Fighting Demons: Chapter 10 "Boys, Meet Bob"
I want to apologize for the extremely long delay since my last post. You can blame Easter and then the IRS for my lack of good Sunday writing time. Finally, in sheer desperation, I've pulled an all nighter. Hopefully, the caffeine did its job and this installment makes sense. If not, I claim the right to edit it in the future. There should not be another delay of this length again. I hope.
Author: snuggle_muggle
Title: Fighting Demons: Boys, Meet Bob
Fandom: Supernatural/Dresden Files crossover
Characters: Harry, Sam, Dean, Bob, and Waldo Butters
Prompt: #5 "Spirit"
Word Count: 2200
Rating: PG
Genre: Supernatural/Mystery
Summary: Dresden uses his secret weapon. Bribes are requested and pledged.
Disclaimer: Supernatural belongs to Kripke; Murphy and Dresden belong to Jim Butcher, and they both belong to many others. Too bad.
Spoiler Warning: None.
Notes: This is chapter 10 of my continuing Dresden/Supernatural crossover, written for my fanfic 50 prompt table, located here. Also, this is the book universe of Dresden, not the TV universe.
Chapter 1; Chapter 2; Chapter 3; Chapter 4; Chapter 5; Chapter 6; Chapter 7; Chapter 8; Chapter 9
Boys, Meet Bob
The three of them fought their way through Dresden’s door and climbed the steps up to their cars. Dean looked at the ugly little not-quite-a-Volkswagen and Sam could practically hear the wheels turning in his head and clicking on "No way I’ll ever get into that thing." Dresden sighed as he looked (Sam thought rather longingly) at the Impala.
"Uh, shall we each take our own cars?"
"You can ride with us," Sam offered. He winced as Dean slugged him. Dean tended to be a bit concerned about others riding in his car when they seemed to have no respect for their own vehicular transportation.
"Does it have anything like onboard computers, navigation systems, iPod linkups, anything like that?"
"No." Dean looked a little smug at that and Sam grinned inwardly. "Does yours?"
"If it did, it wouldn’t still be driving. I’m, uh, rather hard on electrical things. You may have noticed the lack of, well, modern conveniences at the house. Phones, computers, they all die painful deaths when I’m around." Dresden climbed awkwardly into the back with the small bag he had brought along, as well as his long wooden staff. Sam considered switching places with him but he changed his mind when he saw how squished Dresden was back there. He may be a tad bit taller, but Sam knew he’d be just as smooshed and didn’t want to even try it.
"Magic vibes?" Sam could easily hear the sarcasm in Dean’s voice and imagined that Dresden could hear it as well. However, the older man was diplomatic and pretended it was a serious questions.
"I guess. Something like that. It’s not pretty, really. Drives Murph crazy when I walk into her office when her computer’s running. I think she’s blown quite a few of those hard-disk thingies."
"Drives, you mean?" Sam coughed quietly as he corrected the wizard.
"I guess. Don’t know. Never actually used a computer long enough to learn the lingo." He guided them easily through the crowded Chicago streets toward the morgue.
"How long have these people been dead, did you say, Dresden?" Sam seemed to remember that Dresden had been fighting these demons almost since they had broken free from the hell mouth - and that was quite a few months ago. Ick.
"Hard to say on a few of them. They haven’t been released back to the families yet - assuming we know who the families are - because they’re all part of an ongoing murder investigation. I’ve looked at the bodies a few times, but, uh, I’ve got a new idea now, thanks to you two." He fell silent and Dean reached over to turn on the radio to fill in the quiet. After quite a lot of static and odd flashes of music that seemed more Golden Oldies than the hard rock Dean preferred, Sam turned it off.
"I don’t think he was lying, Dean. Probably best not to push our luck."
Dresden chuckled from the back seat and Sam could feel him shifting around trying to get comfortable. They pulled up to the morgue a few minutes later and Dresden climbed out of the back seat with an expression of relief on his face. He pulled the bag out as well, hefting it onto his shoulder without bothering to explain what it was. He grabbed the staff as well and stepped toward the glass sliding doors and both Dean and Sam fell in behind him. "We don’t call it anything as crude as a morgue in Chicago, boys, just so you know. This happens to be the Forensic Institute."
"Hoity-toity, eh?" Dean laughed.
"That’s right. I’m hoping that it’s Mike on duty at the desk. He likes me. If not, it might be tricky to get in but we’ll manage. Assuming you have no aversion to using a bit of magic, of course." Sam was happy it was Mike, who didn’t seem surprised to see Dresden at all and accepted his bribe of some beer with a grin and a wink. The man working in the morgue, or Forensic Institute he reminded himself, was quite an amusing little man - but he welcomed them with an ease that helped Sam relax a little bit more. He really didn’t like morgues. He supposed that was a bit weird, considering how many dead bodies he’d been around since he’d started on this quest with Dean. Hell, he’d been dead himself for a while, although of course he didn’t remember that part of things. And he wasn’t complaining. But there was something so clinical about morgues - well, he didn’t try to explain it to himself and he certainly never said anything to Dean. There would have been no end to the teasing.
Waldo - that was the little man’s name - waved the three of them toward the body storage area and Dresden pulled out five different drawers. The bodies were in various states of deadness - or at least some looked like they’d been dead longer. They did all share one common element. They all looked like they had been beaten pretty severely either before death or as they died. The faces were strangely shaped and even Sam’s inexpert eye could tell that there were bones broken in the head and arms and legs. No one’s arms sat at that angle when the bones inside were in one piece. Of course, they all had been autopsied and had the ugly Y-mark on their front, but if this Waldo had done it, he was good. The stitching was careful and Sam could see that care had been taken to make the stitches small and neat. Curious.
"I still don’t understand why we’re here, Dresden. What do you think we’re going to see that you haven’t seen before?"
"Don’t know for sure, Dean. I’m looking for something else now - evidence that the bodies were possessed, maybe. Isn’t that what we think happened? Didn’t know that before."
"But how could you tell that from a dead body?"
"Got a bit of a secret weapon. He’s, uh, really useful in these situations. Name’s Bob. Well, at least that’s what I call him." Sam looked around in a bit of confusion. Waldo was busy with some paperwork and seemed to be ignoring them completely. He wondered with a swoop of nausea if Dresden thought he could animate one of the corpses or something. Dresden put his bag onto the floor and reached inside and when he stood again, he was holding a skull. It was yellowed and marked, but even Sam could tell it was actual bone. Not plastic. Okay, this was getting bizarre, even for them. And that was saying something. "This is Bob. Bob, this is Dean and Sam Winchester."
For a minute, nothing happened and Dean and Sam had just caught each others’ eyes in a sarcastic smirk when orange lights flashed in the skull. Sam stepped back in surprise and was happy to note that Dean did, too. "Hello, boys. Honestly, Dresden. Can’t you ever hook up with some good-looking women, besides Karrin, I mean."
"We need some help, Bob. We want to know if these people were possessed, or what exactly."
"I don’t know, Harry. There’s not much to work with. And I’m a bit worn out from earlier." Sam looked with more curiosity at the orange lights as they flickered and then died. Another brief flash. "Ask me again tomorrow."
"We’re here now, Bob. Stop complaining and come out and see."
"No."
Dean laughed nervously. "Didn’t know you were a ventriloquist, Dresden."
The orange lights flickered again. "Hope you’re not calling me a dummy - dummy!"
"If it were me, Dean, I wouldn’t be nearly so stubborn, or perverted for that matter." He tapped the skull. "Come out of there and tell me what I need to know."
"I need an incentive, Harry. This is a big job."
"Fine. A new book."
"Ten."
"Ha! You’ve got to be kidding! Four."
"Seven, and an outing."
"Six. No outing. When the case is solved, I’ll get you six more."
"Fine. You can have six minutes of my expertise. Stingy." Sam wasn’t sure whether to chuckle or not. Dresden looked deadly serious and he imagined that if this Bob was really in there, he probably wouldn’t appreciate being laughed at. Dean had backed up quite a few feet and Sam didn’t question why. He just joined him. Waldo looked up and came over to them.
"Don’t worry. He’s some sort of ghost or something, a spirit of some kind. He’s got a wicked sense of humor. In both senses of the word. He’s smart and, since you’re male, he’s not going to be interested in you in any sort of carnal way. For which you should be grateful. He’s a pervy little guy." He whispered this last part and Sam could feel his eyebrows raise at the weirdness of that sentence.
The orange lights flickered again and then emerged from the skull in a strange sort of orange haze. There was no ghostly form or anything, but the two lights zipped around like two fireflies holding hands and hovered over each of the bodies in turn. "Magical signatures, yes. Bad juju, Harry. Don’t like this at all. This one, possessed. This one, no. This one, yes, twice, actually. The others, no."
"Was it the same being that possessed all of them?"
"Hard to say." He hovered over the two he had declared possessed. "No. Two different sorts of demons in this one, I think. Which is quite peculiar, I must say. But this one - this one and one of these," he indicated the twice-possessed corpse again (Sam could tell it was a woman), "were the same. If not identical, then at least very similar. But I think identical. Same creature possessed them both. That’s all I can tell." The lights zipped back into the skull and extinguished immediately. Harry set the skull down on the bag and bent over the bodies again.
"Okay - Two were possessed, three weren’t. There seem to be no overt similarities or differences between the possessed and non-possessed ones that I can see." He looked up at Sam and Dean. "Do you notice any sort of a pattern?"
Dean looked at the bodies carefully. Sam pretended to. "What order were they killed in?"
Waldo pulled a sheet out of a slim file folder on his desk. "That man first, we’re pretty sure."
"Okay - no possession on that one."
"Then we think it’s this woman next. She wasn’t found for quite a long time after, but all indications are that she died before this one, even though he was brought in first."
"So the first three weren’t possessed. Who’s next?"
"That one." He indicated the man Bob had said was only possessed the one time.
Dean shrugged. "He was escalating."
Dresden scowled a bit. "What?"
"He, she, it, whatever. They were trying to do whatever they were, uh, trying to do and it wasn’t working. So, they tried again, and then they tried a third time, and then they tried possessing the body to get it to do what it was they wanted. That didn’t work either, so they, uh, well had two different . . . Oh, never mind that’s a stupid idea."
"Doesn’t sound stupid to me, Dean. Makes sense, really." Sam clapped his brother on the shoulder.
Dresden nodded. "Yeah, okay. Not a bad theory. But we’ve got some other cases. I’m not sure they fit into this same pattern. Ten other people, dead the same way, basically."
"Has Bob been able to make any call on those bodies?"
"Bob has not been asked." Sam couldn’t see the skull but he could tell Bob was not amused at his skills being questioned.
"Wait, wait!" Waldo scuttled over toward Dresden. "Ten what? Ten more bodies? Why aren’t they here, why haven’t I looked at them?"
"The families didn’t report them as murdered. They were all magical to one degree or another, you see, and we weren’t sure they really fit in with these. I’m still not." Waldo huffed in frustration, but he let the subject drop.
"Were they all after these five?"
"Think so." Dresden looked sideways at Dean. "What are you thinking?"
"Maybe it’s a different form of escalation. The non-magical mortals aren’t working to do, uh, whatever. Even possessed they’re not working. So maybe they try using someone a little bit more in tune with demons and the like. Someone who maybe has had some experience, more aware of strange things, rituals." Sam thought that sounded pretty reasonable and nodded as Dean continued. "So, maybe they try a magical type of person, and maybe they possess them right away or maybe they try it a few times without the possession. Any way we can tell now? I mean, are all ten bodies already buried?"
"Not all. But I think I’ve got an idea. Come on, let’s head back home." He slipped the skull back into the sack. "And Bob, you may earn those extra books after all."
"I should hope so, Harry." Sam chuckled nervously at the indignation in Bob’s voice, muffled by the bag, as they left Waldo with his paperwork and headed into the darkening evening.