Chapter 6:
Castiel carried her into the morgue, rushing to find Dean. When he did, Dean was standing over a body that had similar the same blackness webbing through his veins that Candy did. He looked up at her, at Cas, and he muttered something under his breath.
"She's got it," he groaned in frustration. "Damn it, Cas!" Dean slammed his hand down on the metal bed underneath the corpse of Donald. "Where have you been? Everything is going wrong! Sam's back, but he ran off. Candy's sick, and she's hurting... What do I do?"
"Work the case like you always do, Dean," Cas frowned, shifting Candy in his arms. "Find the connection between Donald and Candy. You can do it, Dean. I know you can. You always do. But you need to hurry."
"The black stuff won't kill her by itself. Donald had his throat slashed," Dean pondered. "Makes me wonder if it's some sort of ghost disease like I had that one time... Maybe it's a ghost attached to the antique store or something... And fooling around with the objects gets you infected. Then the ghost comes to finish the job while you're weak."
"We need to get back to the store then," Candy grumbled. "That old man has to know something about the things he's selling."
Dean rushed Candy back to the store as soon as morning came around. He was dressed in his neatest suit, as was Candy. Luckily, it was open, and the old man was standing cheerily behind the counter just as he had before. He was hunched over, leaning his arms on the glass display case tiredly. Although he seemed physically exhausted, the grin on his face still seemed genuine.
"Good afternoon, young man," he said to Dean kindly. "And I remember you, young lady, from yesterday. You purchased the music box, right? I did love that piece."
"What's the connection between the music box and the wardrobe you sold to Donald Ruthers?" Dean asked without a moment's hesitation. "Detective McCartney. I need this information now."
"Well, the two of them came from the same estate sale. Mrs. Bowers passed away, and everything that didn't sell came to me." The old man's hands started to trembled. "Is there something wrong? What's going on?" The old man looked to Candy, and he noticed something black seeming to spread up Candy's neck. "Oh, no. What's that? Are you alright?"
"I need that woman's address," Candy told him urgently. "It's important. We need all the information you can give us."
"She lives here," the old man cleared his throat, snatching up a pen and sticky note. He jotted down an address and a name, then handed the note to Dean. "Janice Decker is her daughter. She's living in Mrs. Bowers house now. She's the one who brought me all of her mother's stuff."
"Thank you so much," Candy smiled half-heartedly. She turned to leave, then collapsed without any kind of warning in advance. The old man grabbed his phone to call an ambulance, but Dean scooped Candy up and took off running before he could even dial the numbers.
Candy laid against the door of the impala tiredly. The pain had gone away, and all she wanted to do was sleep. Her muscles felt sore, making it harder and harder for her to move. It had been a long time since she had felt that ridiculously exhausted.
"Don't you dare go to sleep," Dean ordered her. "I need you to hold on, okay? I'm going to figure out where this bitch was buried, and I'm going to burn her. Just stay awake."
"I just need like... an hour, Dean. It finally stopped hurting. I just want to sleep." Candy closed her eyes, but Dean quickly reached over and shook her awake.
"Damn it, Candy, stay awake. We're almost there."
"Please, Dean..."
"No. Not yet." He sped down the road until he reached the house of the old woman. Dragging Candy out of the car, he piggy-backed her up to the front door. After knocking in a panic, Dean waited for the daughter to show up at the door.
Finally, after what felt like half an hour, the daughter, Janice, opened the door and looked at Dean and Candy in confusion.
"Can I help you?"
"My friend is very sick, okay, and it has something to do with your mother. I need you to tell me how she died and where she's buried," Dean blurted out. Janice made a face at him,
"Excuse me? Who are you?"
"FBI. Detective McCartney. Now tell me what I need to know," Dean commanded the woman. She scoffed,
"Show me a badge or something. You can't just show up at my house asking about my deceased mother. For your information, she wasn't buried. She was cremated."
"What?"
"She was cremated."
"Son of a bitch!" Dean yelled, rushing back to the car frantically. He put Candy in the passenger's seat, then hurried to his own seat. "We're going back to the shop. If Bowers was cremated, then she must be holding onto her things. She has to be attached to them." He sped off, tires squealing, hands gripping the steering wheel nervously. He looked over at Candy, and cringed when he saw the blackness climbing up over her jaw. "Hold on, Candy. Please hold on."
The old man was getting ready to leave the shop when Dean got there. Dean pulled his wallet out of his pocket and handed the man half of what he had in there. The old man looked up at him in confusion.
"I need to burn Mrs. Bowers things. It's important. Here's the money to pay for it," Dean told him. "Let me back inside so I can get her things."
"Okay, son," the old man handed him his keys. "You're a hunter, aren't you?" He asked as Dean was running to the door. Dean stopped for a moment.
"What?"
"You're a hunter. You're going to burn Mrs. Bowers things because she's hauting them. That's right isn't it?"
"Yeah," Dean nodded. "How did you know that?"
"There was a hunter that came to my shop before. When I was younger. I had an item that I had sold to a man, and that item was haunted. I helped the hunter dig up a body, salt it, and burn it." The old man motioned with his hand for Dean to keep going. "Hurry. That sweet little girl in the car has only gotten worse since you were here before."
"Thank you," Dean smiled before bursting into the building. One by one, he found all of the items labeled with Mrs. Bowers' name and dragged them outside. Once he had collected them all, he poured gasoline over them. He tossed salt over the pile and lit a match. Before he threw it on the pile of assorted items, he saw a pale old woman standing on the other side of it. She was scowling at him, but made no move to stop him. "I'm freeing you," he told her. "Now go to hell." He tossed the match, and everything went up in flames. The old woman looked up, then in a similar fashion, combusted.
Dean walked back to the car with the old man trailing behind him. Candy was sitting up in the passenger's seat, looking at her arms as the blackness that was webbing through her veins began to fade away. She grinned and looked out of the window at Dean.
"You did it."
"Of course I did," Dean sighed. "I'm good at what I do. Plus, I wasn't about to let some creepy old lady take you away from me. It was actually pretty easy anyways. The old woman didn't put up a fight."
"Sometimes they're ready to go," Candy yawned. "I just don't understand why she was haunting her things and killing people in the first place. I know she was eccentric, but was she a murderer?"
"Maybe she was just angry about people taking her things," the old man suggested. "She was always protective of her antiques. They were kind of a passion of hers. I never liked the woman. Not really. She weirded me out."
"The 'why' doesn't matter anymore. It's over," Dean stretched his arms over his head. "Let's go back to the hotel, take a nap, then hit the road." He turned towards the old man and thanked him kindly before taking Candy back to the motel.
Once they were there, Candy undressed and crawled into bed. She was so exhausted, but the pain and the feeling of immobility were both gone. Now, all she wanted to do was lay with Dean and fall asleep. That's exactly what she did. He held her tightly and stroked her hair until she faded into a deep and peaceful slumber.
When they woke up a few hours later, it was late at night. However, they both knew they needed to get to Bobby's as soon as they could, so they got up and packed their things. After Candy helped Dean load the car, she climbing into the passenger's seat and laid against the window again. Dean told her to sleep, but she didn't want to. She wanted to stay awake with him and listen to the same old classic rock songs that Dean loved to sing along to. It made her happy to see him happy. No matter how hard she tried though, only a couple hours into the drive, Candy fell asleep again.