Whoo! Summer classes suck. This was a hastily written piece that goes a little fast, but just pretend it's all believable for my sake. I promise the next chapter will be better written, peeps! Flame me for my horrible updating skills…just review. Flame if you want, I just enjoy getting any reviews.

Hugs from the fairytalemanipulator.

Chapter Six: The Curse

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"Dean!" Sam's whispered shout traveled down the desolate hallway. "I think I got something!"

"Finally," Dean mumbled, sidestepping the piles of old newspaper littering the ground. After two hours at the second library in the next town over, Dean was ready for a nap. Or a beer.

"You check on Jamie?"

"Yeah," Dean said, his eyebrows coming together unconsciously. "They're still holding her at the station."

"I guess she's safe there, right?"

Dean let out a snort. "Yeah, and I'm Cleopatra, Queen of the Nile."

"Wasn't Cleopatra a princess?"

"Fuck it, man, just tell me what you got."

Sam waved a yellowing parchment in Dean's face. "Michael Durham."

"Huh?"

"CeeCee Durham was married…well, at least for a little bit. This guy was her husband."

"And?" Dean snatched the paper out of Sam's hands.

"AND—" Sam paused to snatch it back. "He died the year after Jamie was born."

Dean pushed a finger against his suddenly throbbing temple. "Lemme get this straight. This dude, Michael, is Jamie's real dad? How the fuck does that help us in any way?"

"He died the same way. Only we never found out about it til now."

"Why?" Dean regarded Sam with icy eyes, convinced that the younger Winchester fucked something up.

"He died in Salt Lake City."

"Wait—" Dean held up a hand, using the other to rummage through the duffel bag at his feet.

"Salt Lake City…Salt Lake City…" He muttered to himself, flipping though photocopies. "Here, check it out."

Sam grabbed the paper, reading to himself. "Wait…this is the first victim's diary? From the 1890s? Where in the HELL did we get such good luck?"

Dean smirked, obviously proud of himself. "It's incredible what's on the good ol' Internet nowadays. It was on some museum website, but I could only get bits and pieces."

"This guy traveled to Salt Lake City in the 1800s?"

"Apparently, yeah. So maybe this is where it all started."

"But he died in his hometown. And after he died, something kept killing off his family members. It's almost mechanical. Maybe a soul snatcher, or a…" Sam trailed off midsentence. Dean's eyes met his in understanding, and they let out a single phrase.

"It's a curse."

Silence. Then…

"God DAMN it!"

"Dean! Keep it down! In a LIBRARY here!"

"Sam! Do you have ANY idea how much time we've wasted? It was in front of our fucking FACES the whole—"

"Well, it was pretty hard to trace it back that far—"

"The first vic, he did something in Utah," Dean talked over Sam. "Something that put a curse on his family,"

"But if it's a curse on the Durham family…or whatever their last names used to be a hell of a long time ago…then why are the Buchanans dead?"

Dean rubbed the stubble on his cheek, his eyes reflecting a memory. "Curses don't really distinguish well. It wanted to get to Jamie, right? Because she's the last link to the family?" Dean waited until Sam nodded in assent to go on. "The curse must have assumed that it couldn't get to the kid unless it took out the guardians. It's messed up logic, but hey, it's a freaking curse."

"That makes sense, in a roundabout way," Sam nodded thoughtfully, his eyes squinting. "Putting a curse on a family is pretty deep, dark magic though. What would have the power to do that?"

"Well, back in the 1800s, the gypsies were really big, and the witches have always been out there…" Dean drifted off, his tone increasingly frustrated. "Look, dude, we can ponder all we want, but now that we know for SURE it's a curse, can we get on it? Because I get the feeling that if we keep contemplating this shit, Jamie's gonna get the raw end of the deal,"

"Curses expire, don't they?" Sam's question was more of a statement, and Dean slammed a hand against his forehead.

"How the hell could I not have seen this? I swear to God, I'm getting too old,"

"That's why it's killing so frequently now. Because it's time's almost up, and it needs to finish its job,"

"Sam." Dean's voice was gravelly, and the younger Winchester looked up in alarm. "Sam, we're running out of time."

"What do you mean? How can we stop it?"

Dean looked at Sam, his eyes hollow in pain. And Sam understood.

"We can't stop it," he breathed. "It's going to kill Jamie…and then…it'll be over."

Dean paced the floor, eyes on the ground. Thoughts ran through his head. Images of crime scene photos from CeeCee Durham's house, snapshots of the too-grown-up-for-her-age Jamie telling them that her mother was dead in the next room… "No."

The word was spoken so low that Sam almost didn't hear it. "No?"

"It's not killing the kid."

Sam eyed his brother, respect in his eyes. "How do we stop it?"

Dean whirled around, relief evident on his face. Sam's support was crucial at this point, because Dean had truly never faced a deadly curse before. "I don't know…if there's a way…"

"We've never dealt with curses before, have we," Sam voiced Dean's inner thoughts.

"You ever read anything about beating curses? 'Cause I heard that you gotta let them run their course, and that…there's no way to stop 'em."

Sam didn't miss the beat of panic in Dean's voice. If there was one thing his older brother couldn't stand, it was watching while an innocent life was taken.

"Dean. We'll find a way to stop it. Jamie's not going to die."

"If we don't hurry, she probably will. Remember, it doesn't follow a pattern."

"I know, I know," Now Sam joined in the pacing, his footsteps unknowingly tracing those of his brother's. Their prints marred the clean layer of dust lying on the floor of the public records room.

"I think there's someone we can call," Sam said slowly, the wheels in his head turning.

Dean ran through their list of contents, coming up empty on every front. "Sam, I don't think Caleb or Pastor Jim ever dealt with curses, either. It's pretty rare shit, and they would've mentioned it—"

"Not them."

"Then who?"

"Someone who can give us some hope."

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