Lynyrd Skynyrd, Poison Whiskey was playing on the radio as we rolled to a stop at a gas station.
"Alright, I figure we'd hit Tucumcari by lunch, then head south, hit Bisbee by midnight." Dean glanced at Sam, who was looking at something in his hand and apparently ignoring Dean. "Sam wears women's underwear."
"I've been listenin'," he didn't even look up from the device in his hand, tapping at the screen with the stylus, "I'm just busy."
"Busy doin' what?" Dean asked, getting out of the car and moving around to fill the tank.
"Reading e-mails." Sam called after him.
"E-mails from who?"
"From my friends at Stanford."
"You're kidding. You still keep in touch with your college buddies?" The incredulity in Dean's voice was undisguised, and in part I had to agree with him, it was difficult to keep friends in this life; too many unanswerable questions. It was better to just drift out of contact with people you used to know, a letter or two, the odd text these days, until one day you're just a story they tell about an weird kid they went to school with who used to carry a hip flask of holy water in their backpack and a silver knife hidden in their sock.
"Why not?" Sam asked, as if he didn't know this life as well as we did.
"Well, what exactly do you tell 'em?" Dean replied, "You know, about where you've been, what you've been doin'?"
"I tell 'em I'm on a road trip with my siblings. I tell 'em I needed some time off after Jess."
"Oh, so you lie to 'em." Dean leant against the back door, talking to Sam through the open car window.
"No. I just don't tell 'em…everything."
"Yeah, Sammy, that's called lying." I told him, trying to inject the slightest note of 'I'm your big sister and it's my job to raise you to know right from wrong, how to be good and how to get away with being bad' into my voice.
"I mean, hey, man, I get it, tellin' the truth is far worse."
"So, what am I supposed to do, just cut everybody out of my life?" Dean shrugged and I just raised my eyebrows slightly, Sam looked back and forth between us, "You're serious?"
"Look, it sucks, but in a job like this, you can't get close to people, period."
"You already know that, Sam".
"You're kind of anti-social, you know that?" Sam commented, turning back to his emails.
"Yeah, whatever." Dean mumbled, as I stepped out the far side of the car to stretch my legs a little.
"God…" Sam's voice was quiet, but Dean and I were both instantly alert, instinctively scanning the parking lot quickly before bending to lean our elbows on the tops of the car doors, mirrored on either side of the car, to see what was wrong with Sammy.
"What?"
Sam shifted slightly, tilting the PalmPilot so Dean could see the screen, "In this e-mail from this girl, Rebecca Warren, one of those friends of mine."
"Is she hot?" I shot Dean a scathing look, but Sam ignored him, continuing on.
"I went to school with her, and her brother, Zack. She says Zack's been charged with murder. He's been arrested for killing his girlfriend. Rebecca says he didn't do it, but it sounds like the cops have a pretty good case."
"Dude, what kind of people are you hangin' out with?"
"No, man, I know Zack. He's no killer."
"Well, maybe you know Zack as well as he knows you."
Sam didn't deign to respond to Dean's jibe, "They're in St. Louis. We're goin'."
Dean chuckled slightly, shaking his head, "Look, sorry 'bout your buddy, okay? But this does not sound like our kind of problem."
"It is our problem." Sam insisted, "They're my friends."
"St. Louis is four hundred miles behind us, Sam." The tone in his voice told me that Dean already knew he'd lost this argument, and sure enough Sam turned to look at him and Dean immediately looked pleadingly at me, something he'd always done when Sam pulled out the puppy eyes. I don't know why he bothered, I wasn't anymore immune to that face than Dean was.
Rebecca Warren lived in a large and beautiful house in the suburbs, it had taken a whole day of driving and we'd stopped in a motel the night before, once it became clear to Sam -who'd wanted to just keep driving- that we'd have arrived at a terribly unsociable hour if we'd stuck with his plan. So now it was early afternoon and the sun was shining brightly as we pulled up to her front door and got out of the car, Sam going to ring the bell.
It was answered by a pretty blond girl in a green wrap, somewhat taller than me, still miles shorter than the boys. She smiled happily at Sam, "Oh my God, Sam!"
"Well, if it isn't little Becky." Sam gave a grin in response.
"You know what you can do with that 'little Becky' crap." She stepped forward, arms raised, and hugged Sam in a way that said she really needed a hug and a friendly face. I was getting a lot of 'too much' off her, not an overly satisfying type of pain, a little too watery to be tasty.
"I got your e-mail."
"I didn't think that you would come here."
Dean stepped forward, hand extended. "Dean. Older brother."
"Hi."
"Alison, little sister!" I waved at her, bouncing on my toes to be seen from where I stood behind my much taller brothers.
"We're here to help; whatever we can do." Sam told her and she lead us into the house. We chatted as she lead us through to the kitchen, about how she came to be at her parent's house when Zach was arrested, that she would stay until her brother was free and that her parents were on their way back from Paris.
She offered beers as we entered the kitchen and Dean smiled appreciatively, "Hey—"
"No, thanks." Sam cut him off with a 'behave yourself' look. "So, tell us what happened."
Rebecca glanced down, her smile falling before she started to explain, her voice wobbling as she went on. "Well, um, Zack came home, and he found Emily tied to a chair. And she was beaten up and bloody, and she wasn't breathing. So, he called 911, and the police—they showed up, and they arrested him. But, the thing is, the only way that Zack could've killed Emily is if he was in two places at the same time. The police—they have a video. It's from the security tape from across the street. And it shows Zack coming home at 10:30. Now, Emily was killed just after that, but I swear, he was here with me, having a few beers until at least after midnight."
"You know, maybe we could see the crime scene. Zack's house."
"We could." Dean's voice seemed to question Sam's announcement, trying to tell Sam to stay out of it, Sam ignored the warning and went on.
"Why? I mean, what could you do?" Rebecca asked
"Well, me, not much. But Dean's a cop."
Dean laughed in defeat, seems we were doing this. "Detective, actually."
"Really? Where?"
"Bisbee, Arizona. But I'm off-duty now." Three subtle digs at Sam in four sentences, Dean was a real pro at telling people exactly what he thought of them.
"You guys, it's so nice to offer, but I just—I don't know."
"Bec, look, I know Zack didn't do this. Now, we have to find a way to prove that he's innocent."
She chewed her lip for a moment, before coming to a decision, "Okay. I'm gonna go get the keys."
Dean gave a low whistle as she walked away down the hall and turned to face Sam. "Oh, yeah, man, you're a real straight shooter with your friends."
"Look, Zack and Becky need our help."
"I just don't think this is our kind of problem."
"Two places at once? We've looked into less."
"So it's some kind of double; a shapeshifter or a projection of some kind, we catch it, gank it, stop it killing any more people and framing their loved ones, how does that help Zack, Sam? To help your friend we'd need solid proof of his alibi, not a ganked monster, the police'd never believe that." Sam only had time to frown at me in response before Rebecca returned with the keys and we all loaded into the Impala for the trip to Zack's house.
The car pulled up to the curb across the street from the house wrapped in crime scene tape and the four of us got out. Rebecca turned to Dean, "You're sure this is okay?"
"Yeah. I am an officer of the law." Another sharp glance in Sam's direction and we crossed the street to the house. Rebecca handed over the keys and Dean opened the door, ducking under the tape and entering the house, followed by Sam.
"Bec, you wanna wait outside?" Sam turned back to where Rebecca and I still stood on the porch.
"No. I wanna help." She ducked under the tape, arms crossed around her body, fingers anxiously toying with her necklace and waves of horror pouring from her as she got a good view of the blood splattered walls and floor.
I made to follow her, but Sam raised a finger to stop me, "You wait outside, kiddo."
"What? But I'm nearly fifteen, Sam! I'm not a kid!" The protest in my voice was mostly for show, the echoes of pain and the 'Deathcry'- the last burst of pain before the soul left the body for the next world, wouldn't tell us anything here that we didn't already know, the blood coating nearly every surface told the story well enough. And eathcries were never pleasant, even just the echo could leave me feeling nauseous for hours after.
Sam frowned at me until I gave a huff and took a seat on the porch, and then he turned to Rebecca, speaking gently now, "Tell us what else the police said."
"Well, there's no sign of a break-in. They say that Emily let her attacker in. The lawyers—they're already talking about plea bargain." Her voice was quiet and shaky with tears. "Oh, God…"
"Look, Bec, if Zack didn't do this, it means someone else did. Any idea who?"
There was a pause, I was facing the other way on the steps, still false-pouting while I eavesdropped, "Um, there was something, about a week before. Somebody broke in here and stole some clothes—Zack's clothes. The police—they don't think it's anything. I mean, we're not that far from downtown. Sometimes people get robbed."
The neighbour's dog was barking at me, I scowled at it; damn thing was making it difficult to hear what was going on in the house behind me. I just caught Dean's soft footsteps in the doorway behind me, and then Rebecca's somewhat louder, unguarded steps joined him. "You know, that used to be the sweetest dog."
"What happened?"
"He just changed."
"Do you remember when he changed?"
"I guess around the time of the murder."
Dean walked away and I turned to up at Rebecca over my shoulder. "How long ago was that?"
"'bout a week."
"He's been like this ever since?"
She nodded and we both turned to regard the dog, still barking at us from the other side of the railing.
Inside I could hear Sam and Dean discussing the dog's behaviour and its possible link to the case, which Dean was only verbally denying was a case at this point.
Rebecca walked over to join them and Dean asked about being able to get a copy of the security footage. She confessed to having already stolen it off the lawyer's desk and we left, locking the house behind us to go back to Rebecca's house and see if the tape held any clues.
The security tape showed feeds from four cameras simultaneously on the screen, each labelled with the camera name and a timestamp.
"Here he comes." Rebecca said gesturing at the screen, sure enough, camera 4 and the bottom right showed Zack crossing the street.
"22:04, that's just after ten. You said time of death was about 10:30." Dean turned to Rebecca from where he sat on the arm of the sofa beside her.
She nodded in response, "Our lawyers hired some kind of video expert. He says the tape's authentic. It wasn't tampered with."
Camera 1 must have been on the other side of the road because Zack's face suddenly flashed across the screen. I frowned; it wasn't moving very fast, why did I get the impression of a flash? Was there some light source on the video?
Sam had apparently noticed the same thing I had, "Hey, Bec, can we take those beers now?"
She agreed, getting up to go and fetch them from the kitchen, when Sam called her back asking for sandwiches too, just to buy us more time to examine the footage without her, I reckon.
"What do you think this is, Hooters?" She asked as she left.
"I wish." Dean laughed quietly, getting up to join Sam where he stood examining the screen. "What is it?"
"Check this out." Sam rewound the tape, and then played it at half speed, pausing when Zack was facing the camera. The flash I'd noticed before was explained; Zack's eye's shone silver.
"Well, maybe it's just a camera flare." Dean proposed.
"That's not like any camera flare I've ever seen. You know, a lot of cultures believe that a photograph can catch a glimpse of the soul, much like a mirror." I commented, walking closer to the TV, not that the resolution was high enough that doing so helped me to see the picture any clearer.
"Remember that dog that was freakin' out?" Sam asked, "Maybe he saw this thing. Maybe this is some kind of dark double of Zack's, something that looks like him but isn't him."
"Like a Doppelganger." Dean added.
"Yeah. It'd sure explain how he was two places at once."
"Not exactly a doppelganger. Doppelganger's are visible only to the person they are the double of, they're a psychopomp, a death omen, though they can also be seen by cats and dogs." I supplied from my encyclopedic knowledge of all things a hunter's PA and researcher could possibly need to know.
"Whose death?" Sam questioned. "It's possible that Emily couldn't see her attacker, only the dog and the camera could."
There was silence while we considered this, until Rebecca returned with the beers and a plate of sandwiches, and all talk of the supernatural ended for the evening.
"Alright, so what are we doin' here at 5:30 in the morning?" Dean grumped as he got out of the car behind Zack's house and took the lid off his coffee, blowing on the hot liquid. I had to agree with him, 0530 was far too early to be investigating anything.
"I realized something." Sam replied, "The videotape shows the killer goin' in, but not comin' out."
"So, he came out the back door?" Dean leant against the front of the car, and I leant against his shoulder, still not really awake yet.
"Right. So, there should be a trail to follow. A trail the police would never pursue." Sam was way too happy and awake; I can't deal with this yet.
"'Cause they think the killer never left. And they caught your friend Zack inside." Dean was clearly more awake than me. "I still don't know what we're doin' here at 5:30 in the morning."
Sam started searching around the back of Zack's house, particularly any likely exit routes. "Blood." He announced, pointing at a telegraph pole. "Somebody came this way."
"Yeah, but the trail ends. I don't see anything over here." Dean told him, looking around. "Ali?"
"Dunno," I mumbled, still trying to use Dean's shoulder as a pillow despite his movements, "Still sleepy…"
An ambulance drove past us and Sam and Dean exchanged a look. "You stay here, wake up and try to find what you can, we'll check that out." Dean told me, gesturing after the ambulance and then pulling away from where I was leaning against him, I whined a little in protest, but yawned and did my best to wake up a little.
Under the right circumstances I'm a highly skilled tracker; if I have a pain trail to follow, or whatever I'm following is still close enough that I can hear it. But something like this, where the trail was a week old and the creature hadn't been in pain when it passed, none of my superhuman senses were of any use, and I had to rely on sight and smell, just like a human would, to find this trail.
Under these circumstances, I'm merely a skilled tracker. I flexed my spine allowing myself to drop backwards until I was lying on the warm bonnet of the car. I stretched my hands up above my head and then relaxed, opening my eyes to gaze up at the sky. I sighed and pulled myself upright, pushing away from the car and heading over to the building. I took a slight 'sniff' at the blood, to confirm that the person who left the smear of it, in the shape of a hand, had not been feeling any pain; there was nothing. I glanced towards the building, idly wondering where they'd exited and what kind of speed they might have been doing when they reached out and touched the pole.
The print was of the right hand, the palm and four fingers pressed against the pole, then swiped to the left and down, it was approximately at a man's shoulder height from the ground. It must have been made by someone moving away from where Dean and I had been standing, which explained why Dean hadn't seen anything more.
To have a hand out at shoulder height like that, the person must have reached out to catch themselves; they'd stumbled for some reason, probably while moving at high speed. I glanced up, they must have jumped down -I decided- caught themselves against the telegraph pole and headed down the alley beside the house. I wandered slowly after them, casting my eyes about for more blood; nothing else would be left to follow after all this time. There were no boot prints, only in cartoons is it ever that easy, but there was an occasional drop of blood, dried red on the paving stones. They became infrequent, and then stopped, before reaching the end of the alley, where it came out onto the main road at the front of the building.
I spent some time searching the end of the alley and the junction with the street, but couldn't find anything more.
Deciding not to waste any more time, I headed off after the boys, using my senses to follow the trail of Sam's pain, still mourning for Jess. I found them down the side of an apartment block which had a gathering of onlookers, police and other officials out the front.
"Hey." Dean called to Sam, attracting his attention from where he hunting for a trail, "Remember when I said this wasn't our kind of problem?"
"Yeah." Sam and I answered in unison as I joined them and Dean gave us a dirty look before continuing.
"Definitely our kind of problem."
"What'd you find out?"
"Well, I just talked to the patrolman who was first on the scene, heard this guy, Alex's story. Apparently the dude was driving home from a business trip when his wife was attacked."
"So, he was in two places at once."
"Exactly. Then he sees himself in the house, police think he's a nutjob."
"Two dark doubles attacking loved ones in exactly the same way." Sam walked around Dean, towards the people at the front of the building before turning back to face us.
"Could be the same thing doin' it, too." Dean commented.
"Shapeshifter?" Sam asked, Dean shrugged in response, "Something that can make itself look like anyone?"
"Every culture in the world has a shapeshifter lore. You know, legends of creatures who can transform themselves into animals or other men." Dean explained his thinking.
"The lore goes back as far as the Neolithic era, therianthropy, lycanthropy, cynanthropy, ailuranthropy, nearly all examples are humans transforming into animals, or spirits transforming into humans. There's very few examples of creatures mimicking specific humans." I provided more information on the topic.
"We've got two attacks within blocks of each other. I'm guessin' we've got a shapeshifter prowlin' the neighborhood." Dean concluded.
"Let me ask you this—in all this shapeshifter lore, can any of them fly?" Sam asked, mainly looking at me for an answer, but glancing at Dean too.
"Yeah, anything that can turn into a bird, plus a few others." My brother's just looked at me.
"How do you remember all this crap?"
I chose to ignore Dean's question. "Why do you ask, Sam?"
"I picked up a trail here. Someone ran out the back of this building and headed off this way." Sam walked back towards the building where he'd presumably found the trail.
"Just like your friend's house. What did you find there anyway?" Dean asked, turning to me.
"Someone coated in someone else's blood jumped down, caught themselves with a hand against the pole and headed down the alley, away from where we parked the car, the trail disappeared before it got to the road."
"And here, just like at Zack's house, the trail suddenly ends. I mean, whatever it is just disappeared." Sam finished, clearly frustrated.
"Well, there's another way to go" said Dean, "down."
We all three of us looked down; there was a manhole cover just behind Sam.
Dean started to lift the cover, while I dug through my satchel for a torch. Dean headed down into the darkness below and I followed, grateful that I'd worn leggings that day, as I hitched my skirt up to allow easier movement. Sam came last, replacing the cover as I handed a torch to Dean and pulled a second from my bag, the batteries were starting to die and the light beam was weak, but I have pretty good night vision, so it wouldn't bother me as much as it would the boys. This section was pretty well lit though, various drains letting daylight in, and the service lights were on too.
"I bet this runs right by Zack's house, too. The shapeshifter could be using the sewer system to get around." Sam had joined us at the bottom of the ladder and was staring along the sewer in the direction of his friend's house.
"I think you're right." Dean called from around the bend behind us. "Look at this."
We joined him and crouched down to examine the putrid pile of gloop. It was mainly composed of clear mucus, but there was blood, a few teeth and dark strands of hair suspended in it, as well as sheets of something pale, it might have been human skin.
"Is this from his victims?" Sam asked, as I stood, backing off a little, wrinkling my nose.
Dean used a pocket knife to pick up some of the mucus and hair, "You know, I just had a sick thought. When the shapeshifter changes shape—maybe it sheds."
"That is sick." Sam confirmed.
Dean flicked the knife, returning the gross gloop to the pile and we stood, resolving to return to the car for weapons before searching the sewers for the shapeshifter.
We reached the car and Dean opened the boot, lifting the false bottom and propping it open with a shot gun. "Well, one thing I learned from Dad is that no matter what kind of shapeshifter it is, there's one sure way to kill it."
He glanced up at Sam, waiting for an answer, while loading silver 9mm rounds into a mag. "Silver bullet to the heart." Sam supplied.
"That's right." Dean grinned.
A ring tone sounded from Sam's pocket and he fished his phone out, answering it and turning away as I picked up an empty mag and joined Dean in loading it. "This is Sam."
"Where are you?" I could hear Rebecca's angry voice clearly from the small speaker.
"We're near Zack's, we're just checkin' some things out."
"Well, look, Sam, just stop, 'cause I really don't need your help anymore."
"What are you talkin' about?"
"I told the lawyers that we went to the crime scene."
"Busted" I muttered quietly to Dean.
Sam scoffed slightly, "Why would you do that?"
"Well, I told them that we were with a police officer. And they checked it out, and they told me that there is no Detective Dean Winchester."
"Bec—"
"No, I don't understand why you would lie to me about something like that." We lie to everyone, Rebecca.
"We're tryin' to help."
"Oh, trying to help? Do you realize that that was a sealed crime scene? This could have just ruined Zack's case."
"Bec, I'm sorry, but—"
"No, goodbye, Sam." The dial tone sounded and Sam lowered the phone as Dean and I finished loading three handguns and closed the boot.
"I hate to say it, but that's exactly what I'm talkin' about." Dean said as we joined Sam where he was leaning against the side of Baby. "You lie to your friends because if they knew the real you, they'd be freaked. It's just—it'd be easier if—"
"If I was like you."
"Hey, man, like it or not, we are not like other people." Dean grinned and I smirked, leaning against my big brother with my arms crossed. "But I'll tell you one thing. This whole gig—it ain't without perks."
He held out the third handgun, pistol grip first. Sam looked at it, glancing up to us with a grin, before taking it and straightening to slip it into the back of his waistband.
We spent the rest of the afternoon searching the sewers. You become accustomed to the smell after a while, which is kind of gross to think about. Particularly as I know from experience that the smell of it sinks into your clothes and skin and hair, and can take days to wash away, even if you don't touch anything you're still going to need a shower or several when you get out of there.
It was hours before Dean spoke, "I think we're close to its lair."
"Why do you say that?" Sam asked.
"Because there's another puke-inducing pile next to your face." Sam and I both looked at where Dean's torch was shining on the pipe next to Sam's head.
Sam jumped back, disgusted. "Uh, God!" He wiped at his shoulder, checking that he hadn't touched it, while I cast my torch beam around, finding a pile of clothes against the wall.
"Looks like it's lived here for a while." Dean commented.
"Who knows how many murders he's gotten away with?" Sam murmured.
There was a slight noise in the tunnel behind us and I snapped my head and torch around. There was an Asian man behind Dean with silver eyes. The shapeshifter!
I shrieked and my brothers turned; all three of us raising firearms. The shapeshifter lashed out, punching Dean in the face and he fell against the wall. Sam and I shot after it, one of us hitting our mark. And the creature fell into the water at the edge of the walkway. Sam pursued it while I reached for Dean, drawing the pain from his face and arm, reassuring myself that he wasn't seriously hurt.
"I'm fine!" He pushed me away, "Did we get the son of a bitch?"
"Yeah, we got him. Nice shooting, Ali."
"Is it dead?" I asked.
"You got it through the heart." Sam replied, pointing to the small hole in the back of the creature's shirt as we joined him.
"A pity." Sam stared at me incredulously for that comment, "It would have been nice to be able to question it, find out more about it, its abilities and how its kind usually lives."
Dean snorted and slapped me on the back, "Next time, Nerd."
We dragged the thing to a manhole cover that opened into a deserted alleyway, between the three of us we got it up the ladder and out. We left it in the alley, next to the open sewer, and headed back to the motel for some badly needed showers.
A few days later Sam got a call from Rebecca saying that Emily's killer had been found, shot dead in an alley; they'd found his lair underground, found Zack's clothes, stained with Emily's blood. The police were now thinking that the surveillance tape had been tampered with and Zack had been cleared of all charges. Sam was forgiven for lying about Dean being a police man, reminded that his friends back in college missed him and told to stay in touch.
We arrived in Bisbee, Arizona a week later than we'd planned.
