And so, the roller coaster ride begins. Please buckle up and make sure to keep your hands and feet inside the Impala at all times.

Chapter 4

Flying Lamps and Battle Axes

When Clark and his newly adopted cousins showed up at the mansion, Darius opened the gate, allowing Dean to pull in with the Impala. Clark was riding shotgun and Sam was in the back, just to make things easier for the mansion's security people to identify them as members of the Kent family.

Lex stepped outside as they were pulling in and he smiled when he saw the car. As soon as Clark and his 'cousins' got out, he said, "Nice ride! I like it."

Dean went over to him and offered him a handshake. "And she'll be mine someday. I'm Dean."

Lex shook his hand. "And I'm Lex. Come on in."

The four of them went into the mansion and both Sam and Dean looked around at the interior, amazed by all the detail in the architecture and the priceless art pieces that decorated the halls. Lex brought his guests into the library, and they all took a seat on the couches by the fireplace.

Lex went over to the bar and poured himself a glass of scotch. "Are either of you guys old enough to drink?"

Dean looked up at him and laughed. "Hell yeah! Sammy isn't, but I am."

"You like whiskey?"

"Sure."

Lex poured himself a glass and then he got one for Dean. He carried them over to the glass table in between the two couches and set them down on it. Then he went over to the set of shelves beside his desk and opened a small mini-fridge that he kept hidden inside the unit. He grabbed a couple colas for the younger guys and brought them over.

Dean grabbed his glass and held it up in the air. "We're living the high life tonight, boys!" Then he held up his pinky and took a big gulp.

When Lex saw what Dean was doing, he chuckled. "Clark tells me you guys know a little bit about ghosts. What can you tell me?"

Sam looked up at Lex with an amused grin after watching his brother's antics and held up his father's journal. "Everything we know about them is right here. If we were dealing with a normal ghost, all we would have to do is find the remains and burn them, but if it's a poltergeist…"

Lex looked down at him with a smirk. "If it's a poltergeist, then we're screwed, right?"

"Not quite," Sam explained. "We could perform a purification ritual and that should send it packing. But…" Then he opened the journal and looked for his father's notes on poltergeists. "But, if a human spirit becomes a poltergeist, we can still burn their remains like we would with any other ghost, as long as something of their humanity still remains."

"I see," Lex said, before taking a sip of his drink. "What do you guys need?"

Dean set his glass down on the table and got up. "Everything we need's in the trunk. Me and Sam just have to go back out and get it."

Lex nodded and smiled. "I'll let you guys get to it then."

"Let's go, Sammy," Dean said.

Sam closed the journal and the two of them headed back out into the hall, leaving Clark and Lex alone.

Still holding his glass of scotch, Lex followed them out of the library and watched them walk away, before going back inside and giving Clark a funny look. "Are you sure they know what they're doing?"

Clark shrugged as he made himself comfortable on the couch. "I don't really know, to be honest. I'm assuming so."

Lex scoffed. "Burning the remains? Do you realize how crazy that sounds?"

Clark nodded. "Yeah. It's about as crazy as lamps flying through the air on their own. Not to mention Chinese battle axes."

Lex took another sip of his drink and sat down across from Clark. "You make a good point. The thing is, we don't really know if this thing's a spirit or not."

Clark felt just as uncertain as Lex on the matter. "I guess it's possible that some guy used meteor rocks to turn himself invisible…"

Lex chuckled. "Either we have a poltergeist tearing the mansion apart, or we have an invisible guy running around weakening havoc. I can't decide which option is more insane."

"This is Smallville," Clark reminded him. "We've seen all kinds of crazy things happen. Tina Greer robbed a bank disguised as you and we've even had vampires in town."

"Hence the deer drained of blood?" Lex asked. "Still, if somebody did make themselves invisible with meteor rocks, it wouldn't explain the flickering lights."

Clark nodded and grabbed his cola. "Right. It definitely wouldn't."

Then Clark opened his drink and took a sip, while he wondered how they were going to deal with this invisible enemy. If it was a flesh and blood person, he knew he could find them easily with his x-ray vision, but that ability would be useless if they were dealing with a poltergeist. If it was the latter, he hoped that Sam and Dean could figure this one out.

While Sam and Dean were carrying their duffel bags back into the mansion, they discussed their first impression of Lex Luthor amongst themselves.

"I don't think he believes us," Sam said.

Dean sighed and shook his head. "He hasn't seen the things we have, Sammy. We'll just have to prove to him that we're the experts here."

"I hope he doesn't throw us out before we solve this case," Sam added.

Then they took their stuff back into Lex's library, where he and Clark were still sitting in front of the fireplace. As soon as they set their stuff down, Lex got up from the sofa so he could watch them work. The two brothers opened their duffel bags and pulled out their EMF readers and the sawed-off shotguns.

"What are the guns for?" Lex asked.

Dean held up his weapon, giving Lex a better look at it. "They're loaded with rock salt shells. If any ghosts show up, we can blast their asses out of here."

Still looking quite skeptical, Lex smirked at him. "I see…"

Dean lowered his gun and retrieved his dad's old EMF reader from his duffel bag, while Sam grabbed a reader of his own from the other one.

Clark got up from the couch to watch as well. "What do we do now?"

Dean turned on his EMF reader and looked up at him. "You guys sit tight. Me and Sam can handle this." Then he looked back down at his EMF reader and noticed that it wasn't working. "What the hell?"

Dean put his gun down and started to slap the EMF reader, causing Sam to chuckle. "Having problems there, Dean?"

"Shut up, Sam," Dean shot back. "Come on… There, it's working now."

Clark and Lex exchanged glances, after seeing the spectacle that took place in front of them, and both of them seemed unsure of the Winchesters' ability to solve the case.

"Okay, we're gonna split up," Dean announced. "I'll look around the library and Sam… You can check out the hallways."

Sam nodded and picked up his gun. "Okay. See you in a few."

"Sam, wait!" Clark called out to him. "I'll come with you."

Sam gave him a confused look. "No, you should stay here, where it's safe."

"But if the mansion's haunted, are we really safe anywhere?"

Sam looked over at Dean and shrugged when he failed to think of a comeback. "Okay, come on. Just stay behind me."

Then Sam and Clark left the room, leaving Dean and Lex alone.

An amused grin appeared on Lex's face while Dean went around the library, checking for EMFs. "You might want to upgrade your equipment."

Dean chuckled. "This thing is old. I think I'm gonna try making one out of a Walkman one of these days, just to see if it'll work."

"That would be cool," Lex said. "Anyway, you and Clark are cousins, right?"

"Last time I checked," Dean replied.

Then Lex took another sip of his scotch and set the glass down on his desk. "I never knew Jonathan Kent had siblings."

Dean gave Lex a surprised look and opened his mouth to say something, but then he paused, before giving an excuse. "That's because he doesn't. My dad is Jonathan's cousin, so I guess that makes us second cousins."

Lex chuckled. "Makes sense. Since you and Clark are family, I was hoping you could tell me some things about him."

Dean looked back down at his EMF reader, but since it wasn't detecting anything yet, he glanced up at Lex again. "Okay, sure. What do you want to know?"

"First of all," Lex began. "I know that Clark is different from most people and that he has some extraordinary abilities. All I want is confirmation."

Dean gave him a confused look. "What do you mean?"

"I hit him with my car at sixty miles an hour, right before I drove it off a bridge," Lex explained. "Then he pulled the roof off and saved my life."

Dean's eyes widened with surprise. "Holy crap! Are you sure that's how it went down?"

Lex's smile faded and he gave Dean a look of disappointment. "I'm guessing you didn't know."

Then Dean laughed. "Well, maybe you're remembering wrong. He could've jumped out of the way and dove in afterwards. You had a frickin near death experience, dude."

"I know what I saw," Lex told him. "I'm certain that things happened exactly as I remember them, but I was hoping you could tell me more, since you're family and all."

Dean shook his head and his attention returned to the EMF reader. "The only thing I knew, was that he had the ability to embarrass himself in front of girls. He's a lot like Sam in that way."

Still looking disappointed, Lex put his hands in his pockets and smiled at him. "Anyway, I'll let you get back to work. Good luck."

Then Lex went back behind his desk and logged into his Luthor Corp account. Even though it probably seemed like he was playing dumb, Dean honestly knew very little about Clark. Despite this, he was beginning to see why that kid was able to help his father during his last hunt in Smallville.

While Clark and Sam were checking out the halls of the mansion, they decided to take a look in Victoria's room, just to see if anything was in there that could trip the EMF detector.

Since they weren't detecting anything on the way there, Sam decided to start up a conversation with his new cousin. "Clark, I've been wanting to ask you some things about the hunt you helped my dad with."

Clark glanced at him and raised an eyebrow. "He didn't tell you about it?"

Sam glanced back down at the EMF reader briefly, but then he scoffed as he looked back up at Clark. "He doesn't usually tell us much."

"That's strange," Clark said. "Considering the things you guys do, it seems like he should tell you everything."

"Yeah, well, with him, everything comes on a need-to-know basis," Sam explained. "If he doesn't think it's important, he keeps it to himself."

Taken aback by this, Clark gave Sam a surprised look. "That doesn't make any sense…"

Sam chuckled. "Tell me about it! He drives me nuts sometimes."

Still not understanding the relationship Sam had with his own father, Clark put that aside and started describing everything that went down. "Anyway… The last time he came to Smallville, he and his friend Dan were hunting vampires."

Now it was Sam's turn to be surprised. "Vampires? Seriously? I thought they weren't real…"

The two of them went up the stairs and around a corner as they approached Victoria's room. Clark pointed the doorway out to Sam, before giving more details about the previous hunt. "That's Victoria's room, but yeah, I didn't think they existed either. Some girl, who happened to be a vampire, transferred to Smallville High from out of state. Then she changed some of my classmates into vampires too."

When they got there, Clark pulled the door open and Sam led the way inside. "That's crazy! How did my dad kill them?"

Sam started to scan the room with the EMF reader, while Clark filled him in. "They used something called 'dead man's blood' to weaken them and then… I think they had to decapitate them?"

Sam looked up at Clark with a smirk. "Huh. I'm guessing you didn't stick around long enough to actually see the killing part, right?"

Clark shook his head. "No. I wasn't around when they killed Sean, but they promised to find a way to save the rest. All I know for sure, is that Dan tried to decapitate one of them with a shovel. They also had machetes with them, so that's probably what they were for."

Sam looked back down at the EMF reader as he approached the bedside table where the shattered lamp once stood. He didn't detect anything, so he turned towards the bed and scanned that as well.

Curious about Sam's life, Clark decided to ask some questions of his own. "So, what's it like, traveling around and hunting things with your dad and your brother?"

Sam turned away from the bed and put the EMF reader down by his side. "To be honest, I hate it. Dean and I were raised like warriors, but I don't want to do this for the rest of my life. All I want to do is go to college and be normal. I love the hell out of them, but I know that when the time comes for me to leave, they're just gonna be dicks about it."

Clark gave him an understanding look and nodded. "I understand what you mean about wanting a normal life. Sometimes, I wish I could have one too."

Sam furrowed his brow at him. "What do you mean? I thought you already had one."

Realizing that Sam probably knew nothing about his abilities, Clark considered opening up about that part too, but he didn't get the chance. The lights started to flicker above them and they both heard Lex shouting in the library. The guys glanced at each other for a second and bolted back out into the hallway.

While Lex was getting some work done on his laptop, Dean went to the upper level of the library, giving him some peace and quiet. He took a sip of his scotch and opened the files for Cadmus Labs. He smiled to himself as he thought about Victoria stealing those documents, expecting to hit the jackpot, all the while knowing about the reality check that she and Sir Harry would be receiving soon.

"Don't worry, Dad," he said quietly. "You'll be thanking me when this is all over."

Then he put the glass back up to his lips and poured the rest down the hatch. Wanting more, he got up from behind his desk and went over to the bar for a refill. He picked up the fancy glass bottle and pulled the cap off. While he was refilling his glass, Lex heard the familiar thud of a book falling to the floor. He looked back and noticed that Leaves of Grass had fallen off the shelf again, but this time, it remained closed.

"What the hell?" Lex grabbed his drink and walked over to the book.

He picked it back up off the floor and suddenly felt cold. His breath came out like a mist and the lights started to flicker as the entire shelf unit began to tremble.

Lex took a few steps back and ducked suddenly when another book flew off the shelf. "What the-"

He backed up even more and then he turned just in time to see the glass bottle of scotch float up in the air and fly straight at him. Dropping the book and the drink that were in his hands, he hit the floor and the bottle shattered when it smashed against the wall.

He got back up again and watched as more books flew off the shelves. "Oh, God!"

Then the billiard balls on the pool table started to fly at him. One of them hit him in the arm from behind and he cried out in pain. Clutching his arm, he made a dash towards the doors and started shouting, "Clark! Dean! Somebody!"

Before he could escape the library, a teenage girl with stringy, dark hair appeared directly in front of the double doors, blocking his exit. She was wearing a dark gray nightgown that was torn in multiple places and there was a dark ring around her neck and a hateful scowl on her face.

Lex put up his hands and started to back away, just as Dean came barreling down the stairs from the upper level. "Lex, get back!"

Dean blasted the girl with rock salt after passing through the doorway, and then she evaporated like smoke in the wind. Startled, Lex fell over backwards, just as Sam, Clark, and two security guards burst into the room.

Clark immediately rushed to his friend's side. "Lex! Are you okay?"

One of the guards, who happened to be Darius, drew his gun and aimed it at Dean. "What the hell happened in here?!"

Dean dropped his weapon and put his hands up, but Lex jumped to his defense. "Darius, it's okay!"

Darius lowered his sidearm and turned to look at Lex, just as Clark helped him back up on his feet. "Are you alright, Mister Luthor?"

"I'm fine," Lex replied. "These guys are here to help. I'll explain later."

Appearing to be satisfied with that answer, Darius nodded, but then he looked around at the trashed library and glanced at Dean one more time, before he and the other security guard left the room.

"Dean, what was that?" Sam asked.

"It was a girl!" Dean cried. "A ghost girl!"

Lex looked around at his trashed library and sighed. "Damn it, I could use another drink."

But then he looked over at the broken glass and the puddles of scotch, suddenly realizing that option was no longer on the table.

"Lex, maybe you should go stay with Victoria," Clark suggested. "Just until we figure this out."

"Clark's right," Sam added. "We're dealing with a pissed off spirit and it won't stop until we make it stop."

Lex turned back towards them and nodded. "Okay, I guess I'll do that. Clark, you should go home and let these guys handle this. They know what they're doing but you don't. It's too dangerous for you to be here."

Then he hurried out of the library, leaving Clark alone with Sam and Dean. The three of them all exchanged awkward glances with one another, while they tried to figure out their next move.