Chapter 25

Everyone Loves a Clown

"Let's all drink to the death of a clown."

The Kinks, Death of a Clown

Dean couldn't remember the last time a hunt had been this easy, leg-work wise, at least. Andrea had already set up a tour of Lenko's collection and worked with Dean the night before to rig their EMF detectors to vibrate rather than beep so that they could run some tests even in Lenko's presence. She had also informed them that they would be Dean McCartney and Sam Harrison, photographer and writer, for the ezine Darkest Collectibles. She'd even created a website with fake articles and set up a time to interview the man himself. It was like having a more tech-savvy version of Bobby. With boobs.

It was kind of awesome.

Though...it made Dean wonder just who Andrea had worked with before. This very clearly wasn't her first rodeo. She was good at this and had more skill with a computer than Dean had expected. But Dean hadn't really paid attention to the fact that she worked in computer forensics prior to her husband's death at the time the hunters had been working on her case.

The very best part of all of this was, for Dean, the disappointed look on Sammy's face when he realized he wasn't going to have to do much, if any, research if this all turned out to be centered around Gacy's hat. He was here to be brawn not brain. Add to it his baby brother's whole clown thing, and Dean was pretty thoroughly enjoying himself at Sam's expense.

At the start of it all, Dean's luck had seemed to be up. He would wear black T-shirt and jeans, with a camera hanging around his neck to take photos and maintain their cover. Sam, however, was a little deeper under cover. He had a digital recorder, which wasn't so abnormal in itself, and that had its own benefits. That provided the added bonus of picking up any supernatural or otherworldly sounds. Sam's clothes had been more carefully crafted to give the impression of a creative type with a slightly dark view of the world. When Andrea had finished the look with a pair of black-rimmed hipster glasses, Dean had lost it, telling his brother to embrace his inner goth hipster.

Andrea seemed to have a soft spot in her heart for Sam as much as Dean. The small and seemingly timid young woman decided that it was only fair that Dean look as prissy as his brother. After much protesting from Dean and Sam literally holding his brother down, the older hunter found his black T-shirt was only the icing on the too-old goth cake. He was now stuck wearing black nail polish and—the greatest of all their crimes—black eyeliner. They had even used a liberal amount of gel on his hair to finish the look.

"And it's waterproof," Andrea had said when Dean had stared at the black make-up. "So don't even bother."

"I'm 33 years old. I'm too damned old to be walking around like some teenaged emo kid." Dean glanced into the rearview mirror in his baby. "Dude. It's like a chick is looking back at me in the mirror. This just isn't right."

Sam laughed as he toyed with the digital recorder. "So Dean, tell me..." He held the recorder up to Dean's general direction and asked vaguely in tune to the old song, "Do you feel pretty? Oh so pretty?"

"I feel like I might murder you if you keep this up."

Dean heard his brother humming that damned song under his breath, and if he didn't love the Impala so much, he thought he might go ahead and slam her into the nearest tree rather than endure more of the gigantor's off-key singing. Driving through the little suburban streets, Dean had thought there might be something about Mr. Creepy's house that would set it apart, but the reddish siding and white shutters looked as all-American as the other homes on the street. It was, perhaps, a bit bigger than some of the other McMansions around it.

He considered snooping around the house and glancing in the windows for anything worthwhile, but they had no sooner exited the Impala when a guy who looked like he was ready to answer a casting call for Gomez Addams stepped out the front door. The dude actually had a red smoking jacket and seriously embodied the whole spooky thing. Someone, it seemed, had watched a few too many episodes of the Addams family and fate just hadn't been able to decide whether he should more resemble uncle fester or Gomez. He was a little round, a little sweaty and his hair was black and plastered to his head with some kind of hair product.

"Ah!" he said excitedly. "Mr. McCartney and Harrison!" He quickly approached them both and shook their hands. Dean very nearly cut himself on one of the multiple rings the guy wore on his fingers. Lenko moved to Sam, who had been fiddling with his phone for one reason or another, probably to make sure it wasn't in the same pocket as his modified EMF reader. "I'm so happy to have you tour my collection. Naturally, I will give you full access, though there are a few items I would ask your discretion about publishing."

"Great," Dean muttered to Sam as Lenko led them into the house. "He's like a cross between Edgar Allan Poe and Liberache." The hunters followed Mr. Lenko into his house, and even if Dean still thought Lucas had been on the right track with Gacy's hat, it was very clear that this house had a few dozen potential pitfalls waiting for them.

"Wait," Dean said, "is that the headlight to Ferdinand's Graf & Stift Double Phaeton?" Dean wasn't usually a history buff, but he knew his cars, and when a car plays a role in the start of the first ever world war, he pays attention. He'll be more attentive when he knows the car is supposedly as cursed as Little Bastard. "And isn't it supposedly in a museum in Vienna?"

Lenko nodded. "This is one of the items I'd rather not have promoted. It was taken during World War II, but you know how museums can be about artifacts, even if they've been gone for decades."

Walking through the foyer, Dean could see a well used copy of The White Album-which made him seriously hope that Lenko didn't piece together his and Sam's aliases-next to a nightie labeled Sharon Tate and a gold record of one of the Beach Boys' albums. "These are my Charles Manson collection."

Dean saw the man looking at him expectantly, and realized these items were apparently on the acceptable list. The hunter reacted appropriately and took a photo.

"Do you worry people will be offended that you've kept these items and created a sort of museum to the macabre?" Sam asked into the recorder before holding it out to Lenko. If they weren't under such close scrutiny, and if Dean wasn't wearing enough eye make-up to land himself with groupies for Alice Cooper, he might have made fun of his brother for the use of the word "macabre." Hell, Dean wasn't sure he could spell it without a lot of thought, what with its stupid silent French letters. But Dean was painfully aware of what teasing Sam would earn him every time his painted nails came into view.

"Let them. People have all sorts of interests. For some, it's hunting. For others, it's professional sports. There's something grotesque to both of those, but they do not receive the same criticism. These are my interests, and I know they intrigue others, too. It is why I have so many people asking to tour my home. Well, that and the local connection."

"The clown hat that belonged to John Wayne Gacy?" Sam asked, and Dean was fairly impressed by how steady his younger brother had kept his voice, considering he was asking a question about a serial killer and a clown in one sentence.

"Yes. It is in the library with some of my other most prized possessions." The man stood to the side of one of the doorways and indicated for Sam and Dean to step inside. It was only as they passed that Dean caught sight of the man checking out his ass. It took all he had not to shudder before Lenko's attention was focused somewhere else. Normally, Dean just shrugged off things like that by being flattered and moving on, but the guy was a little, greasy fifty-something toad, and that wasn't so easy to shrug off.

Dean was just a little nauseated.

So far, Sam hadn't noticed the added attention on his brother, and for that, Dean was grateful, but at least this time when it was possible that yet another person had assumed he was gay (though it was possible that Lenko was just checking out the merchandise; it was top shelf after all), he could blame it on his brother helping to make him look like a painted whore.

"Now, here is the piece de resistance, at least for curious locals." Dean got very close to the hat, close enough that his rigged up EMF sensor should have been vibrating the crap out of his pocket. It hadn't in the house at all, which made him wonder if the modifications had broken it. Dean took a few photos and then glanced up at Sam, who was shrugging his shoulders. His, apparently, wasn't going off, either.

Dean glanced around the library. Surely something in this hall of horror should be setting off their EMF. There was a wealth for the spiritual world to choose from: a board from Ted Bundy's utility room, a document signed by John Wilkes Booth, a slug from Bonnie and Clyde's car, a plant the hunter couldn't identify that was taken from a clipping of something from the Myrtles plantation, and... a guitar.

Despite himself, Dean was drawn to the thing. It was an old style, but Dean didn't know enough about the instrument other than to know it was an acoustic and a weird style. It was very old school design, but looked brand new. He might have assumed this thing was a remake, but he knew in his gut that it wasn't. It had been given a position in the center of the room that indicated it was very important, and yet, it wasn't even in a case, glass or otherwise. It wouldn't take much for the hunter to just touch it.

"I see you've found my own personal favorite." Lenko grinned. "Robert Johnson's guitar." Dean's eyes widened and he quickly yanked his hand back from its position halfway to touching the thing. "I assume you know the story about Robert Johnson and the crossroads devil?"

"Way too well," Dean said. And even knowing, being certain that this guitar was really bad news, he had trouble fighting an almost compulsive need to touch the thing. The feeling reminded Dean of the ballet shoes.

Fuck.

Dean wondered if the newly demonic Bela was behind this one, too. The best that Dean could guess, she was once again dealing in creepy objects, mostly cursed, and watching the havoc that erupted as she counted her money. This guy was probably her wet dream and—depending on whether she was in a male or female meat suit—his as well.

Sudden flashes of high school, being 14 and getting lessons from Pastor Jim popped into his head. Pastor Jim's guitar had been nothing like this one, and a very encouraging little voice was reminding him repeatedly of that fact.

He forced himself to look up at his brother to find the gigantor staring at him oddly. Apparently, it wasn't bothering him at all. Kind of like the ballet shoes.

"Do you have the box... or case that it came in?" he asked, trying to get across to Sam just what he thought the problem was.

Thank God for Sammy's big brain, because he immediately picked up on Dean's meaning and was now giving him a look as though assessing if Dean was all right. He didn't know if that was because of the crossroads connection or because of the man's previous experience with cursed objects.

"I do somewhere. Just managed to get it out, too. It cost me a fortune to get it done. It must have had a few dozen locks and seals on it. But it was worth it. I kept the box, though. It was very unique, and I've heard that some people believe those boxes keep out curses." He smiled at the hunters. "And considering the rumors around this particular instrument, it isn't much of a surprise."

Dean was still trying to resist the urge to touch the guitar as he watched Lenko pick it off the stand and damned near stroke the thing. "They say that in just touching this guitar, a person marks himself as a target for the beasts of hell, and by midnight the monsters will rip a victim to shreds."

Dean looked to Sam. The attacks seemed to match this story much more than Gacy's ghost. Hellhounds would cause the destruction described, but wouldn't care about taking the victim's heart. But just the knowledge for what he would be dealing with brought back enough memories to nearly get a visceral reaction. Unfortunately, while he was hiding it well enough from Lenko, it was obvious that, by the look Sam was giving him, his younger brother was going to want to talk about it.

And probably cry and hug, too.

The look Lenko was giving him was he moved a hand up the neck of the guitar was something else altogether. Dean could not suppress his shudder this time. "Creepy," he said, hoping the pervert thought he was talking about the guitar.

"Hard to imagine a strong guy like you afraid of a little curse."

Yeah, the curse.

"Strong or not," Dean said, "I don't think I'd stand much of a chance against beasts from Hell." No, he already knew how well he stood up against them, and nothing a person could try ever did any good if they were marked as the Hellhounds' chew toy. But he still was drawn to the damned guitar; twice now since he'd found out what it was, he'd caught his hand trying to seek it out. Then he'd have until midnight—just six hours—to torch the thing. Otherwise, he'd be puppy chow all over again. And heaven had finished with him, so there'd be no angelic rescue form wherever he ended up.

Though, well, there was Cas.

But Cas alone might not even survive, which was a horrific thought he didn't want to consider. Instead, he liked to focus on the idea that the angel would reach him very much alive. He just knew that would take time before his angel could pull him out of the Pit again. What he also knew was that he couldn't spend the time down there again and be brought back one more time. What would come back wouldn't be him anymore. He'd barely managed to piece himself back the last time, and he knew that it wouldn't take 30 years to break him a second time. Like a junkie let loose in a pharmacy after dark, he'd sink back to his addiction quicker than Sammy had started itching for demon blood.

Before he could do something stupid, Dean felt his phone ringing in his pocket. Though he'd initially been planning on pretending his phone was ringing so that he could call Bobby, someone was solving that problem for him. He had a sneaking suspicion it was the older hunter. The escape from the freaky man's watchful gaze certainly was a plus in Dean's book. "I should take this," he said, doing his very bet to look apologetic. Sam looked curious, though Dean assumed that his kid brother hadn't yet figured out that the phone actually was ringing. The little man looked disappointed. "I'm really very sorry. I will make it quick." He repressed the urge to full-body convulse at the man's pleased wink until he was out the front door.

As soon as he turned on his phone, he answered, "Hey, Bobby." He stood on the front porch of the creepy old house and watched out over the yard for the signs of anything else weird.

"Hey," Bobby said. Then, his voice got quieter, obviously calling to someone else in the room. "He picked up. You can relax now."

"He is uninjured?" Cas's voice asked.

"You hurt?"

"I'm fine," Dean replied, caught somewhere between amused at Cas and irritated that the angel had been tapping into his head... again.

"He ain't hurt," Bobby told Cas before speaking into the phone again. "Want to tell me what's got his feathers in a bunch?"

"Robert Johnson's guitar. Or at least, my reaction to it."

"Want to repeat that?"

"Gacy's hat is here, but it isn't the problem. According to the guy who owns all these creepy ass things, the guitar is cursed. Anyone who touches it becomes a hellhound chew toy." He heard Bobby swear softly, and he realized Johnny must have been in the room with him. He had to give him credit for the fact that the older hunter was managing to keep his language in check. Dean wasn't so sure he'd do as well. "The thing about it is..." Dean said. "Mr. Freaky has no problem touching it."

Or stroking it while looking at me. Dean let out all of the shudders that he'd been holding in. It was going to take some time to get that image out of his brain.

"So you're going to need someone to research." And then, Dean swore he heard a petulant tone creep into Bobby's voice. "Why don't you get the woman or her boy to check on it for you?"

Aww," Dean said with a grin, "Bobby's feeling left out. You know no one can replace you."

"Shut up, you idjit. I'll see what Cas and I can find."

"Thanks Bobby. See why it affects some people more than others, too."

"What do you mean 'affects' someone?"

"I may or may not find myself trying to touch it."

"Like the ballet shoes, then?"

"Does everyone know about that?" He was going to kill his brother. He was going to do it slowly, painfully. Then he was going to get Cas to drag him back so he could do it all over again.

"Yeah, sorry about that, Twinkle Toes. But you can't blame him, really. You'd have broadcast it on billboards if the situation would have been reversed."

"Well, yeah, but that's me. I thought Sammy was supposed to be more evolved or some crap like that."

"Guess he's still got enough of your genes to be an asshole one in a while."

"Bite me, Bobby," Dean said. "And watch your language around my son.

#

Being both relieved and worried was an unusual sensation, but that was where Sam was at the moment, all the while he was trying to pretend he was absolutely fascinated in the weird and messed-up collection that filled Mr. Lenko's suburban home. Sam couldn't begin to express how happy he was to realize that they weren't going to be going up against John Wayne Gacy's killer-clown ghost. There really weren't words for how awesome that fact was. The problems with his relief, though, were Dean and that guitar.

While they had been in the room with the thing, Dean had very nearly touched it multiple times. Sam had actually thought he might need to physically pull him away. And though Dean obviously seemed to hope that the younger brother had failed to notice a few things since they arrived at the house, Sam hadn't been totally oblivious.

Oscar, as he insisted Sam call him, had been eying Dean up like he was a piece of meat, and he might have done the same to Sam, except Sam had very purposely had his phone out when they'd arrived and very deliberately had a picture of Emma on the screen within Oscar's view. Every so often, he got a look from the man, but it was nothing compared to the way he looked at Dean. But, considering that Sam and Andrea had more or less forced him into his made-up, gelled alter-ego, it wasn't surprising Dean was getting attention he typically didn't attract.

Sam had also noticed his brother's reaction to the details of the guitar's curse. Back when he had been under Ruby's influence, Sam had been critical of his brother and completely lacked any understanding of what he had been through. As he realized now the reality of what his brother had suffered, in part due to maturity and a clear head and in part due to his own vaguely recalled experiences, Sam knew that he had been quite possibly the world's biggest asshole. He'd been judgmental because his brother, whose obvious PTSD had him so messed up he needed a steady dose of alcohol just to function, hadn't been able to just jump right back into the hunt. He was no better than the old WWI sergeants who would toss a shell-shocked private back on the front line and then court martial or kill the kid for his inevitable panic or desertion.

The look on Dean's face any time he remembered Hell or relive the moments of that horrific death, that had been the expression that spread across his features the moment Oscar told them about the curse. Sam knew Dean would never willingly talk to him about it, but he could keep a closer eye on the older hunter, and if things got truly bad, he would force Dean to talk, either to him or to Cas—it was rare, but on occasion, when the memories of Hell or his guilt were too strong, the angel seemed capable of getting through to the hunter. Sam assumed it was because Cas had been witness to what Dean became in the Pit. What he knew for certain was that Cas was the only person who could utter the words, "you're not to blame" or "you have long-since been forgiven" and actually cause Dean's shoulders to sag just a little less.

He was so glad to see Dean get some relief from his guilt that Sam couldn't even feel left out.

"So when did you begin this rare collection?" Sam asked as the man led him to a painting done by Adolf Hitler.

"About seven years ago. This was actually my first piece." Oscar turned his attention to the painting and smiled whistfully. "Imagine if Hitler had been a more popular painter. Or a better one." He smiled, but the squat little man in the red smoking jacket practically lit up when Dean came back into the house. Sam watched as Dean's left eye twitched as he fell under the strange man's gaze.

It was fairly obvious that what was going to be Sam's worst nightmare was quickly turning into Dean's. And they hadn't even dealt with the guitar yet.