Right, as I like to start as I mean to go on, I'm ushering in the New Year with fanfiction! Thanks to all those who reviewed Part One, you really make my day. )

2xxx
Sara exited the motel room and sat on the step, watching Dean with an amused eye. "How is it?"

"Looks okay," Dean said, not looking up from his detailed examination of the Impala. "Did you call Will?"

"Yeah. He's going to look into Cecilia Grenfell, call us back if he finds anything."

"Cool. So then tomorrow, we track her down, set her on fire?"

"This isn't Salem, Dean. How do you kill a witch, anyway?"

"Consecrated wrought iron rounds. Buckshot, same deal."

Sara nodded thoughtfully. "You got any?"

"Since when do I not have ammo? It's in the weapons' bag."

"Right, of course." She watched him silently for a few moments. "God, Dean, how obsessed are you with that car?"

He finally looked at her, smirking. "Getting jealous?"

"In your sad and lonely dreams, Dean Winchester."

Dean stuck his tongue out at her. "I'm going to go grab some food. Pizza?"

Sara nodded. "But no-"

"Pepperoni, yeah, I know."

Back in the motel room, Sara fished out some aspirin. Two hours of chanting, giggling and incense had given her one nasty headache. Nothing a little time wouldn't cure. Pizza was good for that sort of thing as well, at least, it was if you believed Dean.

But when Dean returned, with the promised pepperoni-less pizza, Sara had to admit that his cures made sense most of the time. They certainly made her feel better.

xxx

Dean opened his eyes to darkness, the room still smelling faintly of pizza, and frowned. Something had woken him. This room actually had decently thick curtains, for once, and it took a glance at the glowing numbers of the clock to tell him it was nearly six. He slid one hand underneath his pillow, ears straining for whatever he had heard before.

Then the noise came again, from Sara's bed. A faint whimper. He knew Sara had the odd nightmare, just like anyone would who regularly got to see right-life monsters, but this wasn't fear. Not fear, but... pain.

Dean turned on the bedside light on and rolled off the bed easily, leaning over Sara. "Hey," he said, then again, "Hey, Sara,", more loudly.

When she still didn't react, Dean put one hand on her shoulder and gave her a faint shake. At least, that was the plan. It was dropped the moment he felt how cold she was.

"Sara, wake up!"

Finally she reacted. "What?" she groaned, trying to turn over, away from him. "Oh, piss off, Dean."

"Sara!"

"What?" she snapped back, looking over her shoulder, and then repeated herself, "What?" in a completely different way when she saw the look on his face.

Dean cautiously touched the back of her T-shirt. The green material was stained, dark, and his fingers came away red.

"What the hell?" Sara sat up. One hand went to her back, under the t-shirt.

"Let me see," Dean said.

Under the t-shirt, Sara's back was smeared with blood. But the skin was smooth, unbroken.

"Name something that can make you bleed without cutting you," he said.

Sara met his eyes, face pale. "How about a witch?"

Dean found his jacket, found the EMF in one of the pockets and threw it at Sara. She caught it and hesitated. Then, with a deep breath, she flicked it on.

And dropped it like a hot coal when it whined loudly, the needle shooting right up to the far end of the scale and staying there.

"Well, that's not good," Sara said, hurriedly turning it off again.

"EMF freaks out, you're bleeding without a wound. Seems kinda..."

"I'm cursed. Literally, for once." She smiled grimly. "What do you think is going to happen to me?"

"Nothing. I won't let it."

xxx

Singer's Auto Salvage Yard

South Dakota

The phone going off in all manner of ungodly hours was not one of the most pleasant aspects of Bobby's life, but he had enough friends and colleagues trying to kill themselves on a daily basis that he never let the irritation stop him picking the phone up. He was one of the best demonology experts in North America and sometimes information was all that stood between being the Hunter and the hunted.

"Singer-"

"Bobby, what do you know about curses?"

Bobby blinked, surprised. "Dean Winchester? What's-"

"Curses, tell me about them."

Right, it was one of those conversations. "Uh, nasty, always nasty, hard to break. Best bet is to avoid them. What's going on?"

"We're trying to find a witch, one that killed for power and I think she got to Sara first."

Right, Dean and Sara were hunting together these days. Bobby was starting to feel old; he kept thinking of the two of them as kids, following their respective parents around with almost-fanatical devotion. But John was hunting solo and Amelia was dead, and nothing was quite the same.

"Sara's freezing and there's blood on her back, but there's no wound," Dean continued.

"Blood coming from nowhere?" Bobby repeated slowly.

"Yeah, what does that mean? Bobby. What does that mean?"

"Shit. Bloodstone," he said, rubbing his eyes.

"Huh?"

"Bloodstone curse. Don't really know where the name came from, but the main symptom is bleeding from the back with no reason. EMF?"

"She lit it up like a goddamn Christmas tree!"

"Yeah, that would definitely be a curse."

"So how do I get rid of it?"

"Um, you don't. Dean, this curse had never been broken that I know of."

"What'll it do to Sara?"

Bobby sighed. "It'll kill her."

"Oh, you gotta be kidding me."

"Look, I'm not happy about it either!" Bobby snapped. He liked Sara, for crying out loud. Kid was just like her mom used to be, when Bobby first met her back in the eighties. All wicked sense of humour and seemingly random bursts of violence.

"Then tell me a way to break it!"

"Dean, you listen to me. I'll ask around, but there's a maximum of eighteen hours before it kills Sara, and that's from the time it was cast. The blood starts between eight and twelve hours into that time. So when was she cursed?"

"Not sure. Last night, I guess. Any way to tell exactly how much time we got left?"

"When there are only three hours left..."

"What? Bobby, you just told me Sara's gonna die so this really isn't the time to be holding back on me."

"Agony. She's going to die in complete agony, hurting so badly she'll die just to make it stop. The pain starts three hours before she dies."

There was a long pause and all Bobby could hear was Dean's breathing, harsh, trying to get himself back under control. And when he spoke again, Bobby knew he hadn't been entirely successful.

"Find me a way, Bobby. Find one or make one, I don't care what you have to do."

Bobby sighed as the phone went dead, then started to dial again. "Jim? Yeah, we got a problem."

xxx

Dean dropped the phone back onto the bed, resisting the urge to fling it at a wall instead.

"So that's it then?" Sara asked, standing in the bathroom doorway. She'd gone in there to try and wash the blood off and it seemed Dean's hopes about her not hearing had been completely in vain. "At about four o'clock, I die screaming?"

"No. I'm going to stop it."

"Great. Let me know how that works out for you."

"Sara, don't, okay? Just have a little faith, would ya?"

Sara's gaze dropped to the floor and Dean sighed.

"Any luck stopping the blood?"

"No. I bandaged it, didn't know what else to do. It's really getting kinda creepy."

Understatement of the year. "Bobby's looking into it. You say here; I'm going to retrace our steps, try to figure out where you were cursed, okay?"

Sara nodded, eyes still fixed on the floor. There was no way she could go with him, not with a blood-covered spine. "It's kinda funny," she said when Dean took her arm, steering her back to bed.

"What?"

"Next week, it's my anniversary. Two years since my first solo exorcism. Mum never did think I'd live to see it."

"That proves me right then, doesn't it?" Dean said. "You always did have to prove your mom wrong. I'll be back soon, okay?"

"Yeah, sure," Sara said, managing one completely unconvincing smile, but Dean recognised the gesture for what it was – it's okay, you can leave – and left before either of them could talk themselves out of this.

He had work to do.

xxx

The area where Sara had been cursed would make the EMF react, just like Sara had. At least, that was the principle. Any sort of magic kicked up a few supernatural signals, like the mirror-room back in Iowa, or the freaky signs that exorcisms produced. If Dean could figure out where Sara had been cursed, he was one step closer to the witch and therefore to saving Sara's skin.

A quick scan of the motel parking lot showed not even a trace of EMF, so Dean moved further a field. The day before, Dean and Sara had been to exactly three places: the motel, the diner down the street and Amanda Roth's house. After a moment's thought, Dean got into the Impala and passed the EMF detector over Sara's seat. There was just the faintest flicker, but enough to confirm his suspicions. Sara might have been hit by the curse in the Impala, which meant she could have been attacked anywhere where they'd driven. And he only had just ten hours at the most to sort this whole thing out.

Dean quickly retraced the route he'd taken while trying to find Amanda Roth's home, all the while keeping one eye on the EMF for any hint of activity. There was nothing by the time he arrived once more at the right house.

The 'nice lady at the motel', as Sara had called her, had been very helpful when Dean spoke to her. Well, dear, Mrs Roth is working on Tuesdays, leaves the house before seven-thirty, just like her husband, but you can find her at the local school. They've just started the summer term, of course, the kids don't get there till eight-thirty, not like when I was a girl...

Which made this pretty much the perfect time to break and enter.

The area where the curse had hit Sara would give off EMF, Dean knew, but a quick phone call to Bobby confirmed his other suspicions: so would the spot where the curse was cast. While Dean had kept the EMF on while Sara was in the meeting the night before, he'd switched it off the moment she came out. Stupid! But as there wasn't a huge amount he could about that now, the best he could do was just check that Amanda Roth had nothing to do with this. She might be the only person who knew how to find the other witches and the sooner Dean could eliminate her as a suspect, the better. Until he found some definite evidence to point towards Cecilia Grenfell, Dean wasn't going to leave any avenue unexplored.

But even breaking in and scanning the whole house without finding a trace of EMF didn't make Dean feel comfortable about even seeing Amanda Roth again. Sara attending the coven's meeting had been the quickest way to get information, true, but it had also put Sara in danger a hell of lot sooner. And Dean couldn't forget that it had been Amanda's idea for Sara to attend and the one to boycott Dean's presence. Putting yourself between Dean and whoever he was protecting was a sure-fire way of getting him on your bad side. His misgivings aside, however, there was nothing to show that Amanda had anything to do with what had happened to Sara.

One witch down, another dozen to go. Furious, Dean exited the house and returned to the Impala, throwing the EMF, without even bothering to turn it off again, on the seat before starting the engine again. He wasn't any closer to figuring out how to break this thing and, to be honest, this was little more than busy work. He wasn't going to find a damn thing-

The EMF freaked out, lights flashing, beeping like hell, the whole nine yards. Dean hit the breaks, seriously thankful there weren't any other cars around.

Okay, so unless this was one weirdly mystical neighbourhood, this had to be the spot where Sara had been cursed. Hang on... That car. The one that had cut across them the night before. Dean slammed a hand down on the steering wheel. Distract, delay, attack. Classic technique, one that Dean had used himself. And what better way to do it than nearly cause a car-crash?

You know, it should really have worried Dean that not only had a witch attacked Sara, she had tracked her, planned, and most likely knew about Dean as well. As it was, he really didn't give a damn. He'd never had any problem with being known.

xxx

Dean opened the room door softly, hoping against hope that Sara might be asleep. And then his heart nearly stopped when he saw the empty bed. He surged into the room, but pulled up short when he saw Sara sitting against the wall by the bed, backed into the corner, facing the door.

He knelt by her, waiting until she opened her eyes. He knew she wasn't asleep, but it took her longer to react than usual. Not surprising; if all that blood oozing out of her back was her own, Sara had been losing blood slowly but steadily for almost three hours. Not enough to be dangerous, Dean figured, but definitely enough to make her a little out of it. "Sara? Wanna tell me what's wrong with your bed?"

"Can't breathe lying down," she said softly, voice shaking. Hell, all of her was shaking, Dean realised and he pulled the blanket off her abandoned bed and tucked it around her. "I think Will called," Sara added, fighting to keep her eyes open. "Didn't answer. Phone was too far away."

Her phone was only on the bedside table, on the other side of the bed, and Dean felt his stomach twist. "I'll call him," Dean reassured her. He started to move away, but Sara's hand loosely gripping his sleeve stopped him.

"Dean?"

"Yeah?"

"What's the time?"

"Almost nine."

He saw the shift in her face, the forcing down of emotions.

"It's gonna be okay," Dean said firmly. "'Cause nothing's going to happen to you. Will's one hell of a tracker, remember, and he's going to tell me everything I need to know and then I'll deal with this. Okay?"

There was a brief, harsh moment of clarity, where Sara looked at him and he knew she didn't really believe him, and then she nodded, trying to smile. Trying to be strong and Dean felt another spark of anger. Yes, it helped him no end if Sara managed to hold herself together while he did his best to save her life, but he hated it that it was so damn easy for her to slip into this Yeah, it's all fine, not a damn thing can bother me façade that really didn't comfort him right now, not when he had maybe only six hours before she died. Hell, she hadn't even been allowed to grieve for her own mother. No wonder she could somehow repress the entirely pressing issue of her own upcoming death.

"I should call Will."

"Hey, don't tell him anything. Not until it's over," Sara said.

Dean paused, incredulous. "You want me to lie to him, the closest thing you got to family?"

"Yes. He can't know..." She sighed. "You have to tell them it was quick, okay? That it didn't hurt. That I wasn't scared. So, yes, I want you to lie."

Dean didn't trust himself to answer, so he just grabbed Sara's phone and checked the screen. 1 missed call, Will. Using his own cell, he called Will.

"Will, you got something for me?" Dean glanced at Sara. "Oh, she's busy flirting with a waiter. Yeah, so, Cecilia Grenfell?" He frowned, listening intently as Will spoke at top-speed. "Oh, you gotta be kidding me. You're sure? Manage to get a current address? Well, no worries, man. We'll just track her down the old-fashioned way. Yeah, thanks, Will."

"No good news, huh?" Sara said. Her eyes weren't even open anymore.

"Cecilia Grenfell moved to River Mill two months ago, before that she was living in this nowhere town in Nebraska. There was a murder, just before she left, one young woman found in the same condition as Lucy Miles. She was Kathleen Grenfell, Cecilia's sister. Which I guess explains how she could curse you without getting close to you. She was way more powerful than we thought, I mean, sacrificing a relation and all."

She grinned. "Still hate legwork?"

"Sara."

"Sorry. So, Cecilia's our witch. We knew that. How does it help us?"

"Well, I track her down and use the next six hours to make her undo it. How's that for a plan?"

"Somewhat lacking. You don't even know where she is."

"Like you said, everyone gossips. I'll just ask."

"What, 'Sorry, ma'am, but I need to kill a murderous witch who's cursed my best friend. Could you possibly point me in the right direction?'"

"Nope. Police officer, checking up on a link between Lucy Miles and Kathleen Grenfell, killed back in Nebraska under tragic circumstances."

Sara slowly drew her knees up to her chest. "Dean..."

"What?" And he did his absolute best not to snap at her. Sara seemed to realise that he wasn't in the mood to hear what she wanted to say, and Dean knew that what she did say wasn't what she'd intended.

"Hurry back, okay?"

Dean resisted the urge to sigh; Sara would hear it easily even if she did have her eyes closed. Slowly, he gathered up his phone, the EMF and his gun once more, reluctant to leave Sara alone like this. When his fingers brushed the battered black canvas of her backpack, the stupidest idea hit Dean, but he went along with it anyway. In December, he'd given Sara a toy rabbit when he'd learnt she couldn't remember having a stuffed animal as a kid. Dean had only learnt by accident that Azi, as Sara had christened the little rabbit, lived in the same backpack that housed her hunting-stroke-exorcism kit. He'd decided never to mention it, but desperate times, right? Unzipping the bag, Dean carefully reached past packages of herbs, bottle of holy water and Sara's journal to find the toy and then gently slid the rabbit into Sara's hand.

"I'm not a child, Dean," she said tiredly, but she tightened her fingers around Azi. "You should get going."

He nodded, gave her shoulder a final reassuring squeeze, and left her there, a little girl clutching a toy rabbit, with blood covering her back, smeared on the wall behind her.

Outside, Dean made himself breathe slowly, attempting to calm down. He hadn't managed it by the time his cell rang and he answered with a curt, "Yes?"

"Dean, we might have a way out of this."

"Bobby, man, you're a saint. What it is?"

"Uh, I called Jim Murphy, he knew this Canadian tracker, called Maxwell."

"The same Maxwell who knew Amelia, helped train Sara, all that?"

"Yeah. He'd been doing some research on curses for years, he figured out why this curse is called the Bloodstone Curse. It has to be channelled through a human host."

"And they're the Bloodstone?"

"Yeah. The name never made any sense before, because bloodstones are meant to cause prosperity, not death, and-"

"Bobby, I don't need the combined history of shiny rocks, okay? What do I do?"

"Kill the Bloodstone. And traditionally, the witch uses herself as the Bloodstone."

"That might just be the best news I've had all day."

"Well, before you start shooting people, the Bloodstone has a red beta on her left palm."

"That narrows it down. Thanks, Bobby."

Five and half hours to go, two and a half before the pain started for Sara. One suspect, one way to deal with the problem. That wasn't so bad.

xxx
Next chapter should be up on Sunday. Reviews are... okay, I'm running out of other ways to say 'loved', but you guys get the idea...