I posted the first chapter of this story on October 12, 2005, and I'll be posting the very last chapter on October 12, 2006. Thank you to everyone who's been reading, everyone who has alerts for chapters, and especially those of you who've been reviewing.
Any and all reviews from here on out are encouraged and much appreciated. Thanks for reading!
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Dean and Janelle – Matthew – rambled on into Amarillo, Texas around eight in the morning on a Friday. Three gas station attendants and an old woman getting her mail later, he obtained the correct directions to the address Janelle had auto written under Sam's mystical direction. It was a farmhouse on the outside of town, and Dean appreciated the isolation.
"Have any idea what's goin' on?" Dean asked, putting the car in park.
"None," Janelle replied.
"That must be the help you were talkin' about," Dean muttered, reaching for the door when his cell phone rang and vibrated against his side. Pulling it out, he greeted the caller with his less-than-cheerful attitude. "What?"
"Hey, Dean."
Dean's heart stopped mid-beat and he breathed a relieved laugh. "Sammy. How are you? You all right?"
"I'm fine," Sam whispered. "Did you get my note?"
"Interesting way to send it, little brother."
"Yeah, tell me about it."
"How'd you do it?"
"I don't know. Just … did it. How're things going with you?"
"Well, Janelle's back to being Matthew. This guy says he has to help me take care of this thing in Amarillo …" Dean glanced up and saw that Janelle was walking – robotically – toward the front door. "I-I gotta go, Sammy. But you're feelin' okay, right?"
Sam sighed, but Dean could hear his smile. "I'm okay."
Dean nodded, though Sam couldn't see it, and surpassed awkward goodbyes by snapping his phone closed. Dropping it back into his pocket, he hurried out of the car, across the lawn, and up the stairs to the porch where Janelle now stood.
"We need to hurry," she pointed out.
Dean rolled his eyes. "When has speed never been an issue with this case?"
"This is not a case, Mr. Winchester!" Janelle shouted, the English accent a mite thicker. "This is the case!"
"Oh, ooh, excuse me all to hell," Dean jested, gazing hard at the wooden door.
"Your attitude is irrelevant and quite aggravating," Janelle said haughtily.
"Yeah, but it's damn funny."
The door opened, but instead of seeing some hideous monster or even an adult on the other side, a little girl stood before them, staring up at them with huge blue eyes behind thick brown bangs.
"Hello, darling," Janelle smiled. "My name is M … Janelle."
"I know," the little girl nodded. "I dreamed about you."
"Cordy, what did I tell you about answering the door?" a woman hollered from up the staircase.
Dean and Janelle watched the girl's mother rush down the stairs and take her daughter into her arms.
"Can I help you?" the woman asked.
"We, uh …" Dean began.
"Are here to help," Janelle completed.
"Mommy, that's the lady from my dream," Cordy said. "The lady with the white hair."
"Hush, sweetheart. Here to help with what?" the woman asked.
"The spirit here," Janelle answered before Dean could conjure up a descent non-truth explanation. His head snapped in her direction; eyes wide, mouth agape, and shook his head disapprovingly. He noticed then that somehow her eyes had taken on an almost green-looking color, but they still appeared supernatural.
"How did you know about the spirit?" the woman inquired, clutching her daughter closer to her chest.
"Malevolence," Janelle mumbled, passing the woman and her child, looking around the room intently. "Murderous." She glanced at the woman knowingly.
"It's tried to kill my husband."
Dean's eyebrows rose. "Uh, what's your name?" he interjected.
"Oh, Maggie. And this is Cordelia."
"My name's Dean Winchester. That's …" He pointed to Janelle, who was now touching things on the wall and dressers. "Janelle. Well, sometimes, anyway."
"Winchester?" Maggie asked. "I knew you looked familiar." Dean shook his head confusedly. "John is a friend."
Dean nodded, dramatically rolling his eyes. "Happy to hear it. I'll be right back. Gotta make a stop at my trunk." He turned to Janelle. "Hey, Janelle." Her head turned to him, her chin almost completely passing her shoulder. "Don't do anything without me."
Dean jogged back to the Impala and opened the trunk. He gathered up a sawed-off shotgun, several rounds of rock salt, his walkman/EMF detector, and a loaded handgun for precaution. Not that he thought he might have to shoot Mom or little Cordelia or even Janelle – Matthew – he just felt better with it tucked safely into his pants.
Reentering the living room, he became quickly on guard with the sudden drop in temperature. "Guess I won't be needing this," Dean muttered, stuffing the EMF detector into his jacket pocket.
A door slammed somewhere upstairs, and Maggie nearly came out of her skin. "She knows you're here," she wept, retreating into the corner between the living room and the staircase.
"She?" Dean inquired, wishing people would just be entirely forthcoming with all of their problems.
"The spirit," Janelle clarified, spinning to face him. "It's a woman." She smiled quickly and extremely brightly. "Are you familiar with the Bell Witch?"
"Hell yes," Dean beamed proudly. "Me and Dad toe-tagged that bitch for the second time a couple years back." He glanced at Maggie. "Well, we didn't actually toe-tag her, but we vanquished the hell out of her."
"This spirit is like her," Janelle went on. "She hates men."
A chill ran down Dean's spine and his eyes languidly moved from Janelle to the bottom of the staircase and then climbed up until he was staring at the spirit in question. Her gray hair was long and frazzled and instead of a mouth and nose, there were only bones and teeth and hanging flesh. She was completely translucent, but as her blood red eyes fixed on Dean, he could feel the hatred and murderous intentions, which were all directed at him. He was kind of used to it by now.
"Howdy, ma'am!" he greeted cheerfully, slowly raising his shotgun. "My name's Dean, and you are?"
"You're not welcome here," the spirit replied, sounding somewhat more pleasant than her physical appearance suggested. "Get out."
"Ah, man. And I was just starting to get comfortable," Dean pouted, aiming the shotgun filled with rock salt at the spirit and pulling the trigger, but her form dissipated before penetration. "Damn!"
"She is too smart for a hunter of only twenty-two years," Janelle said, her eyes shooting up to the ceiling and then off to the left. "Been doing this for hundreds of years. Is that right?"
Dean ducked when a vase was chucked at his head. "Guess that's a yes," he mumbled. He looked at Janelle. "All right, damn it, if you know so much about this spirit, do you know where her bones are so I can salt and burn the shit out of them?"
Janelle's eyes narrowed and her brows furrowed. "Complicated."
"That's fantastic," Dean grumbled. "So, what do we do?"
"You die," the sinister voice of the spirit hissed before Dean was thrown against a decorated wall, which knocked said decorations onto Dean's body, including his head, as he lay on the floor.
"Ow," he whined, rolling his eyes, brushing the items off of him, having no regard for breaking anything. His cell phone rang and he wouldn't have answered it if Sam wasn't in the hospital. "What?"
"You can't beat it," Sam's voice said. "The spirit; you can't beat it, Dean."
"There's some comforting news, Sammy. Now what do I do?" Dean asked, his head thumping against the floor.
"Nothing."
"What?"
"There's nothing you can do."
"Dude, what …?" He couldn't finish before an invisible force tightened around his throat, yanking him roughly to his feet. He was then shoved into the wall and lifted off the floor. He gagged and choked, scratching at his throat to relieve some pressure, but there was nothing to grab at. His cell phone had long since dropped to the floor and he thought maybe he could hear Sam yelling his name.
"Little help here," he forced out, eyes bulging from his head at Janelle.
"Now you want my help, Mr. Winchester?" Janelle asked.
"Yes," Dean croaked.
Janelle tilted her head. "Say please."
Dean groaned as his head and neck throbbed. "Please?"
Janelle smirked, suddenly thrusting her fist forward almost into Dean's chest. A blue light ignited around her hand, and the form of the old woman began to take shape from the light. The spirit's grip tightened around Dean's neck just as Janelle twisted her fist and yanked the shining burst of blue light from her chest. Dean immediately fell to the ground yet again, gasping desperately for sweet oxygen, and the spirit's form disappeared.
"Dean!" Sam could clearly be heard now screaming frantically in the background for his brother.
As soon as Dean caught even a little bit of breath, he reached for his cell phone and held it shakily to his ear. "Sam?" he rasped, massaging his throat with his thumb and forefinger.
"Dean," Sam sighed. "What happened?"
"What, you don't know?"
"Very funny."
"I about got strangled to death. I'm fine, by the way. Then Matthew grabbed some blue thing out of the ghost's chest and she disappeared."
"Her spirit," Sam said thoughtfully.
Dean rolled his eyes. "So not in the mood for your big brain right now, Sammy. I'll call you later." He hung up. Taking an uncountable amount of deep, soothing breaths, he came to his feet unsteadily, clutching his throat carefully. "You're an asshole," he accused Matthew.
Janelle stepped forward, her eyes returning to white and filling with confrontation. "Do you feel better?" she asked arrogantly.
Dean thought for a minute before raising his eyebrows and shrugging. "Yes, I do," he answered, strutting past her to gather his shotgun, which had been knocked from his hands earlier.
"Thank you!" Maggie exclaimed. "Thank you so much!"
"No problem," Dean respired. "All in a day's work." He glanced at Janelle and nodded toward the door. "Let's get out of here."
Janelle followed Dean obediently, smiling half-heartedly at the little girl named Cordelia as she exited the home during Maggie's gracious thank-yous. Dean opened the passenger door for her and then headed back to the trunk to put away his shotgun and EMF detector. Reaching up to close it, he instead leaned on the trunk door, dropped his head and closed his eyes. He rubbed his neck for a moment and then his shoulder.
"Too sick to drive, Mr. Winchester?" Janelle's voice echoed, and Dean grumbled obscenities as he slammed the trunk and hobbled around to the driver's side.
"Do you even know how to drive?" he asked curiously.
"Actually, I do not," Janelle replied, eyes sparkling. "But Janelle does."
Dean had nothing to say as he turned the key in the ignition and pulled out of the gravel driveway, headed west toward Tucumcari, New Mexico. As he drove, he noticed miniscule changes in the atmosphere around him: the air became dense, causing his ears to pop. As he cursed under his breath, the sky quickly darkened to a sickening shade of green. Dean was familiar with these signs; he'd lived in Kansas and had been through his fair share of tornados.
This wasn't going to stop him. He'd been stopped and sidetracked too many times; enough was enough. He stomped his foot on the gas just as he caught sight of a stop sign up ahead. Getting stopped by some police officer would've taken more time than stopping at a stop sign, so he pumped the gas, wondered why, and then slammed the brake to the floor. The Impala's tires squealed to a smoky halt as the fender barely crossed the line into the four-way intersection.
"Sorry, baby," he apologized to Priscilla.
"Are you ready?" Janelle asked, turning her white eyes on Dean.
Dean looked at her. "Ready for what?" She smiled quickly before opening the door and jumping out. "Hey!" Dean yelled, reaching over to grab her arm, but missing by mere centimeters. "Get back here!"
He watched shocked as Janelle ran into the middle of the intersection and extended her arms at her sides. Dean put the car in park, opened his door, and started to run over to retrieve Janelle when a bolt of lightning lunged from the sky, striking the top of Janelle's head and radiating electricity throughout her entire body. The force of the energy threw Dean backward off his feet and he landed hard on his back on the cruel pavement. He blew out a slow breath and his eyes grew heavy until they closed and Dean passed out.