It took John and Sam a little under nine hours to reach Coos Bay and, after checking into the Sea Psalm motel where the two of them donned cheap suits and fake badges, they stopped to have breakfast at the Empire Cafe. The eatery was a typical diner, all chrome, Formica and plastic disguised as leather. They took seats at a booth in the back with a clear line of sight to the door and waited in silence until a middle-aged waitress looked up from the newspaper she was reading and glanced at them.
More FBI agents snooping around she figured and grabbed a pot of regular coffee. "Coffee gentlemen?"
"Yes, ma'am." John smiled and hooked a finger in his collar and circled it around his neck in a futile attempt to make it more comfortable. As the waitress leaned over to fill his cup he pulled his forged credentials and a photograph of Dean from his inside breast pocket. As she filled Sam's cup he asked her, "Have you seen this man? Would have been in the last couple of weeks."
She looked at the picture of Dean and smiled. "Oh, sure, hon, FBI Agent Hendrix, no relation to Jimmy," the last words were run together, a sure sign that Dean had introduced himself to her, "He came in...what, about three weeks ago askin' about the dead bodies that washed up on shore." As she stood, coffee pot in hand, she related the last of her information like it was an everyday occurrence. Sam looked at her quizzically and twisted his cup nervously and she added, "It not like it hasn't happened before."
John sat back and laid his arm on the back of the seat and asked, "It's happened before?"
"Oh, sure thing, hon. The first time was way back in forty-four, then in sixty-eight and again in eighty-two and now, just this last month."
"And no one thinks this is out of the ordinary?" Sam asked incredulously lifting his cup to his lips. He promptly scalded his mouth and thought crankily that diner coffee would be the death of him.
"Oh sure, if you're not from around here," the waitress added, "My mother was around during the war when the Mills family all died in the mansion on the bluffs and I was born and raised here and remember all the others."
"What about the condition of the bodies, the lack of blood?" Sam continued and tried to come off as only mildly interested.
"Honey, have you ever seen a body that's been in the water for days or weeks on end?"
Sam swallowed and replied, "Yeah, I have."
"Then you know how bloated and pasty white they are. Just looks like "vampires" got 'em," she said with a laugh and reached out to straighten his tie, "But it's just the water and the fish."
John chuckled good-naturedly to try and keep her well off the track and ordered eggs over easy, hash browns and toast. Sam ordered eggs benedict, not because he particularly liked them, but because his father was paying.
"Your man, he ordered a triple order of pig in a poke the day he came in. Ate every last bit and swore up and down he was gonna come back the following the morning but he never did. I sure hope nothin's happened to him...although a heart attack wouldn't surprise me one bit, even at his tender age."
John handed off his menu to her and told her, "He's probably just out of cell phone range but we need to investigate anyway."
"So what do you think happened to these people?" Sam asked quickly before she could get away.
"Like I told Agent Hendrix, no relation to Jimmy, there are plenty of people out on the ocean in fancy, million dollar yachts who shouldn't be. And as for the Mills family, money couldn't buy them happiness...or keep the old man from going bat shit crazy and tossing his entire family onto the rocks below."
"What happened to Mr. Mills?" John queried and slipped his badge holder and the photograph of Dean back into his breast pocket.
"Kept babbling about saving them from the devil, right up until the day they gassed him. Pretty pathetic if you ask me. "The devil made me do it"."
"Did Agent Hendrix ask for directions to the Mills place?" John then asked.
"Nope. But he did ask for directions to the nearest Catholic Church," she said thoughtfully, then added with a laugh, "and directions to the seediest bar in town. Guess he was gonna hedge his bets."
Sam knew that Dean was going to the church, not for confession, but to load up on holy water as did John who finished his cup of coffee and held it out for a refill.
The waitress poured him a second cup, set the pot on the table and noted, "Funny thing, Homeland Security investigating the FBI."
"It's a crazy world," John shrugged with a disarming smile.
The waitress just nodded her head and walked back to the counter muttering to herself, "Homeland Security, my ass."
"More vampire hunters, Joanie?" the cook asked as he wiped his brow on his shirtsleeve.
She made her way into the kitchen with her ticket and told him, "They say they're from Homeland Security and that they're lookin' for that FBI agent Hendrix."
"Send 'em on down to Saints and Sinners." the cook suggested, "Billy Alvaro says the guy stopped by there a couple weeks ago and ran off with his best waitress."
SN
The owner of Saints and Sinners had barely opened the back door in anticipation of his beer delivery when John and Sam pushed their way inside.
"This is special agent Michaels and I'm agent DeVille." Sam took the lead and gave a cursorily flash of his credentials to Billy Alvaro and watched as the man's swarthy completion turned pale.
"Mr. Alvaro, we're from Homeland Security," John explained as he surreptitiously checked out the kitchen.
Knowing they weren't from ATF or the IRS, two of any bar owner's least favorite government agencies, Billy began to breath a little easier.
"Mr. Alvaro," John began again holding out Dean's picture, "We're looking for this man."
Billy looked at the picture and snorted derisively, "Yeah, he was here."
"Great," Sam said enthusiastically, "Can you tell us where we can find him?"
"I haven't got a clue...but when you do find 'em, tell Ali she's fired."
"Them?" Sam queried.
"The guy comes in here, orders a beer, follows my best waitress out into the back and they both just disappear?" Both agents looked puzzled and Billy continued, "Without a trace. After about a week the sheriff and I checked out Ali's place but we didn't find anything out of the ordinary...other then a bunch of blankets wadded up under her bed."
"Maybe it was a family emergency," John suggested as Sam wandered back outside.
"She doesn't have any family. We're her family," Billy told him and pointed to his cook and a waitress who had just come in.
Sam walked around the cars parked in the back of the bar, the EMF meter held covertly in one hand the other on the non-business end of a wooden spike hidden under his jacket. Sweeping the area nothing registered and he breathed a sigh of relief. There was no demon sign but the machine couldn't rule out vampires. It couldn't detect them at all.
Sam went back inside the bar and heard Billy mention the old Mills place and when his father looked up at him expectantly he shook his head.
Disappointed, John continued to write on a small pad as Billy continued to speak.
"You take Seven Devils Road to Old Seven Devils Road and follow it to the end. You can't miss it. You should have the place all to yourselves because nobody goes up there anymore. Not even the Satan worshiping little shits over at the High School."
John's dark brows shot up and Billy snorted. "I guess they call 'em Goths nowadays. Dressed all in black and as moody and disagreeable as my wife when she gets the PMS. Not a pretty sight."
John closed his pad and tucked it into his pocket. He extended his hand and thanked Billy Alvaro for his help, what little he had to give. Outside the two of them got into the pickup, headed toward the south end of Main Street and took a right onto Seven Devils Road. They took another right onto Old Seven Devils Road and traveling toward the ocean came up and over a small rise. The old mansion stood before them in all its crumbling and faded glory.
Parking the truck the two of them got out and followed the steps up to the front door and forcing it open with brute force both John and Sam recoiled. The stench inside was overwhelming and most assuredly that of a dead body.
They followed the stink cautiously up three flights of stairs and finally into the master bedroom where John found the decaying body of his old friend Bill Harvelle lying next to the bed. He stooped to examine the body and noted that Bill's throat had been savagely punctured, ripped and torn. "Well, I guess they aren't all extinct," he commented and a shiver ran the length of Sam's body. "Let's get him outside. Do what we gotta do," John added with a resigned sigh.
Bill's body burned brightly and was reduced to the ashes of prayers and John Winchester mourned him, not for the "good" man he was because what they did precluded any goodness, but as an exceptional hunter and as a friend.
Sam was content to just remember the times his family had stayed with Bill, Ellen and Jo and as they scattered his ashes among the trees surrounding the building he wondered where Ellen and Jo were and if they knew Bill was gone.
Part of his question was answered when, back at the motel, John checked for messages on his cell phone. Retrieving the only one they listened together and as another hunter spoke Sam's stomached turned when he heard the underlying fear in that voice.
"John, this is Bobby Singer. Dean just brought me Ellen Harvelle. She not doing too good and Dean's shot up pretty bad. I've got him down in my panic room but I don't know how much longer I can keep him here."