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TEN

Brewer Motor Inn
Brewer, Maine
Wednesday, August 2, 2006
8:47 PM

"Nice to know we're back at square-freakin'-one," Dean muttered as he jabbed a flat-head screwdriver into the slat between the base of the TV and the DVD player, trying to pry open the tray. He had been doing so for the past half an hour, trying to get it to spring loose in order to remove the disc, but it seemed as if the player—or maybe even the disc itself—didn't want to come free.

After leaving Ramona Wheeler's house, Dean had directed them back toward their motel, intent on getting the DVD out of its holder to check it out. Though Sam had made sure to mention that the only inspecting his brother would be doing would be the physical kind and not of the mental type, Dean had insisted that he wasn't going to watch it once it came loose. Still dubious of his brother's promise, Sam had made sure not to leave the room in case curiosity got the best of Dean, like it often did.

Under the guise of searching online for more clues, Sam sat stationed behind his computer near the door of their motel room, the screen bright against the dim light encompassing the space. For the past week that they had stayed at the Brewer Motor Inn, the lamps had slowly burnt out until leaving them with just one—the one on the nightstand between the beds. It provided enough light for Dean to see as he tried to lever open the slat of the DVD player, but not enough for Sam to do more than tinker around on his computer.

"We're not at square one," Sam said flatly as he kept his eyes on his laptop, pushing a few buttons here and there to keep up the ruse that he wasn't secretly watching Dean.

"Uh, yeah we are, Sammy," Dean argued, jamming the screwdriver into the slot with renewed gusto fueled by his irritation. "We don't know who the witch is, how to find her, or even," he paused a minute to try to levy out the jammed tray, "what she's doing this for."

"I might have an answer to that last one," Sam sighed, opening a webpage he had saved back at the diner for future reading. It had been a link attached to one of the online conspiracy theories about the attacks, one that he hadn't had much time for except for a quick scan. Even on his first impression, he had the idea that the writer was on the right path. "In some spells, the use of human bones amps up the power of the spell. Usually, the fresher the corpse, the more juice it's got."

"Great," Dean moaned, slapping his hands at his side and leaving the tool jutting handle-first out of the broken television. "Just what we need, a witch with something big up her sleeve. Let me guess: human bones equals dark magic?"

"Yep," Sam nodded.

Dean frowned before returning to his work, now using brute force to pry open the thing. Unfortunately, all it did was cause the screwdriver to scrape off a piece of plastic before coming free of its position. Groaning in annoyance, he tried again before speaking. "So what's this bitch's game plan? Use this DVD thing to kill a bunch of people, then collect the scraps afterwards?"

"I don't know," Sam answered honestly. "It's possible. The only thing that doesn't fit with that plan is the fact that bodies haven't been reported missing from the morgue. That, and those girls that had the run-in with the semi truck. They probably didn't have any salvageable parts left."

"Well, don't sugar-coat it, Sam," Dean grinned, giving up and taking a seat on the bed. After a long minute, he used his left hand to wrestle with the slat while he remained sitting, as if he couldn't let it go until he broke the disc free. "Still, no witch and no address. Kind of sounds like we've got nothing to go on."

Sam bit his lip. "Not nothing. There are still two more people that lived in the Dallas area before moving here. We can check them out, see if any of them fit the description."

"Fit the description?" Dean laughed. "Sam, have you ever seen a witch up close? They don't have that whole snaggle-tooth thing going on like in Snow White. You usually don't know who they are until the attack you."

"I know," Sam groaned, then waved off his brother, deciding to avoid an argument. They already had enough on their plate, a discussion about the appearance of witches wasn't one of them. Getting up from his chair, Sam crossed over to Dean and batted his brother's hand away from the screwdriver before taking hold of the handle. At Dean's raised eyebrow, Sam pushed the tool to the right until the DVD tray popped free.

"How did you—" Dean asked, gaping at Sam as he removed the disc from its holder.

"Easy," Sam shrugged.

Holding the shiny silver DVD up with one finger, Sam gave it a solid once-over. The surface was neither scratched nor written on on both sides, nor was it dented or dusty. It appeared to have come straight from a stack as if brand new. As he peered at it, he saw nothing that would indicate where it would have come from, not even an insignia or a corporate logo belonging to the manufacturer.

Seeming to notice the lack of distinguishing marks, Dean scoffed and got to his feet before crossing the room and picking up the legal pad beside Sam's computer. Squinting at it in the dim light, his brother cleared his throat before reading the names aloud. "Okay, so we have Rachel Lauren and Debbie Hurwitz, both live on opposite sides of town."

"Think we should split up?" Sam asked, placing the disc gently on his bed and crossing over to Dean to read the short list over his brother's shoulder. "You take Debbie and I'll take Rachel?"

"In your dreams," Dean smirked. "Who's ever heard of a hot Debbie?"

"That's not really the point of—"

Dean waved him off. "Yeah, yeah. Listen, I'll check out this Rachel chick's house while you go give Debbie your puppy-eyed third degree. If either of us spots anything weird, we get the hell out of there and come back later. We can't fight a witch solo. It's too dangerous."

"Yes, sir," Sam mocked, about-facing and heading toward where his suit was hanging in the makeshift closet near the bathroom. Through the mirror, Sam caught his brother's confused stare and smirked to himself. "What? Can't exactly pull off the FBI gag without looking the part."

"Of all the people in the world to be stuck with on a case, I had to get Sam Winchester: Drama Dork," Dean groaned, following his brother's motions and grabbing his own suit off the dresser before slipping off his plaid overshirt. "You know, me and Dad did just fine without your ridiculous costume ideas."

Grinning, Sam turned toward the bathroom and headed inside. "Yeah, whatever."


As Dean dropped Sam off at Debbie Hurwitz's house, with a promise that he would be back directly after interviewing Rachel, Sam watched the taillights of the Impala disappear around the block before facing the small brown bungalow sitting in the middle of Ocean Road. Debbie didn't live near Brewer, or actually anywhere close, but instead on the outskirts of a town called Bayview not far from the coast. From where Sam stood on the pavement outside her nicely kept lawn, the smell of the salty sea air carried in the breeze, reminding him of the San Francisco trip he and Jessica had taken during Christmas break one year. He had gone up with her to meet her parents, but had enjoyed the city so much that they stayed a few days after to spend time down by the Warf. It was the first time he had gone somewhere without a demon to hunt or a person to save, and the change had, at the time, been refreshing. He was a civilian and nothing more. It was a life he thought he could live with and settle into, but that thought had slowly been pushed from his mind after rejoining Dean on the road and after Jessica had died, something he had a feeling was always there under a heap of denial.

Clearing his throat, Sam rolled his shoulders back before heading up the walk to Debbie Hurwitz's front door. Inside, the lights were on with the sound of chatter in the background, the flickering frame of something visible through a gap in the curtains. Ringing the doorbell, he reached into his coat pocket to retrieve his badge, waiting for the door to swing open. After a few minutes of nothing, he repeated the motion, hoping that somehow a copy of the DVD they had in the motel room hadn't magically made its way to Debbie before Sam had arrived. Fortunately, his worries were soothed when the door popped open to reveal a teenage girl with long blonde hair and bright blue eyes, staring earnestly at Sam with a furrowed brow. "Can I help you?"

"Hi, are you Debbie?" Sam asked, flashing his badge.

The girl shook her head before leaning back in the threshold to scan the interior of the house. "Mom! Door!" Tuning back to Sam, she gave him a small smile before stepping out of the way. "Come in. I'll go find her."

Crossing through the doorway, Sam looked around the Hurwitz's residence. The walls were dark with black-and-white pictures fixed upon them in odd places, some even hanging down to reach the stained shag carpeting underfoot. A TV about as old as the one Sam had smashed back at Ramona Wheeler's place was balanced upon a corner bookshelf full of VHS tapes ranging from Disney movies to World War II documentaries. Beside it was a plastic fichus with white Christmas lights draped in the branches, giving off enough light to illuminate that corner of the room. A couch sat positioned toward both the television and the linoleum-and-Formica kitchen, which had its overhead fluorescents on. However, the kitchen seemed too small to hold a table and instead housed two side-by-side dinner trays facing toward him.

The house, it seemed, though well-kept outside, was depressing and down-trodden inside, giving Sam the notion that if a witch lived here, she wasn't a very good one. Most witches used their spells to gain things, money and influence being the two biggest, and seemed to avoid keeping their success under wraps. Though he wasn't ready to rule the woman out entirely, he was sure she wasn't working the power angle.

As if to solidify his interpretation of her, Debbie Hurwitz appeared at the mouth of the hallway, dressed in a disheveled pink nightgown and air-dried curly hair. If she didn't have the appearance of just getting out of bed at nearly nine at night, Sam thought she would have been pretty, but the untidiness of her looks showered over that. Biting her lip, Debbie seemed to understand Sam's thoughts and smoothed her hair with her hands self-consciously before offering one out for him to shake. Accepting the grasp, he flashed his badge for her and motioned for her to sit down.

"Ms. Hurwitz, I'm here to ask you about the murder that took place at the Blockbuster Video in Bangor earlier today," Sam began. "You're aware that a Ms. Riley Storp died in the break room there, correct?"

"I'm… aware," Debbie answered, nodding solemnly.

"What can you tell me about it?" Sam asked, removing a notepad from the lining of his jacket and flipping it open.

"What do you mean?"

"As I'm sure you've heard, the girl was murdered in cold blood with no one being seen going in or out of the room. I was wondering if maybe you had an idea or theory as to who might have done it, co-workers or otherwise."

"Riley was quiet and kept to herself," Debbie replied, chewing on her lip in thought as she answered. "She always stayed in the video room of the store, rewinding tapes. No one really knew her. She was just a kid. It's… tragic."

"But you can think of no one who would want to hurt her? No one at all?"

Debbie paused for a minute, reaching up to bite on her fingernail as she milled the idea over in her mind. After a long moment, she shook her head slowly. "No one that I can think of, sir. Why? What's going on?"

"We think this crime might be connected to one similar to it in Dallas back in 1985. We're not sure yet, but we're asking around and talking to the people who lived in the area at the time. Our records indicate that you lived there from eighty-three to 1990, and worked at the Blockbuster there from eighty-seven to eighty-nine," Sam explained, tapping his pen point absently against the notebook in his hand. "Is that correct?"

Nodding, Debbie sighed, her shoulder slumping. "That's correct."

"Do you remember what happened back then?"

"Not much. A handful of young people were killed, then the murders suddenly stopped and no one had any answers. I kind of forgot about it until now," Debbie replied, glancing at her daughter, who had been standing in the kitchen during the entirety of the interview. "Her father and I didn't think much of it. I think we were too high on coke to care, frankly. We moved out of Dallas in the nineties when the rent became too much and took up residence here. He left me a year after that."

Sam sighed, biting his lip and wracking his brain for questions. Debbie seemed just as innocent as Ramona, and just as uninformed about the attacks as the other woman. Capping his pen using his teeth and stuffing it and the notebook into his pocket, Sam held out his hand for a shake. "Thank you, Ms. Hurwitz. We'll be in touch."

Turning towards the door and exiting the house just as his phone rang, Sam reached for his Treo and looked at the display. Dean.

"Yeah?" Sam asked, glancing around to see if his brother was somewhere around the block and headed toward him. At the silence on the other end of the line, he furrowed his brows and sighed. "Dean?"

"I'm here," Dean said suddenly, causing the tension that had temporarily built in Sam's chest to deflate. "Sorry. I dropped the phone. Anyway, Rachel was a bust. Not only was she seventeen and had only moved here last year, but didn't even work today. She had no idea Riley Storp had died until I told her, and, man, she did not take it well."

"So what do we do now?" Sam asked.

"I don't know. You're the college kid. You're supposed to figure that one out."

Frowning, Sam tapped his fingers against his thigh. "Yeah, yeah. Come pick me up."

"On my way, Bossy," Dean sighed. "Give me fifteen minutes."

Sighing, Sam took a seat on the curb a few feet from the Hurwitz residence and hung up the phone. In all honestly, he had no idea how they were going to track down the witch responsible for the killings, but he did know that they had the disc doing her dirty work. Unfortunately, Sam doubted that was the only copy floating around. If this woman was wise enough to convert formats, she was probably smart enough to figure out that a Hunter would come into town and try to wipe out her ammunition, meaning they had to find her before she figured out Sam and Dean Winchester were nearby.

Kicking his feet against the gray street, Sam pondered their options. If he was right in the flawed theory that the witch was using the cursed DVD to kill people in order to gather bones for a spell, then it was possible that the deaths of her victims summoned her to the area. However, in their search of the two crime scenes, Sam didn't remember seeing anyone similar at either of them. Ultimately, though, that could be attributed to the fact that he and his brother had arrived late on both of them. Still, there was no report of missing bones and the only way to truly know if that was the witch's motive was to check out the morgue.

Deciding to pitch the idea to his brother when he showed up, Sam wrapped his arms around his long legs against the chilly night and waited for Dean to appear.