"So you think the werewolves are back?"

The trio had moved back to the sitting room after drinking their coffees and were now drinking beer. There had been a fair bit of quiet time as Harper came to terms with the loss of Chayse, aka Hope; the boys still had not told her that that was not even her real name. Sam and Dean had exchanged many covert looks, both itching to retreat and discuss the fact that Bobby and Hope knew each other. While Harper had given the boys more details about the werewolf issue, and she had explained why she needed help now. Three mysterious deaths in an old soap factory that the firm she worked for were renovating into new, bespoke, warehouse-style apartments; for their part, the boys had explained to Harper, how they had come across her emailed request for help.

"Well… not really. I mean. These deaths aren't like werewolf attacks, their hearts aren't missing, for starters, and all three of them have been killed in different ways…" Harper answered Sam's question, and now she sat looking at him, waiting for the next question, but Dean asked instead, "How were they killed?" Harper looked over at Dean and took a deep breath, steadying herself, before answering, "The first one was a drifter; he was squatting in the old Soap factory before we started any of the work. It was about six weeks ago, I guess. Someone cut his throat so deep it almost decapitated him. The police think that another drifter did it but they have no leads at all. The next one was a labourer who was working with the demolition crew; they are the men who go in and take everything inside the building apart, knocking down walls and stuff that won't be required in the final plans. This was just four days ago. He was found hanging in one of the internal spaces." Harper took another deep breath, before continuing. "The lead detective labelled that a suicide, but the other cop was asking all sorts of questions, like, for example, how did he actually do it, given that there was nothing for the guy to stand on to get the noose on and there was no way he climbed up to the rafters and then jumped."

"No ladders? Or could he have climbed down from a higher level?" Sam asked; Harper shook her head from side to side, before adding, "The younger cop thinks someone came in and killed him, but the lead dude, he said that was all but impossible; after the drifter's death we had that place locked down tighter than a military base. The big bosses did not want any more incidents that might jeopardise the project and ultimately cost them millions. So… there is only one gate in and we have a guard on it, taking down the names of all visitors. Actually, he found the body; at about eight o'clock, that night, he realised the James, that is the labourer, had not signed out, so the guard called him but the phone just rang out. That is when he decided to go on rounds, to see if he could find him."

"And the third death?" Dean asked.

"Tripp…" Harper nearly lost it again, emotion welling up as she remembered, "He was a nice guy. So helpful and really, hard working. He was a boilermaker and he was trying to work out what the building would need to bring it up to code. Tripp had been working while the demolition crew were around; so that once they were done, the work could begin in earnest. The PTB's want this building up and running ASAP, it's all about the money."

"The PTB's?" Sam queried before Harper could continue her story.

"The powers that be… the big bosses…" Sam showed that he understood and Harper finished her story. "Best they can tell, Tripp died due to massive blood loss… only… he didn't have any injuries… nada… not one… If that's not supernatural, then I don't know what is?" Dean and Sam exchanged looks; the case was confusing already, three deaths, all strange, but not really linked in any way except for the building.

"Ghosts?" Dean asked his brother; Sam nodded as he answered Dean, "It's certainly possible. A haunting, but the deaths should be more similar. Either way, we'll need to go and check it out. Could be demons?" as Dean agreed with Sam, Harper's eyes went wide, "Ghosts? Demons?" she said choking on the words. Dean cocked his head on the side before asking, "I thought Bob…" he quickly corrected himself, before Harper noticed; Dean did not want to be explaining their whole life to this girl, "I thought Robert sat you down and had the talk?" Harper nodded, "Yeah, about werewolves and vampires and stuff. But ghosts and demons, he never said anything about that…" Harper's body shuddered at the mere thought and her world was rocked once again.

Sam's eyebrows drew together as he bit down on his lower lip; he was trying to hide a smile that was brewing, he didn't mean to laugh at Harper, it was just her looks of distress were kind of cute and oh so innocent. Shaking his head, to push the smile away, Sam looked over at his brother and said, "We should get moving then."

Dean nodded and stood up ready to leave.

"Wait… Are you going there now? All of the deaths happened at night and… it is night! Now!" Harper cried out at them.

Sam almost laughed aloud this time, coughing to cover it; Dean looked at him with mock distaste before he turned to Harper and flippantly said, "Best time to catch Ghosts."

"But…"

"It's ok Harper, we will be fine. This is what we do." Sam had recovered from his girlish fit and was trying to calm Harper down. "Look, is there any history on the soap factory?"

"Like what?"

"Like did anyone die there, over the years?" Dean's voice came out a bit gruffer than he had intended; he just wanted to get going now.

"No."

"You're sure?" Sam asked, puzzled that she seemed so sure of her answer.

"Yeah. Well, there was one death," Dean rolled his eyes at Sam; could she be any vaguer, he thought, "A guy was killed by one of the machines in the work line; he got caught in it and was kind of mauled to death, or something. But, nothing after that because they shut the factory down, just three weeks into the start-up and it's sat there, vacant, ever since… until now."

"Do you know anything else about the building?" Sam asked as Dean started tapping his foot, he really wanted to leave now. Sam looked over at Dean, giving him a look that told him to cut it out. Dean shrugged back at him but continued tapping.

Harper, unaware of what was happening between the boys, added, "It's like, ninety years old…" Sam nodded encouraging her to continue, when she didn't he asked, "Anything else…" the blank look on Harper's face had Sam asking another question, "What was there before the soap factory?" "Nothing…" Harper answered immediately. Sam was ready to give up too; he and Dean could do their own research, "Ok… Well, we should be going if we want to check the place out. Can you call ahead and tell the guard to let us in?"

"I'll come with you."

"No…" Dean blurted out. Harper was shocked by Dean's outburst, but Sam recovered well, "It's just, Chayse would be really annoyed with us if we put you in any danger… So…" Harper nodded that she understood. She agreed to call the guard and asked when she would see them again. Sam told her that they would call her if they needed anything and would let her know, as soon as they knew what they were up against. Harper hoped that they would work it out fast because after Tripp's death, even though the police had shut down the whole project, the big bosses were eager to start work again and she was worried that starting work again would mean somebody else would die.

Dean and Sam walked down the garden path, out to the street, where the Impala was sitting under a street lamp. Sam pulled open the passenger door and waited, while Dean walked around the front of the car to the driver's side. Dean, looking over the roof of the car at his brother, asked, "Bobby?" It was a loaded question. One word that encapsulated everything he was feeling and everything that had been on his mind the entire time they had been in the house. Sam sighed before admitting, "I know…" as he shook his head, in wonderment, in confusion, in happiness and sadness, there were so many good things about it, but mostly he just had questions. Questions, that he knew, they would never have any answers for, not now. Dean let out a deep breath, one that he felt he had been holding for hours now, the tension slowly drained from his body as he realised that Sam felt the same way he did, and this made it just a little easier to deal with. "And…" he added, unsure how to ask the question other than to just, blurt it out, "Did we know that Hope was gay?" Sam shook his head, he had definitely not noticed that but he offered Dean this one thing, "No… but, I'm beginning to think the two of you were more alike than I thought…"

Dean glared at his brother, his face asking his brother, 'what the hell?' while his mind raced over the implications of that statement. Was his brother, was Sammy, saying that he, Dean, was…

"Love em' and leave em'…" Sam, with raised eyebrows, finally added, seeing his brother had taken the bait, hook line and sinker, and now, he could let him off. Dean scoffed. "Wait… what did you think I meant?" Sam asked, acting all innocent.

"Get in the car." Dean growled before lowering himself into the Impala and pulling the door shut. Sam chuckled to himself, but Dean heard it, "Car… Now…" he growled again. Sam got in the car and Dean brought the engine to life and roared off down the street, probably waking the neighbours, given the hour, but he did not care about that right now.

The trip to the factory was about twenty minutes; as the boys arrived, the solidly built guard ambled out of the small hut that was beside the gate. Dean rolled down the window and after a quick discussion, the guard went back to the hut and the gate started to roll across to the right, which allowed Dean to drive onto the lot. He turned the car around, reversing it tight up against the building, just in front of the main entrance; for a quick getaway and to hide what they would be taking out of the boot, in case the guard was watching them. They had already asked Harper about cameras and any forms of surveillance that might be around, Harper had assured them there wasn't any; the PTB's were too tight for that, at least while the building was just a shell.

Dean and Sam both grabbed a shorn-off shotgun and plenty of salt rounds; there was no telling what they might find inside. Both also carried EMF readers and their small torches were turned on, ready to guide the way in the dark interior. Dean entered the building first, followed closely by Sam, "Let's stick together." Sam asserted. "Are you kidding me… that is going to take all night, a place this big? We split up, cover the ground faster; work out what or who is haunting this place and then back down until we can salt and burn the body." Dean countered. "I'll take the left side of the building, you take the right," he added before he peeled off to the left moving through the mainly open floor plan that had been left behind by the demolition crew.

The old soap factory was essentially the same height as a six-storey building however, it was only, made up of four flights, each with equally high ceilings, which made its conversion to a warehouse apartment block appealing. The main entrance was dead centre and walked into an open main reception area, behind which was a series of smaller rooms where clerks and administrative personnel would have worked, if the place had ever become operational. To the left, where Dean was heading, were the bigger offices, where salespeople, lead scientists and the like would have had office space. Behind that, the first quarter of the building was floor space where the actual making of the soap would have occurred; the so-called factory floor. When the business was starting up, it would have been full of vats and machinery. The workspace ran the width of the building and all the way down the back and was comprised of only two levels; the space was vast and nearly devoid of any walls, a few, very thick pillars were the only structures left and these were holding up the second floor and the roof itself. The other half of the front of the building was more office space, a veritable rabbit warren of corridors and small rooms that would have housed all the other workers, bar those on the factory floor.

Dean's Night

Dean found a door that opened onto the staircase leading up to the second level of the factory floor; taking the stairs two at a time, his gun resting carefully in front of him, he made his way up. The stairs wove upwards and then turned back on themselves before another door barred the way. Dean opened it slowly, his gun ready, to find himself standing on the second floor of the factory part of the building. This floor was more like a mezzanine level, a floating floor that consisted of suspended platforms, from which the scientists or workers could take samples from the vats or add in chemicals as needed. Dean looked over the edge of the platform he found himself standing on and saw that the ground was a very long drop below. Shaking his head, and whispering quietly to himself, about being careful, he moved forward with stealth.

He had made it across the first platform, to where a more solid wall appeared to be floating mid-air. In the middle of the wall, was a closed door. Dean pulled on the handle softly and the door opened outward with a loud creak. Inside he realised he was standing in an old control booth of sorts. This is where everything would have been monitored from, windows looked out along the length of both factory floors and nothing would have been missed from this vantage point. On his left, Dean noticed another door and made his way over to it, his gun always ready. As he neared the door, his EMF detector started going ballistic. Dean dragged it out of his pocket and shut the racket off. His head swinging from left to right, following the beam of white light being emitted from his torch, but he could not see anything. Dean opened the door carefully; he was now standing in a hallway, which was open to the factory itself, a change in the air indicated this fact clearly. There was a series of doors to his left, the wall of the control room on his right. Dean opened the first door on his left and walked in the room. It had probably been a conference room, it was long and kind of skinny, another door exited it at the far end, Dean was just about to turn back, deciding there was nothing to see here when the door slammed shut. Dean cursed softly, as he reached out to open the door again; turning the handle had no effect, the door was jammed or locked. Dean heaved on the door, but nothing happened, he turned quickly and ran for the door at the other end of the room. He grabbed the handle yanking hard on the door, but it too would not open. As Dean stepped back to assess the situation, he felt the temperature of the room drop suddenly. A haze of mist floated in front of his face as he exhaled slowly. The hair, on the back of his neck, rose and he slowly spun around to face the room.

Nothing.

And then…

A spirt.

No, not just one spirit, two spirits.

Standing there, staring at him.

One, a smallish looking girl of about twenty years old, or so; the other a much taller, gangly even, male, who must have been forty years old, or so, when he died.

They watched him carefully.

He watched them back.

Reaching into his pocket, very slowly, he pulled out his phone and dialled Sam, one eye on the spirits, the other on the phone. The phone rang in his hand, and he pushed the button to activate the speakerphone. It happened, just as he heard the phone pick up, a spirit rushed at Dean. He had been so busy keeping an eye on the spirits in front of him that he hadn't even seen the one to his side.

It had been a very large man, with a balding head and heavyset eyes. Now, it was particularly grotesque with greyed out features and black-rimmed eyes. It was one seriously pissed off spirit. The spirit launched Dean into the air as it collided heavily with him; Dean went straight through the wall of the room and suddenly found himself back in the hallway outside. Pain shot through his shoulder, which had taken the brunt of the impact, on both walls, the wall he came through and the one he smashed into. Dean groaned as the pain raced out of his shoulder and down his spine. He had just managed to roll himself over when he was lifted up into the air and thrown down the hallway. Dean had no chance, he bounced once at the end of the hallway before rolling hard and falling head first down the staircase that leads to the ground floor of the factory. The crashing sound Dean's body made, as it rolled and bounced its way down the stairs, echoed across the floor. When he hit the ground, after that long fall, his body had so much momentum that it was propelled clean across the factory floor another twelve feet or so. Rolling over, and over as it flew across the ground. When his body lost its momentum, Dean was still conscious, barely, and he found himself facing the stairs he had just fallen down.

The room was dark, but Dean could just make out the three spirits, standing at the bottom of the stairs, staring at him. Afraid they were going to come for him again, Dean tried to move, but found the pain was consuming his willpower, he slumped back to the floor; looking back to see where the spirits were, Dean noticed that they hadn't moved an inch. Watching them, watch him, Dean had a sudden thought, he tried to stick with it, but the pain got the better of him and he passed out.