The Body in the Library by Youthere
X
All the usual disclaimers apply.
Set just after Phantom Traveler. Spoilers that far.
This doesn't get all that violent or gory, but there is a definite gross-out factor. You've been warned.
Great thanks to Adara Chan for lending me a hand (or a brain). Of course I did my usual compulsive post-beta rewriting, so for any mistakes, blame me.
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TWO
Dean jerked awake at the sound of Sam's gasp. It wasn't loud but, shit, was it familiar these days. He rubbed his face tiredly and peered over at his brother, who was groggily pulling his head up off a stack of books.
They'd been camped out in the back room of Sharp Antiques for three days, now, and even geekboy Sam, every librarian's wet dream, was getting pretty far from thrilled. As for Dean, he was starting to feel deeply sorry that the spirit wasn't actually Stark, and so they wouldn't be getting a chance to torch his ass. But the library was the only thing they had that was even close to a lead, and so they filled their veins with coffee and continued to dig through the stacks of books.
Or tried to, at least.
Dean watched as Sam reached for his half empty coffee cup and cleared his throat, tired eyes already skimming over the page in front of him.
He cleared his own throat. "Bad dream?"
Sam blinked at him. "Yeah. I dreamt of that time you made BBQ tuna sandwiches."
Dean just hmph'd and turned back to his book. After a while he slammed it shut again.
"Sam."
"Yeah?"
"I got this for now. Why don't you head back to the motel and get some sleep?"
"I'm fine."
"Sam..."
"Dean. I'm fine. Okay ? Let's just... let's just get back to work..."
Dean sighed in surrender. So, not quite a miracle cure...
He cranked his neck irritably and turned back to the reading at hand,the goddamn Sergeant Diaries.
It had turned out that at least some part of the Stark library consisted of the journals of Alan Stark, the man who had served in the Indian Army at the same time as their spirit. Considering this connection, the brothers had decided to start with the journals, but that still meant dozens of volumes. The large, leather books spanned almost all of the sergeant's life; his youth in England, his military service in British India and, eventually, his migration to the United States just before the century's end.
It could almost have been interesting, Dean reflected. You could find more boring things to read than stories of jungle exploration and general Indiana Jones-ing in 19th century India. But, despite his adventurous lifestyle, the Englishman had seemingly been as boring as vanilla pudding. He had fastidiously written down even the tiniest, most insignificant detail of things like the weather and his own health, and the rest of the journals were mostly dedicated to observations of political intricacies, which would have bored Dean stiff even if they hadn't been over a hundred years old.
Every now and again, Stark did write about cool stuff, but, even then, it was with the narrative flair of an accountant recording a company's cafeteria budget. It had to be a special gift to be able to make tiger hunting sound boring, but damn if old Earl Grey here hadn't managed it.
In the journals from his time in India, Stark talked a lot about Willows. It seemed as if the captain was something of an idol to the then-young Brit and the two were apparently quite close. As friends, or maybe as master and student, superhero and sidekick. Well, if Bucky kept a diary and Captain America haunted it.
Dean gave up on a particularly annoying chapter about the buildup to the monsoon season and stood up. Stretching out his back and rolling his shoulders, he made his way to the small kitchenette, just off the back room where they had set up shop. He seriously needed a caffeine fix.
Unfortunately, Mr. Sharp had beaten him to the coffee maker and was doing decaf. Figured. Dean groaned to himself but plastered on a smile when the antiquities dealer looked up. The man had, after all, been extremely helpful and it wouldn't do to start pissing him off. Pissed off people were much more likely to ask uncomfortable questions.
"How's it going with the books?" Sharp asked as the last of the brew poured through the filter, smelling almost like real coffee.
Dean grimaced. "It's going. Slowly."
Sharp nodded. "I don't understand why you need to go through the books, though. I mean, do you really think they could have something to do with my father's death?"
Dean cleared his throat. "I'm... I'm not really at liberty to say... you know. It's an ongoing investigation. But we think it's important to go over the books, yeah."
Sharp just nodded again and poured himself some coffee, turning his back to Dean. He took a breath like he was going to say something, but then just let it out again. After a moment he took another one and turned back to Dean.
"Agent Steed, I wanted to thank you."
Dean shrugged uncomfortably. "We haven't really done anything, yet."
Sharp shook his head. "My father was elderly," he said with a serious expression."Nearing his eighties. People have been coming and paying their respects, offering condolences. But they do it with this... apathy. Like he died of natural causes. Like it was just his time."
He looked at Dean and the hunter was shocked to see the flabby face harden in unchecked anger. "Well, it wasn't. Someone invaded his home and murdered him. Took away his life, took him away from us. There is a person out there responsible for this."
The short man drew a slow, shaky breath. "I just wanted to thank you. It's good to know that somebody sees what was done to my family. That somebody's trying to do something about it."
Then he turned and walked away, leaving the young hunter standing dumbstruck by the coffee maker.
O
"I don't understand," came Sam's voice as Dean made his way back into the back room. "These were all Stark's books but Willows is haunting them. Sometimes spirits attach themselves to possessions with great sentimental value, but these... if they had sentimental value it would have been for Stark."
The older brother shrugged and sat back down. "Maybe one of them's a murder weapon."
"How would you kill someone with a book?"
"I can think of a few ways," came a weary sigh from Dean. "Or maybe Stark killed Willows with something else but got his blood on one of the books."
"Nope. I found Captain Willows' army record. He was killed in 1876 in a skirmish on the Afghan border, got his throat slashed with a machete. His body is buried in a military plot in what's actually Pakistan now, I'm sure it never came close to Stark's library."
"Well, slit throat is the same as the victims... it is definitely him we're dealing with." Dean rubbed his face; "And his bones are in Pakistan? That's just awesome. So what the hell's he haunting?"
Sam shook his head; "I have no idea. The books are the only thing that's even remotely connected to the man. Maybe there's a clue in one of the journals...I guess we just keep reading."
Dean sighed. If he went to hell when he died, the Devil would probably make him read Alan Stark's journals over and over again for the rest of eternity. Before he could turn back to the frustrating task, however, Sam looked up from the book he'd been plowing through. "Hey, this may be something..."
Dean dropped the book he'd picked up with relief. "Please tell me I'm not just hearing things; you actually found something?"
"Yeah..." Sam said absently, peering intently at a text in one of the journals. "This is about a month before Willows buys it. They've just come out of a battle... listen to this:
'My friend looked at me with a grave expression. He told me that he had something important which he needed to ask of me. He told me that if he should die here, he needed me to take him home.
He knows that bodies are not taken to England from here. It is too long a voyage, they would be horrifically damaged when they arrived. Nonetheless, he begged me to swear to him. "At least a part of me," he said. "Swear to me that you will take a part of me with you, when you return home..."
Sam stopped reading and looked up at his brother. "A part of him. Do you think he meant like a... body part?"
Dean leaned back his head and gave a heartfelt groan. "So now we have body parts in Pakistan and England and no way to connect either to the library in the States? I hate this ghost."
"Well, what if the... whatever he took back with him didn't stay in England?" Sam said, suddenly excited. The kid could get enthusiastic about the strangest things. "What if he brought it to the States with him? That would be bound to piss Willows off. We need to find out what happened to the rest of the Stark estate, maybe it went to other dealers around the area. We have to talk to all of them."
Dean nodded. "Yup. Hate this ghost."
O
Again, Dean jerked awake. But this time it was to his brother's voice on the phone.
The brothers had finally dragged themselves back to the motel and flopped down on their respective beds, Stark's spidery handwriting dancing on the insides of their eyelids as they drifted off to sleep. But now, Dean was staring at the digital clock on the night stand showing just after oh-four and Sam was doing his 'soothing the panicky' voice. And from the shrill tone emanating from the ear piece of the cellphone, its deployment was absolutely justified.
Dean started to pull on his clothes. He knew trouble when he heard it.
With a last "Don't worry," Sam clicked his phone shut, having managed to pull on both his jeans and T-shirt during the conversation. He turned to his brother. "We have to go."
Dean waved the boot he had just retrieved from under his bed and started to slip it on. "Yeah, I figured. What's up?"
"That was Thomas Sharp. He got a call from security that someone was in the shop, so he went down and found the night guard dead on the floor."
Dean grimaced. "Let me guess, throat slashed?"
Sam nodded grimly, shrugging into his jacket. "He thought there was someone still in the shop. I told him to wait outside for us."
He gathered the shotguns that Dean had been cleaning the morning before, showed them into the weapons bag and then hoisted the whole thing onto one shoulder.
Dean smirked, slipping into his jacket. "Armed to the teeth, Sammy? Very Linda Hamilton."
"Bite me." Sam stalked out the door, bag still slung over his shoulder.
"No seriously, man," Dean called as he hopped after his brother, still wrestling one boot on. "Maybe she could give you some hair styling advice."
He pulled the boot all the way on and stopped in the doorway. Taking one last sweep of the room to make sure Sam hadn't left any weapons behind, he allowed the grin to slip from his face. Armed to the teeth was fine by him.
O
Dean had to give the man credit. Most people who had discovered two corpses in the space of four days would probably be doing something a lot more hysterical than standing on the sidewalk, hugging themselves and shivering slightly. Of course, when Mr. Sharp started speaking, his voice was a good three octaves higher than usual and his teeth clattered hard enough to make his words a bit distorted. But still, unexpectedly impressive.
Dean was about to rush straight into the building, but Sharp stopped him with a hand on the arm.
"I saw him. The captain. It wasn't some mind trick."
Dean looked down at him, pausing for a second to search for an answer. Then he simply said, "No, It wasn't."
"And I'm not crazy."
"No, you're not."
"So... Captain Willows killed my father and now Mr. Bent."
"Yes, he did."
The older man drew a shaky breath and then let it out in a fast puff. "Shit."
"That about sums it up, yes." Dean nodded.
Sharp drew another deep breath and eyed the sawed off that Sam had pulled from the weapons bag.
"What are you going to do?"
The brothers exchanged glances. Good question.
So far, their plan had been to get there. It was all good, pulling up with tires squealing impressively, but they still had no idea what would actually stop the spirit.
"You don't know, do you?" Sharp asked, scrutinizing Dean's face.
"Sure we do. This is what we do, we... stop...these things... sure we do!"
"We don't know what's keeping him here," Sam stepped in. "So we can't destroy it."
He looked questioningly at his older brother. "But if we see the ghost, maybe we can find some clue...?"
Dean shrugged. "Hey, a rampaging ghost or another day with Sgt. Pepper's diaries? I'll take the ghost."
He fished his own sawed off out of the bag and held out a hand to the antiquities dealer. "Got the keys?"
Sharp nodded and made to walk to the door.
"It's okay," Dean said, still holding out his hand. "Just give them to me."
Sharp shook his head. "I'm coming in with you."
"What ? No, you're not!"
Sharp stuck out his chin defiantly.
"Look, just give us the keys and go wait in the car," Dean said, looming over the smaller man and trying very hard to rein in his temper. "You have no idea what you're doing, you'll just get yourself killed."
"No." Sharp shook his head stubbornly. "When you find your father on the floor in a bloody heap, then you get to tell me what to do."
"It's my shop, my family," he added, eyeing the older Winchester's suddenly stony expression. "I'm coming with you."
The two men stared at each other for a long time, one's expression cold and rigid, the other's scared but defiant. It was clear that standing his ground was a new exercise for the older man, but what little confidence he did have, he hung onto with an iron grip. Finally Dean shrugged and, giving Sharp one last glare, turned towards the weapons bag.
He fished out the salt canister and threw it at the antiquities dealer. "Fine. We don't have time for this. Just stay behind us and stay out of the way, or it's gonna be you I'm putting to rest tonight."
The Winchesters then each grabbed a shotgun from the bag, and the three men strode towards the darkened shop.