Arguing voices woke me. I was curled up asleep in the passenger seat of the Impala, Dean's jacket covering me as a blanket. I sat up groggily, it had been a long drive from New Orleans and the rumble of the engine, the vibration of the wheels over mile after mile of highway always put me to sleep, but now the car was parked and I was alone in it.
I quietly pulled myself out of the car just as I heard my little brother ask, "Dad let you go on a hunting trip by yourself?"
Smiling I made my way to the back of the car, it'd been a couple of years since I'd last seen Sam, though I'd phoned him often.
"I'm twenty-six, Dude" Dean was leaning over the boot of the car as I came up behind Sam, that boy had grown another foot it seemed.
"'Course he didn't; sent me with him." Sam turned to me with a smile and reached down to hug me, "You tall enough yet, Sammy?"
"Hey, Ali." He stood tall before releasing me from the hug, letting me drop at least a foot to the ground. It was our thing, the same hug we'd shared since he got taller than me when he was about 15 and I still looked about 12. I appear to be roughly 14 or 15 now.
Dean explained the case Dad had gone to Jericho for and, eventually, Sam agreed to come and help us look for him. On the condition that he be back by Monday. He'd been stressing about the Law School Interview for nearly a month now, and I was as determined as he was to get him back in time for it.
"Hey, Sammy? Can I come and meet Jess?" He'd told me so much about her, from the first "I've met this girl." through "Where do I take a girl on a first date?" to "How do I ask her to move in with me?" I'd been a phone call away for the whole thing.
He'd sent me pictures; the first taken on his phone from across the room, grainy and hard to make out of a pretty girl with wavy blond hair, photos of the two of them, smiling brightly at the camera, and one just that night, at a Halloween party, Sammy giving a low level, actually-quite-entertained bitch face and Jess dressed as a nurse kissing him on the cheek.
I wanted to finally meet the girl who'd captured Sammy's heart.
He gestured for me to follow and I scampered after him, grabbing his hand and swinging it between us. I used the contact to check for any pain, and found that, as I'd suspected, Sam was happy.
He'd missed his family; he'd been refusing to talk to either Dean or Dad after the night he'd left, despite my best efforts, but it wasn't as if they'd tried to rebuild any bridges either. It was why I hadn't called Sam and warned him that Dean and I were coming, I didn't want pride and hurt feelings getting in the way of having my family back together.
Jess seemed surprised to meet me, and after Sam disappeared into the bedroom to pack a bag we found that the conversation was stilted.
"I guess Sammy doesn't talk about us much?"
She shook her head, wincing and tugging at the bottom of her shorts.
"It's okay," I told her quietly, smiling softly, "I think he just misses us."
She bit her lip slightly, looking unsure before offering me a drink and excusing herself to go after Sam. I sipped the orange juice she'd poured for me and looked around their kitchen, it was small and none of the crockery, cutlery or appliances matched, but it was clean and brief glance I'd had in the fridge when Jess was fetching the OJ showed it to be filled with fresh produce, all the healthy vegetables and things that Sam and I had always enjoyed. Dad and Dean preferred a burger over a home cooked meal, though they'd eat just about anything you put in front of them so long as it wasn't a salad.
Yes, Sam was happy here, if I could just get him to forgive Dad and Dean for words said in anger and spend the holidays hunting with us, his life would be just as I'd always imagined his happy ending to be. Sammy wasn't like Dean and Dad, he didn't live for the hunt, Mum's death didn't haunt him as it did them. He was a good hunter, and I'd been surprised when he'd just quit, he enjoyed hunting and the life as much as any sane person could enjoy such things, but he didn't live for them. He belonged here, at school, with a girlfriend he adored and who clearly thought the world of him, and who hopefully did all the cooking; Sam had never been any good at it.
Sam breezed through the kitchen and I downed the last of the orange juice just as Jess called after him, "At least tell me where you're going!"
I left the glass by the sink and followed my giant of a little brother, grinning at Jess as I passed her, "Don't worry, he'll be back by Monday."
I jolted awake to Dean banging on the back window of the Impala, "You two want breakfast?" he called, holding up a chocolate bar, a packet of crisps and a couple of bottles of energy drink.
"No, thank you," called Sammy as I just wrinkled by nose at our brother, he hadn't gotten enough to share anyway, knowing full well that neither of us would eat that stuff if we could avoid it. "How'd you pay for that stuff anyway? You and Dad still running credit card scams?" Sam asked with a note of judgment in his tone and I frowned at him; he knew this life wasn't easy and sure as hell didn't pay a living wage.
"Yeah, well hunting isn't exactly a pro-ball career. Besides, all we do is apply, it's not our fault they send us the cards."
Sam and Dean argued the point a little further before Sam dropped it a picked a new fight, "I swear, man, you have gotta update your cassette tape collection!"
Dean and I shot him identical looks, "Why?"
"Well, for one, they're cassette tapes, and two, Black Sabbath, Motor Head, Metallica; it's the greatest hits of mullet rock."
Dean plucked the Metallica tape from Sam's hand and loaded it into the player, "House rules, Sammy, driver picks the music, shotgun shuts his cakehole."
"You know 'Sammy' is a chubby twelve year-old, it's Sam, Okay?" Sammy gripped as Dean started the car.
"Sorry, I can't hear you, the music's too loud" Dean grinned as we pulled away from the petrol station.
I just sat in the back, shaking my head. Remind me why I wanted my family back together again?
As we got closer to Jericho Sam phoned ahead to the hospital and morgue with a description of Dad, but thankfully they were no matches.
Dean slowed the car as we got close to an old suspension bridge a little way out of town, there were police cars dotted about and I promptly lay down across the back seat. Dean would want to question the police about what was going on, and having a fifteen year-old girl tag along never helped, it was best that I stay out of sight.
Sure enough Dean pulled the car over and reached across to the glove box, fishing out an ID, then inviting Sammy along, he left, our slightly wide-eyed brother following him. A few minutes later they were back.
"So?" I questioned without sitting up.
"Another guy disappeared, not a trace left behind. Cops don't have a clue, and nothing they can see linking the vics." Dean filled me in and Sam just gave him a dirty look.
Once we'd pulled away and driven down the road a bit further I sat up, placing a hand on the back of each of my brother's necks, pulling the sting from Sam's head and the ache from Dean's foot. "Not that I don't appreciate the breakfast, but must you always fight?"
"No" "Yes", they gave each other dirty looks.
I just sat in the back, shaking my head. Remind me why I wanted my family back together again?
We were walking through town, and I was on the lookout for somewhere I could get a decent human breakfast. Prangeni might not need much in the way of human food, but I'm not completely prangeni and I need both.
"I bet you that's her." Dean said, drawing my attention to a woman ahead of us on the pavement, putting up a missing poster. I carefully detached myself from my brothers and when they stopped to talk to her I walked a little further to a small café, glancing back over my shoulder as I entered and making eye contact with Sam.
I ordered food and a cup of hot chocolate, before settling into a booth facing the door. I didn't have long to wait, my brother's and two women entered the café, ordered coffees and sat at the booth behind me so I could listen in as they questioned the two girls.
The waitress came with my food, distracting me from the start of their conversation as I reassured her that I wasn't skipping school.
"Okay," Dean's voice called my attention back to the table behind me as I tucked in to my pancakes, "thank you, unsolved mysteries. Here's the deal, ladies, the way Troy disappeared, something's not right. So, if you've heard anything… What is it?"
There was a pause then one of the girls spoke; "Well, it's just, I mean with all these guys going missing, people talk."
"What do they talk about?" they asked at the same time. I grinned into my breakfast, I loved it when my boys talked in sync, it showed just how close the two were, and the fact that they still did it, even after years apart? Friggin' adorable.
"It's kinda this local legend, this one girl, she got murdered out on Centenial, like, decades ago. Well, supposedly she's still out there, she hitchhikes and whoever picks her up, well they disappear forever."
The guys thanked the girls for their time, paid for their drinks and left. Sammy meeting my eye as they did and making an L shape with his thumb and forefinger. I winked at him and went back to my pancakes. The two girls behind me talked for a bit about how Amy hadn't known anything about Troy's uncles, and how they'd seemed kind of young to be anyone's uncle, let alone the uncles of a 19 year old, Amy's friend announced that they were hot and would Amy mind if she made a pass next time they saw them and the two girls left the café giggling to each other and arguing about which of my brothers was more attractive.
I left soon after and made for the closest library as Sammy had told me to with his hand gesture as they had left. The boys were fighting over control of the desktop as I arrived.
"Dude, such a control freak." Not that Dean was really fighting Sammy on this one, partly because we were in a public place, partly because he knew as well as I did that Sammy had been raised on research. It was why he was doing so well at school.
"So, angry spirits are born out of violent death, right? Maybe it's not murder." Sam typed something, clicked, waited, and then clicked on the article, "This was 1981, Constance Welch, 24 years old, jumps off Sylvania bridge, drowns in the river"
"Say why she did it?"
I leaned over his shoulder, "She'd called 911 an hour before she jumped, she'd found her children dead in the bath tub."
Sam sighed, reading from a little further down the page, "'Our babies were gone and Constance just couldn't bear it' said husband Joseph Welch. "
"That bridge look familiar to you?" Dean pointed at the picture on the article, it didn't really, but Sam nodded and closed the window, logging off the computer. I followed them over to the mythology section, but the shelves were fairly bare, a couple of standard books on Greek and Roman legends, one on Christian lore and one book of local American ghost stories which might have something in it. I picked up the book, heading over to one of the tables where the lighting was better.
"You guys go get some lunch, I'll see what I can find here and you can pick me up later."
"So this is where Constance took the swan dive." It was dark by the time we made it to the bridge in the article. It was the same one the boys had questioned the police on earlier that day while I'd been hiding in the car.
"So, you think Dad would have been here?" Sam questioned. I'd almost forgotten we weren't just working a case and I stared down into the rapid water beneath the bridge, chastising myself.
"Well, he's chasing the same story, and we're chasing him." Dean pushed off the barrier and walked a little way further along the bridge.
"Okay, so now what?" Sammy questioned, following.
"Now we keep digging 'till we find him. Might take a while."
"Dean, I told you, I gotta get back by-" I glanced up, frowning at Sam's apparent disregard for Dad's wellbeing.
"Monday," Dean finished for him, "right, the interview, yeah, I forgot." So had I in truth, I know it's important to Sammy, but this is Dad, who might very well be in serious danger. Given the nature of the job it was pretty much a given that he'd be in some sort of danger. "You're really serious about this, aren't you?" I glanced at Dean in surprise, did he really think that Sam had worked his arse off all through school and two years of college, separated from his family, just on some whim? And that now, when his goal was close enough to touch, he'd just walk away? "You think you're just gonna become some lawyer? Marry your girl?"
"Maybe. Why not?"
"Does Jessica know the truth about you? I mean does she know about the things you've done?"
"No, and she's not ever going to know" My head shot around to Sam. Seriously? He thought he could hide a huge part of his life from her?
"Well, that's healthy" Dean put my thoughts into words, "You can pretend all you want Sammy, but sooner or later you're going to have to face up to who you really are."
"And who's that?"
"One of us." A Winchester.
"No, I'm not like you; this is not going to be my life."
"You have a responsibility-"
"To Dad? and his crusade? If it weren't for pictures, I wouldn't even know what Mom looked like," it was the same for me, I'd never met the woman, but I'd come to love and respect her memory, "and what difference would it make? Even if we do find the thing that killed her, Mom's gone, she isn't coming back"
Dean grabbed Sam by the front of his jacket and shoved him against a support strut of the bridge.
"Dean!" I called out, definitely time to intervene, before Frustrated Sam and Hurt Dean came to blows.
"Don't talk about her like that," Dean's voice was level and calm. He released his brother and stepped away, both boys taking a second to compose themselves.
"Guys," Dean was looking at something along the bridge; Sam stepped up to his side as I pushed away from the barrier to join them. Constance was there, bathed in moonlight, her white dress and dark hair billowing around her, she turned to look at us, her face blank, before she stepped of the railing and disappeared without a sound. We rushed to the edge, but there was nothing to see, except the headlights of the Impala as the engine choked to life behind us. I glanced over my shoulder at her; Baby didn't usually start with a choke, more like a cough and a roar.
"Who's driving your car?" Good question, Sammy. I glanced towards my brothers as Dean held up the car keys from his pocket. Then the car started towards us, my brothers turned and ran, I knew I'd never keep up, being half prangeni makes my movements slower than an average humans; I'm no sloth, but I can't run to save my life. I jumped up onto the barrier at the edge of the bridge and started climbing the struts, up and out of reach of the car and it sped beneath me, chasing down my two brothers, who, at the last minute, followed my lead and got off the road. Sam caught himself on the pipes suspended below the bridge and held on, but there was a splash below as Dean's leap took him down to the black, rushing waters beneath us.
"Dean!"
"Dean. Dean!"
Sammy and I were both calling, I spotted our sorry brother first; pulling himself up the bank at the water's edge while Sam was struggling to right himself and get a good footing on his pipe.
"What?"
I pursed my lips so as not to laugh, poor thing was soaked.
"Hey, are you alright?" Sammy didn't have my advantage of being able to sense that our brother was uninjured.
Dean rolled over on the bank below us and gave us an OK symbol, "I'm super."
Sam's laughter sparked my own and Dean glared at us as we clambered back onto the bridge with caution and made our way down the bank to greet him.
He was coated in river mud, I don't know how he managed it; the bank was stoney just here. I shook my head at him, pulling up handfuls of grass and marching my mucky brother back down to the water, using the grass to scrub the worst of the mud away from his face, hair and jacket, just like when we were kids and he and Sam had been out playing in the mud. Boys never seem to grow up. He bitched and moaned about the attention now too.
After checking that Baby had survived being hijacked by a ghost, and Sam's comment that Dean smelt like a toilet, (which wasn't quite true, he smelt like rotting mud, which isn't any better really) we headed back to town to get a motel room. I waited in the car, this being another circumstance where looking like a 15 year-old was not an advantage. The guys came back telling me that we'd found Dad's room and I handed Sam my lock picking set.
"What? Don't tell me you've forgotten how!" I teased him when he looked at me in surprise. I was better at picking locks than either of my brothers, I'd been practicing longer, but if practice made perfect then surely Sam needed the practice more than I did. Motel locks aren't very challenging to pick, as locks go, but it took Sam longer than it should have to open the door to room 10, he definitely needed more practice.
When we, finally, got inside the room it was clear that Dad had been here for a few days, maybe a week, but had left, fairly suddenly, a while ago, judging by the stink coming off the half eaten burger.
The walls were covered in his research, the files on the missing men, and a load of lore. More concerning; there was a salt line on the floor and cats eye shells, both used for protection, the salt for its purity, the cats eyes were said to keep away the evil eye. It was Sam who found the answer, the same article we'd found, printed out and taped beneath a sign saying "Woman in White"
I quickly ran over the lore I knew about Weeping Women, none of which I'd learned from that useless and rather boring book in the library. They were the ghosts of women who, discovering that their husbands had been unfaithful or deceitful, in a temporary insanity slew their own children before the guilt of doing so caused them to commit suicide. Once dead they wept and searched for their children and lured unfaithful men to their deaths. Which might explain the Cats Eye Shells; guarding against a jealous ghost.
In the original Mexican stories it was said that La Llorona would take any children she found, thinking them to be her own and the children would die. How much was based on truth and how much was a tale to keep children from leaving their beds at night is often not clear from the lore, though some sources are more reliable than others. In this case I thought it unlikely that Constance wouldn't know where her children were, the EVP on the message from Dad had said "I can never go home" and her children had been drowned in the bath tub. I know where'd go looking for them.
They can be destroyed the same ways as any other ghosts; salt and burn the remains, or sometimes if the spirit was trying to do something, achieve something, and you can complete this "quest" you can lay the spirit to rest. Burning is generally easier.
We agreed that the next step would be to talk to the husband, Joseph Welch, who was likely to still be alive and that first, Dean needed a shower.
Once the creature from the black lagoon had turned back into my brother, he decided it was time for some food. I heartily agreed, but Sammy declined and Dean and I headed out the door.
There were some cops on the other side of the parking lot, Dean and I shared a look and I walked away, just as the motel clerk turned and pointed at my brother. He took out his phone, "Dude, five-O, take off." I glanced back and imitating the curiosity of a teenager, slowed to watch the cops approach Dean, "Ehh, they kinda spotted me, go find Dad"
"Problem, Officers?"
They were facing off against him now, arms crossed over their chests, "Where's your partner?"
"My what? What partner?" Sometimes Dean was an excellent liar, sometimes not. The second cop headed to check out the room we'd just left, I hoped Sam wasn't too tall to fit through a window at the back.
"So, fake US Marshal. Fake credit cards. You got anything that's real?"
"My boobs." Dean, you idjit.
He was grinning at the cop, for a second or so before the cop decided to arrest him, pushing him against the bonnet of the police car and reading him his rights. I snorted and walked away, just a disinterested teen again.
I trudged my way over to the police station then I walked passed it, headed to the other side of town. The station was a small red brick building, in a small town, it would have a small force, Dean would be able to get himself out, given a suitable diversion. I walked until I was far enough away to be considered well out of earshot, and then, noting the street name, I stepped into a telephone box.
9-1-1
"This is 911 what is your emergency?"
"Yes, hello? I –uh –I heard some, I'm pretty sure I heard gunfire!" I keep my voice low and rushed, slightly panicked.
"Miss, can you tell me your location?"
"I -I'm on Whiteford road, Jericho, California."
"Okay, Miss, we'll have someone out to you as soon as possible, can you stay on the line please?"
"N-no, I can't it's my baby brother, I-I have to get back to him"
"Miss, can you give me your na-"
After hanging up I hurried away from the box, going a couple of streets over before I hot-wired a car, just like Dad taught me, and headed back to the station to pick up Dean. I parked in a back alley about a block away and headed over to meet him.
Dean was in a telephone box as I approached, "Fake 911 phone call, Sammy, I don't know, that's pretty illegal."
"What makes you think it was him?" I crossed my arms, leaning against the side of the box and grinning at my brother.
He jumped slightly, looking at me in surprise before shaking his head with a chuckle. "Listen Sammy, we gotta talk."
"Tell me about it, so the husband was unfaithful, we are dealing with a woman in white and she's buried behind her old house, so that should've been Dad's next stop" Sammy's voice was tinny, but discernible from the phone Dean held to his ear.
"Would you shut up for a second?" Dean attempted to cut in.
"I just can't figure out why he hasn't destroyed the corpse yet."
Dean rolled his eyes, "Well that's what I'm trying to tell you; he's gone. Dad left Jericho."
"What? How to you know?"
"I got his journal" Dean held the leather-bound book out to me and I frowned, accepting it and tucking it away in the satchel I carried everywhere with me. Sucks, not having pockets.
"He doesn't go anywhere without that thing."
"Yeah, well, he did this time."
"What's it say?"
"Ah, same old ex-marine crap, when he wants to let us know where he's going." I reached for Dean's wrist, the cuffs always left his wrists a little sore, not that he'd complain, but I had no reason not to fix it for him.
"Co-ordinates. Where to?"
"I'm not sure yet."
"I don't understand. I mean, what could be so important that Dad would just skip out in the middle of a job? Dean, what the hell is going on?"
There was a muffled thud on the other end of the phone, "Sam? Sam!"
Dean and I looked at each other and wordlessly headed for the car I'd stolen earlier. Dean was a better driver than I was, faster reflexes, and he headed for the driver's seat while I just headed for whichever door was nearest, Dean already had the car running by the time I had wrenched it open and thrown myself into the back seat. We took off towards Breckenridge road. I held tight to the door handle as Dean threw the car around the bends, this car handled nothing like the Impala and Dean wasn't adjusting too well to racing anything but his Baby.
"Stay in the car!" We screeched to a halt, tyres skidding over woodchip and mud, and Dean raced from the car, leaving the engine running. I followed, staggering slightly as Sam's pain hit me, just before we heard his scream. Dean pulled his gun from the back of his jeans and fired several shots through the front side window of the Impala, shattering the glass and temporarily discouraging the ghost that was digging her fingers into Sammy's chest, right over his heart.
Once she was gone, Sam sat up, starting the engine and putting her in gear, "I'm taking you home."
With Dean's shout of "Sam!" echoing after him, he floored it, taking the Impala through the garden fence and then the wall of the house until he came to a stop in the front room, with Dean chasing after him.
Dean was helping Sam from the car as I caught up to them. The living room was in chaos and Constance was there. She cast aside the framed picture she'd been holding as she turned her attention back to us, stepping to one side she psychically pulled a dresser across the room, pinning us against the car. The lights started to flicker on all around the room and the woman frowned at us, before the sound of trickling water drew her attention to the stairs. Still pinned by the dresser, we watched as two small children whispered, "You've come home to us, Mommy."
Flashing to the bottom of the stairs, they hugged her and she let out a scream, their forms twisting and warping, red skeletons and blue clouds flashing before my eyes as all three sank beneath the floor, leaving a puddle on the carpet.
The dresser was now pushed away easily, and the lights went out, and stayed out. I slipped my hand into Sam's as we crossed the room to inspect the puddle.
"So, this is where she drowned her kids." Dean spoke slightly shakily.
"That's why she could never go home," Sam had a smug little grin on his face, "She was too scared to face them."
"You found her weak spot. Nice work Sammy." Dean patted Sam in the middle of his chest and Sam let out a sound that sort of resembled a laugh as I shot our brother a dark look and redoubled my efforts at drawing out Sam's pain.
"Wish I could say the same for you, what were you thinking, shooting Casper in the face, you freak?" Glad to see you're feeling better, Sammy.
"Hey, saved your ass. I'll tell you another thing, if you screwed up my car; I'll kill you."
Sammy and I just laughed and I dragged him off to fetch the stolen car as Dean started pulling the rubble off his Baby, careful not to scratch the paintwork.
It was on the road back to Stanford that I pulled out Dad's journal, handing it to Sam when he asked for it. I leant over the back of the seat, watching as he worked out the co-ordinates.
"Okay, here's where Dad went, it's called Blackwater Ridge, Colorado."
"Sounds charming. How far?"
"About 600 miles."
"Ah, we shag-ass we could it by morning."
Sam looked up, guilt written on his face and stabbing into his heart, "Dean, I'm…"
Dean focused on Sam, glancing back at the road as he drove, "You're not going?"
"Dean, this interview's in, like, 10 hours, I gotta be there."
Dean turned back to the road, "Yeah, whatever, I'll take you home."
It was the middle of the night when we got there, I passed Sam his bag and he got out shutting the door before turning to speak through the open window. "Call me if you find him. Maybe I can meet up with you later, huh?"
I grinned at my baby brother, now that he'd remembered what family meant to him, he wasn't eager to leave us again.
Dean nodded, "Yeah, alright." Sam patted the door, before turning and walking away.
"Sam! You know we made a hell of a team back there."
"Yeah," he nodded with a small smile.
Dean pulled away and I started clambering over the back of the seat to get into the front seat when the scent hit me like a wrecking ball and I gasped, "Dean! Pain! Some- someone's been stabbed, and, and is that flames? Stabbed and set on fire?" We looked at each other, both frozen in horror, before: "Sam!"
We were racing back towards Sam's apartment, Dean was way ahead of me and broke down the door, rushing in as heat, smoke and a sinister glow escaped through the open door behind him. I stopped at the door, the heat was intense, and the pain was echoing in my ears, my brothers' horror and desperation adding to the heady and overwhelming mix. Dean grabbed at my jacket as he passed me, dragging away from the doorway and as Jess' pain flickered and died with a horrific deathcry, I grabbed on to Sam, helping Dean pull him out of the building.
The deathcry hit me almost as a physical force and I collapsed to the lawn, gasping for breath and trying not to throw up. A deathcry is the burst of pain caused by a soul being ripped from a body in death. They are caused by violent deaths and they are extremely unpleasant for a prangeni, leaving me feeling physically sick, weak and wobbly in the knees and the effects were typically slow to wear off, sometimes lasting for days.
"Jess..." I whispered, as sirens began to wail in the distance and Sam's pain flared behind me where I sat on the lawn, watching flames lick from the windows of what had been Sam and Jess' bedroom.
Sam was devastated, but quickly reformed his grief into anger. Sam and I may not remember it but we know the story of how Mum died.
The same thing that had killed her all those years ago had been here tonight. The same thing had now killed Jess.
No way was it going to get away this time.