2 - East of Eden

To say this was a tough case was kind of an understatement. So they had confirmation that at least two of the missing had come to some violent, supernatural end. But why? And also, were the others missing for the same reason? Could they prove it? Who was their main suspect?

This is why being an actual detective must have sucked. Where did you even start? Add to that the fact that the homeless and street kids in general were super suspicious of newcomers, since they were such an abused underclass, and this seemed like an impossible problem. Dean was tempted to make a Kobayashi Maru joke, but was equally afraid that no one would get it, or they would get it and think he was a giant nerd. In itself, the reference was a Kobayashi Maru, and he quietly appreciated the irony.

But something did occur to him, while he and Sam were contemplating their next step. "Hey, didn't Dad know a real psychic in Tacoma?"

Sam gave him a look that was best described as baffling. "He did?"

Oh. Was this one of those things Dad kept from Sam while he was on the yellow-eyed demon hunt? To be fair, he kept it from Dean too, at least until the day he died, but in retrospect, Dean had put some pieces together. As far as Dean could discern, he must have figured out Sam was tainted with demon blood when Sammy was what, twelve maybe? And spent that time from then onward trying to find a cure or some kind of fix for the condition. He was never successful. It also explained why Dad trained him so hard. He always asked him and Dad never gave him a real reason, and Dean figured the answer was he wasn't good enough. Looking back, Dad was trying to prepare him for killing his own brother if he had to, which ... well, Dean had no words for how fucked up that was. But at least he had some inkling of why he was as fucked up as he was. Thanks Dad. "Yeah. I guess you didn't meet her. Her name was something like ... Shirazi? Hirani?"

"Shirani? The psychic who works on 13th and Evers?" Ramon asked. "Also, psychics are real?"

"Very few," Sam said. "Real ones rarely advertise."

"Except Shirani, apparently." Dean was kind of surprised she was still alive. But it spoke well of her forecasting abilities.

A quick search turned up her number, and Dean called it. He got nothing but a very straightforward voice mail message. "Hey, Shirani. This is Dean Winchester, John Winchester's son? I know it's a long shot, but we have a case that could use some insight. Call me back when you can." If she'd even bother. Dad didn't always end his friendships on the best of terms, and maybe they'd never been friends. Maybe it was a purely transactional hunter business relationship. He supposed he'd get an answer, depending on whether she responded or not.

In lieu of that, they still had to find some angle to work on. Luckily, he and Sam skipped the FBI drag and were dressed in their normal clothes, so they could attempt to talk to the homeless without scaring them off. That still might not be possible, but having Ramon with them, someone they knew, had to help.

Ramon took them to a public park that was really a large lot with trees and outdoor equipment for kids, and a couple of benches scattered around. It was too humble for the park designation, but who was he supposed to complain to about that? There were a line of tents in what might pass for the rear of the park, and while Ramon was given a friendly greeting, absolutely everyone gave them frosty glares. Which, again, fair. Ramon's cover story for them was they were part of a team doing a survey of the homeless for the county, which was apparently a thing that occasionally happened. The homeless remained unimpressed.

After general introductions, and some attempt by Ramon to get them in with this group, Ramon went off to have private conversations with some of them, in the hopes of ferreting out some genuine information without them around. Ramon had left them in the company of a guy simply called Sarge. He was maybe in his early forties, somewhat gaunt and with a pronounced limp. He wore an army jacket that not only looked like the real thing, but had patches and insignia that suggested he really had been a Seargent. Was he a veteran? Oh boy, did that piss Dean off. Sarge looked at them with hard grey eyes, and after a moment, asked, "Who are you really?"

"We're with the county -" Sam began.

Sarge didn't let him get any further. "No, you're not. Your hair's too long, and he's too pretty. But that means you're also not cops, unless you're the undercover narc variety. So who the fuck are you?"

Dean and Sam exchanged a look, as they had been rumbled, and there was no getting around that. Dean also briefly wondered if he should be offended by the pretty comment, but pressed on. "Okay. We're private detect -"

"No," Sarge said again. He crossed his arms over his chest, and Dean caught the scent of cigarettes and whiskey. Again, didn't blame him.

"We're monster hunters," Dean said, deciding the truth was worth a shot.

His flinty eyes scudded between them for a moment, before he said, "Okay, now we're getting somewhere. Is that why you smell like gun oil?"

Wow. Dean didn't think anyone could pick that up. Dad had drilled into him that many monsters had strong senses of smell, so he had to be careful about that too. "Yeah. I don't use them on humans."

"Okay. So what monster are you after?"

Sam still seemed unsettled by the ease of Sarge's acceptance, but he rolled with it. "Right now, we're thinking witches played a roll in the disappearance of Mercer and Zack."

He made a sort of hmmph noise. "They look human?"

"Yes," Sam replied.

"Have you seen anyone around who doesn't belong, or seems a bit questionable?" Dean continued.

"Besides you two?" he smiled faintly at his own joke, but only for a moment. "There have been some of the rich guy's guys, stirring up shit and letting us know we'll be evicted, but that's about it. There's no shortage of sketchy people out here."

"The rich guy's guys?" Sam repeated.

"Yeah, haircut. The yuppie bastard." At their blank looks, Sarge turned and shouted towards a nearby blue and brown tent, "Ace, you got yesterday's paper?"

There was no reply, but a folded, crumpled paper came flying out of the tent's opening, landing near Sarge's boots. He picked it up, and shed pages until he found what he wanted, and showed it to the both of them.

It was a half-page ad, showing a blandly handsome man in a fancy suit, smiling like he had a bridge to sell you, over a block of text talking about how he was going to make Tacoma better for everyone. He was identified as Davis Miller, CEO of LunaCorps. It was unclear what LunaCorps was. A construction business? Software? "Well, this guy is clearly full of shit," Dean said. Sarge was right to call him haircut. It was a standard Wall Street guy sort of cut, but it always had an insane thousand dollar price tag or something. Dean never trusted anyone who was willing to fork out thousands of dollars for a cut that looked like you could do it yourself in a hotel room at five in the morning.

Sarge let out an amused grunt. "He really is. If he ever showed his candy ass down here I'd kick his fucking teeth in."

"So he doesn't come down here?" Sam asked.

Sarge's look was cutting. "Fuck no. Since when do guys like this do anything? I don't even know if he's in the state."

Well, damn. Dean was hoping to visit this guy. No, he probably wasn't a witch, but he would have loved fucking with this guy until security tossed them out. Maybe key his car on the way. Sure, it would probably be a minor inconvenience at best, but anything to upset these jumped up jackholes. "But he has people come here?" Sam continued.

Sarge dropped the paper and shrugged. "Actually, I dunno. They claim to work for LunaCorp, but anybody could do that. Some of them snot-nosed asshats don't look old enough to even be interns."

Dean's phone hummed in his pocket, and he took it out to see another unknown number, but with a local area code. "Yeah?"

"Come now, come alone," a woman whispered, before hanging up the phone. What the fuck ..? But he quickly checked, and yep, that was Shirani calling him back.

"Uh, I have to go," Dean said to Sam. "You got this?"

The look Sam gave him screamed not only did he not have this, but he would kick Dean's ass if he left. But Dean patted him on the shoulder, and said, "You'll be fine."

Dean decided to walk there, since it was only a few blocks over according to Ramon, but Dean had once again forgotten about the hills. He wasn't walking up them, no, but still walking down sidewalks that were ridiculously steep was super weird. The gravity of it made you feel like, if you just leaned over a little more, you'd go tumbling down like a snowball on a mountainside. It was deeply unsettling, kind of like everything had been since they arrived. Every now and again, when he was at just the right spot, he caught a glimpse of liquid silver, which was the struggling sun reflecting off Commencement Bay. It was easy to forget there was a major body of water around here, save for the fact that it explained the abundance of seagulls.

It turned out half of the businesses on 13th and Evers were shut down, but right next to a closed down chain sandwich shop was a tiny storefront advertising Readings by Madame Shirani. There was a deliberately retro-chic painting of a palm with an eye in its center, tacky as hell, but right in the bottom left corner, as tiny as could be managed, was a hunter's symbol. So as much as this seemed like a gaudy storefront, she had some hunting bona fides.

Chimes sounded as he walked in, and he was hit with the heady perfume of incense. "Hello?" It looked exactly like a tacky fortune teller's front room, with a tiny round table covered with gauzy fabric, a velvet loveseat against the far wall, and a beaded curtain separating the front from the back. Small shelves held crystals and bottles of essential oils, along with various other New Age-y style stuff. Dean wouldn't have been surprised if that's where most of the income came from.

"Flip the closed sign on the door," a woman called out.

Dean did, and wandered towards the table. By the time he reached it, the beads clacked, and Shirani appeared. She was average height, with brown skin and glossy black hair she'd done in a very tight braid. She had to be in her late fifties or early sixties by now, but she looked damn good for it. Incongruously, she wore jeans and a t-shirt advertising a cat cafe. "How many times have you died, boy?" she asked.

Of all the things he thought she'd say, that was nowhere on the list. "Uh ... is that a serious question? 'Cause I think I've lost count ..."

She frowned at him and shook her head. "You drag this aura around with you, all blue and black, like the world's biggest bruise. I always knew you were cursed, but I couldn't have guessed how cursed. Congratulations on staying sane. Ish." And with that, she sat down at the table, and seemingly pulled a pack of Tarot cards out of nowhere.

Again, was he supposed to be offended by that? The sane-ish part. He always knew he was cursed. "Uh, so ... do you know why I'm here?"

She didn't verbally answer, simply stabbed the table with her finger, indicating he should sit down. He did, still uncertain about her and everything. Shirani started dealing out Tarot cards.

Dean had seen many Tarot cards in his life, and knew their basic symbology. There were lots of card designs and styles, but Shirani had cards he had never seen before. The first one was a skeletal deer with a huge rack of antlers, somehow still walking in a desolate landscape. Next was a man on fire, standing like he wasn't. The third card was a severed hand impaled with a knife through its palm. The fourth was a skull with a rose in its teeth, and a crown on its head. The fifth card was a seated woman with an exposed ribcage, and a raven coming out from beneath her exposed collarbone. "What the hell are these?"

"My personal deck," she said, setting the rest of the cards aside. She studied them, which didn't resemble a reading style he was familiar with, and clicked her tongue. "Well, goddamn it. You have a gift for diving headfirst into shit, don't you?"

"I think that's the Winchester curse."

"No, the Winchester curse is sitting on emotions until they kill you. You really should tell that angel what he means to you. You seriously wouldn't be here without him." She tapped the severed hand card with a sharp nail. "There's evil here. I guess that's what brought you, yes?"

"Yes." He didn't know what to do with the angel comments, so he shoved that aside. "Can you tell us why witches would be hunting down homeless people?"

She looked up at him, and he noticed her eyes, which were so deep brown they were almost black, were gorgeous. But also, kind of terrifying. "It's not only witches."

"What else is involved?"

She frowned down at the cards, as if expecting them to respond. She drew another card from the deck, and threw it down on top of the severed hand card. It was a river of what looked like tar or oil, something thick and black, pouring down on an overturned bowl, which was still too small to hold the deluge in either case. "Oh, I don't like this."

"Yeah, that doesn't look great. What is that, exactly?"

"Right now, you're standing on a ledge. But it's not a ledge. It's a building, but you haven't turned around to see it."

Dean nodded, like that made any goddamn sense at all. "I don't suppose you can put that in English, huh?"

Her look was so sharp, he could almost feel the burn of the cut across his face. "You are stupid lucky. You're going to need it now. If you have friends, call them."

"Most of our friends are dead. Could you at least tell me what's the main coven around these parts?"

"It's not a coven. I'm not sure what it is." She picked up the skeletal deer card and frowned at it like it insulted her mother. "Normally I'd tell you to run, but you're not the type." She looked at him sharply, like she just recalled something. "Is your brother still tainted by demon blood?"

That caught him off guard. What did she mean by that? "No, I don't think so."

"Too bad. You could have used it."

"Used it how?"

She scowled at him. "He had powers. For the longest time, John insisted Sammy had no powers. Powers was a freak thing, and his boy was not a freak." Shirani gathered up the cards, pushing them back into an even pile. "I told him he couldn't be cured, and it would never be that simple. He refused to believe me."

Dean couldn't help but ask, "Did he ever mention me?"

"No." Dean wished he wasn't disappointed, but he kind of was. No, of course not, why ever mention him? He wasn't important. Shirani shuffled the cards back into the deck. "But I always knew you'd be fine. A bit broken, sure, but fine. You were always stronger than him."

Dean scoffed. "Than Dad? No I wasn't."

"In every way that mattered, you were. Maybe he realized that at the end." She slipped her cards into a black silk bag, which she then tucked under the table. Did she have a hidden card holster? Odd choice, but okay. "I'll see what I can do. It's probably not enough. Just keep your eyes open. You're already in danger by being here. You have been noticed."

That didn't sound good. "By the witches or whatever?"

"Yes, the whatevers. You won't get much warning."

Dean honestly knew better than to say something snarky to a psychic, or a woman clearly not afraid to kick his ass, but it slipped out. "Could you vague that up a little more?"

She gave him a glare like a punch. It could have put a hole straight through the wall. "Not all psychics are the same, you know. Some get flashes, images, some talk to the dead. I've always been a strange one. I get abstract images - like my cards - and very powerful feelings. It took me a while to figure out it was clairvoyance, not a mood disorder. So, you want the undiluted truth about what's going on? Doom. The kind that makes your stomach shrivel up into nothing. A feeling like everything has died, and it's your fault."

Was that a reference to the Mark/Darkness thing? Dean tried not to show it on his face, but he felt that all the way to his marrow. He opened his mouth, ready to apologize, but she instantly waved a dismissive hand at him. "I don't care, Winchester. Fix this thing, because I am too old and tired for this shit."

He knew an order when he heard one. "Yes ma'am." Okay, she hadn't been super helpful, although knowing an attack was probably eminent was a good thing. Still, if it was witches, what could they do beyond make some extremely protective hex bags and hope they held out until they could deploy the witch killing bullets? It was too much to hope they were stupid, but they might be cocky, which was the same thing in a battle situation.

"Oh, and try not to die again," she called after him. He was halfway out the door, and turned back to look at her. "Even Death is fed up with you."

Dean smiled, but it was faint and far too self-aware. "Tell me something I don't know."

Honestly, the list of things fed up with him could fill up a skyscraper. And he would be at number one.