Supernatural: One Year Gone (14 page)

“What?” Caleb asked.

“What do the witches want?” his father replied.

Dean set down the journal and looked over at Lisa sleeping in the other bed. He got up to check on Ben in the adjoining room. He had fallen asleep in front of the television.

Dean was amazed. Not only were there Campbells in Salem during the witch trials, they were also hunters. Dean flipped through a couple more pages of the journal. In the margin Nathaniel had written the witch-marking spell:

Per is vox malum ero venalicium. Per is oil malum unus ero ostendo. Per is herb malum unus ero brought continuo. They mos haud diutius non exsisto notus.

Dean was sure that he could use the marking spell to identify a witch to help him. He wasn’t much closer to finding a
Necronomicon,
but he was sure if he found a witch the book would follow.

In the morning, Dean, Lisa, and Ben headed downstairs for breakfast. As Dean was finishing his coffee, Perry, the young girl from the clam shack, appeared at his elbow. Ben was visibly delighted. Dean, not so much.

“Hey there, Captain Morgan. How are you this morning?” Dean said with a good amount of snarkiness to his voice.

Perry cast a strange sideways glance at Dean.

“I’m great, Mr. Winchester. How are you?”

Dean frowned at the mention of his last name. Had Ben told her what it was? He didn’t like strangers knowing it. Best to stay under the radar in such a small town.

Despite her earlier wariness, Lisa chatted amiably with Perry. She was warming up to the girl, Dean noted. He just nodded and pretended to read the paper. Then a little blurb under the local police blotter caught his eye:

Salem Police have found ten abandoned vehicles in the last two weeks.

All vehicles have been impounded at Salem’s Lot and Tow.

Cars will be sold at State Auction at 11:30 a.m. today if they are not claimed.

Ten abandoned cars in two weeks is not unusual in a big city, but Salem was relatively suburban, despite its sprawl. Dean pushed himself away from the table. He really should be pursuing the
Necronomicon
and a witch to help him, but his hunter instincts were spiked. There was something not right about that many abandoned cars in a small town.

“Ready to go?” Lisa asked.

“Actually, I’m going to go check some things out. I’ll meet you back here for lunch?” Dean said.

“Dean, we said we were going to go to the clipper ships together,” Lisa said, a hint of frustration in her voice.

“I know. I know. Why don’t we go later?”

“What are we supposed to do in the meantime?” Ben asked.

“I’ll show you around,” Perry piped up.

“Yeah sure, Perry must know the place pretty well. Let her show you the town. I’ll be back soon,” Dean said.

He kissed Lisa on the cheek and left the dining room in a rush.

He drove round the block and then stopped to change into a suit, before heading out into the morning traffic.

* * *

Three car lengths behind Dean, Sam pulled the white van into the same lane.

“This van sticks out like one of Heidi Montag’s nipples. Couldn’t we get something a little less conspicuous?” Sam asked.

“Stop complaining and follow your brother,” Samuel growled. “We need to find out what he’s up to.”

“Because of these witches, right?” Sam said.

“Exactly, these witches are bad news, they’re making monsters. Netting them will make me happy,” Samuel said. “Any questions?”

Sam had plenty of questions but kept them to himself.

Dean pulled into Salem’s Lot and Tow. A skinny kid appeared from a little shack perched on the side of the lot.

“Hey man,” Dean greeted the kid, “my sister lost her car. We think it may have been stolen. Can I take a look in your lot?”

The kid shrugged.

“You’d have to prove registration and pay the fees to get it out.”

“Or you sell it,” Dean said.

“Well, not me, it goes to the police fund actually,” the kid said.

Dean nodded. He hopped out of his car and headed toward the vehicles lined up in rows.

“What kind of car did she have?” the kid asked, falling into step beside Dean.

“I’ll recognize it when I see it. Where are the ones that were found the past couple weeks?”

The kid pointed out several cars off to one side. Dean walked over to them with purpose, as if he saw one he recognized.

The first vehicle was an old red Camry, a hand-me-down to a teenager type-thing. Dean made sure the kid had gone back into his hut, and then slid into the driver’s seat. He flipped open the glove box hoping to find the registration, but it was empty. He looked underneath the seats, ran his hands over the door panels, peered under the mats, then finally noticed something shoved into the heating vent.

Popping the grate out threw a cloud of dust into the car. Inside was a small bag tied with a red string, very like the one that had made Lisa so sick. Dean cut it open with his knife and its contents fell into his lap. He identified withered herbs, a nasty bloody chicken feather and a chicken vertebra. Either the previous owner had been a witch, or a witch had put the bag in the car to keep it off the spiritual radar.

Dean heaved himself out of that car and checked the next one. Sure enough, inside was the exact same hex bag. Perhaps Dean wasn’t going to have to look far to find a witch. But why all the abandoned cars? Dean decided to see if the police had any missing person reports.

“Duck!” Samuel shouted as he saw Dean pull his car out into traffic.

Sam and Samuel were parked right outside the lot—they hadn’t expected Dean to pull out so soon. If he had turned his head to the right, he would have seen them.

Fortunately Dean never bothers to look both ways when pulling into traffic,
Sam thought to himself.

“Where’s he going now?” Samuel growled.

Sam gunned the engine and followed his brother into the traffic.

The Salem police station was a large freestanding brick affair. Sam and Samuel parked the van across the street, and watched as Dean mounted the steps to the door.

“It looks like he’s working a case, not hunting witches,” Sam observed.

“He’s all ADHD. Believe me, he’s tracking the witches,” Samuel said.

“Why are you so sure?”

“I just know,” Samuel replied tersely.

“Fine. Forget I asked,” Sam muttered, watching the door of the police station.

Inside, Dean went to the desk clerk and asked to see the missing person reports.

“Well, most of thar ain’t missing no more,” the fat desk clerk said with a thick Massachusetts accent.

Dean nodded. “I totally get the whole Barney Frank thing now.”

“Donch get yar mening.” The clerk looked perplexed.

“Can I speak to your supervisor?” Dean asked.

The desk clerk eased himself out of his seat and led Dean to his captain, an older guy who sat behind a desk in a glass-fronted office. Dean was immediately struck by the captain’s striking resemblance to Chief Wiggum in
The Simpsons. Sam would love this dude,
he thought.

Dean badged the Captain.

“Agent McBrain. Can I have a look at your local missing person reports?” Dean demanded in his best authoritative voice.

“Don’t you guys up in DC have it in your computer?” the captain responded grumpily.

“Ah yes, the computer,” Dean replied. “Well, we do, but I wanted to check for any recent ones that you hadn’t filed yet. You’ve had ten abandoned cars found these past couple of weeks. Seems to me like you might have ten reports to go with them.”

This seemed to perturb the captain.

“No need to make everyone crazy. A couple of abandoned cars don’t seem like much trouble,” he said.

Dean smirked—this guy was hiding something.

“It
is
a problem if those cars belong to missing people.”

The Captain stood up and lumbered over to a cabinet. He pulled out a thick manila file and threw it onto his desk.

“Was goin’ to wait till the summer was over.”

Dean stared at him, incredulous.

“Really? You were going to wait until the summer was over to file the reports? Why?”

The captain shrugged.

“You can’t have dead bodies coming up outta nowhere. Scares off the tourists.”

“Wait! What dead bodies?” Dean grabbed the file from the captain’s desk. He flipped through it quickly. Inside the folder were ten individual files, each with a crime scene photo attached. Nine of the ten victims were young women. “Wait a second, all these bodies you’ve found here, in Salem?” In every one of them the cause of death was listed as asphyxiation. “How did these people actually die?”

“Don’t know. Still lookin’ into it,” the captain said.

Dean was pissed. He wasn’t really a higher rank then this guy, but if he had been, he would have throttled him for sure.

“Have you reported this to the federal authorities?” Dean demanded.

“You’re here now,” the captain pointed out. “Besides, don’t hurt no one. These here are transients.” The captain pointed to the file. “Probably gangbangers from Boston.”

“She’s about as much a gangbanger as my grandmother,” Dean said, holding up one of the crime scene pictures. It depicted a young girl with blonde hair, her face mottled with bruising. Around her neck was a peace pendant.

“Gangbangers? Really?” Dean spat. “Wait until Washington hears about this!”

He thrust the file under his arm and stomped out of the office.

As he walked away, he heard the captain again mumble something about scaring off the tourists.

Outside the police station, Dean tried to calm himself down. He needed to find out who or what had killed those people; they deserved some sort of justice.

Dean opened up his cell phone and dialed a number.

A business-like male voice answered, “FBI.”

“Yeah, this is Agent McBrain from the Boston office. You need to come down to Salem and see this shit. Ten girls dead, local police playing keep-away with the information,” Dean said brusquely.

“What’s your ID number, Agent?”

“Oh, sure, I’ll give it to you. One moment. It’s 1—” Dean hung up the phone. Hopefully, the little ruse would piqued the FBI’s interest enough to get them to follow up and do all their CSI stuff running down the wrong people. But at least that way all the families would be notified.

Dean decided to go to the coroner’s office too, even though he knew what he’d find: each cut would be exactly the same, the same depth in the neck for maximum bloodletting. It was ritualistic killing, sacrifices. The puzzle pieces still didn’t jive though. Sacrificing usually meant that someone was trying to do a really powerful spell. But for what?

On some level Dean felt a buzz, like his brain was finally kicking into gear. He was hunting. He knew what to do. This was his world.

Dean sliced through each of the small bags so their contents scattered onto the store counter and Sukie’s bare feet.

“There are nine girls and one Justin Bieber-looking kid—all dead. All with these bags found in their cars. Why are you killing these people?” Dean growled.

As Sukie opened her mouth to speak, Dean grabbed a handful of her necklaces and pulled her close.

“And don’t give me any of that ‘I don’t know nothing about being no witch’ crap,” he breathed and then let her go.

Sukie looked genuinely scared. She glanced furtively around the store as if someone might be watching.

“Listen, it’s nothing to do with me, I’m not taking part in whatever they’re doing. I just tell them what I see and I keep to myself,” she stammered.

“So you told them about me?” Dean asked.

“Among others. I didn’t know they were killing people, I swear I didn’t. I just hear stuff. I knew something big was happening. But I don’t know what.”

“What are these bags supposed to do?” Dean asked, though he was pretty sure he knew the answer.

“They’re like invisibility bags. You know, dissipates the psychic energy of the owner so a clairvoyant can’t find them,” Sukie said.

“Who’s killing them?”