A/N- I forgot to mention that Judico is Latin for Judge. My decision on what to name the demon is what inspired me to write that he judged if souls in Hell were ready to be taken off the rack.
September 20, 2031
It was four days after the interrogation of one of Jud's followers and a day since the Winchesters, Emily, and Castiel had arrived in New Orleans, Louisiana and Sam was surfing the internet when he found an online newsletter that caught his attention.
A man staying at the Avenue Plaza Hotel on St. Charles Avenue not far from the hotel he, Dean, Castiel, and Emily were temporarily living in had been found hanging in his room. He was the second person to commit suicide in the hotel in a week.
Sam printed the story and read it to his brother and their friends.
"Have you looked up the history on the place?" Dean inquired when Sam finished speaking.
Sam nodded. "The Avenue Plaza Hotel housed prisoners of the Civil War and it's reputedly haunted. There have been sightings of a female ghost in the parlor and a pianist. Then there are the usual cold spots and reports of footsteps."
"But no other killings?" Castiel asked.
Sam shook his head. "No. The spirits that have been seen are considered harmless. They've never done anything to any of the guests and workers as far as anyone knows."
"So then what killed them if not themselves or the ghosts that have been seen?" Dean questioned.
"There was construction on the first floor of the building two weeks ago," Sam told him. "I was thinking maybe it woke up another ghost."
"I had a case like that just last year," Emily declared. "A wall was torn down in an old house in Georgia by its owners and they woke up a previous owner whose body was in the basement unknown to them. The man was not happy; he threatened to kill Joe and Millie and nearly choked me to death while I was trying to fight him off so I could burn his bones."
"Yeah, I guess it would be a good idea if we check things out then," Dean said. "After lunch."
Castiel shook his head while Sam and Emily grinned. Dean and his food.
A few hours later Sam and Dean went to the Avenue Plaza Hotel to interview the manager while Castiel and Emily stayed behind to do some further research on their laptops to learn more about the history of the building.
Emily struck gold fairly quickly.
"Hey Cas, I found something that just might make this hunt short."
Castiel stood from his seat at the table in their room and joined Emily who was sitting on their bed. "What is it?"
Emily pointed to her computer screen. "It says here that it is possible that some of the war prisoners were killed and buried under the first floor. The hotel claimed it was just rumors."
"Probably didn't want to scare away guests," Castiel mused.
"Well if the owner doesn't want to kill his guests he'd better let us do our job," Emily said.
Castiel smiled. "If anyone can get him to allow us to dig a hole in the hotel's floor it's you."
Emily kissed him. "Thanks for the confidence."
"Absolutely not!" Mr. Williams, the owner, exclaimed, three and a half hours later. "I will not let you dig up the new flooring. It cost me an arm and a leg to fix. I'm not going to pay for it again."
"Please," Emily pleaded. "Let us do this. If you don't the spirit may never stop."
Mr. Williams shook his head. "It's not a ghost- they have never harmed the guests before. It's just suicides. Happens all the time."
"But not at the same hotel," Emily argued. "And the spirit killing people isn't one of the ghosts your guests have seen. It's a new one who was awakened by the new construction. Please."
"There must be some other way," Mr. Williams insisted.
Emily sighed. "There isn't Mr. Williams. It's either dig up the bones and burn them or let the ghost kill more people."
Mr. Williams bit his lip. "Could you at least try to make as little damage as possible?"
"We'll try," Emily promised. "But I can't guarantee it will be salvageable."
Mr. Williams nodded hesitantly. "Fine. Give me until Monday to clear out the guests."
"Okay, we'll come Monday night and take care of it," Emily told him.
"This better work," Mr. Williams grumbled as he sat down at his desk.
"It will," Emily assured him. "Bye."
Mr. Williams waved a hand at her and then she left his office.
Monday night at around ten o' clock Dean, Sam, Castiel, and Emily entered the now empty Avenue Plaza Hotel with shovels, salt, rocksalt shotguns, lighters, and lighter fluid.
The dark and soundless hotel was eerie and foreboding. Each member of the small hunting band were just waiting for the air to grow cold and the breath they exhaled to become visible to them.
Emily stood guard with a shotgun while the guys began to break the flooring of the hotel to reach the dirt below. It took over four hours of guessing before they uncovered a femur. When Sam picked it up in his hands they knew they had found the pit where the prisoners' bodies had been buried.
Sam, Dean, and Castiel began working faster, shoving their shovels into the ground harder than ever before and uncovered a skull among some other smaller bones that seemed to be part of the hand of one of the dead people.
As a second skull was unburied a ghost wearing a Northern Civil War outfit appeared before Emily.
"Stop!" he boomed, his eyes furious.
He began trudging forward towards Dean. Emily noticed and blasted him with a round of rocksalt, causing him to dissipate.
"Hurry up guys; he won't be very happy when he comes back," Emily warned.
"No kidding," Dean said sarcastically as he heaved another shovel full of dirt into the pile he, Castiel, and Sam had created.
Castiel threw salt on the corpses that lay in the hole they'd created and Sam poured on the lighter fluid.
As he did the spirit reappeared in between the guys and threw them up against the nearest wall.
"No!" Emily yelled.
She shot at the ghost but he disappeared before he could be hit by the salt. He then appeared before her and grabbed her by the throat. Emily raised her hands up and desperately tried to free herself from his grip but he was too strong. Emily gasped for air but the ghost had blocked her airway.
"You will not stop me," the civil war spirit growled as he choked her. "If it wasn't for the Southerners I would still be alive; my son would still be alive. They need to die!"
Emily's chest hurt her. Her sight was beginning to darken. She feared she was going to die and she couldn't do a damn thing to prevent it.
"Hey! Get away from her!"
Emily barely heard the words but she recognized them as Castiel's. She heard a gun go off and suddenly she was free again.
She fell to the floor gasping for breath.
Castiel and Sam ran up to her. "Are you alright?" they asked.
"I'll be fine," Emily answered after a cough. "What about Dean?"
"I'm more than fine," a voice said from a distance away.
Emily looked up and saw Dean throw a lighter into the hole filled with skeletons and it lit up with flames.
"Rest in peace everyone," Dean muttered into the pit.
There was the sound of a few notes being played by a phantom pianist for the last time and then nothing.
All the spirits were at rest.
A/N 3- The Avenue Plaza Hotel is a real place and is reported to be haunted by the ghosts I mentioned except for the one that's killing people in this chapter. That one I made up, along with the bodies under the first floor.