Who Do Voodoo?

Day 2

Dean wakes up bloody early, and half considers just closing his eyes again. But he doesn't. Sleep's a pleasant enough pastime, but he doesn't really need it.

He's on a couch belonging to a guy he hasn't even known for a full 24 hours, and he doesn't quite know how he feels about that. Although there is very little in this world that he actually need fear any more, he figures he might be acting a little too carelessly to come across as just another average Joe. His host probably wonders. (Dean seems to recall that the guy was looking rather intently at him last night... Huh.)

But more than his carelessness, it is his indecision which is eating at him. What is he doing here? He still doesn't know. He should go; go hunt a prey that'll give him a worthwhile trophy, no matter how Cas would react to that. And yet he doesn't want to risk pushing their already strained relationship further. It's ridiculous, too. If they were to add it up, they've probably spent more time at each other's throats, than actually being mutually content. All the more reason for Dean to want to kiss and make up, though. Right.

Dean gets up.

The living room is still dark, and he can hear the steady breaths of a sleeping human from down the hall. Disappearing now would almost be too easy, and yet Dean hesitates. Kibwe managed to get him access to the gallery – with the guide even, who may or may not be the guy Dean spotted in the back of the news clip and whom he was almost sure had seen something inexplicable. Furthermore, Kibwe had seemed kind of excited to go see Horne House – probably more than could be explained away with the low-level (but persistent) flirting. Chances are he and his friend might just go, regardless of whether Dean hangs around. Whatever else, it is probably a poor way to pay him back for his hospitality, to let them wander into a ghost house unattended.

A couple of hours later, Dean is cooking breakfast (never mind the implications of that; there was good stuff in the fridge!). He has been awake for too long, and his mind is not very good company. With a little luck, the smell of bacon will wake the guy whose kitchen he has currently commandeered.

Dean's made up his mind for now. The deal was to meet Kibwe's friend (Mal, was it? Cal?) at 10. Which means that Dean'll have wasted a good five hours since he woke up, but since the majority of that time has already passed... well, whatever. With a little luck Dean will be able to gank a ghost in a couple of hours, and he is really, really looking forwards to the rush.

Kibwe appears in the door-opening cutting off Dean's thoughts. For a long moment the guy just stares, his eyes growing larger. Dean suppresses an eye roll. This guy had better not turn this into some awkward morning after-thing. Since it isn't after anything, Dean doesn't think the drama is warranted.

Luckily, Dean realises, Kibwe is a guy after his own head. He just grins, before getting out plates and an extra load of bacon. Dean doesn't say anything either, just turns back to the stove. The instant before he does, he sees Kibwe's smile falter ever so slightly, probably at the perceived rejection. Ironically, the way his bright teeth disappears behind the dark lips does more for Dean than the grin itself.

Dean retrieves and changes in to his own clothes before they meet up with Kibwe's friend. He's glad to be back in his own jeans and practical flannel.

The guy who meets them at the end of Horne House's ridiculously long driveway is average; in height, build, even the dirty blonde colour of his hair. He also definitely is the guide from that clip. Dean grins at him.

"Mal, right?"

"It's Malcolm." Dean's quite sure Kibwe called the guy Mal, but perhaps this guy just doesn't want strangers to call him by his nickname. Dean can't say that he gets it (Cas doesn't seem to mind, as far as he can tell), but whatever.

"So, thanks for doing this, Mal," Kibwe says, confirming the nickname.

Dean doesn't miss the look Malcolm throws him, before replying, "Of course. I told you, you'd love it. I wish you'd come sooner, Key. I asked you."

"I know. I was just busy," Malcolm snorts, "I was! Photography takes time!"

"I'm not saying it doesn't. But you could've come." There's a slight petulant undertone to Malcolm's reply.

They're only halfway up the driveway and Dean sort of wants to choke them both.

"Yeah, I know. I just wasn't sure it really was my thing, you know?"

"But you like art. And there're some really good landscapes in there."

"I like it, I'm not the one getting nerd-gasms over it," Kibwe teases and then continues, addressing Dean, "Mal's majoring in Arts. Last year."

Dean grunts a non-committal answer, just as Malcolm lets them in.

Once inside, they makes their way through the two-storey mansion. It is... empty. Just empty.

There's almost no furniture left. It takes Dean a while to realise that the few chairs and the odd chest which is still standing in the various rooms have been decorated as well. He figures that is why they have been left where they are.

The only other thing standing around are bright, haphazard cones reading 'Beware, slippery when wet', spaced around in seemingly random places (most of which aren't actually wet any more, though the new stains seem kind of permanent).

The walls are covered in paintings, which really shouldn't surprise him, given the fact that that is the whole point of the new gallery. But they are covered-covered; no patch of white that is not actually a cloud in a sky or the frills of a summer dress is left. Most of the motifs are landscapes, but there are shapes and creatures (he thinks?) here and there, which makes Dean wonder what exactly the Hornes who drew them were smoking.

They make their way through what was obviously once servants' quarters (now painted too), rooms which might have belonged to house slaves or might, you know, be broom closets (which might at least explain the monster, which looks disturbingly like a shtriga, in one), and even gets up to the attic.

And Dean doesn't find anything.

No EMF, no cold spots, no homicidal ghosts trying to throw him around or loosen chandeliers (no chandeliers, either, for that matter) over his head.

Through the day Malcolm speaks with Kibwe and Kibwe speaks to Dean, and Dean gets more and more antsy about wasting his time (while simultaneously trying to tune them both out).

"You should come see the orchards as well." For once Malcolm includes them both in his comment. Kibwe looks approving. Dean would rather be done with it.

The orchards are nice. Nothing special, though the furthest part of them seem untended and therefore sufficiently creepy that they might just have been interesting to Dean under different circumstances. There are also no killer-scarecrows, so on the whole Dean is kind of disappointed.

The sun is shining, birds are chirping and in the background he can hear the gentle song of a stream. Dean pauses. Well, the ghost has water readily available, he supposes.

Kibwe suggests a late lunch which Malcolm agrees to enthusiastically, and Dean manages to worm his way out off, only by promising to return for dinner with Kibwe the same evening. He gets the feeling that Malcolm is not included in that invitation.

Dean does not spend his day looking for clues on who the ghost might be or where they might be buried. Instead he fights an epic battle in his head, still not sure whether he should abandon this silly hunt or not. He kinda wants to go back to the house tonight, just to see if he can't find anything then. He was really looking forward to getting his game on with this ghost.

On the other hand, that'll be the second out of four days wasted. And even if Cas promised him that they still have a couple of weeks, even if Sam is working on another possible solution... Who knows how long it will take them to get to an angel when the time comes? They're all stranded now, and there's no telling where.

It all results in Dean finding an empty lot on the outskirts of town, where he sits and goes back and forth over the arguments in his mind. He argues with himself that he is not wasting time; this is an approach he has to experiment with a some point anyway.

He sits, out in the open, completely unshielded till long after any reasonable time to eat dinner.

None of the dicks with wings (or without, now, he figures) show up to kill him. It's turning out to be an awfully disappointing day.

How Dean manages to have something resembling a domestic argument with a guy he met only yesterday, he has no idea. It's so absurd that he is almost tempted to shut the Kibwe up permanently. Dean could use the stress-relief after another day wasted. He catches himself. At least now he might as well go hunt a ghost. It's half past ten already, and dark out.

"I should go," Dean cuts Kibwe off in the middle of a tirade about how he was waiting for Dean.

"Go?"

"Yeah. I mean I'm sorry 'bout dinner and everything, but. Well. Too late to do anything about that now."

"I'm not mad at you or anything," Kibwe tries to backtrack, and Dean really has to fight to suppress his eye roll. He doesn't think he knows this guy well enough to actually warrant the idiot being mad at him in the first place.

"Whatever."

"Stay. I mean, there's no point in you going to rent a hotel room. It's a waste of money."

"Dude, I can't just keep crashing on your couch. I'll find somewhere else to sleep and... I'll see you tomorrow, I guess."

Kibwe looks at him for a long while, and Dean hopes he'll accept that. He's seconds away from just pushing past the guy and getting out of there. He doesn't really have any intention of returning either. Hopefully he'll kill a ghost tonight and then use the last two days to hunt for an angel.

All of Heaven's angels are walking the Earth. Seriously, how hard can they be to find?

"You're cursed," a gleeful female voice tells him from behind. Dean spins on the spot and comes face to face with a dark adolescent girl who isn't all there. She's dressed in a simple gown, and he can just make out the shadows of a few finger-shaped bruises where her neck meets her shoulder, as though somebody grabbed her from behind.

He has been in the house for about over an hour, and he hasn't sensed anything up until now. Come to think of it, he still doesn't sense any malevolent spirits, actually.

"It's a love potion." The look on her face, more than what she is saying, makes Dean realise that maybe it is not only physically that she isn't all there. He doesn't raise his shotgun.

"'Scuse me?"

"Somebody put you under a love spell," she giggles, "Yaa can see it, you know. Was it an amandia-potion? I bet it was an amandia-potion! Who gave it to you? Oh, let me guess, let me guess!" She bounces on the balls of her feet, "Tall, dark and handsome, right?"

"Eh, what?" Dean's dealt with a lot of ghosts in his time. This, though, he is not sure what to do with.

"Oh, maybe you didn't know!" This seems to excite her even more. "How romantic!"

"Didn't know what?"

She calms down in a split second. "You have been subjected to voodoo," she tells him with an almost childish seriousness.

"Voodoo?" It's not that he doesn't believe in voodoo, hell he doesn't have to, he knows it is legit, but he thinks he would have noticed if somebody had tried to hex him. (And, you know, ganked the bitch.) And a love potion? Come on!

"Mmhm. Yaa can see magic. Before I could only sort of... taste it? But they all said Yaa was imagining things. Superstitious Yaa, simple Yaa. Yaa should shut up and do as the Master says. Shut up and go to the Master." He expression visibly darkens and suddenly Dean can sense the ghost in front of him, too. His flash light sputters feebly in his hand. He turns it off. He doesn't know why he got it out in the first place anyway. Old habits.

"So you can taste voodoo." The ghost is bat-shit crazy. Go figure.

"Yes!" she brightens again immediately, then looks at him suspiciously. She's changing moods so quickly that Dean almost gets whiplash trying to keep up. "You don't believe Yaa!" she accuses.

"No, no, it's not..." Why is he trying to placate the ghost again?

"I know, I'll prove it to you! Come."

Dean follows.

The girl stops in an empty room, staring intently at the closest wall. Dean watches her for a while.

"Uhm, hello?" he tries when nothing happens. "Miss?" Dean takes a step closer, "Yaa?"

She whips to him, "Oh, you know me! I love it when people know Yaa. Yaa's not very good at remembering people, but Yaa likes it when people remembers Yaa."

"Right."

"Do you want to see what I found you?" She's gone back to staring at the wall.

"Sure?" Dean's given up on figuring out what is going on; he just sort of goes with it.

"You need to press that panel." He obediently puts the shotgun down to follow her instruction.

A section of the wall swings back, it's seams previously perfectly camouflaged by the lines of the painting adorning the wall. Inside is a shallow nook, with a couple of feathers, some animal bones (cat and rabbit Dean identifies reflexively), an old wooden bowl and a little cotton pouch with what could be lettering on it. He picks it up.

"That's it!" the ghost sing-songs, "It's magic! You can have it."

As Dean looks up at her, she is grinning widely, an open expression on her almost non-transparent face. She might have warned him that the bloody thing was a charm before he touched it, Dean wants to tell her, but he's not sure she would actually understand.

"Thanks." He stuffs the cotton bag in his pocket.

"Grigery."

"Who's Gregory?"

"I don't know? Who is Gregory?"

"You said Gregory."

The poor girl looks confused for a second, then understanding blooms on her face, "Grigery," she all but squeals.

Dean tries to repress his wince, "What's that mean?"

"It's a grigery talisman."

"Ah. And what, exactly, is that?"

A loud noise and someone cursing from the next room interrupts Yaa before she can explain, and in a blink of an eye she is gone. Dean keeps his own curse internal.

Sneaking towards the disturbance completely soundlessly, Dean takes that decision up for reconsideration.

"What the hell," he hisses, startling the intruder.

It's Malcolm.

"What the fuck are you doing here?"

The guy has dropped his flash light on the floor, but it still provides enough light that they can see each other. The beam is pointing at a painting of the small stream that runs through the apple orchard. Malcolm looks scared half to death, and Dean's suddenly happy that his shotgun is still on the floor of the room behind him.

"I, I, I..." the guy, the boy stutters incoherently. Dean sighs heavily and rolls his eyes.

"You're the last person I'd expect to see here a quarter past midnight." Did the guy actually follow him here? Probably.

"I... what? Why?"

"Saw a clip about this House on the news. You were in it. I'm guessing you've seen the ghost."

Malcolm stares at him, wide-eyed. "Ghosts."

"Yes, ghost. Ghosts are real and there's a ghost haunting this house."

"No, ghosts. Plural. There're two of them."

Well, that's news to Dean.

"Really?" Dean steps fully in to the room, "What makes you think that?"

"They're both behind you," Malcolm whimpers and the next second Dean is slammed into him, and they both collide with the wall still illuminated by the flash light, spluttering.

So much for none of the walls being ruined by the water damage yet. This one is certainly drenched now. As is Dean and poor guy curled up at his feet.

As Dean turns, his eyes have already flashed. He can see both ghosts quite clearly now. Yaa is not actually in the room, rather she is peaking out from behind the door-jamb to the room where Dean left his salt-loaded shotgun. She looks a little insecure, as though unsure whether they're just playing a game, or if something is actually wrong. In the middle of the room, only a few feet from where Dean stood before, another young woman has materialised. Her skin has the same dark-but-ghastly tint as Yaa's. Their clothes are the same as well, Dean realises. Servants' dresses. Old servants' dresses.

"Who are you?" Dean asks, dark eyes locked on the newcomer.

It's Yaa who answers, "I'm Yaa and this is Musi. Her name is really Lumusi, but Yaa calls her Musi!"

"Yaa, be silent," Lumusi hisses.

"And what are you doing here?" Dean figures he might as well get as much information out of them as possible. Anything to make it easier to find their bones.

"Yaa and Musi works," the younger girl tells him happily, drifting through the wall into the room. Judging by the groan from the floor, that's a little disturbing to watch for someone who's not used to that kind of thing. Dean's mostly fascinated by how her energy warps and filters through the old house.

"Yaa!" Lumusi protests again.

"You don't work here?" Dean asks her, drawing her attention back to him. For an odd moment he is almost worried about Yaa getting herself into trouble.

"Oh, we worked alright. That's what slaves do, after all," she scoffs. "They say house slaves have it better, you know? But I'd rather have been a man in the field than a woman in this house!"

Dean decides not to think about those implications. Still doesn't explain all the water, though."

"Did you drown or something?"

For a moment, Lumusi looks stunned. "No," comes the answer, once again from Yaa. "Musi didn't drown. Yaa did!"

"Please," the other ghost begs turning to the dim-witted girl.

"The Master drowned Yaa, because he thought Yaa did voodoo."

"Yaa, stop!"

"But Yaa didn't. Lumusi did!"

Lumusi screeches out a high pitched sounds. A glass in the window cracks. The flash light's bulb pops. There's suddenly an inch of water on the floor. Yaa disappears.

"You," the remaining ghost hisses at Dean and rushes at him. Dean welcomes her.

Despite her ghostly speed, Dean has no problem tracking her. She is radiating a desire to kill, and Dean can totally get on board with that. He mirrors it. Yaa didn't leave voluntarily; this bitch banished her.

The ghosts surges through Dean, and he is quite sure that her cold would have stopped an average human's heart. But Dean burns, hot as Hell (more or less literally), and the ghost is the one to suffer from the impact.

She's too big on the whole water-thing, Dean muses. She evaporates.

He gets Malcolm of off the floor and takes him along outside. The night air is slightly chilly and they are both soaked. The cold doesn't bother Dean, but the boy is shaking.

"You should really have stayed out of this," Dean tells him. "Let the professionals handle it."

"That was handling it?" Malcolm sneers back, apparently pretending he is fine. Dean sort of respects him a little for that.

"No, that was just the warm up." (Yes, Dean thinks he is clever.) "Dealing with it starts now."

Lumusi made a much bigger mistake by attacking him, than either of them could have guessed, he realises. Once the bitch touched him, he locked on to her. And he can sense her now.

Her presence seems to burn in two different places. From the house comes a roiling feeling of offended anger. From the orchards comes a spark seeped in something else. Something that Dean knows well.

The ghost's earthly remains reek violent death.

"Come along,"

Dean takes Malcolm along to the Impala to get a couple of shovels. He can tell that they'll need them. The boy looks almost happy at the sight of the car, but his expression quickly sours when Dean doesn't let him in, but only opens the trunk.

He hands Malcolm the shovels. "Hold those." Dean carries salt and gasoline himself. "Tag along, now," he says mockingly and Malcolm, probably at a loss, complies.

Dean knows he shouldn't take the civilian with him, but honestly, he is having a little too much fun to care. If they are real lucky, Lumusi will show back up when they find her bones.

Dean makes his way through the orchards to the overgrown row of apple trees in the back. With Malcolm following at his heels Dean allows himself to focus his sight. The effect corresponds to his having suddenly gotten X-ray vision and the bones being luminous besides.

"Here," he points out the spot where they'll need to dig and grabs a shovel from Malcolm.

"What?"

"Dig."

"Why?"

"So we can burn this bitch's bones."

Malcolm looks as though he is going to be sick. Dean sighs and pauses, but the boy surprises him again, "And how do you know they're buried here?" The tone is condescending, but Dean can't help smiling.

He answers in kind, though, "Professional, remember?"

Dean digs most of the grave out himself. Malcolm helps and hesitates alternately, and actually annoys Dean more than anything. But the boy keeps warm and within Dean's field of vision, and he's pretty sure this ghost ain't gonna leave any casualties before he's torched her, so he'll count that as a win.

The grave is shallow, but the bones are tangled in the roots of at least four different trees. They seem to be displaced, too, and Dean is not even sure he can identify all the small bones. He drags the skull away from a particularly thick root, cracking both the bone and the tendril in the process. Malcolm seems to reach breaking point at that exact moment, and takes of running.

Dean looks after him, shaking his head slowly. Then he salts and lights up the bones where they are. Well, this hunt will cost the orchard a few casualties then.

(The flames warm him to his core.)

Dean retrieves the shotgun before he leaves. Paying attention this time, he notices when Yaa joins him, even though there is very little spite in her being.

"Are you leaving now?"

"Yeah. Tell me, Yaa, was any of this your doing?" Dean gestures at a now-dry blotch in the middle of the room they're in.

"No, Musi did it. But Yaa could have."

"Are you going to? When people come to see the paintings?"

"No. Yaa likes the pretty pictures. Yaa won't play with water indoors."

"And will you be okay without Lumusi protecting you?"

"Musi protected something. Musi never protected Yaa."

"What did she protect, then?" Yaa shakes her head, and Dean pushes, "Are you going to protect what Lumusi protected?"

"There's nothing left here for me to protect now." She disappears.

Sitting in the Impala, watching the raising sun, Dean wonders if he should have located Yaa's remains and burned them, too. But taking care of Lumusi was enough for him; he feels as calm now as he did when he and Sam dealt with that goddess. When he took her down.

Yaa hasn't hurt anyone, and she doesn't mean to. Yes, all ghosts seems to turn vengeful eventually, but for now, he'll leave her be. Dean kind of likes her. Besides, his earlier argument still stands. Once she starts dropping bodies, some hunter will notice. Till then, well, it's not really Dean's problem, is it?