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Bryce was right there, at the end of his bed. Chuck shot up, eyes wide.
“I’m dreaming,” Chuck said. Then he pinched himself. “Or not.”
Bryce flickered, like static crossing a screen, and then reappeared. He looked like the Bryce that had come to replace the memories in his head. No longer the college boy but the spy: hair slick, eyes dangerous. A frown not a smile. Bryce raised his arm and seemed to be pointing to something. Chuck followed his finger to his computer. He turned back to find Bryce was much closer. Bryce seemed to be saying something, mouth gaping but the blood spilling from it and the shots in his chest seemed to prevent Chuck from understanding. Chuck’s computer switched on and three letters laboriously appeared: WIN.
Then the screen flickered and the letters disappeared. Bryce stood, blood pouring from his wounds. It vanished before it hit the floor. Bryce pointed once more, urgently, then vanished.
Chuck pinched himself again. Nope, still not dreaming.
The next morning, in the bright light of day, Chuck wondered if his imagination had been running over time. But when he switched on the computer to get some gaming done before work (for either of his jobs), the screen reappeared with those same three letters. Chuck rushed through his morning routine and screeched into work early. He grabbed Casey and made the appropriate “get to the castle” noises. Casey grunted.
Sarah and Casey were sceptical, to say the least. “Are you sure it was Bryce?” Sarah asked.
Casey sneered. “Too many cheesy balls before bedtime?”
Chuck waved his hands in the air. “It wasn’t Bryce Bryce. It was the ghost of Bryce. Bryce when he died. He was trying to tell me something. And the computer was the same this morning. And why don’t you guys believe me?”
“Because we hunt bad guys,” Casey said, turning away. “Not ghosts.”
Chuck felt the whirl of images start behind his eyes. An empty grave, a police report. A prison. A bank. A lake. A bridge.
“Chuck? What did you see?” Sarah was asking as he came back to consciousness.
Chuck took a moment to organise his thoughts before looking at her. “So, ghosts are real. And we should call Dean and Samuel Winchester, apparently.” Chuck took a moment to enjoy being proved right. Then he sifted through the information again. “Sam Winchester? From Stanford?”
“You know this kid?” Casey asked. He was already powering up the secure line to the NSA.
“I knew a Sam Winchester. At Stanford. He was pre-law, did some optional computing courses that I helped out in Junior Year. Tall. Skinny.” Chuck turned to watch Casey. Files were appearing on the screen. Images of Sam and another guy opened. “Yeah, that’s him.”
Casey looked over the images. “Not so skinny anymore.”
Chuck leaned over his shoulder. The guy on the screen bore a lot of resemblance to the tall, awkward kid he could remember. The only problem was he had muscles on top of muscles. “Huh.”
Sam was frowning at his phone. His ringing phone. Dean snapped off the radio. “Answer the phone. That’s what you do when it rings.”
“I don’t know the number,” Sam looked at the screen again. His finger was hovering between connect and send to voicemail.
“Could be some hot chick then. Cause I know you don’t have any of those sorts of numbers stored.” Dean chuckled at his own joke.
Sam’s phone made the decision for him and, a moment later, the voicemail notification beeped. Sam listened to it, tapping his fingers on the dashboard. He drew the phone away from his ear and stared at it before replaying the message. Dean couldn’t make out much more than a tinny noise. Sam kept the phone clasped in his hands after he’d listened through a second time.
Dean got impatient at Sam’s silence. “So? Who wants to hook up? Wrong number?”
“It was a guy I kinda knew at Stanford. He said he had a problem that I should be able to help with.” Sam turned to Dean. “But he didn’t know about that side of my life. No one did.”
“Maybe he talked to that Becky girl. She certainly knows about the freaky side of life.” Dean shuddered. Shapeshifter self. Not something he wanted to remember.
Sam shrugged. “Do I call him back? I mean. We’re busy trying to stop the Apocalypse and all, so…”
“We’re at a dead end, Sam. We just need to keep away from Detroit and away from any angels trying to make us say yes to becoming angel condoms and we’re just peachy.” Dean flicked the radio on. “So we go see your friend. Stanford?”
“Burbank. LA.” Sam lifted the phone up to his ear. “I should call back then?”
“LA. The only place worse than Jersey for driving…” Dean muttered mulishly. Then he brightened. “Yeah, Sam. Let’s go hit up the beaches and the babes. Perfect for the holidays.”
“This was where you were to meet him?” Dean said sceptically. He had parked the car in the middle of the huge parking lot in front of a… Buy More. The store front was decorated with a huge banner proclaiming cheap prices and festive fun. It had little dancing elves in green and gold decorating it. Dean winced.
Sam checked the piece of paper in his hand and nodded. He looked at the store thoughtfully. “I thought he would be a millionaire by now.”
“And you thought you’d be a lawyer?” Dean was tapping his fingertips on the steering wheel. He didn’t look at Sam.
Sam let out a curt laugh. It wasn’t humorous. “Life’s funny like that.”
There was a moment of silence before Dean grunted and they climbed out of the car. Dean let out a low whistle as a blonde girl entered the store ahead of them, her ponytail bouncing in the sunshine. Sam hit him on the shoulder automatically.
The cold, soulless recycled Christmas musak hit them as the doors swept open. Dean shivered in reflex. He half-wished he’d kept his sunglasses on as the fluorescent light made him flinch. Sam looked equally uncomfortable beside him. They shuffled past the tubby, curly haired kid who tried to welcome them to the store and headed towards the middle of the huge sales floor. A little different from the Mom and Pop stores or gas stations they tended to frequent. There were Christmas trees and fake snow and jolly elves on the edge of every shelf as far as they could see. It was a bit like entering Christmas overload. Sam grabbed Dean when the blonde girl who had come into the store ahead of them leaned over a circular desk and kissed a tall guy.
“That’s Chuck.” Sam pointed.
“No freaking way,” Dean replied. “That nerd?” Sam hit him again. “I mean, geeks don’t tend to pull women like that. You were an exception because you’ve got good genes.” Dean quirked his eyebrow up at Sam who was, predictably, scowling. Sam left him standing there and headed to the desk.
Sarah pulled back and smiled. “Are your friends here yet?”
“Not my friends. Friend. More of an acquaintance. Passing acquaintance. Sam said they’d be in sometime today.” Chuck sat down in his seat and then shot back up again. “Or they are maybe here now.”
The two guys who had followed her into the store were strolling up the aisle. To say they looked out of place with their old fashioned car and battered clothing was an understatement. They were wearing too many layers for California in her opinion. She eyed them as they came closer, trying to appear disinterested. The shorter one caught her eye and smiled a little too broadly. She resisted the urge to cross her arms over her chest or take him out with a few choice moves.
“Hey Chuck. You’ve not changed much,” said the taller one who Sarah realised must be Sam. They shook hands.
Chuck winced. “I don’t know if I’m complimented or not. You’ve changed a bit. Been working out? You’d like my brother-in-law. He’d into all that health stuff.”
“It’s all lifestyle,” the other one – Dean - said, patting his brother on the shoulder. “Eating his greens and all that. Isn’t that right, Sam?”
Sam didn’t look happy but he dutifully introduced Dean to Chuck. Chuck seemed happy to see them. Sarah noticed Casey hovering over Chuck’s shoulder, ready to make a move if one was necessary. He had the look in his eye that said he was about to reach for his gun at any instant.
“So maybe we should move this reunion somewhere less public,” Sarah suggested. “That way we can hear everything you guys have to say.”
Chuck smiled at her, innocent and trusting. “We can go to the apartment. Scene of the crime and all.” Sam and Dean seemed to be in agreement.
Dean leaned over, holding out his hand. “I’m Dean Winchester. At your service.” He smiled again.
“I’m Sarah. Chuck’s girlfriend.” Sarah made a point of putting a little extra strength into the handshake. Dean flexed his fingers when she released him.
Dean had the EMF detector out when they entered Chuck’s bedroom. He swept it around, taking note of the posters, the computers, the comic books. He let a soft snort out. The kid was a bigger nerd than Sam had ever been. Dean wondered if there was a debate trophy stashed in a box at the back of his closet.
Dean opened the closet door, running the EMF reader over the clothes – the deeply geeky clothes – hanging there. Still nothing. He shut the door and just about jumped three feet in the air.
A guy, stacked, was standing there. He was clad in the Buy More uniform polo but the look on his face didn’t say “Can I help you with your shopping”. It said “I’m just looking for an excuse to tear you limb from limb.” Dean nodded at him and the guy lifted his top lip and snarled. There wasn’t an actual growl, per se. It was more implied.
“Friend of Chuck’s?” Dean asked. He kept it cool, didn’t reach for his gun. The guy’s hand twitched in a familiar manner, like he was about to reach for a weapon too.
The guy made a pained expression like he wasn’t quite sure how to answer that question. Luckily Chuck rushed into the room.
“Dean, I see you’ve met Casey. He lives across the courtyard. He works at the store with me.” Chuck seemed determined to burble on and tell him every minute detail of his relationship with Casey.
Dean held up his hand. “Great. Can I just finish sweeping the room? Shouldn’t be much longer.”
The EMF meter lit up like a Christmas tree. Wincing a bit at the squeal, Dean swung it around to see a figure coalescing at the end of the bed. Chuck and Casey jumped too – Chuck giving out a little shriek.
Casey now had a gun in his hand. Dean hadn’t even seen him reach for it. He held out his hand to try and calm them both down. The guy, covered in blood, pointed at the computer again and three letters appeared on the screen. WIN. Then the figure vanished.
“Everyone else saw that too, right?” Chuck asked, shakily. Casey looked a little shaken so Dean took some satisfaction in looking completely nonchalant.
It was then that Chuck fainted.
“You have got to be kidding me,” Dean muttered. Casey grunted again. Dean wasn’t quite sure if it was agreement or disgust.
“Who exactly was Bryce Larkin?” Sam’s question seemed to pose a bit of a problem for Casey, Sarah and Chuck. Sam was sitting in the easy chair flanking the sofa where Chuck and Sarah were imbibing strong coffee. Casey stood, arms folded, leaning apparently casually against the wall. Dean was in a similar position behind Sam. Like guard dogs, they were.
Chuck began. “He was my college roommate.”
Sam frowned. He was adopting the caring personality that seemed to come so easily to him. “And how did he die?”
“He was shot,” Dean interjected. “Lots of times. With bullets.” Casey grunted. Dean grunted at him in return then smirked.
“And was he buried?” Sam hurried on when Chuck made a pained face. “It helps work out what’s happening with the ghost.”
“Cremated. This time. I mean- He wasn’t actually buried last time. He was…” Chuck trailed off as Sarah laid a hand on his thigh and squeezed tightly.
Sam looked round at Dean who shrugged. They let it go. “We need to do some research.”
“Research? For ghost hunting? There’s this website…” Chuck stopped speaking again when Sam made a face like he’d been sucking on sour lemons.
“Death omen. Like in Baltimore,” Dean declared as the motel door slammed behind him. “Got to be.”
Sam opened his mouth. Then closed it again. He frowned and then opened his mouth again. Dean cocked his head when Sam didn’t say anything again.
“Cat got your tongue?”
“Makes sense, actually.” Sam started raking through the duffel in front of him, pulling out books. “Although there should theoretically be a body for that.”
“Dude was shot. Like proper Sonny in The Godfather style. Blood everywhere.” Dean jerked his hands back, miming the shooting. “Or maybe even Bonnie and Clyde style? Total Peckinpah.”
“Violent death. Looking for revenge?” Sam seemed happy with the book he’d pulled out last and settled on the edge of the bed.
Dean shrugged. “You research. I’m showering, grabbing dinner and a beer. Maybe hit a bar. I hear good things about California chicks.” Dean shut the bathroom door on Sam’s grumbling and ran his hand over his face. It was hard to keep up the cheery façade, to pretend that everything was A-OK. Taking this case wasn’t making the looming presence of Michael and Lucifer any less. Just say no, kids. Like that had ever worked.
Sam had moved to the table with his laptop when Dean came back, six pack in one hand and a take away bag in the other. He tossed the bag at Sam, who opened it without looking inside. “I think he’s crossing his wires. WIN doesn’t automatically mean Winchester, like Chuck said.” Sam pulled out the paper wrapped food. “Burrito?”
“It could be a reference to Chuck’s awesomeness. Or not.” Dean flipped over a few bits of paper. “I think we have to ask Chuck about that. Rearrange the letters or something.”
Sam bit into the taco. It was pretty good and still warm. He was hungrier than he’d realised. “There’s something off with the whole Chuck thing.”
Dean sat back on the bed, popping the cap off his beer with his ring. “Are we referring to the fact that geeks like him don’t pull girls like Sarah? Or the fact that his colleague was as gun twitchy as Dad used to be? Or could it even be the exceptionally violent way that his old college roommate died?”
Sam continued to eat while he thought about what Dean had said. “And what kind of Stanford graduate works at a Buy More anyway?”
“Why don’t you do a little research on Chuck while you’re there?” Dean’s request wasn’t so much a suggestion as a pointed demand. Sam tossed the balled up wrapper into the garbage can and turned back to his laptop. Dean had a point.
Chuck rubbed at his eyes as he sat in Castle beside Sarah. Casey was pacing beside the conference table as ever. “What was the emergency? I didn’t exactly sleep well last night.”
Casey muttered under his breath while Sarah turned in her seat. “Sam seemed to be doing research on you. So we did some more research into him and his brother.”
“Turns out that Dean Winchester is a dead armed robber. Twice dead. Also arrested for a number of different crimes over twenty years, including credit card fraud, impersonating a police officer and grave desecration.” Casey flipped open the top file on the desk. Dean’s face pouted from the mug shot paper-clipped to the top sheet. “I don’t trust them.”
Chuck resisted saying that Casey didn’t trust anyone when Sarah glared at him. “So? Do we just send them away? Arrest them?” Casey’s face remained impassive. “Shoot them?”
“The fact they were researching you, in particular, is not something the CIA or NSA is particularly pleased with.” Sarah, as ever, tried to be the voice of reason. “But we’ve decided to give them some leeway.”
“While you investigate them further?” Sarah and Casey’s shared glance was confirmation enough. “Was nobody I met at college what they seemed?”
Chuck was eyeing a Santa hat with either despair or desperation when Sam and Dean strolled in the next morning. Dean looked a little rough – eyes sunken and stubble unshaved - but Sam seemed happy to see Chuck. The rapid way that Chuck shoved the hat under the desk didn’t escape either of their notice.
“New headgear?” Dean said, leaning on the desk. He glanced around the store which was pretty busy with shoppers searching out the perfect gift.
Chuck laughed in such a way that Dean got the idea he was being humoured. “New policy, apparently. I’m not enough in the festive spirit, so to speak.”
“I hear you,” Dean muttered. “After we’ve got all this wrapped up, you can tell me about some decent bars and I can really get you into the festive spirit.”
“Thanks for the offer. But that’s not really my kind of thing. Jeff-“ Chuck pointed towards a tall, balding guy whose pants rode disturbingly low under his belly. Dean gave him an uneasy nod. “Jeff would know about the bars.”
Sam turned back from his perusal of some on sale routers and pulled a slip of paper from his pocket. “So. We think that what you are seeing is a death omen. A warning. But sometimes the message gets a little muddled. More often than not, actually.” Sam handed the unfolded sheet to Chuck. “I tried rearranging the letters. Do they mean anything to you?”
Chuck took the paper and looked at it, seemingly spacing out for a couple of moments. Dean looked around to see if anyone else had spotted the odd behaviour but no one seemed bothered at Chuck’s stillness or flickering eyelids.
“NIW stands for National Institute of Winegrowers. They’re… They are a…” Chuck seemed to realise who he was talking to. “An organisation. That I know about. Because I do. I need something from the back.”
Chuck pushed away from the desk and stumbled over the discarded Santa hat on the way to the back of the store. He grabbed that Casey guy on his way to the door marked Employees Only and seemed to be having a suddenly urgent conversation.
Dean turned back to Sam and was surprised by a small guy with a beard and a pair of fuzzy reindeer antlers. “Can I help you gentlemen?”
“Just browsing,” Sam replied, grabbing his brother’s shoulder and steering him into the toaster oven aisle. “Shopping for that perfect gift.”
The guy shrugged and headed off to offer his services to another lost looking customer. Dean jerked his head in the direction Chuck had headed. Sam frowned.
“We should follow him,” Dean hissed.
Sam turned from looking at a machine that combined coffee and toasting functions to look at Dean more seriously. “You sure? I mean, we’ve done our bit.”
“How have we done our bit?” Dean was already drifting towards the back of the store. Sam followed reluctantly. “We told him about some winegrowers? Something’s off with Chuck. Did you come across anything last night?”
“Nothing much. He should have more a profile, online and so on.” Sam caught the door through to the back area when one of the green shirted employees thrust it open violently. “And we need to know that this resolves the omen, right.”
“Right.” Dean looked both ways before slipping through the door. Sam followed closely behind.
The back of the Buy More was more of the same clinical corridors, the same green and yellow signs and infected by the same cheery Christmas musak. Sam saw Dean eyeing one of the speakers in a threatening manner and distracted him by dragging him towards the door marked Sales Team Only.
Dean pressed his ear to the door. He could hear Chuck’s voice but couldn’t make out the words. A female voice – must be his girlfriend – answered. Dean hadn’t seen her come in through the store though. He frowned when Casey started to speak and Chuck rambled on some more. Very slowly and carefully, he pressed down on the handle and pushed the door open a crack.
What he heard of the conversation didn’t really make things much clearer.
“The Intersect is never wrong,” Chuck said. “This NIW, these winegrowers, are all Ring Operatives. I’m telling you.”
“But the CIA has absolutely nothing on them, Chuck. They don’t seem to be at all dangerous. We should just do some surveillance.” Sarah kept her voice even and calm.
Casey looked between them. “NSA has nothing either.”
“But Bryce wouldn’t come from beyond the veil and all just for us to do some surveillance!” Chuck’s voice rose and he paced back and forth. “There has to be something more.”
Casey opened his mouth to reply. Then he held up his hand to stop Chuck saying any more and curled his lip. His hand shot out and opened the door swiftly. He stood glaring as Dean stumbled through. Sam shrugged apologetically from the hallway.
“So I’m guessing the ‘I’m finding the bathroom’ excuse isn’t going to fly here.” Dean straightened up and brushed his hands over his jeans to clean them off. “So. Spies, huh.”
Sam continued to look apologetic.
Surveillance from the Chuck, Sarah and Casey point of view didn’t mean sitting outside the gates of the mansion on the hill and trying to get a good view through a pair of binoculars. Dean plucked at the waiter’s uniform as Casey handed him a tray of nibbles. Sam and Sarah watched as Dean balanced it on his hand and spun around. “How do I look?”
“Like a waiter,” replied Sam, dryly. Then he picked up something from the table. It looked like a flesh coloured earwig. “Sarah is letting us borrow some of their spy tools. This is a communicator.”
Dean swiped at Sam’s hand with his free arm and had to rebalance the tray when Sam jerked his hand back. “I know what it is. I have seen the odd Bond flick.”
“Now, Dean. Calmly does it.” Sam smirked. He was enjoying this too much. Casey made a noise of impatience behind them and the grin faded. He leaned forward and tucked the tiny device into Dean’s ear, checking to see that it was hidden. “Can you hear me?”
Dean flipped him the bird. “Can you hear that?”
The room looked like any typical party – people in evening dress wandering around with glasses of wine. They didn’t look like dangerous operatives of a terrorist group but the way that Chuck’s eyes seemed to flicker over each one suggested that he was “flashing” as they called it. Dean thought that it made him look a little retarded but he didn’t comment, too busy looking for a way to sneak behind the scenes and start waving his EMF detector about.
People didn’t like his crab puffs either.
Dean steadily worked his way to the far side of the room. Casey was carrying a tray just like him, but of mini cheesy stick things and met him a moment later. He nodded at the curtain off to the side and stood guard while Dean slipped behind it, finding a locked door. A couple of moments with the lock pick and he leaned back to tap Casey on the shoulder. Casey jerked his head at Chuck who walked a little too fast to avoid notice over the hidden door. Amateur.
The hallway behind the door was nothing like the rest of the mansion. It was like stepping into a high tech lab – all white walls and chrome fittings. The doors all had keypads and the fluorescent lights were blinding after the softer light of the previous room. Dean pulled out the EMF detector, Casey pulled out a gun and Chuck watched them.
The EMF suddenly screeched into life and Dean swung it around to see the ghost he now knew as Bryce Larkin pointing at a door at the far end of the corridor. Chuck took off like a shot and the others followed.
Bryce was there again. He still looked beaten up and shot but didn’t flicker like he had before. Chuck was perversely glad to see him. He could hear Casey and Dean following him as he screeched to a halt in front of the keypad. A calming breath and the Intersect gave him the information he needed to hack it.
“I need a screwdriver. Or a knife. Something pointed.” Chuck held out his hand. Dean was first with a very very shiny blade. Casey looked disquieted at taking longer to pull his own weapon out. Dean handed it over and Chuck got the sense that Dean had enjoyed taking Casey by surprise. Chuck could get behind that feeling. He was kinda pleased himself when he got one over on Casey.
The keypad surrendered to his assault within seconds and the door slid open. Casey pushed Chuck aside as he tried to go in and took point, gun leading the way. It was a full on laboratory – bleeping machines and test tubes and strange devices in vacuum sealed containers. Casey checked the perimeter but the room was empty as it should be at nine o’clock on a Saturday night. Dean rifled through the paper on the desk but couldn’t make heads or tails of the mathematical formula. Chuck’s attention was fixed on the gently bubbling pool of milky white liquid under a glass dome in the middle of the room. His eyes flickered.
“Oh… Oh. This is not good.” Chuck’s exclamation brought Dean and Casey running towards him. “They’re…”
“What?” Casey asked sharply, checking for danger elsewhere in the room.
“They’re trying to bring Bryce back to life. The Ring has cloned his body and…” Chuck blanched again.
“You need to tell us.” Sarah’s voice crackled through the communicators in their ears.
Chuck stumbled away from the others, heading towards the door. “They’ve got some kind of place in the basement. That’s why they’re here tonight. They’re going to bring back Bryce.”
Sam wasn’t exactly startled when Dean thrust a handful of papers at him when they met up again. The kitchen pantry was cool, isolated and utterly deserted, making it the perfect meeting place. Sam flicked through the sheets. “There’s spell elements - demon work, almost – bound up in the science.”
“Like that Doctor Benton?” Dean asked, checking the ammunition in his gun. He hadn’t fired any shots but Sam knew he was just reassuring himself.
“I didn’t really take a careful look at that. This is more witch stuff. Serious witch stuff.” Sam read over a few more pages. “I’d need to do more research to know for sure. Check with Bobby.”
“We don’t have time,” Chuck told them. “It’s happening tonight.”
Sam and Dean looked at each other. Dean shrugged. “Disrupting the ritual should stop them.”
Casey grinned. “Disrupting the ritual. Now that’s something I can get behind.” He too checked his weapon.
Sarah pulled her gun out too. Sam quickly followed. They all looked at Chuck.
“I’m not good with guns, remember.” Chuck held up his hands. “I’ll use my moves instead.” Chuck waved his hands in front of his face in a way that Dean supposed was meant to be some martial arts thing.
Dean patted him on the shoulder. “Just stay to the back, Sparky.”
Chuck looked between him and Sarah. “Is that like staying in the car?”
When they got to the basement (one more lock picked door, one kicked open door and three insensate henchmen later), Dean and Sam seemed on familiar territory.
“Devil’s trap,” Sam pointed out to Sarah. “Probably for some kind of summoning ritual.”
Dean was muttering something about amateurs under his breath. There was a figure wrapped in a white sheet at the far side of the room. Chuck was almost afraid to ask. He checked out the room to see if anything flashed. What he’d call a cauldron was filled with some kind of stinky sulphur-yellow sand. A plate with a selection of vibrantly coloured herbs lay beside it along with a box of matches. The strange marks on the floor looked to have been painted on. Chuck scuffed at one of them with the toe of his shoe.
Casey grabbed for him first. “Don’t…” he started.
But it was too late. A shimmering in the air in the middle of the pentagram shape signalled that something bad was coming. Dean took aim and shot at the middle of the shape.
“Not having any effect, Sammy,” he yelled, pulling a wicked looking knife out from the inside of his jacket. “Should I go in?”
Sam had rapidly shuffled around the marks on the floor, taking care not to touch any of them. A book lay beside the sheet wrapped form on the bench and he grabbed at it. “Don’t think so,” he called back to Dean, flicking the pages of the book over. He stopped, stabbing his finger on a page. Words – Latin Chuck presumed, but he wasn’t a hundred per cent on that – spilled from Sam’s lips. The shimmer in the middle of the shape darkened and bulged, purple and red and black running through it now. Sam spoke even quicker.
Sarah and Casey looked at each other in panic when the body behind Sam started to rise up. Casey – eyes wide – brought his gun up and aimed at the figure. The sheet covering its face started to slip down.
Sam’s voice rose to a crescendo and Dean hesitated on his toes at the very edge of the circle. “Now!” Sam yelled and Dean leapt across the markings and thrust the knife into the centre of the oily mass. It bulged, making Chuck’s stomach turn before exploding. A thick, black, slimy paste splattered around the room, Dean bearing the brunt of it.
The room was silent again until a groan came from the body on the bench. Sam nodded at Casey who double tapped the bullets into its torso through the now not-so-white sheet. The red blood that seeped through looked human. The body collapsed back on the bench and the sheet finally fell away from its face.
Chuck knew that it wasn’t really him, but there was still something heart-wrenching about seeing Bryce Larkin’s dead blue eyes staring at him again. Sarah let out a rough sigh as Chuck picked his way over the slick floor to pull the sheet back up.
The ghost – or death omen, whatever – appeared again. Instead of pointing or making letters appear or anything, Bryce raised a hand and faded out.
“I’d still salt and burn the body,” Dean told Casey, leaning over the roof of the Impala. The warm sunlight in the Buy More parking lot was nice – nicer than a lot of the places they could be spending Christmas. “Or cremate at least. We were just lucky that Sam had come across that book before.”
Casey nodded, still obviously not quite sure about the whole bump-in-the-night thing. “Ghosts. Anything else I should know about?”
Dean opened his mouth to reply, then thought the better of it. “Tell you what. Just call us. Probably safer that way.”
Sam made his way out of the Buy More with a brown box clutched in his arms. Chuck was gesticulating wildly by his side. Sarah came out of the Orange Orange and joined them. Sam threw his head back and laughed. Dean rubbed at his nose tiredly and got into the car. “Time to hit the road.”
Sam nodded at him. Chuck opened the back door of the car and Sam slid the box into place carefully. He closed the door and held out his hand to Chuck, who came forward and hugged Sam. Sam disengaged a little stiffly. Sarah shook his hand instead.
“What’s in the box?” Dean asked as he turned onto the main road.
Sam scratched at the back of his neck, looking like the kid Dean had pulled out of Stanford all of a sudden. “That toaster oven slash coffee maker machine. For Bobby, I thought.”
“A present? Guess we’d better head up that way then.” Dean slid his sunglasses up his nose and switched on the radio. Yeah, he wasn’t really made for sunshine anyway. He left Burbank in the dust.