Chapter Text
Sam and Dean had found what they thought was an easy case to re-center themselves after their run-in with the Archangel Gabriel. They had been locked in a pocket dimension based on a variety of different tv shows and commercials, and they all had one thing in common: the boys had to play their part. It was an elaborate way for the Trickster, a.k.a. the Archangel Gabriel, to beat into their heads that they needed to say yes to Michael and Lucifer, and play their part in the Apocalypse. They were born to end the world.
Dean had realized the trickster had to be an angel because he was too invested in the Apocalypse coming to fruition. You only care that much if the players are family. Once they figured out Gabriel was an angel, the brothers were able to set a trap for him, and had managed to trap him in a ring of holy oil. They were able to escape that pocket dimension while unmasking Gabriel at the same time, but the damage had already been done. Being stuck in the alternate reality had really thrown the brothers off their game psychologically, and they needed this easy hunt to fully get back in the saddle, so to speak.
They started investigating the hunt Sam had found, thinking they were looking at a simple salt and burn. The story he found in the newspaper had reported that the witnesses saw lights and items levitating. It had sounded like a straightforward haunting, which was just what they needed to get their heads on straight after Gabriel's mind fuckery. To start their investigation, they decided to meet with the witnesses and get their eyewitness accounts.
Sam began doing some of the background investigation on his computer while Dean drove the Impala. He hacked into the police reports, and found out that the witnesses were a group of local teens who said they were hanging out when they came upon the scene. “Dean, the police report says it was a group of teens who reported seeing the lights flashing and the items levitating,” Sam informed Dean after reading the police report.
“Were the kids high or drunk when they saw the phenomenon?” Dean asked Sam.
“There was no evidence of substance abuse,” Sam said as he perused the report.
Dean nodded. “Well, then, looks like you get to question the witnesses since you are closer to their age than I am. And with your baby face, they will think you are only a year or two older than them, so they will trust you more,” Dean said, attempting to keep a straight face, but he couldn’t help cackling at the end.
“Laugh it up, but you just called yourself old,” Sam said smugly. Dean wisely didn't try to fight his brother on that point.
They entered the town and got a motel room. The motel clerk didn't bother looking at their ID as they paid for the room, and they put down their normal protections in their room prior to looking for the teens to get the story of the supposed haunting first hand.
Sam and Dean cruised around the small town and found the teens hanging out at the local diner. Sam approached the teens with Dean tagging along behind him. Sam flashed his puppy dog eyes at the group as he said to the them, “Hey guys! I’m Sam, and this is my brother Dean. We heard through the grapevine that you saw some weird lights the other day, and we were curious about what you saw. We wanted to know a little more about it. Do you mind if we sit down, so you can tell us what you experienced?”
One of the girls in the group immediately caved when she saw Sam's puppy dog eyes, and made room for the brothers at the table. Once everyone had shuffled so there was room for the brothers and they sat down, she began telling the story. “The house where we saw everything go down is the local abandoned creepy house. Everyone dares each other to go in it, spend the night, whatever. You get bragging rights if you can make it through the night.
So we were hanging out and just happened to be walking by it one night, and we saw all these flashing lights coming from the windows of the house. We thought someone was throwing a rave, so we walked up to the house expecting to see a crowd of people, but no one was there. The property looked completely deserted. We looked in the windows and saw bottles, lit candles, leaves and plants floating in the air around the room. I screamed, and we ran down the stairs, down the sidewalk, and towards our homes.”
The guy sitting next to Dean added, “I looked back behind us as we ran down the road, and I saw a thin person with shoulder length hair standing on the stairs of the house. I couldn't tell if it was a guy or a girl, and I didn't stick around to get a closer look to try to figure it out.”
“Has anyone noticed anything like this before? Or was this the first time anything like this has happened at that house?” Sam asked.
“Amy, a girl in our class, said she saw something similar a couple of months ago, but no one believed her. She was always doing things for attention, like telling outlandish stories that everyone knew was made up and not real, so everyone just chalked it up to that. But, uh, she went missing about a month ago. The police couldn't find any leads,” the girl sitting next to Sam informed the brothers.
“Did she mention things floating around? Or was she talking about the lights? And what are the rumors saying about her disappearance?” Dean asked.
The girl thought for a moment then said, “She mentioned the lights but not the items floating around. When she went missing, a lot of the people in our school thought she ran away. She was the outsider. You know, she didn't fit in, so when she went missing everyone thought she left town and moved on.”
“Did you guys hear anything, or is there any additional details about what you saw, heard or maybe smelled? Anything you can remember would help. Sometimes it's the little details that can make a big difference,” Sam pressed the group, looking for more information on their sighting.
“I thought I heard a cackle as we ran away, but I wouldn't swear on it,” the initial girl said.
“And I smelled incense,” one of the boys said.
Once the brothers had ascertained that no one else was going to speak up, Sam smiled and said, “Thanks for your help,” and the brothers stood up to leave. The teens nodded, and went back to talking and laughing like the brothers had never been there.
When they got outside the diner, Dean leaned against Baby and said, “So this is sounding less and less like a simple salt and burn. We need to go to the library and research for newspaper articles about the property, and also check city records for deeds and to make sure nothing nefarious was documented as happening at the property that could anchor a spirit there.” Sam nodded his agreement with the plan. It was late, so they decided to wait for morning to implement their two-pronged investigation.
First thing in the morning, Sam went to the library while Dean headed to the town's municipal building. Since this was a small town, the municipal building, which housed all the town's records and deeds, and the police department were in the same building. The building that housed both entities was a one-story building that had a double door as the entryway, and then you turned left for the town clerk, or right for the police department. Dean walked up to the town clerk and respectfully said, “Ma’am, I am looking at buying a house, and I wanted to look at the deed information to make sure there are no liens against the property. Where would I need to go to look up that information?”
She smiled at Dean and said, “I can help you with that. What is the address?”
Dean pulled out his notebook and read off, “435 Sommerset Lane.”
She looked up the property and read the deed history. “It was part of a farmer's field that was sold to make a neighborhood. Josiah Thomas bought it, paid the mortgage in full, and lived there for forty years, until he passed away at the hospital back in 1990. It has sat there empty since then. So, there are no liens against it,” she informed Dean.
“That's great news. How would I look up whether there have been any legal issues, like cops being called to the property, that sort of thing?” Dean queried, making a mental note of all the information she had told him.
She smiled at him and said, “You can go to the police department, and the officer at the front desk can look it up and let you know.”
“Thank you for helping me,” Dean said, before taking his leave.
He left the clerk's office and stood in the hallway where the clerk couldn't see him and wrote down all of his mental notes in his notebook. He closed his notebook and entered the police department. He saw a young officer at the desk. ‘A new recruit,’ Dean thought to himself as he approached the officer. As he got to the front counter, he said to the young officer at the front desk, “The nice woman out there told me to ask you about a house I was looking at buying. I wanted to see if there was any trouble there in the past.”
The officer said, “Sure, I can help you. What is the address?”
“It is 435 Sommerset Lane,” Dean responded.
The officer typed in the address, and read the information that came up on his screen out loud. “Ok, it looks like there have been a few parties broken up out there….. a couple of trespassing calls, and that’s it,” the officer told Dean. “No serious issues or arrests.”
“Thanks for everything,” Dean said. He turned around and left the police department and headed towards the library to see what Sam found out.
He went into the library to meet Sam. He found him back in the archives. Sam told Dean as he arrived, “I've found a whole load of bupkis. No one has died in the house that lived there. There haven't been any violent crimes. Nothing has happened there that would make a spirit anchor itself to that house.”
“Nothing on my end, either. So, we need to check it out and see if another creature is to blame, or maybe it was an amateur magician practicing his show. You know, like you did,” Dean said grinning.
“I was twelve,” Sam said flatly, as the brothers left the library. They got in the car, and Dean drove them to the property, both of them quietly wondering what they were hunting, or even if there was a hunt here to begin with.
Dean arrived at the house in under five minutes and the brother's viewed it from the car. The dwelling was set back from the street, at the end of the road where it dead ended, and there were no other houses built on the block. It was overgrown with vegetation, so the house was barely visible from the street. “That is a perfect lair,” Dean said as he was scoping out the property.
Sam agreed, saying, “No one can see inside the building from the street, and it's far enough away from everything that even if someone screamed, they wouldn’t be heard.”
Dean tucked his Colt M1911 in the back of his waistband while Sam did the same with his Taurus Model 92. They both had silver knives on their bodies, and Dean grabbed a flask of holy water that he slid into the inside pocket of his leather jacket, while Sam grabbed the demon knife. They stealthily made their way up to the house and looked into the windows, inspecting the inside of the house. It looked like an empty 4 x 4 farmhouse, so they quietly picked the lock on the door and snuck inside. Dean motioned he would go upstairs while Sam cleared the lower level. Sam nodded his understanding of the plan, and they split up.
Dean used the military training his dad drilled into him to climb the stairs stealthily. He cleared room after room without a sound. When he got to the last room and opened the door a crack, he saw herbs everywhere, and potions lining the walls. He slowly backed up, closed the door as quietly as he had opened it, and made his way downstairs. Sam gave the all clear signal, and Dean gave the abort signal. They quickly and silently left the house, and after they were back in Baby, Sam asked Dean, “What did you see?”
Dean responded, “Herbs and potions. We're dealing with a witch.”
“Shit!” Sam muttered.
“My thought exactly,” Dean responded as they drove away from the house. The needed to get as prepared as they could before they faced the witch.