Dean had somehow managed to replace the door into its frame. He had wanted a little privacy, even though it wasn't a particularly populated part of the building. Still, three's a crowd and he didn't want to attract the staff with the sound of their voices. From what Castiel had explained, he was camping there illegally, simply because he had bribed the check-out girl. Dean had wanted to ask how Castiel's catholic principles hadn't gotten in the way of bribery, but the bit of information he had shared with them had diverted his attention considerably:
"You're telling me there's a powerful ghost drifting around town making other ghosts disappear?"
"What's he doing with them?" Sam asked, for a moment suspending his belief and accepting that Lawrence, Kansas had its own floating island of unhappy ghosts.
"For lack of a better word, he's eating them," Castiel replied.
"Eating them?" The brothers exclaimed in unison.
"Well, draining them of their energy is more like it. That's really what the spirit is, pure energy. Of course it takes an awful lot to simply harness a spirit like that."
"So you've been here tracking him?" Dean asked.
"Two weeks," Castiel nodded. "I haven't been having much luck. My last source was eaten."
Sam and Dean exchanged looks. Dean cleared his throat, "Your source?"
"One Mr. Knightfield. He died of a heart attack last Monday. His ghost was waiting for his youngest to be married before he could ship off to Heaven. Anyway, I managed to establish contact and I had him assist me. But then, in the middle of the week, he was gone. Never even got to see his boy down the aisle."
"He was gone?"
"At first I thought maybe he had finally let go and Ascended. But I began to wonder. Mr. Knightfield had been really off for a few days prior to his disappearance. He flickered."
"What do you mean flickered?" Dean asked, straightening up a bit, remembering the way Jo had started disappearing while she was still talking to him.
"Oh, you know," Castiel shrugged. "Just vanishing into thin air, like something was pulling him back. He would just pop off. Mid-sentence. In the middle of me talking. He flickered for a few days and then he was just gone."
"You think this other - malignant ghost had something to do with it?" Sam asked.
"Oh I know it did. You see, Mr. Knightfield was a particularly sensitive man in life, and, what's more, in death, not only could he communicate with me, but with the others who were dead. I never met these other ghosts of course, but I took his word for it. What's he got to lie for, anyway? In the days before he disappeared completely, he mentioned the flickering. Other ghosts disappearing. Mr. Knightfield's spirit was terrified of sharing the same fate, but before I could get anything else out of him, he was gone."
Dean ran a hand through his hair, "Son of a bitch!"
"What's the matter?" Sam looked at him.
"Jo, damn it!" Dean rasped. "It's after Jo!"
"What?" Sam frowned. "How could you know that?"
Dean kicked angrily at the wall and then turned to Castiel, "The flickering. Jo's been flickering for days. And she never remembers any of it."
Castiel gazed deeply at him, "How long?"
"God! I don't know! A few days, maybe!"
"No," Castiel growled, turning away and pacing along the bed more rapidly. "There was a reason I sought you out Dean, a reason I went as far as joining your school. I'd heard the stories, about the butcher, two years ago, about you, about the haunted factory. I needed to find Jo, I needed a reliable lead to the abomination going after the Wanderers."
Dean snarled, "You were going to use her as bait?"
"I was going to save her," Castiel snapped. "With or without your cooperation, though the former would have been helpful."
The two of them stood facing each other, shoulders tense for a long moment. Castiel was the first to break eye contact and rub his temples.
"If Jo's flickering, she's in great danger."
"Why? What does it mean?" Sam asked from the corner.
"Once this malignant ghost - as you put it, Sam - has possession of the wandering spirits, they can never be delivered to their true destination. They just disappear forever, burned out like cheap fuel. If Jo's the next target, this is the very end for her, Dean. No peace in death, no salvation."
"Jo," Dean breathed. He had lost her once already.