A/N: So I suck at updating; y'all knew that already. But there's about to be a flurry of chapters, and this fic will be posted in all its finished glory. Thanks to everyone who are still watching and waiting!

Out, damned spot! out, I say!- One; two; why, then 'tis
time to do't ;-Hell is murky!-Fie, my lord, fie! a soldier,
and afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call
our power to account?-Yet who would have thought the old man to
have had so much blood in him?

-Lady Macbeth, William Shakespeare's "Macbeth" (1603-1607)

"No!" Dean shouted, aiming the gun and firing. The woman disappeared with a wail. Sam was still stumbling backwards, and when he hit the railing he panicked, trying to throw himself forward. Dean caught hold of his flailing arm and hauled him back, and they fell forward into the dark hallway.

"Bethany, get up here!" he yelled. Sam was trying to push himself up, but his brother's face was pale, and his hands were still shaking. "You okay?" Dean asked.

Sam managed a nod. "Yeah," he said, his voice trembling. "I'm great. Fuck."

The use of the curse word by his usually clean-mouthed brother was enough to tell Dean just how not okay Sam really was. He got himself up to standing and hauled Sam to his feet. The minute shaking of Sam's arm left Dean wanting to hit something. He hated it when they tried to go after Sam.

"Is she...is she gone?"

At least Bethany was in the hallway now. "For the moment," Dean said, turning and marching straight for the door. No more hesitating. "Let's end the game of hide and seek, how's that sound?"

"Sounds perfect right about now," Sam muttered.

Dean didn't even bother trying to gage temperature or anything, simply kicked the door open. The entryway curved to the right, and Dean found himself in one of the most opulent rooms he'd even set foot in before, including Zachariah's golden room of treats.

It would've been more beautiful if it hadn't been shredded.

Like the basement, this room showed exactly what the rest of the hotel should've looked like: torn up, mangled, and destroyed after fifty years of being abandoned. The glass doors and windows on the far side of the room were broken, the drapes ripped and moving ever so slightly in the breeze from outside.

And when the moon shone in for just a moment, coming through the windows, Dean caught sight of just how much more damage had occurred in the room.

Blood stained nearly everything in the room. The carpet was encrusted with it, the walls were painted with it, and even the ceiling had been spotted. "Woah," he breathed, eyes wide. Clouds moved back in front of the moon, taking away the source of natural light, but now that Dean had been shown the blood, it was hard to not see it.

"Holy crap."

Sam's flashlight's beam moved around the room, taking in all the bloodstains. On the wall switches. The lamps. The broken chairs, the sliced up sofas.

Dean carefully stepped around and through the room, checking out every corner, every part. For the most part, despite the overturned furniture, Dean couldn't see any place to stash a body. His eyes cut to the balcony beyond the broken glass, but quickly dismissed it. Even if the guy had fallen off the balcony, the cops would've been able to find him. Would've been pretty damn easy, even for them.

Dean glanced back at Sam, who was moving around the room in much the same manner Dean was. Near the entryway was Bethany, her eyes simply taking in everything. "You okay?" he asked her. Despite the fact that she seemed physically okay, a fact that Dean and Sam couldn't claim anymore, she looked even paler than she had before. Shock could just as easily kill a person as a fall could.

Bethany began to nod, then shook her head. "He...he killed her up here," Bethany whispered. "She died up here."

Couldn't say for certain, but yeah, there was a good chance that their bloody, cut open ghost was Mrs. Deventon. "Probably, yeah," Dean said as gently as he could. Considering the amount of blood up in the suite, it was enough to freak anyone out.

"Dean."

Dean move his attention back to Sam, who was looking at something on the ground. Scattered in the corner were more of the newspapers; these, however, looked more intact than the others.

Yet it wasn't a newspaper that Sam picked up, but another piece of paper nearby. "What is it?" Dean asked.

Sam frowned, turning it over. "It...it looks like a diary," he finally said. "Or at least, a part of it. It's stained pretty bad, hard to read. But the date on the top is April 11th, 1963. Handwriting looks beautiful and elegant. Probably a woman's."

Dean made his way across the room, eyes still darting towards the corners. The uneasy feeling he'd had right before the spirit had shown up had dissipated for the moment. Still, better safe than sorry.

And god knew when the other bastard would show up.

Sam handed the piece of paper over, letting Dean take a better look. The paper wasn't just stained, it was saturated with blood. Only a few words near the top of the ripped page could be made out, but Dean could make out 'William' and 'beach' and 'happy'. It only made his gut tighten further, this time in sympathy. Fifty years ago, there'd been a happy woman in the suite, with her husband and two family members.

"There might be more of the diary around here," Sam said softly. He looked just as sickened by the room and the diary page as Dean felt. "Maybe give us more of something to go on."

"Yeah," Dean said reluctantly. He held his hand out for the bag and began digging through it for the additional flashlight. They'd both had them at some point, but god knew what had happened, in all the running. "Did I break mine when I fell?" he asked when he couldn't find the extra.

"Actually, I broke mine, in the fall," Sam admitted as Dean continued to dig. "This one's yours. I think you fell on it, but yours still held."

Probably explained the pain in Dean's ass and the now dull ache spreading through his legs. His fingers touched something cold and metal, and when his thumb found the light switch, Dean could've crowed. "Yes!" he cheered instead, pulling the flashlight out. It wasn't one of their newer ones, but at that point, Dean didn't care.

"Happy now?" Sam asked, though there was an amused grin on his face.

"Ecstatic," Dean dead-panned, making Sam's grin widen. "What say we find the bedroom?"

"You're not my type," Sam replied. "And yes, you did so walk into that one."

He kinda had, but Dean was far too thrilled with his flashlight find to care. He used his new light source to locate the two doors on the other side of the room. Bethany was still standing by the entryway, and Dean doubted she'd moved at all since she'd come in. "Bethany," he called, and that seemed to catch her attention. "Gotta keep moving."

Bethany nodded jerkily. "It's just...there's so much blood," she whispered. She seemed much more subdued than she had been before. "I know the police said it was bloody, but...Thomas died bloody, too..."

Thinking about bloody brothers wasn't exactly one of Dean's favorite hobbies, either. "We need to find the bedroom," he said, and that caught her attention.

"Where they found the bodies?"

"Where they found the bodies."

"Oh."

Yeah, wasn't exactly a better subject then her other one, but it was all Dean had. "Clear," Sam said from his left, where he'd gone wandering. "Kitchen, dining and living room area, and an extra, small bedroom, all clean. No body, nowhere to even hide one. Might've been the executive suite once, but it's pretty sparse now."

That left the bedroom. Trying to keep up his positive attitude, Dean moved across the room with purpose, flashlight and gun at the ready. He took a moment to decide between the two doors, then reached for the left door with a steady hand. Before he could even touch it, though, the door silently slid open. "That's...cool," he said after a moment. "Room service at its best."

No one replied. "Tough crowd," he muttered, but stepped inside.

It was another bathroom, and it proved to be just as destroyed as the suite. The mirror above the sink was broken into shards, though Dean couldn't find any on the floor. The sink itself looked like someone had taken a sledgehammer to it, and the curtain in the tub was slashed in several places. Dean was beginning to lose his positive attitude fast.

Tucked in the corner, though, was something that caught his attention. "What is it?" Sam asked from behind him, then, "Sorry," when Dean jumped.

"Thanks for the warning," Dean said, tossing a half-glare over his shoulder. Sam shrugged sheepishly. "Look, in the corner."

Amongst the rubble of the room was a small, white piece of paper. Sam kept his flashlight trained on it as Dean carefully stepped through the debris to take it. Usually, pieces of paper didn't catch their eye. There was always paper strewn about in the midst of a poltergeist attack, or a werewolf clawing inside a room, or the dozen other things that could happen.

But in this case, the more paper they found, the happier Dean would consider himself. Anything to tell him what really happened.

It was in the same handwriting as the other piece of the diary, though this paper was even smaller and ripped up. No blood stains, though, which made it easier to read the fragment. Will left to do laundry with

Spooky. "Anything?" Sam asked.

Dean merely handed him the piece of paper. "What is it?" Bethany asked from the bathroom's doorway.

"Just a fragment from the diary," Sam told her while Dean took a look around. No broken walls, no places obvious to hide a body. There wouldn't have been anywhere here for the murderer to have hidden in or died in. "Not particularly useful."

That left the other door. Without preamble Dean stepped out, only to find Sam ahead of him, ready to push the door open. It slid open without a creak at his light touch. More carefully then they had with the bathroom they moved inside the room. Once they were all inside, Dean couldn't help but cast a glance back at the door. Having doors locked behind him was a constant in their line of work.

"Dean?"

Before Dean could turn around, the lights suddenly all came on. From the overhead lights, the broken lamp in the corner, the wall lights around the room. Two of the bulbs were broken, but it didn't matter. They all switched on at once.

And revealed a room worse than Dean had thought. Much worse than the main room of the suite. The entire place was covered with dried, old blood, but especially the bed. There wasn't a single part of it that hadn't been caught in what looked like a blood bomb explosion. The floor was littered with police tape and other random pieces of furniture and paper. "Oh god," Bethany breathed, backing away from the bed.

Even as they watched, blood began to drip from the sheets, from the bed posts, and from the wall. The steady drip, drip, drip was just loud enough to catch Dean's attention, and just as wrong as the tapping and creaking from the lobby had been.

Someone had died in the room, all right. Someone had died terribly. Dean couldn't imagine how that much blood could come from two people, let alone one.

Then the lights began to flicker. Guess the show and tell was over. "We need to leave," Bethany begged, eyes searching for the door, then back to Dean. "Please, we need to leave, before-"

One minute, the corner of the room was deserted, and then the next, it wasn't. The sonuvabitch was back, and if Dean had to hazard a guess, he looked more pissed off than before. The lights continued to flicker violently around the man. His axe was gripped tightly in his right fist, and when he raised his head, his empty eye sockets were the first thing Dean saw. There was no blood behind them, no brains or bone. There was simply nothing, like a black hole.

And he was moving towards them.

Bethany screamed when he took his first step forward, but Dean already had his safety off. Even before he could pull the trigger Sam had pulled his. Two iron rounds went straight through his gut, and with a scream he vanished.

But the lights continued to flicker, enough that Dean thought he was going to have a seizure. "What the-?"

More than one ghost in the hotel, you dumbass, Dean could hear himself saying. Get the hell out of there, now! "Move," he ordered, heading for the door. Bethany needed no prompting this time and ran as fast as she could into the main room. As soon as she cleared the doorway, though, the door slammed shut behind her, leaving Dean and Sam to almost run into the wood.

"Sam! Dean!" Bethany shouted from the other side. "I can't...the door won't give!"

"Back away from the door," Sam told her as Dean launched a kick to the door. Pain exploded through his leg at the impact and he stumbled backwards, gasping for air. Strong arms kept him from hitting the floor, the floor that was beginning to squish beneath his feet. One glance at the bed proved why: it was still dripping blood.

"You okay?" Sam asked, even as he got him upright. "Jesus Dean, I meant for me to do it, your legs-"

"It's like a frickin' brick wall, don't bother," Dean said. The scent of the blood was starting to fill his nostrils, and he shut his eyes, trying not to gag. Between the lights and the blood he could practically taste, he needed out of the room, now.

And then Bethany screamed from beyond the door.

"Bethany!" Dean yelled. Sam was pounding on the door, kicking at it, only to curse and stumble backwards. He looked as sick as Dean felt.

A muted thud followed, but Bethany continued to scream. Dean stepped forward for the bag, feeling the carpet squelch beneath his shoes, staining them dark red. Sam dared to put a single iron round in the door, but it didn't so much as dent the wood. Nothing else in the bag proved of any merit.

Another thud, and this time she broke off into a sob. "Bethany, the door!" Sam shouted. Desperately Dean began to scan the room for something, anything to get them out of there. The flickering lights left him wanting to shut his eyes and wake up somewhere, anywhere that wasn't this goddamn hotel. He forced himself to look anyways.

Beneath the bed, becoming quickly covered in blood, was a broken, rusty iron pole. Sam continued to pound and kick at the door, leaving Dean the one to reach for it. He forced himself to crouch near the bed. The smell of death beneath the blood made him almost retch, the bloody bed inches from his face. The iron pole itself was covered in slick, dark blood, and as quickly as he could Dean caught a few non-stained pieces of paper to grab for it.

And stopped, his hand catching on something else.

Sam gasped, and Dean whipped around in time to see the door fly open, taking his little brother with it. Outside in the room, Dean could make out Bethany's huddled form near the door. She jumped when Sam fell through, though. Still alive.

The lights from the room were no longer flickering. They'd all gone off again, like they had before. Dean dug out his flashlight from his pocket to use again, pulling out what he'd inadvertently found.

The papers fell away, revealing a battered, dirty old book. Diary read across the front.

Bethany's voice drifted in from the suite. "He...He stopped. Why did he stop?"

"Dean, what is it?"

Dean swallowed. "The diary," he said, turning to stand. "The book's mostly still in one-"

His eyes turned to face the bed, and sightless eyes stared back at him. Dean startled into a fast standing position, hitting the wall near the door in his haste to rise. The woman ghost was back, except she wasn't moving. She was laid out on the bed, fitting in perfectly with the bloody décor. Her dented-in head was twisted to face Dean, and blood soaked nearly every part of her. Her chest was ripped open, blood slowly sliding down her visible ribs.

Her mouth was parted on a silent scream, her face forever frozen in the terror she'd felt when she'd died.

"Fuck," Dean breathed out, voice shaking. "Holy shit."

The lights flickered again, once, twice, and the third time took the bloody specter with them. The entire suite was silent. Dead silent.

Sam was suddenly next to him. "Where did you find it?" he finally asked. "Everything stopped when you grabbed the diary. Where...?"

Dean managed to point to the pile of papers near the bed. "Bethany?"

"Y-Yes?"

"You okay?"

Bethany's laugh was strangled and god, could Dean find any better adjectives? "Ask me later, when I'm home and safe. We need to leave."

"Yeah, workin' on it," Dean said, gazing down at the diary. This was the key. It was enough to have scared the sonuvabitch off. He flipped the cover open and found, in the same neat handwriting as the other two scraps, the words: The diary of Rita H. Deventon. The wife.

He quickly flipped through the pages. A few pressed flowers, a ticket stub to a movie. 'Will' this and 'Will' that. The day he proposed, the day they married.

When he began to reach ripped pages he forced himself to slow down. The words talked about the vacation, the beach, getting sunburned. Usual, happy things. The others were mentioned as 'Annie' and 'Tony' in a happy, friendly manner. Most of it was missing.

Snippets from the pages were enough to form a better picture.

Will's gotten so moody lately, like we weren't on vacation at all. I tried to call him to bed, but he wouldn't come. I don't know what's gotten into

They've had a fight of some sorts; Will won't even look at

and I stayed upstairs to let them figure it out on their own, settle it like men, but they were gone so long so I sent Annie down to

don't know what's taking them so long, it doesn't take that long to get to the laundry

god I don't understand, and he's screaming at me, trying to get the bathroom door unlocked, someone help me please he's out of his mind-

"Uh, Dean?"

Dean forced his eyes from the page to where Sam was slowly rising, eyes on the thick piece of paper he was holding. The paper fell over his hands, enough that Dean could see the headline of the newspaper. It looked like the full edition, the perfect, missing piece to their puzzle. "Yeah, Sammy?" he said.

Sam began to read in a solemn tone, and Dean's stomach began to drop.

"'Mr. Deventon's body was discovered in the main room of the suite, just near the door. The axe in his hands was soaked with blood, and the blood trail from the weapon led straight to the master bedroom, where his wife was found on the bed, eviscerated.'" Sam looked up from the paper, face pale. "Dean, we've been after the wrong guy," he said.

"I know," Dean managed, before turning back to the diary and the last words Rita had written. The usually impeccable handwriting was hurried and messy, the page stained with bloody fingerprints.

god I don't understand, and he's screaming at me, trying to get the bathroom door unlocked, someone help me please he's out of his mind, Will's out there with an axe and I'm bleeding and oh god I don't want to die, I don't want to die someone pleas

The 'e' in please trailed off, the pen dragged across the page. Dean slowly raised his eyes back to Sam and swallowed hard. "He's not our missing body," he said. "He murdered all of them. Which means-"

Sam didn't say anything, leaving Dean to cut himself off. Which meant that the body could be anywhere, basement to the top. God knew what he'd done with the other woman.

The silence was broken by Bethany's scream.