The Third Wheel
by Destiny's Darkness
Disclaimer: I can claim among my possessions my cat, my laptop, and my car. The rights to Supernatural are not listed with said possessions.
Author's Note: This is a chapter I would particularly like some feedback on. I tried to stay close to the actual episode (oddly more difficult than I expected it to be) and am curious as to how it turned out. I also made a point of trying to keep Charlie in that state of mind where she's yet to feel like 'part of the team'. She will become more buddy/buddy with them, but I'm trying to keep the relationship development natural. Would also love to see some reactions to how that went.
Also, I wanted to give a heads up that I am on Twitter. I post about a lot of things (really anything that comes to mind), but I'm getting into the habit of updating the status of the current chapter. It's also a place I post questions ('What should happen here?' for example) that I don't currently expect answers to, but it would be a great way for folks to impact the story. There's a link to my account on my profile page.
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Chapter 4 : Hunting Hell House
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Previously:
"Everyone finished up?" Dean asked, pushing his plate away. "Cuz I'm thinking about ten minutes and we're on the road."
Sam stood. "On to Texas."
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Several hours outside Richardson, TX...
Dean was bored, a dangerous situation under the best of circumstances. Sam was passed out in the seat next to him, just as he had been for the last two hours. In the back, Charlie was burrowed under her blankets and into her book with the headphones on her ears playing up-tempo music loud enough that he could hear it if he tried. He turned his own music up, then down, then up again, unable to decide which volume suited his mood better.
Absently, he glanced over to check on his brother yet again, but this time his open mouth and a spoon from their fast food stop the day before caught his attention, causing a double-take. Unable to resist that older brother instinct, he grabbed the plastic utensil and reached out, attempting to place it between Sam's open pearly whites so that it stayed without waking him in the process. He smirked at his success, pulled out his phone, and snapped a picture for posterity. When the thought struck him that the spoon might fall out before Sam woke, he spun the volume control on the radio to blaring and began singing along, slapping the steering wheel to the beat.
Sam jerked alert, haphazardly slapping at whatever was sticking out of his mouth. On realizing he was now the proud owner of the same plastic spoon he hadn't needed yesterday, he turned to his brother, who was grinning moronically.
It was the sudden movement and ensuing conversation that drew Charlie out of her own little world. She watched the boys to the accompaniment of her own music for a few moments before curiosity got the better of her and she slid the headphones off.
"-little Nair in your shampoo again? Huh?"
Sam glared, obvious enough that she could tell even sitting behind him. "All right. Just remember you started it."
"Oh-ho. Bring it on, baldy," Dean scoffed.
She may not have known exactly what they were talking about, but she could still tell that it was going to result in either utter hilarity or complete disaster.
The brothers discussed the particulars of their upcoming case, so to speak, Charlie quietly listening from the back, filing it all away. It didn't start as a particularly unusual story. Teens wander into a reputed haunted house. They find a young woman strung up from the ceiling and ran away, likely screaming their heads off. The fact which caught her attention was that the body disappeared by the time the cops showed.
After talking to the kids in question, they had three different versions of the girl who'd been hung and a sob story about a Depression-era farmer who'd hung his six daughters to keep them from starving to death, then was rewarded by being trapped in his house, stringing up any girls who found their way inside.
It was when they arrived at the house in question that the trio had their first real disagreement.
"You're not coming inside with us, Charlie, and that's final."
Charlie's eyes narrowed, fixed on Dean. "That is not final. I can help. Another set of eyes, yadda yadda yadda."
"Another set of eyes that have no idea what they're looking for do me no good."
"Well, then, I guess this is a great time to learn."
"There's no need for you to learn! You're not going on hunts with us. Not ever."
"So, what? You're just going to leave me locked up the motel any time you leave? Nothing ever finds its way back there?"
The look in Sam's eyes said otherwise.
"That's not such a bad idea. We can protect a motel room. We can't just set up protection as we go in situations like this."
"Can you protect the Impala, right now? The reason I sold my car was that my nasty little friend disconnected the battery and rigged it up to fry everything."
Dean's face twisted as he struggled not to imagine something similar or even worse happening to his baby, so his brother took over. "Charlie, you'll be at more risk than us going in there. This thing targets young females."
"So give me something sharp."
"You can't stab a ghost."
"Don't be an idiot, Dean. A ghost can't hang you if you've cut the noose."
So far as their previous plans had gone, that wasn't such a terrible plan. "Fine, but you stay right by me. Not wandering off to investigate things on your own."
At her agreement, Sam opened her door for her, then went back to the trunk, digging through the compartment under the false bottom until he found what he was looking for. "Here," he told her, handing over a long, wicked-looking knife and its sheath. "You'll have to work at it, but this will cut through pretty much any rope."
She took it cautiously. "You keep knives in your trunk? Where? I didn't see any when I was moving things around back there."
"Let's hold off Show and Tell until later," the shorter man interrupted.
"You got something?" Sam asked, noting his brother's focused expression.
"Yeah. The EMF's no good." He shot their new partner a look, but she stayed silent.
"Why?"
There was a gesture to an ancient transformer on the power pole next to the house. "I think that thing's still got a little juice. It's screwin' with all the readings."
"Yeah, that'll do it." Sam grimaced, tucking his own EMF detector in his pocket as they moved up the porch to the front door. Taking a quick look around, they pushed the rotting door open and entered, the brothers' flashlights sweeping back and forth across the room. The beams lit up various symbols painted on the walls, catching their attention.
"I guess old man Murdock was a bit of a tagger during his time," Dean half-joked.
"And after his day," Sam agreed.
Charlie couldn't help herself. "What do you mean?" She let out a little gasp and clapped a hand over her mouth. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt you."
"That's fine," he told her, still focused on the markings. "You see, the reverse cross was used by Satanists for centuries." He used his flashlight to point at one symbol, then another. "But the Sigil of Sulfur didn't show up in San Francisco until the '60's."
From behind them, Dean scoffed. "This is exactly why you never get laid."
Sam rolled his eyes, but continued walking the perimeter of the room, occasionally pausing to snag a photo on his phone.
Dean called him over to a emblem he hadn't examined yet. "Hey, what about this one? You seen this one before?"
He shook his head. "No."
"I have," Dean muttered. "Somewhere." He turned to check on his shadow, but she was across the room, standing on a rickety chair to investigate some chicken's feet nailed to the door jamb. "Charlie! What did I say?!"
She jerked dangerously at the shout, but turned to look at him questioningly before she moved. "I'm eight feet away from you."
"Charlie!"
Startled but not particularly surprised at his overbearing concern, she hopped down and scurried back over. Once she reached him, she reached out and grasped the seam of his leather jacket, fluttering her eyelashes at him in response to his glare.
Sam couldn't contain the grin, but he was able to keep his frustrated older brother from seeing it when he turned back to him. "I don't know, Sam. I mean, I hate to agree with authority figures of any kind, but the cops might be right about this one."
"Yeah, maybe."
Then they heard something move in the room next to them. Swinging around, guns at the ready, they stepped gradually closer until they pressed their backs to the door frame, preparing themselves to move in unison. Sam looked at Charlie, standing next to him and obviously feeling useless. "Stay here."
Moving simultaneously, they burst into the room, then quickly hid their weapons when they saw the two nerdy-looking guys standing in the center of the kitchen. Both of the strangers screamed, but one tried to cover it by quickly yelling, "Cut! Just a couple of humans. What are you guys doing here?"
"What the hell are you doing here?" Dean tossed back.
"Uh, we belong here," he answered with an adjustment of his glasses. "We're professionals."
"Professional what?"
"Paranormal investigators." Again, the words were said as if they were an answer Dean should already know. He handed the brothers a couple of business cards.
"Oh, you've gotta be kidding me."
"Ed Zeddmore and Harry Spangler. Hell Hound's Lair dot com." Sam's head shot up from where he was reading over Dean's shoulder. "You guys run that website.?"
"That's right. And, uh, we know who you guys are too."
Apprehensive glances were exchanged. "Oh, yeah?" Sam repeated.
"Amateurs. Lookin' for ghosts and cheap thrills."
His friend scoffed at them. "Yeah, so if you guys don't mind, we're trying to conduct a serious scientific investigation, here."
"Yeah? What do you got so far?" Dean scoffed right back, as Charlie peeked around the corner and, seeing no danger, slipped in to stand just behind him.
Seeing her, the first speaker puffed up his chest and made an effort to sound impressive. "Harry, why don't tell 'em about EMF?"
Harry imitated modesty. "Well..."
Clearly mocking them, at least clearly to Dean and Charlie, Sam questioned, "EMF?"
Harry went to explain, which Charlie appreciated since she really was curious. "Electromagnetic Field." He reached into his bag and pulled out a device similar to the ones Sam and Dean had tucked into their pockets, though his was clearly less used. "Spectral entities can cause energy fluctuation that can be read with an EMF detector, like this bad boy right here. Whoa, whoa 2.8--wow, it's hot in here."
Dean let out a whistle, pretending to be impressed. "So, you guys ever seen a real ghost before, or --?"
"Once," Ed answered. "We were investigating this old house and we saw a vase fall right off the table."
"By itself," Harry interjected.
They paused a moment before Ed admitted, "Well, we-we-we didn't actually see it, but we heard it. And something like that, it changes you."
Charlie buried her face in the sleeve of Dean's jacket, trying not to insult the goofballs by openly laughing at them, while he openly shook his head in amusement and Sam acted riveted. Dean used it as an excuse to start moving her to the door, as if she was frightened by the story. "Yeah. I think I get the picture. We should go -- let them get back to work."
Walking out the door, they heard Ed laugh. "Yeah, work. Sorry man, that pot we smoked gave me the giggles."
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The brothers split up to do some research, allowing Charlie to go off on her own for a bit. As agreed, they met back at the library where Sam had stayed. Sam eyed the largish shopping bag in her hands but courteously ignored it to go over what he'd discovered, namely that there was a record of a Murdock farmer in the house during the Depression, but his name was Martin, rather than Mordechai. Martin also had two sons as opposed to Mordechai's six daughters. Dean had come up equally empty-handed, unable to match the vague description of the girl the kids found to any police reports of missing woman.
"Dude, come on, man," Dean insisted as they walked back to the Impala. "We did our digging; this one's a bust, all right? For all we know, those Hell Hound boys made up the whole thing."
Sam still looked reluctant. "Yeah, all right."
"So, I say we find ourselves a bar and some beers, and leave the legend to the locals."
When Charlie made a move to climb in the back seat, Sam held out a hand to stop her, a move she appreciated when Dean turned the key in the ignition and Salsa music blasted out of the speakers. Somehow she failed to realize that it was Sam's doing until after Dean said something, when she finally became aware that they were barreling into a prank war.
Oh, yeah. This would go well.
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She was packing her things when Dean noticed the commotion. A string of three or four police cars and an accompanying ambulance were heading into the woods, toward the Murdock house. Despite their decision to consider the story an urban legend, they still climbed into the Impala to check it out.
When they did indeed arrive at the abandoned house, Charlie was told in no uncertain terms that she would not be leaving the car. In the split second that she considered arguing, she met Dean's eyes in the rear view mirror and held her tongue, briefly remembering that they hadn't been looking for some argumentative female to burden them while they were trying to do their job. She nodded reluctantly, watching as the brothers teamed up on a clearly disturbed man standing off by himself.
When they returned, they wore the same expression.
She stayed quiet, hoping one of them would tell her what was going on without her having to pester them for the information, and luckily Sam seemed to realize what she wanted.
"A teenage girl apparently hung herself in the basement. Smart kid with a bright future... we must have missed something."
"Maybe not," Dean argued, though clearly not convinced of his opinion himself. "It's not unheard of for supposedly happy people to off themselves."
"It's not," Charlie murmured, "but I don't think they often leave friends standing outside wile they do so." She leaned forward between them, pointing to the girl and boy arguing with a couple of detectives and wearing identical expressions of devastation mixed with guild. "I'm betting she went in there on some sort of dare. They look the right age for that."
"All right," Dean agreed somewhat reluctantly. "It may be a stretch, but we'll check it out again tonight. You," he immediately added, "are not coming with us."
He seemed surprised at her quick agreement, but in all truth, she wasn't that eager to investigate it again with a verified suspicious death added to its history. After all, she reminded herself, she'd only had the existence of a supernatural world confirmed two days before.
"We should wait until the cops clear out," Sam decided. "Come back tonight when they're done with the scene."
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She waited, trying to distract herself with beginning of three different books and failing miserably. Her imagination ran wild, racing from horrible possibility to horrible possibility. When she thought she might see a path of tread marks on the carpet, she splashed some cold water on her face and tried to calm down.
She was frustrated with her lack of information about the brothers. She knew she could trust them; she'd always had an abnormally good instinct when it came to people, which is what eased her concerns about traveling with the Winchesters. But trusting someone to keep her safe didn't tell her much about whether they could handle themselves against a murderous ghost with an affinity for hanging teenage girls. She suspected they would be fine. After all, the way they talked indicated that they had quite a bit of experience with this sort of work. But the past few years had taught her that Murphy of Murphy's Law was not particularly fond of her. If something could go wrong, it usually would. Judging from how her experiences usually went, she could expect at least one of them to come back seriously wounded.
Just as that gristly thought went through her mind, the Winchesters returned, both of them ragged and dirty but relatively unharmed. "Hey, kid," Dean teased, acting nonchalant as he dropped onto the bed he claimed earlier without a care in the world. "How was your night?"
"Practically a trip to the spa," she shot back sarcastically. "Where have you been?! You left two," she glanced at the clock on the bed-side table, "and a half hours ago?"
"We met Mordechai," Sam answered from his seat on his own bed. "He was ... not friendly."
"Plus we had to duck the cops they had watching the place."
When Dean yawned and started to pull his sheets back, Charlie protested. "You do realize you'll be taking a shower before either of you go to bed. You smell sort of ... awful."
He grumbled and complained under his breath, but he made his way into the bathroom with a change of clothes anyway. While the water ran, Sam caught her up on what all had happened.
"You sent the cops after those poor kids?" she laughed, having joined him sitting Indian-style on his bed. "That's so mean."
"Yeah, maybe," he chuckled, "but they would have gotten themselves in trouble all on their own. And for that matter," he added, giving her a gentle shove to the shoulder, "where do you have room to call them kids? They're probably a good three years older than you."
She stuck her tongue out at him, wrinkling her nose childishly.
It was, of course, the first thing Dean saw when he sauntered back into the room. "Cute."
She responded by blushing as she darted off of the bed and away from a laughing Sam under the pretense of looking for something in her bag. Sam tussled her hair as he went by for his turn to clean up. Charlie kept up the act for a few more moments, then turned back to find the older brother leaning against the headboard with his hands behind his head and a grin directed at her.
She rolled her eyes, but blushed a little harder as well. "So you're not hurt, then?" she questioned, desperately hoping to divert his attention.
"Nah," he told her. "The spirit's a nasty one, but it didn't get a hand on us, really."
"Good."
"So you planning to crash with us again, since we haven't rented your room yet? Or did your friend make another appearance?"
"No, it was pretty quiet, but if it's all right with you, I'd still like to stay in here."
"I don't mind, and I doubt Sam does. Can I ask why?"
She shrugged. "All by myself in a strange room? Not my idea of a great time or a great night's sleep. Plus if I end up staying with you for long, it'll be cheaper and I won't feel like so much of a burden."
"All right then." He swung his legs off to the side to get up. "Then let's go get you some blankets."
"No need." Charlie knelt next to the shopping bag from earlier and pulled out her purchase. "I picked this up today." She shot another quick glance at the clock. "Well, yesterday. The salesman said that this was the kind he uses for camping."
"Nice." He looked the sleeping bag over, making an expression of appreciation. "Looks comfy, but are you sure you don't mind using it?"
She smiled--sweetly, his inner monologue decided--and shook her head.
Sam's shower took a little longer, and by the time he was finished, Charlie was bundled up and out cold. Dean was flipping channels and pretending not to sneak protective glances at the sleeping blonde.
"You know," Sam mentioned, "I don't think she'll disappear between commercial breaks."
His brother's expression soured. "Whatever, dude. She's just -- I mean, it's one thing to look out for you; you know the dangers included in this life. She doesn't really have a clue. What if she gets hurt? What if it's my fault?"
"She seems pretty smart. She didn't try to argue with us to go tonight when she knew it could be dangerous. And we can always spend some time teaching her to defend herself when we can work it."
"I guess." Dean smiled. "She's a sweet kid, though, isn't she? I think she's torn between wanting to get involved to help with our work, and worry about being an inconvenience. Makes me feel bad about getting her into all this."
"We didn't, Dean. The nasty spirit attacking her did." Sam paused just a moment. "Sweet kid, huh?"
"Yeah." With that, the conversation was over. "Night, Sammy. Dream of clowns."
"Ha. Ha."
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Charlie woke to the brothers discussing what they'd learned from their encounter the night before.
"What the hell is this symbol? It's bugging the hell outta me. This whole damn job is buggin' me. I thought the legend said that Mordechai only goes after chicks."
"He does," Sam answered absently.
"Right. Well, then that explains why he went after you, but why me?"
"Hilarious."
She tried to stifle her giggle at the size of Dean's ego. but he still heard her. "Good morning, kid. How'd you sleep?"
"Still sleeping. Go away." She could sense his grin, even tucked inside the smartest buy she'd ever made. She wasn't sure, however, if it made her want to glow or smack him.
Sam interrupted her debate. "The legend also says he hung himself, but you see those slit wrists?"
"Yeah," Dean replied, returning his attention to the conversation at hand.
"What's up with that? And the axe, too. I mean, ghosts are usually pretty strict, right? Following the same patterns over and over?"
"But this mook keeps changin'."
As the boys talked, she came to the realization that they were not, in fact, going to vanish and allow her to go back to sleep. Somewhat grudgingly, she grabbed her change of clothes for the day and disappeared into the bathroom. When she emerged - dressed, groomed, and only slightly resentful about being awake - she sat down on Sam's bed to braid her hair back into its usual style and half-listened to Sam reading from the Hell Hounds' website at the computer.
"They say Mordechai Murdock was really a Satanist who chopped up his victims with an axe before slitting his own wrists. Now he's imprisoned in the house for all eternity." Dean startled Charlie when he suddenly sat up, still staring intently at his doodles of the mysterious symbol. "Where the hell is this going?"
"I don't know," Dean answered, "but I think I might have just figured out where it all started." He launched himself to his feet, heading to the door. "Come on, Charlie, you can play with your hair in the car."
The jerk didn't even react when the shoe connected with his back.
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Wherever Charlie expected Dean to drive them at his typical twenty-five miles an hour over the speed limit, the record store where Craig Thurston, the kid they originally heard about Mordechai from, worked part time. The kid was there, going about his job and looking guilty as hell. When Dean approached him despite his protests, she started to hang back before her curiosity made her get close enough to listen in on their conversation.
"...couldn't figure out what that symbol was," Dean was saying, "and then I realized, it doesn't mean anything. It's the logo for Blue Oyster Cult. So, tell me, Craig, are you into BOC? Or just scaring the hell outta people?" He handed a record album over, and Craig's face dropped when he took a look at it. "So, why don't you tell us about that house without lyin' through ass this time?"
Craig gulped, then somewhat grudgingly told his tale. About how he and his cousin decided to play a prank on his friends. About how his cousin pretended to be the girl hanging, explaining the disappearing body. About how that would have been, well, that except those friends wouldn't stop telling the story, which eventually found its way onto the Hell Hounds website.
As they turned to leave, she heard Dean mutter to his brother, "If none of it was real, then how the hell do you explain Mordechai?"
They decided to call a break for lunch. Sam, feeling grungy after waking at the crack of dawn and pouring over dusty tomes until Dean's revelation, opted for another shower while Dean ran errands and Charlie investigated the stock at an ancient, local bookstore, hoping to begin building her own little library of occult lore. When she met them later at the selected restaurant, the elder Winchester looked smug about something and the younger looked physically uncomfortable.
Ignoring his repeated and somewhat inexplicable shifting, Charlie listened as Sam filled her in on their suspicions that Mordechai was actually a 'tulpa' which he defined as being a Tibetian thought form. As they grabbed their drinks and found a table, Dean spoke up, "All right, so keep goin', what about these tulpas?"
Sam pulled out his laptop and started looking for something while he spoke. "Okay, uh, so there was this incident in Tibet in 1915. A group of monks visualized a golem in their heads. They meditate on it so hard, they bring the thing to life -- out of thing air."
"How does this crap go on without the whole world knowing about it?"
"Ah, Charlie," Dean joked, "I hate to tell you this, but people are, as a general rule, really really stupid." He nudged her with an elbow at her glare, then turned his attention back to their waiting lecturer. "So?"
"That was twenty monks. Imagine what ten thousand web surfers could do. I mean, Craig starts a story about Mordechai and it spreads, goes online. Now there are countless people all believing in the bastard."
Dean made a face. "Okay, wait a second. You're trying to tell me hat just because people believe in Mordechai, he's real?"
"I don't know, maybe."
"People believe in Santa Clause. How come I'm not getting hooked up every Christmas?"
"'Cause you're a bad person."
"Sam!" Charlie burst out in reprimand, half-laughing, but Dean just nodded his head in acknowledgement. She smacked them both on the shoulder.
Sam grinned, then continued to explain what he believed was happening, how the two teens playing a joke painted a symbol used for concentrating mental thoughts without actually knowing what it was. A picture of it had been posted on the website, allowing people to focus on it and bring the tulpa to life.
"That would explain why he keeps changing," Dean commented.
"Right. As the legend changes, people think different things, so Mordechai himself changes, like a game of telephone. That would also explain why the rock salt didn't work."
"Why?" the blonde whispered to Dean.
"Because he's not a traditional spirit, per se."
Judging from her expression, that only raised more questions.
Guessing it would take more than just getting rid of the symbol, Dean called for ideas on how to destroy the tulpa. Charlie suggested posting an update on the website that disproved the legend, but apparently a tulpa's existence was no longer reliant on belief once it was created.
Suddenly, Dean paused. "Huh. I got an idea. Come on."
"Where are we going?" Sam asked, closing his laptop and trying to help Charlie get everything picked up.
"I gotta find a copy store."
The third time Sam stopped in their hurry to ... adjust himself, Charlie couldn't contain herself. "Okay, Sam, enough. What are you doing?"
He turned slightly red. "I think I'm allergic to our soap or something." Dean laughed, walking away. "You did this?" Dean just laughed again. "You're a friggin' jerk!"
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Charlie was given the job of tracking down the Hell Hound goofballs, which led them to a trailer. Sam and Dean threatened the duo, then traded a juicy secret about Mordechai for the promise to shut down the website. They'd judged the nerds well. Instead of fulfilling that promise, Ed and Harry posted the faked information fed to them, giving Mordechai a fatal weakness.
It was decided that their next step would be lunch, since they never actually got to eat at their previous stop. Tucked into the booth next to Sam, they both watched as Dean sipped on his beer and repeatedly tugged the chain that caused the fisherman hanging on the wall beside them to repeatedly let out an obnoxious laugh. Finally, his brother grabbed it from him, silencing the wooden figure. "If you pull that string one more time, I'm gonna kill you."
They stared at each other for a moment, then a hand reached out to pull the string one more time. It was silenced almost immediately.
Dean just laughed, sounding uncannily like the toy. "Come on, man. You need more laughter in your life, you know, you're way too tense."
Their tagalong spoke up, attempting to avoid brotherly violence in public, "Have they posted that bogus story yet?"
Sam turned the laptop to so she and Dean could see it. Dean began reading, "We have learned from reputable sources that Mordechai Murdock has a fatal fear of firearms."
"You two are reliable sources?"
Dean winked at her, then asked, "All right, how long do we wait?"
Sam closed the computer. "Long enough for the story to spread and the legend to change. I figure by nightfall, iron rounds will work on the sucker." He held up his beer bottle and Dean tapped it with his own in salute. But when Dean went to put it down, he couldn't unwrap his hand from around the glass. A few times he tried to jerk it loose, then accepted the fact that he was, well, stuck. He looked up at Sam in shock.
"You didn't."
Sam grinned and triumphantly held up a tube of superglue. "Oh, I so did."
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Charlie was given the opportunity to prove herself that night, since she knew she wouldn't be able to stay by herself at the motel without running the risk of worrying herself into a coma. So when the brothers were in position, she started up the psychotic laughing fisherman they'd 'borrowed' from the diner, rigging it to continue its racket until the police on duty discovered it. She knew she'd given them more than enough time to get into the house, which was her only task for the evening. Still, she didn't want to risk the cops going inside to investigate strange noises and being faced with Mordechai.
So when they turned back to head to the house, she stepped out between them and their destination. "Thank goodness I found you!" she gushed, racing up to them. "I took this stupid dare to come up to the Murdock house, 'cause I really wanted to see it. But now I can't remember how to get back to the road where I'm supposed to be picked up."
As she counted on, the officers were taken in by her bashful stance and faint blush. "No problem," the heavier officer told her comfortingly. "Where were you supposed to meet your friends?"
"It was a couple of miles down the road, at the second stop sign."
They walked her down to the specified corner, and she quickly sent a text message to the Winchesters telling them the change in the plan.
They didn't get it right away. As luck would have it, the story hadn't spread near enough, thanks to a server crash. When the Hell Hound boys showed up, and were consequently pursued by the tulpa, Dean came to a decision. Getting everyone out, he pulled out a lighter and tossed it into the large pool of accelerant he'd made. Thanks to the dry spell the area had been going through, the house lit up like a tinderbox.l
"That's the solution?" Sam questioned. "Burn the whole damn place to the ground?"
"Well, no one will go in anymore. I mean, look, Mordechai can't haunt a house if there's no house to haunt. It's fast and dirty, but it works."
"But what if the legend changes, and Mordechai is allowed to leave the house?"
" Well, then, we'll just have to come back."
They watched the flames for a moment, then as they began walking back to where they parked the car, Sam mused aloud, "Kind of makes you wonder -- of all the things we've hunted, how many existed just 'cause people believed in them?"
Dean was saved from finding a response when they reached the Impala and found it alone. "Where the hell is Charlie?"
Sam vaguely remembered his phone sounding an alert right about the time things got interesting. "Distracted the cops a bit longer," he read from his messages. "Pick me up down the road."
"Distracted the cops?" Dean muttered as the engine turned over. "What does that mean?"
They found her at the intersection of the main drive to the Murdock house and the hack road they had taken, sitting against the stop sign and giggling at something one of the policemen had said. As soon as the car stopped and Dean's window rolled down, she was standing next to it. "I did it!" she exclaimed. "I went up to Mordechai's house by myself!" Ducking her head as though in embarrassment, the blonde admitted, "And then I managed to get myself lost in the woods trying to follow the road back. Don't ask me how. Luckily, Micah and Derek here found me."
"Thanks," Dean spoke up, directing the words to the officers. "We didn't really want her to go up there on her own, but she insisted."
She opened the door to the backseat and slid in, looking for all intents and purposes like a small child who'd successfully tied her shoes for the first time. The cops waved, then turned to head back to their post, unaware of the bonfire they were returning to.
As soon as they were out of sight, Sam looked to her in the rear view mirror. "What was that about?"
She explained with a shrug. "So... how did I do?"
Dean considered his words carefully, pointedly not meeting her eyes. "You were a lot of help, but, Charlie, I meant it. I don't want you coming on hunts with us."
"That's all right. I'd probably get myself in all kinds of trouble at this point. I just want to be able to help."
Destiny's Darkness
2-18-2009