SIX MONTHS LATER
"These are, like, seriously classic deaths!" Dean was way too excited about their newest case. Sam was fine with it, though, because it was keeping his mind off Dick. Roman, that is. "The heart, ripped from the chest, and without any weapons! It's gotta be some sort of werewolf, right?"
"Werewolves usually leave marks on the body. They open it up, they don't just reach in. Whoever pulled the hearts out went in under the ribs. None of them were broken," Sam reminded him.
"What else steals hearts, then? Without damaging the body?" They got to the latest victim's apartment and started looking around. Other than the blood the victim lost after the fact, not a thing was out of place. "This guy was a neat freak, wasn't he?" Dean deadpanned. "You find anything?" Sam was about to respond with a negative, but something caught his eye.
"The victim was a red-head, right?" He held up a long, wavy, black strand of hair. "And his girlfriend was blonde?"
"That's right. Think he was cheating?" Sam shrugged and put the hair away as possible evidence.
"It was over here, by the window. I didn't see any in the… bedroom… Dean, come here." He felt Dean approach behind him, and pointed to the windowsill. "Look at these scratches. This is why there was no forced entry." Dean's expression darkened.
"Whoever it was, they opened the latch with something long and sharp," he surmised. "Like we do. These don't look like knife marks, though." He looked at the ones on the edge of the wood.
"Claws."
At the other victims' houses and apartments, they found the same thing. The Winchesters suspected that, if they wanted to check out the other cities that had been attacked, they'd find similar clues. Scratches on a windowsill or doorframe, and one single strand of ink-black hair.
"So, the victims are all men in their sixties. Some were healthy, some were not. Some were married, some were not. They're from various cities in various states… I'm trying to find something to connect them, other than their age."
"Well, I guess we can narrow our potential freak-of-the-week to being a black-haired female, but that's about it for our monster," Dean mumbled as he flipped through a book.
"Not necessarily," Sam sighed, remembering his first year of college.
Are you ever going to cut it?
Why, don't you like it? It makes me feel pretty.
And witty, and gay?
Like you're one to talk, Shaggy!
Sam couldn't help the smile forming on his face. "There are guys that keep their hair long. Some cultures even believe that, to cut someone's hair, is to cut off their power, or life force."
"Still, I'm not finding anything!" Dean shut the tome with a thud and shoved it away in irritation. "We've got no one to ask, and no idea how long this thing is staying in town."
"At least we have a connection between the victims, now." Sam dropped an obituary page on the table, and Dean lifted his head to look at it. "The last vic was a collector of antique books. In fact, I plan on stopping by before we leave town to… confiscate some of them." Dean sat up to pay attention. "The one before that collected occult objects. He had a few charms and things at his place. He's got a storage locker down town with heavy security. I bet we'll find more there. Before that was the herbalist, the historian, the accountant…"
"Ok…" Dean looked up at him in confusion.
"I did some digging- a lot of digging, and found out that they all worked on this big project about forty years ago. A few of them went on this big expedition to find something. Whatever it was, no one made note of it or published anything about what they were searching for. The ones that didn't go, like the accountant, were working from home, in the background, to make sure everything went smoothly for the team. One guy in Austin was a cop at the time, and he made sure some of their less legal activities weren't found out." Dean's eyes went wide.
"Woah, talk about conspiracy, man! So, how many of these dudes are left?"
"One. Wayne Gregory. I've got his address, too."