Chapter 7
Early morning light streamed through the crack in the curtain casting a soft glow in the room as Dean busied himself re-packing his duffel while Sam was in the shower. Lexi sat on the cot brushing out her still-wet hair.
"Hey, so what happened last night?" Dean asked as he rolled up his dirty jeans from yesterday and tucked them into his bag.
"I couldn't sleep, so I went for a walk. Sometimes helps," Lexi answered distractedly, not even looking over at Dean.
"How did you walk far enough to get yourself zapped back, though?"
"I...well, I ran for a while…" Lexi stopped brushing her hair and considered Dean's question for a minute. "No way I went five miles though. Didn't Cas say five?"
"Yeah, he did," Dean said, sitting on the end of the bed. "Wait, you ran?"
"Got spooked, so I took off." Lexi shrugged, hiding the slight shudder and went back to brushing.
"By?" Dean stared directly at her, trying to catch her eyes.
"Three guesses and the first two don't count." Lexi returned his stare and watched a flash of anger cross his eyes.
"So he did show up." Dean dropped his shoulders, letting the defeat wash over him. "Took him long enough."
"Hey, one thing I never understood...I know Cas took the Lucifer-vision from Sam, but how did Cas get rid of it?"
"We have no idea, never did figured that one out. But, Cas was off his rocker for a while from it." Dean scrubbed a hand through his hair absently. "If Lucifer told you he has control over who he's in, I'd guess he just left on his own. But, that doesn't explain why he needs you to get back to Sam. Doesn't make sense. I'm sure there's some angelic rule we don't know about."
"Huh. Yeah, that doesn't make sense." Lexi dropped her brush into her open bag on the floor next to the bed. "Maybe I can ask him. I know he wouldn't answer a direct question, but maybe I can get it out of him somehow."
"Nuh-uh, no way, Lexi," Sam said as he crossed the room pulling a flannel up over his shoulders. "Don't even talk to him."
"But if we figure out the rules, how he's doing what he's doing, we can stop him from getting to you," Lexi replied, her voice raising slightly in defense. "It might be the only way we fix this."
"Yeah, and the more you talk to him the stronger his hold on you gets," Sam said calmly, sitting on the edge of cot. "That's how he kept me awake for a week straight, I made the mistake of letting him in just by talking to him. Just ignore him. I mean it."
"So it's fine for you to want to practically invite him in?" Lexi's voice was getting louder now, her brow furrowing as anger rose. "But I can't even try to get some information out of him when he's already here?"
"Yup." Sam crossed his arms over his chest and stared at Lexi.
"You're an ass, Sam." Lexi shoved off the cot and quickly crossed the room to the bathroom, casting a glare back at Sam before slamming the door.
"She may have a point, Sam." Dean stood and resumed packing his bag. "It might be our only shot."
"Oh don't start, Dean," Sam said as he crossed the room to start packing his own duffel. "I'm not letting her risk what I went through."
"So what should we do? Round two of you and Lucifer battling inside your head?" Dean stepped over to the middle of the two beds, planting his feet firmly in place. "Because that went so well last time."
"I get it, Dean, okay? I'll stop trying to find a way to let him in." Sam chucked a wadded up t-shirt into his bag with a sigh. "But I'm not going to sit around and let her get hurt. She's done nothing to deserve that. She's done nothing to deserve any of this."
"Sam, it sucks, I know," Dean said, walking up to his brother and putting a hand on his shoulder. "She doesn't deserve it, but it's what's on our plate right now. And it's not your fault, okay? None of it."
"Yeah, I know." Sam sighed, letting his shoulders drop as Dean gave him a gentle pat to the side of his neck.
"Okay. Now let's get the hell out of here," Dean said with a smirk. "We've still got a ghost to gank."
"Man, Lexi is pissed we found a motel so close to the haunting. I think she really wanted to come along," Dean chuckled as he remembered her red-faced rant about sitting on her ass watching soap-operas and eating bon-bons.
"Yeah, she kind of reminded me of you at twelve years old when Dad made you stay back with me," Sam laughed and ducked Dean's swing as they walked up the overgrown path to the old Victorian on the outskirts of town, both men with their salt-loaded shotguns tucked under their arms. The spirit, Victoria Randall, was supposedly buried in the basement after her husband had murdered her when he'd found out about her affair. It was the same story as so many of the hauntings they'd stopped before.
They approached the back of the run-down, abandoned house, quickly jimmied the door open and headed for the cellar stairs off the kitchen. Half-way down, the dank stairwell was suddenly filled with a flash of bright, white light for several seconds, revealing a stunned Lexi standing on a stair between them when it receded.
"Oh, come on!" Dean shouted when he realized what had happened.
"Okay, I think it's safe to say we don't have a five mile radius here," Lexi said as she steadied herself on the step.
"Great, the one time Cas is totally wrong on something." Sam said with a slight eye-roll. "Okay, let's get Lexi out to the car and out of harm's way."
Both men turned on the stairs, Sam giving Lexi a slight push as she groaned her frustration at being excluded like a child again. They made their way back up into the kitchen, Sam and Dean on either side of Lexi, protectively, with shotguns at the ready. As they stepped into the empty, open kitchen space all three noticed the drastic chill and their breath clouding out into the air.
"Lexi, stay behind me," Sam said as he pulled her to his back, raising his gun and scanning the room. Both men rotated back and forth over the room, waiting for the spirit to appear. Lexi let out a gasping yelp as she thumped to the floor and Sam and Dean spun instantly to face her. The spirit was pinning her down and dragging a small knife across her inner forearm, bright red blood flowing in all directions. Lexi screamed and kicked trying to push the ghost off her when the blast from Sam's shotgun echoed through the kitchen, dissipating the spirit and leaving nothing but grains of salt to rain down to the floor over the gasping woman.
"Let's get her out of here now," Dean said, reaching down to pull Lexi to standing as Sam flung the door open. Dean half-dragged a trembling Lexi out the door, and all three ran down the weed-covered path back to the Impala. Sam unlocked the back passenger door as Dean led Lexi to sit, kneeling down in front of her. "You okay?"
Lexi nodded shakily as Dean pulled her injured arm closer. Sam knelt down beside him after grabbing the first aid kit from the trunk, handing over a wad of gauze. Dean gently placed the material against her arm, applying pressure to stop the flow of blood. After several minutes he let up and started to pull the gauze away.
"Okay let's see what we have here," Dean said, looking up into Lexi's face, noticing her wet eyes and pale color. He looked down at the wound and his breath caught in his throat. "Dude, do you see this?"
Sam peered over at the arm clutched in Dean's hand and felt an icy wave rush through him. There on her arm, in neat handwriting, was an address: 9 West Street, Boston.
He watched nervously as the two hunters exited the motel room in search of a spirit, leaving the guardian by herself. In his peripheral vision he could see Lucifer, pulling his strength together in preparation. The amount of power he was gathering could only mean he was gearing up to unleash something particularly nasty this time. He would know the hunters would be otherwise occupied for some time, he'd probably been waiting for just such an opportunity.
With a quick tug at his beard he decided it was time to intervene fully now. He focused in on the spirit in the house the hunters were aimed for, and locked into her energy. When he could clearly see the silver band connecting the soul to himself, he turned his attention back to the guardian. With a curt nod, he sent the wave of energy that would trigger her physically snapping back to her charge, just as he'd done the previous night. He followed the wave of her particles across the short mile, and watched them reassemble next to the hunter.
He let a satisfied grin cross his face as he saw the hunters quickly ushering the guardian toward the door, as expected. A quick tug on the silver cord connecting him to the errant soul sent it toward the guardian. Not wanting to cause her true harm, even though the fear was unavoidable, he sent his message down through the soul knowing the three of them would surely find the meaning with no problem.
"Why the fuck is there an address carved into my arm?" Lexi shouted, pulling her trembling arm from Dean's grasp and trying to bolt up from the car seat.
"Calm down a second, okay?" Dean soothed as he pushed the much smaller woman easily back into the seat. "Let's get this patched up first, then you can freak out, alright?"
Lexi relented, letting Dean take her arm back and dropping her head into her free hand. Dean carefully cleaned the cuts then wrapped them in a bandage while Sam was busy plugging the address into the web browser on his phone.
"Brattle Book Shop," Sam said, scrolling down the page of search results. "It's an antique book store in Boston."
"Why would Casperetta in there want to tell us about a bookstore?" Dean asked as he finished securing the bandage then stepped away, allowing Lexi out of the car.
"And why the hell did she have to do it so painfully?" Lexi said, rubbing at her arm and hissing softly at the pain.
"We can figure that out later," Sam said, pocketing his phone and picking up his shotgun. "First, let's go send Victoria where she belongs. Lexi…"
"Yeah, yeah, stay in the car," Lexi said, rolling her eyes and she flopped back into the back seat of the Impala. She watched Sam and Dean make their way back up the path to the house, then pulled out her phone to look up the bookstore the spirit was so adamant she know about.
It was only ninety minutes later when the two men came back down the path, looking not too much worse for wear. Dean had a small cut above his eyebrow seeping blood, and Sam was rubbing at his shoulder, but otherwise they were unharmed. Lexi piled out of the car when she saw them coming, slightly bouncing on her heels in her excitement.
"Guys, I found something," she called to them as they neared the car, waving her phone in front of her. "Friggin' ghost was actually helpful."
"What do you mean?" Sam asked as he reached the car.
"Psychic Possessions: Types, Rites and Rituals," Lexi recited, holding her phone with the bookstore's webpage on the screen out to him.
"Holy crap," Sam said as he skimmed through the description of the book. "This is…"
"Exactly what Lucifer is doing," Dean finished with a chuckle as he looked over Sam's shoulder at the book. "So, we going to Boston?"
"Don't need to," Lexi said, grinning up at them. "I ordered it and had it shipped to the motel overnight. It'll be here by two tomorrow afternoon."
"Lexi," Sam grinned down at her as he stepped forward and scooped her up into a hug. "You're awesome!"