“Ghost hunters.”
One Hundred Seventy-Four Days
Sam had been wrong about the sigil when he first saw it, it wasn't the Sign of the Mortuary, it was the Sign of the Obelisks.
"Here it is." Sam slid the book he'd been pouring over to the middle of the table so he could point out the sigil to Harry. It was one of the books Sam bought from Hogsmeade, a book on runes that was becoming invaluable.
"Obelisks?" Harry read. "What's it mean?"
"It's designed to block spirits, traditionally to keep them out of places where they weren't wanted. But," and Sam was guessing, but it was an educated guess, "I think that it could be blocking them from moving on. See how similar it looks to the other one? It could have been designed on purpose, or an accident. Sigils and runes are tricky, if you don't get every detail perfect, you could completely change the meaning."
"So did someone want to let the spirits out or keep them in?" Harry wondered. It was a good question, he was a smart kid. Sam noticed he was more interested in something if it had real life uses, which most things did, especially in their lives.
"That's what we need to find out," Sam said, pushing away his book on runes. They had completely taken over the bed in the motel room, burying it in books and papers and printed copies of the sigil.
Sam grabbed his laptop and read his search out loud while he searched, giving Harry an idea on how to start.
"I usually put the address in the search bar, dig through all the articles linked to it and make a note on who lived there when. It's trickier if there's no public history about the house, then I have to get the government records on the history of sales and owners. Watch what I do…"
Harry was quiet while Sam did his research and wrote down each occupant, where they died, and where they were buried when he could find that information. The original owners seemed the most likely to have drawn the sigil, they moved there from Haiti and the husband was reported as a shaman. They had connections to spiritual knowledge.
"So… we have to destroy the rune and salt and burn their bodies?" Harry asked. "What if the other people who lived there are still there? Would we have to salt and burn all their bodies?"
"They may not be malicious spirits," Sam said. "Destroying the sigil and the spirits that are killing the others should allow them all to pass through peacefully."
"Why are there some ghosts that stay and don't turn evil?" Harry asked. It was a good question, Sam didn't know the answer actually.
"I'm not sure," Sam said thoughtfully. "I've never met a friendly spirit. Usually we don't show up until they've become disenchanted with their state of limbo and started taking it out on the living."
"You're the only one who's used to living with Casper the friendly ghost," Dean said, finally chiming in. Dean spent the entire study session laying on his bed and munching chips, not that Sam would have asked him to help.
Dean was terrible at research and he was distracting and Dean sold his soul to give Sam a second life, Sam wasn't going to ask him to do anything he didn't want to. Even when Sam was spending every waking second researching demon deals and how to find a specific demon to break a deal, Sam wasn't going to ask him to help.
Dean did enough, Dean did a lifetime's worth of enough.
"Letting the spirits all pass through is a kindness," Sam assured Harry. "It's torture, staying with the living when they can't ever really join us."
"Okay, so how do we know that the original owners are the spirits killing people?" Harry asked, another good question. "What if they didn't draw the sigil or kill anyone?"
"Then we have to move to the second set of owners and salt and burn their bodies," Sam explained. "Except if we check the patterns of the kills, it usually gives a clue to what spirit is doing it. See how the original owners died three weeks apart? So did every couple who lived there after them. Odds are, they're replaying their own deaths."
"So he killed himself and then she killed herself and now they're killing other people? That's crazy," Harry said. "Even Peeves the Poltergeist has never killed anyone."
"Maybe ghosts of magic are different," Sam mused thoughtfully, caught up in the conversation for a minute. It was a normal one, for them, and it didn't involve Sam's death or Dean's deal or Harry's horrible tournament. Just ghosts and spirits and what made them behave differently.
"It could be their magic keeps them more connected to the world than others?" Sam wondered. "Or it keeps them from losing their humanity entirely. I wonder if there's books on it in Hogsmeade."
"We can check tomorrow!" Harry suggested eagerly. "Because what if there's a way to fix muggle ghosts? Make them more like magical ghosts so they don't go around murdering people?"
"Tomorrow?" Dean locked in the conversation then. "Why are we going to Hogsmeade tomorrow?"
"It's… my day to go?" Harry said slowly. "Professor Dumbledore's got the information for the second task and we were going to go over it and make a plan."
And they were right back to the death tournament.
"Oh, fuuuuck." Dean groaned and threw himself right back on the bed. "Great, more magical tournament prep. What will it be this time? A field full of wendigo?"
"Maybe," Harry said, really not helpfully. "I'm sure Dumbledore will have a plan though, the sword and nifflers seemed to work great. Did I tell you I'm in first?"
"I'd rather you finish last if it meant you didn't have to do the shit," Dean said.
It hit Sam then - Dean wouldn't know. Dean wouldn't be there to see Harry finish the tournament. Tonks said the last task was going to be at the end of the school year and Dean's contract ended May 24th. If Sam couldn't get him out of it, if Sam couldn't find the demon who held the deal, then Dean wouldn't be there to see Harry finish the tournament.
"Let's take care of this tonight," Sam said quickly. Everything needed to be quick - the quicker they took care of the ghosts, the quicker Sam could get back to research. It didn't matter if he had to hunt down every demon in the world, he would do it if it saved Dean.
"We haven't even slept yet," Dean grumbled. "What's with the midnight ghost hunt?"
"The owners might show up in the morning," Sam said - it was half of the truth. "It'll be a quick fix - destroy the sigil, salt and burn the bones of the owners. They're buried behind the barn, according to the records."
"Brilliant," Harry agreed, hopping right up off his seat. "Can we stop and get coffee on the way though? Please?"
Sam didn't have a problem with that, even if Dean rolled his eyes and called them ‘caffeinated yuppies' when Sam took them to Starbucks. Harry probably didn't need any espresso, but if they hunt took a while then it'd be better if he wasn't yawning.
The house was still dark and empty when they returned to it. Sam got his mini-torch from the trunk, Dean loaded his pistol with salt pellets, Harry took the bag full of salt at Dean's order.
"Let's let Harry take the lead here," Dean suggested on their way inside. "It's a simple salt and burn, he can get some real mud on his boots."
Sam wasn't completely opposed to it, but he wanted to argue on the principle. Dean didn't want Harry to be a hunter, he'd fought against it since the day they met Harry. But suddenly, with a scythe hanging above Dean's head, Dean wanted Harry to get trained up.
All to make sure Sam had someone at his back when Dean was gone… so Sam hated the idea based on principle, but he still nodded curtly for Dean.
"So burn the sigil, burn the bones?" Harry asked when they were inside and Sam told him to take charge. "That's it?"
"That's it," Sam told him. He flicked on his flashlight when he realized the house still didn't have any power and waved it toward the kitchen to get to the basement. "We're following you."
Harry pulled his wand out and looked like a Winchester with Sam's flannel on top of Dean's shirt, his wand lit up with his own light, and his shoulders squared in front of Sam. It caused a weird pain in Sam's chest, something that felt like half pride and half grief.
"Hard seeing them grow up, huh, Sam?" Dean asked, jostling Sam lightly with his shoulder. It wasn't surprising that Dean was able to immediately pinpoint Sam's thoughts, it must have been the way that Dean felt a million times when they were growing up.
Harry was chipper, bouncing down the stairs eagerly. Sam wondered how much was caffeine and how much was Harry's excitement at being given the chance to lead his older brothers around.
They were halfway down the stairs when Sam heard the front door creaking and they all froze at the sound of people entering the house.
"Shit," Dean swore under his breath, turning his flashlight off the same second Sam did. "Is that the owners?"
Sam thought it might be, until he heard their voices.
"Alright, guys, we're here!" a guy's voice said in a loud and carrying whisper. "This is the Lemoine House! The site of more hauntings than any other in the state!"
"Jesus." Sam rolled his eyes when he realized who the intruders must be. "Ghost hunters."
It happened occasionally, Sam had met horror-fanatics who sought out haunted houses to ‘hunt for ghosts'. They were never real hunters, they never had any actual idea of what to do for hauntings. They only wanted a place to exploit for internet clout.
And for whatever reason? They were always such douche bags.
Dean smirked some when he pulled his revolver out, he liked scaring off fame-chasing ghost hunters. It was like his favorite thing to do when they ran into them. Since Dean was already tiptoeing back up the stairs, Sam and Harry followed behind. Sam didn't pull his gun yet, but he was glad that Harry still had his unlit wand in his hand.
They crept back through the kitchen and Dean took one side of the doorway to the living room where the ghost hunters were setting up and Sam took the other side. Dean looked over at him and grinned widely.
‘One', he mouthed silently. ‘Two…'
At the beat for three, Sam jumped in the doorway with Dean and flashed his flashlight while Dean aimed his gun at the group of idiots and started yelling.
"What the hell do you think you're doing in my house?" he shouted. "Who are you? Get the fuck out before I blow your damn heads off!"
Dean sometimes took a little too much amusement in terrifying people. As truly good as Sam knew Dean was on the inside, he really did make a scary picture sometimes.
"We're sorry!" One of the idiots, some kid that couldn't be all that much older than Harry, threw his skinny arms over his head and ducked down on the floor. "Please don't kill us!!"
"We didn't know!" Another kid cringed away from Dean and looked like he was about to piss himself. "We thought you wouldn't be here for like another few days!"
"And…" The only girl in the group, the only one of the four who wasn't cringing or whimpering, tilted her head and squinted at Sam and Dean. "We thought you were women? Ed, didn't that guy at the supermarket say that like some woman bought this place for her and her wife?"
"What?" The one that looked like he wanted to piss himself slowly lowered his arms and squinted at them, giving Sam a chance to roll his eyes at the perfectly douchey facial hair he had. "Yeah," he said. "You're not the owners!"
"We have guns," Dean reminded them while the other two guys backed up and carefully straightened out from their crouched stances. There was the one with the fur on his face that the girl called Ed, the skinny pale one with a vest full of what looked like tactical gear. Then there was a guy that looked like he was easily five years older than the rest of him who held a camera in his hand.
A camera that was pointed directly at Sam and Dean.
"And we have a constitutional right to be here," the skinny one said, puffing up like he wasn't a second away from crying before. "This is America!"
"And this is private property, Atticus," Sam scoffed. "You have no rights to be here. In fact, I think the police would call it a crime."
"Yeah? Well - well…" Ed looked at the skinny one and seemed to draw some sort of dumbass bravery from his buddy. "You should call them then," he said, calling Sam's bluff too easily. "Unless you don't want to because you're - you're ghost hunting too!!"
"Yeah!" The guy with the camera pointed his finger at them. "I knew I recognized you guys! You were at the Slenderman Convention!"
Not really, no. They had been at a haunted convention center that happened to be having some sort of a Slenderman event. It definitely wasn't on purpose and it made their job a lot harder than it needed to be.
Harry made a sound that was probably choked down laughter and he stepped between Sam and Dean and looked around at the cameras and recording equipment the others had.
"You're ghost hunting?" he asked, his accent somehow more out of place than usual. "Brilliant. I hope you're not murdered, it's not much of a good show then."
Sam couldn't tell if Harry was being extra sassy or if he was completely serious; it reminded him of himself, actually. Sam sometimes slipped past being sarcastic and funny to ‘so sarcastic everyone thought he was serious'.
"I think it would be better," Sam disagreed, slipping in the same easy banter with Harry as he always had Dean. "Think about it, every other show has a happy ending, theirs would be the most popular one on the internet if it ended with their murders."
Ed paled, but Sam could see his shoulders setting squarely after only one look at the camera. The kids weren't going to leave, not easily anyway.
"Harry, tell them that we've faced down ghosts before," Ed said, gesturing to the skinny kid.
"I've got no idea if you have or not," Harry said, blinking at them.
Because what was worse than ghost hunters involving themselves in an actual hunt? Name misunderstandings.
Sam's head was beginning to ache.
"No, he's Harry," the girl said, pointing at the pale kid with the black hair. "Who are you guys?"
"Tommy, Vince, and Mick," Dean said, not pointing to any of them with the made up names. Dean seemed even more disgusted when the ‘ghost hunters' didn't recognize any of the members of one of his favorite bands. "Look, this is dangerous," Dean said instead. "You guys need to get out of here."
"Or you should," Ed said. "We have a show to do. Alright, guys, ready?"
Harry was bouncing on his feet when the ‘ghost facers', according to the sticker on their crappy camera equipment, got into place. Sam couldn't decide if Harry thought it was exciting or if he had too much caffeine.
"Let's do our job and get out of here," Dean muttered, giving the others a filthy look. "The last thing we need is—"
The wind blew suddenly and all of the doors for the house slammed shut, the window panes closed, and they were all standing in complete darkness. Sam tried to flick his flashlight back on, but it didn't work. The only light that illuminated the room was Harry's wand.
"What kind of light is that?" The other Harry squinted at Harry's wand and Sam shifted enough to block it from view. The wand was not their problem, the problem was that the spirits knew they were in their house and were clearly pissed about it.
"It's a ghost proof light," Dean snapped. "Everyone shut the hell up. Kid, you still want to take the lead here? No shame in having Sammy take over."
There wasn't any shame, except Harry was a Winchester and must have felt shamed. Even with the cold air seeping in, the chill that spirits brought along, Harry nodded confidently.
"I'm fine," he said. "Burn the sigil, burn the bones."
"You got it," Dean said. "Lead the way."
Dean fell in step by Harry and Sam walked behind him, his revolver loaded with salt pellets and ready to shoot. The chill in the house wasn't natural, the spirits —
"The spirits know we're here and they are not happy." Ed walked backwards behind Sam and whispered to the camera in his face. "That's not going to stop us from making contact with them though."
"And if we need protection, we've got our ghost repellent charms," the other kid chimed in cheerfully. "You can buy them from our store online, the real ghost facers dot com."
Sam's eye was actually twitching when they got back to the basement door. Harry tried to open the door and Dean chuckled when it was stuck.
"I can do it," Harry insisted when Dean shuffled him to the side.
"I don't think you're going to bust the door," Dean said. "Watch this, watch where I turn my shoulder, alright?"
Sam took a step back so Dean could charge at the door and wasn't surprised at all when Dean only bounced off it and ended up crashing into one of the ghost hunting kids.
"Oh shut up," Dean scowled when Sam and Harry both started laughing at him. Dean bounced back on his feet and Ed helped up the other Harry. "You try it then, tough guy."
"I'll give it a shot," Harry said too seriously to be genuine. "Now watch where I turn my body, alright?"
Sam figured he knew where Harry was headed with his sass and angled himself so that the non-Winchesters couldn't see Harry tapping his wand to the door knob and whispering a Latin incantation.
Harry couldn't have been more smug if he tried when the door swung open.
"Show off," Dean muttered. He waved his gun and flashlight to get Harry out of his way. "I'll go first."
"I thought I was taking the lead," Harry said. "I'll go."
"This isn't play time," Dean said.
Harry took the first step on the stairs and was suddenly all Dean.
"That's why I wasn't playing."
"The kid faces one dragon and suddenly he's Mister Invincible," Dean complained quietly to Sam when they followed Harry. Sam slammed the door shut behind them, hoping that it would lock again and keep the others out.
"Ghosts are much easier than dragons," Harry scoffed. "I think you two might be—"
Whatever insult Harry was going to share, and Sam was sure it was an insult, was cut off when there was a rush of cold air and Harry was thrown over the side of the stairs directly into a wall of shelves.
"HARRY!" Dean yelled to their brother and hopped the railing on the side of the stairs to get to Harry. Sam kept his gun out and swiveled around, firing toward a shadow when he saw a woman's face appear.
It was the original owner, Sam only noted that before he fired again and temporarily blasted her away with the salt.
"Get the sigil," Dean ordered from the side of the room. "Harry's good. Let's finish this shit before something stupid happens."
Something stupid being the door at the top of the stairs splintering from force and a handful of idiots falling down the stairs.
Sam couldn't worry about them, not when the bitch-ghost decided that blocking Sam from the sigil was her top priority. Sam was firing rock salt, getting hit with the ricochets, and tried to pull his knife to slash up the sigil on the board. Burning it would be more effective, but as long as he broke the symbol enough to be unrecognizable then it could work.
He barely got a slash in before the woman blasted Sam across the room into a solid wall of concrete. It wasn't bad, Sam lost his flashlight with the hit, but it wasn't working worth a damn anyway.
The idiots weren't faring much better than Sam had been. They were tossed into their own pile of tangled bodies and crushed equipment. Ed was standing over his dark-haired friend and shaking him.
"Harry! Harry, talk to me, buddy!"
The kid was stirring when Sam crawled past them. Dean had the ghost distracted for a moment and if he kept it up, Sam could get the sigil then they could get the hell out of there.
"Hey, bitch face, come and get some!" Dean yelled as he fired off salt in the area Sam needed to get to.
Harry must have been fine, just stupid while he waved his wand in the air and mimicked Dean. "Come on, lady! You wanted to fight? Let's fight then!"
Dean freaking Junior, ladies and gentlemen.
It worked well enough though, the spirit was distracted by Dean and Harry enough so Sam could jump up right underneath the sigil and dig his knife into it. It took two marks before it was disfigured enough that the entire basement shook as spirits rose.
They were all there, every person that had been killed in the home. As they rose from the shaking ground, dust flew and filled the air until it started swirling around the original woman. Every human in the basement was pushed backward to the edges of the room and stuck in place to watch as a man rose in the center of the room.
"Jean-Baptiste," the woman breathed, her pearly white face lightening even more. "You're here."
Sam assumed the man killed himself, but there was nothing a spirit feared more than being faced with someone they killed.
"Because of you," the man snarled, confirming Sam’s quick guess on how he died. "Baron Samedi, pran lespwi sa a epi voye li desann nan flanm lanfè pou tout tan!"
The woman screamed when the man's spirit grabbed her by the face and there was a bright light, one bright and hot enough to burn up all the spirits.
Then there was nothing.
The shaking ended, Sam's flashlight flickered back to life, the basement was empty of all the spirits.
"Holy shit," Ed whispered, his voice echoing across the room. "Someone tell me we got that on film."
Sam groaned audibly when one of his idiot friends said they did.
So they didn't have to burn any bodies, but they did need to find a way to destroy that footage before Sam lost his job… again.
Harry cradled his arm at an awkward angle on their way out of the house while Dean whistled along like their case had been anything that they expected. The ‘ghost facers' were going on and on about their footage they captured as Sam tried to think of a quick and easy way to destroy it.
"I think my arm's broken again," Harry said, way too freaking cheerfully. "Does this look broken, Sam?"
Sam winced at Harry's arm and the obvious break in the middle of it. "Yeah, dude, I'd say that's pretty much broken."
"Brilliant," Harry said. "I'll have Hermione fix it tomorrow."
"Or we go get a cast tonight so it doesn't set wrong," Sam pointed out.
"And take away Harry's chance to get some sympathy from his girl?" Dean laughed and patted Harry on the back, apparently not noticing Harry's twitch when it jostled his arm. "Where's your sense of romance, Sammy?"
"Hey, can we get some footage of that arm?" Ed asked Harry once they were all outside. "Maybe you could mention how the ghost broke it?"
"That's a great idea," Sam said suddenly, only grinning when Harry seemed surprised. "Yeah, Harry, stand in front of the house. And, Ted, right? You might want to record from different angles."
"It's Ed," the other Harry said hotly. "And we only have one camera left."
"We're lucky we aren't dead," the girl said. "We can like sue the owners to get new equipment later."
Sam knew Dean knew what the plan was when they both backed up and gave Harry equally sarcastic thumbs up. Dean was grinning like a moron, which was actually kind of nice to see, Sam didn't say anything the whole time Harry awkwardly stammered through an explanation of how his arm got broken.
And then, as soon as the three Winchesters started walking toward their car and Harry couldn't be seen by the idiot ghost hunters, Sam grinned down at Harry.
"Hey, Harry, summon that camera for me."
Harry blinked at first and stalled by the car. "I might ruin their cameras if I do? Magic and electronics don't mix, remember?"
"That's the idea, kid," Dean said, leaning against the driver's door with a shit-eating grin. "We don't need Sam losing his job or you getting in some crap for waving that wand around."
"Plus, those guys are dicks," Sam said factually. "Also… it's going to be really funny."
Harry didn't seem sold until Sam mentioned it being funny, then he waved his wand at his side and summoned the video camera right out of Ed's hand. Harry tossed it to Dean, Dean tossed it to Sam, and Sam held it out the window as the peeled out of the driveway.
"See you at the next convention!" Sam yelled, dangling the footage for them to see.
It was stupid and petty and totally worth it when they drove back to the motel in a car filled with all of their obnoxious laughter.
Sam's decent mood lasted through the night and he almost slept through his alarm to go running before he remembered they had to go to Hogsmeade that day.
They did need to find out about the next tournament task and Harry definitely needed his arm fixed, preferably not by his girlfriend. Sam planned on going and making sure that it was Dumbledore who fixed his arm before all of his plans for the weekend were completely shot.
Sam had made it less than a mile from the motel before someone jogged up beside him. Sam glanced over and saw a pretty blonde dressed down in running gear looking right at him.
"Hey there, Sam," she said, her voice smooth and kind of sexy. "I've been waiting for a chance to chat."
Sam stopped running the second she said his name, because nobody human ever knew Sam on sight. Sam didn't have any weapons, but she didn't need to know that.
"Who are you?" Sam demanded, feigning with a reach toward his hip.
The girl smiled and her eyes flashed from a normal blue to completely pitch black. "Ruby," she said. "And before you threaten me with the weapon that I'm totally sure you have, just know I can help you."
Sam was screwed, totally screwed. He had no weapon, no holy water, nothing to trap her or exorcise her with. Talking was only meant to stall her until he could get back to the motel.
"Oh yeah?" Sam asked, forcing down the disgust that welled up in him. "What do I need a demon's help with?"
Ruby smiled again and her eyes were normal, but Sam knew it was a mask, that she was sick and wrong on the inside… her soul was as tainted as Sam's blood.
"With Dean's deal, of course," she purred. "I know who holds the contract and I can help you break it. Unless, of course, you want Big Bro to burn for eternity."