Ergo draco maledicte et omnis legio diabolica adjuramus te. Cessa decipere humanas creaturas, eisque aeternae Perditionis venenum propinare.
John's fists grow tighter on the steering wheel the longer they're on the road. Bobby hasn't said one word since they got into his truck and headed east. It could be because John refused to let Bobby drive his own truck, but John knows that Bobby still disagrees with him about where they're supposed to be going and he's been expecting the other man to say something the whole time they've been driving.
"What's eating your undies?"
Although, he's not really expecting that.
"What?" John turns enough to frown at Bobby from the corner of his eye.
"You've been twitchy since we got to Seth's place," Bobby humphs from the passenger seat and drums his fingers against the bottom of the window.
John grinds his teeth together and watches the road, which is a pitiful effort at distracting himself because the highway is straight and long in front of him with fields on either side of him. Half-formed thoughts spring up in his brain, but it's easy to keep whatever words he wants behind his teeth, like a trap.
"We'll get 'im back," Bobby says.
"It's not that," John says immediately.
He feels Bobby's eyes on him in the sharpness of focused attention, but John shuts his mouth again. He doesn't want to say that he's trying not to think of the end of the hunt and if they actually will get Seth back. Or about how much John actually wants that to happen.
"What, then?" And Bobby's back to snapping at him.
John shifts his grip on the steering wheel to a point where the wheel isn't so heated beneath his palms. His hands feel sweaty against the wheel, but he doesn't move them again.
"You saw that photo in the work room?" It's better than telling him about the newspaper clip in Seth's Bible.
"The one you threw across the table, you mean."
John can hear Bobby rolling his eyes even without looking over to confirm. It's something about the pressure in the truck and just Bobby's tone of voice. He ignores the whatever-it-is in Bobby's voice that sounds like a dad reprimanding his kid for being careless.
"What was it? Gentlemen's Club?" Bobby presses when John doesn't continue.
"The Men of Letters." He hates how that sounds out of his own mouth. Like it's actually supposed to be a gentlemen's club instead of a group of hunters. "My dad was in there."
"No kiddin'?"
"He left me and my mom," John spits out. Bobby's not allowed so sound so callous when John's the one that had to live without a dad.
The air in the truck feels heavy, pressing down on John's head and into his ears like water would in a swimming pool.
"You didn't know he was here?" Bobby asks.
John just shakes his head sharply.
"He left when I was four. Never came back."
He feels better with his teeth clenched together like trap doors. More in control of himself. Bobby shakes his head and stares out
"You're getting quite a legacy, Winchester."
Whoever said it's a legacy that he wants? A dead father who left to be part of a secret hunting club and—
"So he died with the rest of the Men of Letters," Bobby says.
"How d'you figure?"
"Seth said he's the only one left."
And if Seth's already dead or … gone? What happens to the Men of Letters then? John doesn't want to live in that underground mansion, like a converted tomb. But he isn't thinking about that yet. Just get to Lawrence, and do something. Figure out what Seth's been doing this whole time, and how much he knows about John. And if Seth has been following John's life from his wedding, then why didn't he show up before this? Like during the fire. Seth knows about demons and what they want. Why would he stay away?
"Why wouldn't he tell me?"
"Maybe he didn't want his family involved in hunting," Bobby says.
Then why did he come to help us anyway, John wants to ask. But Bobby isn't talking about the same thing John is.
"Look how that turned out," he says instead.
Bobby just nods slowly as if he knows exactly what John means.
He has no idea.
o0O0o
John practically drags his feet up the front steps of the house. He doesn't want to do this. There are no words to describe how much John doesn't want to do this. The house doesn't even look the same. It's been rebuilt, an entirely new color. And there's a wrap-around porch on two sides of the new house. Mary always talked about wanting a porch with a swing.
At least this house doesn't have a swing.
John knocks on the door briskly and waits. He's glad Bobby isn't here for this. They agreed to divide up their time since they're on something of a tight schedule, and John sent Bobby over to the police station to do some digging. He doesn't want an audience for this particular interview. The door opens and a woman about his own age cautiously peeks out.
"Yes?" She has both hands on the door, ready to slam it in his face.
"Mrs. Arendt?" John's hand dives into his pocket, and he flips out a business card with practiced ease. "I'm John Winchester. I work with Seth Wesson."
The card he holds out is a quick fix. He actually had to force the thing into a typewriter to add his name below Seth's.
"With Seth?" Mrs. Arendt lets the door fall open a little more as she steps forward to take the card like it's the key to getting into her house.
"Just started, actually." It's not a lie. "He wanted me to stop by here and just check up on you. See how you were doing."
That seems to be the clincher, since Mrs. Arendt looks up from the card to smile at him.
"Of course. Come in." She steps aside to hold the door open for him.
"Let me get you some coffee," Mrs. Arendt says as soon as the door is shut. "My husband should be home any minute. He just went to pick our girls up from school."
John glances at the clock on the living room wall, and yeah, it is about the end of the school day. Kids might have summer school or something. He knows there are some schools that have a really long school year, about halfway through June. But then he gets distracted by the family pictures on the wall. The Arendts look like a perfectly normal family; the two girls are a little younger than Dean and Sammy. The oldest looks maybe twelve, thirteen.
"You didn't have to come all this way," Mrs. Arendt calls over her shoulder from the kitchen. "We haven't been having any other problems." She suddenly sticks her head back into the living room, a worried look all over her face. "Unless you know of something—"
"No, nothing," John says hurriedly. "I just wanted to stop by. Make sure you—"
He waves a hand around the room since he doesn't really know how he's supposed to end that sentence.
"Oh, yes." Mrs. Arendt nods anyway, ducking back into the kitchen to finish the coffee. "We've been wonderful ever since Seth came by for the house. We've even been salting the windows and doors like he said."
She walks back into the living room with a mug in each hand.
"Really?"
John doesn't like telling the people he meets on a case about the supernatural world or the hunting business, mostly for his own anonymity. He takes the mug of coffee and sits in the only chair available, a big, fat recliner that looks like it should belong to a grandpa.
"Yes." Mrs. Arendt nods eagerly as she takes the edge of the couch between stacks of folded laundry. "I mean, it feels a little silly, but like he said, it's just like a different kind of security system for burglars."
Honestly, John has never in his life thought about explaining salt barriers like alarm systems. Maybe he should be worried about how much of a flake this woman is. But the front door opens before he can find something to say next.
A girl definitely younger than ten races upstairs with heavy shoes while the man John recognizes from the family photos on the wall enters the living room.
"Hi, honey," Mr. Arendt says with a glance at John. A pre-teen girl in ridiculous bright pink pants is hanging her backpack up in the small closet behind her dad.
"Hey, this is John Winchester," Mrs. Arendt says.
"I work with Seth Wesson." John starts to fish out another business card from his pocket. "Police consultant on occultism and—"
"Oh, right, right." The man nods away the rest of John's fake credentials, recited from Seth's card.
"I'm going to Lindsay's, Mom," the girl with the pink pants yells.
"Change out of your school clothes first!" Mrs. Arendt calls right back.
The girl trudges up the stairs while also managing to roll her eyes so hard that she has to hang on to the railing for balance. John is suddenly, briefly thankful that he has sons instead of daughters.
The almost-teenage girl thunders back down the stairs and nearly flies out the front door all while Mr. Arendt pours himself a cup of coffee and comes back into the living room, standing near the arm of the couch.
"Is there anything wrong?" Mr. Arendt has his shoulders up already, expecting some message of doom from John.
"No, I just stopped by to follow up," he says quickly. He doesn't need the guy getting defensive on him. "Your wife said you've been putting up salt barriers."
"Yeah." Mr. Arendt nods slowly. "Seemed like the thing to do, with what Seth said."
And how do these people get off calling him just Seth when Seth is supposed to be an official police consultant? Even John had called him nothing but Wesson at first.
Not the point.
"Did Seth do anything to the house before he left?"
"No," says Mr. Arendt. "He said he didn't need to, since it was just those two spirits."
Wait, what?
"Two spirits?"
Mr. Arendt eyes John suspiciously.
"Yeah," he says, "you didn't know?"
"He just started." His wife leans over towards him as if that's going to keep John from overhearing her loud whisper. But then she turns back to John as if nothing's been said. "The house had two spirits in here before we even moved in. That was what was causing all the hauntings; one spirit was keeping the other from, y'know, passing on?"
John's never heard of a case like this. He's heard horror stories about more than one ghost or poltergeist in a house, but they're usually all unfriendly spirits collected in a single space.
"They were fighting?" John says.
"Yes. It was tragic." Mrs. Arendt nods solemnly. "I guess the one trapped here was the spirit of the woman who had died in the old house."
John's heart stops beating.
"A house fire, before they rebuilt it." Mrs. Arendt looks down into her coffee. "Sounds just horrible."
"Mmng."
John doesn't recognize the sound that comes out of him. His throat is closed up and if he didn't know better he'd be worried that another demon has gotten a hold of him, squeezing his chest until it's a mess of broken ribs and squished organs.
"Did …" He stops to clear his throat. "Did Seth say … what happened to the trapped spirit?"
"She moved on," Mr. Arendt says blandly. "Went into the light. Whatever it's called." One of his hands flaps back and forth beside his head.
John's hand tightens around the coffee mug, he wants to punch the man so bad. His wife—Mary was here, has been trapped here for years.
"I think he really felt for her," Mrs. Arendt says. "He looked so sad when he came back out."
Dammit, how long had Seth known? How did he even find out? John's clothes feel itchy, and his skin is even worse, like it's too tight for his body.
"Right." He stands abruptly and sets the still-full coffee mug on the side table. "Well, if you ever have any other problems—"
"Of course." Mrs. Arendt stands, too, smiling at him. "We appreciate your stopping by, Mr. Winchester."
Sure they do. That's why Mr. Arendt is smiling tightly at him while his eyes follow John all the way out the door. That's fine. John just needs to get out. He needs to leave. John tumbles down the front steps of the porch and lands on the sidewalk in front of the house that still looks wrong to him, puts his head between his knees, and breathes.