Alexamata: TY, I did, and got much love (hehe)...thanks for the heads up!

CrazyDisaster, Moonfairyhime, wild wolf free17: thanks for the reviews, here you guys go.

Adara-chan15: Well, since you're the only one so far to guess, sure!...hands out a cookie...Hope ya like chocolate drizzled in angst, cause here's some for all of ya!

Chapter Three: Bones and Betrayals

Sam woke up to late evening sunlight filtering through the blinds and falling across his chest. He blinked and tried to figure out what had awakened him.

"Aha!" Dean's triumphant shout from the living room reminded him.

Before he could even sit up, Dean bounded into the bedroom, waving a pile of papers in his hand.

"Got it!" he crowed.

"Got what, genius?" Sam asked sleepily.

"The place, the story, everything!" Dean grinned as he jumped onto the opposite bed, tucking his left foot under his right leg as he sat and spread the papers in a mess in front of him. Picking one sheet up, he handed it to Sam. Sam looked at what seemed to be a map of the town of Haven's Rest, with the three-wing B&B in the center.

"I couldn't find anything connecting the people except, as you said, that they all lived here. So I started mapping the locations, and they all fall into an area of about 4 square miles, with this Bed and Breakfast right in the middle of it all! I can't believe I didn't see it sooner."
"Why would you have?" Sam asked, confused.

"Because of you."

"Me?"

"Yeah, dude, you. You haven't been sleeping worth beans, and when you do, you wake up worse off than when you started. You've also been falling asleep in the middle of things, like last night, and the day before, at the diner."
Sam was embarrassed that Dean had noticed, but with the dullness of fatigue clouding his brain, it was no surprise that his brother had seen through his pathetic attempts to hide his growing exhaustion.

"I hate to say it Sammy, but I think it's coming after you next."

There was nothing Sam could do but nod and say "Sam, dammit, SAM."

"OK, Sam," Dean sighed. "Why aren't you sleeping? And don't just say it's because of the nightmares, because I know that isn't it."

"I don't know. I can't remember much of my dreams, except that I'm running from something..."

"Running from what?"

"I don't know, I can't see anything, but I know it's there. Then, it's gone, chased away by something, someone. There's more than one, I think. It's like they want to protect me from the monster, or whatever it is, that's chasing me."

"Who are they?" Dean asked.

"I'm not sure, but they feel...what do I want to say...friendly? Safe? Maybe it's Jessica and mom? I just don't know, it's so confusing."

"All right, we'll let that thought sit a while, while I fill you in on the rest of the story."

"There's more?"

"Oh, yeah, a lot more. See, about a hundred years ago, in 1901, a wealthy landowner named Cornelius Jacobson from Texas moved here with his new bride, Eleanor. He bought this building from the town mayor and changed it into a hotel, adding a second, and then a third wing as business flourished. His young wife was extremely beautiful and innocent, but also extremely in love with with her husband. The husband, however, loved his whiskey and his whores. The hotel business took off and kept them busy, at least it kept the wife busy, and everything was hunky-dory for a while. What Eleanor didn't know, was that her husband had been sleeping not only with the town ladies-of-the-night, but also with some of the women who stayed in the hotel with their husbands. His wife eventually found out, killed him, went nuts and disappeared."

"Ok, so this is a woman wronged-type ghost? Wait a minute, if it's a woman, that explains the men who died, but didn't you say that there were three women who died in this 4 mile area too?"

"Yep. Even addle-brained as you are right now, you still found the twist," Dean said as he ducked the swipe aimed at his head.

"There were three women who died," Dean confirmed. "I looked into their backgrounds and nearly the same thing happened to them. The first was in 1922, Emma Wainwright, married for two years before she found out her husband was cheating on her with the maid. The second was Josephine Neely, 1956, who caught her fiance in bed with two other women...at the same time! Lucky dog."

Sam glared at Dean, who shrugged.

"And last we have Annabella York, 1998, married four years, husband cheated on her with her best friend."

Sam waited, but Dean didn't extrapolate any further.

"OK, from the look on your face there's more. Spit it out."

"Spoilsport. Anyway, those three women supposedly died in their sleep within a month of their husbands 'mysteriously' dying. Emma's husband died in his sleep, but Josephine's and Annabella's husbands both fell asleep at the wheel of their cars and had deadly accidents. And the kicker is, that when each woman died, the death rate of the men doubled. As if..."

"As if, they joined Eleanor in death and started to kill, too." Sam finished.

"Exactly."

"Does there seem to be any connection to the men now? I mean, did they all cheat on their wives or something, and that's why the women killed them?"

"No," Dean sounded frustrated, "The only common denominator is that they were all male. That's it."
"And it wouldn't account for why they all complained of exhaustion before they died."

"Yeah, it's almost like they were being drained, somehow."

"What, like some kind of psychic vampire or something?" Sam asked.

"Dunno, Sammy, but you know what comes next. Find the bones."

oooOOOooo

Their search for the bones of the jilted women proved easier said than done. Even armed with the names of the deceased, they were still hard pressed to locate the graves, or any mention of where they may have been buried.

"Well, we know that Eleanor disappeared after she murdered her husband, right?" Dean asked.

Sam lifted his nose out of the dusty tome of burial records he was working through, and nodded. They had come once more to the town library, and now sat in the basement with piles of old books and records, painstakingly deciphering old handwriten entries.

"So even if we find the bones of the other three, we still don't have the ringleader. How are we gonna get rid of her then? I mean, we can kill the three followers, but Eleanor will still be free to get more," Sam pondered.

"I don't know, Sammy. I don't know."

Sam let the nickname slide as he returned to the records, hoping to find something that would catch his eyes. This case was harder than any of the others, research-wise, and he was afraid that when they finally came face to face with the ghosts, they would have lost their well-honed edge to exhaustion and confusion.

A couple hours later Dean called it quits. They had finally managed to find the graves of the three followers, and thankfully, they were in the same graveyard, within yards of each other. They had to wait until nightfall to dig up the graves, so they returned to the B&B to catch a few hours of rest.

By the tossing and turning Sam was doing in the bed next to his, Dean knew he was dreaming again. He didn't know what he could possibly do for his brother, but was willing to do almost anything to help him get a little sleep, so he quietly slipped out of his bed and into the other. Sliding softly under the covers so he wouldn't awaken Sam, he gently curled his arms around his brother's shivering form and hugged him close to his body. With one hand he brushed the curls away from Sam's face and kept his hand on his neck, willing his younger brother to calm down. In a few moments, Sam did just that, and let out a heavy sigh as he slipped further into dreamless oblivion.

oooOOOooo

The Winchesters slunk through the graveyard, searching for the graves of Emma, Josephine, and Annabella. They found two, belonging to Josephine and Annabella, close together, and set to work, one brother digging at each grave. After about three breaks and a billion curses later, they hit the coffins, almost simultaneously. They each retrieved their salt, oil and lighters, and prepared to open the casket lids.

"On three, OK?" Sam said.

"One...Two...Three!" They both yanked the lids open and jumped back, prepared to strike.

"What the...?" Dean said.

"Yours too?" Sam looked at him.

They exchanged glances and then looked back at the empty graves, wondering where the bones were now.

"Damn."

"Shit."

"What do you want to bet the third one is empty too?"

"Dunno, but we'd better find out."

oooOOOooo

After a maddeningly fruitless search of the three coffins, the Winchesters dragged their ghost-hunting bags back to the car, physically exhausted and covered with mud and grass stains. Wordlessly they got into the Impala and drove back to the B&B. It was almost 3 a.m., and they were extremely grateful that they were the only residents in the old wing of the complex. As they started up the stairs they caught movement at the top. Three cats, black as pitch, sat on the landing, looking at them with those eerily glowing eyes that only felines have.

"That's Salem and Black Magic, but I don't know the third one," Dean whispered.

"That one's Mojo, I met him yesterday when I asked the desk attendant if we had any messages," Sam whispered back.

Dean only nodded as they continued to slink silently up the stairs, past the ebony sentinels.

They entered their rooms, and the first thing Dean did as oldest brother was lay claim to the bathroom. He stripped down to his boxers and dumped the rest of his filthy clothes in a pile in the corner of the bathroom as hot water filled the clawfoot bathtub. He scrubbed his face and washed his hair in the sink as he waited for the tub to fill, and then shucked his boxers and sank into the hot water, almost moaning in pleasure as the heat worked through his muscles.

Fifteen gloriously relaxing minutes later, he heard Sam knock on the door and complain that he needed a shower too, and Dean reluctantly soaped up a washcloth and finished his bath.

He grinned as he opened the door, a towel wrapped around his narrow waist.

Sam sighed and gave him a long-suffering look.

"Did you bother to leave me any hot water?"

"Naw, that's the benefit of being the big brother, bro. You get to hog all the good stuff," Dean smiled as he flashed his cocky grin and went to put some pants on.

Sam shut the bathroom door and stripped his clothes off, tossing them on the pile that Dean had started. He adjusted the temperature of the water in the shower as hot as he could stand it and set the showerhead to massage/pulse, hoping that the heat would help him sleep as deeply as he had before they went to the graveyard. Stepping into the harsh spray, he pulled the shower door closed and closed his eyes. The stinging water felt like thousands of little pinpricks on his skin, burrowing deep into his abused muscles and heating him from within. He started to shiver from the heat, then his body adjusted and he relaxed. He washed his hair and soaped up his body, then let the water just wash over him as he leaned his forehead onto the tile of the shower stall, totally carefree for the moment, watching the soap slide down his long legs to puddle at his feet. He stayed there for a few minutes and then turned, letting the spray beat upon his back and shoulders. Finally, when the water started to turn cooler, he shut the shower off and stepped out, wrapped a thick towel around himself and dried off. Realizing he had brought a clean pair of jeans, but forgotten to bring a clean pair of underwear, he shrugged and started to put them on, sans boxers.

He had just pulled them over his hips when he saw movement in the mirror and whipped around, arms bracing himself on the sink. The bathroom was empty. Not trusting his previously relaxed state, and knowing that the ghosts were still loose, he hesitantly walked to the door and opened it onto a nightmare.