Homestead Inn
"No, no please. Don't. You can't do this. Please don't do this," Louise Batton cried pushing herself back into the corner of the room. She knew she had no where to go, the wall was as solid as she was, but she tried. He was getting closer and closer, and she… she didn't want to die.
"I'm quite sorry, but I'm afraid I rather have to," he said. His voice was so cold it hurt her head.
"No! Don't!" she screamed, clutching her head. It hurt. It hurt so much. Crying out in pain, Louise slid down the wall to the floor. She could see anything, she couldn't hear. All there she knew was the pain in her head.
He just watched her, smiling.
Di di di di.
Damn it was getting annoying. Di di di di. Wasn't it ever going to end? Di di di di. Just make it go away! Di di di di. It's too damn early for this! Di di di di.
"Sam answer your phone!" Dean yelled from the floor between two beds. The four of them had gotten a room for the night as was usual. It was small and rather crummy, as was usual. The Charles sisters were sharing one bed, and Sam's feet were hanging off the end of the other.
"It's not mine," Sam grumbled back. It had been bugging him as long as it had been bugging Dean. So the elder brother thought about this for a moment.
"Nikki answer your phone," he grumbled, and fully deserved the pillow the mute woman smacked him with. Still, in protest, he grabbed it and took it from her, triumphantly putting it under his head.
Di di di di.
"Alex!" was Dean's last hope. They all heard Alex ruffle around under her covers.
"Okay, okay, I was hoping it wasn't mine," she said tiredly. Everyone listened to her fumble around in the dark, and, finally, the Di di di ding ended. The brothers both let out a sigh, but were cut short when the noise was instead replaced by Alex's much louder, much more disrupting voice.
"Hello? Who? What? Do ya know what time it is? Right, course ya do… What do ya want?" her voice was always loud. Dean reached under his head and gave Nikki her pillow back, just in case she needed it to cover her ears. All three were basically able to block out the bombarding Alabaman accent for a few moments, right until Alex cried out.
"What!" she said in shock. Nikki, figuring it was something she might be interested in, sat up and looked in her sister's general direction in the dark. Sam and Dean continued trying to block Alex out.
"Yeah, of course we will. Ya got an address?" a light flicked on as Alex scrambled around for a piece of paper and a pencil.
"Say that again," she instructed and started writing.
"Un huh, okay, yeah I got ya. Don't worry. It's no problem, we'll get right on it. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks. Bye," Alex's conversation ended. After clicking her phone shut, Alex sat with an elbow propped up on the table for a moment. She let out a soft sigh and looked toward the beds, where three people were watching her.
"Well?" Sam finally asked. Alex sighed again.
"We need to make a stop," she said simply.
"Another one?"
"Don't you actually want to see this Sally chick?" Dean asked her followed by a yawn.
"That was her on the phone, there's something she wants us to do."
"We're running errands for her now? We haven't even met her!" Dean was really too tired to be awfully upset, but he did seem mildly annoyed.
"It's important," Alex said seriously and everyone quite believed her. She looked over to her sister. "Louise Batton's been killed."
The brothers turned to see Nikki raise her hand to her mouth in pained shock. Dean noticed her clutching the blanket with her other hand. It seemed quite like the floor beneath her had suddenly dropped away.
"Who's Louise Batton?" Sam asked turning back to Alex.
"She is… was a friend of ours. We met her and Sally at the same time. She's um, she's a medium," Alex explained to them.
"And she was killed, not just died?" Dean wanted to clarify. Alex nodded.
"How was she killed?" Sam could tell Alex and Nikki were upset, so he asked this in his 'everything will be okay' voice. Anyone who listened to Sam a lot knew there were several different voices he used. There was the 'I'm really very angry' voice, and the 'this is serious' voice, the 'I don't want to tell you but I will' voice, and even the 'please stop doing that' voice that he used with Dean quite often. Oddly enough, the sisters had never heard any of those.
"Sally isn't sure, she saw it in a vision, so… But she said she got the impression Louise had been, um, 'drained' was the word she used," Alex wasn't really pleased talking about her friend in such away, but she knew the brothers had to know if they were going to be able to help. And frankly, Alex desperately wanted their help. She and Nikki couldn't handle this alone. They could handle a lot, but, not this.
"Drained of what, her life force, her blood..?" Dean asked in his 'this is how I ask everything no matter the situation' voice. Alex just had to shrug.
"Visions ain't the most informative thing there is," she said.
"But we're definitely talking our kind of thing, right?" he wanted to clarify. Alex nodded, more than positive about that. If Sally had thought it was something else, the Charles sisters would not have been the ones she'd call.
"Well, if we can help," Sam shrugged sleepily. Alex smiled appreciatively and stood up.
"Okay then! Let's head out!" she said. Nikki sprang from her bed and joined her sister in beginning to pack.
"Wait. What? Now?" Dean almost didn't believe them.
"Of course! Come on, this thing could get away!" Alex said and she and Nikki tried to decide who would change their clothes first.
"But we're sleeping…" Sam made his counterpoint.
"So? You can sleep in the car. I'm the one driving," she told him as Nikki went off to change. Sam sighed and crawled off his bed. Dean sighed too, but his sigh was much louder and had much more aggravation in it. He did toss his blankets aside, though, and started getting up.
"Ah," he said softly as he tried putting pressure on his bad ankle.
"Hey I got a question," he addressed the room, "why is the guy with the bad ankle the one sleeping on the damn floor?"
When Sam woke up again it was because a bright ray of orange colored sunlight hit him directly in the face. He blinked slightly as the sun flashed in and out of his eyes as trees moved by in front of it. Groaning with sleep he sat up, feeling the long hours right in the middle of his back. Sam tried to stretch his legs as far as he could, and the small space in which he had room too was really what reminded him he was in the Impala. Looking out the window he saw the trees and orange sun go by as they drove along.
"I'm the one, I'm the one, the one they call the seventh son," came out of the radio. Still blinking the sleep out of his eyes Sam looked to it and up to Alex who was driving. Now he had moved around quite a bit already, but Alex had a look on her face like she hadn't even noticed. Actually, Alex looked like she wasn't even there, more like she was off on some distant planet. Now this is usually not a look one wants to see on the person driving the car they're in, but she hadn't crashed them yet so Sam gave her the benefit of the doubt. He twisted his head around to the left and saw Nikki gazing out the window with much the same, dazed expression her sister had. Actually, and Sam had to notice this, the dazed expression made them really look like sisters for the first time since he'd known them. Somewhere in that lost look was the family resemblance.
It made Sam wish he knew what their mother looked like. He had a feeling Alex would look more like their mother than Nikki did.
Sam stretched himself around to the right and saw Dean's faced pushed up against the glass of the window, he was obviously very asleep. Sam smiled slightly as the fog by Dean's mouth grew and faded as the elder Winchester breathed. He hoped his brother was having good dreams, filled with lots of blonde starlets.
"Hey Alex," Sam said turning around to look at her. She did nothing so he repeated himself.
"What?" she finally asked glancing over at him briefly. Her eyes still seemed somewhere else.
"This Louise Batton. Was she a real medium?" his mentioning the woman's name brought Alex back down to earth, and, though neither noticed, Nikki turned away from the window to them.
"Of course she was, we don't like phonies," Alex grumbled slightly like Sam had accused her of something.
"Okay, I was just asking. Some phonies can seem pretty real," he didn't feel like upsetting her, but he wanted to make sure they weren't wasting their time.
"Yeah, well, Louise knew things, things no one could know," Alex's eyes were firmly set on the road ahead of them and Nikki's went off into space again. The inside of the car became so serious it made Sam slightly nervous.
"What kind of things?" he asked just to get rid of the uncomfortable silence.
"Private kind of things…" she ended that line of questioning. Sam nodded, figuring even the loud, talkative Alex was allowed her secrets.
The inn where Louise Batton had been staying looked nice and quaint. It was called the Homestead Inn and this surprised nobody. Alex drove the Impala into the gravel parking lot and stopped it pretty close to the front entrance. Everyone looked at it from the car, trying to make up their minds about it. The one who had the most trouble with this was Sam, who had a nagging feeling about the place.
"Are we staying here?" Sam asked for clarification.
"Louise was," Alex figured that was an answer.
"We might have some trouble," Dean said and pointed across the sidewalk to a parked police car. It appeared to be empty, but they all gave it a glare anyway.
"I don't suppose in your arsenal of fake IDs you two happen to be private detectives…" Alex suggested. Dean thought for a moment.
"I do. Under the name James Cain," he finally said. Alex nodded and turned around to look at him.
"We just hired you," she told him. It took Alex a moment to realize Dean wasn't going to understand what she just said. She sighed.
"Nikki and I will go in as friends of Louise's, which isn't a lie, and say we've hired you to investigate her death," she explained. Dean thought for a moment and finally nodded in approval.
"What about me?" Sam asked. If Dean was going to get to be a private detective he wanted to be something too. And, frankly, it was fun not to have to come up with stories on their own. It felt more like a game this way.
"You can be a friend of hers too. We can pretend you're a psychic or something," Alex shrugged.
The brothers were both very silent and very still.
It occurred to them both that they had never told the sisters what Sam could do. It wasn't an omission done on purpose, it was just something the brothers simply forgot about, and this surprised them. Sam's powers had become so every day to them that they simply didn't really think about it anymore. This concerned Sam, as he didn't want to become so used to them that he might just tell someone that he shouldn't without thinking about it. Dean on the other hand, was not so concerned, mostly because he never thought about what he said anyway.
"Hey, guys, listen…" Sam started to say carefully to the sisters.
"Wait," Dean cut him short by slapping Sam on the shoulder and pointing out toward the inn's front door.
A short, plump, nice looking lady was speaking to a police man in the doorway. The officer was listening and placing a hat on his head, obviously on his way out.
"Do we want to talk to him?" Alex asked as they all watched.
"Not yet, we'll talk to her first," Dean answered.
"You think they're renting rooms?" Sam asked generally.
"I'll go ask," Alex said and unbuckled herself and got out of the car. It was a noticeable trait that when the Charles sisters said they would do something, they just went right ahead and did it.
"Hey," Dean got his brother's attention, "I need a cool way to explain my ankle."
"I'll come up with a reason for your ankle if you come up with a reason for my hands," Sam suggested. Dean agreed and they both got to thinking.
Nikki had a hundred ideas for both, but oh well.
"It's a shame about your ankle, and your hands, but what a lucky thing for those orphans you were there," the innkeeper shook her head as she thought about it. The brothers sort of grinned at each other behind her as she led them all down the bright, cheery, light colored hallway. There was a moment where Sam almost knocked over a small porcelain cat, but he caught it and recovered without anyone noticing.
"Yeah these guys are real saints. Mrs. Mill, didn't you have a person stay here not long ago, Louise Batton?" Alex asked from behind the tall brothers, where she and Nikki were lugging all of their stuff. If Mrs. Mill heard her she was the only one to know it.
"Here we are, now, the master suite," she said cheerily clanking an old key in the lock and opening the door, "I think you two boys will be comfortable here."
The Winchesters leaned into the room after Mrs. Mill stepped away. It smelled like every flower fragrance ever made. That fit the room perfectly, though, as every piece of linen, furniture, and wallpaper bore at least a dozen different kinds of flowers. Dean made a disturbed face and Sam forced a smile.
"Yeah, this is great, thanks," he told the round little woman. She smiled back and turned to the sisters.
"Okay girls, the bridal suite is this way," she said and led them further down the hallway.
"About Louise Batton," Alex tried again as she followed after. The brothers looked back into their room.
"This room makes me sad, Sam," Dean confessed and Sam nodded in agreement. Then they both felt a push against their backs and turned to see Nikki still standing their, holding all of their stuff. They could almost see the pain she felt from the strap of Dean's duffle bag cutting into her shoulder. Sam apologized for making her stand there while Dean did him one step better and actually took his bag off her. Sam moved his arm through one strap and carried his bag with his elbow. Nikki took a moment to stretched herself out and rub the sore spots before heading off to find her sister. Sam closed the door after her and turned to see his brother testing both beds to see which was more comfortable.
"What's the plan for tonight?" Sam asked sliding his bag off his arm onto the bed Dean didn't choose.
"Well, one of us should chat with that woman, get to know the history of the building, and the other should check the place out, find out where this Batton woman kicked it," Dean instructed, beginning to rummage through his bag for his EMF meter. Sam frowned.
"Hey Dean, I think this woman really meant something to Alex and Nikki, so do you think you might, I don't know, talk about her with a little more respect. Just for the girls, you know," Sam suggested. Dean looked at him in a little bit of surprise. Had Sam just asked him to be nicer?
"Yeah, sure," Dean said, figuring his brother had just lost his mind.
When Mrs. Mill offered to make them all dinner, it was natural that they'd except, and not only because they hadn't had any actual food in awhile, but also because it was a wonderful chance to talk her up. Normally, of course. It just so happened Mrs. Mill wanted to chat them up instead. After she served dinner and got them all eating, Mrs. Mill went on to ask them all questions, like where they were from, what they thought of the town, did they have any family. It would surprise the brothers to know that Alex's answers to these questions were mostly honest. Sam and Dean, however, did what they were good at, and lied.
"Well my dad was on the force back in San Antonio. I was in the Academy myself when he retired, and, well," Dean sighed, "30 years on the force and all they gave him was a watch. 30 years of risking his life every day making that town a better place, and all he got was a cheap, imitation gold watch? No, un uh, I decided that wasn't for me. So, I dropped out of the Academy, got myself a private investigator license, and that's what I've been doing ever since. Best decision I ever made."
Dean shrugged, leaned back in his chair, and folded his hands in his lap. Mrs. Mill and Nikki were watching him with great interest. Sam and Alex were impressed by Dean's lying as well, but neither were the sort to let him know that.
"And your father doesn't mind?" Mrs. Mill asked. Dean teetered his head from side to side in thought.
"Not at first, but then the watch broke, and he agreed with me a hundred percent," he explained. Mrs. Mill smiled and nodded. The conversation then changed as Nikki turned to her sister and signed something.
"Oh! Right! Good thing ya reminded me," Alex said and turned back to the table, "if ya'll will excuse me, I promised my boyfriend I'd call him at seven, and it's," she looked at her watch, "oh, excuse me, I got to go. Dinner was lovely, thank ya very much."
With that Alex smiled and left pretty quickly from the table. Nikki was still smiling at them all and Dean and Sam seemed every confused. This was the first they had ever heard of this boyfriend. The younger Winchester was wondering if he was a hunter too, while the older was wondering if it was the sort of man he'd approve of.
"Isn't that sweet? Are they very serious?" Mrs. Mill asked Nikki who nodded her head, pleased.
"How long they been together?" Dean asked. Nikki thought for a moment before holding up four fingers.
"Years?" he asked and Nikki nodded. He made a face.
"Seems like after four years he should sh-" Dean looked over at the round older woman and cut his 'shit or get off the pot' comment short, "think about taking the next step."
"Oh I'm sure she makes him think about it every day, doesn't she?" Mrs. Mill smiled warmly at Nikki who nodded again. Dean decided for a change in subject and nudged Sam's foot with his own. Sam looked over at him before remembering.
"Uh, um, hey, do we have any Tums up in the room?" he asked Dean pretending to try and sound quite.
"Not feeling well, dear?" Mrs. Mill asked him. Sam looked at her with that smile of his.
"I've just had a stomach all day, I'll take a few Tums, go lie down, it'll be fine," he wanted her not to worry.
"Yeah, they're in my bag," Dean told his brother as Sam excused himself and thanked Mrs. Mill for a lovely dinner. Dean watched him leave before turning to Mrs. Mill with a smile of his own.
"So, this is a lovely house you have here. How old is it?"
Sam did go back to their room, but only to get the EMF meter and digital camera. With Dean and probably Nikki occupying Mrs. Mill's time, Sam was going to poke his nose around. He hadn't heard anything of there being other people in the house, but if Sam happened to run into one he could always say he got lost trying to get back to the dining room.
It always helps to come up with your lies in advance.
Putting on the ear phones and clicking the EMF meter on, Sam began to move about the hallways. Before dinner they had gone over both their room and the sisters', but they showed nothing. It was a safe bet that the room Louise Batton died in would yield some results, though. Sam wasn't sure which room that was, but it had only been a few days since her death, so he'd look for the room covered in police tape.
He was glad that they had decided not to involve the sisters too much in this particular investigation. Though Sam was sure Alex and Nikki had seen their fair share of crime scenes and gore, it's different when the victim was someone you know. Especially someone you've known for almost ten years and met when you were, uh, young. Sam wasn't positive how old the sisters were, but it didn't really matter.
"Ah, dammit," Sam said as he bumped into that ceramic cat again and almost knocked it over… again. He hated clutter, especially ornamental clutter. The hallways, he discovered, were filled with it, too. There were lots and lots of small, delicate, way too adorable stuff. And flowers, there was a least two vases of flowers in each hall. The only unhappy thing being displayed was the band of yellow police tape across one of the doors.
Sam smiled with his success and walked over to it. The EMF meter began to pick something up, but that only half interested Sam. What really interested him was the slightly opened door and light bouncing around behind it. Taking the earphones from his ears and putting them in his pocket along with the meter, Sam took out his flashlight and slipped a hand into his pocket to grip the handle of a pistol. Slowing his pace he crept up on the door. He untapped one side of the tape so he wouldn't have to duck under it, and slowly, so slowly, pushed the door open, hoping to get as good a look as he could.
With the supernatural things as well as with people, it was common for them to return to the scene of the crime. This act did, however, usually portray some sense of intellect, a mind that had meant to attack instead of just acting on instinct. So, naturally, Sam expected that whatever was in the room was dangerous and wanted as much element of surprise as possible.
Hearing the shuffling of feet and watching a spot of light move around the room, Sam whipped the door open and aimed his pistol as best he could and where he thought it'd be. He heard a scream and knew he was an idiot.
"What the hell are ya doing?" Alex asked him in angry shock as she reached down to pick up her accidentally discarded flashlight. Sam sighed and put the pistol back in his pocket.
"I thought you were on the phone with your boyfriend," he told her. Alex rolled her eyes.
"I don't have a boyfriend, I just needed to get away from the table so I could look around," she explained. Sam felt like an idiot again. He probably should have assumed that, it's not like Alex wasn't the type to lie.
"Why are you working alone?" Sam asked. The Charles sisters usually came as a pair.
"I left Nikki to grill Mrs. Mill," Alex shrugged and began looking around again. Sam furrowed his eyebrows.
"But Nikki's mute…"
"No kidding, really?" Alex faked shock.
"I mean, how is she supposed to get information from Mrs. Mill when she can't ask anything?" he clarified. Alex stopped looking around and stood silent for a moment. Then she turned and gave Sam a plain look.
"Ya ever notice how people like to talk? They just start to say things, and if ya let them, they'll go on and on and on. Most of the time it's silly things, but if they had something big happen to them, and if ya have that sort of harmless look some people do, they'll tell ya things that are actually important…" she was very profound. Sam thought for a moment and nodded his head. He had that sort of look, so he knew what she meant. Now that he thought about it, Nikki did have that look too, maybe more so than he did. She was under six feet tall, that made her seem less harmless then he was.
"Where's Dean?" she asked.
"Oh, uh, grilling Mrs. Mill," he shrugged sheepishly. His brother's ankle was healing but still not up to sneaking around. Alex let out a sigh and lowered her head.
"Well, maybe it won't be so bad. Dean can be sort of charming when he tries…" Alex tried to reassure herself. Sam nodded in agreement.
"So, you find anything?"
"No," she sulked. Sam took a look around the room himself. It was like he expected, a guest room just like the others. It was sweet and lovely, enough to make a weaker man cry. The only major differences between the other rooms and this one were the over turned chairs, the clothes thrown about, and of course the outline of a person in one corner of the room.
"Well, I guess that's it, then," Sam really didn't know what else to say about it. Alex just sort of frowned, having an even less idea of what to say. So, Sam turned his EMF meter on again and walked over to the outline on the floor. There were a few blips but nothing too spectacular. He figured it was about right for the spot where a medium had died. Sam shrugged slightly, just in time for the EMF to spike violently.
"What are you doing here?" a voice asked as Sam turned down to the meter. Both he and Alex turned to the door to see a little boy, probably only on the brink of puberty. His skin was pale and offset his large blue eyes and dark hair.
"Oh, um," Sam answered turning the EMF meter off and looking at him with a smile.
"We're investigating her death," Alex straightened her shoulders and raised her chin, trying to be authoritative.
"Whose?" the boy asked. This took Alex for a loop and she lost all sense of authority the boy might have given her.
"Louise Batton," Sam answered for her. The boy looked at him with the sort of icy stare Sam thought might just be normal for the child.
"The woman who died here?"
"The woman who was murdered here," Alex corrected him. The boy shrugged.
"Who are you, exactly?" Sam asked.
"I'm Jacob Grant, Mrs. Mill is my grandmother," he explained. Sam and Alex looked at each other like two people who were about to be in a lot of trouble.
"Uh, did you ever talk to her, to Louise?" Alex was quick to act like there was no reason for her not to be there. Sam knew pretty well that most the time people knew you were doing something you shouldn't be just by the guilty expression on your face, so he, like Alex, acted like he was just where he should be.
"I helped her to her room," the boy said simply, looking around the room for change. His eyes fell on the body outline in the corner, but his face seemed just as calm and bored as it had the entire conversation.
"How was she? Did she seem nervous, frightened?" Alex asked. Jacob shook his head.
"Did she say anything about why she was here?" Sam asked this time. The boy turned his icy gaze to Sam again.
"She said she was looking into some family history, that she had an ancestor buried in the local cemetery," he explained.
"She say who?" Alex asked. Jacob looked at her for a moment and finally shook his head. Alex frowned, displeased, but didn't vocalize it.
"I don't think either of you should be in here," the boy told them. At that Alex was plenty vocal.
"Little punk," Dean agreed with her with a snort. All four were now in the brothers' room, informing everyone of everything. Alex had explained about their encounter with Jacob Grant in a much better way than Sam felt he would have. On the other side, Nikki felt the same about Dean's recount of the rather uninteresting history of the inn.
"He seemed pretty serious about it, too. I'm not sure how easy it'll be getting back in there," Sam shrugged.
"Maybe we won't have to," Alex had a sly grin now. Nikki signed something that, in a matter of speaking, seemed to voice the question on the brothers' minds.
"Before Dennis the Menace showed up I managed to grab this," Alex answered and pulled out a smallish sized notebook from under her coat. Nikki smiled and grabbed it eagerly, flipping through the pages.
"What is it?" Dean asked.
"Louise's diary. She wrote about everything. Whatever she was doing here, is in there," she explained. Dean nodded in approval because, like his father, he wasn't the sort to actually tell someone when he thought they did something well.
"Even if she was just here doing genealogy?" Sam asked and Alex rolled her eyes.
"Don't let the Batton in her name fool you, Louise is 100 percent pure Mexican, she doesn't have any family up here, never has," Alex told them.
"Alright, so, what was she doing up here?" Sam shrugged. Nikki read for a few more moments, now rather serious looking, and finally handed the book back to her sister, pointing to a part on a page.
"'A spirit named Ronald Curry contacted me. He's located at-'" Alex looked up at them, "she gives a lot number."
They slept that night and headed out in the morning with some muffins from Mrs. Mill, who seemed like the sort of woman the eerie Jacob Grant would never have as a grandmother. She wished them all good luck with their little 'adventure.' The reason the four had waited until day was, besides how painful it'd be for the brothers to try and scale a cemetery fence right now, the lot number really wouldn't help if they couldn't look through the books and find out where it was. So they waited until the cemetery would be open and had gone through the books before finding the current location of Ronald Curry.
"This is a nice place," Sam said to break the eerie, grave searching silence that had fallen on the four of them as they ambled through the cemetery. It helped that his statement was true, as it was filled with nice, shady trees, well kept grass, and only a small amount of moss covering the stones.
"Yeah," Alex agreed, "Nikki and I got a place like this for us in Alabama."
Dean and Sam stopped and looked at the two sisters.
"You already have your plots bought?" Dean asked in surprise. Alex turned around to him.
"Yeah, of course. Ya gotta look to the future," she shrugged. Her sister seemed to be in agreement.
"Yeah, but buying grave plots?" it was a little too creepy even for Sam.
"Only way to make sure we get what we want. What do you guys want to happen to you when you die?"
"Cremated," they said in unison. The sisters looked at them.
"Then how are we supposed to come see you? Ya'll gotta be buried so we can visit," Alex instructed and continued on her way.
"Do you know what they do to you before they bury you? The paint, the breaking of bones so you fit?" Dean asked hobbling after them.
"That's just an old wives' tale," Alex waved it off.
"Yeah? Well so are ghosts," Dean had a good point.
"Oh shut up," was all Alex could come up with.
"Hey, guys!" Sam called after them all. Dean and Alex's little bickering stopped and soon all three had walked over around him. Sure enough, Sam had found the gravestone marked 'Ronald Curry.' Dean reached into his pocket and pulled on the EMF meter. Turning it on, all he could get was a minor blip.
"Could be something, could not be something," he sighed and shrugged. He looked over at Nikki.
"So do your thing," he instructed. It took Nikki a moment to realize he was talking to her, and looked at Dean in mild surprise.
"What?" he asked, "do your medium thing. Let's talk to this guy."
"She's not going to channel him," Alex told him.
"Why not? How else are we gonna find out what he wants?"
"This guy mighta killed Louise!"
"She's channeled killers before," Sam tried to bring reason.
"Yeah, but, that was different. Those ghosts only killed normal people," Alex looked displeased having to say it like that.
"What do you mean, 'normal?'" Sam asked.
"Normal, you know, like, no powers or anything. This guy mighta killed a powerful psychic, ain't no way I'm letting it get a crack at my little sister," she explained in no uncertain terms. No one noticed it, but Dean glanced over at his little brother before looking back at Alex and sighing in defeat.
"Alright fine then… What would Louise have done when she got here?" he asked. Maybe if they did what she did they'd find out what happened. Alex bit the inside of her lip and looked away from both men.
"She would have channeled him," she said. The Winchesters let out a sigh of aggravation each and Dean even went so far as to hobble a few steps and sit down on a gravestone, which isn't disrespectful at all.
"Well that's great. So what do you think we should do?" he and Alex began to bicker again. Sam had trouble figuring out if the elder Winchester and Charles bickered like an old married couple, or more like a brother and sister. He never made a decision, as the gravestone Dean was sitting on caught his eye.
"Dean…" he got his brother's attention, "what does that stone say?"
Dean, quiet now, looked between his legs but had to stand up and walk away from the stone to read it.
"'Our beloved son, Jacob Grant. 1902 to 1913,'" he read, looking at his brother as he finished.
"Jacob Grant? That's the punk kid's name!" Alex stated the obvious.
"That's just gotta be a coincidence or something. An ancestor or… or…" Dean started but noticed Sam looking at him, "right, how often is it a coincidence?"
"So are we thinking the kid did it?" Alex wanted to make sure.
"If Louise saw this he might have killed her to shut her up about… whatever…" Sam had no more idea what was going on than anyone else did. Nikki signed something.
"You think the nice old lady did it?" Alex asked her surprise. Nikki just shrugged.
"That wouldn't surprise me a bit," Dean said.
"Me neither," his brother added.
"Okay, so, what we're saying is this kid, or someone who has to do with this kid, killed Louise?"
"That's what it looks like."
"So what do we do?" Alex asked and the brothers thought for a moment.
"I think we should keep to doing what she did. What else did her journal say?" Sam asked.
"Just what I read…" Alex answered, "and the letters LN."
"LN? What the hell does that mean?" Dean asked. All Alex could do was shrug.
They got lunch. What? It was getting near lunch time and Dean was hungry, so the lady at the McDonald's drive thru got a thrill and a good look at the Impala. Mrs. Mill welcomed them back and they all cautiously made their way up to the brothers' room to talk things over. While Alex and Dean were bickering… again… Nikki told her sister she needed something from their room and left.
This was a lie.
It's an unfortunate part of Nikki's nature that she usually had such little problems with lying to people, even to her sister. It was something she did often and easily. Nikki had the sort of face that people wouldn't only talk to, but believe. She seemed so generally transparent that people would assume they'd know if she were lying.
No one had re-taped the door to the room Louise Batton had died in, so Nikki only had to look up and down the hallway before turning the knob and walking in. Switching on her flashlight, she began searching around the room, trying to keep the light off the outline of Louise's body. Many years ago, Louise and the Charles sisters had made a promise that if anything had happened to the one, the other would look into it. Since Nikki was also a medium, Louise had trusted her more than she trusted Alex, and this was why Nikki knew what LN meant and Alex didn't. Literally, LN stood for 'Letter Nikki.' They had decided that if they ever felt like something big was going to happen, that something dangerous was after them, they'd right a letter to help each other out, just in case. So that's what Nikki was doing. If Louise had bothered to write LN down, she must have written and hid a letter. Nikki only needed to find it.
Going through most of the room, Nikki eventually got to the closet. Now, having seen and lived a horror movie or two in her life, she fully expected something to come flying out of the closet at her when she opened it. So, when Nikki turned the handle and opened the door, she took a flying leap out of the way. Nothing flew out at her. Cautiously she looked inside.
All she could see was a small flashing light near the floor. Moving the beam of her flashlight over it, Nikki found a tape recorder. Knelling down, she saw the tape had been all used up so she rewound it and after a moment hit the play button.
"Are you here?" Louise's voice came out of it. Nikki listened to the white noise that followed and Louise repeated the question a few times, each time followed by more white noise. She was probably trying to pick up EVP.
"Do you know what year it is?" Louise asked and again more repeating and white noise. Nikki listened carefully but heard no responses. Then, quite suddenly, there was a clamoring on the tape. She heard Louise gasp and foot steps. Nikki could hear the door opening.
"What are you doing here?" she heard Louise ask. There was no response the recorder could pick up, but there were more foot steps.
"No, no please. Don't. You can't do this," Louise's voice cried with panic, "Please don't do this."
"I'm quite sorry, but I'm afraid I rather have to," Nikki heard a voice she herself had never heard before.
"No! Don't!" Louise's voice cried out in pain and Nikki quickly hit the stop button. She crouched there for a moment, trying to get the image of Louise with her face contorted in fear and pain out of her head. Louise had been the first real medium Nikki had met. She helped Nikki understand and come to terms with things. She had been there when Nikki had questions Alex couldn't answer. Louise had helped her so much.
"I was hoping you'd be the one to come," a voice said from behind her. Quickly Nikki turned around just as the lights flicked on. The sudden light blinded her for a few moments.
"But I never thought you'd bring something so powerful along with you," Nikki's eyes adjusted just in time to see the young boy standing in the door way. His icy blue eyes looked into her.
It was only a brief, shrill whistle, but it was enough for Alex to hear. She and the Winchester brothers were discussing whether or not whatever killed Louise could be a demon, when Alex stood up abruptly and listened.
"What?" Dean asked.
"Shh!" she commanded and they all listened.
"I think I heard Nikki," she said charging for the door.
"What!" Dean asked as he and his brother started after her.
"How do you hear Nikki?" Sam asked handing his brother a crutch and following Alex already down the hall.
"She has a whistle, it's for emergencies," she explained. The brothers remembered this from when the girl had almost choked to death because of the camera. Nikki had blown a whistle to get their attention.
"Are you sure?" Dean was hobbling quickly behind them. Alex didn't answer, she just turned the handle to their room. It didn't open. She grabbed her key, unlocked it, and opened it.
"Nikki!" she yelled inside the dark room. They all heard a clatter come from down the hall and saw an open door surrounded by hanging loose police tape.
"Oh crap," Dean said. Alex screamed out her sister's name again and ran down the hall at full speed, Sam behind her. In all truth, if he had room, Sam could have gotten ahead of Alex in about three steps. The sisters really were out of shape.
The lights in the room were on and when Alex and Sam poked their heads in it they saw Nikki laying back down on the floor, having what could only be described as a seizure. Standing not far above her was Jacob Grant, his hand held calmly out above her.
"Nikki!" Alex yelled again and ran toward her sister. Jacob looked at her and moved his eyes quickly to the left. Alex went with them. Flying off her feet, Alex crashed into a desk and toppled over with it. Sam stood in the doorway in no small amount of confusion. He would have done something, if he had any idea of what to do. At this time Dean arrived, and he always knew what to do. Leaning against the door frame, he pulled out a gun and fired at Jacob.
This didn't work.
The bullet went right through the boy without even leaving a mark. Now, that happening is usually a bad sign in itself, but when it's followed by the person who got shot smiling amused, it becomes a very bad sign.
Instead of flying off to the side like Alex did, Jacob pulled Dean into the room and smashed him against the opposite wall. Dean went from a blur of gun, crutch, and coat with the collar up in the back to a moaning, swearing lump on the floor. Still smiling, Jacob looked at Sam. He closed the hand that was above Nikki and brought it to his side. She stopped quaking and grew still, though Sam could still see her breathing heavily.
"I really only wanted her, but you're just a wonderful little bonus," Jacob told Sam, apparently very pleased.
"Who are you?" Sam asked.
"I'm Jacob Grant," he answered. Sam found himself slammed down onto the room floor, having not even the time to brace himself with his hands. Jacob waved his hand and soon Sam found himself looking up at the ceiling.
"Jacob Grant is dead," Sam said, trying to buy himself time to figure things out. Since he wasn't currently able to move, he figured he'd need as much time as he could get.
"A seventh son of a seventh son can't die," Jacob told him quite clearly.
"Is that what you are, then? A seventh son of a seventh son?" Sam asked as the boy's face came into view above him. It was a ghastly looking smile that boy had.
"How astute," apparently even a seventh son of a seventh son can be sarcastic.
"What do you want with us?" Sam asked, feeling a dull pain in the back of his head and breaking out in a cold sweat.
"I need to feed, and not on anything that crazy old woman can make," Jacob said. That dull pain became stronger, much stronger. Sam tried to clamp his mouth shut for as long as he could, not give that kid the satisfaction of knowing the pain trying to burst out of Sam's head. He couldn't take it anymore. It just wanted to scream. And he heard it, only it wasn't him, it wasn't Sam screaming, and it wasn't in pain.
Sam opened his eyes just in time to see Alex slam her left fist into the side of the boy's face. Now, seeing as how a bullet did little good, Sam didn't think Alex hitting the kid would have any affect, but he was wrong. Jacob staggered several steps backward and Sam looked to see the burning pentacle in his face where Alex had punched him. This came as a surprise to Alex too, as she looked at her fist. Now, Sam had seen a lot of all of the bracelets Alex had around each wrist and the huge amount of necklaces and charms she wore, and he didn't remember the pentacles on that bracelet glowing like that before.
"What did you do?" Jacob asked, clutching his cheek in horror. Sam watched the confidence swell inside Alex as she looked over at her sister and back to the boy. Stepping over Sam, Alex went on to basically pummel the evil little boy with her left fist until he fell to the ground. When he was down, Alex took off the charm bracelet and held it against the boy's heart. Jacob began to scream, but Alex ignored him.
"Trice around the circle's bound," she said, "sink all evil into the ground."
Sam watched as Alex recited this two more times, each time the pentacles on her bracelet glowing brighter and brighter.
"So mote it be!" she yelled and the glowing stopped. The glowing stopped because Jacob was gone. Sam watched the young looking boy sink into the floor boards and disappear. There was silence for a few moments and Sam kept his eyes on Alex for them.
He was feeling something for her and, he'd admit this, he was fairly certain it was pride. If he didn't feel so much like crap he'd give her a slap on the back and a 'good job!'
"Little punk," Dean said as he grunted a little in pain. He was easing himself into the back seat of the Impala, and the pain wasn't from his foot. His back ached like mad. Dean had been thrown against plenty of walls in his time, and it always hurt like hell. He looked over to the other side of the car and saw Nikki clutching her head as she had been doing for awhile and taking another Ibuprofen. In the seat in front of Dean Sam said Nikki's name so she handed him the bottle. His head hurt just as much as hers did. The driver's side car opened and Alex got in, slamming it shut behind her, making Sam and Nikki recoil in pain. Alex buckled herself in, trying to keep the bag of ice on her left knuckles.
"Yeah, so, apparently Mrs. Mill has no memories of what's happened in the past few months or so," she explained, doing a check to make sure everyone else was buckled in too.
"So Jacob was just messing with her mind the whole time?" Dean asked. He was apparently too loud as Nikki slapped him in the shoulder softly.
"Something like that," Alex said and started the car. The radio kicked on loud and again Sam and Nikki recoiled in pain.
"Sorry, sorry," Alex apologized after turning the radio off. Sam let out a sigh and rested his forehead on the cold glass of his window.
"There's no place like home, there's no place like home, there's no place like home," Dean heard Judy Garland say her famous lines. He opened his eyes and still found himself in the dark. After a moment his eyes began to adjust and he could see a TV screen playing The Wizard of Oz. Already standing, he walked around the couch between him and the television set. There were four people on the couch, three in chairs around it, and one guy was sitting on the floor. They were all watching the movie intently, but the one person who seemed the most interested was a little girl sitting on the couch. Dean watched the small, blonde child for a moment, and his eyes widened in surprise as she phased in and out for a moment. No one else seemed to notice this, actually no one else seemed to notice Dean, either. Taking a step closer to her, Dean could tell the girl wasn't real. She was pale, too pale even for the darkness, and her hair just seemed to move slightly, like it was floating, but just barely.
She had to be a ghost.
But the girl seemed like a perfectly nice ghost, smiling and happy and, Dean would admit this, rather adorable.
"And you were there, and you, and you!" Judy Garland spoke and Dean looked back at the screen. He watched it for a few moments, only until the credits began to roll up it. Turning back to the couch, Dean found the girl mysteriously gone.
"Sally get the lights," a woman said. Dean watched someone get out of a chair and walk through the dark to the wall. The lights came on and Dean could see the woman better.
Alex and Nikki had been right, Sally was the Blackfoot woman in the photograph.
"She's gone," an older woman said looking at the couch in shock. This brought Dean's attention back to the space the little girl had been. With the lights on he could see the faded, plum colored fabric on the couch, as well as the three remaining people on it. One was an older Hispanic looking woman, and the other two were teenaged Black girls.
"We did say all she wanted was to watch the end of the movie," an Alabama accent came out of the older one. Dean's eyes widened in greater surprise and he took a step back away from the couch. Alex set her feet up on the coffee table and smiled with pride over the space the ghost girl had been, to where Nikki sat. Nikki, looking about 14, gave her sister a sheepish smile back
"What the Hell…" Dean said under his breath.
He then woke up with a start.
After a moment to realize he was still in the Impala, Dean let out a sigh. The car made a funny noise somewhere beneath him but he didn't care. His ankle, though warm, also ached slightly, but he didn't care about that either. Dean raised a hand to his face and rubbed his eyes tiredly.
"Where are we?" he asked Sam, as the back of his brother's head seemed to be awake.
"Almost to the state line," he answered. Dean grunted in response and went about stretching everything as much as he could. Nikki patted his ankle slightly, causing him to look at her. She smiled her usual smile so he gave her a fake one back.
Dean was glad Nikki was only a medium, and he was glad Sam only had pre-cog and TK, if either were a mind reader they might know about his dreams…