"At least now we have something to work with."
"Really. What's that?"
Dean held up the paper. "The murderer is a woman." He said. "And I quote, 'the most beautiful woman I've ever seen'."
"Maybe it's just a coincidence."
"The same coincidence popping up for the last fifty years?"
"So you think it's definitely a job and not just an urban legend? Not just someone murdering these men in the same style as some wackjob several decades ago?"
"Hell, yeah." He nodded. "You see, you got names like Jack the Ripper that will live on in folk memory for generations, so the instant you kill the same way he did, you get some of the notoriety that he had. You take on the identity of some hick killer from way back when, you're just another psycho."
"I don't get it."
"People kill because they want to make a name for themselves, Sam." Dean said patiently. "They want a reputation, to be feared and placed on a pedestal by other nuts. To be remembered."
"Wow, that was… actually pretty well thought through." Sam decided he didn't want to know why Dean was convinced he knew why people emulated infamous killers. He watched as his brother rose and bent to retrieve his jacket from where he had flung it last night.
He pulled out Dad's Journal.
"What are you doing?"
Dean sat back down at the table, searching for something among the faded words. "I think I know what we're chasing." He said, faint wonder in his voice as if he too was a little bit surprised that it was he who hit realisation first.
"Yeah?" Sam raised an eyebrow.
Dean folded the paper so only the headline 'Nightclub Seductress' was visible. "All these dead guys have been lonely single men, right? You researched the known cases yesterday; any women ever been targeted?"
Now you mention it… "No."
He lay the journal reverently on the table between them. Taped to the page was an artist's pencil sketch of a beautiful woman with long hair and floaty robes, and…
"The bat wings add a certain old-world charm, don't they?"
Underneath the depiction Dad had labelled the creature in his messy yet steady hand.
Succubus.
Sam rested his chin on his hands. Actually, that made a lot of sense the more he thought about it. "That would explain why none of the descriptions of the woman matched up." He mused.
"Does it?"
Sam pointed to another scrap of information in the book. Dad had summarised a passage from a Latin text and added his own footnote. Will appear as perfection, everything you ever wanted.
Strongly advise against hunting one if male.
"Dean, your idea of a good woman is going to be different to mine."
"That's painfully obvious."
"-And my idea of a prefect woman will be different than that to the guy down the street. Dude, this is why they all saw different people."
"It fits." Dean admitted. "We have to say it fits. Perfectly."
"What's up?"
"How many times have we cracked open Dad's journal after we defeated the bad guy and foundered about making an even bigger mess only to find out that the answers were under our nose the whole time?"
"Well, there was that one-"
"That wasn't a question, stupid. Always after, never before. That's the way it goes."
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"We haven't done anything for almost a week now and suddenly the beginning, middle and end just shows up at breakfast?" He gestured at the journal. Something screams setup. "Doesn't that seem a bit… odd to you?"
Sam frowned. Dean was making a good point. "Dean, I know that you're maybe not the most… Cluedo-type person on the planet, but maybe this time it's going to be a nice an' easy one."
"Do you even remember what happened the last time we thought it was a 'nice an' easy one'?" Dean demanded. "Each time we think it's going to be a 'nice an' easy' one, one of us get stabbed, or shot, or dies gruesomely-"
"I get it." Sam cut in over him. "You think that someone's out to get us."
"Don't be so paranoid." Dean scoffed. "Maybe she's just setting a trap for anyone that might be following her. I doubt we're the first ones to…" He trailed off.
"Dean, you okay?"
Sam's brother was staring intently down at the paper, his brow furrowed. He hadn't read the article completely before, and now what he had found prompted him to comb it for even the slightest clue.
"Dean?"
"Hey, listen to this. 'A search of the victim's apartment revealed two pistols -'"
"This is America. Everyone carries a gun."
"Shut up. 'And three wooden stakes, one hidden in an additional pocket sewn into the lining.' I think our bad boy here was looking for some trouble and got in over his head." He tapped the paper, slowly looking up to meet Sam's eyes.
"So." Sam said slowly. "What first? Break into a crime scene or break into Gwen Palmer's for the video tapes?"
"Are you kidding? We break into the crime scene."
The place was cordoned off with police tape, yet there was only one officer at the scene, looking the other way.
This is too easy. "Probably taking a doughnut break." Dean grinned. "Move it, Bonnie."
"How come I'm always Bonnie?" Sam hissed, swinging himself up onto the fire escape beside his brother. "Why can't I be Clyde for once?"
"Sorry, man. You just look like a Bonnie to me."
"I look like a Bonnie?"
"Yeah, with those big doe eyes and darling pout…you do know this conversation is absolutely whacked, right?"
The two of them were silent as they crouched beneath the window and watched the officer walk across the front of the door again.
"He's waiting for something."
"Probably forensics."
"Well, let's get in and out and try not to leave any bits of ourselves for any enterprising young Scullys to find." Dean checked his gloves, readjusting them across the knuckles.
"If this guy was a hunter, he would have hidden all his stuff pretty well."
"In which case all we have to do is think like a hunter." Gee, Doctor Sam. I couldn't have possibly figured that out on my own. "Shouldn't be too hard."
He hooked his fingers under the window, which had been left open a crack. It was easy to lever up, and Dean had to wonder how many times the guy who lived here had actually come in through the window rather than take the front door. He knew he'd done it a few times.
Sam's sneakers made no sound as they hit the ground. Dean's boots weren't much louder on the floor. He had scraped most of the mud and dust and blood off them so he wouldn't accidentally add more unexplained evidence to a crime scene where it was already painfully obvious that no one knew what was really going on.
No, he didn't feel like confusing anyone today. Which really said how much he had grown as a person in the last few years.
The room was sparse. TV. Bed in the corner. Fridge that wasn't even half-stocked. Cupboard. Papers scattered all over the floor, covered in some form of geek-speak. Computer code. Dean picked one up and stared at the letterhead.
"Check this out. 'Adrian Jones, purveyor of ancient artefacts'."
"Maybe it's just a flyer he picked up somewhere."
"'Dearest AJ, thanks for the tip. Helped heaps. Love, Miss Bela T.'" Dean read. "No, I'm pretty certain it's the same guy."
Sam's head snapped up. "Bela Talbot?" He hissed.
"Makes sense." Dean said grimly. "With the 'purveying' of ancient artefacts."
"Fantastic."
"I'm not exactly jumping for joy, either."
There didn't seem to be anywhere else in the room that anyone could have kept something hidden.
"Maybe we were wrong. This Adrian, if he knew Bela, he was probably into some heavy stuff."
"Man, are you saying he deserved it? I don't believe you, Sam." Dean took a menacing step forward.
The floor squeaked underfoot.
The brothers exchanged surprised looks before Sam crossed quickly to the door to keep a lookout as Dean hurriedly pulled up the rug. Hey, the classics always work.
"Hurry up, we're kind of working to a deadline."
"Calm down, sparky." Dean ran his hands over the floorboards, finding the one that was loose. He rocked the board from one side to the other, working the nails out of the wood. Finally it came free in his hands.
He withdrew a pencil torch from a jacket pocket and shone the beam into the hole. "Damn, we've hit the motherload."
Several squad cars pulled up in front of the apartment block. "Dude, we're out of time."
"Mn."
"Now!" Sam went back over to the open window. "You move it now or I swear I'll leave your ass behind." He looked back in time to see Dean tuck something into his jacket.
"I'm coming."
The two didn't stop moving until they had walked back to the Impala, which had been parked several blocks away. "You get your answer?"
"I'm not sure whether this guy was completely legit, with his whole association with 'Miss T', but yeah, I have my answer." Dean replied, before pulling a dusty, leather-bound book from an inside pocket. Sam had to do a double take.
"That's a-"
"That's what I thought."
"You lifted a dead guy's journal?" Sam sounded morally scandalised.
"Oh, c'mon. It's not like he's using it." Dean rolled his eyes. He flipped to the last page that had been written on, and stopped, eyes darting quickly across the words.
"Dean?"
Dean held up the journal. Across the page, written in red ink, at least Sam hoped it was ink, there was a message.
To those that stumble upon this journal:
You will not find me. Many have already tried, and they have all died. None of you will chase me from this world any time soon. I have a duty to fulfil, as much as you and yours do.
May we meet one day in Hell,
Life.