Eyes
Dean slammed the car door closed with considerably more force than necessary, his mood not improving at the amount of dirt that fell of the Impala as he did.
"Man I hate these dirt roads," he complained to Sam. "Damn near busted my tyres chasing that thing up and down, and what does it do? It vanishes."
"It's a ghost, Dean," his brother pointed out. "They do that."
Dean gave him a look that could have melted steel.
"Waste of our frickin' time, that's what it was. Damn thing wasn't even what we were looking for."
"At least we know that now," Sam shrugged, adopting a more philosophical attitude to the disastrous hunt they'd been on that night. "Whatever killed those people out there wasn't supernatural after all."
"Yeah, well I don't think the Arizona State Police would have been too happy if it had been our ghost doing it."
They both kicked layers of dust and grime from their boots and went into the motel they were staying in.
"Room 416," Sam told the sleepy desk clerk, who tilted his chair backwards to reach for their key.
"Oh hey, yeah," the guy added as Sam took it. "There's, like, a package here for you guys. Someone dropped it off this morning."
"Dropped it off?" Sam repeated. "Who?"
The guy shrugged, passing a padded envelope across. Dean reached over and grabbed it, turning it over in his hands, but it was unmarked.
"It was here when I came on shift," the desk clerk told them, rolling bloodshot eyes, and the brothers realised he wasn't just sleepy through a boring job in a quiet motel at night. They could smell the pot smoke on him across the desk, and that meant they weren't likely to get much of a straight answer out of him.
"Thanks," Sam said, turning away.
"Any time, bro'," the man gave him a lazy wave, then resumed staring out through the front windows.
"What is it?" he asked Dean, who was ripping open the package.
"It's a DVD," his brother replied, handing Sam the empty envelope.
"This doesn't have our names on it," Sam observed. "Are you sure this is for us? Who could have known we were here anyway?"
Dean stopped dead in the corridor, Sam practically walking into the back of him.
"What the-"
He held up the open box, revealing the disc's label; 'The Real Thing - You Won't Believe Your Eyes!'
"This is a porn movie!"
"How do you - oh," Sam stopped as he saw the graphic picture that accompanied the title. He glanced over at Dean, whose eyes had lit up.
"Dude."
Sam continued walking down the corridor.
"What?" Dean replied, his face a picture of innocence.
"Does it say who sent it?" Sam asked, hoping to steer the conversation back onto safer ground.
"No, but it was definitely for us." Dean peeled off a post-it note stuck to the disc. It had both of their names on it.
"What names did you book us in under? Sam asked, unlocking the door to their room.
"Uh, Frank Black and Joey Santiago," Dean replied, smirking.
"So, how come someone knows we're here? And why the hell would anyone be sending us - adult movies?"
"Well, it can get kinda lonely road-tripping-" Dean began, but Sam punched him on the arm before he could finish.
"How should I know?" Dean continued. "We've been here two days and the only people we've talked to this whole time have been police officers, so I think we can rule them out."
Sam sat down on his bed, pulling off his boots.
"This is a new kind of weird, wouldn't you say?"
"Hey, I ain't complaining. This kind of weird I can live with!"
"Dude, seriously." Sam gave his brother a look.
"Chill out, Sammy. Okay, it's weird that someone found us, and weirder that they sent us porn, but look on the bright side."
Dean grinned, indicating the DVD drive on Sam's computer, but Sam made a disgusted noise.
"The whole feminist movement kind of passed you by, didn't it?"
"I'm hurt, Sam." Dean clutched at his heart, signifying the deep wound his brother had inflicted with his words. "You know I'm a big fan of women doing anything."
"Can we please look at the real issue here? We get an anonymous package, left at our hotel room? What does that say to you? Regardless of the content of that package?"
Dean finally straightened his expression and laid the disc down.
"Okay, okay, I get it. A job, right?"
"Right. Only I don't think this one came from Dad."
"So... someone who knows us, knows what we do. One of his associates?"
Sam weighed this up in his mind.
"Maybe the disc label's a cover. Maybe it's not really... you know."
"Only one way to find out." Dean couldn't hold the grin off any longer.
Sam got up again, shaking his head.
"I'm gonna take a shower. I'll leave you to it. You're obviously the expert."
"You might wanna make that shower a cold one," Dean called after him, sliding the disc into the player.
When Sam came out of the bathroom fifteen minutes later - leaving a substantial amount of Arizona dust swirling down the drain after him - Dean was sitting at the table, his back to him.
"So?" Sam asked his brother, noticing that the screen was off. "You get any answers?"
Dean didn't reply, and Sam saw that he had their father's journal open in front of him.
"What is it? What was on the tape?"
"That label was right," Dean said, turning back with a disgusted look on his face.
"Couldn't believe my eyes alright."
"So... it wasn't-?"
"You know what a snuff movie is?"
Dean fixed his kid brother with a very direct stare.
"You're kidding?" Sam's eyes went wide. "That's what it meant by 'the real thing'?"
Dean got up and began stalking round the room, his face shadowed by anger.
"Sure as hell looked like the real thing. I didn't watch the whole movie, but what I did... Jeez man, that's sick beyond anything I've ever seen hunting."
"Woah." Sam sat down on his bed once more, dropping the towel he'd been using to dry his hair.
"But... how is that our kind of gig?"
"I'm not sure, but... it didn't look right, you know, for a movie? It was like you can see through the eyes of the guy doing it. Like it says here, the real thing."
Sam's brow furrowed.
"I'm not following."
Dean pushed a hand through his hair, trying to put it into words.
"It was too real. Too... like you were really there. I've never seen anything that can film from inside a guy's head before, look at it that way."
"But how can anyone do that? It wasn't just the way it was edited or something?"
"No, Sam! Look, you said yourself; someone gave us this 'cos of a job. There's something weird about that disc, and I don't just mean that it's a film of some girl getting cut up!"
Sam was sickened by his brother's words, something Dean himself was feeling all too keenly.
"I looked through Dad's book, but there's nothing like this in there. Not that there would be."
"What about the disc itself?" Sam asked, picking it up from where Dean had tossed it across the room. "There anything on it that could tell us who makes it?"
"I wasn't looking too closely, if you know what I mean."
"There's a name on the label. Ojos Entertainment. Maybe we can find something on the net."
Sam opened up his laptop and began an internet search. Within a few minutes, he had what he was looking for.
"Yeah, here it is. Ojos... it's a division of an adult entertainment distribution company in L.A."
Dean came over and leaned over his shoulder.
"Does it have this disc listed?"
"No. My guess is you can't just buy it, not from an open site like this. Maybe there's a membership only site, or-"
"Or some jerkoff selling them out of his trunk," Dean finished. "Okay, you think we should check this company out?"
"You mean go to L.A.? Maybe. I'll see if I can come up with anything else here."
"Right. I'll look through Dad's journal again, see if I can find anything that might be a lead on how they're doing this."
"Like what, Dean? How can anyone film something through a person's eyes?"
"I don't know Sam!" Dean threw back with an irritated shake of his head. "Some kind of psychic thing?"
Dean sat back down, flipping through the pages of the book, but he was too worked up to settle and was back on his feet in moments, pacing the room while he waited for Sam to finish. Eventually, he gave up.
"I'm heading out. Need some air."
He grabbed his jacket and slammed out of the room. Sam eyed the DVD over his laptop. He'd had no desire to watch it in the first place, but if it rattled Dean like that...
Sam shuddered uncomfortably. The two of them had seen some majorly fucked-up things in their time, but a DVD of someone committing violent murder, marketed as entertainment; that pretty much topped everything. He turned his attention back to the web search, distracting himself by doing what he knew he was good at; research.
However, by the time Dean came back an hour or so later, Sam still didn't have much better an idea of what was going on.
"What d'you find?" Dean asked. He had a brown paper bag under one arm filled with beers, and held an open one in his hands.
"You wanna pass me one of those?" Sam asked, holding out a hand. Dean cracked open a bottle and passed it to his brother.
"Thanks." Sam took a grateful swig.
"I couldn't get much. There's some talk in chatrooms about the company, but I'm guessing the whole thing's pretty exclusive."
"Tell me about it," Dean replied darkly. "If you're making these things, you're not gonna be advertising in the back of Hustler."
"So, yeah, I think we should go check 'em out."
"Right. You got an address?"
"The distribution company has an office downtown."
"Guess I'll pay them a visit. You can ask round other distributors, check out the scene."
"What? No! I don't wanna hang around with guys like this, Dean. Demons and monsters, fine, but this isn't exactly my area of expertise."
"Consider it an educational experience." Dean's face set into the determined look he got whenever they were hunting something down.
"We gotta put a stop to this Sam, however they're doing it. Maybe you can put some of that college-law stuff of yours to good use, figure out how to shut 'em down."
"Okay," Sam relented. "If you can find out who's making this films and how, I can try and get hold of enough evidence to get the cops in."
"No cops. Not 'til we know what we're dealing with." Sam opened his mouth to protest, but Dean ran straight over him.
"I mean it Sam! We don't know what's going on, and I sure as hell don't want to wind up answering questions about how we got into this."
"It's okay for you," Sam muttered. "We get arrested, officially you're already dead."
"Yeah, that's a real blast," Dean threw back. "I'm going to bed. We can head out in the morning."
Dean stood outside the grimy building, looking up at the blacked-out windows. He checked the address in his hand once more, then, shaking his head, he went inside.
The walk-up was one of the seediest on the block, which was itself a pretty shady neighbourhood. Dean tended to forget about the more 'normal' darker aspects of life - most of the time, he and Sam were so caught up in hunting, they didn't get the chance to think about the outside world.
He climbed the creaking stairs to the third floor and found a door marked "Ojos Entertainment". The paint was peeling away from the door and the light was flickering erratically, none of which made Dean feel any more comfortable at being there.
So far, he'd managed to restrain his anger at what these people were up to, knew it was important he didn't lose it, so he focused on the job in hand.
The door opened and a girl came out. She didn't look more than twenty, dark-haired and tanned, dressed in a sky-blue halterneck and denim cut-off shorts, a real knockout of a girl. Dean was a little taken aback, then reminded himself what this company was. Looked like this job could have some perks after all.
"Can I help you?" the girl asked, giving him a suspicious once-over. Bizarrely, she was sporting a stick-on nametag that said "Hi! I'm Jade!"
"I sure hope so." Dean gave her his most dazzling smile.
"You're on the wrong floor," she replied in a bored tone. "That's downstairs. Ask for Randy."
That pulled Dean up short for a moment, until he remembered the name of the company located below this one and what kind of films that meant they made.
"I'm not - you thought? Sweetheart, I don't lean that way."
He noticed that the girl was holding onto the wall for support, unsteady on the three-inch silver stilettos she was wearing. Her eyes were too bright and there was a strange glitter to them; he realised she was high on something. Not that that made her assumption he was an 'actor' any better.
"Whatever. Like I care," Jade replied dismissively. "You here to see Carter?"
Dean searched his memory for what Sam had found out about the distributors; the name of the head of the company was Carter Leigh.
"Yeah. I-"
"He's through there."
Jade stumbled past him indifferently, and he caught a powerful bouquet of cheap liquor on her breath.
Suppressing the uncomplimentary thoughts that sprang up about her, Dean pushed open the door to Ojos Entertainments. The office at the end of the hall was dark, filled with smoke, and Dean had to squint to make out its occupants.
"You Carter Leigh?" he asked the fat, greasy-looking guy behind the desk.
"Who's asking?" the guy grunted back.
Dean pulled a mocked-up business card from his shirt pocket.
"I work for a distribution company out east," he lied, effortless through years of practise. "I've been hearing some interesting things about your movies. Thought you might like to talk about a syndication deal with my employers."
Carter scanned the card.
"Tony Wright?" he asked, passing it to the man standing behind him. Dean nodded.
"What films you talking about? We do all kinds a' stuff. We even got an understanding with Randy downstairs if guy-on-guy's your thing."
This annoyed Dean - why did these people keep assuming he was gay? It's not like he'd ever given, well, anyone that impression. Except maybe those people at Oasis Plains housing, but that he blamed on Sam.
"No, I'm talking about the... special movies you make. The 'Real Thing'."
There was a pause in the room. Carter gestured to the guy standing behind him, who advanced on Dean menacingly. Another man, who Dean hadn't even realised was there, grabbed hold of Dean's arms from behind, catching him by surprise.
"Hey, what the-?"
He tensed, readying himself to fight, then realised they were frisking him.
"You a cop?" Carter asked, his face contorting in an ugly sneer. "Cos if you are, we gonna get real angry with you."
"Hey!" Dean smacked away the hand that was pulling open his shirt, checking to see if there was a wire taped his chest. "If I wanted that kind of thing, buddy, I'd have gone to see Randy."
The fist landed square on Dean's jaw, knocking him over backwards as the guy behind let him go. He landed half-across a shabby easy chair up against the wall, knocking against the shades pulled down over the window, letting a flash of the afternoon LA sun into the darkened office. His instinct was to retaliate, but Dean knew he couldn't, not yet. He had to get information first. There'd be time for that later.
"If I was a cop, you really think I'd be dumb enough to just walk in here like this?"
Carter looked at his two associates, who nodded.
"He's clean."
Dean got to his feet, rubbing the side of his face, glad he'd had to foresight to remove anything that might prove incriminating from his pockets before coming here.
"I have to say, if this is how you treat anyone who comes in here, I'm surprised you get any customers. Or do you rely on Jade for your Public Relations?"
"Oh, you met Jade? We usually reserve her for those clients who need a little 'persuasion', if you know what I mean."
Carter leered in a way that made Dean want to deck him, but again, he kept a lid on it.
"Yeah, she seems like quite a girl," he replied, not wholly keeping the sarcasm out of his voice." But I'm not looking for your usual movies; I'm just interested in this one particular line. My company has clients who'd pay a lot of money for that kind of thing. If you can guarantee they actually are the real thing."
Carter fixed Dean with a searching look, then he relented.
"Maybe we can do business. You seen what we do?"
"I've seen a little. Called 'You Won't Believe Your Eyes'?"
Carter nodded, opening a desk drawer and pulling out a tattered cardboard file and dropping it on his desk.
"That's our best seller. We have about half a dozen titles on the market. Strictly though private sale so far, of course."
"Of course," Dean replied, trying to keep the disgust he felt from showing on his face. Half a dozen? If this was for real, then six people had been killed just to provide a bunch of sick bastards with 'entertainment'? He clenched his jaw with a new grim determination to end these sons-of-bitches.
"You have to keep it exclusive, I understand that," he continued. "We're willing to work out terms if you're interested in setting up distribution on the east coast."
He glanced over the file Carter had opened up.
"Don't suppose you wanna share with me how you're making these?" he risked asking.
"I've never seen anything like that before. It's like you're really seeing it through the guy's eyes."
Carter avoided Dean's stare.
"S'nothing special. Just got a really good editing guy. New camera techniques, stuff like that."
"Who actually makes these films? I'd be interested in meeting him too."
"He doesn't meet with the public," Carter replied with a smirk. "One of those 'art' guys, doesn't like to talk about his movies."
"Right. Still, I'd be interested in knowing more about how it's done. To give my colleagues a guarantee that these movies are as real as you say."
"Well we don't keep the bodies, if that's the kind of proof you mean," Carter snorted and Dean felt his anger bubbling up once more. He was glad that he'd insisted on coming here alone; he didn't think Sammy would have been as good at playing along with this.
"But maybe we can arrange something with Miko," Carter nodded. "After we talk some more business."
Dean settled down in the chair alongside Carter's desk, readying himself for a marathon lying session.
"Sure."
Sam cast his eyes over the display of videos and DVDs on the wall, trying not to let the revulsion show on his face. Hell, he appreciated the female form, wasn't exactly adverse to a little pay-per-view every now and then, but this was just... tacky. Not to mention bad taste. What in the world was he doing here? He'd accepted that hunting monsters meant finding himself in some pretty unpleasant situations, but trawling through hardcore porn videos in a sleazy sex shop in a backstreet of downtown LA wasn't something he'd ever envisioned himself doing.
Dean, he suspected, would have been delighted for the excuse, but then maybe he was being a little harsh on his big brother. He knew that his and Dean's ideas about women differed wildly, but deep down, Dean wasn't that bad a guy. Sure, his attitude towards 'relationships' was casual in the extreme, but he had more respect for women than most of the men in this shop seemed to.
He'd found mentions of this particular store appearing in several of the chatrooms he'd looked through concerning the 'Real Thing' movies, thought it was a good place to start, but now he was here, he found he couldn't think of how to proceed. It wasn't like he could just ask, surely?
Steeling himself, Sam waited until the shop was quieter, then wandered up to the counter, which was staffed by the kind of guy Sam would usually cross the road to avoid, given the choice.
"Hey man," he began, trying to look casual. "I'm looking for this movie."
The guy took in Sam's longish hair, his somewhat more wholesome appearance, in comparison with the shop's usual clientele.
"Your boyfriend send you?" he asked, amused. "Back of the store, left hand side."
"No! I don't... I'm not..." Sam sputtered, feeling a hot blush rise on his cheeks. "I'm here about something I heard about through a friend. Something special. The Real Thing?"
The shop clerk's eyebrows shot up in surprise.
"You did, huh? Maggie!" he hollered, summoning a middle-aged woman through the door to his right.
"What?"
"Boy here wants to know if we got anything 'real'." The man placed a particular stress on the last word.
"Does he." Maggie gave Sam an assessing look, her eyes narrowing. Sam forced himself to return her gaze steadily, reminding himself he'd faced down plenty of things scarier than this before.
"Come on." She jerked her head to indicate he should follow her into the back room. Swallowing his trepidation, Sam did.
"We don't keep stuff like that on the premises," she told him, pulling down a box from a high shelf. "You sure you know what you're asking for?"
"Yeah." Sam gathered as much bravado as he felt he was capable of.
"Made by Ojos Entertainment. Friend of mine had one. Got it from a friend of his, you know how it goes."
"Sure. Like I said, we don't keep 'em here. Don't like to risk having them around 'case we get raided, you know?"
"I get you." Sam took the slip of paper she handed him, but she grabbed hold of his wrist, gripping it tight as she stared directly into his face.
"Course, you get caught with it," she grated, steel-grey eyes boring into his. "You never been here, you don't know us, right?"
"R-right," Sam stuttered. "Sure."
"Cos Billy through there wouldn't be happy with you if that happened. Understand?"
Sam, remembering Billy's numerous tattoos and piercings, not to mention arms the size of Sam's waist, nodded, trying not to swallow nervously.
"Clean-cut boy like you, you stand a better chance," Maggie continued, releasing Sam's arm. "You don't look like trouble, not like most the people we get here."
Sam gave her a sudden grin.
"I'm full of surprises."
"I bet you are." Maggie's gaze suddenly became a bit more intense than Sam was comfortable with. He looked down at the paper in his hand, which had a name and an address on it.
"So, I just go here and give them this?" he asked, eager to re-direct the conversation.
"Yeah. You can tell them I sent you, but no-one else. And don't go round sharing this with your little friends unless you're sure they can handle it neither."
"I'll be real careful," Sam assured her.
He left the shop gratefully, hurrying out of the neighbourhood, keen to slough the experience. The address he'd been given was in a slightly better part of town, which didn't surprise him. If these films were actually real, then someone was making a lot of money out of them, and there had to be some pretty hefty covering up going on too. That took a lot of money to begin with, and influence, more than you'd get running a two-bit porn store.
He decided to wait for Dean before following up on this - might take more than just him to deal with it, and to be honest, he could do with the moral support of having his big brother along.
Dean meanwhile, was leaving the offices of Ojos Entertainment, also with some relief. He'd managed to bullshit Carter Leigh enough to convince the other man that he was genuine, but the guy wasn't giving up any information that was of any use to Dean, who was starting to believe that Carter had no more idea how the films were made than Dean himself.
As he went down the stairs and out into the sunshine once more, he spotted Jade, leaning against the wall outside smoking a cigarette.
"So, you a producer?" she called out to him.
"You an actress?" Dean replied, thinking he should at least try and find out if she knew anything.
Jade shrugged.
"Sometimes. Mostly, I work for Carter."
Dean remembered what Carter had said about using Jade to 'persuade' difficult clients and, looking at her now, was in no doubt as to what that meant. Now she thought Dean might be of some use to her, or that Carter might appreciate her being nice to an associate of his, she was switching on whatever she thought passed for charm.
"You need an actress?" She tossed her hair over her shoulder, stubbing out the cigarette on the sole of her stiletto and adopting a provocative pose. While Jade was unmistakably a stone-cold fox, her eye make-up was smudged and she didn't look like she'd had a decent meal in a long while; the fact she was clearly messed-up stopped Dean from really seeing her that way, which surprised him. He wondered what she was high on, whether she was getting it from Carter. There must be hundreds of girls like her in this business, but that didn't make Dean any happier about it. Jeez, she was still just a kid.
"You worked for him long?"
"About six months. He has a few girls on his books, but I'm his favourite." Jade gave him a smile that might have been dazzling if he hadn't been able to smell the liquor on her breath from where he was standing three feet away
"He get through a lot of girls, then?" Dean asked, not looking forward to what the answer would be.
Jade shrugged again, unconsciously wrapping her arms around herself as she shivered, despite the warmth of the afternoon.
"They come and go. Some go back home, some get parts in movies elsewhere."
"I bet they do," Dean muttered under his breath.
"Look Jade, can I buy you a coffee?"
She looked surprised at his offer.
"I'd prefer something a little stronger," she suggested, giving him a seductive glance beneath her mascara'd lashes.
"Yeah, it might be a little early for that," Dean retorted, trying to ignore the fact that she was probably underage anyway.
"Sure, whatever." She pulled a slim cell phone out from the back pocket of her cut-off shorts, checked for messages, then replaced it.
"I know a place round the corner."
She slipped her arm through Dean's, leading him away, although he suspected this was probably more to keep her balance. He took out his own phone, sending Sam a brief message telling him to meet him.
"So tell me about Carter," Dean asked, as they sat down in a booth at the coffee place Jade had taken him too. He passed her a black coffee, as strong as they'd been able to make it, stirring sugar into his own.
Jade considered the question, her expression a little more lucid now.
"He's okay. For a guy in this business, anyway. He keeps his hands pretty much to himself."
"Really. That doesn't say much for his intelligence."
Jade gave Dean a hard look, unsure if he was making fun of her.
"What business you got with him anyway?"
"I'm a distributor," Dean told her, spinning the same line as he'd done for Carter Leigh.
"I'm looking to buy the rights for his 'Real Thing' films. You know anything about them?"
Jade sipped at her coffee, grimacing at its bitterness and pouring in about five sugars to compensate.
"I've heard him talk about them, but usually only when he thinks I'm not listening. I'm not supposed to get involved with stuff like that."
"Stuff like what?"
"I dunno." Jade gave a loud sniff, wiping at her nose with the back of one hand, the other drumming out a tattoo on the tabletop.
"Think they're more hardcore. S-&-M, maybe, not my thing. Though there is that director guy who comes round a lot."
"What director guy?" Dean pounced on her words. "You mean Miko?"
"That's him. You know him?"
"I'm trying to arrange a meeting with him. He makes these 'Real Thing' Videos, right?"
"I guess. That's what Hayley said, anyway."
"Hayley?" Dean queried, hoping that the answer wouldn't be the one he thought it would.
"She used to work here, then she got a part in one of this guy's films. Must have gotten an agent or something, cos I didn't see her around after that."
Dean winced, thinking that Hayley could well have been the girl he'd seen on the DVD sent to him. Of course, she could genuinely have gotten out, but he didn't think so.
"You ever talk to Miko?"
"Not really." Jade finished her coffee and started chewing on her fingernails, instantly jittery from the caffeine, on top of whatever else she was on.
"He doesn't talk much. He's one of those real pretentious art types, you know? Acts like he's not part of the real world."
Dean absorbed this, searching for a clue in her words.
"Weirdo, huh?" he asked, trying to smile.
Jade gave him an odd look.
"Who isn't, in this business? Not that... I didn't mean you..."
She got up abruptly.
"I should get back. Carter might need me. Thanks for the coffee, Tony."
She picked up a paper napkin and drew her lip liner from her pocket.
"Here's my number, in case you ever want me for anything?" She gave him a winning smile as she scrawled across the napkin unsteadily with the bright pink lip liner, then hurried away, nearly knocking into Sam as he came in through the door.
Dean waved to get his brother's attention, tucking the napkin away in his jacket.
"How'd it go?"
"Okay, I guess," Sam replied, sitting down. "Who's the girl?"
"Jade. She works at the distribution company. I was trying to see what she knew."
Sam gave him a faintly suspicious look, but decided not to ask.
"I got an address." He passed the paper across to Dean.
"I didn't check it out yet, but I did go to an internet café and do a search. Far as I can tell, it's just a house, so my guess is it's either a front or a private sale."
"Yeah that makes sense," Dean agreed. "I found the name of the guy who makes these films, but I can't get to him yet."
"Who is he?"
"Miko. No last name; apparently he's a real weird guy."
"He would be," Sam replied bluntly. "Look Dean, are we sure this isn't just, you know... something ordinary? Cos this is really freaking me out."
"I know," Dean grunted. "But there is something's not right. Maybe I'm just, I don't know, looking too hard, but it does feel like there's something weird here. For a start, the guys I spoke to are in on this, but I don't think they know anything about how he's doing it."
"I tried researching that angle more too," Sam said. "I'm drawing major blanks. I have no idea what to look for."
"One thing we could do," Dean replied, finishing his coffee and getting up. "Look at Missing Persons, see if we can find who any of the victims might be."
"Dean, this is LA," Sam pointed out. "There must be hundreds of people who go missing or wind up murdered here. If this is real, then they could just be dumping the bodies afterwards, and no-one'd have any idea what was going on."
"Then we need to know who's on those discs," Dean told him grimly. "Alright, first we visit that address you've got. Then we go back to Ojos Entertainments, check it out when there's no-one around."
"Alright." Sam got up too, steeling himself.
"You okay with this man?" Dean asked, giving his brother a penetrating look.
"I know this is pretty rough; I can handle it if you want out."
"No." Sam pushed away his misapprehensions. "I'm good. Let's go.
There was no answer at the address for a good few minutes, then eventually a blonde girl answered. Despite the fact it was late afternoon, she looked like she'd just woken up; dressed in a torn, stained negligee.
"Yeah, what?" she demanded through the crack in the door, wincing at the incoming sunlight.
"Maggie sent us," Sam replied, holding up the paper he'd been given.
"Darin!" the girl hollered. "Customers!" She took the chain off the door, letting them in.
"Thanks."
"Whatever." The girl crashed out on the sofa, knocking a half-full bowl of cereal to the ground as she did. The house was in more of a mess than she was, littered with the remains of various meals and half-empty beer cans.
Another blond, this time a tall dreadlocked guy came into the room, a joint smoking in his hand.
"Hey, you've come from Maggie? This way, my brothers."
Biting down on retorts that sprang to both their minds, Sam and Dean followed him, leaving the spaced-out girl on the couch to slumber on.
Darin took them down to the basement, where he pulled a box of DVDs out from under a shelving unit covered in, well, the kind of crap everyone keeps in their basement.
"What is it you're looking for? I got some good shit here, man."
"You got stuff from Ojos?" Sam asked, forcing down everything he was feeling. "The 'Real Thing', I mean?"
"Heavy man," Darin regarded Sam with solemn blood-shot eyes. "I got. You wanna look through, see what you like?"
"Sure," Dean spoke up. "Why don't you check on your girl? We won't take a minute."
"Cool, my brothers," Darin replied, nodding at them, then he vanished back up the stairs.
Immediately, Sam pulled out his phone and began using the built-in camera to record the images on the front of the DVD and video boxes, all of them young women.
"What is this place?" Dean asked in disgust, standing at the bottom of the steps to watch for the dealer's return. "I was expecting, I don't know, something that wasn't this. You think this guy even knows what he's dealing?"
"I doubt he knows what day it is," Sam retorted, still recording rapidly. "Maybe this is a cover. You know, not what anyone expects so they're not gonna get raided?"
"Maybe. You done?"
"Yeah. Let's just tell him we didn't like any of them and get out of here."
"I got a better idea." Dean pointed to the basement window, pulling the sofa across so he could climb on it and open the window.
"You don't think he'll notice if we just vanish?" Sam asked, but Dean didn't bother to reply. He hauled himself up and vanished through the window, climbing out onto the overgrown front lawn that appeared to be spontaneously sprouting rusted beer cans.
Once out, he reached back in and pulled Sam through, the two brothers hurrying away from the house.
As soon as it got dark, the two of them went back to the shady walk-up that housed Ojos Productions. This time, however, both Dean and Sam went prepared, carrying handguns and a few other things that they hoped would get them some answers. They waited outside for a while, checking to see if anyone was there, but the building appeared to be unoccupied, so they climbed the fire escape and broke in. Sam ran over the interior of the office with the infrared thermal scanner and EMF meter while Dean rifled through the contents of Carter Leigh's desk by flashlight. Taking out Sam's camera, he photographed everything he found relating to the 'Real Thing' films, but still couldn't see anything that implied supernatural activity.
"You getting anything?" he stage-whispered to Sam, who was still busy scanning.
"Nothing," Sam replied, shutting them off and folding them away into his jacket pocket. "There's nothing here, man."
"I know. But now we've come this far, we should stick it out. Shut these bastards down even if they are just people."
Sam looked over at his brother, taken a little aback at the vehemence of Dean's response.
"Yeah, we should. We've got enough to link them to the films, get them shut down."
"What about this Miko guy though? The one who's making them? We need to find him too."
"Maybe we should leave that to the police," Sam suggested.
"No. We shut these guys down and we lose Miko. He'll just vanish and set up someplace else."
Dean yanked out another drawer, searching through it.
"Goddamn it, there's gotta be something here about how to find him."
Sam went over to a shelf piled high with papers and took them down, starting to go through them.
"Is there a contacts book or something this guy has?" he asked Dean.
"How should I know? Guy doesn't even have a computer. Unless he takes it home with him."
"He does," came a voice from the doorway.
The brothers spun around, both instinctively going for their guns, but Dean lowered his as he recognised Jade standing in the doorway, a flashlight in her hand. Sam followed his brother's lead, but neither put their gun away.
"What are you doing here, Jade?" Dean asked.
"Oh, you're asking me that?" she replied bolshily. Now that she wasn't drunk or high, she was a lot more steady on her feet, and a lot less willing to play along.
"I didn't have to break in, so maybe I should be asking you what you're doing here? You're not a distributor, are you?"
"I take a real full-on approach to my job," Dean threw back, dead-pan.
"Look, Jade," Sam tried. "We think your bosses are involved in something really bad. Like, murder bad. We're investigating."
"Who the hell are you?" Jade demanded, not backing down an inch.
"My name's Sam."
"You a cop?"
"No. We-" he glanced over at Dean. "We kind of work freelance."
"Right. So if I call the cops right now, tell them there are two armed men who've broken into my office, what're you gonna do?"
"Uh, ask you not to?"
"Jade, listen," Dean broke in, tucking his gun away and gesturing at Sam to hand him his camera phone. "We think Carter might have had Hayley killed. Can you look at these pictures and tell me if she's in any of them?"
"What? You crazy? Hayley's not dead!" Jade looked back and forth between the brothers wildly, not intimidated by them but a little freaked out by what was happening.
"You said you haven't seen her since she got a part in a film. Think Jade, has the same thing happened to other girls who worked here?"
Jade stopped still as the implication of Dean's words hit her.
"You're serious, aren't you?"
Dean held the phone out to her.
"Look at these pictures Jade."
Hesitantly, she took it, flicking through the images Sam had taken of the snuff films in Darin's basement. At the fourth image, she stopped with a cry of horror.
"Oh my god! Hayley?"
Dean's heart sank, although he'd known all along this was how it would work out.
"Jade, we need your help. We have to find out who this Miko guy is, where we can find him. Can you do that?"
Jade was shaking, her eyes fixed on the next picture stored on the phone.
"I know this girl too. Pamela, I think her name is... was."
"Jade."
Dean went over to her, taking the phone from her and putting his hand on her shoulder. He noticed she was dressed in a more normal fashion than earlier, just jeans and a vest top, and with her hair tied back and no make-up on, she looked a lot younger and more vulnerable.
"Focus. We can get this guy, but we need your help."
"Um... yeah. There's... Carter has this book somewhere. I'll find it."
"Thank you."
"So what about this Miko guy?" Sam asked after she'd gone from the room.
"We can't just go after him until we know what we're dealing with."
"Jade said he didn't talk much. 'One of those pretentious art types, acts like he's not part of the real world', she said."
"So?"
"So, I'm thinking what if he really isn't? Part of the real world, I mean." Dean continued his flashlight-lead search through the office.
"You mean, he could be a demon after all?"
"It's possible. Might explain how he's doing this first-person POV thing."
"That's a new kind of nasty," Sam shuddered. "Some type of channelling maybe? Directing his thoughts onto film?"
"Hey, we've seen weirder, right?"
"I dunno Dean, that's pretty weird."
"If that is what's going on," Dean replied, not sounding all that sure of himself for once. "Damn this is fucked-up. I wish we had some kind of a lead here."
Jade came back into the room, clutching a filofax.
"This is Carter's contact book. He doesn't use it much; he's got a laptop now, but he keeps that at his house overnight."
"Thanks." Dean took it from her. "You should probably go home, Jade."
"I am home," Jade replied, her voice dull. "I got kicked out of my apartment a few weeks back, so I sleep here now. Carter doesn't know."
"Oh. Well-" Dean glanced over at Sam. "We have a motel room. You could go stay there tonight."
Jade gave him a suspicious look.
"Thanks, but I hardly know you guys. I'm not gonna go to your hotel room with you."
"Hey look," Dean replied, stung. "I might not have the best track record with women, but I wouldn't-"
Sam cut him off. "It's okay Jade. It's up to you."
"I'll stay here. There's a sofa in the other room I sleep on."
Dean fought back retorts that bubbled up within him about casting couches, simply nodding at her.
"We'll be gone soon," Sam reassured her.
"Whatever."
Jade turned and left the room, the door banging shut behind her.
Dean flipped through the book in his hand, searching for Miko's name.
"He in there?" Sam asked.
"Maybe. There's three entries with first initial 'M', but I don't know if any of them are him," Dean replied, noting that Darin's address was also listed in the book.
"We'll have to check them all out in the morning."
Sam picked up a blank piece of paper, scribbling down the addresses.
"Come on, we shouldn't stay here too long."
"Okay."
Dean dropped the book into a desk drawer and, gathering up their equipment, they left the building.
In the way of all things, the first two addresses they went to had nothing to do with what they were looking for. The first turned out to be Madeline, a girl who used to work for Carter and who had genuinely gotten an agent and a career in adult movies. While Dean could quite happily have stayed talking to her for longer, he couldn't ignore Sam's not-so-subtle clearing of his throat and eyebrow-led suggestions that they should move on.
The next was Matt, an out-of-work musician who'd done soundtracks for some of Carter's more legitimate films; another bust.
The third address was an apartment in a fairly upmarket part of town; at least, it was relatively clean and the people around didn't look as disreputable as anyone else the brothers had encountered since arriving in the city.
There was no reply at the apartment, and there were too many people around to try breaking in, not in broad daylight. So Sam went down to the superintendent's office and spun him a line about not having seen Miko for days, how he was worried about him, and got the guy to unlock the door, at the same time confirming that it was indeed the right place. The place was oddly tidy; clearly occupied but not actively lived in. Dean slipped the super a twenty dollar bill to let them look around undisturbed, and they quickly started going through the apartment.
"What exactly are we looking for?" Sam asked as he pulled open drawers.
"I dunno," Dean snapped back. "A diary mapping out everything he's ever done with a detailed description of how he's doing it? That'd be good."
Sam ignored this and went into the bedroom, opening the closet and taking out boxes, going through them. Dean searched through a pile of DVDs beside the TV, but they all seemed ordinary, weren't even porn films.
Just as both brothers were starting to lose hope of finding anything useful at all, Sam stumbled upon a cardboard file, much like the ones they'd found in Carter Leigh's office. He opened it, then stopped dead at its contents.
"Dean!" he called, bringing his brother in from the kitchen, where Dean was wondering if it was dumb to consider searching through the fork drawer.
"What you got?"
Sam passed it over without a word. Inside was a series of eight-by-ten glossy photographs of young women, some head shots, some full body. Top of the pile was a picture of Jade.
"Oh shit." Was Dean's response, summing up how both of them felt.
"You think Carter's lining her up to be next?"
"That's not all."
Sam picked up a piece of paper with the address of Ojos Entertainments on it, holding it up to the light.
"There's the impression of something else on this," he wondered out loud. Grabbing a pencil from Miko's desk, he hurriedly shaded over the paper so that the words imprinted on it rose up.
"Crap."
"What is it?" Dean asked, leaning over Sam's shoulder. "Is that... is that a spell?"
"Looks like. Some kind of summoning spell. Part Latin, part... I don't know."
"Keep looking," Dean commanded, the grim determination back in his voice and demeanour. "There might be a spell book, something that can tell us how Henry: Portrait of A Serial Killer's doing it."
He pulled out his cell phone, taking the napkin Jade had given him out of his pocket and dialling her number. He waited tensely for several rings, then the voicemail kicked in.
"Hi, this is Jade... I can't come to the phone right now..."
Dean snapped the phone closed.
"No answer?" Sam didn't look up from where he was going through Miko's desk.
"Voicemail. I should go over to the office... they might not have done anything yet."
"Dean, wait. We have to know how to stop him first. Unless you wanna leave it to the cops?"
Dean shook his head sharply. "No, we need to find out exactly what this son of a bitch is raising."
He stalked out of the room, going through the living room with renewed vigour, tossing cushions off the sofa and emptying drawer contents on the floor, anger rising up inside him. Sam knew how he felt, but he kept a tighter rein on his emotions as he continued his search.
About fifteen minutes later, a yell from his brother pulled Sam into the living room.
"I don't believe it!" Dean was staring at a small green book in his hand. "It was under the frickin' couch."
"That our spell book?"
"Looks like. Seems our friend is using some kind of channelling spell after all. You know what an Avenue Spirit is?"
"Never heard of it," Sam replied, perplexed.
"Me neither. My guess is that he doesn't really know either."
"So he's trapped something, he's making it do what he wants, but he doesn't really know what he's dealing with?"
"Sounds about right. No, wait."
Dean flipped back a few pages, noticing something scrawled in the margin.
"UV light. The spirit... thing...whatever it is, it can't stand UV light. Miko put that down so he didn't accidentally have one on a shoot. It's the one thing that might break his hold on it."
"There's gotta be a store that sells UV lights somewhere around here," Sam countered, taking the book from Dean and casting his eye over the pages.
"You get one. I'm going to find Jade."
"Dean, hold up. You don't know if they've even taken her."
"So I'll get in early," his brother snapped. "Carter Leigh's setting her up, so I'll go kick his ass until he tells me what I wanna know."
He stormed out of the apartment.
"Watch yourself!" Sam called after him. Then, taking in the rather obvious mess they'd made of the guy's apartment, he pocketed the spell book and hurried out as well.
Dean made his way over to the office in a smouldering rage. As if the guy wasn't a sleazeball enough already, now he was choosing which one of his girls got cut up?
The two heavies that had backed Carter up last time he'd been there were nowhere to be found, but it wouldn't have slowed Dean down any even if they had been. He kicked open the office door, catching Carter by surprise. The man was sitting behind the desk, a foot-long sub sandwich laid out in front of him, a paper napkin tucked into the front of his grubby white vest. He got to his feet as Dean burst in, but soon found himself knocked backwards by Dean's fist.
"What the-" he began, but Dean grabbed him, slamming him up against the wall.
"Where is she?" he demanded. "Where did that sick freak take her?"
"I don't know what you're-" Carter began, but he stopped dead when he saw the gun that Dean pulled out from the waistband of his jeans.
"Don't waste my time, cos I am not in the mood to piss about here! I know what's going on, now where did Miko take Jade?"
"He - I don't know. He doesn't tell me that-" the man tried to bluster, but Dean wasn't buying it. He pushed the gun right up close to the man's sweating face.
"Where is she? Did your boys take her?"
"Yeah... it's a motel room. He always films in motel rooms. I don't know which one..."
"Find out," Dean demanded heatedly, switching his hold to the back of Carter's vest and shoving him across to the phone.
By the time Sam arrived at the walk-up, Dean was already coming out.
"What happened?" He asked his brother, but Dean steered him away.
"Come on, we gotta get out of here before the cops turn up."
"You called them?"
"Damn straight. Carter's in there with a concussion and enough evidence to put him away."
"What about Jade?"
"They're at a motel room. I got the address - where's the car?"
The Impala screeched to a halt outside the run-down motel, both Winchester brothers spilling out. There was no sign of Carter's two heavies as Sam pulled the UV light out, following Dean towards the room Carter had told him was the one. The lock on the door was cheap, worn out, and it yielded to Dean's kick first time. The two young men burst in, taking in the scene.
The room was darkened, the curtains pulled tightly closed, but that couldn't hide the sight of Jade, stripped to her underwear and tied to the bed. Her mouth was gagged, and she had several deep slash marks across her arms and stomach. There was a man kneeling over her, a knife held in his hand, a knife neither of the brothers could avoid noticing was red with Jade's blood.
"Hey asshole!" Dean yelled, Sam slamming on the UV light as the guy's head came around. He reeled back immediately, holding his hands up to his eyes, which had a peculiar silvery sheen to them.
He gave an inhuman screech, and Sam and Dean saw him appear to split in two, a second figure peeling away from Miko's body. Dean took advantage of this to yank Miko away from Jade, pulling him off the bed and laying him out with one punch. Sam went after the ethereal figure, relentlessly pressing the light towards it as it writhed on the floor, not letting up until the spirit had shrivelled away to nothing. He didn't know if it was dead, but it was gone and for now, that would have to do.
Deathly silence filled the room, broken only by a muffled exclamation from Jade.
Dean went over to her, pulling off the gag.
"Are you okay?"
"No, I am not fucking okay!" she spat at him. "Untie me!"
He released her from the bonds that held her to the bed, but if he was expecting her to burst into relieved tears, or fall into his arms for comfort, he was mistaken. Ignoring her wounds, she sprang up from the bed, seizing the discarded knife and diving towards the unconscious Miko.
Sam grabbed her before she could get to him, twisting the knife from her grip, but Jade was too mad to just give in.
"Let go of me!" she yelled, struggling like some wild animal. "I'm gonna kill that son of a bitch!"
"Jade, stop!" Dean took hold of her flailing fists, the two of them just about managing to arrest her violent resistance.
"You can't kill him."
"Why the hell not?" Jade demanded, not giving up, though her struggles were slowing. "He was gonna kill me! Just like he killed Hayley, and Pamela, and all those other girls! He deserves it!"
"Yeah, he does," Dean told her, looking directly into her frantic, tear-filled eyes. "But you can't do that. We can call the cops, they can arrest him and he won't kill anyone again."
"Let me hurt him then," she pleaded, finally lying still in Sam's arms. "Please, just let me cut him." Her eyes were blazing with fury, but there was something else in them, a desperation that she hadn't let surface before.
Dean just shook his head, stepping back and releasing her hands. He pulled Miko's cell phone out from the guy's pocket, picking up the discarded UV light as he dialled 911. Sam sat Jade down on the bed, his arm around her as she began to shiver uncontrollably. He pulled off the shirt he was wearing over his t-shirt, putting it over her shoulders.
"We should take her to a hospital," he said to Dean as his brother hung up. "These cuts aren't too bad, but we should get her checked out."
"Yeah, after we clear out of here," Dean agreed. "Can you see the camera he was using?"
Jade pointed wordlessly over at the dressing table where a small hand-held camcorder was sitting, its red recording light still flashing. Sam picked it up, stopping the recording and running it back.
"Come on man, we have to leave now," Dean urged him, but Sam continued.
"I need to edit this, make sure he didn't get a good look at us when we came in," he explained, recording over the portion of the film from their entrance onwards with static.
"Okay, but hurry it up, will ya?"
Dean picked up the knife, wiping the handle clean and placing it back in Miko's hand, ensuring the only fingerprints on it were his. He then dropped the DVD that had been sent to them on the table next to the camera; more evidence for the cops when they arrived.
"Alright, let's go."
Sam put the camera back down, and the three of them made a hasty exit.
Dean and Sam were waiting for Jade when she came out of the hospital much later that night. She'd cleaned herself up and her cuts had been dressed, but was still wearing Sam's shirt and a pair of his jeans that she'd borrowed. They were miles too big for her, only adding to the appearance of vulnerability. This was contradicted, however, by the look of steely determination in her eyes.
"How you doing?" Dean asked her as they walked out of the hospital car park.
"I'm okay. The cops asked me about what happened, but I just said I managed to get free, fight him off and run out. They'll ask me again, but I'm gonna leave town as soon as I can."
"Where you gonna go?" Sam asked, steering her towards a diner across the road.
"My big sister lives in Chicago. She'll put me up."
The three of them sat down in a booth, Dean signalling to the waitress to bring them coffee.
"So... you wanna tell us what happened?" Dean asked carefully.
"How'd you mean?"
"I found out where you were from Carter, but how did Miko get you?"
"Oh. I, uh. It was sometime in the morning. Carter called me into his office, told me there was someone who wanted to meet me. Said something about a part in a movie. I didn't-"
her voice choked, and she stopped, taking a fortifying gulp of her coffee.
"I was really dumb. I didn't even think it might be the guy you were talking about 'til it was too late. Carter must've put something in my drink, 'cos I passed out before Miko even got there. Then I woke up in the motel, and there he was."
She looked up at the brothers sitting opposite her.
"Did the cops get Carter?"
Sam nodded.
"They found paperwork at his office linking him directly to the films. He's in custody and they're closing down the company. Anyone else who was involved..." Sam shrugged. "I guess they'll find them."
"And Miko?"
"Charged with multiple murder. I don't know what evidence they have exactly, but they're pinning all the murders in the films on him," Sam filled her in.
"Good. I hope that bastard fries for it."
Jade polished off her coffee.
"Are you gonna tell me what happened now?"
Dean and Sam exchanged looks.
"What do you mean?"
Jade gave them a fixed look, one that said very plainly, don't piss me around.
"I mean when Miko split in two. I might have been out of it then, but I'm not an idiot.
I saw it. What happened? Why did you have that light?"
"We - uh, he was using something...weird to make the films."
"You mean like witchcraft?" Jade asked, her tone matter-of-fact.
"What?" she continued, taking in the surprised expressions on both Sam and Dean's faces. "I did some Wicca stuff in high school. None of it ever worked, but I know weird shit when I see it. Was that how he did it?"
"Kind of," Sam replied cautiously. "The light... broke the spell. He won't be able to do it again, not ever."
"That's good. Don't worry," she said calmly. "I'm not gonna tell the cops any of that. They think I'm lying enough already, I don't want them thinking I'm crazy too."
"Where are you staying now?" Sam asked. "Before you leave town?"
"I called some friends, people who're gonna let me crash on their floor." Jade shrugged. "As long as I can get some of my own clothes back, it'll be okay; everything I own is at the office, and the cops probably have it."
"We can stick around, help you out a bit if you want?" Sam offered, but Jade shook her head.
"No. Soon as I can give you your jeans and shirt back, you can take off."
"Keep 'em. They look better on you anyway," Sam told her with a smile.
"Seriously, you guys have done more than enough already," Jade replied. "If you hadn't been here, figured out what was going on, I'd be dead."
Her tone was self-possessed and confident once more, covering up the trauma in a typical LA manner.
"What're you gonna do in Chicago?" Dean asked, a little uncomfortable.
"I think I'll keep acting. Might try theatre this time though," she added wryly.
"Good idea."
"Thank you," Jade said suddenly, her tone unexpectedly open and honest.
"I mean that. Thank you for saving me. I don't usually do the damsel in distress thing, but... thank you."
"No problem." Dean smiled at her
"I have to go." She got up, glancing at the clock hanging on the wall. "I'm meeting my friends."
"Take care, Jade," Sam told her, getting up too, putting his hand on her shoulder.
"I will. And it's Jane, actually. I thought Jade was more, you know, Hollywood."
She gave both brothers an LA air-kiss on each cheek, and headed out, not looking back.
There was an awkward silence left behind her. Jade might have seemed able to push off what had happened to her, but Sam and Dean weren't finding it quite so easy.
They'd gotten used to dark, seen some deeply unpleasant things in their lives, but this wasn't quite what they were accustomed to.
"So... who do you think set us onto this?" Sam asked eventually. "Do you think Dad did have something to do with it?"
Dean shook his head, taking a sip from his freshly-refilled coffee.
"I can't see Dad picking up on this, can you? I mean, who do we know who'd have watched any of those films to begin with?"
Sam considered this.
"And to know where we were, when we weren't even using our real names? I don't know man, that still weirds me out."
"Yeah, me too," Dean agreed. "Still, who cares? It's done. We should head off too. Find some new job."
"Okay."
Dean threw down some dollars on the table, and the brothers walked out of the diner, some off the heavy oppressive air that had been hanging over them lifting as they walked away, bickering. It hadn't been the easiest of hunts, but they'd finished the job and that was what mattered.
Disclaimer: nothing you recognise is mine, yadda yadda.
I'm also British, to explain any inaccuracies I haven't managed to correct.