. Sounds sputtered from her lips but she had no idea if they were even words. It can all stop, the insidious voice of her tormentors whispered, it can all stop if you just name names. Tell us who the other evil ones are and it will all stop. She knew the question would come and thought she could be strong enough to ignore it. She was wrong. It was too much.
Sam dug in the grave steadily. As many times as he had done this, he always felt a disquiet. As if it was disrespectful. Well of course it was disrespectful to dig up a body's remains and set fire to them. No matter how necessary it was, how many lives he was saving by putting a spirit to rest, he felt bad about disrupting the bones.
The weathered headstone was nearly illegible, but the brothers had been able to make out the name of Fiona Faraday whose maiden name had been Harrigan. All the victims had been related to Fiona in some way. Why she was killing her own family, God only knew.
Sam's shovel scraped against the wood of Fiona's casket. Working the dirt off the lid was a tricky part, but he had done it innumerable times before. Chucking his shovel up and out of the grave next to Dean, Sam said a silent prayer for forgiveness before opening up the box. Dean kept a sharp eye out with his finger on the trigger of his shotgun. Between now and when they burned the bones was the most common time for a ghost to attack.
Sam hopped out of the grave and worked quickly, pouring salt and gas into the open pit. A book of matches from two motels ago lit up easily and he chucked them into the pit as well. It took very little time for the bones to crumble into ash, they were so dry to begin with. When there was little but smoldering embers, both boys shoveled the displaced dirt back into the hole. Neither wanted to say it. Saying it was almost like taunting the universe. But it hung in the air, silently echoing words that were never said aloud.
That was too easy.
Matthew hoped it wasn't too late to score. He knew it was risky coming to the park, cops patrolled the place regularly, but he brought a basketball with him hoping to convince the cop that he just couldn't sleep and wanted to shoot some hoops. JD and some of his friends hung out by the courts and sold weed. If it wasn't too late at night, maybe Matthew could score some for the party this weekend.
A noise startled him and he halfheartedly threw the ball at the hoop in case it was a cop. Even though it was very dark, JD was still no where to be seen. Dammit. He kept throwing the ball at the hoop while he tried to decide if he should wait for him, or just try another night.
After only a few shots he stopped to catch his breath. Damn I must be out of shape, Matthew thought to himself, I should probably quit smoking. Heh. He snorted at his own joke and picked up his basketball to head back home. He was still having trouble catching his breath. What the hell? Gasping he sunk to his knees. Am I having a heart attack? His chest refused to expand to let more air in. Collapsing to his side he watched the basketball roll away. Just before his vision grayed out he saw it roll past, no through, a woman in a long dress who seemed to almost glow in the night. Was she crying? his confused brain asked just before he slipped unconscious.
Sam flashed his fake FBI badge at the officer behind the desk. "Special Agent Night, I'm here about the body you found yesterday."
The cop squinted at the badge then just shrugged his shoulders. "What do you need to know? Gang violence is typically high this time of year. They beat up a kid who was just shooting hoops late at night. Probably some sort of initiation."
Sam rubbed his eyes. It had been a long drive through the night. After toasting Fiona, him and Dean were packing to leave quickly. It's always good to be a few towns away after committing even the minor crime of grave desecration. The next morning a hunter friend of theirs who knew a little of what the boys were chasing gave them a heads up on a new vic in West Virginia. Realizing they weren't done they turned around and headed back. "A copy of the preliminary report would be fine, but what I most need to know is time of death. We had a suspect under surveillance and I need to know if he had enough time to commit this murder." An easy enough lie. Sam had to know if the boy was killed before or after they burned Fiona's bones that night.
The officer nodded and turned to dig through a file cabinet behind him. He made a quick copy of the papers in the file and handed them to Sam. "It's all in there. Coroner put the time of death between 3 and 5 in the morning."
"Shit." Sam muttered. They toasted Fiona at just past midnight. The boy was killed after that so Fiona either wasn't the ghost or something else was holding her here. If that was the case, who knew what on Earth it could have been.
The cop gave a sympathetic grimace before turning back to his own work.
"Dammit." Sam swore again as he flipped the report closed. Dean looked up at him from the little table in the motel room. He knew his little brother was beating himself up for this latest death. He had been so sure it was Fiona. Hell, they had both been sure. Burning the wrong body had cost the life of 17 year old Matthew McDermitt. But if he let Sam wallow, they would never get the right ghost.
"We're sure the kid was another vic?" Dean was sure, but he had to get Sam to stop kicking himself and to start thinking logically again.
"Crushing blows centered on the chest by an unknown weapon." Muttered Sam rubbing at his face and balling his hands in his hair.
"So if it isn't Fiona, who could it have been? Go up the family tree to her parents?" Dean prompted.
"Possibly. Or it still is Fiona and she's tied to some other object." Sam let his hands drop as he started thinking about the puzzle and not the death.
Dean let out a theatrical sigh meant to cheer up his brother. "So you're saying MORE research. Records this old, its gonna be hard to pin point what happened 400 years ago."
Sam let out a weak snort of laughter at Dean's disgust. "It's a place to start. I don't want to have to dig up a whole cemetery and torch it. I'll work on narrowing down our ghost."
"You do that. I'll grab us some grub." Dean headed out to his car with a slight smile on his face at being able to cheer his brother up even a little bit.
Virginia is a state very proud of its history. Dean was rather surprised at how much information Sam was able to find in just a couple short trips to the library and local historical societies. The kid was a natural with research and in his element. Dean tried not to look too bored as Sam spun through another reel of microfiche film. He tried instead to focus again on the population census record book in front of him but it was all just so much dry reading.
Dean was about to give up on the books when something odd caught his eye. "You said the father was Wilhelm and the mother was Siobhan?"
"Yeah," confirmed Sam as he glanced over at the ledger filled with cramped and barely legible hand writing.
"Well I've been going through the census books tracking the family. In the books every year from 1638 to 1650 it lists Wilhelm and Siobhan Harrigan and their two daughters Fiona and Maeve. But in 1651 and on it only lists Fiona. Not Maeve. What happened to Maeve?"
"Dunno, maybe she got married? Depending on how old she was when they came to America it's possible. I'll look into that year and see what I can find." Sam got up to retrieve a different spool for the microfilm reader.
It took long enough for Sam to find anything that Dean was starting to fidget again looking around the library for anything to distract him. There wasn't much except rows and rows of old looking books. Well, that, and a pretty blonde librarian working the genealogy desk. Cute in a mousy way. If she let her hair down and took off the glasses she could be a real knock out. I wonder if she'd be interested in a drink later tonight...
"Huh." Sam grunted in surprise bringing Dean's attention back to the problem ghost at hand.
"Whatcha got?" Dean looked over his shoulder at the screen.
"Seems there was a witch hunt that year and several townsfolk were killed. Witch hunts happened commonly 50 years before this but had mostly died out by the time people were settling America. But they did happen. Seems some farmer found out his unmarried daughter was in the family way and to hide her guilt she blamed witches. That sparked a hysteria that killed 14 people. Maeve happened to be unlucky number 13."
"So maybe it's not Fiona but Maeve picking off people in revenge for her own death?" Dean thought out loud.
"But why would she be targeting her own bloodline?" Sam scowled at the screen thinking.
"Maybe she..." Dean trailed off. "What if..." he tried again. "Yeah I got nothing. Who knows why ghosts do anything. Maybe she's just gone bug nuts after 400 years."
Sam frowned at the screen unsatisfied with that answer.
It was too much. She thought she could outwit them. They wanted names so she gave them names. Names of those they had already killed. She prayed the dead would forgive her. Not good enough, the voices called around her. She knew this was no longer about ferreting evil out. It was sheer blood lust and the dry bones of those gone would not be enough. They wanted fresh blood. Don't make me do this, she begged. A hand pressed down on the weights causing the darkness to swim at the edges of her eyes while her own blood threatened to choke her. The hand let up and demanded she speak. Just let me die, she pleaded in a broken voice. Not yet, the voice promised. Not yet.
"I think I found something" Sam was looking down at a handful of printouts when he walked up to his brother. Dean had gotten bored watching Sam scroll through reel after reel of microfilm. He had enthusiastically gone on at length about printing methods and news reporting and Dean had tuned most of it out. He got that the gist was, if you had something to say and newspapers hadn't been invented yet, you printed it out and passed it around yourself. Instead, Dean had entertained himself flirting with the blond librarian manning the desk.
"Maeve Harrigan was accused of being a witch in 1650. But here's the thing. She refused to enter a plea of guilty or not guilty. She refused to acknowledge the charges at all." Sam looked up with a fervor in his eyes that told Dean he'd solved a big puzzle piece. As much as Dean liked kicking down doors and blasting monsters, Sam had a passion for unraveling mysteries and solving crimes. It didn't matter the crime was 400 years old.
Realizing Sam was waiting for him to say something, Dean played along. "Ok, so what? I don't think they were all about law and order back then. Didn't matter if she said she was guilty, wouldn't they have just strung her up anyway?"
"No, you see, that's the thing! They did have laws about this. They were majorly screwed up laws, but even witch trials had to follow rules. And one rule was before they could put her on trial they had to have a plea from her. The most common way to compel a plea was by pressing."
"Wait, pressing. Isn't that the thing they did to one of the men accused of witch craft in Salem? Giles, something..." Dean remembered reading about him once. He'd been fascinated with the story and always wondered how many actual witches were in Salem or if it was all just hysterical humans.
"Giles Corey, yeah, same deal. He refused to enter a plea and they pressed him to death with huge boulders. Since he was never actually on trial, all his land and possessions were passed to his children instead of being seized by the courts."
"He was a bad ass dude. Even when dying, he refused to give in and just demanded they add more weight." Dean gave a wicked grin to the librarian. She blushed and smiled down at her keyboard bashfully. Yeah, he thought that would impress her.
"Not if you believe the stories about him before he came to America, though. Sounded like he was more of a snobby dick bag back then." Sam flipped through the papers in his hands, oblivious to the glare Dean gave him for one upping him in front of the blond. "Anyway, Maeve refused to enter a plea and they pressed her for it." Finding the page he was looking for he handed it to Dean.
Vulgar Errours in Practice Cenƒured. By Obadiah Walker
He tried to skim it, but it was damn near written in some archaic form of middle English. After a moment or two of trying to puzzle out the first paragraph, just how many 'e's does a sentence actually need? And what the hell is up with the f's taking the place of s's?, Dean thrust the page back to Sam. "Got Cliff Notes for this?"
"Basically this guy Obadiah took out a circular when he felt that the law was breached concerning this particular witch trial. When Maeve started to talk, he felt she needed to be hung or burned according to the law."
"Wait, this pamphlet details the trial?" Dean tried again to read over it.
"Each man diƒparageth his fellow-creature and gratifies
his haughty humour in the deriƒion of his brother. I could wiƒh
that the minds of men were of a more ƒerene and dovelike conƒtitution:
that what the ingenious Des Cartes abhors in Philoƒophy, might not
take place in Morality, to wit, that men would not hoodwink themƒelves
with their own prejudice."
"I don't even...what?"
Sam grinned at Dean's bafflement. "Basically, they pressed Maeve and she confessed to witchcraft."
"You think she really was into hoo doo?"
"I'm not sure, but I really don't think so. I actually think she was into science. She was researching why horsehair sutures didn't get infected as easily as silk sutures."
"Really?"
"Yeah," the blonde piped up with. "Silk was common for stitches, but when people ran out, they used horsehair. To make it soft enough to sew with they had to boil it, accidentally disinfecting it. They didn't know at the time that was why infections didn't happen as often. They thought it had something to do with the horsehair itself." She trailed off as the brothers stared at her. "Sorry, I collect useless trivia. Comes with the job." She blushed and looked back down at the desk. Dean just grinned and winked at her.
Sam continued, "But the townsfolk pegged her as one of the witches and she confessed just to stop the pain. Obadiah thought that the pressing should stop then and she be tried and burned like proper Christians should do." Dean rolled his eyes at that and muttered something that sounded like "effen humans" Sam continued with the story, "Instead they kept on the torture to get her to name names of her coven. Clever woman started to give the names of everyone they had already killed. She was probably trying to save others from the same fate."
"Makes sense." Dean conceded. "But let me guess, it didn't work?"
"Nope. The crowd wanted fresh blood. She did name one person before she died. An old woman who was passing through town at the time. A Romani, or gypsy, as they were referred to at the time. I don't have much information about what happens next yet, but I'm still working on it."
"So it's possible that the town got it's hands on an actual witch. And poor Maeve was the one that pointed her out."
"That's what I'm thinking. The old woman was burned at the stake, though." Sam glanced at the librarian who was following their conversation and didn't add out loud so she's not likely our ghost either.
Forgive me. Please God, forgive me for what I am about to do. There was a band of travelers set up at the edge of town a few nights ago. Maybe they had already moved on to the next town. Please God, let them have left already. Forgive me, she prayed as she sputtered the name of an old woman who traveled with the gypsies.
"So Maeve is the last player on the board." Back at the motel, Dean was cleaning the gun, a habit their father drilled into them long ago. If your life depended on something, then you made sure that something was in perfect working order. Medical kit, Impala, weapons. If you found yourself with nothing to do, there was always cleaning and organizing. As soon as Sam located where she was buried, they would be heading out for a midnight salt and burn.
"Seems like. I still don't know why she's killing her own bloodline." Sam responded without looking up from his monitor. His brow was furrowed in irritation as he searched for all the cemeteries in use in the 1600s.
"Doesn't really matter as long as she stops."
"I guess." Sam wasn't convinced, but then again, he loved solving mysteries. Any unanswered question was likely to bug him. Dean smirked at thinking about the many questions his kid brother always seemed to have. "Alright, I got the grave's location."
"Let's roll then." Dean said, chucking the shotgun into the duffel bag.
Dean dug tirelessly, his body falling into a rhythm he had repeated so many times before. Thrust the shovel down and hope for the thud of metal striking wood, scrape forward and pitch the dirt up and out of the grave away from where Sam stood watch. Sam was taking the watch this time. Not just to protect Dean from any angry spirits, but also in the event that they had been reported to the police. Local cops had gotten in their way on more than one occasion.
Finally, they both heard the sound of shovel striking coffin. Dean hurried to clear the top of the coffin and punch through the rotted, 400-year-old casket. Sam became more alert. It was usually when the coffin was opened that spirits tended to attack. His theory was they were summoned by the disturbance of their remains. If Maeve was going to attack, it would be soon. Dean hopped out of the grave and worked fast to dump a container of salt over the dried and crumbled form of the skeleton in the coffin. A healthy amount of lighter fluid followed that. With a practiced move, he lit up a whole book of matches and flicked it into the grave.
The bones were burning in the pit of dirt and salt, embers rising up into the night. "Good bye, Maeve. And good riddance" Dean said to the smoldering bones. Sam swung the rifle up quickly and shot off a round across the grave. Dean looked up sharply to see the disappearing form of a ghost. "What the hell! Why is she still here!" Dean scrambled for his own rifle he'd left at the side of the grave while he dug. He brought it up just as a form shimmered into existence to the right of Sam.
"Sam! Drop!" called Dean.
"Wait! Please..." The ghost raised a hand up just as Sam ducked and Dean shot.
Sam stood up and looked in confusion at Dean. Angry spirits didn't usually try and have a conversation with the people that just burned their bones. "What was that about?" Dean shrugged in answer.
"Please, wait. I don't have much time." A voice spoke from the darkness a bit farther away from them, as if the ghost was trying not to scare them. Two rifles pointed in its direction but didn't fire. The pale form of a woman in an antique dress held her hands up and pleaded with them, "Please, it's not enough. You have to stop it. I can't stop, you have to stop it for me."
"We tried," Sam glanced down to the smoldering embers in the grave. "Apparently it didn't work."
The ghost looked so sad. "Please. I can't stop it."
"How do we stop it for you?" Sam persisted. Dean was ready to just shoot the ghost and be done with it, but if Sam could work his puppy dog eyes on a girl that wasn't even alive then Dean would let him try.
Maeve pointed at her headstone. "It's holding me here. Please get rid of it. I want it to stop." Dean looked at the worn stone, limestone that was once white, now dingy gray with age and dirt, the name barely legible.
Sam suddenly seemed to understand and he laid down on his belly by the headstone. Dean watched the antics of his baby brother. "What the hell are you doing..." he started.
"Maeve pissed off a real witch. What's the most common way we know witches use for spellcraft?" Sam was digging with his hand into the soft dirt under the stone.
"A hex-bag? You think there's a hex-bag in her grave? But that was 400 years ago. Wouldn't it have shifted or rotted away in all that time?"
"Tombstones are made with 2 stone prongs to keep the stone from tipping over. If I wanted to make sure a hex-bag stayed in one place I'd put it between those two prongs." Sam was pulling clods of dirt away from under the stone. "As for rotting? Magic, Dean. Magic."
Maeve sputtered in and out of sight. "Hurry, it's pulling me away again. I can't fight it, you must..." The ghost winked out of sight mid sentence.
"Shit, Sammy. She's off to kill again."
"I think I feel something." Sam dug harder trying to pry something out from under the stone.
Maeve watched as a young man waved goodbye to his friends and turned to the courtyard of his apartment building. She tried to keep her distance, to flee this place, those two young men were so close to setting her free, but she had no control. A force pulled her closer and closer to him. With wave of her hand the young man, a many times great grand nephew, got flung to a tree. Maeve wept at the way he blinked, confused and trying to draw breath. She moved in closer placing the palm of her hand flat against his chest. She could see he was now struggling to breathe at all. His chest buckled under her invisible weight.
Sam hopped down into the dying embers of the grave and began shoveling away large chunks of dirt with his bare hands. "Dean, I can't find it!"
"Back up!" Sam scrambled out of the way as Dean lifted one foot up on top of the headstone and shoved with all his strength. The stone, loosened by Sam's digging, tumbled into the grave. The two prongs pointed up to the sky. Sam leaned around it and dug in the mud where the stone once was. Frantically tearing clods of earth apart for a few minutes he finally stopped and hung his head.
Sam looked up at his big brother. "It's not here. What do we do now?"
Maeve stood over the choking man. As he coughed up blood and gasped for breath her own chest compressed and she could feel herself gasping with him. That was the curse she was under. Not only to kill her own bloodline, but to be forced to die with them each and every time. Reliving her death every few weeks since the day she had sputtered the old woman's name. She could feel the bones in the man's chest shift and crack even as they broke within her own breast.
Dean leaned into the grave and prodded at the dirt encrusted on the end of the gravestone itself. Centuries of dirt flaked off at his attention. Seeing what his brother was doing, Sam steadied the stone as Dean worked at clearing the mud from between the prongs. Taking a strong grip on a clump of he pulled an earth coated hex-bag free from where it had been jammed 400 years ago. Sharing an astonished look with Sam he yanked out his lighter. In one swift motion he lit up the ancient bag. It burned with a sickly blue glow.
Maeve flickered into existence beside the grave. "Thank you" she whispered with tears in her eyes before dispersing in a glowing fog.
"Witch-cursed ghost. That is a new one for me." Dean commented as he held his hand out to help Sam out of the grave. Sam just nodded his head in agreement as they made their way back to the car.
Paramedics were called to the courtyard of an apartment building. A man in respiratory distress with possible fractured ribs. Police figured it was just another mugging gone wrong. Poor guy was shaken so badly by the shock of it all. As EMTs were putting an oxygen mask over his face he just kept gasping out a description of a transparent woman dressed in an old fashioned dress. He obviously wasn't thinking straight. Shock can do that to a person.
A/N: Thanks for reading guys! I had a lot of fun not only writing this, but researching it as well. I'm going to be a bit quiet this month, it's National Novel Writing Month (search NaNoWriMo for more information) and I'm going to try and participate this year. I've never written a novel before so it will be interesting. Also I wanted to take a moment and point out the pamphlet that Sam found on Maeve's trial? That is a real passage written in the 17th century by Obidiah Walker. It is actually an essay written to defend men born with red hair, but I stole it and used it for her trial. More information can be found on Scolar Cardiff's Wordpress webpage "A 17th Century Defense Of Red Hair."