Small Medium at Large

by Fiction lover14

Sam instantly regrets touching a dead medium's crystal ball when he wakes up in Midnight, Texas with a killer headache in a head that doesn't actually belong to him. Manfred isn't much happier waking up in a seance parlor in Dallas with a guy carrying a gun. They'll both need a little help from each other's friends to get back to their own bodies and put the medium to rest for good

"I'm not getting a strong reading off anything." Sam swept the EMF detector around the room, over side tables covered in ominous trinkets and along the velvet-draped walls. He glanced up at his reflection in the mirrored ceiling.

"I mean this place is creepy, but it doesn't feel like an actual medium lived here. Everything's way over the top." He pointed to an enormous round table to one side where the drape of a silk cloth revealed an outline of a sphere lying beneath. Two gilded chairs sat on either side of the table, gleaming beneath their faint layer of dust.

Dean nodded. "Yeah Pamela wouldn't be caught dead in here."

Sam idly flipped through the pages of a black leatherbound book. "There's definitely something going on though. Three separate people saying they saw a woman dressed like a gypsy right before fatal accidents occurred nearby?"

Dean snorted. "Dallas is huge. Could've been living psychics dressed up for readings. I mean this woman died peaceful, right? Why would she be hanging around?"

"I don't know, maybe she really enjoyed her work?"

Dean rolled his eyes. "Well she sure didn't get famous from it. This is what, the fifth one we've checked? By far the shortest obit."

The EMF gave a faint whine and they perked up as the signal strengthened near the circular table. Dean grinned and whipped the silk cloth away with a flourish. "Ta-da! A ball of glass."

Even in the dim light of the shadowy parlor the crystal ball glinted. But it didn't glow or float or do anything out of the ordinary. Sam sighed as the EMF detector went quiet again.

"Maybe you're right. Maybe she just died a peaceful death after a whole life of swindling people and telling them what they wanted to hear. At least she committed to the look." He reached out and placed a hand on the smooth surface of the orb. Then he crumpled to the floor.

One moment Manfred was chatting casually beside Lem in Home Cookin's back room, the next the corners of his vision went dim.

His first thought was that it had to be a spirit, but it felt like the opposite of a possession: like he was the one being expelled. He tried to hold onto his body, tried to open his mouth and say something, but all he could feel was himself collapsing as his friend's worried eyes went wide.

For a moment there was nothing.

Then he was opening his eyes again.

But wherever he was, it was not Home Cookin'. The room was dimly lit and smelled faintly like incense. He was lying on carpeted ground and there was someone crouching over him, blurrily coming into focus. Miraculously he realized he didn't have his perpetual headache anymore; it was gone.

"Sam? Can you hear me?" A man's gruff voice sounded like it was coming to him through a tunnel.

He blinked slowly and a concerned set of green eyes stared into his. The concern softened and an almost sheepish smirk appeared on the man's lips above his stubbled jaw. "Don't mess with me like that."

Did this guy know him? Who was Sam? Where was he? Questions flooded Manfred's mind as the man took a step back. The guy was in a worn leather jacket and there was definitely a gun at his hip. Manfred tried not to panic. He warily got to his feet.

Or tried to. Except his legs were too long and then when he stumbled and tried to catch himself with his hands his arms were too long too and he kind of just thumped back to the ground. What the hell was going on?

"Sam?" The concerned tone was back and sharper this time.

He had to say something. This guy had a gun and he couldn't even stand up in one movement. "Um…" The word came out of his lips but it sounded all wrong. Why was his voice so deep? His gaze darted around the room and he realized that the ceiling was mirrored. But the eyes he was staring into weren't his own.

"What the fuck?" He whispered, and even the whisper came out at a rumble. He shakily raised a hand and the tall, shaggy-haired guy in the mirror raised his too.

Then suddenly cold liquid spattered him and he recoiled. He turned to find the man lowering a cross-marked flask with a heavy frown.

"Was that… holy water?" Manfred asked, incredulously.

"Yeah, but I figured demon was a long shot since the black smoke would've been hard to miss when I've been watching you the whole time." The man calmly drew his gun.

"Hey woah, I am not a demon! I'm a person!" Manfred tried moving again and managed to sit up while also smacking a chair with his hand. Ow. Was this actually real? Was that guy in the mirror… was he inside that body?

"Strike one. People don't possess other people." He cocked the gun.

Manfred froze. Okay, don't freak out, you're in another guy's body, somewhere unfamiliar, and you're facing a guy carrying a gun and holy water, and who's acting like possession is a frequent occurrence even though most people would say it's all fake.

That thought did not help. "I know. I know that, I just don't know what happened. I swear, I'm just a guy named Manfred, and I didn't do anything, I was at dinner with a friend and then I woke up here."

"Strike two. You knew that was holy water. Which means you're not 'just a guy'. What are you, and who are you working for?" The man's voice was cold steel as he leveled his aim at Manfred's chest. Well not Manfred's chest, some other guy's chest which was clothed in flannel and an army green jacket.

Would Manfred die if this guy shot him? Or would he wake up in his own body again? How was it possible that he could still be surprised by shit like this happening to him?

"Okay look, I'm a Romani medium. I come from a long line of psychics, mediums, whatever you want to call them, and I've seen ghosts and demons and I know what possession is. But I swear I'm a human guy named Manfred and I did not show up here on purpose and I'm kind of freaking out right now because I can't even figure out how to stand up in this body."

The man didn't move but he seemed to be processing Manfred's words. Manfred just blinked nervously up at him and the unwavering barrel of the revolver. Then finally the man lowered the gun and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I hate mediums."

Sam had a feeling like he was traveling, tumbling head over heels through a void of nothingness. And then he landed, wham, back on earth.

God he had a killer headache. The kind that made him grit his teeth and never want to open his eyes again. What made him think it was a good idea to touch a crystal ball in a dead medium's house?

"Manfred? Are you alright?" A man's rich voice came from beside him. Sam realized he was slumped in a chair, his face pressed to what felt like a wooden table, and he could smell food. This was not the medium's house. And who was Manfred?

He forced himself to peel open his eyelids, only to gasp as his gaze met the most shocking set of blue eyes he'd ever seen. The bald man frowned at him. "Your energy seems off." As he spoke Sam caught a glimpse of fangs.

Sam jerked back in his chair. But his balance was off and instead of just sitting up he tumbled to the floor. He could hear distant chatter and clinking like he was in… a restaurant? Why would a vampire be in a restaurant?

Sam scrambled across the ground but his legs and arms weren't working right and… he froze as he looked at his hand. It looked paler than it should and he was wearing a bracelet, a ring, and a black leather jacket. What the hell? What was going on? He looked down to see that all of his clothing was black and he was wearing a necklace too. What was with this outfit? How had he switched clothes without remembering it?

The man reached down and effortlessly pulled Sam to his feet. Sam instinctively jerked away. "Let go of me!" His voice seemed higher than it should've been, but maybe that was the adrenaline?

"Calm down."

"You're a vampire!" Sam wasn't sure why he blurted that out as if it would make a difference when he was clearly already trapped and probably under the influence of some kind of drug, but to his surprise it did.

The warmth faded from the vampire's face. "And you haven't had a problem with that in all the time I've known you. Which means something more than your energy is off."

Well the joke was on him because Sam had no idea who this vamp was. "If you don't let me go, you're going to regret it. My brother and I have put down dozens of your kind." He spat.

"Well that's certainly enough of that." The man's grip tightened on Sam's arm and suddenly his eyes were shutting, everything going dark as all the energy leeched out of his body.

"So you uh, believe me?"

Manfred had managed, by focusing on exactly where his limbs were, to lurch to his feet. He towered over this guy and he could tell the guy wasn't short. He kind of enjoyed the booming voice, but he had a bit of vertigo.

The man made a brief, exasperated noise. "For now."

Manfred looked around and quickly realized that they were in a séance room, the kind of tacky one where Xylda would've made bank. He would bet money there were levers built into the table beneath the crystal ball.

"You hate mediums and this is where you choose to hang out?"

The guy bristled. "I'm not the idiot who touched a dead psychic's crystal ball."

Oh. Dead psychic. Possessions, holy water… "Wait are you guys ghost hunters?"

The man looked so offended that Manfred had to smother a laugh. "We're hunters. Full stop."

He said it as if the term hunters meant something, but Manfred had no idea what. "But I mean you are here about a ghost?"

The guy gritted his teeth. "Yes. Sam and I were here about a ghost. People in this area have been seeing the ghost of medium right before someone nearby kicks the bucket."

"Huh. And 'here' is…?" Fingers crossed that he wouldn't have to buy a plane ticket to find his old body. Actually double fingers crossed that this was a direct transfer and not a multiple body swap or who knew how long he'd be this tall… He shook off the disturbing thought.

"Dallas."

Manfred grinned. Finally some good luck. "Great well my body is just a few hours' drive from here so we can…"

The guy held up a hand. "I'm not going to take off across the desert looking for your body. Sam knows we're here; he'll find his way back."

"But what if he doesn't? Wouldn't it be better to—"

"You're not just going to meet up and switch bodies with a high five! Obviously this has something to do with that crystal ball and this ghost! We finish the job, things get fixed."

"And what exactly is 'the job'? Finding the spirit and congratulating her for trying to warn people?"

"No, finding her, telling her to fix this, and then destroying the crystal ball that's keeping her here."

Manfred blinked. "But I mean, most spirits are on Earth for a reason."

"Yeah to fuck with mortals that they should be leaving alone."

"If you help them finish their business here, they'll move on."

"I don't have time to worry about ghosts' ideas of what should be happening after their deaths. We stop them and we move on."

Manfred eyed him. "And what else do you hunt like that?"

"None of your business."

They stared at each other. The man's hand drifted back toward his gun. "I'm not letting you leave. If I have to restrain you I will."

"Fine. You won't have to restrain me. But I'm not sure how well Sam is doing if he is in my body."

Sam woke up for the second time to a skull-splitting headache. His eyes cracked open and he found that he was facing a mirror at head height. The face staring back had darker, shorter hair than his, stubble, earrings, and…. eyeliner? He had a headache in a head that might not be his? What the hell was going on? Was this an illusion?

He tried to reach out and touch his reflection only to find his arms were bound to the chair he was sitting in. He wished the feeling of ropes around his wrists weren't a familiar sensation.

He felt someone move behind him but there was no reflection in the mirror. The vampire. The room he was in was dark, with heavy curtains covering the windows. Some kind of lair.

"Feeling calmer now?"

Sam didn't grace that with an answer. Besides he wasn't feeling so much calm as exhausted. To his surprise a blonde woman stepped up beside him, her reflection clear in the glass, along with the anger on her face.

"Good because we're ready for some answers. Who are you and what did you do to Manfred?"

There was that name again. Sam thought about keeping quiet but he had no bargaining chips yet and nothing to lose. "Is Manfred… is that who's reflection I'm seeing?"

"Yes and more than seeing, I'm pretty sure you're piloting his bod. But you're definitely not him. So again: Who are you and what did you do to Manfred?" Sam realized that she had a butterfly knife in her hand and was flipping it in a very beautiful but distracting way. She definitely knew how to handle a knife. And even if this wasn't his body, he didn't particularly want to feel what she could do with it.

"My name is Sam. I have no idea who Manfred is. The last thing I remember, I was touching a crystal ball and the next time I opened my eyes I was here… You do know the guy behind me is a vampire, right?"

The blonde laughed and it was the kind of hard laugh that Meg used to give. The kind that said 'poor Sammy, so naïve'. "Yes I'm happily aware."

"You think he's telling the truth?" The vamp mused.

"Actually, yes." She sighed. "It's too bad, I got all warmed up with the ropes but now I think we're straying into Fiji territory."

"You think she can find Manfred's spirit?"

Sam kind of wanted to know how that would work but also… "If Manfred and I switched places, and he's in my body now, I know where he is." He could definitely signal Dean. They could take the vamp out and incapacitate the blonde. Presuming Manfred didn't use his own body against him of course, which wasn't a given but… they'd cross that bridge when they came to it.

They both stared at him. "Right. And where would that be?"

"Dallas." He wasn't going to get specific until they got close.

"Well at least it's not crazy far. I've been wanting to do a road trip right?"

The vampire sighed. "I don't want you driving alone with him."

"Fiji and Bobo will back me up. They've been wanting a break from Midnight for a while."

Sam wondered what was up with all the names in this town. He also wondered why they were so nonchalant about driving off to find their friend's spirit. Vampires were one thing, something concrete, recognizable once you saw them. But spirits were rarely visible.

At least this body felt human. He wondered if it was possible for a human and a vampire to switch bodies. He then wondered if Fiji and Bobo were humans or vampires. There had to be a nest here… He shook his head. He needed to focus, try to get some answers.

"You're going to drive me to Dallas. Just like that?"

"If that's the way to get Manfred back, yes. He's our friend."

Well at least that meant she probably wouldn't go straight for using the knife on him. "I could be lying."

"Oh we're both good at figuring out when someone's lying." The vampire sounded amused.

"The sensing energy thing you mentioned? What exactly did you do to me?" Sam rolled his neck in a desperate attempt to work out some of the tension in his head, but it didn't help.

The disembodied voice came from just behind him. "I leeched some of your energy. I find drinking blood… distasteful. You'll be fine once you've had something to drink."

Huh. More vamps with alternative lifestyles. But he'd never heard of that ability. "I didn't think that was an option."

"Well it doesn't sound like you've been the type to ask questions." His tone was decidedly frosty.

"I've met a few vamps that stuck to non-human blood." He didn't know why he was getting defensive; the guy wasn't wrong. "But it didn't mean their thirst—"

"Good for them. I'm going to get the car ready." A faint rush of air was the only indication that he'd gone. Sam didn't bother finishing his sentence.

The woman vanished for a moment too, then brought over a glass of sweet tea and put the straw to Sam's lips. Not untying him yet then. He drank it down and had to admit that it did make the fatigue die back.

She pulled the cup away. "Better?"

"Mostly. But I still have a killer headache." It was hard not to squint, even though he knew the room was dark.

She chuckled. "Unfortunately for you, that's just a Manfred thing. I'll see if I have some painkillers around."

These headaches were a known thing and this was just how this guy lived? Sam suddenly felt a lot more sympathetic for the people in migraine commercials.

"Here." She held out two white pills and for a moment he hesitated, but fuck it, this wasn't his body anyway. He opened his mouth and swallowed them down.

"Fiji and Bobo will be over shortly." Sam jumped as the vampire's voice issued from just behind him. The woman nodded. "I'll get my things."

The vampire got so close to Sam that he could have sworn he felt cold breath on his neck, though he wasn't sure if vampires could breathe. "If anything happens to her, or any of my friends, it will not be your energy I feed on when we meet again."

Sam nodded soberly. Then the woman was back with... handcuffs. The vampire untied Sam's wrists and Sam carefully got to his feet. He was actually in a bedroom apparently and now faced a giant bed with red silk sheets. Was this the vampire's room? It looked surprisingly normal, if a bit flashy.

Sam still felt… not right. Everything seemed taller than it should and his limbs didn't move quite the way he expected. The woman gave him a sharp look and he reluctantly put his hands behind his back. She cuffed him. This was going to be a long drive.

"What is that supposed to mean?" The man growled.

"I mean that you obviously have even more issues with supernatural creatures than I do somehow, and before I showed up here, I was having dinner with a vampire."

The man blinked incredulously. "Why the hell would you have dinner with a vampire? What does that even mean?"

"I mean, Lem doesn't eat, but we just meet up at the restaurant and I order and we hang out. He doesn't drink blood when he can help it; he can leech energy directly from people."

"Now you're just making shit up."

Manfred shrugged his now giant shoulders. "I know most vampires aren't like him, but he's one of the good ones. Your brother won't know that though."

"Sam can take care of himself."

The guy sounded only slight less confident than he had earlier, which was impressive. "If you say so."

The man's gaze fell on the crystal ball. "We need to get the medium's ghost here."

"I can sum—" Manfred stopped. He actually had no idea if he still had his mojo in this body.

"Anyone can summon ghosts with the right supplies. It's just a time suck. I take it you don't know if your 'abilities' are along for the ride?" He sounded skeptical and Manfred would've been offended if he wasn't already nervous.

"My abilities are real. But I have no idea if they came to Dallas with me." Manfred closed his eyes and focused, reaching for the veil, the rift that he knew existed. He called for the spirits nearby, opening his energy to them, and… he felt some kind of resistance, centered strangely on his chest. It was like a faint ache there, a strain that the veil pushed against but not through.

He opened his eyes again, unsettled. He'd always gone back and forth on whether his abilities were a gift or a curse. But now that he knew what was out there, not being able to see it, to have some degree of control over it, was not a good feeling.

He patted his chest but he wasn't wearing a necklace with any kind of amulet and it didn't feel like there was anything in the flannel's pockets. "Is there something… on my chest?"

"What, you have something you want to confess to a stranger?" The guy caught the patting motion and surprise flashed across his face. "Oh. Yeah actually, an anti-possession tattoo. Huh."

A tattoo? That was enough to separate him from his powers? To keep the ghosts at bay? He was both terrified and exhilarated by this sudden knowledge. And also… "So you aren't ghost hunters, but you have anti-possession tattoos?"

"We got them to keep out demons, not ghosts. But glad to have confirmation they'll work for both. Guess we're going old school." He headed for a duffel bag lying across the room.

Manfred lifted his shirt collar and felt very strange scanning tanner skin than his and finding it marred by a simple black pentacle radiating flames. Joe could easily replicate that pattern. Hell, Joe might know about it, from his past run-ins with demons and demon hunters. But was that what he wanted?

He pushed the question away. "Before we summon a ghost together can I at least know your name?"

The guy froze and looked back at him with a flash of deep sadness that vanished as quickly as it appeared. "It's Dean. My name's Dean."

"It uh… really doesn't seem like this is the first time you've dealt with swapping bodies."

"There's always a new twist. But yeah, this isn't the first time someone else has been in that meatsuit."

"Meatsuit?" Manfred grimaced and Dean laughed. Then he opened the duffel bag.

"Shotguns. To fight ghosts." Manfred gave him a look, but Dean's expression was smug.

"They're full of rock salt."

"Huh. That's actually pretty smart." And meant that Dean wasn't messing around when he hunted ghosts.

"Yep. And the other smart thing I'm going to do…" He pulled out a rope and shot Manfred a meaningful look.

"Seriously? I promise I'm not going to interfere with anything."

"Right well the thing is, I have literally no way of knowing if anything you've said is the truth. You seem like a nice enough guy, but I have to focus on the summoning. So we can do this the easy way or the hard way."

Manfred knew that despite the height advantage, there was no way he was going to win against Dean in a fight, and probably not even in a race to the door. And all that would do was give Dean more reason to distrust Manfred.

So Manfred gave a heavy sigh and plunked into one of the ornate chairs, and let Dean tie his wrists to it. Dean did leave his ankles free though and if worst came to worst, Manfred was pretty confident he could still get out of the ropes, wrong body or not. He really hoped he wasn't going to find out if he was right about that.

It'd been a while since Sam had been on a drive this awkward. He was sitting handcuffed in the backseat of a car, where for once he actually fit comfortably, beside a friendly man named Bobo who looked like he'd have a pretty easy time punching Sam out (though he was fairly sure Bobo was just human, and so were the other occupants of the car).

In front the blonde woman, Olivia he'd finally heard them say, drove like she'd never heard of a speed limit, while beside her a curly-haired woman named Fiji was detailing the herbs she was growing in her garden. Many of which had alternate uses that Sam wasn't particularly fond of.

"And the henbane is just flowering beautifully."

He couldn't take it anymore. "What are you using henbane for?"

"Oh you just never know when you might need some for a spell."

"So you're a witch." That's why they thought she might be able to track Manfred's spirit.

"Yep. A good witch. At least if you have good intentions."

Sam soured. There was no such thing as a good witch. Bobo noticed his expression and matched Sam's scowl. "Fiji is the nicest person you're liable to meet on this earth."

"Right, that's why she's growing henbane. Not for hex bags, just for the pretty flowers."

"I would never plant one of those on someone!" Fiji sounded genuinely hurt.

"But you do know what they are, and what they can do."

"I don't have to defend myself to you."

Sam opened his mouth, but realized he had nothing more to say. He didn't really know her. And seeing anger replace the cheerful bubbliness of moments before didn't give him any satisfaction.

He was just so used to threats. Everything was a threat; the world was crawling with monsters. And just because this Manfred character got along with these people didn't make them good or trustworthy. Manfred could be evil to the core; how would he know?

Sam turned to look out the window at the streetlights flashing by. The headache that had never really left was coming back.

Dean finally paused the droning Latin chant he'd been keeping up for the past 15 minutes and stared angrily at the crystal ball resting in the center of a pentacle. Manfred had spent the time glancing at the items lining side tables in the room. Almost none of the decorative trinkets probably did anything and the ones that did do something would barely impress a child.

The silence got a little oppressive.

"You're stopping?" Manfred queried.

"This obviously isn't working, no thanks to you, so yeah I'm stopping."

"Maybe one of your chalk symbols is wrong?" They certainly didn't match Manfred's regular set up, but Manfred was rarely relying on symbols alone. Hell half the time the symbols were for telling spirits to back off, not inviting them.

Dean clenched a fist. "I could draw that in my sleep. Are you doing something to stop the talisman from working?"

Manfred tried on a wide-eyed innocent look and actually had the feeling this face was pretty good at it. "We've established that I don't have my mojo. But…"

"But what?" Dean growled.

"A crystal ball would be a terrible tether for a ghost. They're used for channeling energy, so things kind of slide off and pool inside them, then dissipate. They have to be purified between uses too; that thing is probably contaminated with all kinds of bad energy."

"The last thing Sam did before popping out of here was touch that hunk of glass!"

Manfred shrugged. "I didn't say I have a full explanation. Just normally ghosts pick an object that's more hospitable to them. She was a medium in life but… Huh."

"What now?"

"Well, if she was a medium, maybe the crystal ball isn't her tether, but she could still be drawn to it. If she had any kind of power, even a little, she could've affected it with her energy."

"So she isn't chained to the ball, she's using it?"

"Like she did in life. Yeah. Ghosts love their routines." He chuckled darkly.

"But mediums don't go around making people swap bodies while they get their palms read."

"No they don't. But being dead changes things. Amplifies people's spiritual energy as well as their negative character traits. Maybe she wasn't even trying to make us swap bodies, maybe she just wanted Sam not to touch her stuff."

"And she just happened to swap him for you, another medium?" Dean sounded skeptical.

"Well I do have a history of shit luck." He smiled but Dean did not smile back. "Look I'm a magnet for ghosts and I live in a place where the veil between the living and the dead is thin. She could've latched onto the strongest energy she could find and it just happened to be mine."

"Anyone ever tell you how humble you are?"

"All the time."

Dean pulled a sledgehammer from the duffel bag. "I can still destroy it then, right?"

"No!"

Dean froze and Manfred felt a strong urge to run his hand through his hair, but even if he could have he knew it would've felt wrong, because it wasn't his hair. "If we do contact her she might need it to get us back to our own bodies. You're right, neither human mediums, nor ghosts tend to do this kind of thing, and especially not unaided."

"Fine." Dean dropped the hammer back into the bag with a sharp clang. "We've been all over the house with an EMF detector already and nothing was chirping. I think it's time for plan B."

Manfred was trying not smirk at the thought of using an EMF detector to look for ghosts. "Which is?"

"The graveyard." Dean looked at him as if it should've been obvious. "Most people are pretty attached to their bodies."

"Har har. I uh… I'm not a big fan of graveyards."

"Really? Sounds like you're pretty palsy with the ghost crowd."

"Except not when they're an actual crowd. When they realize I can see them… let's just say the concept of personal space is not one that the dead respect."

"Well good thing you're mojo-less then."

"Right." He was still a bit skeptical about that. But it wasn't like he had a better idea.

"Won't Sam be heading here though?"

Dean finished repacking the duffel bag, carefully wrapping the crystal ball in the silk cloth and putting it in too. "Yeah but we'll leave him a message."

He pulled out a carton of salt and poured a small pile in the center of the chalk pentacle, then dropped a burnt out match on top of it.

"That's it?"

"Yeah. He knows where we go to salt and burn 'em. We already looked up the graveyard earlier today."

Dean finally came over and untied Manfred. Manfred made a show of rubbing his wrists, though because he hadn't struggled they were barely pink, and Dean rolled his eyes. Then Manfred followed him outside to a beautiful gleaming black 1967 Chevrolet impala parked in the driveway.

Manfred whistled. "She's yours?"

And for the first time Dean gave something like a smile. "Yes she is." He popped the trunk and Manfred was somehow unsurprised to find it bristling with more weapons and supplies.

He climbed into the passenger seat and Dean got behind the wheel. Manfred looked over at the gruff man. He knew nothing about him, except that he and Sam apparently hunted supernatural creatures, the kind that Midnight was a haven for.

He shouldn't like him. He had no doubt that Dean would attack Lem or the Rev in a heartbeat, wouldn't wait to listen for explanations. Dean was infuriatingly certain that he knew how things were, even when Manfred could prove him wrong, like with the crystal ball. He acted like everything was a threat, like the world was nothing but monsters. And maybe it was a lot of monsters, but some of them were friendly!

Yet seeing Dean relax slightly as he cruised the perfectly oiled machine down the road, Manfred felt a spark of fondness. Dean was angry, but it was a protective anger. The concern in his voice when Manfred first woke up in this body was genuine, and after deciding Manfred wasn't an immediate threat, he'd moved on to solving the problem, no waffling or bemoaning the situation.

It was nice to have someone else take the lead, to not be the one tackling a ghost problem head on. Fiji had helped him before, sure, but with her naïve optimism shaping all her decisions. Dean took ghosts seriously, and it was fascinating to see the weapons in his arsenal, so similar but different from Manfred's own.

Classic rock was drifting from a cassette player as they rode and Manfred cracked a window to let the cool Texas night air in. He still felt a bit strange. This lanky body more than filled the front seat, and if he paid attention he could still feel the tension on his chest, the supernatural barrier there.

He did have to admit that it was nice not having a headache. Sam's body was fit and healthy, and he didn't seem much older than Manfred though it was hard to tell. Dean seemed older and a little more weathered. He wondered what his relationship to Sam was and how they ended up hunters.

"How far is the cemetery?" He asked instead.

"We're already close." They turned a corner and Manfred could see it up a gentle hill. It wasn't enormous, but it had at least 500 graves he'd bet. The nerves came back.

But as they pulled up to the gate the only shadows he saw looming in the darkness were the outlines of gravestones and memorials. Dean somehow unlocked the chain and pulled in, then shut it loosely behind them. A bright half-moon bathed the cemetery in light. They drove to the back of the looping driveway and Dean parked under a large tree.

They climbed out and he fetched two shovels from the back. "Time to have some fun."

"We're going to dig up her grave?"

"Yep. We have to get to the actual bones."

"And then we're going to use her bones to summon her?" He'd been around a few corpses yes, but he'd never intentionally disturbed a grave. Ghosts found him, not the other way around. Still he supposed it would work the same way as it had for him with the murder victims in Midnight.

"We're going to try. But not until Sam gets here. I don't want her to show up too early or things could go sideways; this environment isn't as easy to control as a house."

"So why did we rush over here then?" He followed Dean across the wet grass between relatively new headstones.

"Because the digging takes a lot longer than you'd think." Dean pointed a flashlight at a lonely grave a little off to the side. The grass was only just recovering overtop the disturbed earth. "Bingo. Let's get to work."

When they pulled up outside the Victorian house, Sam couldn't wait to get out of the car. Olivia insisted he stay in handcuffs, even during the one stop they'd made for gas and caffeine. Bobo had tried a few times to start conversations, but Sam didn't feel like going into his own tragic backstory and Fiji still seemed irritated from earlier so mostly they listened to various country stations come and go and Sam felt the headache pulse along in his head. How exactly did Manfred do anything while feeling like this? Had he ever been checked for a brain tumor?

Unfortunately Sam realized as soon as he stepped out of the car that the impala was gone. Not a great sign. The Midnighters followed him onto the porch where he jimmied open the front door and hopefully called out in Manfred's unfamiliar, higher pitched voice, "Dean?"

It was quiet. Sam hurried to the last room he'd been in, just a few hours before, when he'd had his hands free and they were actually his hands. The crystal ball wasn't on the table anymore. And in a summoning pentacle on the floor was a little pile of salt and a burnt match.

"Dammit."

"What?" Olivia asked sharply.

"They're at the graveyard."

"You got that from a match and some table salt?" Bobo asked.

"It's how we get rid of a spirit. Salt and burn their bones."

Fiji frowned. "That's awful! You've been burning ghosts away?"

He shrugged defensively. "Only the ones that cause problems for the living."

"But there are so many other ways to help them cross over! What about helping them with their unfinished business?"

"They think their unfinished business is murdering people!"

"Only because they've been trapped on earth too long! If you mix—"

"That can wait until Sam is in his own body. If they're not here, let's go find them." Olivia pointed to the door, still watching Sam closely.

"Fine." Fiji marched back out to the car. Sam had to wait for Bobo to open the door for him, his arms still pinned behind his back. He tried to roll his wrists to alleviate the building numbness.

"So where are we going?" Olivia started the car.

"Not far. Five blocks straight, then a right and up a small hill."

There was no one on the streets. Sam glanced at the clock and saw that it was 3 a.m. He'd been in this body for a long time now but it still didn't feel like his. Olivia had given him another pain pill when they stopped for gas and he'd clocked that it was from a prescription bottle. Still the headache had only dulled, not gone away.

They turned and as they started up the hill Sam's head throbbed. It felt like something was trying to claw its way into his skull. Then he caught a glimpse of the cemetery.

"Oh fuck." There were ghosts all over it. Not as many as there were gravestones; after all, only spirits with a reason to linger stuck around, but there had to be at least fifty of them, drifting around the lot, passing through each other, drifting through the trees.

Bobo and Fiji were eyeing him with at least a hint of concern.

"It's crawling with the dead." He was used to seeing ghosts yeah, but not this many. Not spirits casually wandering around, killing time. Spirits that weren't riled up or drawn to an object. He wondered if Manfred was used to this somehow.

"Of course it is." Fiji chirped. "This is their final resting place. For some of them anyway. They aren't going to bother us."

Sam winced as his temples ached. "Well, I'm pretty sure they're making brain feel like it's going to rip in half."

"I've told yo—Manfred to quit using the pills. I can make a tincture that's more effective and less addictive, but it doesn't make the ghosts disappear."

"The pills can make the ghosts disappear?" It was a struggle to keep his eyes open as they drew up to the cemetery gate, the pain in his head was so sharp.

"Well not as in they actually leave, but apparently Manfred stops seeing them for a bit if he takes enough."

"And what's enough?" There may have been a slight pleading edge to his tone.

Olivia frowned. "You're not getting more. Isn't the whole reason we're here because of a ghost? You need to be able to deal with them."

"I don't need Manfred's power to do that. Dean and I have seen plenty of ghosts!"

"Yeah because you were invading their homes and trying to kill them a second time." Fiji muttered.

"Isn't this these ghosts' home?"

"Cemeteries are more neutral. They're used to visitors."

"How do you know?"

"You act like you're the only one who's dealt with ghosts before." Fiji sounded exasperated again.

Olivia stopped in front of the closed gate. "Fiji would you be a doll and get this open?"

"Of course. It's not even locked." Fiji waved a hand and Sam stared as the chain around it unwound and the metal gate swung open. He'd known she was a witch, but doing that with no ingredients, no spell, took real power.

He'd been distracted by the bickering but now that they headed into the cemetery proper and the gate swung shut behind them, the ghosts came into sharp focus again. A balding man in coveralls limped past with one leg missing, torn away. A woman drifted by in a hospital gown with stitches running across her forehead. The ghosts had a smoky, silvery quality to them, different details shifting in and out of clarity. They also seemed vaguely curious about the car, or at least he thought there were more of them around the driveway than there had been before. He shuddered.

The impala shone in the moonlit at the back of the cemetery and he managed to relax a fraction. Dean was here. They would figure this out. He just had to walk through a crowd of ghosts to an open grave, summon a dead medium, and convince her to give him his body back. Right. Simple.

Dean dug like a machine. Like he'd done this so many times he was bored of it. Manfred dug like an six-year-old who still couldn't hit a ball off a tee. He could tell that his… Sam's hands were calloused in the right places for this. He knew this body knew the act of grave-robbing, but he couldn't activate that skillset.

Dean kept telling him, "Use your legs, not your back. Stop throwing dirt around like that. Put your weight behind it." It didn't help. Manfred's limbs felt a little more 'his' at this point but he still kept misjudging distances, and Sam's long hair kept falling in his eyes. He was helping some, but Dean was making the real progress.

There was a solid thump and Dean wiped his muddy brow. "Finally."

They cleaned the last of the soil off the top of the coffin, then Dean chopped into the wood with his shovel. From the grass at the edge of the hole Manfred watched the still glossy lid splinter, then finally give way. The shovel tore through a fabric lining and the smell of death wafted up to him. Not as bad as it could sometimes be, but still unpleasant. When Dean had mostly exposed the body, he climbed out of the grave. They both leaned on their shovels, staring down at the uneven rectangular hole.

"What exactly is the penalty for digging up a grave and doing… this?" Manfred asked.

"Never stuck around to find out." Dean gave a crooked grin. "And most caretakers are open to bribes anyway."

"Huh." Manfred looked out at the quiet moonlit cemetery. It seemed so empty, peaceful, though he knew it wasn't. Normally he would be seeing at least some of the occupants topside, not this illusion that death had been a quick and final end for them all.

He looked back at Dean, who was smeared in grave dirt but seemed far less weary than he'd have predicted.

"You know we might not have to burn her."

"I don't like to take chances. I've always told Sam that's what I want when I'm gone too. A hunter's funeral."

"Very final."

"Are you saying you want to stick around as a shade?"

Manfred laughed dryly. "Not really, but I'm not sure I can stop it. Sticking around to help our descendants is a kind of a family thing. Although who knows, maybe the famed Bernardo clan dies with me."

Dean's gaze turned distant. "Yeah the Winchesters aren't real long for this world either."

There was a gentle rattling sound and they turned to see the gate swing open unassisted for Olivia's car. Olivia was behind the wheel and of course that was Fiji riding shotgun. Manfred smiled. "They made it."

"About time. We don't want to be here for the sunrise." Manfred noticed that Dean had dropped the shovel and his hand wasn't far from the revolver at his waist.

"They're friends. Really. Olivia's the one driving and that's Fiji next to her."

"And where's Sam?"

"In the back I guess." Manfred wasn't sure how he felt about seeing his own body from the outside, but he and Sam were going to have to work together he supposed.

The spirits swirling around the car backed off a little as Olivia parked behind the impala. Sam looked out and was immediately unsettled to see himself standing beside Dean at the gravesite. There was no sign that anything was wrong, that that wasn't actually him. Manfred looked so much more at ease in Sam's body than Sam felt in Manfred's. He really was tall. Huh.

He remembered his idea of trying to signal Dean. But the vampire wasn't here and he had to admit he didn't find any of them particularly dangerous, at least not to the general public. He had no proof that Fiji wasn't every bit a good witch, and if he'd definitely noticed Olivia packing heat, well this was Texas and so was his brother. It would be easier for everyone if they worked together, at least for the moment.

Olivia and Fiji got out and Bobo circled around the car to get the door for Sam.

"Sam?" Dean asked uncertainly, sizing up the flannel-clad man.

Bobo smiled and shook his head. He opened the door and helped Sam out. Sam immediately turned to his brother with relief. "Hey Dean."

Dean burst out laughing. Sam watched his own body flush, then his eyes narrow with an irritation he didn't feel. This was bizarre.

Dean grabbed Manfred's shoulder. "Man you really went for the look didn't you?"

"Says the guy in a leather jacket with a pentacle tattoo!"

"Do you own any clothing that isn't black?" Dean was still chuckling.

"Yes! Some." Okay honestly he wasn't sure how many non-black articles of clothing he owned. It was also very odd seeing how short he looked from here. But there was something comforting in having his body nearby, even if the features he saw in the mirror were flip-flopped from this perspective. "Look, clients like it okay? And it's not half bad for picking up dates either."

"Oh yeah, you can have matching earrings." Dean smirked.

"As hilarious as it is to make fun of Manfred's admittedly atrocious fashion choices," Manfred gave Olivia a look. "We're here for a reason."

"Yeah to summon this bitch, make her put Sam and Manfred in the correct bodies, and send her back to the other side."

Fiji glowered. "And I thought Sam's attitude towards spirits was bad."

"Well I didn't handcuff Manfred, but maybe I should have huh?"

"He threatened to kill my husband."

That actually surprised Dean, who glanced to Manfred, then realized he wasn't Sam, and looked at Sam. Sam shrugged and Manfred realized his arms were indeed bound behind his back. Great, more soreness to look forward to when he got his body back.

"It's not my fault she's married to a vampire."

"You married a vamp?"

"Yes. And it's not really any of your business."

Manfred tried to cut in. "Guys dawn isn't that far away, can we just—"

"Vampires can't be trusted. I would know."

"Oh because you know everything about supernaturals."

"Guys..." Sam interjected, and Manfred noticed that his gaze was not on Dean or any of the midnighters.

"I know a hell of a lot more than you."

"Don't make me laugh. Ever made friends with a weretiger?"

Dean pursed his lips. "No, but I am friends with an angel who could kick your ass in a heartbeat."

"Ditto."

They eyed each other.

"King of Hell."

"Half-demon."

"Nephilim."

"Witch."

"Guys!" Sam backed right into Bobo, and Manfred knew what he was probably seeing.

"I think Sam's trying to say that the spirits have realized there's a medium among us."

"Sam?" Dean immediately shifted his attention to his brother.

Sam looked to Manfred. "What do I do?"

"Calm down for one. Unless they're riled up they can't possess you without permission."

"Unless they're riled up?"

"I said to stay calm. Fiji, did you bring anything to repel them?"

"I thought the goal was attracting them, sorry." She parted her hands.

"Sammy, get over here." Dean suddenly had a carton of salt in his hands. He started pouring a neat circle on the ground right beside the grave.

Sam darted over to the circle and was clearly either dodging things no one else could see, or suffering from even worse coordination problems as Manfred.

"There. Nothing is going to possess you now."

"Yeah but they're still everywhere." Sam stared right past Dean's head at a man holding his own head casually under one arm.

The midnighters finally came to the grave as Manfred waved them over. "Olivia will you please unhandcuff him?"

Olivia frowned but complied. Manfred realized he truly towered over her now, and even Bobo. He got a flash of almost vertigo again but quelled it.

Fiji smiled at him. "I'm glad you're okay Manfred." She looked him up and down. "It's the strangest thing, I feel like I can sense you, but there's no sign of possession."

"It's definitely not a normal possession, at least as far as I can tell." There was no feeling of unreality to this, no creeping flesh, no duality in his mind. It was like he just… became another person.

"How is it?"

"Very weird. My arms and legs are too long. I can't see spirits. I don't have a headache." He smiled and Sam shot him a glare. Manfred had to imagine that his head was pounding, being in a cemetery with spirits actively circling nearby.

"We'll get you back to your headachey self in no time." Olivia gave him a bright smile and he rolled his eyes.

"Thanks."

"So who's doing the summoning?" Sam asked.

The midnighters all looked from him to Manfred. "Well normally I'd do it. We can try Dean's method, but there might be interference from the other spirits. What do you want to do?"

"Normally we'd just be looking to salt and burn the bones and that threat would maybe bring the spirit here. But we could use a gentler touch in this particular situation…" Dean looked to Sam.

Sam stared back at Dean, then at Manfred. "What exactly are you asking me to do?"

"It's really simple actually. You focus on the spiritual energy around you and you ask Madame Giry to appear. She'll probably show. Then you can talk to her. Some spirits aren't very good at talking though, out of practice or uh, missing the right parts, and she may want to possess you."

"I do not want to be possessed." Sam growled.

"It's never fun, but it's temporary. If things get bad you can kick her out."

"Easier said than done." Manfred could tell by the look in his eyes that he was saying that from experience.

"True, but you weren't a medium when you were possessed in the past. I think you'll find it's a lot easier than you think to take back control."

"Is that really the only option?" Dean asked.

"I mean we can threaten her, but following through with the pyre is going to leave us stuck like this. I don't know any way of switching back."

"And you don't either?" Dean looked at the other midnighters, who shook their heads. There was a lot of lore out there, Manfred knew, and maybe there was another solution, but it would take time to find and could be much riskier than this. The thought of delaying made his stomach twist strangely. He knew he was physically fine, but he also knew he was ignoring how this felt, how disturbing it was to be cut off from the spiritual realm.

And what if he got used to this body? To no headaches, to being tall and lanky and wielding shovels and salt instead of Ouija boards and candles? Hell he could go just have a normal life. Sam was human. Just human. It was surprising that he and Dean had lived this long hunting the things they did with no advantages whatsoever.

But that thought didn't make him happy either. Midnight was his home. And while he knew they would accept him with or without his gifts… it had felt good to bring something to the table when their town was under threat. His gift might be more curse than gift but it was his. And he wanted it back.

He watched Sam let out a breath. "It's fine, Dean, I can do it."

"You'll need to be touching her body. And you'll have to break the salt circle." Manfred gestured to the grave.

Sam rubbed his forehead. "Cool. You're not even tall enough to scramble out of her grave if shit goes sideways."

Manfred snorted. "We'll be right here, surrounding the grave. If you see any ghosts approaching, point them out and we'll shoo them off with salt."

Manfred watched his own jaw set in determination. Okay that wasn't a bad look. "Alright." Sam shook out his hands. "There's one between me and the grave right now."

Dean tossed a handful of salt and the ghost bride vanished in a flash of smoke. She reappeared across the graveyard, looking peeved. "Good now?"

"Yeah… for the moment." Now or never. He jumped down into the grave. "Do I actually have to be touching her?"

"It's best yeah. Sorry." Manfred tried not to think about how often he'd touched skeletons and corpses. Or the fact that technically it was still his body touching this one…

Sam took another deep breath and regretted it. The smell at the bottom of the grave was fetid. But he crouched down anyway and pressed his fingers to the shriveled corpse's arm.

He tried to ground himself, to focus. But he kept glancing up at the edge of the grave to watch for ghosts. They were surprisingly fast and they really didn't care about physical objects in their way. He watched a man drift straight through Bobo's arm, his eyes locked only on Sam. "There's one by Bobo."

Fiji tossed salt at him as Dean sniggered. "Your name's Bobo?"

Bobo frowned, but before he could speak Manfred called down to Sam. "Focus on the veil, Sam. Focus on Madame Giry."

Sam forced himself to close his eyes. The veil. Right. A veil he'd never felt before, even though he knew it existed. It couldn't be that far off from using demon blood way back when, right? Demons and spirits weren't that different. Except back then he wanted to expel them and now he wanted to… invite one? But did he really? He cracked an eye open. "There's one by Dean."

A few grains of salt showered down onto Sam as Olivia threw some rather aggressively at Dean and the spirit of a young boy dissolved away. Sam closed his eyes again. He did want Madame Giry to appear. He wanted his body back. He didn't want these headaches or to be swarmed by ghosts every time he passed a cemetery. He needed to speak to Madame Giry.

And just like that he felt something wavering around him, something that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. His fingertips stayed against the corpse's crumbling skin and the hard bone beneath it. "I summon you, Madame Giry."

It felt silly, saying it out loud, but something compelled him. "I summon you." He tried again, closing his eyes. Focused. "Appear to me."

A feeling ran through him, as if the air was suddenly full of static. There was a faint whooshing sound, then silence. He opened his eyes.

Hovering above him was the spirit of a petite old woman in a headwrap and robe. Nothing about her indicated the way she'd died, and she didn't look angry, nor surprised. She glanced at Manfred, who watched them from the grave's edge without really seeing, and gave a wry smile.

Then she opened her mouth and said something. But Sam didn't hear a sound. A pit of dread opened in his stomach.

"I can't hear you."

A flash of irritation crossed her wrinkled brow and she tried again. Still nothing. Sam didn't want to say it. He glanced to Manfred, who gave him a knowing look, his gaze then somehow finding the spot where Madame Giry floated.

"You have to invite her in Sam." His own deep voice came down to him, dripping with compassion. Was this why Dean got so irritated with him sometimes?

Another deep breath. At least Madame Giry's presence seemed to have chased away the other ghosts. "I need to speak with you. I… invite you in." The last part was a whisper but she must've been waiting for him to say it. She dissolved into a column of smoke and his mouth seemed to open of its own accord.

It felt like he was swallowing frigid air, a coldness seeping through his entire body as he went still. He could feel her shoving him aside, just like Lucifer had, and he started to panic, but when he pushed back he felt a finger twitch and just like that he knew Manfred was right. It was different being a medium; the fight was not so one-sided.

He tried to relax and found he could actively feel her control spreading through him. It wasn't like being Lucifer's puppet. He could sense where she was attached to him, almost like she was settled somewhere between his muscles and skin. The division between him and her wasn't seamless, it was stark, and he was fascinated. He almost wanted to try kicking her out just to see what would happen, but he knew that wasn't the point.

Manfred watched nervously as Sam's mouth fell open and his eyes slowly frosted over with white. Okay it did look pretty creepy when he was possessed, he had to admit. He hoped Sam had it under control; it was hard to explain what using his abilities was like and to be honest he hadn't wanted to try in case it put Sam off the idea altogether.

"So you believe now?" Sam felt his lips moving but the voice that came out was even higher now and raspy. He wondered if she did that on purpose or if the muscle memory in her brain just made her sound like this.

Believe what? He thought at her. That was one thing he'd gotten good at. Thinking things at the people in his head. Maybe he was qualified to be a medium after all.

"That I have the gift! I never swindled anyone!"

Oh. That's what this was about.

I'm sorry. I meant no disrespect. We didn't know it was you appearing at the accident sites.

"No one ever believed me. My own family shunned me. But now that I'm on this side of the veil, I can show them what I'm capable of."

Sam felt his neck roll in a very disturbing way. He could see the midnighters and Dean cautiously watching him, but it was like looking through fogged glass.

I'm sure they'll believe you now. I certainly believe you. He wondered if his thought conveyed the wry tone.

"Doubting Thomas. You had to be shown to believe." She sounded rather smug and he shoved down his rising anger. She yanked him out of his body to show off?

And Manfred?

"He doesn't appreciate what he's been given. I had customers who encountered him. He has the gift and yet he'd con them anyway. Not so fun to know what's out there and be powerless in the face of it, hmm?" She was staring directly at Manfred and Sam could feel his features twisting with her anger.

Manfred answered her very calmly. "No, no it's not. And you're right. I used to con people. But I don't do that anymore. I'm trying to use my abilities for good."

Madame Giry scoffed. Fiji spoke up. "He's telling the truth. He nearly died protecting our town. That's why we're here."

Sam felt his head snap around unnaturally as Madame Giry sized Fiji up. To his surprise it was almost like there was a kind of faint blue shimmer appearing all around the witch. "You have great power yourself. Be careful not to let it consume you."

Fiji narrowed her eyes. "Manfred should use his gifts but I should rein mine in?"

Sam inwardly cringed. He felt Madame Giry bristle. "You think you're in control but you are not. Manfred at least has no such conceits. He could learn so much…"

Just like that Madame Giry shifted inside him. It was like he was taking a deep breath but his mouth and lungs never moved. Suddenly he feel himself rising. Not just straightening up, no longer touching Madame Giry's corpse, but… floating?

"Ghosts don't just talk Manfred." She stared right at him, levitating until they were eye to eye. She spread her (his) arms wide, hovering there with ease.

Sam heard Bobo whisper, "Damn." He tried to control his mounting panic again. It wasn't like something was holding him up; it was like gravity had just let go of him. He wasn't touching anything at all and what the hell was he going to do if he rose even higher and she left him?

"That is…. I've never done that before." Manfred admitted.

That pleased the ghost; Sam could feel a strange pulse of warmth within him. She really did just want to show off and that almost annoyed him enough to forget that he was suspended several feet above the ground. He was glad she couldn't actually read his thoughts the way Lucifer could.

"There's much more for you to learn." She still had her eyes locked on Manfred. She was a ghost because she wanted a legacy. But the only way Manfred was going to learn from her was if he was in his own body. So maybe Sam could pull this conversation back on track…

Then will you switch us back? Sam could feel his flesh crawling as she considered. The urge to itch and writher, or better yet, hurry up and throw her out of his body, was strong. He took back his earlier thoughts; he wasn't suited to being a medium. He hated this, hated being held hostage above an open grave with someone else in his head. Hated letting someone else speak through his mouth. Although surprisingly the headache had vanished now that she was inside him. One pro of possession against the many cons.

"You don't deserve it."

Manfred and the others tensed and Dean's hand twitched toward the salt container at his side. Madame Giry lazily spun in midair, looking at each member of their group before finally facing Manfred again.

"But I will grant your wish. If you agree to my condition."

"What's the condition?" Sam and Manfred asked as one.

"Bring my family to my parlor and summon me there. I want them to know the truth."

"Done." Manfred met her/Sam's/his own gaze. "Give me my body back and I can do it tomorrow."

Which family members? Where are they? Sam asked, and she chuckled but it came out as a rather evil sounding croak.

"Ever practical, aren't you? I have a sister and a son. Both live here in Dallas."

That seems doable.

"If you don't keep this promise, I will set a curse upon all of you." Madame Giry warned, shifting her milky gaze across the group. "One I promise no witch on your side of the veil will be able to undo."

"We'll do what you asked." Manfred said. Sam could see Dean clenching his teeth and he silently urged his brother to keep his mouth shut.

"Hand me my crystal ball." Dean got it from the duffel bag and carefully handed it to her.

Sam felt himself sinking slowly back into the grave until his feet touched the coffin wood. It shouldn't have felt as comforting standing in the bottom of a grave as it did. He was back on solid ground.

But she was still moving, sitting down on the edge of the coffin, leaning back against the side of the hole so that dirt fell into his hair and itched in his scalp. He struggled not to fight her control of his body, not to think about Lucifer, about how casually he could kill with a wave of Sam's hand… This was almost done. She was going to leave him willingly, he reminded himself.

"You might want to sit down too." She called up to Manfred.

"Right." Manfred quickly sat in the grass, crossing Sam's long legs.

Then suddenly Madame Giry was chanting in a guttural language that Sam didn't recognize. Definitely not Latin. The ball began to grow warm in his hands, then painfully hot, but he couldn't let go as it shone brighter and brighter and he wanted to close his eyes but he couldn't because they weren't his, they were still hers and then suddenly he felt his grip on everything loosen and he was torn away again in a rush of cold smoke.

Sam opened his eyes and the first thing he felt was absence. No headache, no icy chill inside him, nothing. Just cool damp grass against the side of his face.

He slowly sat up and looked down at himself. Flannel shirt, long limbs, tan skin. He was himself again. He grinned and looked up to see Dean grinning too.

"You're back."

"I'm back." He stood and everything was the right height again, his legs were the right length. He'd never appreciated how nice it was to have just… his own body. Even when he was possessed in the past at least he was still in his own head.

He stepped to the edge of the grave where Manfred was getting to his feet and shaking grave dirt out of his hair. Sam offered him a hand and Manfred took it, scrambling out of the hole.

Then they stepped back and appraised each other. "Nice to meet like normal people." Manfred smiled.

Olivia called over. "Neither of you qualify as normal!"

"Neither do you!" Manfred shot back.

Sam eyed him sympathetically. "She's always like that huh?"

"Pretty much yeah. And Dean is…?"

"The same. Yep." Sam ran a hand through his appropriately shaggy hair. "Kind of surprised you cooperated with the swap."

"Why, because you think you're better looking than me?" Manfred gave him a clear look that said he didn't think so and Sam laughed.

"No I meant more the whole… seeing ghosts, feeling like there's an ice pick in your skull all the time thing."

"Right, that." Manfred shrugged. "You get used to it. I mean Madame Giry's not wrong, I didn't always appreciate my gifts and I didn't want to explore them. It's not exactly fun growing up as the crazy kid who plays with people that no one else can see. And conning marks was a way easier way to make money than doing genuine séances. But I've found my people now, and my abilities… they've come in handy."

Sam nodded, and realized he could honestly relate. A hunter's childhood wasn't anyone's version of normal either, but he always had Dean. And he wouldn't trade that or the skillset he'd spent years building away either. Still… "You get used to being possessed? Because I really, really hate that."

"It's not exactly pleasant, but yeah you get better at it. I can maintain some control generally, switch back and forth with the spirit as needed. Demons are way worse by far."

"You've been possessed by demons, plural?"

"Yeah, that was the whole saving the town thing." Manfred rubbed the back of his neck.

"And you kept control of your body? With how many inside you?"

"Five total. It was… as bad as that sounds. There were side effects too. Demonic essence oozed out me for a while. In the end I had to see an energy healer to recover. But hey, for a little while I could project energy and toss fireballs, as well as take them to the chest with zero damage so… tradeoffs."

"Yeah, minor tradeoffs." And just like that Sam started laughing and Manfred joined in.

They wheezed to a stop and Sam gave Manfred a genuine smile. "I'm sorry but that sounds a lot like the time I decided that drinking demon blood would be a good idea."

"Demon blood?" Manfred repeated.

"Story time is later. We're technically at a crime scene, you know." Dean appeared beside Sam. "Are you sure we don't want to just salt and burn her?" He muttered quietly.

Fiji still somehow heard. "She could actually curse you. And I would let her."

"I think that settles that." Manfred realized Bobo had a shovel and was about to toss dirt back in. "Hang on a sec!"

He jumped back into the grave and quickly broke off Madame Giry's pinky. "We did say we'd summon her."

Sam pulled him out again. "I thought maybe you just loved being covered in grave dirt."

Manfred shook his head, shaking some onto Sam. "It is good luck."

"I really hope we're not expecting hellhounds to show up." Dean muttered as he skirted around them.

Manfred turned. "Those are real?"

"Yeah and we definitely don't want to meet one. But if we did, we'd want the grave dirt around."

"I'll stick to ghosts." Manfred turned to eye a woman just beside Sam who looked like she'd been a victim of a fire. It was oddly comforting to see her there, as if he'd never lost the sight at all. But… "Speaking of which, I'd rather not be here much longer, for reasons other than this being a crime scene."

Dean had returned the duffel bag to the impala and he and Bobo were now filling in the grave together. Manfred and Sam went over to Fiji and Olivia.

"All better and already bffs huh?" Olivia's tone was saccharine.

"We have a surprising amount in common. I think we can trust them Olivia."

Sam was a little surprised at Manfred's faith in him, and a little chagrined about his earlier reactions to Lem and Fiji. "We're definitely here to see this to the end. And I'm willing to try a different method of putting her spirit to rest."

Fiji arched a brow at him, but then smiled. Olivia didn't soften a fraction. She just glanced to her car. "We obviously aren't going to drive back to Midnight at this point. Do I need to get us a hotel room or…?"

"Is that okay?" Manfred asked. "I mean I don't exactly have a ton of cash flow."

"You can stay at Madame Giry's."

They all turned to stare at Sam.

"What? That's what Dean and I are going to do. The lights and the water are still turned on and we basically have permission to be there."

"Permission from a dead woman. I don't think the cops are going to buy it." Olivia countered.

"We introduced ourselves to the neighbors yesterday, told them we're filming for a ghost hunting show. They were happy to give us their quotes and they aren't going to be surprised by another car in the drive."

"Huh. Smart. Did you know that the house wasn't haunted?"

"Not exactly. But we don't have the greatest cash flow either."

Olivia shrugged. "What's trespassing after a little grave robbing? We can leave now, gives us more time to hit the showers and see how her hot water heater holds up."

They headed for the car. Dean looked over. "Hey! You're just going to leave us here?"

"You big strong men can handle this can't you?" Olivia thrust out her lower lip.

Bobo laughed and Dean growled. Olivia slid into the driver's seat with a wink and they peeled out.

Luckily Madame Giry had invested in a large Victorian house to fit the theme of her life's work. There were four fully furnished bedrooms and a large chaise lounge in the living room. They quickly claimed spaces and split off to the two bathrooms to shower.

The water was hot and at 4:30 a.m Manfred was glad to get the grave dirt off him and to reassure himself that he was back in his own scarred, properly tattooed body. Everything felt a tiny bit strange again now that he was no longer 90% legs, but his muscle memory was functioning and his hair wasn't going to fall into his eyes and that was the most he could ask for.

He wasn't exactly happy this had happened, but he liked Sam and Dean. He also liked the idea of shotgun rocksalt. And salting and burning bodies and/or talismans could actually be a good backup for getting rid of a malevolent spirit, even if Fiji didn't like it. Not every ghost could be convinced to cross over with sympathy and purifying spells.

He got out of the shower and toweled off, then wiped the mirror clean to see his reflection. Everything was as it should be. Not even any black ooze lingering around. It had been one of the strangest 24 hour periods he'd ever experienced and he was happy to fall into bed and rest.

Sam woke up at 11. Well technically first he'd woken up at 6 when Dean and Bobo finally made it back to the house in the gray pre-dawn light. And then he didn't wake again until 11, to the smell of… pancakes?

He was still exhausted. But he didn't have a headache and that felt miraculous after yesterday. Hell, waking up as himself felt better than it had since…since he'd been possessed the last time. Was all of this just a giant test to make him feel more grateful his own meatsuit? Simply moving some of his long hair out of his face made him smile.

He didn't want to get up, but he knew they needed to make some kind of a plan. And a secondary smell had made itself known as well: coffee.

Downstairs he found that it was Fiji in the kitchen flipping pancakes, as Bobo set the gigantic table nearby. "Did Madame Giry have groceries?"

"Goddess!" Fiji jumped and pressed a hand to her heart. "Sorry, Sam, I didn't think anyone else would quite be awake yet."

"I think that smell is going to wake everyone up." Sam rummaged in a cupboard for a coffee mug.

"Well I hope so, I don't want to be in Dallas too much longer, no offense."

Sam shrugged. "None taken, neither do we. Just passing through."

"The impala's your home on wheels, huh?" Manfred stepped into the kitchen, yawning.

"Yeah something like that." They shared another knowing look.

"Smells amazing, Fij." Sam kept the cupboard open and Manfred grabbed a cup too.

"Thanks. We did make a grocery run."

"How are you so awake?" Manfred muttered.

"I might've spiked the coffee just a little."

Sam swallowed and looked into his cup. "Should I be worried?"

"You think I'd drink something bad for me?" She asked sweetly.

"Nope." He took another sip. Tasted fine. He did feel more awake but couldn't that be a placebo, or just caffeine?

"Should we wait for Dean?"

"No. Should we wait for Olivia?"

"No." They laughed and Fiji started taking pancakes off the griddle.

By the time Dean and Olivia came downstairs they were all done eating and Fiji had made a new pot of coffee. Sam had to assume there was something magic in the coffee because he felt like he'd had a lot more sleep than he actually had.

He'd learned that Midnight, Texas was generally the opposite of where a hunter would want to go. Most of the residents were supernatural or had some kind of past, the details of which neither Olivia or Bobo would give. And yet Sam had to admit he was curious. It'd been a while since he and Dean had been off the road, gone somewhere for something other than a job.

Manfred made him tell the demon blood story and it had been long enough ago that he could see some humor in it. Of course, he had to mention that it was all to stop the apocalypse and to his surprise Manfred immediately claimed that what he'd stopped in Midnight was an apocalypse too. Apparently the angel in their town had warned them about it and a demon had tried to open a portal to hell there.

Sam had to admit it had a few similarities to his own story, although he decided not to bring up the archangels or ask whether their angel had been possessing some human guy for millennia. Maybe there were other kinds of angels that Cas didn't know about; heaven was a lot larger than they'd initially thought, that was for sure.

Dean immediately poured a cup of coffee without speaking to anyone and so did Olivia. Sam found the way they pointedly ignored each other rather amusing.

Dean plopped into a chair by Manfred and the psychic suddenly stiffened and went pale.

Dean quirked a brow. "What do I have morning breath or something?"

"What is on your hip? Ah…" He winced and rubbed his forehead.

"The colt?" Dean warily slipped it from its holster and held up the revolver.

Manfred recoiled, though Dean carefully had it pointed to the ceiling. "That gun is…"

"It's special." Dean eyed him curiously. "You can sense that?"

"It feels like death. Like the veil is fraying around it. Could you please," Manfred swallowed, "Please put it somewhere else?"

The midnighters were all watching Dean, the lighter mood of earlier fading. He frowned. "I really don't like to take it off…"

"He can put it in the trunk. Can't you Dean?" Sam gave him a look.

"Fine yeah, wouldn't waste a bullet on a ghost anyway." He sighed and went outside.

Manfred looked a lot less pale after he left, though he did take a big gulp of coffee. "Did he just bring up the idea of shooting a ghost with an actual bullet?"

Sam sighed.

By the time Dean returned, Manfred was back to normal. Olivia wasn't going to let it drop though. "What kind of gun was that?"

"It's a long story—"

"Family heirloom—"

Sam waved Dean on. "Basically it was made in the 1800s for a hunter like us. With the right bullets in it, it can kill almost anything. Demons, vampires, you name it. One shot, dead."

"And no one's thought to mass produce that yet?" She smirked.

Dean narrowed his eyes. "It's an incredibly delicate process just making bullets for it. And no one knows how the original gun was made. So yeah, by special I meant one-of-a-kind and no one touches it but me."

She shrugged. "I have plenty of weapons of my own."

Manfred interjected before Dean could respond. "You should consider not touching it either. I mean that has to be a magnet for bad luck. The energy it's giving off…"

"No one's ever mentioned it before." Dean answered.

"Well you did say you hate mediums so I can see why might not have come up."

"Can you sense that kind of thing about all objects? If you walk in a haunted house can you just immediately tell it's haunted?" Dean asked.

Bobo chuckled. "I mean he hates the pawn shop. For good reason I guess. That's where we got the demons to possess him…"

"Speaking of possession," Sam quickly interjected, "We can't actually let Madame Giry possess Manfred again, right?"

"Why not?" Manfred asked.

"Well it's really unclear if she was predicting the accidents she appeared around…"

"Or she caused them." Dean finished Sam's thought and slurped his coffee.

"You think I can't control her?"

"I know you've handled demons, but she's a medium too, even if she wasn't the most gifted while she was alive. I didn't really try fighting her so I have no way of knowing how strong she is, but that levitating thing… She obviously has some tricks up her sleeve." Sam said. A finger twitch was one thing; getting control of his whole body back was another.

"If she's not going to be able to speak through me, what's to stop her from using the crystal ball again?"

"Salt." Dean offered. "We circle it with salt under the table cloth, she won't be able to touch it."

Manfred slowly nodded. "So if it really is enough for her to just tell her family what she could do and how she felt, we can use a Ouija board and she'll cross over happily…"

"But if she tries anything funky, she's toast." Dean nodded. "I might've added a little salt to her grave and… planted something special."

"Did you put a bomb in her grave?" Fiji gaped at him.

"Look it's a very small one, just as an assurance! If I don't need to trigger it I won't."

"Smart." Olivia gave Dean an appraising look.

"Hopefully we won't need it. She seemed fairly reasonable at the grave site." Manfred gave Fiji a placating look. "I will however need some salt and lighter fluid for her finger too." Fiji frowned at him. "Just as an assurance!"

Manfred turned to Sam and Dean. "How exactly are we going to stop her from possessing me though?"

"Well I can't guarantee this will work, but…." Dean unbuttoned his shirt and the midnighters stared at him in confusion as he exposed his bare chest.

"You're going to invite the ghost to possess you instead?" Fiji hazarded a guess. Manfred laughed and Dean sighed.

"No the tattoo is an anti-possession symbol."

"But if Manfred gets that tattoo, he'll lose his abilities, won't he?" Olivia asked.

"I was thinking we give him a middle-school tattoo: Sharpie."

"Ohhhh." They all nodded and Manfred gave Dean an impressed look. "That actually might work. Although what if it affects my other abilities too? I felt like I was cut off from the veil in Sam's body."

"The tattoo is only anti-possession. Sam and I can still see ghosts when they're angry enough. My theory is that some abilities are mental and some are more physical. Maybe you needed the muscle memory of your own eyes to see ghosts, and the connection to your own body to summon them."

"I guess that kind of makes sense." Manfred mused. "And if the summoning doesn't work I can use some rubbing alcohol on the tattoo and we'll handle it my usual way."

"So… Anyone good at drawing?" Sam asked.

"Fiji draws things like that all the time." Olivia said sweetly.

Fiji blushed and Manfred shifted. "Does it have to be on my chest?"

Dean smirked. "Center mass is always the most important place to protect."

Manfred sighed as Sam brought over a black sharpie. He shucked off his leather jacket and pulled off his t-shirt. His necklace was cold against his bare skin. Olivia eyed the bullet-hole shaped scar on his chest. "Looks like you should've protected your center mass a little better in the past too."

"I'm here today, aren't I?" Manfred grumbled. "Can we just get this over with?"

Fiji took the sharpie and they turned their chairs to face each other. Dean came over to stand beside Manfred as a reference. She touched the marker to Manfred's bare skin and he immediately got goosebumps and instinctively pulled away.

"Manfred, you have to hold still!" Fiji scolded.

"Sorry, it's just cold!" Manfred tried to focus on anything but the sensation of the marker gliding across his skin. He hoped this was over with quickly.

Olivia smirked at him, then looked at Sam. "While she's prettying up Manfred, how about we contact the family?"

Two short phone calls later both family members had agreed to come tape for an episode of GhostFacers at Madame Giry's house. Sam may have said they'd gained permission from the estate (which was still tied up with legal issues) and he doubted either of them would look into that. They sounded as excited as the neighbors about maybe getting something worthwhile from the old medium's house.

Fortunately, Sam and Dean did still carry video and sound equipment in the impala and they soon had a set up arranged in the séance room and assigned roles to each person with various equipment. Fiji was by far the least comfortable with the con, but they reassured her that she shouldn't need to say anything at all, just be introduced as a sound engineer and then put on headphones and watch the show.

They ordered takeout around five and Sam was unsurprised to see that his and Fiji's orders were the most vegetable heavy. Olivia and Dean both ordered burgers and Sam had a feeling that if Olivia hadn't married a vampire Dean would definitely have been trying to make a move.

They'd swapped some more lore in the interim too. Apparently Lem had gotten the energy leeching ability from Manfred's grandma through magic, and the vampires they'd encountered needed traditional staking, not beheading. They also claimed that you had to be born a weretiger; it wasn't transmitted like lycanism. They'd never encountered ghouls or wendigos and Sam and Dean had never seen wraiths. The demons they described were slightly different too.

They'd also only heard of demon hunters, not hunters as a whole. They seemed mildly concerned that there were so many out there, but Sam found that kind of funny. "You figured out that I wasn't Manfred in thirty seconds flat. I don't think you'd miss a hunter. I mean some are a bit more subtle than us, but not many."

Olivia smirked. "That's very comforting actually." Dean narrowed his eyes and Sam rolled his. Not again…

At 7pm they got into position and at 7:15 Sam was escorting Madame Giry's son, Richard, and her sister, Alita, into the house. Manfred was pretty impressed watching Sam work a mark. He sounded exactly like a producer: giving them a rundown on the timing, offering water bottles, having them sign a consent form for being on "the show". The group had cleaned up all signs that they'd stayed in the house and neither of the visitors seemed suspicious of anything.

Sam introduced the "crew" and Manfred was of course the star of the show, a medium named Angelo who'd been in correspondence with their dear relative before she passed away. Richard and Alita both seemed more embarrassed than anything when he brought that up and Manfred began to feel glad that they had precautions in place. They weren't here out of respect for Madame Giry's memory; they were here for their 15 minutes of fame.

Manfred lead the way into the séance parlor and they oohed and aahed appropriately as Bobo tailed them with a camera on his shoulder. Fiji had done a great job sprucing the place up while leaving it an air of dusty, ancientness. Candles glowed from every corner of the room and the lighting was intimate but not so dim as to seem like they were hiding something.

"Did you grow up in this house, Richard?" Manfred asked.

He shook his head. "No, mom got into all of this after my dad passed away. I've actually never been in here before."

He touched a photo of his younger self with his mom, which Fiji had insisted on including in the display. "I never really understood what drew her to this."

"Me neither." Alita muttered. "My sister was a bit odd growing up, but all this supernatural hoo-ha came out of nowhere."

"So it's safe to say you're skeptics?" Bobo circled around Manfred with the camera as the Girys finished taking in the grand room.

"Yeah." They chorused.

"Well I hope to show you something that will change your mind." Manfred purred. But not literally, he added to himself. Alita gave him a charmed smile.

Richard drifted over to the crystal ball, which lay exposed on the table with its silk cloth beneath it. "Is this where we start?"

"How's the lighting?" Sam interjected.

Olivia adjusted a light over the actual starting place: a set of plush cushions around a Ouija board. Manfred waved Bobo's camera closer to him and looked into it.

"No, actually that's a common misconception. Crystal balls are for gazing into the future, and rarely involved contacting the spirit world. Although who knows, Madame Giry may be an exception as a former medium herself."

"I'm coming to you today from Dallas, where Richard and Alita Giry have agreed to join me in Madame Giry's séance parlor. In this room where she contacted the spirits in life, we will try to contact her in death. As a professional medium, I must warn you: Do no try this at home."

Manfred had to admit that was kind of fun. Bobo shifted the camera away, looking fairly impressed. Olivia subtly rolled her eyes at him. Manfred refocused on the guests. "Okay so let's get comfortable on the cushions for the next shot. I'll explain to you everything I'm doing as we go along, okay?"

"Okay." They sat down and mimicked Manfred's cross-legged pose.

He gave them each a long look. "The most important thing is to stay calm. It may get a little intense but I promise you'll be fine."

Richard chuckled and Alita rolled her eyes. "I hope you went in for practical effects because the special ones are going to have a hard time getting me to react!"

Manfred smiled at them. Good. They were relaxed, and skeptical but not entirely unreceptive. "Alright then, camera ready?"

"We're set." Bobo crouched alongside the cushions. Sam and Dean were near the crystal ball, Fiji was sitting at her "sound board", and Olivia was fiddling with another smaller light.

"Show time." Manfred looked down at the square Ouija board. Not as nice as his, but it would do.

Richard was reaching for the planchette but Manfred cut him off. "Before we speak to the dead, we must first see if they're listening. Take my hands."

Alita and Richard each took his hand, then each other's hands as well when he gave them a look. "I want you to close your eyes and picture Madame Giry." They closed their eyes.

"I want you to make the image as clear as you can imagine. Picture her smile, her hair, her clothes. The way she walked. The sound of her voice. Picture her standing before you."

In the silence he opened himself to the veil. Madame Giry's finger was up his sleeve, pressing against his pulse point, and it was simple to call for her.

"We summon you, Madame Giry. Will you answer?"

There was the faintest whisper of a breeze and Manfred watched her appear across the room. She gave him a smile and he hoped that meant this was all she wanted: to talk to her family again.

He closed his eyes as if focusing hard again. "If you're here, give us a sign."

He lifted his head and Alita and Richard did too. Madame Giry rolled her eyes, then waved a hand. The candles guttered around the room one by one as if a breeze was circling them. Richard gave a boyish grin. Alita looked nonplussed.

"Contact has been made. I can sense Madam Giry's presence." He dropped their hands.

"It's time for the next phase. Most people are familiar with the concept of the Ouija board. They'll often say that its effects aren't real, that someone in the group steers the planchette, not a spirit."

They both nodded knowingly.

"That's why I'm not going to touch the planchette at all." The Girys all looked at him in surprise.

"I know that Madame Giry is here with us and she will contact you, her living flesh and blood, through the power of the board." Manfred said confidently.

Madame Giry gave him a slightly impressed nod. Dean crossed his arms as if to say 'show off', and Sam nudged his brother admonishingly.

The Girys reluctantly rested their fingers on the planchette. Madame Giry put her hands on it as well and Richard flinched.

"It's cold."

Manfred nodded sagely. "Spirits can affect the temperature of a room. Now the key is to stay relaxed. Don't put any pressure on the board at all, just let Madam Giry's spirit guide you to the answers."

"Okay." Alita looked a little nervous now.

"First question: Madame Giry, are you here with us?"

She rolled her eyes at him again. Then she quickly yanked the planchette to Yes. Alita gasped, and looked at Richard who blurted out, "I didn't do that."

Manfred smiled. "I knew I sensed her presence."

The planchette drifted back to neutral. "Next question. Why are you here, lingering beyond the grave?"

He watched her think for a moment. Then she pulled the planchette across the board. Manfred intoned "B-e-l-i-e-v-e. Believe?" He gave a quizzical look to Richard and Alita.

"What do you think she means by believe?"

Richard swallowed. "I mean, I never believed in any of this stuff. I know she wanted me to, but come on it's all just like... magnets and things right? That's how you're doing this?"

"It's just an ordinary painted wooden board." Manfred caught Madame Giry's expression darkening and met her gaze. "Is Richard right? That you want him to believe in the occult and in your work as a medium?"

The planchette rocketed to Yes. Richard looked irritated now too, although Alita just looked uncertain. He looked at Manfred. "Seriously how are you doing it?"

"I'm not. I'm a medium and all I've done is conjured your mother's spirit. She's lingering on this plane because your doubts hurt her."

"What do you mean hurt her?" Alita asked. "She's the one who hurt us, wasting her money on this house and all this stuff. For what? She never even gave as good of a performance as this one!"

Uh oh. Madame Giry's ghost become more solid, her expression angry. Her hands were still on the planchette and Richard yelped and let go. Alita did too. "It's freezing!"

"Ghosts only stay on earth because they have unfinished business, something bothering them so much they can't go on to their eternal rest." Manfred tried for a weightier tone. "She wants you to know that spirits are real and that she could contact them, the same way I can."

Richard rubbed his fingers. "Yeah right. This thing is probably electronic right? You can make it turn cold with a button?"

Manfred showed his empty palms. "This isn't TV magic."

The planchette began to move untouched and they all stared at it. Manfred read as Madame Giry spelled "Bridget." He looked at the living Girys, who were suddenly pale. "Who's Bridget?"

Richard spoked up. "She was my sister. She died not long after my dad. But that's public knowledge."

The planchette spelled out: Horse. Richard stared at the board.

"Richard?" Manfred asked carefully.

"Bridget told me right before she died that she wanted to go horseback riding. She was always terrified of horses but our dad loved them. She wanted to try it, for him. I told her we'd go when I got back from my trip… But she died. I never told anyone that. I didn't even tell mom. What's she saying, that she talked to my sister? Summoned her or something?"

The planchette immediately spun to Yes. Madame Giry was softening again, looking sadly at Richard. Manfred wasn't that surprised; family members were always easier to summon, even for weak mediums. Richard looked around the room a little tentatively. "Mom?"

Alita scoffed. "Get ahold of yourself Richard. I'm sure this TV crew did their research. Bridget could've said that to a friend or something too."

Richard looked uncertain. "She'd never said anything about it to me before."

Manfred locked eyes with Alita. "What would it take to convince you that this is more than just my team doing their research and creating some kind of extremely elaborate device to talk to you with?"

She suddenly set her jaw. "You're never going to convince me. If you've invited anything here it's demonic, not my sister. She invited evil into this house and so do you."

Madame Giry's eyes glinted and Manfred only had a moment to prepare himself before she charged at him, dissolving into a column of smoke. He clenched his jaw shut and waited. She hit him like a wave of cold water, but his mouth stayed closed as he hunched in on himself. He felt a sharp pain in his chest like a flash of heat where the tattoo marked his skin. Then the smoke vanished.

He straightened to find Alita and Richard both staring at him, unnerved. A few candles flickered and Richard watched them move. "What was that? Is she still here?"

The planchette drifted to yes, though Manfred still couldn't see Madame Giry. He wondered if hitting the anti-possession tattoo had hurt her, or if maybe the energy it had released was blocking his sight. So many experiments for the future…

"It's not her, Richard. There are no such thing as ghosts! That's why I wanted to come on this stupid show. Your mother couldn't tell fact from fiction and it ruined her life. I don't want you to let it ruin yours too."

Manfred carefully turned, feeling a faint breeze, and watched Madame Giry fly at the crystal ball only to ricochet off the invisible barrier created by the circle of salt. Her mouth opened in a silent scream of rage. This was not going well.

"Madame Giry is very much still here, and she's definitely pissed off."

He watched the medium blur back into a more smoke-like form and begin whirling around the room. The flames of the candles suddenly shot to a foot high and everyone jumped.

Alita glared at Manfred. "This is all fake! You're fabricating this just for, just for some cheap reality TV!"

Manfred met her gaze.. "Please calm down. The goal was to contact Madame Giry and we did that, but we want to help her cross over now. Even if you don't believe in spirits you have to know that your sister did, and it was important to her. She wanted you to know that."

Alita shook her head. "I don't care what she believed; she was wrong."

The flames died down and instead the shelves in the room began rattling. A glass jar leapt off a table and shattered on the floor. Richard yelped and Alita's expression grew furious.

"Please—" Manfred tried but she cut him off.

"I'm not helping you with anything. You're damaging private property and scaring my nephew. I'm leaving." She got to her feet and marched for the door. Manfred scrambled after her as he spotted Madame Giry flying to intercept.

"Wait, hold on a second!" Alita ignored him and stepped right into Madame Giry's path. They collided and Alita froze. Manfred couldn't see Madame Giry anymore.

"Alita?" He asked.

She stiffly turned around; her eyes glazed white. Manfred blinked in shock. Madame Giry was possessing her own sister.

Alita's deadened gaze turned to Richard, who stared back in disbelief. "Mom?"

"I love you, little bean. And I'm sorry you have to see this. But she won't believe me. She never believed me and she kept me away from you."

A tear trickled down Alita's cheek. Then she darted for a table. A table with a large ceremonial knife on it. "No, stop!" Manfred yelled, and at the same time Dean pulled a switch from inside his jacket. "Time's up."

He flicked the switch and just like that Alita crumpled to the ground. But she started shaking, seizing as she coughed up ash and black smoke. Manfred though he heard her whisper something, one hand curling, a single boney finger pointing towards the crystal ball, "Under."

Then Dean roared, "The finger!"

Manfred snapped out of it and fumbled the digit from his sleeve. He quickly set fire to it with his lighter as Richard rushed to his aunt's side. The dry bone went up in flames and Alita went still.

Sam was already beside Richard. "I'm so sorry, this doesn't normally happen, Can I help you get your aunt to your car? I know there's a hospital just up the road…"

A shell-shocked Richard just nodded along. Sam scooped Alita up and carried her from the room. Richard looked back to Manfred. "Is she… is my mom gone?"

Manfred eyed him a little sadly. "She's really gone now."

Richard's head jerked woodenly in return. Then he trailed outside after Sam.

Dean gave Manfred a hard look. "See this is why we should've just done it my way."

"I've never seen a ghost possess someone who wasn't holding a talisman or actively inviting possession."

"You knew she was a medium!"

"It's my fault her sister is an asshole who couldn't find it in herself to give her the benefit of the doubt even once she was dead? Besides, she would've cursed us if we hadn't gone along with this!"

Dean still looked irritated. "Richard is probably scarred for life now. Regular people don't need to know about this shit."

"The truth can help people, Dean. Even if it hurts." Manfred met Dean's gaze. He knew there was buried pain there. Secrets Dean kept. Like the secrets the midnighters kept. Keeping them buried didn't take away the pain; it only prolonged it.

"Help how? All Richard got out of this was seeing his mom almost murder his aunt."

"I think Madame Giry was trying to tell us something." Manfred drifted to the crystal ball. "Did anyone else hear her say 'under'?"

"No. And if she was pointing at the table it was definitely because she wanted her crystal ball again to curse us."

Manfred rolled his eyes and went to the large circular table. What if Dean was wrong? What if she'd been flying towards the table for another reason? He dropped to the carpet and got under the table.

"You're seriously doing this? They could be calling the cops." Dean groused.

"They're definitely going to have to go to the hospital first." Manfred was surprised to find a distinct lack of switches and levers beneath the table. "Huh. This isn't a trick table."

But he did see something… a large crack on one side where a board looked loose. He carefully pried at it with his fingers until it gave two inches with a gentle pop.

"You're dismantling her table now?" This time it was Fiji who sounded exasperated.

"There's a secret compartment in it!" Manfred called. Unfortunately, he couldn't see into the tiny dark space, he'd just have to reach inside…

"You're going to get us all cursed." Dean muttered.

Manfred's fingertips finally brushed something… a small booklet. He pulled it free triumphantly. "Aha!"

He crawled out from under the table and examined the green leatherbound notebook. "I think this is… research. On spirits. On spells…" He found a page headlined 'Levitation'. It was a medium's gold mine. Information that Madame Giry might never have been able to use in life because she didn't have the power but for Manfred…

"What's that paper in the back of it?" Fiji asked.

Manfred dragged his gaze away from the spidery handwritten pages and pulled a piece of folded paper free. Legal paper. "It looks like… her will?"

Olivia snatched it up and raised a brow. "This is legitimate. Even notarized. Didn't you say there was some issue with the estate?"

Dean shrugged. "Sam did say something about that. No one could find a record of her will even though she had one."

"This says her son gets everything."

Manfred grinned. "What do you want to bet that Alita was trying to get half the inheritance? See Dean, the truth helps!"

Dean rolled his eyes. "He probably would've gotten his inheritance anyway."

"After spending most of it on legal fees! Look, not only did we help a ghost cross over," he ignored Fiji's frown, "we can help her living relatives honor her wishes, and carry on her own legacy through this notebook!"

"For a con man you can be a bit of a sap."

"I'm reformed."

Olivia elbowed Manfred in the ribs. "Yeah, when did that happen?"

"It was definitely Fiji's influence." Bobo piped up. "Can I stop filming now?"

"Wait were you actually filming?" Manfred asked.

"Yeah, I mean I thought that was the idea?"

"It was just for show." Manfred said. "I don't think we want evidence of us trespassing do we?"

"I think it'll be fun to look at later!" Bobo protested.

"Yeah you can see exactly when I saved Alita's life." Dean gave Manfred a pointed look.

Bobo shook his head, "Honestly I didn't get that, the camera was on Alita."
"Seriously?" Dean moaned.

Sam walked in. "What did I miss?"

"Oh just Dean losing his chance at playing a real life hero on TV." Olivia smirked at him and Dean glared.

Sam nodded. "That actually tracks. So… The living Girys are at the hospital. The doctors seem to think Alita had a stroke, but hopefully the effects won't be long-lasting. We probably have a little time before anyone comes back to the house but I think it'd be best to go our separate ways."

"You're sure you want them to be separate ways? You could come meet Lem properly. And actually try some of Home Cookin's home cooking." Manfred offered.

"I'm not sure Lem wants to meet me again."

Sam glanced sheepishly at Olivia, who surprised him by shrugging. "He's the forgiving type. And he mentioned there was a lot for him to leech from you."

Dean shook his head. "I do not like the sound of that."

"Mmm. You don't know what you're missing. It's very relaxing." Olivia arched a brow at Dean, and Manfred almost laughed at his reaction.

"Thanks, but we have, you know, people to save, things to hunt, the family business." Dean said gruffly.

"And you never get a vacation?" Fiji asked. "Or take an opportunity to come swap lore?"

The brothers looked at each other. She had a point.

"It's not going to be too weird being around Manfred after… being Manfred?" Dean asked.

Sam looked at Manfred. "I'm cool if he's cool."

"I mean you did get me almost shot and possessed by a medium," Dean chuckled. "But you also gave me a few blissfully headache-free hours. So I'll call it even."

They shared a smile.

"Alright then let's pack up the 'set' and head out." Olivia glanced at Dean. "Sure you can keep up if you're following us back to Midnight?"

"Oh, if you want to race my baby, it's on."

Fiji shook her head. "I will pop someone's tire if we go any faster on the way back than we did on the way here!"

Olivia pouted. "Spoilsport."

"Can I ride in the impala?" Manfred asked.

Dean glanced at Sam and then gave Manfred a genuine grin. "Of course. You're an honorary Winchester now."

The End.