AUTHOR'S NOTE: the setting and timing of the story is always in the author's note.
Set Pre-SPN Satanpocalypse, Post-Ghost Story, with flashbacks circa Storm Front. This particular tale takes place during (and is written in the same style as) the events of Unfinished Business.
This chapter is set after Ghost Story.
The ex-cop set a pink bakery box of donuts on the coffee table. Dean grabbed a white-frosted, sprinkle-coated monstrosity and took a huge bite, oblivious to the sizing-up they were getting. He still smelled a little like burnt polyester.
The house was warded.
Sam had seen the sigils carved into the threshold and the door frame, small enough that they would have escaped (someone else's) notice – white magic, very subtly done. Anybody, human or not, would have a hard time trying to get in uninvited.
Of course, his brother hadn't noticed. He probably hadn't noticed the print of a pistol beneath her Nike jacket, either, or the one at her ankle, and Sam would bet dollars to sprinkle donuts that Dean hadn't seen the glint of a metal summoning ring set into the linoleum floor of the kitchen. His brother is an excellent hunter, but show him a pair of big blue eyes or a box of baked goods and any instinct that doesn't result in sex or breakfast seems to shut down to conserve brain function or something.
They had made the mistake of showing up in suits, carrying badges. Sam had rung the bell and at first he thought a young girl had answered, looking up at him like she had seen a ghost.
Literally – he had seen that exact expression before on the faces of people who were seeing actual ghosts.
It was a grown woman, he had realized as they stared at each other, the panic on her face shifting into a heartbeat's worth of excitement, deep disappointment. The morning breeze pulled the longer strands of her hair across her face and she tucked them behind her ear, her expression slipping into a mask of neutrality, something practiced.
"Can I help you?"
"Good...uh, good morning, ma'am. We're looking for a Sergeant Murphy who used to work for Chicago PD."
She poked her head out the door, glancing around. "You're in an Irish Catholic cop neighborhood, buddy. Just stand out in the street and yell. I'm sure you'll find a few."
"Ma'am." Dean stepped forward, authoritatively flashing his fake badge. "We're Special Agents Angus and Young from the Department of—"
"Bullshit?"
"...Pardon?" asked Dean, blinking.
"Department of Bullshit. Nice job with the...what was that, AC/DC?" She gave him a thumbs-up. "You tried."
Sam's eyebrows climbed toward his hair. His brother was stunned into a state of monosyllabic grunts.
"I know who you are and what you do. My friend Butters – you met Butters – he texted me and said he had his homeboy run some photo-recognition on you guys." The woman held her phone out. A short list of last whereabouts and known aliases fresh from the FBI database took up the screen. She smiled, saccharine and lethal. "The brothers Winchester. Says here you're dead."
"We got better," Dean grumbled, shoving his badge in his pocket.
"Good for you, champ." The woman, who Sam was now sure was Sergeant Murphy, stared up at them, unamused. "You can cut the crap. I've dealt with paranormal investigators before, there's no need for melodrama."
"Hear that, Sammy. We're 'paranormal investigators' now."
"For the Department of Melodramatic Bullshit."
"Has a ring to it."
"We'll have to make new badges."
"Good luck finding your cop, Special Agents Douchewaffle and Taller Douchewaffle," she said brightly, moving to shut the door.
"That might be hard to fit on a badge."
"Now listen here, lady—"
"No, don't touch the—" Sam tried to stop him, but Dean tried to hold the door open anyway. There was a snap of what might have been electricity and his brother was flung backward, yelping, off the porch and into the nearest rosebush. From somewhere in the house, there was a noise like a red alert from the original Star Trek series. "Door. Nice wards."
His brother got to his feet. Slowly. Faint wisps of smoke curled from the collar of his jacket. He dusted himself off, smoothed his hair, straightened his tie, muttering darkly. "Son of a bitch."
Sam turned back toward the woman and moved a polite and careful distance away from the threshold. "Your ME said you might know something about the case we're working on. Would you mind if we asked you a few questions? I promise we won't take much of your time."
She stared up at him for a long, silent moment, something pained in her expression as she pressed a few fingertips to her forehead and sighed.
"Sure. Why the hell not."
...Maybe they should have stayed on the porch.
Sam's shins bump against the coffee table every time he moves, and he shuffled awkwardly under the weight of her gaze.
"Thanks," he said as Sergeant Murphy set two cups down in front of them. She sat down in the recliner near the fireplace. The wards hummed at the edge of perception, like music playing quietly in another room. Dean chewed his donut enthusiastically.
"Definitely not freeze-dried Taster's Choice," he said approvingly as he took a sip of coffee.
"Um," Sam said, trying not to bump the table again. This house was not set up for someone as tall as him. "Thanks for taking time to talk to us, Miss Murphy – uh, is it Miss or Mrs.?"
"Just Murphy," she said. She smiled briefly at Sam as the cat pawed at his hair – the woman had kind features balanced by a stubborn jaw, a thin, faint scar running parallel to her left cheekbone, almost unnoticeable. "Karrin, if you want. So Butters gave you my address?"
"The coroner in South Bend gave us the number of a Mr. John Stallings, who directed us to Dr. Butters, who said we should talk to you."
"Well." She stared daggers – possibly throwing stars – at his brother over her cup of coffee. "His slippers may be bunnyish, but he knows what's up."
"Your ME said you'd dealt with... with the kind of thing we deal with." Dean smiled, laying it on a little too thick. "So how long have you been in the business?"
One blonde eyebrow arched dangerously. "Longer than you, sweetheart."
He could all but hear the steam coming out of Dean's ears.
"I think what my brother meant was," Sam said, trying to put as much of himself between them as possible, "what kind of thing do you deal with here? Chicago is a big town, but how much could really go on—"
"How about body-swapping necromancers, an incursion of Formor and a few different kinds of vampire," she picked up his mug and slid a coaster beneath it, "not to mention the usual idiots dabbling in sorcery, possessions and hauntings."
"What do you mean, different kinds of vampire? There's only one kind of vampire."
"Technically speaking, anything that feeds off of a mortal is a vampire." Murphy's expression darkened. "I guess 'sub-species' is a better word for it..."
They both nodded for her to continue.
"Well. There are your standard B-movie vamps, then incubi and succubi, who feed on mortal life force – fear, despair, sexual energy, and then the undead." Her voice was flat, distant. "And all the ones I've met are organized."
"Organized like Martha Stewart or like," Dean asked in an awful Robert De Niro impression, "'I want him dead, I want his family dead, I want his house burned to the ground,' organized?"
She looked away and nodded, the line of her shoulders tensed.
"Chicago," he muttered into his coffee, shaking his head. 'Even the freaking vampires are gangsters."
Sam got out his phone. "What do you think did this?"
She leaned closer as he scrolled through the photos on the screen, watching calmly, as if it wasn't images of livid corpses and half-eaten bodiless limbs.
Then she got up, walked to a bookshelf, and tossed a paperback onto the table. "Ever heard of a guy named Vlad Dracul?"
"Dracula?"
"Dracula was his son," Sam said. "According to legend, anyway. I read a theory in one of Bobby's old books stating that the Dracul line was originally a different kind of vampire, not like the kind we see at all – these guys were practically the living dead. Really hard to kill. The book called them something...the Black something? I don't remember."
"The Black Court," she grimaced, nodding. "Believe me, they're still around. I'll need to see all the information you guys have collected so far."
"This, uh." Dean tapped the title of the book as Sam dug through his messenger bag. "This is from the fiction section."
"So are faerie godmothers, bridge trolls and the Billy Goats Gruff." Murphy sat down and started thumbing through the notepad Sam handed her. "And I've met them all."
stay tuned for more...