Secrets in Shadow: Chapter 5
Title: Secrets in Shadow
Author: Roselani24
Genre: adventure, drama, horror
Rating: PG-13
A/N: A big thank you to my fantastic beta , laughtersmelody who read and re-read this story, offering endless encouragement and tips. You're awesome, girl! Also a big thank you to my artist, loki_scribe
Chapter 5
The Coffee Den welcomed them with a blast of heat. Quickly ordering coffee, the two investigators lounged by the door, eager to be on their way. The coffee was hot and smelled positively heavenly to Peter. Add in a dollop of cream and sugar and it was perfect.
Dean seemed bemused, but at the same time savoring his own cup. Black, with only one packet of sugar mixed in.
As they headed back outside, Peter pressed gently. “How about we head over to my apartment? You can explain,” here he waved his hand in a circle, “what’s significant about what we found and we can compare notes.”
It had not escaped Peter’s notice that Dean seemed to be feeling worse then earlier. Getting the kid inside where it was warm seemed like a good idea.
Dean shot him a suspicious look. It took a moment for Peter to understand the reasons for his hesitation. The kid had been forced to leave the motel where he and his father had been staying. The police force was keeping an eye out for Dean and his car. All thanks to him. Dean probably spent the night inside the car, wherever he’d hidden it. No wonder he was getting sick!
Peter raised his hand, patting the air. “No tricks. Promise.”
Dean chewed the inside of his lip, considering. Peter kept his expression open and honest. He meant what he said and hopefully the kid would believe him.
A gust of cold wind blew through the alley and the two men. They both shivered. A moment later, Dean nodded.
Satisfied, Peter jerked his head. “Come on, my truck’s over here.”
“I’ll follow you.”
Peter stopped and turned to see Dean defiantly glaring at him. His arms were crossed over his chest in what Peter guessed was supposed to look intimidating or serious stance. All Peter saw was a young man trying to stay warm. He huffed. “Fine. Where’s your car?”
Dean didn’t answer, walking right past him. To Peter’s shock, he walked right up to a black beast parked in the shadows behind his own blue pick-up. Dean smirked. “Well, are we going or what, Professor?”
Muttering curses about smart mouthed, arrogant punks, Peter stalked to the driver’s side door of his truck and climbed in.
~*~
An hour later, Peter’s living room was transformed. Case files, notes, reports, and pictures were scattered across the room in organized chaos. At the center of it all was Dean, calmly eating from a yellow bag of M&Ms while he read through Jennifer Stewart’s file.
“Really not much to go on here, Professor. How’d you get roped into working this case anyway? You’re not from Pennsylvania.” The question was asked around a mouthful of peanut M&Ms. Peter’s lip curled in disgust. While it wasn’t uncommon for guys to talk with their mouths full, it wasn’t usual to show so much. Punk was doing it on purpose.
“The sheriff called in a favor with my boss,” Peter explained simply, sitting down on the other side of the couch. Dean hummed in response, flipping a page.
“All right, Professor. Tell me what’s been going on.”
Despite his earlier eagerness for answers, Peter was willing to let the youth take the lead. He had the feeling whatever Dean revealed wouldn’t sit well. All the better to let the kid tell him at his own pace. Bonus was it would let Peter get to know Dean better.
“Jennifer Stewart went to a local club on November nineteenth. She was there from six-thirty until about one in the morning. According to the statement taken from the bartender, she was extremely drunk when she left.”
“Made her a perfect target,” Dean mused.
“Right. And she was alone. Her car was found about a half mile north of the club. Here,” Peter indicated a red dot he’d marked on a local map of the town that he’d bought and added to the file. “Judging by the bartender’s description, I think Jennifer was too drunk to find her car and was heading towards the Coffee Den. That alley connects directly to the street where the club is.” Peter drew his finger along the area where the alley was. “Which is where her purse and the blood was found.”
“And it was just a single drop? Not a splatter?”
“Single drop,” Peter confirmed. “It’s odd.” He dropped the map back onto the table. Tentatively he asked, “That black goop we found at the scenes…what is it?”
“Ectoplasm,” Dean replied, showing Peter the sample he’d bagged apparently when the detective wasn’t looking. “Only really powerful, really pissed off spirits can leave this stuff behind. And we’re talking like Godzilla or King Kong mad.”
“Spirits.” Peter repeated dully. He shook his head. A tiny voice in the back of his head whispered, “Uh, Civil War soldier appearing and vanishing in front of you? Freezing room? Any of that seem logical?”
“What about those scratches on the side of the steps?”
Dean’s expression tightened. “Werewolf.”
Wide-eyed, the older man choked, “A werewolf?”
“Yeah, you know? Human by day and a freak animal killing machine by moonlight?”
Peter mentally shook himself. First ghosts of dead soldiers, now werewolves? He should save the department the trouble and check himself into a mental asylum and be done with it. “You can’t be serious. There’s no such thing!”
Immediately, Dean’s face shuttered, the brief glimpse of youth disappearing underneath a man’s hard exterior. “Right. And there was no Civil War soldier that made the mirror ice or the room temperature drop for no reason or appeared in front of you, twice!”
Peter opened his mouth to reply, but he snapped it shut a moment later. Shaking his head, the detective turned away. “It can’t be!”
In a softer voice, Dean said, “Look, I get it, man. It’s a lot to take in. But it’s the truth.”
“The truth?” Peter gave a derisive laugh, feeling lightheaded. “Why should I believe you? You’re a con man. You lie for a living! How do I know this isn’t just some huge hoax you and that older guy put together to cover up your real goal? Taking those girls!”
As every word tumbled from Peter’s mouth, Dean’s face tightened with growing anger.
“Detective, if that’s what you think, why did you bother looking for me? For that matter, why suggest working together? Or was that just a ruse so you could arrest me?” Dean was on his feet, muscles tense and ready.
Peter flinched.
“I-” He began, but couldn’t finish.
Swallowing hard, Peter turned his attention to the floor. Faced with evidence of the supernatural existing and not just fairytales and fiction, he could barely breath. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. Dean was supposed to slip up, reveal it was all just a con or at least help him prove it was a con! Not this. It wasn’t supposed to be real. He’d considered it earlier, but as time passed the initial fear had dwindled and he had pushed it aside in favor of being logical and reasonable as Dean and him visited the crime scenes.
The detective remembered the medical examiner’s comments from Hernandez’s autopsy. The gnawing and teeth marks covering the body were declared lupine in nature. Perhaps if all he had were the reports he may have been able to remain skeptical. Only, he had more than that. He had seen a ghost with his own two eyes, felt the affects of its presence, felt the fear racing through his veins. He’d walked the crime scenes with Dean, seen the black gunk and unnaturally deep scratches in the concrete.
He didn’t want this knowledge, didn’t want to accept the responsibility that came with this knowledge. He didn’t want his view of the world to change. All he wanted was to curl up in a ball and wake up to find it was just a dream. But Peter Burke was never a man to shy from reality or his responsibilities as an officer of the law. To continue to deny it would be a mistake.
“No.” He admitted quietly. “No, it wasn’t a ruse. I just-“
He fumbled for the right words. How could he explain? He didn’t believe Dean had anything to do with the kidnappings or the murder. Despite everything, he trusted Dean. Liked him even.
“A part of me knew that what I saw wasn’t natural. But I guess I just didn’t want to believe it.”
“Yeah, well welcome to my world.” The words were tinged with resignation and sadness. Peter glanced up. The fight had left Dean’s stance, leaving his shoulders slumped and tired. Turning, Dean sat on the armrest, hands, resting on his knees. He coughed roughly again, thankfully not as severely as earlier. Questions pooled in Peter’s mind. How could one so young, look so old? How long had Dean known about the evil out there? Why did Dean know?
“How do you know about all this?”
“Its kind of the family business,” Dean replied, solemnly.
Family business? Some business. Peter wiped his sweaty palms on his pants. “So, its all real. Ghosts, werewolves, everything? ”
“Just about.”
“Vampires?” Oh, please don’t let those things be real!
Dean snorted. “Nah, no such thing. That’s strictly Hollywood, dude.”
Peter sagged in relief. An unfortunate viewing of the 1922 German silent classic “Nosferatu” as a young child had left him utterly terrified of vampires. Werewolves he could handle, but not vampires.
“Not too fond of vamps, eh Professor?” Dean’s asked with the hint of a mischievous smirk. Peter scowled. “No. I’d rather not run into Dracula, thanks.”
“Well, how about the Wolf Man?”
“Can’t say he’s on my list of famous people to meet, but if I must.” Peter replied dryly.
This time Dean grinned. “Oh, it’s a must.”
Tension effectively broken, Peter took a deep breath, letting it out little by little. “So, how do we stop it?”
Dean pulled the Colt 1911 from his waistband. “Silver bullet to the heart.”
“What about the ghost soldier? Chloe Roark?”
“That’s a bit more complicated,” Dean admitted, shoving the gun into his waistband. “We don’t have all the pieces yet. Until we do, we treat this like any normal case.”
Peter barely kept his hands from prodding his ears to check to see if they were clean. Normal case? How could this possibly be viewed as a normal case!?
“Come on, man,” Dean cajoled, clearly catching Peter’s disbelief. “If this was just a normal, run-of-the-mill kidnapping case, based on the information you have, what would you think?”
“Um, normally I’d look at how the crime was committed, the evidence, and see if there were any witnesses.” Peter managed. He glanced at the fridge, desperately wishing he bought some beer earlier. But in his stupidity, he wanted a clear head when working the case. A coke would have to do. He quickly hurried over and snatched one up out of the door, continuing to speak. “There were no witnesses in Jennifer Stewart’s kidnapping or Chloe Roark’s. Melissa Fisher was with her boyfriend when she was kidnapped. And her boyfriend, Hernandez…well, you know what happened to him.”
“That’s the one we need to focus on first,” Dean declared. He pulled out the stolen file from his duffel, flipping it open on the coffee table. “It’s the only one that changes pattern.”
“Pattern? Is that why you and your dad came here?”
Dean paused, sending him a hard stare. “Nice to know I was right about you trying to eavesdrop back at Pike’s.”
Peter shrugged, not concerned that the other man knew. He had the feeling Dean would have known he was trying to eavesdrop no matter how subtle Peter was. Besides, it was nice to know he was right that John P. Jones was Dean’s father. Why did that name sound so familiar anyway? Peter brushed it aside, looking at Dean expectantly.
An annoyed huff, then, “Dad noticed something in the papers. A pattern.”
“What kind of pattern?” Peter wondered.
“Hold on.” Dean grabbed up the green military duffel he’d brought in with him. He pulled out a manila file folder, flipping through it quickly. Peter caught a glimpse of what appeared to be a shotgun and a canister of…salt? Dean turned and handed him the file.
“What’s in here?”
“Just read it.”
Peter’s eyebrows went up, but he took the folder and sat. To his surprise there was a small stack of newspaper clippings inside and underneath what appeared to be copies of a coroner report. He read the headlines aloud.
“’Body Found by Local Hunters’, ‘History Professor and Student Found Murdered in the Slaughter Pen’, and ‘Double Homicide at Abandoned Farm.’ So, what about them caught your Dad’s attention? Other then the fact they’re all about death.”
Dean scowled. “Read ‘em through. I have to ghost proof this place.”
Peter shot Dean an annoyed look, but Dean had clearly decided to ignore him. He pulled out the canister Peter noticed in the duffel, then another and another. With practiced motions, Dean started pouring the salt at the door and along all the windowsills.
“What are you doing?” Peter demanded, jumping to his feet. Crazy kid!
“Rock salt. Best deterrent for spirits. If one comes at you, your best bet it to hit with rock salt. Won’t kill it, but will slow it down.” Dean explained like it was the most natural thing in the world. He gave Peter a look. “Salting the doors and windows will keep the spirit out. Unless of course you’d rather have your ghost soldier back for another visit…”
“No, its fine. Fine!” Peter threw up his hands, sinking back into the couch. “You’re the ‘expert’, after all.”
Dean grumbled under his breath, but kept right on pouring the salt lines. Peter figured it was for the best that he didn’t know what he’d said. It probably wasn’t very flattering. With Dean occupied setting up protection, Peter had little choice but to do what the young man said and read the newspaper clippings
There was a spring gouging his back. He shifted away from the spot. But it didn’t seem to do much good. As he read the articles one by one, a pit grew in his stomach. The murders were gruesome, but the one thing they all seemed to have in common were the unexplainable marks on the body. The oldest article, ‘Double Homicide at Abandoned Farm’ dated back to August and mentioned no names. But one detail caught his eye. The heart of one of the victims had been taken from the chest.
“Where did this come from?”
“Dad found it in the Maryland Chronicle,” Dean replied, obviously knowing which article Peter was referring to. “It happened along the border, about seven miles south of here. It should have been in Pennsylvania jurisdiction, but because it took place in such rural country and close to the border, the local authorities handed it to Maryland.”
“The heart was missing,” Peter said quietly. “Just like Joseph Hernandez’s.”
“Yahtzee.”
Dean tossed the empty salt canisters in the trash and grabbed a coke from the fridge. He popped it open and guzzled it down. Peter lifted his head, turning to look at the young man. His voice failed him, however, and Peter could only wave the article helplessly. How could this have gone unnoticed for so long?
“In the other murders, the hearts were missing too. My dad got the autopsy records there.” Dean gestured with his coke to the file as he swaggered back towards the couch. Peter had the feeling he didn’t want to know how those reports were acquired. He flipped through the pages quickly, reading the words with bile rising in his throat. The hearts were ripped out of the victim’s chest in each case. The young man found in the woods in November, while decayed, his chest was shredded in a similar manner and the heart was clearly missing. Peter shuddered.
“Why wasn’t I made aware of this?”
“It was under military jurisdiction since it occurred in the national military park. And this other guy was out in the elements for a couple months and was found by some hunters. Cops probably just assumed wild animals tore him up.” Dean answered, flopping back down on the other end of the couch.
“And the missing hearts?”
“Definitely the work of a werewolf.”
“What do these murders have to do with the missing girls? I mean do werewolves usually kidnap young blonde women?”
“No, they don’t. That’s where you come in. You’re officially working the case, right?”
“Yeah,” Peter replied carefully. He had a pretty good idea where this was going.
“Good. Then request the official police files on those cases, including the files for the murder in the Slaughter Pen fields if possible. You have probable cause and all that jazz in your hands.”
It was a good argument, Peter admitted. Made sense. He sighed and went over to the phone hanging on the wall. Before he could start dialing, Dean called, “Oh, and tell them to quit looking for me. I’m in your ‘custody’ after all. Helping out.”
Peter glared hard, but as before it seemed to have no affect. The sandy blonde youth calmly sipped his coke, seemingly without a care in the world, a smarmy grin on his face. It was a front, and a good one at that. There was no doubt in Peter’s mind that the kid could react lethally in an instant if a threat appeared. Dean carried himself like a soldier. Peter’s father, Joseph Burke, had served two tours in Vietnam before he returning to the states to spend the rest of his days as a construction worker. He had a similar air about him that Dean projected, always watchful and always guarded.
Well, what the heck. He quickly dialed the number for the station, fervently hoping Lilly was still there.
She was and Peter gave her the basic rundown of the situation. Dean and his father were bounty hunters, but Dean was now working with him to solve the case. Dean scoffed when Peter called him a bounty hunter, muttering something about there being no bounty involved, just hunting. Peter ignored him in favor of convincing Lilly he was certain that the young man could help. His request for the police files about the older murders was met with even more skepticism. It took some pleading and cajoling, but she finally agreed to fax the files over in the morning.
“They’ll be faxed over tomorrow.” He returned to the couch. “Until then, tell me why we need those reports.”
Dean looked at him for a long time without saying a word. He was being weighed and measured again. Why, Peter didn’t bother guessing. If there was one thing Dean excelled at, it was being an enigma.
“Confirmation. Look at the dates when the bodies were found and the estimated time of death. Notice anything?”
Peter spread the articles out, checking them carefully. His eyebrow drew together. “They all seem to have occurred about a month apart.”
“Yep. Anything else?”
Frowning, Peter studied the dates again. Realization slowly dawned, “The deaths all occurred on the night of a full moon.”
“Got it in one, Sherlock. That’s how Dad first caught the pattern. The lunar cycle is key for these freaks.”
“Nice to know that Hollywood got something right,” Peter remarked darkly. “Okay, so the…werewolf most likely killed Hernandez. But who-or should I say what took the girls? The soldier? It left the ectoplasm stuff.”
Dean disagreed. “No, that doesn’t make sense.”
“Why not?”
“This soldier Sarah described didn’t sound like a supremely pissed of spirit.” Green eyes lasered him. “Tell me exactly what happened when you saw it both times.”
Reluctantly, the undercover detective recounted his two encounters with the soldier. When he came to the part where the soldier held out the knife, Dean interrupted him. “Wait, it showed you the knife?
“Yeah,” Peter said, confused.
“And you said you saw initials on the hilt?”
“I.S, I believe. But it was hard to tell. The knife looked pretty old.”
“Civil War old or just old?”
Peter frowned, reviewing the image in his head. “Just old.”
Dean stood, meandering around the room. His head was tilted slightly and gaze distant. Likewise, Peter was lost in similar contemplation.
“Why did it show me that knife anyway?”
Dean snapped his fingers. “I think I know.”
The young man was digging inside his duffel again and Peter was tempted to ask if Dean’s Mary Poppin’s bag had any beer stashed in it. Instead, he swallowed the last of the coke, crumpling the can in his hand.
“My dad’s journal,” Dean said offhanded. “He mentioned something like this before.”
The journal was brown leather, loose leafed, and well used. It was thick with articles, sketches, and writing that Peter doubted even Yoda could read or understand. Yet, somehow Dean seemed to know precisely what was on each page cause he kept going until he finally stopped on a lined page covered with black handwriting. Peter could just read the title: Death Omens.
“Death omens!” Peter exclaimed, incredulous.
“Uh-huh, and according to this, death omens are spirits that want justice, instead of revenge like your average vengeful spirit.”
“Wait, what makes them different?”
Dean leaned back, turned so he was facing Peter directly. “Vengeful spirits are created from violent deaths. And then they come back for a reason, usually a nasty one. Like getting revenge on the people that hurt them or those like them,” Dean explained patiently. “Your soldier, he obviously died here in Gettysburg during the battle. That same soldier, however, has not once attacked. It appeared to you twice, Professor, and both times it didn’t try to hurt you.”
“It was trying to warn me.”
If accepting there were things out there that went bump in the dark was equivalent to being run over by a semi truck, this new revelation was like being smacked upside the head with a two-by-four before he’d been able to get up past his knees after being creamed by that truck. Peter idly wondered if this was how Wile E. Coyote felt when he was run over or squashed during his attempts to catch the Roadrunner.
“That’s what I’d guess.”
“But…why? I mean, why’s it here at all?” Peter inclined his head towards the hunter, needing to know and at the same time not wanting to know any more.
Dean considered for a moment. “Its possible that the murder in the Slaughter Pen fields woke it. A lot of good men died there, fighting for a cause they believed in. Then along comes this cold-blooded killer, who’s so angry it managed disturbed the soldier’s spirit.”
Peter looked at his folded hands, exhaling loudly. “So the soldier is a death omen, which is a spirit that wants justice instead of revenge. But why come to me?”
“You’re working undercover to solve the case.” Dean shrugged, not seeming very concerned. “The ghost locked onto you because of you desire justice.”
Huh. Peter couldn’t deny that was true. He did want justice for the missing girls, to save Chloe Roark even, if that were possible. Creepy didn’t even begin to describe the feeling he felt as he considered the ghost had latched onto that emotion.
“You said that death omens want justice and the murder in the park most likely disturbed it,” Peter said. “But the thing that left the, uh, ectoplasm in the alley has to be extremely angry. So, there’s two spirits? The death omen and another one.”
“Looks that way.”
Peter hummed in response this time, mind drawn back to Dean’s earlier words about treating the case like he would a normally. The questions and possibilities he wrote down while at the Pike’s Monday night flooded to the forefront of his mind along with all the new information Dean was giving him.
“Hang on, Melissa Fisher was kidnapped sometime between 11:45pm and midnight on December seventeenth.”
“So?
“Hold on.” Peter fished through his bag, pulling out his teaching planner.
He flipped through the pages. “Look.” He pointed to November nineteenth. “There was a full moon the night Jennifer Stewart disappeared.”
“The kidnappings coincide with the full moon too.” Dean said, surprised.
“But Chloe Roark was taken this morning. The full moon isn’t until next week.”
“Monday the sixteenth.” Dean confirmed. He looked at the calendar again then cursed. “Friday the thirteenth!”
“What’s significant about it? Its just superstition…” the detective trailed off. No, not just a superstition, he realized but something very real.
“For the most part it is,” Dean answered, chewing on the tip of the pen. “According to folklore, in the early fourteenth century, the king of France ordered the arrest of all the Knights Templar throughout France on Friday the thirteenth. Some thousands were arrested and they were tortured and murdered. Templar sympathizers cursed the day as evil. Then of course there’s biblical numerology, the thirteen gathered for the Last Supper, and one that betrayed them.”
How did Dean know all that? Just how long had Dean been involved in this hunting business? The youth continued quietly, oblivious to Peter’s thoughts. “But in general, Friday the thirteenth is just a day of bad luck. Monsters seem to get a bit of a power boost on those nights, although its nothing compared to Halloween.”
And apparently Dean had forgotten he was there. Peter cleared his throat.
The kid jumped slightly, his cheeks turning a light pink. Peter attempted to hide his amusement at seeing the young man startled, but failed. Ducking his head to the side, trying to hide his embarrassment, Dean grumbled, “Great. Now I’m channeling Geek boy!”
Geek boy. A brother maybe? Interesting.
“All right, so with Friday the thirteenth looming, what does that mean for the ghost and the werewolf?”
“It means they’re going to be a lot more dangerous and harder to kill.” Dean lifted his chin and looked right at him. “But Friday the thirteenth and the moon nearly full at the same time? The werewolf is going to be super-charged, like Krypto gone rapid.”
Well, that was a cheerful thought.
Back
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Author: Roselani24
Genre: adventure, drama, horror
Rating: PG-13
A/N: A big thank you to my fantastic beta , laughtersmelody who read and re-read this story, offering endless encouragement and tips. You're awesome, girl! Also a big thank you to my artist, loki_scribe
Chapter 5
The Coffee Den welcomed them with a blast of heat. Quickly ordering coffee, the two investigators lounged by the door, eager to be on their way. The coffee was hot and smelled positively heavenly to Peter. Add in a dollop of cream and sugar and it was perfect.
Dean seemed bemused, but at the same time savoring his own cup. Black, with only one packet of sugar mixed in.
As they headed back outside, Peter pressed gently. “How about we head over to my apartment? You can explain,” here he waved his hand in a circle, “what’s significant about what we found and we can compare notes.”
It had not escaped Peter’s notice that Dean seemed to be feeling worse then earlier. Getting the kid inside where it was warm seemed like a good idea.
Dean shot him a suspicious look. It took a moment for Peter to understand the reasons for his hesitation. The kid had been forced to leave the motel where he and his father had been staying. The police force was keeping an eye out for Dean and his car. All thanks to him. Dean probably spent the night inside the car, wherever he’d hidden it. No wonder he was getting sick!
Peter raised his hand, patting the air. “No tricks. Promise.”
Dean chewed the inside of his lip, considering. Peter kept his expression open and honest. He meant what he said and hopefully the kid would believe him.
A gust of cold wind blew through the alley and the two men. They both shivered. A moment later, Dean nodded.
Satisfied, Peter jerked his head. “Come on, my truck’s over here.”
“I’ll follow you.”
Peter stopped and turned to see Dean defiantly glaring at him. His arms were crossed over his chest in what Peter guessed was supposed to look intimidating or serious stance. All Peter saw was a young man trying to stay warm. He huffed. “Fine. Where’s your car?”
Dean didn’t answer, walking right past him. To Peter’s shock, he walked right up to a black beast parked in the shadows behind his own blue pick-up. Dean smirked. “Well, are we going or what, Professor?”
Muttering curses about smart mouthed, arrogant punks, Peter stalked to the driver’s side door of his truck and climbed in.
~*~
An hour later, Peter’s living room was transformed. Case files, notes, reports, and pictures were scattered across the room in organized chaos. At the center of it all was Dean, calmly eating from a yellow bag of M&Ms while he read through Jennifer Stewart’s file.
“Really not much to go on here, Professor. How’d you get roped into working this case anyway? You’re not from Pennsylvania.” The question was asked around a mouthful of peanut M&Ms. Peter’s lip curled in disgust. While it wasn’t uncommon for guys to talk with their mouths full, it wasn’t usual to show so much. Punk was doing it on purpose.
“The sheriff called in a favor with my boss,” Peter explained simply, sitting down on the other side of the couch. Dean hummed in response, flipping a page.
“All right, Professor. Tell me what’s been going on.”
Despite his earlier eagerness for answers, Peter was willing to let the youth take the lead. He had the feeling whatever Dean revealed wouldn’t sit well. All the better to let the kid tell him at his own pace. Bonus was it would let Peter get to know Dean better.
“Jennifer Stewart went to a local club on November nineteenth. She was there from six-thirty until about one in the morning. According to the statement taken from the bartender, she was extremely drunk when she left.”
“Made her a perfect target,” Dean mused.
“Right. And she was alone. Her car was found about a half mile north of the club. Here,” Peter indicated a red dot he’d marked on a local map of the town that he’d bought and added to the file. “Judging by the bartender’s description, I think Jennifer was too drunk to find her car and was heading towards the Coffee Den. That alley connects directly to the street where the club is.” Peter drew his finger along the area where the alley was. “Which is where her purse and the blood was found.”
“And it was just a single drop? Not a splatter?”
“Single drop,” Peter confirmed. “It’s odd.” He dropped the map back onto the table. Tentatively he asked, “That black goop we found at the scenes…what is it?”
“Ectoplasm,” Dean replied, showing Peter the sample he’d bagged apparently when the detective wasn’t looking. “Only really powerful, really pissed off spirits can leave this stuff behind. And we’re talking like Godzilla or King Kong mad.”
“Spirits.” Peter repeated dully. He shook his head. A tiny voice in the back of his head whispered, “Uh, Civil War soldier appearing and vanishing in front of you? Freezing room? Any of that seem logical?”
“What about those scratches on the side of the steps?”
Dean’s expression tightened. “Werewolf.”
Wide-eyed, the older man choked, “A werewolf?”
“Yeah, you know? Human by day and a freak animal killing machine by moonlight?”
Peter mentally shook himself. First ghosts of dead soldiers, now werewolves? He should save the department the trouble and check himself into a mental asylum and be done with it. “You can’t be serious. There’s no such thing!”
Immediately, Dean’s face shuttered, the brief glimpse of youth disappearing underneath a man’s hard exterior. “Right. And there was no Civil War soldier that made the mirror ice or the room temperature drop for no reason or appeared in front of you, twice!”
Peter opened his mouth to reply, but he snapped it shut a moment later. Shaking his head, the detective turned away. “It can’t be!”
In a softer voice, Dean said, “Look, I get it, man. It’s a lot to take in. But it’s the truth.”
“The truth?” Peter gave a derisive laugh, feeling lightheaded. “Why should I believe you? You’re a con man. You lie for a living! How do I know this isn’t just some huge hoax you and that older guy put together to cover up your real goal? Taking those girls!”
As every word tumbled from Peter’s mouth, Dean’s face tightened with growing anger.
“Detective, if that’s what you think, why did you bother looking for me? For that matter, why suggest working together? Or was that just a ruse so you could arrest me?” Dean was on his feet, muscles tense and ready.
Peter flinched.
“I-” He began, but couldn’t finish.
Swallowing hard, Peter turned his attention to the floor. Faced with evidence of the supernatural existing and not just fairytales and fiction, he could barely breath. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. Dean was supposed to slip up, reveal it was all just a con or at least help him prove it was a con! Not this. It wasn’t supposed to be real. He’d considered it earlier, but as time passed the initial fear had dwindled and he had pushed it aside in favor of being logical and reasonable as Dean and him visited the crime scenes.
The detective remembered the medical examiner’s comments from Hernandez’s autopsy. The gnawing and teeth marks covering the body were declared lupine in nature. Perhaps if all he had were the reports he may have been able to remain skeptical. Only, he had more than that. He had seen a ghost with his own two eyes, felt the affects of its presence, felt the fear racing through his veins. He’d walked the crime scenes with Dean, seen the black gunk and unnaturally deep scratches in the concrete.
He didn’t want this knowledge, didn’t want to accept the responsibility that came with this knowledge. He didn’t want his view of the world to change. All he wanted was to curl up in a ball and wake up to find it was just a dream. But Peter Burke was never a man to shy from reality or his responsibilities as an officer of the law. To continue to deny it would be a mistake.
“No.” He admitted quietly. “No, it wasn’t a ruse. I just-“
He fumbled for the right words. How could he explain? He didn’t believe Dean had anything to do with the kidnappings or the murder. Despite everything, he trusted Dean. Liked him even.
“A part of me knew that what I saw wasn’t natural. But I guess I just didn’t want to believe it.”
“Yeah, well welcome to my world.” The words were tinged with resignation and sadness. Peter glanced up. The fight had left Dean’s stance, leaving his shoulders slumped and tired. Turning, Dean sat on the armrest, hands, resting on his knees. He coughed roughly again, thankfully not as severely as earlier. Questions pooled in Peter’s mind. How could one so young, look so old? How long had Dean known about the evil out there? Why did Dean know?
“How do you know about all this?”
“Its kind of the family business,” Dean replied, solemnly.
Family business? Some business. Peter wiped his sweaty palms on his pants. “So, its all real. Ghosts, werewolves, everything? ”
“Just about.”
“Vampires?” Oh, please don’t let those things be real!
Dean snorted. “Nah, no such thing. That’s strictly Hollywood, dude.”
Peter sagged in relief. An unfortunate viewing of the 1922 German silent classic “Nosferatu” as a young child had left him utterly terrified of vampires. Werewolves he could handle, but not vampires.
“Not too fond of vamps, eh Professor?” Dean’s asked with the hint of a mischievous smirk. Peter scowled. “No. I’d rather not run into Dracula, thanks.”
“Well, how about the Wolf Man?”
“Can’t say he’s on my list of famous people to meet, but if I must.” Peter replied dryly.
This time Dean grinned. “Oh, it’s a must.”
Tension effectively broken, Peter took a deep breath, letting it out little by little. “So, how do we stop it?”
Dean pulled the Colt 1911 from his waistband. “Silver bullet to the heart.”
“What about the ghost soldier? Chloe Roark?”
“That’s a bit more complicated,” Dean admitted, shoving the gun into his waistband. “We don’t have all the pieces yet. Until we do, we treat this like any normal case.”
Peter barely kept his hands from prodding his ears to check to see if they were clean. Normal case? How could this possibly be viewed as a normal case!?
“Come on, man,” Dean cajoled, clearly catching Peter’s disbelief. “If this was just a normal, run-of-the-mill kidnapping case, based on the information you have, what would you think?”
“Um, normally I’d look at how the crime was committed, the evidence, and see if there were any witnesses.” Peter managed. He glanced at the fridge, desperately wishing he bought some beer earlier. But in his stupidity, he wanted a clear head when working the case. A coke would have to do. He quickly hurried over and snatched one up out of the door, continuing to speak. “There were no witnesses in Jennifer Stewart’s kidnapping or Chloe Roark’s. Melissa Fisher was with her boyfriend when she was kidnapped. And her boyfriend, Hernandez…well, you know what happened to him.”
“That’s the one we need to focus on first,” Dean declared. He pulled out the stolen file from his duffel, flipping it open on the coffee table. “It’s the only one that changes pattern.”
“Pattern? Is that why you and your dad came here?”
Dean paused, sending him a hard stare. “Nice to know I was right about you trying to eavesdrop back at Pike’s.”
Peter shrugged, not concerned that the other man knew. He had the feeling Dean would have known he was trying to eavesdrop no matter how subtle Peter was. Besides, it was nice to know he was right that John P. Jones was Dean’s father. Why did that name sound so familiar anyway? Peter brushed it aside, looking at Dean expectantly.
An annoyed huff, then, “Dad noticed something in the papers. A pattern.”
“What kind of pattern?” Peter wondered.
“Hold on.” Dean grabbed up the green military duffel he’d brought in with him. He pulled out a manila file folder, flipping through it quickly. Peter caught a glimpse of what appeared to be a shotgun and a canister of…salt? Dean turned and handed him the file.
“What’s in here?”
“Just read it.”
Peter’s eyebrows went up, but he took the folder and sat. To his surprise there was a small stack of newspaper clippings inside and underneath what appeared to be copies of a coroner report. He read the headlines aloud.
“’Body Found by Local Hunters’, ‘History Professor and Student Found Murdered in the Slaughter Pen’, and ‘Double Homicide at Abandoned Farm.’ So, what about them caught your Dad’s attention? Other then the fact they’re all about death.”
Dean scowled. “Read ‘em through. I have to ghost proof this place.”
Peter shot Dean an annoyed look, but Dean had clearly decided to ignore him. He pulled out the canister Peter noticed in the duffel, then another and another. With practiced motions, Dean started pouring the salt at the door and along all the windowsills.
“What are you doing?” Peter demanded, jumping to his feet. Crazy kid!
“Rock salt. Best deterrent for spirits. If one comes at you, your best bet it to hit with rock salt. Won’t kill it, but will slow it down.” Dean explained like it was the most natural thing in the world. He gave Peter a look. “Salting the doors and windows will keep the spirit out. Unless of course you’d rather have your ghost soldier back for another visit…”
“No, its fine. Fine!” Peter threw up his hands, sinking back into the couch. “You’re the ‘expert’, after all.”
Dean grumbled under his breath, but kept right on pouring the salt lines. Peter figured it was for the best that he didn’t know what he’d said. It probably wasn’t very flattering. With Dean occupied setting up protection, Peter had little choice but to do what the young man said and read the newspaper clippings
There was a spring gouging his back. He shifted away from the spot. But it didn’t seem to do much good. As he read the articles one by one, a pit grew in his stomach. The murders were gruesome, but the one thing they all seemed to have in common were the unexplainable marks on the body. The oldest article, ‘Double Homicide at Abandoned Farm’ dated back to August and mentioned no names. But one detail caught his eye. The heart of one of the victims had been taken from the chest.
“Where did this come from?”
“Dad found it in the Maryland Chronicle,” Dean replied, obviously knowing which article Peter was referring to. “It happened along the border, about seven miles south of here. It should have been in Pennsylvania jurisdiction, but because it took place in such rural country and close to the border, the local authorities handed it to Maryland.”
“The heart was missing,” Peter said quietly. “Just like Joseph Hernandez’s.”
“Yahtzee.”
Dean tossed the empty salt canisters in the trash and grabbed a coke from the fridge. He popped it open and guzzled it down. Peter lifted his head, turning to look at the young man. His voice failed him, however, and Peter could only wave the article helplessly. How could this have gone unnoticed for so long?
“In the other murders, the hearts were missing too. My dad got the autopsy records there.” Dean gestured with his coke to the file as he swaggered back towards the couch. Peter had the feeling he didn’t want to know how those reports were acquired. He flipped through the pages quickly, reading the words with bile rising in his throat. The hearts were ripped out of the victim’s chest in each case. The young man found in the woods in November, while decayed, his chest was shredded in a similar manner and the heart was clearly missing. Peter shuddered.
“Why wasn’t I made aware of this?”
“It was under military jurisdiction since it occurred in the national military park. And this other guy was out in the elements for a couple months and was found by some hunters. Cops probably just assumed wild animals tore him up.” Dean answered, flopping back down on the other end of the couch.
“And the missing hearts?”
“Definitely the work of a werewolf.”
“What do these murders have to do with the missing girls? I mean do werewolves usually kidnap young blonde women?”
“No, they don’t. That’s where you come in. You’re officially working the case, right?”
“Yeah,” Peter replied carefully. He had a pretty good idea where this was going.
“Good. Then request the official police files on those cases, including the files for the murder in the Slaughter Pen fields if possible. You have probable cause and all that jazz in your hands.”
It was a good argument, Peter admitted. Made sense. He sighed and went over to the phone hanging on the wall. Before he could start dialing, Dean called, “Oh, and tell them to quit looking for me. I’m in your ‘custody’ after all. Helping out.”
Peter glared hard, but as before it seemed to have no affect. The sandy blonde youth calmly sipped his coke, seemingly without a care in the world, a smarmy grin on his face. It was a front, and a good one at that. There was no doubt in Peter’s mind that the kid could react lethally in an instant if a threat appeared. Dean carried himself like a soldier. Peter’s father, Joseph Burke, had served two tours in Vietnam before he returning to the states to spend the rest of his days as a construction worker. He had a similar air about him that Dean projected, always watchful and always guarded.
Well, what the heck. He quickly dialed the number for the station, fervently hoping Lilly was still there.
She was and Peter gave her the basic rundown of the situation. Dean and his father were bounty hunters, but Dean was now working with him to solve the case. Dean scoffed when Peter called him a bounty hunter, muttering something about there being no bounty involved, just hunting. Peter ignored him in favor of convincing Lilly he was certain that the young man could help. His request for the police files about the older murders was met with even more skepticism. It took some pleading and cajoling, but she finally agreed to fax the files over in the morning.
“They’ll be faxed over tomorrow.” He returned to the couch. “Until then, tell me why we need those reports.”
Dean looked at him for a long time without saying a word. He was being weighed and measured again. Why, Peter didn’t bother guessing. If there was one thing Dean excelled at, it was being an enigma.
“Confirmation. Look at the dates when the bodies were found and the estimated time of death. Notice anything?”
Peter spread the articles out, checking them carefully. His eyebrow drew together. “They all seem to have occurred about a month apart.”
“Yep. Anything else?”
Frowning, Peter studied the dates again. Realization slowly dawned, “The deaths all occurred on the night of a full moon.”
“Got it in one, Sherlock. That’s how Dad first caught the pattern. The lunar cycle is key for these freaks.”
“Nice to know that Hollywood got something right,” Peter remarked darkly. “Okay, so the…werewolf most likely killed Hernandez. But who-or should I say what took the girls? The soldier? It left the ectoplasm stuff.”
Dean disagreed. “No, that doesn’t make sense.”
“Why not?”
“This soldier Sarah described didn’t sound like a supremely pissed of spirit.” Green eyes lasered him. “Tell me exactly what happened when you saw it both times.”
Reluctantly, the undercover detective recounted his two encounters with the soldier. When he came to the part where the soldier held out the knife, Dean interrupted him. “Wait, it showed you the knife?
“Yeah,” Peter said, confused.
“And you said you saw initials on the hilt?”
“I.S, I believe. But it was hard to tell. The knife looked pretty old.”
“Civil War old or just old?”
Peter frowned, reviewing the image in his head. “Just old.”
Dean stood, meandering around the room. His head was tilted slightly and gaze distant. Likewise, Peter was lost in similar contemplation.
“Why did it show me that knife anyway?”
Dean snapped his fingers. “I think I know.”
The young man was digging inside his duffel again and Peter was tempted to ask if Dean’s Mary Poppin’s bag had any beer stashed in it. Instead, he swallowed the last of the coke, crumpling the can in his hand.
“My dad’s journal,” Dean said offhanded. “He mentioned something like this before.”
The journal was brown leather, loose leafed, and well used. It was thick with articles, sketches, and writing that Peter doubted even Yoda could read or understand. Yet, somehow Dean seemed to know precisely what was on each page cause he kept going until he finally stopped on a lined page covered with black handwriting. Peter could just read the title: Death Omens.
“Death omens!” Peter exclaimed, incredulous.
“Uh-huh, and according to this, death omens are spirits that want justice, instead of revenge like your average vengeful spirit.”
“Wait, what makes them different?”
Dean leaned back, turned so he was facing Peter directly. “Vengeful spirits are created from violent deaths. And then they come back for a reason, usually a nasty one. Like getting revenge on the people that hurt them or those like them,” Dean explained patiently. “Your soldier, he obviously died here in Gettysburg during the battle. That same soldier, however, has not once attacked. It appeared to you twice, Professor, and both times it didn’t try to hurt you.”
“It was trying to warn me.”
If accepting there were things out there that went bump in the dark was equivalent to being run over by a semi truck, this new revelation was like being smacked upside the head with a two-by-four before he’d been able to get up past his knees after being creamed by that truck. Peter idly wondered if this was how Wile E. Coyote felt when he was run over or squashed during his attempts to catch the Roadrunner.
“That’s what I’d guess.”
“But…why? I mean, why’s it here at all?” Peter inclined his head towards the hunter, needing to know and at the same time not wanting to know any more.
Dean considered for a moment. “Its possible that the murder in the Slaughter Pen fields woke it. A lot of good men died there, fighting for a cause they believed in. Then along comes this cold-blooded killer, who’s so angry it managed disturbed the soldier’s spirit.”
Peter looked at his folded hands, exhaling loudly. “So the soldier is a death omen, which is a spirit that wants justice instead of revenge. But why come to me?”
“You’re working undercover to solve the case.” Dean shrugged, not seeming very concerned. “The ghost locked onto you because of you desire justice.”
Huh. Peter couldn’t deny that was true. He did want justice for the missing girls, to save Chloe Roark even, if that were possible. Creepy didn’t even begin to describe the feeling he felt as he considered the ghost had latched onto that emotion.
“You said that death omens want justice and the murder in the park most likely disturbed it,” Peter said. “But the thing that left the, uh, ectoplasm in the alley has to be extremely angry. So, there’s two spirits? The death omen and another one.”
“Looks that way.”
Peter hummed in response this time, mind drawn back to Dean’s earlier words about treating the case like he would a normally. The questions and possibilities he wrote down while at the Pike’s Monday night flooded to the forefront of his mind along with all the new information Dean was giving him.
“Hang on, Melissa Fisher was kidnapped sometime between 11:45pm and midnight on December seventeenth.”
“So?
“Hold on.” Peter fished through his bag, pulling out his teaching planner.
He flipped through the pages. “Look.” He pointed to November nineteenth. “There was a full moon the night Jennifer Stewart disappeared.”
“The kidnappings coincide with the full moon too.” Dean said, surprised.
“But Chloe Roark was taken this morning. The full moon isn’t until next week.”
“Monday the sixteenth.” Dean confirmed. He looked at the calendar again then cursed. “Friday the thirteenth!”
“What’s significant about it? Its just superstition…” the detective trailed off. No, not just a superstition, he realized but something very real.
“For the most part it is,” Dean answered, chewing on the tip of the pen. “According to folklore, in the early fourteenth century, the king of France ordered the arrest of all the Knights Templar throughout France on Friday the thirteenth. Some thousands were arrested and they were tortured and murdered. Templar sympathizers cursed the day as evil. Then of course there’s biblical numerology, the thirteen gathered for the Last Supper, and one that betrayed them.”
How did Dean know all that? Just how long had Dean been involved in this hunting business? The youth continued quietly, oblivious to Peter’s thoughts. “But in general, Friday the thirteenth is just a day of bad luck. Monsters seem to get a bit of a power boost on those nights, although its nothing compared to Halloween.”
And apparently Dean had forgotten he was there. Peter cleared his throat.
The kid jumped slightly, his cheeks turning a light pink. Peter attempted to hide his amusement at seeing the young man startled, but failed. Ducking his head to the side, trying to hide his embarrassment, Dean grumbled, “Great. Now I’m channeling Geek boy!”
Geek boy. A brother maybe? Interesting.
“All right, so with Friday the thirteenth looming, what does that mean for the ghost and the werewolf?”
“It means they’re going to be a lot more dangerous and harder to kill.” Dean lifted his chin and looked right at him. “But Friday the thirteenth and the moon nearly full at the same time? The werewolf is going to be super-charged, like Krypto gone rapid.”
Well, that was a cheerful thought.
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