Anntarot - Fic - Highway to Hell(sville)
Title: Highway To Hell(sville)
Author: steeleblue
Giftee: anntarot
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairing: Eliot Spencer (Leverage), Dean Winchester, Bela Talbot (Supernatural)
Word Count: 3181
Spoilers: None. Pre-series for both shows.
Warnings: None.
Disclaimer: I don't own Leverage or Supernatural.
Summary: A funny thing happened one time in Hellsville. Or how Eliot learned to keep calm and not punch ghosts.
Notes: I like to think this fic is aptly named. It has fought me a lot. Google docs has refused me entrance for the last three days as I tried to post it. I had to get it emailed to me by its beta. Luckily I had one...I'm really quite fond of it now. IT WAS A BONDING EXPERIENCE.
Anyway, anntarot I hope you enjoy the supernatural and crossover goodness.
Thanks to sucksucksmile who was beta, soundboard of ideas, and rescuer of trapped google doc fics.
There wasn’t much that could surprise Eliot in a fight. He’d been in a lot of them. He’d fought on every continent, in what seemed like every situation, and with weapons that ranged from just his own body to the more sophisticated weaponry of the military.
He could be forgiven in this situation though. It wasn’t everyday that his fist went straight through an opponent’s head like they weren’t even there. He deserved the ‘stop and stare’ that resulted.
He didn’t deserve the smug-ass kid rolling his eyes and gesturing expansively to Eliot’s suddenly-translucent opponent. Or the condescending, “See? I told you.”
Eliot growled. “Yeah, I got that part, thanks.”
Smug-ass either missed the sarcasm or chose to ignore it. “You’re very welcome. Now do you want to step back and let the professional take care of Casper over there?”
What Eliot wanted to do was smack the kid in the face, but he wasn’t an idiot. Not five minutes ago he’d scoffed at the kid’s claims that what they were dealing with was a ghost. He stepped back.
When this misadventure was over, he’d be having some words with Bela Talbot.
~~~
“You want to hire me?” Eliot asked skeptically, wandering restlessly around Bela’s apartment. He trusted her about as much as he trusted anyone (which wasn’t much at all), but standing in one place in an unsecured territory seemed like a stupid idea.
“Sub-contract you,” Bela corrected, offering him a glass of wine. He stared at her until she grinned and took a sip herself. “I have a client who wants a particular object that is stored in a particular museum, and needs to have it by a particular night.”
“How very particular of him.”
She smiled. “Quite. Normally, this would be no problem for me. And he is willing to pay a considerable sum. But I have a prior engagement I need to attend, and the security is troublesome enough that I’d prefer not trusting it to just any thief who came along.”
“Not a thief,” Eliot replied. “Retrieval specialist.”
She saluted him with the glass. “Right. My deepest apologies, Eliot. So - are you in?”
He frowned, glancing around at some of the stranger objects Bela kept on display. “Occult is not really my thing. How much is anyone really going to pay for that stuff?”
Bela sighed. “Eliot. Did you not hear me say ‘a considerable sum?’ Look around you. This is not the home of someone struggling to make ends meet. You’d be surprised at what people are willing to pay for these things.”
Staring at one of Bela’s ornaments in a puzzled fashion, Eliot replied, “Yeah, I guess so.”
“Excellent!” Bela beamed. “I’ll go get the details, shall I?”
She left without waiting for an answer. Eliot’s mouth was still half-open to protest.
He scowled and called after her, “You owe me one!”
~~~
The so-called Professional got within a few feet of the translucent ghost that Eliot could have sworn had not been see-through when he first encountered him.
Once the kid held up the shotgun (and really? bullets would work when fists didn’t?), the apparition let out a horrible shriek. Around them, the walls began to shake and glass started to crack, and then museum artifacts were being hurtled through the air towards them by an unseen force.
On instinct Eliot grabbed the back of the kid’s jacket and shoved them both out of the way of the make-shift projectiles. They landed on the floor, hard, and skidded several feet until they were unceremoniously stopped by a wall.
Eliot groaned and pushed himself into a crouch. He glanced warily around the suddenly too calm exhibit room. “You okay, kid?”
Beside him, the kid scowled. “My name is Dean, and I’m twenty-five.”
“Okay, Dean.” Eliot rolled his eyes. “How do we kill this thing?”
“We need to salt and burn the body.”
Eliot stared. “We need to what now?”
“It’s a ghost, it has a corpse,” the kid (Dean) explained. “The body is what ties it to this world. If we salt and burn the body, it has to move on.”
Eliot felt a whole lot like he was trapped in a bad horror movie. “You’re kidding.”
The kid shrugged. “Sadly, no. It’s not exactly Ghost Busters.”
Eliot glanced around at the destruction the ghost in question had wrought and let his gaze settle on the artifact Bela had sent him to retrieve. It sat in the ruins of its display case as the only unbroken item in the room. Now that the spirit seemed to have momentarily calmed, and Eliot’s blood wasn’t pumping so loud, he could hear the sound of alarms blaring. “I knew this was a bad idea. I knew nothing that valuable could be stored in the ass-crack of nowhere without a catch.”
The Hunter made a face that suggested he agreed. They climbed to their feet and took off running before the distant sound of voices that signaled ‘guards’ could reach them.
~~~
While it wasn’t often that Eliot met a thief on the same job on the same night, it had happened before. So the kid who rounded the corner and started at the sight of him in the exhibit room only garnered a quick assessing glance. Young, well-built, with a shotgun and at least a couple of knives on him.
Eliot glared. “If you’re after the ugly ass medallion, sorry kid. I got here first.”
“You don’t have a clue what it is, do you?” The kid scowled in some kind of attempt to appear intimidating.
Eliot glanced between him and the medallion and raised an eyebrow. “Do you?”
The kid blinked. “Well, no. But I do know it’s haunted.”
That was a first.
“Right.” Eliot nodded, rolling his eyes. “Of course it is.”
He turned around to get the artifact in question, only suddenly there was someone between him and it. Despite himself, a chill went up his spine. “How the hell did you do that?”
The man between him and his target didn’t say anything. He just stared with cold, dead eyes. Eliot tried not to find it disturbing.
From behind him the kid called out, “He’s a ghost, man. Step aside and let me shoot him up with rock salt.”
Great. As if the strange guy blocking his access to the target wasn’t enough.
“Seriously,” Eliot began, turning back towards the creepy dead-eyed guy, “move aside and no one gets hurt.”
Creepy guy didn’t react, other than to raise a hand towards him. On instinct, Eliot dodged it and threw a punch.
Only his hand went straight through Creepy guy’s head, and he didn’t look so solid anymore.
~~~
Holed up in a sleazy motel room in Hellsville, Indiana (a slightly more ironic nickname after tonight) was not how Eliot expected his night to end. He definitely didn’t foresee sharing the space with a kid who claimed to hunt the supernatural for a living. The rushed lesson on ‘Everything You Need To Know About Ghosts So You Don’t Do Something Stupid Like Try To Punch One In The Face’ was just the icing on the cake, really.
After this was all over, Eliot was going to invest in some salt and iron for his safe houses. He could have happily gone another thirty years without encountering the things that went bump in the night.
“So, basically, we find out who this guy is and where he’s buried and destroy the remains?” Eliot took another sip of the crappy beer the kid had on hand.
Dean nodded. “That’s about it.”
Eliot eyed him. “And the medallion?”
The kid shrugged. “What the hell do I care what you do with it? Once the body is destroyed it should just be like any other old piece of crap.”
Well, that would make this a whole lot easier. If the kid was telling the truth.
“And how exactly do we find out who that ghost is?”
Dean put down his beer and grabbed a pamphlet from his duffel, handing it to Eliot. “The O’Hare Medallion. What do you know about it?”
“The name, the location, the details of the security,” Eliot replied with a shrug. “Other than the ghostly security, I mean. Don’t need to know much else for a retrieval.”
“Right.” Dean nodded and pushed a dusty old book towards him next. “Well, all that brochure says about it was that it belonged to Heather Harris, a member of one of the founding families of this little Hellhole. This book, on the other hand, is Heather’s diary, and Heather talks a lot about her ‘beloved’ George Hale. Only it turns very soap opera when Heather discovered that Ol’ George wasn’t as dedicated to her as she was to him. Sucked to be him, because Heather was a witch.”
“A witch,” Eliot repeated. He pressed the bottle of beer against his forehead to stall the headache he could just see coming. “Great.”
“Yeah, something like that.” Dean flipped through the pages of the diary and then pushed it towards Eliot. “It’s all in there. Curse the medallion, give it to the unfaithful lover, and then Very Bad Things happen.”
Eliot shook his head in disbelief. “And someone wants to pay a ridiculous amount of money for that?”
Dean shrugged. “I suppose it’s one way to get rid of your enemies without getting it linked back to you.”
Eliot could think of several more.
“Anyway, we should probably burn both Ol’ George and Witch Heather to be sure.” Dean stood up and grabbed his jacket and the bag of supplies on the end of the motel bed closest to the door. “One good thing about small towns - one cemetery. Hopefully we can be done with this tonight.”
“Good.” Eliot had exactly two days to get that medallion back to Bela, and one of them was almost over.
~~~
Dead bodies didn’t freak Eliot out. Even if most of his experience with them occurred much sooner after death than this. He also tended to be the one putting them in the ground, not the other way around.
Possibly the most unnerving thing was that Dean was cheerfully humming as he worked. He was clearly scarily suited to his job.
George Hale and Heather Harris were buried in a secluded and rather isolated part of the town cemetery, which helped them a great deal. Instead of spending a lot of time on the lookout, Eliot and Dean both got straight to work and soon Eliot was watching as Dean cracked opened the caskets and thoroughly poured salt and gasoline over both bodies.
Eliot held a tire iron on the off-chance anything supernatural would appear to try and stop them from destroying it. Dean had offered his shotgun (filled with salt-rounds, which was more ingenious an idea than Eliot had originally considered Dean capable of), but Eliot was sticking to his ‘no guns’ philosophy. Even against ghosts.
Dean grinned and lit a couple of matches. “And now for the main attraction.” He dropped the matches into the caskets and the bodies were quickly engulfed in flames.
“How will we know it worked?” Eliot asked.
“When you go to the museum and get the medallion and an evil spirit doesn’t attack you,” Dean replied simply.
Eliot rolled his eyes. “Of course.”
“What?” Dean shrugged a bit defensively. “It’s not like hunting is an exact science.”
Not surprising, especially considering that Eliot was about as well-travelled as they came and still hadn’t known the supernatural existed.
Still, it didn’t look like it would take long for the job to be done. Hopefully Eliot could break into the museum again and be on a plane to hand the medallion over to Bela by morning.
“So, is this the creepiest thing you’ve ever done?” Dean asked idly.
Eliot yawned and looked at his watch. “Sadly, no.”
~~~
Unsurprisingly, the medallion had been moved by the time they returned to the town’s local history museum. Of course, Hellsville, Indiana being what it was, this meant it was in a locked box in the curator’s office.
Dean had muttered something about them being lucky the ghost hadn’t killed again. Eliot was just thankful the curator’s office was on the opposite side of the museum from the exhibit room, where the curator, security and police were gathered to marvel over the destruction that had sprung up from nowhere.
He let Dean jimmy the lock on the curator’s door open and started to follow him in, only to pull up short when Dean suddenly stopped.
“What?” Eliot asked, and shoved Dean aside so he could see.
Creepy Ol’ George was standing in the middle of the office, as creepy and dead-eyed at when Eliot had last seen him. And just as not-alive and kicking.
“What the hell?” Dean exclaimed, and wasted no time in raising the tire iron he had hooked through his belt and using it as a club, swinging it with force at the ghost. Ol’ George screamed and disappeared.
“That won’t keep him away long,” Dean said as he threw the tire iron to Eliot and nodded at the locked box on the desk.
Eliot caught the tire iron and used it to break open the locked box. The medallion was a simple thing to look at. It certainly didn’t look worth all the trouble he’d gone to, but Eliot was careful not to touch it directly as he picked it up. “Why didn’t destroying the bodies work?”
Dean nodded at the medallion. “I bet you it was that.”
Eliot glanced at the medallion. “More trouble than it’s worth.”
“I’ll bet.” Dean held his hand out. “If you hold Ghosty McGhosterson off and stop him from killing me or any of those curious cops, I’ll salt and burn this thing.”
Eliot quirked an eyebrow. “And if I don’t you’ll take it by force, right?”
Dean just nodded. “Yep. Sorry, pal.”
Eliot grinned and handed it over. “Don’t be. That thing is bad luck. No way I’m carting it halfway across the country on a plane. It’ll probably crash.”
“Planes are deathtraps, dude.” Dean winked.
Eliot shook his head and covered Dean’s back as they left the office and ran towards the car park.
Ol’ George appeared at the entrance to the museum. Paintings on the walls began to rattle ominously. Eliot threw the tire iron at his head. The ghost shrieked and disappeared again. The paintings that had been shaking on the walls fell to the ground. Dean ran past the chaos and out of the museum. Eliot paused to pick up the tire iron and then followed on his heels.
Dean was hurriedly propping open the trunk of the Impala. “Dude, if you let this ghost hurt one tiny piece of my baby, I will kill you. I swear to God.”
Rolling his eyes, Eliot twirled the tire iron around and prepared for Ol’ George’s reappearance.
From behind him Dean occasionally muttered reassuring phrases like ‘Where the hell did the damn matches go?’
Ol’ George showed up before the matches did. Eliot casually moved towards him, swinging the tire iron back and forth threateningly. At first it seemed like the ghost’s effectiveness would be lessened away from a variety of objects for him to hurl at Eliot, but he proved surprisingly fast and - when Eliot’s swing with the tire iron missed him by just an inch - strong, a surprisingly solid fist sending Eliot flying back onto the concrete with a groan.
“So he can hit me but I can’t hit him?” Eliot groaned and pushed himself back up, glancing around for the tire iron. It lay a few feet away. Ol’ George was approaching fast, so Eliot scrambled towards it.
Dean looked up from where he was fumbling with the can of gasoline. “Oh yeah, forgot to mention that. Yeah, it’s better to avoid getting hit, dude.”
“Because that’s shockingly new information,” Eliot mumbled. He threw the tire iron at the ghost who just got a little too close for the comfort of his ribs. It disappeared, but the tire iron ended up on the other side of the car park.
Behind him, Dean was lighting the matches to burn the medallion. Ol’ George reappeared. Eliot didn’t dare remove himself from between the ghost and Dean. So he grimaced and moved to block the ghost’s way, dodging as many of it’s supernaturally enhanced hits as he could.
Sudden light from the corner of his eye signalled that the medallion was on fire. It also distracted Eliot long enough for Ol’ George to get a glancing blow across Eliot’s knee, sending him to the ground.
Behind him, Dean muttered a curse and grabbed for the shotgun. Ol’ George’s fist came hurtling towards him and then the ghost started and flickered in and out of view. Eliot sent a grateful look back at where the medallion was now little more than a melted mess on the ground.
Eliot scrambled away as the ghost finally dematerialized for the last time. Dean kept the shotgun in one hand just in case and helped Eliot to his feet with the other.
“Well,” Eliot said, breathing deeply and rubbing the tender spot the ghost had hit. “That was a night to remember.”
“Bet you regret taking that job,” Dean replied, keeping one eye out for any surprise reappearance from Ol’ George.
“Eh.” Eliot shrugged. “Been a while since I had a fight that tough.”
Dean laughed.
“Besides,” Eliot commented as they packed up to leave, “I think my client was planning on screwing me over anyway. Just how she works.”
Dean cringed. “Glad my work is nice and simple. Good ol’ salt and burn.”
Eliot shook his head skeptically. He definitely preferred his normal, mundane retrievals. Bela was never getting a favor from him again. “Whatever you say, Dean.”
Closing the trunk of the Impala with a grin, Dean nodded at him triumphantly. “At least you’re calling me by my name now. Does that mean we can grab a beer before parting ways?”
Eliot hummed thoughtfully, before smirking. “Sure, kid. Tonight rates a beer.”
From the entrance to the museum, an angry voice of authority shouted, “Hey! You two!”
Eliot and Dean exchanged wry looks. Dean grinned. “Oh yeah, forgot about them. Fleeing the county?”
“Definitely.”
As he hopped in the passenger seat and held on as Dean sent the Impala screeching out of the parking lot, Eliot reflected that there were definitely worse ways to spend a day than fleeing from police with good company and a beautiful car.
Author: steeleblue
Giftee: anntarot
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairing: Eliot Spencer (Leverage), Dean Winchester, Bela Talbot (Supernatural)
Word Count: 3181
Spoilers: None. Pre-series for both shows.
Warnings: None.
Disclaimer: I don't own Leverage or Supernatural.
Summary: A funny thing happened one time in Hellsville. Or how Eliot learned to keep calm and not punch ghosts.
Notes: I like to think this fic is aptly named. It has fought me a lot. Google docs has refused me entrance for the last three days as I tried to post it. I had to get it emailed to me by its beta. Luckily I had one...I'm really quite fond of it now. IT WAS A BONDING EXPERIENCE.
Anyway, anntarot I hope you enjoy the supernatural and crossover goodness.
Thanks to sucksucksmile who was beta, soundboard of ideas, and rescuer of trapped google doc fics.
There wasn’t much that could surprise Eliot in a fight. He’d been in a lot of them. He’d fought on every continent, in what seemed like every situation, and with weapons that ranged from just his own body to the more sophisticated weaponry of the military.
He could be forgiven in this situation though. It wasn’t everyday that his fist went straight through an opponent’s head like they weren’t even there. He deserved the ‘stop and stare’ that resulted.
He didn’t deserve the smug-ass kid rolling his eyes and gesturing expansively to Eliot’s suddenly-translucent opponent. Or the condescending, “See? I told you.”
Eliot growled. “Yeah, I got that part, thanks.”
Smug-ass either missed the sarcasm or chose to ignore it. “You’re very welcome. Now do you want to step back and let the professional take care of Casper over there?”
What Eliot wanted to do was smack the kid in the face, but he wasn’t an idiot. Not five minutes ago he’d scoffed at the kid’s claims that what they were dealing with was a ghost. He stepped back.
When this misadventure was over, he’d be having some words with Bela Talbot.
~~~
“You want to hire me?” Eliot asked skeptically, wandering restlessly around Bela’s apartment. He trusted her about as much as he trusted anyone (which wasn’t much at all), but standing in one place in an unsecured territory seemed like a stupid idea.
“Sub-contract you,” Bela corrected, offering him a glass of wine. He stared at her until she grinned and took a sip herself. “I have a client who wants a particular object that is stored in a particular museum, and needs to have it by a particular night.”
“How very particular of him.”
She smiled. “Quite. Normally, this would be no problem for me. And he is willing to pay a considerable sum. But I have a prior engagement I need to attend, and the security is troublesome enough that I’d prefer not trusting it to just any thief who came along.”
“Not a thief,” Eliot replied. “Retrieval specialist.”
She saluted him with the glass. “Right. My deepest apologies, Eliot. So - are you in?”
He frowned, glancing around at some of the stranger objects Bela kept on display. “Occult is not really my thing. How much is anyone really going to pay for that stuff?”
Bela sighed. “Eliot. Did you not hear me say ‘a considerable sum?’ Look around you. This is not the home of someone struggling to make ends meet. You’d be surprised at what people are willing to pay for these things.”
Staring at one of Bela’s ornaments in a puzzled fashion, Eliot replied, “Yeah, I guess so.”
“Excellent!” Bela beamed. “I’ll go get the details, shall I?”
She left without waiting for an answer. Eliot’s mouth was still half-open to protest.
He scowled and called after her, “You owe me one!”
~~~
The so-called Professional got within a few feet of the translucent ghost that Eliot could have sworn had not been see-through when he first encountered him.
Once the kid held up the shotgun (and really? bullets would work when fists didn’t?), the apparition let out a horrible shriek. Around them, the walls began to shake and glass started to crack, and then museum artifacts were being hurtled through the air towards them by an unseen force.
On instinct Eliot grabbed the back of the kid’s jacket and shoved them both out of the way of the make-shift projectiles. They landed on the floor, hard, and skidded several feet until they were unceremoniously stopped by a wall.
Eliot groaned and pushed himself into a crouch. He glanced warily around the suddenly too calm exhibit room. “You okay, kid?”
Beside him, the kid scowled. “My name is Dean, and I’m twenty-five.”
“Okay, Dean.” Eliot rolled his eyes. “How do we kill this thing?”
“We need to salt and burn the body.”
Eliot stared. “We need to what now?”
“It’s a ghost, it has a corpse,” the kid (Dean) explained. “The body is what ties it to this world. If we salt and burn the body, it has to move on.”
Eliot felt a whole lot like he was trapped in a bad horror movie. “You’re kidding.”
The kid shrugged. “Sadly, no. It’s not exactly Ghost Busters.”
Eliot glanced around at the destruction the ghost in question had wrought and let his gaze settle on the artifact Bela had sent him to retrieve. It sat in the ruins of its display case as the only unbroken item in the room. Now that the spirit seemed to have momentarily calmed, and Eliot’s blood wasn’t pumping so loud, he could hear the sound of alarms blaring. “I knew this was a bad idea. I knew nothing that valuable could be stored in the ass-crack of nowhere without a catch.”
The Hunter made a face that suggested he agreed. They climbed to their feet and took off running before the distant sound of voices that signaled ‘guards’ could reach them.
~~~
While it wasn’t often that Eliot met a thief on the same job on the same night, it had happened before. So the kid who rounded the corner and started at the sight of him in the exhibit room only garnered a quick assessing glance. Young, well-built, with a shotgun and at least a couple of knives on him.
Eliot glared. “If you’re after the ugly ass medallion, sorry kid. I got here first.”
“You don’t have a clue what it is, do you?” The kid scowled in some kind of attempt to appear intimidating.
Eliot glanced between him and the medallion and raised an eyebrow. “Do you?”
The kid blinked. “Well, no. But I do know it’s haunted.”
That was a first.
“Right.” Eliot nodded, rolling his eyes. “Of course it is.”
He turned around to get the artifact in question, only suddenly there was someone between him and it. Despite himself, a chill went up his spine. “How the hell did you do that?”
The man between him and his target didn’t say anything. He just stared with cold, dead eyes. Eliot tried not to find it disturbing.
From behind him the kid called out, “He’s a ghost, man. Step aside and let me shoot him up with rock salt.”
Great. As if the strange guy blocking his access to the target wasn’t enough.
“Seriously,” Eliot began, turning back towards the creepy dead-eyed guy, “move aside and no one gets hurt.”
Creepy guy didn’t react, other than to raise a hand towards him. On instinct, Eliot dodged it and threw a punch.
Only his hand went straight through Creepy guy’s head, and he didn’t look so solid anymore.
~~~
Holed up in a sleazy motel room in Hellsville, Indiana (a slightly more ironic nickname after tonight) was not how Eliot expected his night to end. He definitely didn’t foresee sharing the space with a kid who claimed to hunt the supernatural for a living. The rushed lesson on ‘Everything You Need To Know About Ghosts So You Don’t Do Something Stupid Like Try To Punch One In The Face’ was just the icing on the cake, really.
After this was all over, Eliot was going to invest in some salt and iron for his safe houses. He could have happily gone another thirty years without encountering the things that went bump in the night.
“So, basically, we find out who this guy is and where he’s buried and destroy the remains?” Eliot took another sip of the crappy beer the kid had on hand.
Dean nodded. “That’s about it.”
Eliot eyed him. “And the medallion?”
The kid shrugged. “What the hell do I care what you do with it? Once the body is destroyed it should just be like any other old piece of crap.”
Well, that would make this a whole lot easier. If the kid was telling the truth.
“And how exactly do we find out who that ghost is?”
Dean put down his beer and grabbed a pamphlet from his duffel, handing it to Eliot. “The O’Hare Medallion. What do you know about it?”
“The name, the location, the details of the security,” Eliot replied with a shrug. “Other than the ghostly security, I mean. Don’t need to know much else for a retrieval.”
“Right.” Dean nodded and pushed a dusty old book towards him next. “Well, all that brochure says about it was that it belonged to Heather Harris, a member of one of the founding families of this little Hellhole. This book, on the other hand, is Heather’s diary, and Heather talks a lot about her ‘beloved’ George Hale. Only it turns very soap opera when Heather discovered that Ol’ George wasn’t as dedicated to her as she was to him. Sucked to be him, because Heather was a witch.”
“A witch,” Eliot repeated. He pressed the bottle of beer against his forehead to stall the headache he could just see coming. “Great.”
“Yeah, something like that.” Dean flipped through the pages of the diary and then pushed it towards Eliot. “It’s all in there. Curse the medallion, give it to the unfaithful lover, and then Very Bad Things happen.”
Eliot shook his head in disbelief. “And someone wants to pay a ridiculous amount of money for that?”
Dean shrugged. “I suppose it’s one way to get rid of your enemies without getting it linked back to you.”
Eliot could think of several more.
“Anyway, we should probably burn both Ol’ George and Witch Heather to be sure.” Dean stood up and grabbed his jacket and the bag of supplies on the end of the motel bed closest to the door. “One good thing about small towns - one cemetery. Hopefully we can be done with this tonight.”
“Good.” Eliot had exactly two days to get that medallion back to Bela, and one of them was almost over.
~~~
Dead bodies didn’t freak Eliot out. Even if most of his experience with them occurred much sooner after death than this. He also tended to be the one putting them in the ground, not the other way around.
Possibly the most unnerving thing was that Dean was cheerfully humming as he worked. He was clearly scarily suited to his job.
George Hale and Heather Harris were buried in a secluded and rather isolated part of the town cemetery, which helped them a great deal. Instead of spending a lot of time on the lookout, Eliot and Dean both got straight to work and soon Eliot was watching as Dean cracked opened the caskets and thoroughly poured salt and gasoline over both bodies.
Eliot held a tire iron on the off-chance anything supernatural would appear to try and stop them from destroying it. Dean had offered his shotgun (filled with salt-rounds, which was more ingenious an idea than Eliot had originally considered Dean capable of), but Eliot was sticking to his ‘no guns’ philosophy. Even against ghosts.
Dean grinned and lit a couple of matches. “And now for the main attraction.” He dropped the matches into the caskets and the bodies were quickly engulfed in flames.
“How will we know it worked?” Eliot asked.
“When you go to the museum and get the medallion and an evil spirit doesn’t attack you,” Dean replied simply.
Eliot rolled his eyes. “Of course.”
“What?” Dean shrugged a bit defensively. “It’s not like hunting is an exact science.”
Not surprising, especially considering that Eliot was about as well-travelled as they came and still hadn’t known the supernatural existed.
Still, it didn’t look like it would take long for the job to be done. Hopefully Eliot could break into the museum again and be on a plane to hand the medallion over to Bela by morning.
“So, is this the creepiest thing you’ve ever done?” Dean asked idly.
Eliot yawned and looked at his watch. “Sadly, no.”
~~~
Unsurprisingly, the medallion had been moved by the time they returned to the town’s local history museum. Of course, Hellsville, Indiana being what it was, this meant it was in a locked box in the curator’s office.
Dean had muttered something about them being lucky the ghost hadn’t killed again. Eliot was just thankful the curator’s office was on the opposite side of the museum from the exhibit room, where the curator, security and police were gathered to marvel over the destruction that had sprung up from nowhere.
He let Dean jimmy the lock on the curator’s door open and started to follow him in, only to pull up short when Dean suddenly stopped.
“What?” Eliot asked, and shoved Dean aside so he could see.
Creepy Ol’ George was standing in the middle of the office, as creepy and dead-eyed at when Eliot had last seen him. And just as not-alive and kicking.
“What the hell?” Dean exclaimed, and wasted no time in raising the tire iron he had hooked through his belt and using it as a club, swinging it with force at the ghost. Ol’ George screamed and disappeared.
“That won’t keep him away long,” Dean said as he threw the tire iron to Eliot and nodded at the locked box on the desk.
Eliot caught the tire iron and used it to break open the locked box. The medallion was a simple thing to look at. It certainly didn’t look worth all the trouble he’d gone to, but Eliot was careful not to touch it directly as he picked it up. “Why didn’t destroying the bodies work?”
Dean nodded at the medallion. “I bet you it was that.”
Eliot glanced at the medallion. “More trouble than it’s worth.”
“I’ll bet.” Dean held his hand out. “If you hold Ghosty McGhosterson off and stop him from killing me or any of those curious cops, I’ll salt and burn this thing.”
Eliot quirked an eyebrow. “And if I don’t you’ll take it by force, right?”
Dean just nodded. “Yep. Sorry, pal.”
Eliot grinned and handed it over. “Don’t be. That thing is bad luck. No way I’m carting it halfway across the country on a plane. It’ll probably crash.”
“Planes are deathtraps, dude.” Dean winked.
Eliot shook his head and covered Dean’s back as they left the office and ran towards the car park.
Ol’ George appeared at the entrance to the museum. Paintings on the walls began to rattle ominously. Eliot threw the tire iron at his head. The ghost shrieked and disappeared again. The paintings that had been shaking on the walls fell to the ground. Dean ran past the chaos and out of the museum. Eliot paused to pick up the tire iron and then followed on his heels.
Dean was hurriedly propping open the trunk of the Impala. “Dude, if you let this ghost hurt one tiny piece of my baby, I will kill you. I swear to God.”
Rolling his eyes, Eliot twirled the tire iron around and prepared for Ol’ George’s reappearance.
From behind him Dean occasionally muttered reassuring phrases like ‘Where the hell did the damn matches go?’
Ol’ George showed up before the matches did. Eliot casually moved towards him, swinging the tire iron back and forth threateningly. At first it seemed like the ghost’s effectiveness would be lessened away from a variety of objects for him to hurl at Eliot, but he proved surprisingly fast and - when Eliot’s swing with the tire iron missed him by just an inch - strong, a surprisingly solid fist sending Eliot flying back onto the concrete with a groan.
“So he can hit me but I can’t hit him?” Eliot groaned and pushed himself back up, glancing around for the tire iron. It lay a few feet away. Ol’ George was approaching fast, so Eliot scrambled towards it.
Dean looked up from where he was fumbling with the can of gasoline. “Oh yeah, forgot to mention that. Yeah, it’s better to avoid getting hit, dude.”
“Because that’s shockingly new information,” Eliot mumbled. He threw the tire iron at the ghost who just got a little too close for the comfort of his ribs. It disappeared, but the tire iron ended up on the other side of the car park.
Behind him, Dean was lighting the matches to burn the medallion. Ol’ George reappeared. Eliot didn’t dare remove himself from between the ghost and Dean. So he grimaced and moved to block the ghost’s way, dodging as many of it’s supernaturally enhanced hits as he could.
Sudden light from the corner of his eye signalled that the medallion was on fire. It also distracted Eliot long enough for Ol’ George to get a glancing blow across Eliot’s knee, sending him to the ground.
Behind him, Dean muttered a curse and grabbed for the shotgun. Ol’ George’s fist came hurtling towards him and then the ghost started and flickered in and out of view. Eliot sent a grateful look back at where the medallion was now little more than a melted mess on the ground.
Eliot scrambled away as the ghost finally dematerialized for the last time. Dean kept the shotgun in one hand just in case and helped Eliot to his feet with the other.
“Well,” Eliot said, breathing deeply and rubbing the tender spot the ghost had hit. “That was a night to remember.”
“Bet you regret taking that job,” Dean replied, keeping one eye out for any surprise reappearance from Ol’ George.
“Eh.” Eliot shrugged. “Been a while since I had a fight that tough.”
Dean laughed.
“Besides,” Eliot commented as they packed up to leave, “I think my client was planning on screwing me over anyway. Just how she works.”
Dean cringed. “Glad my work is nice and simple. Good ol’ salt and burn.”
Eliot shook his head skeptically. He definitely preferred his normal, mundane retrievals. Bela was never getting a favor from him again. “Whatever you say, Dean.”
Closing the trunk of the Impala with a grin, Dean nodded at him triumphantly. “At least you’re calling me by my name now. Does that mean we can grab a beer before parting ways?”
Eliot hummed thoughtfully, before smirking. “Sure, kid. Tonight rates a beer.”
From the entrance to the museum, an angry voice of authority shouted, “Hey! You two!”
Eliot and Dean exchanged wry looks. Dean grinned. “Oh yeah, forgot about them. Fleeing the county?”
“Definitely.”
As he hopped in the passenger seat and held on as Dean sent the Impala screeching out of the parking lot, Eliot reflected that there were definitely worse ways to spend a day than fleeing from police with good company and a beautiful car.