8

Kya took comfort in the dog's solidity as Colton's son explained to her his version of what had really happened. She clutched a glass of lemonade in her hand that he had brought out about fifteen minutes ago, and the perspiration from the glass mingled with her skin. For some reason she couldn't explain she felt on edge and jumpy, every part of her body screaming that she pay close attention to everything surrounding her.

Colton had explained to her that his father had been accused of murdering and mutilating ten girls in the area between the ages of 12 and 26. The crimes had been appalling and horrendous, the work of a true devil in human flesh with no regard for morality or humanity.

"The police couldn't find enough evidence to convict my Uncle," he continued. "But they needed a scapegoat. So the blame fell to my father, who was without alibi and had been seen with a few of the girls."

"Why was he with the girls?" she interrupted. Her head buzzed slightly and she wiped her hand against her forehead, smearing the gathering drops of sweat.

"He had been a high school math teacher," Hunter explained. "He was tutoring them for their SATS."

Kya nodded for him to continue and looked at the lemonade suspiciously. She had only taken a few sips but the buzzing in her head wouldn't cease. The hand on the dog's head felt heavy and she quickly set the glass down on the porch beside her feet.

"The rest of the story is simple. My father was accused, unjustly, put to death and my Uncle walked free for the first few months. Eventually, a mob of townspeople, convinced that he had been the real perpetrator of the crimes, killed him in a riot. He was beaten to death and the local law enforcement wrote it off as temporary insanity of the bereaved townsfolk."

"Where was he buried?"

"In the cemetery about five miles outside of town on the Highway," Hunter responded. "He has an unmarked grave. The townspeople just threw his body in there and never bothered to give him a headstone."

Kya felt a chill sweep her spine and her stomach turned slightly. Beneath her hand the dog, who had been called Buck by his master, lifted its ears as though listening to a sound that she couldn't make out. She wasn't entirely sure that theory was all that far off the mark.

"That doesn't tell me about the book, Hunter, or the accusations that he was involved in the occult," she said, sharper than she intended to.

"My father experimented with . . . .different forms of religion. And he wrote a lot, for a math teacher. It was his escape, his way out of life. He had always wanted to be a writer but he wasn't so good at it that his books would sell. My father was a secretive man and even I didn't know that much about him."

"But all of a sudden his books started selling. What happened?"

Hunter sighed and leaned forward in his chair. His eyes studied her, searching for something that he obviously found because he began talking again. She didn't fail to notice the tiny glint in his eye as he spoke even though her vision was beginning to blur. She thought either it was the pounding heat or he had spiked her drink.

"What do you want me to say?" he asked. "That he sold his soul to the devil for instant success?"

"The truth would be nice," she shot back.

"The truth is, it's possible. My father was involved in a lot of things that weren't exactly considered kosher around here. It's possible that he did make a deal with the devil. A lot of things are possible."

"How about that book being cursed? Is that possible?"

Hunter nodded and the hint of a smile played at his lips. He kept his gaze steady on her. The hand resting on Buck's silken fur felt the dog's muscles twitch as its ears perked up, tuning in again to a sound that she couldn't hear. Her stomach rolled slightly and the back of her spine turned to ice. She leapt from the chair just as it shattered into pieces. Hunter dodged back from the shrapnel that exploded from what had been his deck chair and Buck took a place at Kya's side, snarling and snapping.

Before she could regain her wits and figure out what had just happened, Hunter lunged at her, wrapping rancher strong arms around her arms to pin them in place. She struggled, but something that he had put in the lemonade made her limbs weaker than they should have been. Her thoughts were slightly muddled, running slower than usual. Her vision blurred as she made out the shape of a man in front of her, blood running freely from places all over his body. His face was handsome and closely resembled Hunter's if he had aged twenty years or so. The man moved stiffly, but quickly, towards her and she felt her heart sink as she realized that the ghost of Colton Banks wasn't the only trouble on the menu. Now she had the ghost of Jason Banks and his homicidal nephew to deal with. Beside her Buck spun on his heel and turned on his master, clamping powerful dog jaws down on his calf and twisting his head viciously from side to side. Hunter howled in pain and released his grip on her to deal with the dog.

The yelp of Buck as Hunter kicked him shocked her enough to bring her back to her senses. She really liked that dog. She spun on her heel, shoving a chair in the way of the oncoming spirit before backhanding Hunter as he came at her as well. She grabbed the dog's collar and hauled him to his feet, rushing him off the porch and onto the open ground of the farmland. Hunter pursued her and tried to tackle her but she spun to the right, planting a foot in his backside that sent him sprawling to the ground. Buck attacked his master, a cacophony of snarls and barks that let her know that situation was well under control.

She spun as the ghost of Jason Banks came running up behind her and dodged to the side to avoid the swipe of a pickaxe. She brought her hand up, edging back towards her motorcycle slowly.

"You picked the wrong girl to haunt, buddy," she said softly.

She threw her raised hand outward, already feeling the tingling warmth coursing through her skin, and a fireball erupted at the ghost's feet. She squinted her eyes and another flame shot from the ground near him, catching his pant leg on fire.

She didn't wait to see if he would incinerate. She called the dog and rushed to her bike, not entirely certain that she could take him with her, but sure that she wasn't going to leave the faithful dog behind.

Buck leapt onto the seat in front of her, narrowly falling, and she managed to wrap an arm around him enough to keep him secure as she started the bike up. The escape was unsteady at best, and she narrowly avoided missing a tree as she repositioned herself to see past the dog. She had to go slower to accommodate for the dog's bulk and in order to keep a firm grip on him, but she managed to keep the bike steady enough to ride. For the first time she thought seriously about investing in a car.

Without looking back she sped away from the farm, placing a call to the Winchesters when she hit the highway.

9

"If that dog pisses on the carpet, you're paying for the damage," Dean said in a low voice.

"Shut up," Kya shot back. "That dog probably has better aim than you."

"Ouch," Sam commented. "It's a nice dog."

They crowded the sidewalk as the sun began its descent into the hills surrounding the city and approached Ashley's house as quickly as they could while bickering over Kya's newly adopted dog. The phone call she had placed to the brothers had been responded to quickly and they had met her on the highway, picking up Buck and returning to the motel room. They had devised a sketchy game plan and left Buck in the room to his own devices, much to Dean's chagrin.

She had told them about the other worrisome ghost and the psychopathic son, but there main objective was to find the book before it killed again. Jason and Hunter Banks would have to be dealt with at a later date. At the present moment they were focused on retrieving the book from Ashley before she became its next victim.

Kya rang the doorbell as the brothers stood impatiently behind her. She could hear Dean shifting his feet in anticipation and Sam cleared his throat as footsteps sounded in the entry hall. A pretty young girl answered the door and her face brightened when she saw Kya at the forefront of her visitors.

"Kya!" the girl exclaimed. "I didn't think you were still in town. What brings you here?"

Kya smiled at the girl and wrapped her in a hug, glad to see her alive. "Business, actually. This is Dean and Sam Winchester."

Ashley smiled at the brothers and motioned them into the house. "My parents aren't home right now. They've gone out for dinner. I was just going to sit down and read, but then you came knocking."

Kya's stomach clenched and she cast a glance behind her to see the relieved expression on Dean's face. They had only just made it in time.

Kya sat on the couch with her cousin's best friend and tried to figure out how to ask for the book without alarming the girl. Dean beat her to it.

"Ashley," he began without prelude. "The book you borrowed from Elizabeth. We need it back."

"Oh," she said, a little surprised. "I haven't even read it yet."

"That's a good thing," Sam muttered. "I know, but we have to return it to the museum. It was stolen a few weeks back and we finally tracked it here."

"Um," Kya interrupted, before Ashley could ask questions. "Sam and Dean are private detectives. The museum hired them to find their stolen book."

"How did you get caught up in it?" Ashley asked.

"Well, Elizabeth was the last who had it. They tracked me down at the funeral. What can I say? They're good at their job."

"I didn't see you two at the funeral . . . .," Ashley started.

"We blend," Dean interrupted.

Ashley nodded. "Right. Okay well it's on my dresser. I'll get it."

Kya motioned her back down quickly. "That's okay. I'll go get it."

Dean cast her a glance that she interpreted well and she shot him a look back that told him not to worry. She wasn't an idiot and wasn't going to open the book by herself. Ashley looked like she was going to protest but Kya cast her a reassuring smile before climbing the stairs two at a time. She could hear Sam attempting small talk downstairs and smiled. She was getting the impression that he was the mediator between the two brothers. Dean seemed more intense, more focused on his work when he wasn't at play with the women they ran into, while Sam seemed to connect with the people that they encountered and seemed in a constant state of apology for his more outgoing brother.

She entered Ashley's room and went straight to the dresser. On it sat a book bound in brown leather with the words of the Latin title written on the front in embossed gold. The author's name was printed at the bottom in small box letters. It wasn't anything flashy or overly special by appearance. It seemed like the kind of book that most people would pass up without ever pulling out of a library book shelf. Except the closer she got to it she felt an overwhelming compulsion to open it and at the very least read the first line. Her hands touched the jacket and she felt a chill. It was as cold as the skin of a reptile and to her imagination wondered if it would leap off the table and take flight around the room like a bat. The compulsion to open it grew stronger before she reminded herself sharply and with much mental discipline that this book was deadly. It had killed her cousin. The need to open it diminished to a tolerable level and she scooped it up in her hands being careful to hold it tightly shut.

"So that's our killer," a voice said from the doorway.

She turned to face Dean, leaning against the doorjamb. "I guess so. I felt like I wanted to open it just by being near it."

"I'm getting that feeling from here," he informed her honestly. "And the redhead downstairs is getting suspicious, I think."

"She's a smart girl," Kya told him. "Our story was impromptu at best. I would be suspicious too."

Dean nodded and she found herself noticing the depth of his hazel eyes. In the waning sunlight filtering through the blinds in the room they appeared bright green flecked with gold that sparkled. She shook the thoughts from her mind and clutched the book tighter, ignoring its almost sentient cry to be opened and read.

"We should get back downstairs," she offered, awkwardly.

He moved from the doorway and held his hands out as if he was presenting a red carpet. She brushed past him and the slight contact sent a tremor through her. She thought maybe she was going nuts. This man was a womanizer. She had seen it with her own two eyes and yet she was getting caught up in his attractive qualities, which weren't few. If she hadn't been working a case with him she probably would have written him off as a player and never gave him a second thought. Now her brain was allowing not just a second thought, but also a third, fourth, fifth, and down the line.

She managed to squash the thoughts as she came back into the living room to say goodbye to Ashley and gather up the youngest Winchester.

"It looks ordinary enough," Sam offered.

"Except it seems to have a telepathic quality to it," Kya added.

"Well we can stand here and stare at it, or figure out what to do next," Dean finished.

They stood around the bed, where the book sat unopened on the covers. Behind them Buck lay in a heap, probably wondering what these crazy humans were talking about. To him, life was simple. Kya envied him.

"I still don't get how Elizabeth was killed when she wasn't in possession of the book," Sam said. He sat down on the edge of the bed with his arms on his knees.

"Well, I'm developing a theory that involves another ghost," Kya told him. "It's possible that Jason Banks killed her."

"So what?" Dean asked. "We're caught up in a feud? A competition?"

"Well, if Jason Banks was the actual killer then it makes sense that his ghost would still be as murderous. But ghosts usually need energy from the living to feed off to stay rooted here. Maybe Hunter is that link."

"What about Colton?" Dean wondered. "How does he fit into all of this?"

"Maybe he's tied to the book," Sam mused. "Could be when he wrote it he tied a piece of his soul to it. We can't know what the book is about without opening it. And we aren't getting any answers by theorizing."

"Well every other person who's opened that damn thing has turned up dead."

Kya nodded. "Still, if we want to get to the bottom of this we're going to have to open it."

Dean sighed and the other two gathered at his side. He picked up the book and ran his hand over the smooth leather covering. It seemed to pulsate beneath his hand, as though the leather skin were trying to come alive and take form. He nearly shuddered but pushed the wave of revulsion back as his brother and Kya looked on from his left and right. From the floor all three lifted backpacks, loaded with flashlights, extra batteries, guns, extra ammo, several other various weapons, and other assorted equipment. Sam had developed a theory and when he had told the others they had prepared traveling gear, just in case his theory was right. Dean was hoping that his brother was wrong, but when Sam had a theory it usually proved to be true. He knew that he was stalling but he couldn't help himself. He had never before walked into a fight so blind and it made him nervous. Kya reached over and squeezed his hand reassuringly.

"Do it, Dean. We'll read the first line together."

"I swear, it had better not say, 'It was a dark and stormy night'," was all Dean had to offer before he jerked open the cover.

Together they read the first line out loud, their voices rising in harmony in the still of the motel room. Even Buck looked up from his nap to eye them suspiciously.

Dean felt a pull, as though his body was being turned inside out, and he unconsciously dropped the book to grab the hands of his companions. He opened his eyes when he realized that the book had never hit the ground.

The carpet beneath his feet felt strange, more solid than it had before, and he heard Sam groan beside him.

Dean realized that they were no longer in the motel room. They were in the country side, far removed from civilization. He looked to his right where the hills surrounding them sloped and rolled, appearing as giant tortoises in a deep sleep. To his left lay a forest that appeared to go on and on forever with no reliable means out. The tree line was dark and forbidding and it made his skin crawl to even contemplate entering it. Behind him lay a gravel road that ended in a twenty foot tall, ornate, black metal fence. The designs at the top seemed to be thorny ivy and the gates that allowed entrance to the grounds were tightly shut against the outside world. Dean summoned his courage, taking strength from the hands in his own, and look in front of him where his other two companion's attention had already been drawn.

The sky above was dark, roiling with thunderheads, and just as in a classic horror novel lightning split the sky in anger, raking claws against the clouds as if to rend them to pieces. There was a chill wind bristling past them, the kind of wind that bit into flesh and made one wish fervently for a fireplace and hot chocolate. Beside him Kya moved closer, either from fear or from cold, he couldn't tell which.

Before them sat a mansion that sprawled upon the ground as if the land itself had disgorged it from hell. It rose up from the land, a great monstrous slumbering beast that appeared to have at least three stories and the front of which was comprised of steepled roofs and hundreds of windows. The front of the mansion was overgrown with twisting snakes of vines, thousands of vipers that seemed to writhe in the illuminations of lightning that appeared every few seconds. Double chimneys, appearing as cylindrical tubes, shot up from the house in various strategetic locations and he could make out more of the house behind the main part, as if a large courtyard took up the middle and the house wound its way around that vast expanse of empty ground. The windows were dark, silent, and seemed to watch them with interest. Dean felt his skin crawl and for once in his lifetime of facing down things that would make most people go screaming to their mommy, he was the one that was afraid.

"Oh crap," he managed.