Chapter Eight

As the front door of the townhouse opened Sam gave the man who stood there a questioning look, seeing the empty wine glass the man held cupped in his hand. "Doctor Landon?"

"If I answer no to that question will that make you go away?"

His voice was cultured and well spoken though an irritated note could be heard in it's underlying tone. It seemed to fit the man, though his appearance was an unlikely one for a doctor. Barefoot, tousled hair, stubble along his jaw, dressed in faded jeans and an unbuttoned white shirt, hanging loose. He looked like someone who had just gotten out of bed following a rough night. The bored and disinterested expression he wore on his face didn't help.

Use as he was to dealing with people sporting hangovers as well as having experienced a few of his own, Sam flashed his badge with practice ease, his manner direct and in control. "US Marshall Phil Campbell. I need to talk to you about Jane Smith."

"I see." Doctor Landon paused as if he was thinking through his next words. "Well you better come in then."

Walking inside the apartment Sam cast his eyes quickly around, a habit that was ingrained in him as much as breathing was for other people.

A hunter always checks his surroundings no matter what the situation.

That refrain had been drilled into him from the moment he had learned the truth about his family and it was a lesson he had learned well.

His eyes glimmered over furnishings that spoke of money and taste; rich jewel colored Persian rugs on the floor, artifacts from Africa and China displayed to their best effect upon glossy and darkened mahogany, the smell of beeswax polish and sandalwood lingering in the air. All the while Sam never lost sight of the doctor as he walked over to a wooden cabinet.

Picking up bottle of expensive looking red wine Doctor Langdon turned towards Sam gesturing with the bottle that was in his hand. "Wine?"

At the shake of Sam's head the doctor smiled. "No? You don't mind if I do?" he said, pouring wine into his glass as if Sam's answer didn't matter one way or other.

"No, go right ahead." Sam glanced around the room again, "What can you tell me about Jane?"

"Amnesia girl? Well she's nuts of course." At Sam's slightly surprised look he looked amused. "Sorry, you expected me to say something to the contrary?" he said, his voice containing no hint of apology in it.

Sam wondered if he was deliberately being unhelpful and condescending or if he really couldn't care less that a US Marshall was asking questions about one of his patients. "Actually, yes."

"Marshall." The doctor raised his wine glass up to take a mouthful, a trace of amusement still on his face. "That is your title isn't it?"

There it was again. That hint of belligerence that Sam caught in his voice earlier as if Sam's presence was nothing more than a bothersome nuisance.

Not waiting for an answer Doctor Landon began to stroll around the room, drinking as he talked.

"None of the people I work with are what you would call normal. My work puts me in contact with people who you might say are just a tad crazy or at the very least delusional. Jane, for example, - lovely girl by the way - lives in a world where monsters exist. Now you and I both know that that is as far fetched as believing that... angels walk among us. But to Jane all the stories that most people look upon as unbelievable are very real to her. Of course believing in something is one thing, but talking about it, telling the world that vampires and demons exist... well that is something quite different."

"So it's okay to believe in something but not okay to talk about it?"

Doctor Landon smiled smugly, the moment of seriousness that had flashed across his face gone from his face in a instant. "People hear what they want to hear. Tell them that Father Christmas or the Easter Bunny exist and they probably go along with it, but tell them that every monster that they've been brought up to be afraid of exists. Well you fill in the blanks." He paused, sipping his wine. "You know this wine is really very good. Are you sure you don't want a glass?"

Sam ignored the constant shifting in the doctor's attitude, deciding that the man really was just an obnoxious and smug prig. "I'm sure. So if Jane's 'nuts' as you say, what caused it? Something must of triggered it."

"You're right of course. There's always a trigger. Then again there is the school of thought that everything is preordained and that no matter how hard you try you can't escape destiny. Was it Jane's destiny to end up the way she has? Maybe, maybe not. What I will say is that for Jane the triggered involved a great deal of violence. The kind of violence you can only begin to imagine. She got in the way of the wrong sort of person. And as we all know that sort of thing never ends well. That scar on her face wasn't put there by accident you know."

Sam held back his shock. He had already had begun to suspect that this was the case though hearing it spoken out loud confirming his suspicions was quite different to merely having the thought in the back of his mind. "You mean someone did that to her on purpose?"

"Indeed they did."

"Do you know who?"

The doctor shrugged his shoulders. "She never said and I never asked. There are some things you don't question a patient about. Especially one in such a fragile state as Jane. Push her too hard and you'd never know her reaction."

Sam had to admit to himself that he could vouch for that, having seen her bail Dean to the wall of their motel room first hand. "Is she violent?"

"If you mean is she capable of violence? Then the answer would be yes. Would she intentionally hurt someone? Eh... probably. I'm guessing though you're talking about something quite specific."

"A woman Jane was friend's with was killed. Someone ripped out her heart."

Sam waited to see if his last words would have any effect on the man as he watched him refill glass.

"Ah... the penny drops. And you're wondering if Jane did it?"

Frustrated Sam kept his reply short. "Yes."

"I see. Well then no she didn't."

This time Sam's frustration at the doctor's snarky attitude slipped from his control. "Just like that? You say she capable of violence but that she wouldn't kill someone?"

"I never said that. Jane is more than capable of killing someone. But you asked if she killed this woman and I'm saying that she didn't."

"You sound very sure."

"Oh but I am. But my certainty isn't into play here. Yours on the other hand is." Doctor Landon placed his wine glass down, his face now completely serious as he looked at Sam intently, the directness of his gaze demanding Sam's attention. "So the question is do you think she killed this woman?"

SN*SN*SN

"Someone cut up her face on purpose?"

Unlike Sam Dean couldn't quite keep the disbelief from showing on his face.

"Sounds that way," said Sam, glancing over at Jane who was sitting on the edge of one of the beds, her concentration directed at the deck of cards that was laid out on the bed's surface as she played a game of patience.

"Jesus." Dean cursed under his breath, the word laced with shock and sympathy as it came out with quiet force, casting his own glance at Jane . "Well that explains a lot."

Sam could only agree with Dean. It did explain a lot just not everything and it was the everything that they needed to know because without it they were just fumbling around blind without a clue what they were going to run into. And Sam was pretty sure, make that certain, that they were going to run into it one way or other.

"Yeah, it does. Whatever it is that's hunting her it's not interested in killing her. At least not yet. It's enjoying this. It wants to torment her, drive her to the edge before it goes in for the kill."

A sigh escaped Dean's lips.

The sigh itself wasn't unusual, people did sigh after all, but it was the weariness, the sheer exhaustion that Sam detected in it's whispered breath that reminded him of all that was wrong.

It was wrong that Dean had died and gone to Hell.

It was wrong that he had been left on his own and that the only person that had helped him through it, the only one who had understood him, had been Ruby.

And it was wrong that since coming back from the dead Dean wasn't the same.

Hell had taken away a part of him. And Sam hated that. Hated that Hell had done that to him. Hated Dean for letting Hell take a piece of him, a piece of him that it had no right to.

But most of all what was wrong was how things were between them. How neither one could open up to the other, how they kept secrets from each other, how they pretended that everything was okay when really they both knew that it wasn't.

Pretending everything was fine seemed to be a Winchester specialty.

"I've heard some sick stuff before but this is pretty twisted, even for us. We've got Sybil over there whose got something even nuttier than her playing cat and mouse, and she's the mouse."

And just like that everything was back to the pretense of normal and fine as Dean drew on whatever inner reserves he had and Sam pushed his feelings back and said nothing about his concerns focusing his attention back on their present situation as he spoke.

"And the only thing between it and her is us."

"Yeah and you know what that means?" replied Dean without hesitation.

"We're now the mouse."

"This has gotta be a first. Usually we"re the ones doing the hunting not the other way around. That doctor he didn't give you any clues, any ideas about who or what it could be?"

"If he knew he wasn't saying." Sam's earlier frustration and anger at the doctor's careless attitude still lingered and his next words came out a little harsher than he had intended as the anger bubbled to the surface. "Basically he didn't give a damn about her. I pretty much got the impression he thought he had better things to do that worry about one of his patients being arrested for murder."

Dean gave a droll smile. "So the guy's a dick."

Sam half smiled back as the anger he felt vanished in a flash at his brother's simple but truthful summoning up of the guy. "Pretty much."

"Well all I can say is we better hope that Bobby comes up with something."