Looks like a solo tonight, Part 1
Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Epilogue - Masterpost
On a Tuesday afternoon in late July, Jo wiped down the bar with a damp rag and pushed the salt shaker in to clink against the bottle of barbecue sauce. The clock read two in the afternoon.
One of the patrons had fallen asleep at his table just after lunch and was still snoring there with his hand in a puddle of beer, shotgun within reach. Meanwhile, the other three men currently wending away the afternoon hours at the Roadhouse were slumped back in their chairs, a picked over plate of onion rings between them. Napkins were crumpled, pint glasses were a quarter full and glowing gold in the hazy light. The men had come in separately but were now trading stories like old friends.
Really, they sort of were- the hunting lifestyle had a way of binding you together. If you survived.
"You'll have to stab it four times," one man explained. "Right in the gullet. And the blade can't be just any old silver."
"Course not," sighed one of the others, rolling his eyes. "Because that would be too easy, right? Course it's gotta be harder to waste than that."
"Don't ask me why, it's just one of those things. And silver from South America is your best option."
"Always is," the one with the goatee, Frank, agreed. "I've read everything in the library that so much as mentions knives, from Burke's Kitchen Cutlery Companion to the damn Bible."
"Well excuse me," the third crowed, syllables all drawn out. His accent was straight out of Alabama, and he had the road dust to prove it. He chuckled. "Looks like we've got a regular scholar on our hands here, boys."
"Shaddup and buy us another round."
"Not in a million years. Say, you heard about the latest on iron machetes being sold down in Louisiana?"
It was because of conversations like these that Jo could reliably say that she knew more about weaponry than any other 21-year-old girl in Nebraska. Couldn't learn any of this in college, she knew that much without needing to go see for herself.
A car pulled up outside, and the conversation subsided when the engine cut off. Jo paused, too, listening to the sound of footsteps creaking up the front steps.
The Roadhouse was just one squat pitstop on a long stretch of empty highway. Roadtrippers dropped in from time to time - for a burger, for a drink - unaware of what world they'd just stepped into. Just last week Jo'd served a family of four wearing matching 'I Heart NYC' shirts even though they were a thousand miles and a whole other mindset away from the city. The mom had warned the kids against talking with their mouths full,oblivious to their location in a den of rag tag alcoholics and run-down heroes who'd seen much worse.
The figure that appeared in the doorway now was slim, backlit by the outside world. It took Jo a moment to make her out - this stranger, this girl.
She was obviously not a hunter, was Jo's first thought. She wore no visible weapons, no carefully hidden weapons either, and didn't carry herself like she was expecting an attack on her person. She was dressed in dark jeans and a navy blue top, and she was the kind of clean that screamed of the city life Jo had spent long years learning not to be jealous of. It was better to be on the fringes of society and in the life than to live as one of the general populous with the wool pulled over your eyes, was what she always told herself.
The girl's heels were loud against the wood floor as she approached the bar, almost like a knocking.
Jo put on her just-a-normal-waitress face and a tightlipped smile. "Hi there," she said. "Welcome to the Roadhouse. What can I get you?"
The jukebox chose that moment to wind down. The other customers had fallen silent. Even Old Mike snuffled awake and peeled his face away from the sticky table top to sit straight in his chair, aware something was afoot. Hunter's instincts.
Jo felt her smile falter when the girl didn't answer. And then the jukebox picked up again on Fly Me to the Moon, the girl seating herself gracefully on a stool and resting her chin on a manicured hand.
She was absolutely gorgeous, with sleek hair and sharp, blue eyes. Not from around here, Jo thought with some yearning.
"Hello," the girl said, and snaked a Bud from the side of the counter.
Lightyears too slow, Jo protested, "You can't do that!"
The girl smiled. She slapped a ten dollar bill on the bar and Jo's eyebrows raised.
"That better?"
"You need an opener for that?"
"Don't worry, I've got one."
Jo watched her lift a fork from the tray of silverware and crack the bottle top off with the end. She caught Jo's surprise and gestured with the fork. "That's one the Queen taught me."
"The Queen spend much time in dingy bars?"
"You'd be amazed." She put the fork back in the spoon tray. Then, she turned, dismissing Jo completely to send a demure smile to the other side of the room. Jo watched the curve of it from her place behind the bar, as the girl purred, "Hello, boys."
You couldn't trust even the most innocent-type.
"Afternoon," one of the trio said.
"Is there anything else I can get for you?" Jo asked loudly. Her momma wasn't working, so it fell to her to take care of any situation. Like this one.
The girl's eyes flicked Jo's way and gave her the once over, like maybe she thought Jo was too young to be working in a place like this. Or there was a slim chance that she was checking her for weapons. The former was normal, she'd leave soon. The latter, though, this girl was a hunter, and Jo had misread her.
The third option was that the girl was checking her out, but that was highly unlikely.
"Who's asking?" she said, giving Jo another look.
"Look," Jo said. "I just want to take your order."
"Do you?" Smug, cocky. "The name's Bela. Bela Talbot. And I don't need anything."
Jo leaned with a hip against the bar, and said, cool as a pistol, "Lunch is on me, Bela." Seeing as her mom wasn't around and all.
Not batting an eye, Bela said, "What if I'm only looking for information?"
"Well, maybe I can get that for you, too. How about you tell me where you're coming from and I'll see what I can do about tracking down what you need."
After a superior sort of hesitation, during which Jo raised an eyebrow, Bela said, "Ok then. I need to track down a Mr. Drake."
Jo thought about it. "It's not an Albert Drake, is it?" The guy came in here now and again.
"It is."
"What do you need him for?"
Bela lifted her chin. "He's a lover who scorned me."
"Really."
"Yes."
"Mr. Albert Drake?" Jo confirmed. "The seventy-year-old dude with one eye."
Bela's mouth quirked but she held her ground. "That's correct," she said.
Jo rolled her eyes. "Tell me another one."
Bela looked her over for a long while, like Jo had surprised her. Or at least provided some unexpected entertainment. "All right, then. Something Mr. Drake has in his collection happens to have secured my client's interest. I intend to set the two of them up with a deal."
"Deal, huh? And what exactly is it that you do?"
The men at the tables were listing close for the answer, too.
"My, my. Aren't we curious?" Bela said, and her refusal to engage made Jo narrow her eyes. Something about the question got her hackles up. You never knew with strangers. Words turned to code, always had to watch them for foul play. No one just walked in and out of the Roadhouse, you had to work for what you got.
"Curiosity's my middle name," Jo said.
"I work the business end for collectors of antiquities, if you must know."
"Like an art dealer?"
Bela smiled again, slow and deliberate. "Right."
Frank stood, interrupting what felt to Jo like some sort of showdown, a moment of who would back down first. "I know the guy," he said.
Bela looked his way.
He turned his hat in his hands. "I know he can always use some extra dough, so if I can get a trade going, I know it'll help him out."
"Excellent."
While Bela chatted with the three old-timers Jo busied herself getting more nachos for Mike, startlingly uncomfortable at their exchange, at the fact some girl her age was here whose life couldn't have made her more different to Jo. She felt like she was up for judgement, even though no eyes were on her, even though this girl knew nothing about her.
To take her mind off things, she brewed more coffee, although the bowl was cracked near the handle and coffee would all fizz out anyway with the next pot.
Ten minutes later, Bela stood suddenly. Something jolted in Jo's stomach, more than the jealousy, more than just interest in what life would be like if she were in this stranger's shoes.
"Heading out?" she blurted.
Bela raised her eyebrows and Jo only shrugged. There was something there, some yearning for Bela to stay that left Jo flushing at the embarrassment of it. She felt like they'd started a conversation that was far from being finished.
"I have all the information I came for. It was a pleasure to meet you all," Bela said, but didn't leave immediately. "That's a nice locket."
Jo touched the heart charm she wore, twisting the thin chain around her pinky. "Thanks. I got it from my mom when I graduated high school." She paused, before continuing, "Of course, I was home schooled for the last part of it, so it wasn't exactly real graduation, but I still finished all four years."
Bela looked nonplussed by this information, like she wasn't sure what to do with this offering between strangers. She finally asked, "Is it gold?"
"I...I'm not sure actually," Jo said, looking down at it.
"Hm." Bela leaned closer, over the counter.
Jo noticed again how clean she was, almost too clean, if that was possible, her fingernails filed to perfection, the meticulous clean that reminded Jo of scrubbing blood off one's hands until there was not a trace of blood left.
"Anything in it?" Bela asked.
"That's for me to know," Jo said, dropping it under her shirt.
Bela met her eyes. "Secrets, then?"
"I like to keep what's mine," Jo told her, shifting back to lean against the counter again.
Bela considered her for a moment before drawing back, then said, dryly, "I might drop by again. Don't miss me while I'm gone."
Jo scoffed. "Miss you? I don't even know you."
"True."
Then Bela was out the door, stepping into the bright world.
Jo sighed and picked up the rag off the bar again, ignoring her sixth sense that told her there was something worth following up on here, some trail of clues that would lead somewhere that promised to be interesting.
She would forget the interaction by that night, Bela just one of many people she'd serve that day. And if Bela ever came back - which was unlikely, given the cultivated air of boredom that belonged in silk somewhere far away - well, it was unlikely Bela would remember her, either.
"Oh and Jo?"
Jo jumped, nearly knocking over a row of glasses as Bela reappeared in the doorway. She managed to hold onto her dignity, grabbing a rag and pretending to wipe at the bar. "Yeah?"
Bela looked at her strangely. "...You do know there's a man with a tub of snakes outside, right?"
"Dammit, Ash!" Jo threw down the rag. "He's supposed to do that around back, not out front drawing attention to us! Momma's gonna kill him one of these days." She remembered, belatedly, that this was supposed to be a civilian establishment. "Because, uh, we don't want to alert the FDA. Because, uh, low health standards."
Jo mentally told herself to shut up, wincing.
Bela only said, "Right," before disappearing again, this time for good.
And only after she had gone, after Jo had stomped outside and told Ash to take his snakes down the road a bit like he'd promised, did Jo clear away the food baskets from the now-empty tables, and only after that did she collect Bela's half-finished beer.
And only then did she notice, that there, under the bottle and wet with condensation, was a folded hundred-dollar bill.
Jo had been right about one thing - she forgot all about that girl who'd passed through. Immediately in fact. Within days. With the way everyday life remained constant, it was pretty much like Bela had never been there at all.
"Albert Drake? Nope, don't know what happened to him," an old timer named Jackson said to her when she served him his plate of chocolate chip pancakes one morning. "Why you asking?"
"No reason," Jo said.
"You asking because that girl who was after him? She a friend of yours?"
So maybe she did ask around once in a while, but it was all purely professional. Because Drake was a hunter, old and grizzled, and if Jo wanted to know what a hot British art dealer might have wanted from him? Well. Curiosity was in her blood.
"What girl?" Jo asked.
He nodded. "Stranger. Bout your age and height, kind of suspicious. Word gets around."
"I don't know her at all," she said.
Jo resumed staring into the middle distance as she waited for the coffee to boil, wondering if death by boredom actually existed. In these trying circumstances, it was only natural she would wonder about Bela, in between daydreaming phantom breaths of wind in her hair and imagining the cornfields burning out behind her as she always did, driving a little too fast into town to pick up weekly meat orders, burning rubber like at any moment she might make her big escape.
"Why'd you want to find her then," Jackson asked as she put down a fresh cup of coffee in front of him.
She touched her neck where the locket had been. "She took something from me, and I want it back."
"Uh huh," said Jackson, and looked back down at his drink.
Jo ignored the stirrings of some great calling that probably meant she should take off her apron right now, leave the dishes in the sink, and hit the road and be anywhere but Nebraska.
Late one evening, when the customers had all gone home and a symphony of cicadas was singing in the long grass by the door, the bar phone rang. Jo had been enjoying the warmth of the night seeping into her bones as the occasional car drove by on the highway and listening to the nighttime creaking of the Roadhouse settling above her.
She didn't have any illusions about setting off on her own, didn't expect she'd be some shiny penny when it came down to things, but she had to at least give herself the chance. She thought about this great escape as she filled the pepper.
She knew that when she'd save lives no one would thank her for it. She'd have to behead things that were already dead, gag because she didn't have a good stomach for blood. Every creepy crawly thing she chased after would be better left alone, and she imagined the horror of it all would hit her square in the chest, like the kick of a rifle.
But she'd keep her head down and keep fighting. Wasn't that what doing the right thing was all about? Knowing your path and setting out on it, even when the path was unmarked, the beds hard or nonexistent? It would be tornado warnings on her radar but the belief in clear skies for someone else. And she'd do it, sooner rather than later, of that much she was sure.
She'd finished cleaning now, and picked up the receiver distractedly as she refilled the last napkin holder for the night. "Sorry, we're closed."
"Rude," said a voice over the line. "It's very early morning here, I'll have you know."
It sent a shiver of recognition up her neck. She put down the napkins and cradled the phone against her shoulder.
"Very early, huh? Where are you?"
Bela's voice was clear, like she was seated at the bar that very moment, idly sipping a beer. They'd only ever met once but Jo remembered her. And Bela, apparently, remembered her too.
"I'm in Portugal," Bela told her. "I thought I'd find you behind the bar."
"Never anywhere else." It sounded more bitter than Jo had meant it to. She moved on, frowning. "Why are you calling here, anyway? You know you're a wanted criminal around these parts."
"How's that?"
"A robbery occurred, about a month ago now, and the vanished goods were never found. A gold locket? Shaped like a heart? Ring any bells?"
"Oh, right," Bela said. "It's the one with a picture of Johnny Depp in it. I have it here with me."
Jo rolled her eyes, even though she was alone with the lights burning low. "Yep, that's the one."
"You should be flattered."
"Why?"
"Well, isn't it nice to think that someone's carrying a part of you with them? It shows they're thinking of you."
Jo felt a warmth creep up her neck. "You can talk your way out of anything, can't you."
"I'm very gifted."
Jo caught herself smiling into the phone, and too late realized she should be angry. They weren't friends. Schoolyard enemies more like. "What do you want, anyway?"
"I wanted to thank you for the intel on Mr. Drake."
"Did he sell you what you were looking for?"
Bela didn't exactly answer. "You've provided more help than you realize," she said instead. "In fact, I'd be dead if it weren't for you."
"Some art trader," Jo laughed. "You usually get into trouble?"
"Something like that. In repayment I wanted to warn you- there's a guy I've been dealing with, a nasty piece of work. His name is-" Jo frowned as Bela hesitated. "Actually, his name isn't important. Just be careful, all right? Mind who you hand out pints to."
"I will," said Jo, slowly, waiting for something more, some explanation.
"Goodnight, Jo."
The line went dead. Jo felt certain now that it would be the last time.
A month later, and Jo was in what her momma called a funk and Ash had dubbed a cybernetic crisis. Something about disconnect in a technological age.
Whatever the reason, it was the tail end of summer and she was bored as hell and itching to do something with her life. There was a time when Jo could've called her old friend Lindsey and begged her way over to hang out by their pool. But that friendship had ended almost five years ago, before Jo had stopped returning her calls and Lindsey hadn't pushed it. It had gotten tiring, pretending to be something she wasn't, and last Jo'd heard Lindsey was moving to California to be a doctor or something.
Sooner or later, Jo thought as she stirred ice into a pitcher of fresh lemonade in the perpetual cool of the bar. Sooner rather than later, she was going to head out on her own and feel useful again. Compared to now, that life would feel like freedom, hope, and the American way. She'd kick ass and take names. She'd fall in love. She'd probably die out there.
"I'm going on break," she told her momma, throwing in the towel literally if not almost figuratively, and let her hair down from its quick ponytail.
Her mom handed her a plate of fries and a basket of chicken tenders in response. "Can you take these out to the two guys by the pool table first?"
Jo frowned. Her stomach growled at the thought of some fries and her momma raised an eyebrow like she was about to scold Jo for skipping breakfast.
Before Ellen could say anything on the subject, Jo smiled sweetly and pushed the door open, basket in hand. "Sure thing."
At the pool table, the men tipped her in grubby one-dollar bills that she folded into her back pocket to later smooth out between the pages of an old bible, the only place she was sure no one here would touch.
She disappeared out back to hurl sharp and deadly shuriken into fence posts to burn off some steam, a small voice whispering anywhere but here.
Hot flies settled on walls that afternoon and stayed there, white buckwheat flowers stood still on their stalks. After she'd gotten sick of flinging ninja stars every which way, Jo spent the better part of an hour shooting tin cans off a fence post out back, imagining the next time anyone, demon possessed or no, tied her up to a post or attacked her - what she'd do to them, how she'd be ready - until there was more hole than soupcan left.
The calm Jo felt as she sighted each target just before the bullet echoed into the great emptiness was somehow the most relaxing thing she'd ever known. She was zen. She was in the zone. She-
When a cold hand grabbed her from behind, she screeched and swung around ready to kick her attacker in the face.
Ash ducked with the alacrity of one who often pissed off people with dangerous reflexes. He held up a hand. "Calm your balls, Jo. I'm just messing with ya."
"I swear to god, Ash, if you were anyone else-" She didn't finish that sentence. With effort, she relaxed her stance.
The dust settled around them, and Ash held out a square of paper to her. "This came for you," he said, squinting in the light of the sun which hung at half-mast.
"Came for me?" She took it out of his hand. It was an article that had been cut neatly from a newspaper, a few paragraphs long.
Ash said, "Didn't know you had any friends, Jo."
"Neither did I."
"Yeah, no return address on the envelope."
"You opened my mail," she pointed out, but had already begun reading.
"Ideas on who it's from?"
She shook her head. "I don't know who, but I can guess why. Listen to this." She read out a line from the article, under the picture of an ominous and decrepit house. "Third death in the Old Dewitt house- reports of mysterious noises, dead tenants, furniture moving on its own accord-" She looked up, couldn't help the grin on her face. "Ash. It's a haunted house, in Arkansas. This is a case!"
He mirrored her grin. "You put out a Craigslist ad or something?"
She ignored him. "Do you think it's from Dean? I mean, he saw how badass I was when he and Sam crashed my hunt. Maybe they need backup?"
"Maybe. You think this is his style?" Ash looked as intrigued as Jo was. "What're you going to do?"
Jo looked at the paper in her hand, and then over to her beat up car where it sat rusting along the side of the house. "Well I gotta go, don't I?"
Ash screwed up his mouth and looked in the distance, and for a second Jo thought he was going to tell her it was a bad idea, maybe tell her to talk to her mom who scared the hell out of everyone, even Ash who was pretty much Ellen's second kid. Part of Jo maybe wanted him to say something like that, some scared part of her that was still hesitant about striking out on her own.
She felt dumb a second later for even doubting him, though, when all Ash did was nod once, like it was decided then. "I can get the downlow on this creepy house while you pack. You're gonna need some supplies."
He stumbled back against the side of the building when Jo lunged at him to give him the biggest of hugs.
"You know I got your back," he said, patting her awkwardly on the shoulder.
She squeezed her eyes tight. "Thanks, Ash."
That night, feeling like she was sixteen again and sneaking out to drink forties with the girls from her homeschool math group and kick pebbles into the road, Jo waited until the light had long gone out under her momma's door before sneaking down the stairs. She avoided every creaky step, sprinted through past the bar, and disappeared through the front door.
She was out of there.
The map Jo relied on was ripped down the middle, but both halves pointed her clear across two states, and from that point, Ash's directions led her to the Old Dewitt House with no wrong turns.
It was better to work alone, she found. No one showed up this time, not like that first solo-hunt-gone-wrong, the Winchesters crashing her party but ultimately saving the day. She'd been trying to shake it off for some time now.
This time she didn't end up underground in a would-be coffin, breathing dank air and decay. It was an easy in-and-out sort of job, and she was more thankful for that than she'd care to admit.
The house was haunted down to its very foundation and owned by a family of people heavily into the occult. Jo was greeted by a young lady in dark eyeliner and a pentagon necklace hanging over her tanktop, and was ushered in to meet the rest of the family. Jo wiped her shoes politely on the Ouija board door mat, noting how all the surfaces were covered in candles and crystal balls.
"We had in mind to rent out the attic room," Mrs. Dewitt explained, shaking her head. "But the ghost of my great-grandmammy wouldn't have it. Killed three college students before we realized what was happening."
Jo had been ready to sneak and deceive, but she found she didn't have to.
"We're believers," Mrs. Dewitt told her, and was happy to direct Jo to her great-grandmother's grave in a cemetery in the center of town. She even packed Jo a sack lunch for her trouble. It was peanut butter and jelly, Jo was pleased to find. She ate it graveside like she was on a lovely picnic with the dearly departed.
The cemetery was lined by weeping willow trees, the ground wet with recent rainstorms, and Jo dug the grave for hours.
"Piece of cake," she muttered somewhat sardonically as she finally cracked the coffin top that was rotted and thin. She held a match steady till the flame stopped flickering, then dropped it into the sodden pile of bones and earth. She watched as the body burned, the old woman's bones crackling. Eventually everything smoked down to ash.
Jo refilled the grave, on the adrenaline high of a lifetime, scooping shovel-fulls of dirt like she hadn't spent the last three hours digging it up, like her arms weren't burning with the effort, like she'd slept at all that past night instead of driving straight on through.
When Jo headed back to the old house that was now spirit-free, Mr. Dewitt was so thankful he shoved forty bucks in her pocket and wouldn't take no for an answer.
"Old bag gave me the creeps," he swore. "Besides it's awkward to hear your wife's dead great-grandma roaming the halls when you're trying to do you-know-what-"
"Dad!" the daughter cut in, horrified.
"Ok, I should be going," Jo said. "Let me know if the problem starts up again."
"Have a good day," Mrs. Dewitt called after her.
Jo felt warmed by the kindness of strangers, only to remember she was the one sweeping in to the rescue. She felt a strange sense of pride at this as she tried not to skip down the path to her car. She felt on top of the world, having proven herself in the arts of manual labor and civilian-saving. There was nothing like the rush of knowing you'd saved a handful of innocents from quick, brutal death-by-spirit.
She sang loudly along with Taylor Swift on the radio on the drive over to a mall that sparkled in the evening light, and even winked at the dude at the arcade-side Jack 'n the Box counter when she came up to order.
"I get off in an hour," he told her.
"I've actually got a date," she said, apology thick behind her smile.
The guy took it in stride. "No problem. Milkshake's on me, though."
Jo did have a date. A date with every arcade game that required use of a firearm.
She ate her hamburger quickly, and then got change for one of her two twenties and made her way out onto the floor with both pockets loaded down with quarters.
"Thank you, Mr. Dewitt," she said, quarter poised over the coin slot. Which was when she caught sight of a familiar figure near the air hockey table. She stared. "Seriously?"
Her pulse went erratic. She was exhausted and high strung with electricity of success, and also completely thrown by Bela's sudden presence out here in the real world.
Bela looked entirely different, wearing a purple party dress and black heels, curls bouncing as she squealed and came toward Jo.
"What?" Jo said as Bela kissed her cheek.
Bela curled her arms around Jo for a brief, impersonal hug. "There you are, silly! I was wondering where you'd gone."
Jo was stunned, but she wasn't stupid. Bela squeezed her arm warningly and Jo knew how to play along.
She said in a loud voice, "I was, uh, getting change for the video games."
Bela winked, almost imperceptibly, and then dragged Jo over toward a group of kids their age. "Jo, these are my new friends," she said.
Jo gave a little wave. "Hey, guys."
A tall guy stuck out a hand. "Mark. Nice to meet you," He gestured behind him, "And this is Jack and Simone."
Simone looked Jo over and turned to Bela. "Becky! I didn't know you had a friend here!"
"Jo doesn't live here," Becky said, then whispered like it was a secret, "She's from the midwest."
"Yeah, she's right," Jo said awkwardly, shrugging when they stared at her waiting for her to say something that made her interesting enough to be friends with...Becky.
Jo had wasted a ghost just three hours earlier and she'd been planning to celebrate by herself. It should have been a night out at the crappy mall, and Jo passed out on her motel bed by eleven. But instead here she was, suddenly swept up in Bela's orbit, infringing on an area of Bela's life that had nothing to do with her. Jo could save lives but she couldn't even hold a halfway decent conversation with someone her age, this was proven over the next few minutes. She tended to stop conversations and then feel awkward and too small for her skin.
They all began to talk to each other, and Jo faded into the background. Bela looked good, she noticed, better than ever in the neons of the arcade. Seeing her here now felt inexplicably like running into an ex in some incongruous location, and the feeling got worse as Bela barely looked her way.
"You come here often?" Mark finally asked Jo, nodding to the Jurassic Park game Jo had had her heart set on playing.
"Yeah, totally," Jo said in her best valley girl impression, then grimacing at the sound.
"You know," Mark said. He stretched casually and surveyed the arcade like it was his kingdom. "I'm kind of a big deal when it comes to this kind of thing."
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah. I have the top score on pretty much all these games. Unbeatable."
"Really."
Jo looked to Bela, whose smile was impersonal and distant, and to the other two, who were deep in conversation again, and then back to Mark waiting for her answer.
Jo couldn't resist a challenge and, judging by Mark's designer jeans and douchey haircut, he had money to spare. Jo wondering vaguely if Bela would be pissed at her for ripping off one of her preppy friends. Hell, she hadn't even known Bela had friends in the US. Not that she knew anything about her, really.
"Stand to lose a little money on it?" Jo said.
Mark blinked, reassessing the situation. "You're serious? Well sorry, I don't bet less than a grand."
Bela giggled at something Jack had said, and Jo looked away for a second, feeling an unexpected twinge of something like jealousy.
"Make it two," she said. She grabbed a neon, plastic gun. "I could use a new laptop."
The night didn't sour after she curled her winnings into her pocket. Sixty bills, all of them hundreds. Mark was a good sport about it, just rolled his shoulders after she won their third round, and shook her hand.
"I concede," he said.
Bela batted her eyelashes and shot Jo a dangerous look. "Please excuse her. Nothing to do in those middle states but drink and gamble."
"Nonsense, I'm a lady!" Jo protested, and kept her eyes on Bela as the rest of the group laughed.
Bela dragging her toward the bathrooms, slamming the door behind them.
She looked cool and intrigued when she pressed Jo up against the bathroom door. "Is that mud on your top?" she said.
Jo looked down at herself as well. "Ah. So it is. I-" just dug myself into and out of a grave. "-was in a field. So yeah, it is. Mud." Jo quickly moved on. "Look, sorry to crash your party. You can say I got sick and went home."
"Don't be."
"I honestly didn't know you'd be here. Imagine my surprise when of all the places-"
Bela cut her off, shaking her head. "I thought you might be in the area."
"Thought I was in the- wait, what?"
Bela let her go, pushing her gently toward the sinks. "Clean yourself up. We'll go home with Mark."
"What?"
"These kids have something I need," Bela said. Then, like she'd only just remembered to consider it, "You don't have plans tonight, do you?"
"Well..."
"I could use your expertise."
Jo relaxed. "Oh, so you need backup?"
"Never in a million years."
"Uh huh. And hey, how could I possibly help you with an art job?"
She couldn't help but notice Bela's tendency not to answer direct questions. As Bela looked her over again, Jo felt her cheeks burn.
"You have a nice pair of heels or something?" Bela asked.
" I would never in a million years wear heels-" Jo retorted, and was about to finish with on a hunt, imagining wearing stilettos in a fight with something that wanted to eat her alive. She couldn't very well say that though, and instead just let that half-finished protest hang there awkwardly.
"Yes, well," Bela said. "Our lives differ from each other in quite a few places, wouldn't you say?"
Jo put a hand over her heart. "Ouch, you really know how to make a girl cry."
"Whatever," said Bela, and stepped away to leave the bathroom.
Before following her out, Jo gave herself a quick, furtive look in the mirror, wetting a paper towel to wipe dried mud off the side of her neck.
Mud removed, she looked good.
When they rejoined Mark and the others, Bela took Jo's arm and Jo got the feeling it was not only to keep up BFF appearances, but that she was making sure she stayed.
"We're going back to mine for some drinks, maybe a little dip in the hot tub," Mark told them, implication heavy, and Jo fought the urge to roll her eyes.
Bela punched her in the arm, but in a friendly sort of way. Maybe. Jo couldn't really tell.
"That sounds great! We'll meet you there. I'll ride with Jo!"
"Bye," Jo sing-songed, wiggling her fingers.
Bela dragged her away, dropping the act seamlessly. "Now there's a good girl," she said.
"Your American accent sucks," Jo told her acidly.
"It's almost like you're not happy to see me."
Jo laughed as they stepped outside onto the sidewalk. Bela sidestepped a puddle as a taxi skidded past. Steam came up from the sewers in puffs.
"I still have no idea what I'm doing here," Jo told her, looking to where her three new friends were unlocking a red convertible down the road. "None."
"Oh come on. Don't overthink it. It'll be fun."
"What will? Spending all night hanging with spoiled rich kids who've probably never done an honest day's work in their lives." Jo paused, laying on the fake surprise extra thick. "Oh wait, I see why you're friends now."
"As I said, this is purely a business matter. I'm here because I have a potential seller," Bela said slowly, like maybe Jo was stupid.
Jo fished in her pocket for the keys as they reached her car. Compared to the convertible, it looked downright dangerous to drive. She wasn't embarrassed of where she was from, but it could do with a tune up. "Yeah? Who?"
"You just met him."
Jo paused with her key in the lock, looking down the street. "That kid?"
"That kid," Bela said. "Is the son of millionaire Janna Lynch, who just so happens to have in her collection of precious artifacts, a dagger that is said to have belonged to a Greek god."
"Bullshit."
"Obviously." Bela rolled her eyes at Jo over the top of the car. "But it doesn't mean it's not pretty. And I have a buyer who'll pay a handsome sum."
"Why the fake persona then?"
Bela did a fake curtsey in her frilly dress. "I'd rather stay off the radar. I'm sure you understand."
Jo squinted at her, wondering at the edge to that. Bela just looked back, as if daring her to respond.
"Fine," Jo said, giving in more out of curiosity than common sense. She wanted to see where this would go. Inexplicably wanted to know Bela.
Bela smiled before getting in on the passenger side. It was probably not the best sign. Jo started the car with jerky, barely contained resignation and followed the cherry-colored Jag down the dark street.
Bela was rooting around in her glove compartment, and when Jo glanced over again, saw that she had moved on to looking over into the backseat, eyeing the shovel. "Are you a gardener? It would explain the dirt."
"Yep, that's me," Jo said, the muttered, "Civilians."
"Pardon?"
"Nothing. Hey, so if this kid's mom's a purveyor of precious artifacts and has a car like that, what was he doing hanging out at the mall? I guess this is almost the definition of a two horse town, but still. There has to be something better to do around here."
Bela settled back in her seat. "His daddy bought him that mall. Try not to fuck this up, ok?"
"Right."
Part 2
On a Tuesday afternoon in late July, Jo wiped down the bar with a damp rag and pushed the salt shaker in to clink against the bottle of barbecue sauce. The clock read two in the afternoon.
One of the patrons had fallen asleep at his table just after lunch and was still snoring there with his hand in a puddle of beer, shotgun within reach. Meanwhile, the other three men currently wending away the afternoon hours at the Roadhouse were slumped back in their chairs, a picked over plate of onion rings between them. Napkins were crumpled, pint glasses were a quarter full and glowing gold in the hazy light. The men had come in separately but were now trading stories like old friends.
Really, they sort of were- the hunting lifestyle had a way of binding you together. If you survived.
"You'll have to stab it four times," one man explained. "Right in the gullet. And the blade can't be just any old silver."
"Course not," sighed one of the others, rolling his eyes. "Because that would be too easy, right? Course it's gotta be harder to waste than that."
"Don't ask me why, it's just one of those things. And silver from South America is your best option."
"Always is," the one with the goatee, Frank, agreed. "I've read everything in the library that so much as mentions knives, from Burke's Kitchen Cutlery Companion to the damn Bible."
"Well excuse me," the third crowed, syllables all drawn out. His accent was straight out of Alabama, and he had the road dust to prove it. He chuckled. "Looks like we've got a regular scholar on our hands here, boys."
"Shaddup and buy us another round."
"Not in a million years. Say, you heard about the latest on iron machetes being sold down in Louisiana?"
It was because of conversations like these that Jo could reliably say that she knew more about weaponry than any other 21-year-old girl in Nebraska. Couldn't learn any of this in college, she knew that much without needing to go see for herself.
A car pulled up outside, and the conversation subsided when the engine cut off. Jo paused, too, listening to the sound of footsteps creaking up the front steps.
The Roadhouse was just one squat pitstop on a long stretch of empty highway. Roadtrippers dropped in from time to time - for a burger, for a drink - unaware of what world they'd just stepped into. Just last week Jo'd served a family of four wearing matching 'I Heart NYC' shirts even though they were a thousand miles and a whole other mindset away from the city. The mom had warned the kids against talking with their mouths full,oblivious to their location in a den of rag tag alcoholics and run-down heroes who'd seen much worse.
The figure that appeared in the doorway now was slim, backlit by the outside world. It took Jo a moment to make her out - this stranger, this girl.
She was obviously not a hunter, was Jo's first thought. She wore no visible weapons, no carefully hidden weapons either, and didn't carry herself like she was expecting an attack on her person. She was dressed in dark jeans and a navy blue top, and she was the kind of clean that screamed of the city life Jo had spent long years learning not to be jealous of. It was better to be on the fringes of society and in the life than to live as one of the general populous with the wool pulled over your eyes, was what she always told herself.
The girl's heels were loud against the wood floor as she approached the bar, almost like a knocking.
Jo put on her just-a-normal-waitress face and a tightlipped smile. "Hi there," she said. "Welcome to the Roadhouse. What can I get you?"
The jukebox chose that moment to wind down. The other customers had fallen silent. Even Old Mike snuffled awake and peeled his face away from the sticky table top to sit straight in his chair, aware something was afoot. Hunter's instincts.
Jo felt her smile falter when the girl didn't answer. And then the jukebox picked up again on Fly Me to the Moon, the girl seating herself gracefully on a stool and resting her chin on a manicured hand.
She was absolutely gorgeous, with sleek hair and sharp, blue eyes. Not from around here, Jo thought with some yearning.
"Hello," the girl said, and snaked a Bud from the side of the counter.
Lightyears too slow, Jo protested, "You can't do that!"
The girl smiled. She slapped a ten dollar bill on the bar and Jo's eyebrows raised.
"That better?"
"You need an opener for that?"
"Don't worry, I've got one."
Jo watched her lift a fork from the tray of silverware and crack the bottle top off with the end. She caught Jo's surprise and gestured with the fork. "That's one the Queen taught me."
"The Queen spend much time in dingy bars?"
"You'd be amazed." She put the fork back in the spoon tray. Then, she turned, dismissing Jo completely to send a demure smile to the other side of the room. Jo watched the curve of it from her place behind the bar, as the girl purred, "Hello, boys."
You couldn't trust even the most innocent-type.
"Afternoon," one of the trio said.
"Is there anything else I can get for you?" Jo asked loudly. Her momma wasn't working, so it fell to her to take care of any situation. Like this one.
The girl's eyes flicked Jo's way and gave her the once over, like maybe she thought Jo was too young to be working in a place like this. Or there was a slim chance that she was checking her for weapons. The former was normal, she'd leave soon. The latter, though, this girl was a hunter, and Jo had misread her.
The third option was that the girl was checking her out, but that was highly unlikely.
"Who's asking?" she said, giving Jo another look.
"Look," Jo said. "I just want to take your order."
"Do you?" Smug, cocky. "The name's Bela. Bela Talbot. And I don't need anything."
Jo leaned with a hip against the bar, and said, cool as a pistol, "Lunch is on me, Bela." Seeing as her mom wasn't around and all.
Not batting an eye, Bela said, "What if I'm only looking for information?"
"Well, maybe I can get that for you, too. How about you tell me where you're coming from and I'll see what I can do about tracking down what you need."
After a superior sort of hesitation, during which Jo raised an eyebrow, Bela said, "Ok then. I need to track down a Mr. Drake."
Jo thought about it. "It's not an Albert Drake, is it?" The guy came in here now and again.
"It is."
"What do you need him for?"
Bela lifted her chin. "He's a lover who scorned me."
"Really."
"Yes."
"Mr. Albert Drake?" Jo confirmed. "The seventy-year-old dude with one eye."
Bela's mouth quirked but she held her ground. "That's correct," she said.
Jo rolled her eyes. "Tell me another one."
Bela looked her over for a long while, like Jo had surprised her. Or at least provided some unexpected entertainment. "All right, then. Something Mr. Drake has in his collection happens to have secured my client's interest. I intend to set the two of them up with a deal."
"Deal, huh? And what exactly is it that you do?"
The men at the tables were listing close for the answer, too.
"My, my. Aren't we curious?" Bela said, and her refusal to engage made Jo narrow her eyes. Something about the question got her hackles up. You never knew with strangers. Words turned to code, always had to watch them for foul play. No one just walked in and out of the Roadhouse, you had to work for what you got.
"Curiosity's my middle name," Jo said.
"I work the business end for collectors of antiquities, if you must know."
"Like an art dealer?"
Bela smiled again, slow and deliberate. "Right."
Frank stood, interrupting what felt to Jo like some sort of showdown, a moment of who would back down first. "I know the guy," he said.
Bela looked his way.
He turned his hat in his hands. "I know he can always use some extra dough, so if I can get a trade going, I know it'll help him out."
"Excellent."
While Bela chatted with the three old-timers Jo busied herself getting more nachos for Mike, startlingly uncomfortable at their exchange, at the fact some girl her age was here whose life couldn't have made her more different to Jo. She felt like she was up for judgement, even though no eyes were on her, even though this girl knew nothing about her.
To take her mind off things, she brewed more coffee, although the bowl was cracked near the handle and coffee would all fizz out anyway with the next pot.
Ten minutes later, Bela stood suddenly. Something jolted in Jo's stomach, more than the jealousy, more than just interest in what life would be like if she were in this stranger's shoes.
"Heading out?" she blurted.
Bela raised her eyebrows and Jo only shrugged. There was something there, some yearning for Bela to stay that left Jo flushing at the embarrassment of it. She felt like they'd started a conversation that was far from being finished.
"I have all the information I came for. It was a pleasure to meet you all," Bela said, but didn't leave immediately. "That's a nice locket."
Jo touched the heart charm she wore, twisting the thin chain around her pinky. "Thanks. I got it from my mom when I graduated high school." She paused, before continuing, "Of course, I was home schooled for the last part of it, so it wasn't exactly real graduation, but I still finished all four years."
Bela looked nonplussed by this information, like she wasn't sure what to do with this offering between strangers. She finally asked, "Is it gold?"
"I...I'm not sure actually," Jo said, looking down at it.
"Hm." Bela leaned closer, over the counter.
Jo noticed again how clean she was, almost too clean, if that was possible, her fingernails filed to perfection, the meticulous clean that reminded Jo of scrubbing blood off one's hands until there was not a trace of blood left.
"Anything in it?" Bela asked.
"That's for me to know," Jo said, dropping it under her shirt.
Bela met her eyes. "Secrets, then?"
"I like to keep what's mine," Jo told her, shifting back to lean against the counter again.
Bela considered her for a moment before drawing back, then said, dryly, "I might drop by again. Don't miss me while I'm gone."
Jo scoffed. "Miss you? I don't even know you."
"True."
Then Bela was out the door, stepping into the bright world.
Jo sighed and picked up the rag off the bar again, ignoring her sixth sense that told her there was something worth following up on here, some trail of clues that would lead somewhere that promised to be interesting.
She would forget the interaction by that night, Bela just one of many people she'd serve that day. And if Bela ever came back - which was unlikely, given the cultivated air of boredom that belonged in silk somewhere far away - well, it was unlikely Bela would remember her, either.
"Oh and Jo?"
Jo jumped, nearly knocking over a row of glasses as Bela reappeared in the doorway. She managed to hold onto her dignity, grabbing a rag and pretending to wipe at the bar. "Yeah?"
Bela looked at her strangely. "...You do know there's a man with a tub of snakes outside, right?"
"Dammit, Ash!" Jo threw down the rag. "He's supposed to do that around back, not out front drawing attention to us! Momma's gonna kill him one of these days." She remembered, belatedly, that this was supposed to be a civilian establishment. "Because, uh, we don't want to alert the FDA. Because, uh, low health standards."
Jo mentally told herself to shut up, wincing.
Bela only said, "Right," before disappearing again, this time for good.
And only after she had gone, after Jo had stomped outside and told Ash to take his snakes down the road a bit like he'd promised, did Jo clear away the food baskets from the now-empty tables, and only after that did she collect Bela's half-finished beer.
And only then did she notice, that there, under the bottle and wet with condensation, was a folded hundred-dollar bill.
Jo had been right about one thing - she forgot all about that girl who'd passed through. Immediately in fact. Within days. With the way everyday life remained constant, it was pretty much like Bela had never been there at all.
"Albert Drake? Nope, don't know what happened to him," an old timer named Jackson said to her when she served him his plate of chocolate chip pancakes one morning. "Why you asking?"
"No reason," Jo said.
"You asking because that girl who was after him? She a friend of yours?"
So maybe she did ask around once in a while, but it was all purely professional. Because Drake was a hunter, old and grizzled, and if Jo wanted to know what a hot British art dealer might have wanted from him? Well. Curiosity was in her blood.
"What girl?" Jo asked.
He nodded. "Stranger. Bout your age and height, kind of suspicious. Word gets around."
"I don't know her at all," she said.
Jo resumed staring into the middle distance as she waited for the coffee to boil, wondering if death by boredom actually existed. In these trying circumstances, it was only natural she would wonder about Bela, in between daydreaming phantom breaths of wind in her hair and imagining the cornfields burning out behind her as she always did, driving a little too fast into town to pick up weekly meat orders, burning rubber like at any moment she might make her big escape.
"Why'd you want to find her then," Jackson asked as she put down a fresh cup of coffee in front of him.
She touched her neck where the locket had been. "She took something from me, and I want it back."
"Uh huh," said Jackson, and looked back down at his drink.
Jo ignored the stirrings of some great calling that probably meant she should take off her apron right now, leave the dishes in the sink, and hit the road and be anywhere but Nebraska.
Late one evening, when the customers had all gone home and a symphony of cicadas was singing in the long grass by the door, the bar phone rang. Jo had been enjoying the warmth of the night seeping into her bones as the occasional car drove by on the highway and listening to the nighttime creaking of the Roadhouse settling above her.
She didn't have any illusions about setting off on her own, didn't expect she'd be some shiny penny when it came down to things, but she had to at least give herself the chance. She thought about this great escape as she filled the pepper.
She knew that when she'd save lives no one would thank her for it. She'd have to behead things that were already dead, gag because she didn't have a good stomach for blood. Every creepy crawly thing she chased after would be better left alone, and she imagined the horror of it all would hit her square in the chest, like the kick of a rifle.
But she'd keep her head down and keep fighting. Wasn't that what doing the right thing was all about? Knowing your path and setting out on it, even when the path was unmarked, the beds hard or nonexistent? It would be tornado warnings on her radar but the belief in clear skies for someone else. And she'd do it, sooner rather than later, of that much she was sure.
She'd finished cleaning now, and picked up the receiver distractedly as she refilled the last napkin holder for the night. "Sorry, we're closed."
"Rude," said a voice over the line. "It's very early morning here, I'll have you know."
It sent a shiver of recognition up her neck. She put down the napkins and cradled the phone against her shoulder.
"Very early, huh? Where are you?"
Bela's voice was clear, like she was seated at the bar that very moment, idly sipping a beer. They'd only ever met once but Jo remembered her. And Bela, apparently, remembered her too.
"I'm in Portugal," Bela told her. "I thought I'd find you behind the bar."
"Never anywhere else." It sounded more bitter than Jo had meant it to. She moved on, frowning. "Why are you calling here, anyway? You know you're a wanted criminal around these parts."
"How's that?"
"A robbery occurred, about a month ago now, and the vanished goods were never found. A gold locket? Shaped like a heart? Ring any bells?"
"Oh, right," Bela said. "It's the one with a picture of Johnny Depp in it. I have it here with me."
Jo rolled her eyes, even though she was alone with the lights burning low. "Yep, that's the one."
"You should be flattered."
"Why?"
"Well, isn't it nice to think that someone's carrying a part of you with them? It shows they're thinking of you."
Jo felt a warmth creep up her neck. "You can talk your way out of anything, can't you."
"I'm very gifted."
Jo caught herself smiling into the phone, and too late realized she should be angry. They weren't friends. Schoolyard enemies more like. "What do you want, anyway?"
"I wanted to thank you for the intel on Mr. Drake."
"Did he sell you what you were looking for?"
Bela didn't exactly answer. "You've provided more help than you realize," she said instead. "In fact, I'd be dead if it weren't for you."
"Some art trader," Jo laughed. "You usually get into trouble?"
"Something like that. In repayment I wanted to warn you- there's a guy I've been dealing with, a nasty piece of work. His name is-" Jo frowned as Bela hesitated. "Actually, his name isn't important. Just be careful, all right? Mind who you hand out pints to."
"I will," said Jo, slowly, waiting for something more, some explanation.
"Goodnight, Jo."
The line went dead. Jo felt certain now that it would be the last time.
A month later, and Jo was in what her momma called a funk and Ash had dubbed a cybernetic crisis. Something about disconnect in a technological age.
Whatever the reason, it was the tail end of summer and she was bored as hell and itching to do something with her life. There was a time when Jo could've called her old friend Lindsey and begged her way over to hang out by their pool. But that friendship had ended almost five years ago, before Jo had stopped returning her calls and Lindsey hadn't pushed it. It had gotten tiring, pretending to be something she wasn't, and last Jo'd heard Lindsey was moving to California to be a doctor or something.
Sooner or later, Jo thought as she stirred ice into a pitcher of fresh lemonade in the perpetual cool of the bar. Sooner rather than later, she was going to head out on her own and feel useful again. Compared to now, that life would feel like freedom, hope, and the American way. She'd kick ass and take names. She'd fall in love. She'd probably die out there.
"I'm going on break," she told her momma, throwing in the towel literally if not almost figuratively, and let her hair down from its quick ponytail.
Her mom handed her a plate of fries and a basket of chicken tenders in response. "Can you take these out to the two guys by the pool table first?"
Jo frowned. Her stomach growled at the thought of some fries and her momma raised an eyebrow like she was about to scold Jo for skipping breakfast.
Before Ellen could say anything on the subject, Jo smiled sweetly and pushed the door open, basket in hand. "Sure thing."
At the pool table, the men tipped her in grubby one-dollar bills that she folded into her back pocket to later smooth out between the pages of an old bible, the only place she was sure no one here would touch.
She disappeared out back to hurl sharp and deadly shuriken into fence posts to burn off some steam, a small voice whispering anywhere but here.
Hot flies settled on walls that afternoon and stayed there, white buckwheat flowers stood still on their stalks. After she'd gotten sick of flinging ninja stars every which way, Jo spent the better part of an hour shooting tin cans off a fence post out back, imagining the next time anyone, demon possessed or no, tied her up to a post or attacked her - what she'd do to them, how she'd be ready - until there was more hole than soupcan left.
The calm Jo felt as she sighted each target just before the bullet echoed into the great emptiness was somehow the most relaxing thing she'd ever known. She was zen. She was in the zone. She-
When a cold hand grabbed her from behind, she screeched and swung around ready to kick her attacker in the face.
Ash ducked with the alacrity of one who often pissed off people with dangerous reflexes. He held up a hand. "Calm your balls, Jo. I'm just messing with ya."
"I swear to god, Ash, if you were anyone else-" She didn't finish that sentence. With effort, she relaxed her stance.
The dust settled around them, and Ash held out a square of paper to her. "This came for you," he said, squinting in the light of the sun which hung at half-mast.
"Came for me?" She took it out of his hand. It was an article that had been cut neatly from a newspaper, a few paragraphs long.
Ash said, "Didn't know you had any friends, Jo."
"Neither did I."
"Yeah, no return address on the envelope."
"You opened my mail," she pointed out, but had already begun reading.
"Ideas on who it's from?"
She shook her head. "I don't know who, but I can guess why. Listen to this." She read out a line from the article, under the picture of an ominous and decrepit house. "Third death in the Old Dewitt house- reports of mysterious noises, dead tenants, furniture moving on its own accord-" She looked up, couldn't help the grin on her face. "Ash. It's a haunted house, in Arkansas. This is a case!"
He mirrored her grin. "You put out a Craigslist ad or something?"
She ignored him. "Do you think it's from Dean? I mean, he saw how badass I was when he and Sam crashed my hunt. Maybe they need backup?"
"Maybe. You think this is his style?" Ash looked as intrigued as Jo was. "What're you going to do?"
Jo looked at the paper in her hand, and then over to her beat up car where it sat rusting along the side of the house. "Well I gotta go, don't I?"
Ash screwed up his mouth and looked in the distance, and for a second Jo thought he was going to tell her it was a bad idea, maybe tell her to talk to her mom who scared the hell out of everyone, even Ash who was pretty much Ellen's second kid. Part of Jo maybe wanted him to say something like that, some scared part of her that was still hesitant about striking out on her own.
She felt dumb a second later for even doubting him, though, when all Ash did was nod once, like it was decided then. "I can get the downlow on this creepy house while you pack. You're gonna need some supplies."
He stumbled back against the side of the building when Jo lunged at him to give him the biggest of hugs.
"You know I got your back," he said, patting her awkwardly on the shoulder.
She squeezed her eyes tight. "Thanks, Ash."
That night, feeling like she was sixteen again and sneaking out to drink forties with the girls from her homeschool math group and kick pebbles into the road, Jo waited until the light had long gone out under her momma's door before sneaking down the stairs. She avoided every creaky step, sprinted through past the bar, and disappeared through the front door.
She was out of there.
The map Jo relied on was ripped down the middle, but both halves pointed her clear across two states, and from that point, Ash's directions led her to the Old Dewitt House with no wrong turns.
It was better to work alone, she found. No one showed up this time, not like that first solo-hunt-gone-wrong, the Winchesters crashing her party but ultimately saving the day. She'd been trying to shake it off for some time now.
This time she didn't end up underground in a would-be coffin, breathing dank air and decay. It was an easy in-and-out sort of job, and she was more thankful for that than she'd care to admit.
The house was haunted down to its very foundation and owned by a family of people heavily into the occult. Jo was greeted by a young lady in dark eyeliner and a pentagon necklace hanging over her tanktop, and was ushered in to meet the rest of the family. Jo wiped her shoes politely on the Ouija board door mat, noting how all the surfaces were covered in candles and crystal balls.
"We had in mind to rent out the attic room," Mrs. Dewitt explained, shaking her head. "But the ghost of my great-grandmammy wouldn't have it. Killed three college students before we realized what was happening."
Jo had been ready to sneak and deceive, but she found she didn't have to.
"We're believers," Mrs. Dewitt told her, and was happy to direct Jo to her great-grandmother's grave in a cemetery in the center of town. She even packed Jo a sack lunch for her trouble. It was peanut butter and jelly, Jo was pleased to find. She ate it graveside like she was on a lovely picnic with the dearly departed.
The cemetery was lined by weeping willow trees, the ground wet with recent rainstorms, and Jo dug the grave for hours.
"Piece of cake," she muttered somewhat sardonically as she finally cracked the coffin top that was rotted and thin. She held a match steady till the flame stopped flickering, then dropped it into the sodden pile of bones and earth. She watched as the body burned, the old woman's bones crackling. Eventually everything smoked down to ash.
Jo refilled the grave, on the adrenaline high of a lifetime, scooping shovel-fulls of dirt like she hadn't spent the last three hours digging it up, like her arms weren't burning with the effort, like she'd slept at all that past night instead of driving straight on through.
When Jo headed back to the old house that was now spirit-free, Mr. Dewitt was so thankful he shoved forty bucks in her pocket and wouldn't take no for an answer.
"Old bag gave me the creeps," he swore. "Besides it's awkward to hear your wife's dead great-grandma roaming the halls when you're trying to do you-know-what-"
"Dad!" the daughter cut in, horrified.
"Ok, I should be going," Jo said. "Let me know if the problem starts up again."
"Have a good day," Mrs. Dewitt called after her.
Jo felt warmed by the kindness of strangers, only to remember she was the one sweeping in to the rescue. She felt a strange sense of pride at this as she tried not to skip down the path to her car. She felt on top of the world, having proven herself in the arts of manual labor and civilian-saving. There was nothing like the rush of knowing you'd saved a handful of innocents from quick, brutal death-by-spirit.
She sang loudly along with Taylor Swift on the radio on the drive over to a mall that sparkled in the evening light, and even winked at the dude at the arcade-side Jack 'n the Box counter when she came up to order.
"I get off in an hour," he told her.
"I've actually got a date," she said, apology thick behind her smile.
The guy took it in stride. "No problem. Milkshake's on me, though."
Jo did have a date. A date with every arcade game that required use of a firearm.
She ate her hamburger quickly, and then got change for one of her two twenties and made her way out onto the floor with both pockets loaded down with quarters.
"Thank you, Mr. Dewitt," she said, quarter poised over the coin slot. Which was when she caught sight of a familiar figure near the air hockey table. She stared. "Seriously?"
Her pulse went erratic. She was exhausted and high strung with electricity of success, and also completely thrown by Bela's sudden presence out here in the real world.
Bela looked entirely different, wearing a purple party dress and black heels, curls bouncing as she squealed and came toward Jo.
"What?" Jo said as Bela kissed her cheek.
Bela curled her arms around Jo for a brief, impersonal hug. "There you are, silly! I was wondering where you'd gone."
Jo was stunned, but she wasn't stupid. Bela squeezed her arm warningly and Jo knew how to play along.
She said in a loud voice, "I was, uh, getting change for the video games."
Bela winked, almost imperceptibly, and then dragged Jo over toward a group of kids their age. "Jo, these are my new friends," she said.
Jo gave a little wave. "Hey, guys."
A tall guy stuck out a hand. "Mark. Nice to meet you," He gestured behind him, "And this is Jack and Simone."
Simone looked Jo over and turned to Bela. "Becky! I didn't know you had a friend here!"
"Jo doesn't live here," Becky said, then whispered like it was a secret, "She's from the midwest."
"Yeah, she's right," Jo said awkwardly, shrugging when they stared at her waiting for her to say something that made her interesting enough to be friends with...Becky.
Jo had wasted a ghost just three hours earlier and she'd been planning to celebrate by herself. It should have been a night out at the crappy mall, and Jo passed out on her motel bed by eleven. But instead here she was, suddenly swept up in Bela's orbit, infringing on an area of Bela's life that had nothing to do with her. Jo could save lives but she couldn't even hold a halfway decent conversation with someone her age, this was proven over the next few minutes. She tended to stop conversations and then feel awkward and too small for her skin.
They all began to talk to each other, and Jo faded into the background. Bela looked good, she noticed, better than ever in the neons of the arcade. Seeing her here now felt inexplicably like running into an ex in some incongruous location, and the feeling got worse as Bela barely looked her way.
"You come here often?" Mark finally asked Jo, nodding to the Jurassic Park game Jo had had her heart set on playing.
"Yeah, totally," Jo said in her best valley girl impression, then grimacing at the sound.
"You know," Mark said. He stretched casually and surveyed the arcade like it was his kingdom. "I'm kind of a big deal when it comes to this kind of thing."
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah. I have the top score on pretty much all these games. Unbeatable."
"Really."
Jo looked to Bela, whose smile was impersonal and distant, and to the other two, who were deep in conversation again, and then back to Mark waiting for her answer.
Jo couldn't resist a challenge and, judging by Mark's designer jeans and douchey haircut, he had money to spare. Jo wondering vaguely if Bela would be pissed at her for ripping off one of her preppy friends. Hell, she hadn't even known Bela had friends in the US. Not that she knew anything about her, really.
"Stand to lose a little money on it?" Jo said.
Mark blinked, reassessing the situation. "You're serious? Well sorry, I don't bet less than a grand."
Bela giggled at something Jack had said, and Jo looked away for a second, feeling an unexpected twinge of something like jealousy.
"Make it two," she said. She grabbed a neon, plastic gun. "I could use a new laptop."
The night didn't sour after she curled her winnings into her pocket. Sixty bills, all of them hundreds. Mark was a good sport about it, just rolled his shoulders after she won their third round, and shook her hand.
"I concede," he said.
Bela batted her eyelashes and shot Jo a dangerous look. "Please excuse her. Nothing to do in those middle states but drink and gamble."
"Nonsense, I'm a lady!" Jo protested, and kept her eyes on Bela as the rest of the group laughed.
Bela dragging her toward the bathrooms, slamming the door behind them.
She looked cool and intrigued when she pressed Jo up against the bathroom door. "Is that mud on your top?" she said.
Jo looked down at herself as well. "Ah. So it is. I-" just dug myself into and out of a grave. "-was in a field. So yeah, it is. Mud." Jo quickly moved on. "Look, sorry to crash your party. You can say I got sick and went home."
"Don't be."
"I honestly didn't know you'd be here. Imagine my surprise when of all the places-"
Bela cut her off, shaking her head. "I thought you might be in the area."
"Thought I was in the- wait, what?"
Bela let her go, pushing her gently toward the sinks. "Clean yourself up. We'll go home with Mark."
"What?"
"These kids have something I need," Bela said. Then, like she'd only just remembered to consider it, "You don't have plans tonight, do you?"
"Well..."
"I could use your expertise."
Jo relaxed. "Oh, so you need backup?"
"Never in a million years."
"Uh huh. And hey, how could I possibly help you with an art job?"
She couldn't help but notice Bela's tendency not to answer direct questions. As Bela looked her over again, Jo felt her cheeks burn.
"You have a nice pair of heels or something?" Bela asked.
" I would never in a million years wear heels-" Jo retorted, and was about to finish with on a hunt, imagining wearing stilettos in a fight with something that wanted to eat her alive. She couldn't very well say that though, and instead just let that half-finished protest hang there awkwardly.
"Yes, well," Bela said. "Our lives differ from each other in quite a few places, wouldn't you say?"
Jo put a hand over her heart. "Ouch, you really know how to make a girl cry."
"Whatever," said Bela, and stepped away to leave the bathroom.
Before following her out, Jo gave herself a quick, furtive look in the mirror, wetting a paper towel to wipe dried mud off the side of her neck.
Mud removed, she looked good.
When they rejoined Mark and the others, Bela took Jo's arm and Jo got the feeling it was not only to keep up BFF appearances, but that she was making sure she stayed.
"We're going back to mine for some drinks, maybe a little dip in the hot tub," Mark told them, implication heavy, and Jo fought the urge to roll her eyes.
Bela punched her in the arm, but in a friendly sort of way. Maybe. Jo couldn't really tell.
"That sounds great! We'll meet you there. I'll ride with Jo!"
"Bye," Jo sing-songed, wiggling her fingers.
Bela dragged her away, dropping the act seamlessly. "Now there's a good girl," she said.
"Your American accent sucks," Jo told her acidly.
"It's almost like you're not happy to see me."
Jo laughed as they stepped outside onto the sidewalk. Bela sidestepped a puddle as a taxi skidded past. Steam came up from the sewers in puffs.
"I still have no idea what I'm doing here," Jo told her, looking to where her three new friends were unlocking a red convertible down the road. "None."
"Oh come on. Don't overthink it. It'll be fun."
"What will? Spending all night hanging with spoiled rich kids who've probably never done an honest day's work in their lives." Jo paused, laying on the fake surprise extra thick. "Oh wait, I see why you're friends now."
"As I said, this is purely a business matter. I'm here because I have a potential seller," Bela said slowly, like maybe Jo was stupid.
Jo fished in her pocket for the keys as they reached her car. Compared to the convertible, it looked downright dangerous to drive. She wasn't embarrassed of where she was from, but it could do with a tune up. "Yeah? Who?"
"You just met him."
Jo paused with her key in the lock, looking down the street. "That kid?"
"That kid," Bela said. "Is the son of millionaire Janna Lynch, who just so happens to have in her collection of precious artifacts, a dagger that is said to have belonged to a Greek god."
"Bullshit."
"Obviously." Bela rolled her eyes at Jo over the top of the car. "But it doesn't mean it's not pretty. And I have a buyer who'll pay a handsome sum."
"Why the fake persona then?"
Bela did a fake curtsey in her frilly dress. "I'd rather stay off the radar. I'm sure you understand."
Jo squinted at her, wondering at the edge to that. Bela just looked back, as if daring her to respond.
"Fine," Jo said, giving in more out of curiosity than common sense. She wanted to see where this would go. Inexplicably wanted to know Bela.
Bela smiled before getting in on the passenger side. It was probably not the best sign. Jo started the car with jerky, barely contained resignation and followed the cherry-colored Jag down the dark street.
Bela was rooting around in her glove compartment, and when Jo glanced over again, saw that she had moved on to looking over into the backseat, eyeing the shovel. "Are you a gardener? It would explain the dirt."
"Yep, that's me," Jo said, the muttered, "Civilians."
"Pardon?"
"Nothing. Hey, so if this kid's mom's a purveyor of precious artifacts and has a car like that, what was he doing hanging out at the mall? I guess this is almost the definition of a two horse town, but still. There has to be something better to do around here."
Bela settled back in her seat. "His daddy bought him that mall. Try not to fuck this up, ok?"
"Right."
Part 2