Carry On... Episode 4: Playing With Fire Part 3
Here is the third part of episode 4 of Carry On...
Episode 4: Playing With Fire
Original airdate: 2010.02.08.
Summary:
Children in Westlake are disappearing. Dean and Sam suspect a rawhead, and Dean especially is looking forward to a simple monster hunt. All he wanted was to hunt monsters and maybe save some little kids. A simple, clean, kill-the-evil hunt. But between Sam’s increasing powers and a town secret, simple may be too much to ask for.
Excerpt:
There was something wrong with him, and there was something wrong with Sam; but, damn it, he didn’t want there to be something wrong with Sam…and he definitely didn’t want there to be something wrong with him. He just wanted to hunt monsters and maybe save a little kid. A simple, clean, kill-the-evil hunt. Why was that so much to ask?
It wasn’t. Not if he just decided that Sam really was a little tired. And that he really wasn’t hearing things. If they didn’t talk about this crap, it didn’t matter, right?
Dean forced himself to smile, letting some of the bounce back in. “Hey, we need to get on this, like now, if the kid has any shot of surviving it,” Dean said to Sam. Work would keep him busy, and keep them both from worrying about things that just didn’t matter.
Written by: ghostfour and kiscinca
Artist: kiscinca
Part 3
Sunlight slanted in the motel room through the door as Dean came in. Sam was where Dean had left him, sprawled over the laptop, fast asleep. He’d been working on it when Dean had gone to bed, still toiling when Dean had gotten up to take a leak in the middle of the night, and had been collapsed across the table almost cuddling it when Dean had woken up this morning.
Dean had thrown a blanket over him on his way out, but that was about as far as brotherly concern went in this case. Sam knew where the bed was.
Still, Dean couldn’t help but smirk at the image of Sam, hugging his computer and drooling on the table. Dean tossed the greasy bag of food to the tabletop, intentionally sliding it into Sam’s shaggy head.
“Wakey, wakey, eggs and bakey.” He set down the coffee cups.
Sam jerked awake, blinking in the morning light and simultaneously rubbing an obviously stiff neck and wiping the drool from his face.
“Dean? What time is it?”
“Late. You slept in, Sammy.”
Sam yawned. “You left?”
“I brought breakfast.” Dean nodded to the food bag.
“Thanks,” Sam said, and Dean smiled at the tone of near desperation as Sammy grabbed for the coffee.
Dean snagged the food bag back, pulling out a breakfast sandwich. “Anything?” Dean asked, nodding at the computer.
“Remember the thing on his forehead I told you about?”
“You said it looked like something was written on it.”
Sam nodded, fetching his own sandwich. “There was. I looked it up. It was a Hebrew sigil. This sigil is most often printed on a scroll - and the only monsters I could find that have scrolls stuck in their heads are golems.”
“Golems?” Dean frowned. “The one from Prague, right?”
“Yep,” Sam confirmed, almost swallowing his sandwich whole. “It’s Jewish folklore. Golems are summonings - creatures called from the void to inhabit bodies made of clay or mud. Some of them can burn by touch.”
“That explains the scorching,” Dean observed, and Sam nodded again.
“It’s summoned by a person to do their bidding. Normally that’s protecting a town or village. They are defensive creatures by nature. But golems are slaves; they have no free will, and they’re pretty much unstoppable - unless you remove the scroll and kill the person who summoned it in the first place. Problem is, we don’t know who that was.” Sam gulped the coffee.
“So to stop this thing, we have to find out who summoned it in the first place, then off him?”
“Pretty much, yeah.”
“Well, that’s swell.” Dean could feel his stomach churning around the sandwich. He grimaced as he crumpled up the wrapper.
Sam nodded. “Yep. I was just thrilled too. And, we have no idea about who the summoner could be.”
Dean frowned. This was supposed to have been a cakewalk… now it was turning into a pain in the ass. Even knowing what they were facing wasn’t going to help in his case. The monster wasn’t the problem, or not the only problem. To stop the monster, they needed to identify the creator. Well, the first rule of hunting was to define patterns…“Do golems go after kids usually?”
Sam looked surprised. “I should have thought of that. No, golems do exactly what they’re told, no more, no less.”
“So there should be some connection between the maker and the kids. Maybe someone they bullied?”
“These kids were like, six, Dean. Even if they were bullies, I don’t think a first grader could summon a golem. Even a really advanced one.”
Dean had to admit Sam had a point, no matter how snidely he was grinning. “Maybe a parent of the bullied kid?”
“Maybe,” Sam said, looking doubtful. “But don’t you think golem building is a little extreme to stop a school bully?”
“Are you kidding? Some of these yuppie moms would do it in a heartbeat for their precious little angels,” Dean smirked. “We should look into the kids’ backgrounds. See if they’ve had any discipline problems or if school friends have died recently. That would be motive for murder by monster.”
“Fine. But, Dean, even if we find the maker, we can’t just kill a human.”
“Do we have a choice?” Dean demanded. “Human or not, they’re killing kids. And you know people are crazy, crazier than demons. Nastier sometimes, too.”
Sam just started at him with those too-honest eyes. “But we can’t just go around offing humans; that’s not our job.”
Dean shrugged. “No, it’s not. But stopping monsters is, and if that’s what we have to do to end this, then that what we have to do, Sam.”
Sam’s jaw worked. Dean could see the argument in his eyes, could see the words pushing at the back of his teeth…and was relived when he didn’t push it. Yet.
“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it, I guess,” Sam said instead, but his shoulders were still tense and he wouldn’t meet Dean’s gaze.
“Right now, we still have to find a connection. Find out who’s doing this and why,” he finished.
“You hit that up,” Dean said, jerking his chin at the computer. “I’ll head to the police station, see what else we can dig up there.”
Dean stuffed the last of his sandwich into his mouth and gave Sam a pat on the back as he stood up, using the opportunity to wipe his greasy fingers on Sam’s shirt. He grinned as Sam glared at his back as he walked through the door.
And he knew without looking back that that Sam was already back on his laptop.
***
Privately, Dean was convinced that every police station in America had come from the same three floor plans. All of them were drab, all of them were mazelike, and all of them made him just a little…not so much nervous, as hyperaware of how out of his element he was - a feeling that had only gotten worse after his encounter with the FBI after that sorry excuse for bank robbery back in Milwaukee.
The Westlake Police Hall was no different.
Dean suppressed his distaste for the surroundings as the sheriff came up. A heavy-set, unfriendly kind of guy, who wore his authority like he wore his pistol - openly and obviously.
“Can I help you?” he asked, looking Dean over with a practiced eye.
Dean was used to it, and ready for it. He carefully maintained his stiff shoulders and pleasant expression. He pulled his FBI badge out of his suit jacket with a practiced flip. “Yeah, I’m Special Agent Gillan. I’m looking into the disappearance of little Jeremiah Riger. Can you show me the file?”
The sheriff frowned. “Why are you feds so interested?”
“Because it’s the second child to disappear in less then a week. That’s a pretty big number in a small town, don’t you think? Are you saying you don’t find that strange?”
The sheriff glared for a second more, just to let Dean know who was in charge - then he turned, motioning him to follow into the office. Once inside, the sheriff sat behind the desk, spinning around a file that he’d been working on. “I have to say, I do find it a little too much for just coincidence,” he admitted. “I have a bad feeling about this one. I have my doubts that we’ll find either him or the little girl. We just have no leads. My best hope is that this is some stranger who will move on now. Too bad, really. He was a nice little boy who didn’t do anything wrong. He didn’t deserve this.”
Dean noticed the way the sheriff stressed the pronoun. He glanced up from the file. “He didn’t. So who did?”
The sheriff frowned, looking stern, “It’s not my place to be gossiping like that.” But Dean could see that light in his eyes, the one that said he was itching to share a good story. It was a light Dean knew well, and loved to see.
“We both know that little things that seem to have no importance can end up breaking a case wide open. You should tell me.”
The sheriff hesitated, but then nodded. “Can’t hurt for you to know. It’s all public record, anyway. And that little boy was a polite thing. Good natured. Always smiling. Him I liked. It’s his parents that I can’t stand.”
“Oh yeah? How so?” Dean said, putting on his ‘supportive’ face.
The man leaned back in his chair, rocking a little. “It happened a long time ago, probably everyone else has already forgotten it. But I worked the case. Sometimes stuff sticks with you, you know what I mean?” He waited for Dean’s nod and continued. “Anyway, there was a boy, his name was Jesse Fleishman. He hung out with a gang of kids. The five of them were best friends. Jesse, he wasn’t a bad kid, but the ones he chose to throw in with…”
“Rough, huh?” Dean asked.
The sheriff smirked. "Moneyed. Which was worse. They were bored and reckless and their daddies bought them out of trouble instead of teaching them to avoid it. Well, Jesse, he had a little brother, Mikey. Kid tagged along with them every chance he got. They were rough with the little one. Always teasing, always pushing. Of course Jesse defended him, though maybe not as much as he should have.”
The sheriff sighed, leaning over his desk, and Dean knew they were getting to the point of it. “They were about fifteen when they all decided to steal Jesse’s dad’s car. They wouldn’t take Mikey, not even when he threatened to tell their parents. Of course there was an accident. They were driving drunk and hit someone. Turned out it was Mikey, he followed them somehow and caught up. The friends fled the scene and never got charged. Jesse was left there heartbroken by his little brother’s death and betrayed by those who he thought were his best friends.”
“Sad story,” Dean said, biting back the slow rise of excitement. “You think it has anything to do with Jeremiah’s disappearance?”
The sheriff hesitated, but eventually shook his head. “I just really can’t see how.”
Dean shrugged casually. “Couldn’t hurt to check it out, anyway. Do you know where Jesse lives now?”
“He lives in town. Down on Rice street.” The sheriff scribbled the address down on a piece of paper. “You think he may be connected to the kidnappings?”
“Probably not, but I only want to ask a couple of questions.”
The sheriff pulled out his glare again. “Jesse is a good kid, he changed after Mikey’s death. And for the better. He wouldn’t hurt kids.”
Dean took the address. “Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind.”
***
Dean had his phone out before he made it all the way down the stairs outside the station house. He hit Sam’s speed dial excitedly.
“Hey,” Sam’s voice came after a couple of rings. “What’s up?”
“The sky, the birds, the trees…” Dean answered, pulling his keys from his pocket and crossing the street to his car.
“Did you find out anything?” Sam sounded irritated. Dean smirked.
“Who’s the most awesome big brother in the world?”
“You found something.”
“And the greatest hunter?”
“Something good. What did you find?”
“Say it,” Dean said, opening the Impala’s door. “Say who’s the most awesome big brother and the greatest hunter in the world combined.”
“You are, Dean,” Sam’s tone was so dry that the Sahara would have seemed lush in comparison. Dean could almost hear Sam rolling his eyes. “Now do you want to share this great find of yours?”
Dean settled himself in the car. “I think we have a name. Years ago, there was this kid, Jesse Fleishman, who lost his brother in an accident. Guess who he was best friends with and who left him in the dust after causing said accident?”
There was a pause, then an almost sad sigh from the cell. “That would definitely be motive,” Sam agreed.
Dean frowned though, his excitement falling away at his brother’s lack of response. “Dude, is there something wrong?”
“Wrong?”
Dean huffed. “I give you the solution to one of our most confusing cases ever and you react like a slug. What gives?”
It was Sam’s turn to huff. “Nothing, Dean. I’m fine. But I slept at a table last night, if you remember. I’m a little tired.”
It was more than that, and Dean knew it. Just like he knew that the weird…sounds that he occasionally experienced were not figments of his imagination, nor were they going to go away all on their own. There was something wrong with him, and there was something wrong with Sam; but, damn it, he didn’t want there to be something wrong with Sam…and he definitely didn’t want there to be something wrong with him. He just wanted to hunt monsters and maybe save a little kid. A simple, clean, kill-the-evil hunt. Why was that so much to ask?
It wasn’t. Not if he just decided that Sam really was a little tired. And that he really wasn’t hearing things. If they didn’t talk about this crap, it didn’t matter, right?
Dean forced himself to smile, letting some of the bounce back in. “Hey, we need to get on this, like now, if the kid has any shot of surviving it,” Dean said to Sam. Work would keep him busy, and keep them both from worrying about things that just didn’t matter. Besides, it was true. Their time was limited here. The clock was ticking down on little Jeremiah, if he was still alive at all. “Meet you back at the motel?”
“On my way.”
***
The little boy shivered as he stared through the bars of his cage.
His little knuckles were raw and bloody from banging uselessly against the bars; his voice was gone after hours of screaming and crying. Now, even most of his tears seemed gone. Used up and disappeared, leaving his eyes puffy and red and sore.
He pushed himself against the cage, shoving himself almost painfully into the bars. His feet scraped as he tried to get more leverage, to push harder. It was a cruel game. The keys had been set on the floor, just out of reach. The boy would never be able to get to them, but he just kept struggling, hurting himself in his attempts. A video camera blinked in the corner, documenting his fight.
Finally, his little face bruised from the pressure of the bars, he slumped down, pulling his arm back inside his pen. He could feel the burn in his eyes and nose and throat - and he knew his body wanted to cry - but he just had no more tears.
After a few minutes, the big lock on the cage door caught his eye. He’d seen locks like that before. His daddy had one on their shed. He stood, only a little dizzy, and limped over to the door. He tried to get the huge lock off, but it was too heavy and it wouldn’t budge. He was stuck. Then he heard the voice.
“Hello, Jeremiah.”
Jeremiah backpedaled, staring at the form with wide fearful eyes. He wanted to shout, he wanted to cry, he wanted desperately for his mother to come and hold him and make it better - but he couldn’t make any of those things happen.
The shadows moved toward him.
***
It really didn’t take long to find information once they had a name. Sam and Dean sat in the motel room and stared at the laptop, reading the article printed across the screen. They had to be sure on this one. They not only had to know what was going on, they had to have proof. If they had to kill the creator in order to stop the monster, they had to have air-tight evidence that the human they killed was the guilty party. There could be no mistakes on this one.
Deadly Accident Claims Child, the headline declared. A picture of the friends group was on one side of the article at the top. A small one of little Mikey graced the bottom corner. “Five teens are suspected of being involved. One, the victim’s brother and grandson to a local rabbi, will be charged with driving while intoxicated, driving without a license, grand-theft auto and manslaughter. No charges are expected to be filed against the other teens,” Sam read out loud. “Now how is that fair?”
“The kids’ parents had money. They wanted them to go to the Ivy League, not the state pen,” Dean observed. “Does it have the names of the other kids in there? They look familiar?”
Sam scanned the article. “No, but it shouldn’t be hard to find them.” Sam pulled up a high school reunion networking site and found that Jesse Fleishman was a registered user. “Figured. He likes to keep track of people,” Sam muttered.
Dean nodded, his expression dark. “If these guys were involved in the death of my brother and left me hanging for the crime, I’d keep track of them too.”
Ten minutes later, Sam had hacked into Fleishman’s account. The site pulled up a list of people Fleishman had gone to school with, including pictures.
“There is no privacy anymore,” Dean said philosophically as he leaned in to study the names.
“There is no right to privacy listed in the Constitution,” Sam said. “It’s only assumed.”
“Good. So we’re not violating anyone’s Constitutional rights. Because that would be awkward.” Dean rolled his eyes. Sam came up with the weirdest crap sometimes. Then he pointed at a picture on the website. “I know that guy. Roger Burman. That’s one of the kids from the group photo.”
“And the father of the second missing child,” Sam added.
“I think we found proof of connection, Sammy.”
Sam nodded, almost sadly. “Yeah, he’s connected to the parents of the kids who have disappeared. I agree that Jesse Fleishman is probably the one who summoned the golem. But, Dean, we can’t just kill him. He’s human.”
Dean sighed. It wasn’t that he disagreed with Sam at the core, it was just a matter of degree. “Sam, you saw what he did to those other kids. We don’t exactly have a choice. He will use that monster to tear Jeremiah Riger to little bitty pieces. And we can’t stop the golem until he’s dead. The golem is indestructible until he isn’t breathing. You told me that. I don’t see that we have a choice.”
Sam’s jaw clenched. “It’s still not right, and you know it. He’s human.”
Dean frowned. “He’s killing children. That’s not really human anymore, Sammy. This douchebag chose to do this! He actively sought out dark powers and is using them to kill kids! Trust me, I know a lost cause when I see one.”
Sam didn’t look convinced, more like he was just refusing to argue anymore.
“All right, fine. Where do we start? Find his address and check his house?”
“Sounds reasonable to me.”
***
The house was smaller then Sam had expected. But then again, Jesse had gone to prison for several years. Between the loss of education and the loss of social networks, Jesse Fleishman had grown up to be just another working-class guy.
Breaking in was easy. Jesse didn’t believe in locking windows, apparently. But then again, with a magical killing machine at your beck and call, home security was probably a non-issue.
Sam and Dean wandered the empty house, but there was no sign of Jesse or his creation.
The bedroom was a mess, cluttered with old books and religious icons. The bathroom was plain and stained. The basement was wet, and the kitchen was dirty. Jesse either lived like a pig, or he hadn’t been at home much lately.
The living room was drab, and furnished with second hand stock. There was a photo album on the coffee table. Since there were no photos anywhere else in the house, and few personal items at all, it caught Sam’s eye. He flipped through it, recognizing clippings of the same newspaper articles that they looked up online. There were several other pictures of the group of ‘friends’ - at a party, at a roller rink, in front of a car. It looked to Sam like the same car in the newspaper article. The one that had later killed the little boy. He turned the page - and found a small picture of Mikey, grinning and toothless and all cheeks.
Sam shut the book. Hard.
Dean glanced over at him.
Sam shook his head. “Jesse’s been taking a little nostalgia trip.”
“Never a good idea when you’re depressed and killing people,” Dean replied, clicking his tongue. “Dude, look,” Dean pulled an old looking book from the shelf as Sam joined him. He flipped thought it before shrugging and handing it to Sam.
The pages were in Hebrew. As Sam riffled through the elegant and foreign script, a picture slipped out from the pages. A stern looking older man stood unsmiling with his hand on the shoulder of a boy. Sam flipped it over. “Jesse with kishsheph, 1981,” Sam read aloud, stumbling over the unfamiliar word.
“Kishsheph,” Dean frowned. “Why do I know that word?”
Sam cocked his head, searching his memory. “The newspaper article said that Jesse’s grandfather was a rabbi, so it’s logical to assume that it’s a Hebrew word. Other than that, I have no clue.”
Dean looked interested, and a little distant. Sam could tell that he was struggling to pull the meaning of the word from his memory. “Rabbi, I know - but what’s a kishsheph?”
Sam looked at the picture again. At the amulet the older man wore, at the air of power that surrounded him even in a photo. “I don’t know, but ten to one it’s a magic-user of some kind.”
Dean snapped his fingers. “That’s it. Kishsheph. It means witch, Sam, in Hebrew. Dad read about them to me once. I remember the word because it sounded so strange to me.” Dean gave Sam a weighted look. “If you take a kid who has accidentally killed his brother and is after revenge, and add in a history with a rabbi and a kishsheph…”
“You get a recipe for someone with the skills and drive to make a golem,” Sam finished.
“Yep. And he’s not here. Doesn’t look like he’s even been around for while, either. He’s probably out in the woods with his pet monster. They shouldn’t be too hard to track if he’s still using that cave.”
Sam nodded, but there was a hesitant look in his eye.
“What? You still having doubts about taking out Jesse?”
Sam shrugged. “No. He’s killing kids. He has to be stopped. It’s not Jesse I feel bad for.”
Dean accepted it at face value. Sam tried to be relieved about that.
“Okay, then,” Dean said, already striding toward the door. “Let’s go stop the bastard.”
***
End of Part 3
Episode 4: Playing With Fire
Original airdate: 2010.02.08.
Summary:
Children in Westlake are disappearing. Dean and Sam suspect a rawhead, and Dean especially is looking forward to a simple monster hunt. All he wanted was to hunt monsters and maybe save some little kids. A simple, clean, kill-the-evil hunt. But between Sam’s increasing powers and a town secret, simple may be too much to ask for.
Excerpt:
There was something wrong with him, and there was something wrong with Sam; but, damn it, he didn’t want there to be something wrong with Sam…and he definitely didn’t want there to be something wrong with him. He just wanted to hunt monsters and maybe save a little kid. A simple, clean, kill-the-evil hunt. Why was that so much to ask?
It wasn’t. Not if he just decided that Sam really was a little tired. And that he really wasn’t hearing things. If they didn’t talk about this crap, it didn’t matter, right?
Dean forced himself to smile, letting some of the bounce back in. “Hey, we need to get on this, like now, if the kid has any shot of surviving it,” Dean said to Sam. Work would keep him busy, and keep them both from worrying about things that just didn’t matter.
Written by: ghostfour and kiscinca
Artist: kiscinca
Part 3
Sunlight slanted in the motel room through the door as Dean came in. Sam was where Dean had left him, sprawled over the laptop, fast asleep. He’d been working on it when Dean had gone to bed, still toiling when Dean had gotten up to take a leak in the middle of the night, and had been collapsed across the table almost cuddling it when Dean had woken up this morning.
Dean had thrown a blanket over him on his way out, but that was about as far as brotherly concern went in this case. Sam knew where the bed was.
Still, Dean couldn’t help but smirk at the image of Sam, hugging his computer and drooling on the table. Dean tossed the greasy bag of food to the tabletop, intentionally sliding it into Sam’s shaggy head.
“Wakey, wakey, eggs and bakey.” He set down the coffee cups.
Sam jerked awake, blinking in the morning light and simultaneously rubbing an obviously stiff neck and wiping the drool from his face.
“Dean? What time is it?”
“Late. You slept in, Sammy.”
Sam yawned. “You left?”
“I brought breakfast.” Dean nodded to the food bag.
“Thanks,” Sam said, and Dean smiled at the tone of near desperation as Sammy grabbed for the coffee.
Dean snagged the food bag back, pulling out a breakfast sandwich. “Anything?” Dean asked, nodding at the computer.
“Remember the thing on his forehead I told you about?”
“You said it looked like something was written on it.”
Sam nodded, fetching his own sandwich. “There was. I looked it up. It was a Hebrew sigil. This sigil is most often printed on a scroll - and the only monsters I could find that have scrolls stuck in their heads are golems.”
“Golems?” Dean frowned. “The one from Prague, right?”
“Yep,” Sam confirmed, almost swallowing his sandwich whole. “It’s Jewish folklore. Golems are summonings - creatures called from the void to inhabit bodies made of clay or mud. Some of them can burn by touch.”
“That explains the scorching,” Dean observed, and Sam nodded again.
“It’s summoned by a person to do their bidding. Normally that’s protecting a town or village. They are defensive creatures by nature. But golems are slaves; they have no free will, and they’re pretty much unstoppable - unless you remove the scroll and kill the person who summoned it in the first place. Problem is, we don’t know who that was.” Sam gulped the coffee.
“So to stop this thing, we have to find out who summoned it in the first place, then off him?”
“Pretty much, yeah.”
“Well, that’s swell.” Dean could feel his stomach churning around the sandwich. He grimaced as he crumpled up the wrapper.
Sam nodded. “Yep. I was just thrilled too. And, we have no idea about who the summoner could be.”
Dean frowned. This was supposed to have been a cakewalk… now it was turning into a pain in the ass. Even knowing what they were facing wasn’t going to help in his case. The monster wasn’t the problem, or not the only problem. To stop the monster, they needed to identify the creator. Well, the first rule of hunting was to define patterns…“Do golems go after kids usually?”
Sam looked surprised. “I should have thought of that. No, golems do exactly what they’re told, no more, no less.”
“So there should be some connection between the maker and the kids. Maybe someone they bullied?”
“These kids were like, six, Dean. Even if they were bullies, I don’t think a first grader could summon a golem. Even a really advanced one.”
Dean had to admit Sam had a point, no matter how snidely he was grinning. “Maybe a parent of the bullied kid?”
“Maybe,” Sam said, looking doubtful. “But don’t you think golem building is a little extreme to stop a school bully?”
“Are you kidding? Some of these yuppie moms would do it in a heartbeat for their precious little angels,” Dean smirked. “We should look into the kids’ backgrounds. See if they’ve had any discipline problems or if school friends have died recently. That would be motive for murder by monster.”
“Fine. But, Dean, even if we find the maker, we can’t just kill a human.”
“Do we have a choice?” Dean demanded. “Human or not, they’re killing kids. And you know people are crazy, crazier than demons. Nastier sometimes, too.”
Sam just started at him with those too-honest eyes. “But we can’t just go around offing humans; that’s not our job.”
Dean shrugged. “No, it’s not. But stopping monsters is, and if that’s what we have to do to end this, then that what we have to do, Sam.”
Sam’s jaw worked. Dean could see the argument in his eyes, could see the words pushing at the back of his teeth…and was relived when he didn’t push it. Yet.
“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it, I guess,” Sam said instead, but his shoulders were still tense and he wouldn’t meet Dean’s gaze.
“Right now, we still have to find a connection. Find out who’s doing this and why,” he finished.
“You hit that up,” Dean said, jerking his chin at the computer. “I’ll head to the police station, see what else we can dig up there.”
Dean stuffed the last of his sandwich into his mouth and gave Sam a pat on the back as he stood up, using the opportunity to wipe his greasy fingers on Sam’s shirt. He grinned as Sam glared at his back as he walked through the door.
And he knew without looking back that that Sam was already back on his laptop.
***
Privately, Dean was convinced that every police station in America had come from the same three floor plans. All of them were drab, all of them were mazelike, and all of them made him just a little…not so much nervous, as hyperaware of how out of his element he was - a feeling that had only gotten worse after his encounter with the FBI after that sorry excuse for bank robbery back in Milwaukee.
The Westlake Police Hall was no different.
Dean suppressed his distaste for the surroundings as the sheriff came up. A heavy-set, unfriendly kind of guy, who wore his authority like he wore his pistol - openly and obviously.
“Can I help you?” he asked, looking Dean over with a practiced eye.
Dean was used to it, and ready for it. He carefully maintained his stiff shoulders and pleasant expression. He pulled his FBI badge out of his suit jacket with a practiced flip. “Yeah, I’m Special Agent Gillan. I’m looking into the disappearance of little Jeremiah Riger. Can you show me the file?”
The sheriff frowned. “Why are you feds so interested?”
“Because it’s the second child to disappear in less then a week. That’s a pretty big number in a small town, don’t you think? Are you saying you don’t find that strange?”
The sheriff glared for a second more, just to let Dean know who was in charge - then he turned, motioning him to follow into the office. Once inside, the sheriff sat behind the desk, spinning around a file that he’d been working on. “I have to say, I do find it a little too much for just coincidence,” he admitted. “I have a bad feeling about this one. I have my doubts that we’ll find either him or the little girl. We just have no leads. My best hope is that this is some stranger who will move on now. Too bad, really. He was a nice little boy who didn’t do anything wrong. He didn’t deserve this.”
Dean noticed the way the sheriff stressed the pronoun. He glanced up from the file. “He didn’t. So who did?”
The sheriff frowned, looking stern, “It’s not my place to be gossiping like that.” But Dean could see that light in his eyes, the one that said he was itching to share a good story. It was a light Dean knew well, and loved to see.
“We both know that little things that seem to have no importance can end up breaking a case wide open. You should tell me.”
The sheriff hesitated, but then nodded. “Can’t hurt for you to know. It’s all public record, anyway. And that little boy was a polite thing. Good natured. Always smiling. Him I liked. It’s his parents that I can’t stand.”
“Oh yeah? How so?” Dean said, putting on his ‘supportive’ face.
The man leaned back in his chair, rocking a little. “It happened a long time ago, probably everyone else has already forgotten it. But I worked the case. Sometimes stuff sticks with you, you know what I mean?” He waited for Dean’s nod and continued. “Anyway, there was a boy, his name was Jesse Fleishman. He hung out with a gang of kids. The five of them were best friends. Jesse, he wasn’t a bad kid, but the ones he chose to throw in with…”
“Rough, huh?” Dean asked.
The sheriff smirked. "Moneyed. Which was worse. They were bored and reckless and their daddies bought them out of trouble instead of teaching them to avoid it. Well, Jesse, he had a little brother, Mikey. Kid tagged along with them every chance he got. They were rough with the little one. Always teasing, always pushing. Of course Jesse defended him, though maybe not as much as he should have.”
The sheriff sighed, leaning over his desk, and Dean knew they were getting to the point of it. “They were about fifteen when they all decided to steal Jesse’s dad’s car. They wouldn’t take Mikey, not even when he threatened to tell their parents. Of course there was an accident. They were driving drunk and hit someone. Turned out it was Mikey, he followed them somehow and caught up. The friends fled the scene and never got charged. Jesse was left there heartbroken by his little brother’s death and betrayed by those who he thought were his best friends.”
“Sad story,” Dean said, biting back the slow rise of excitement. “You think it has anything to do with Jeremiah’s disappearance?”
The sheriff hesitated, but eventually shook his head. “I just really can’t see how.”
Dean shrugged casually. “Couldn’t hurt to check it out, anyway. Do you know where Jesse lives now?”
“He lives in town. Down on Rice street.” The sheriff scribbled the address down on a piece of paper. “You think he may be connected to the kidnappings?”
“Probably not, but I only want to ask a couple of questions.”
The sheriff pulled out his glare again. “Jesse is a good kid, he changed after Mikey’s death. And for the better. He wouldn’t hurt kids.”
Dean took the address. “Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind.”
***
Dean had his phone out before he made it all the way down the stairs outside the station house. He hit Sam’s speed dial excitedly.
“Hey,” Sam’s voice came after a couple of rings. “What’s up?”
“The sky, the birds, the trees…” Dean answered, pulling his keys from his pocket and crossing the street to his car.
“Did you find out anything?” Sam sounded irritated. Dean smirked.
“Who’s the most awesome big brother in the world?”
“You found something.”
“And the greatest hunter?”
“Something good. What did you find?”
“Say it,” Dean said, opening the Impala’s door. “Say who’s the most awesome big brother and the greatest hunter in the world combined.”
“You are, Dean,” Sam’s tone was so dry that the Sahara would have seemed lush in comparison. Dean could almost hear Sam rolling his eyes. “Now do you want to share this great find of yours?”
Dean settled himself in the car. “I think we have a name. Years ago, there was this kid, Jesse Fleishman, who lost his brother in an accident. Guess who he was best friends with and who left him in the dust after causing said accident?”
There was a pause, then an almost sad sigh from the cell. “That would definitely be motive,” Sam agreed.
Dean frowned though, his excitement falling away at his brother’s lack of response. “Dude, is there something wrong?”
“Wrong?”
Dean huffed. “I give you the solution to one of our most confusing cases ever and you react like a slug. What gives?”
It was Sam’s turn to huff. “Nothing, Dean. I’m fine. But I slept at a table last night, if you remember. I’m a little tired.”
It was more than that, and Dean knew it. Just like he knew that the weird…sounds that he occasionally experienced were not figments of his imagination, nor were they going to go away all on their own. There was something wrong with him, and there was something wrong with Sam; but, damn it, he didn’t want there to be something wrong with Sam…and he definitely didn’t want there to be something wrong with him. He just wanted to hunt monsters and maybe save a little kid. A simple, clean, kill-the-evil hunt. Why was that so much to ask?
It wasn’t. Not if he just decided that Sam really was a little tired. And that he really wasn’t hearing things. If they didn’t talk about this crap, it didn’t matter, right?
Dean forced himself to smile, letting some of the bounce back in. “Hey, we need to get on this, like now, if the kid has any shot of surviving it,” Dean said to Sam. Work would keep him busy, and keep them both from worrying about things that just didn’t matter. Besides, it was true. Their time was limited here. The clock was ticking down on little Jeremiah, if he was still alive at all. “Meet you back at the motel?”
“On my way.”
***
The little boy shivered as he stared through the bars of his cage.
His little knuckles were raw and bloody from banging uselessly against the bars; his voice was gone after hours of screaming and crying. Now, even most of his tears seemed gone. Used up and disappeared, leaving his eyes puffy and red and sore.
He pushed himself against the cage, shoving himself almost painfully into the bars. His feet scraped as he tried to get more leverage, to push harder. It was a cruel game. The keys had been set on the floor, just out of reach. The boy would never be able to get to them, but he just kept struggling, hurting himself in his attempts. A video camera blinked in the corner, documenting his fight.
Finally, his little face bruised from the pressure of the bars, he slumped down, pulling his arm back inside his pen. He could feel the burn in his eyes and nose and throat - and he knew his body wanted to cry - but he just had no more tears.
After a few minutes, the big lock on the cage door caught his eye. He’d seen locks like that before. His daddy had one on their shed. He stood, only a little dizzy, and limped over to the door. He tried to get the huge lock off, but it was too heavy and it wouldn’t budge. He was stuck. Then he heard the voice.
“Hello, Jeremiah.”
Jeremiah backpedaled, staring at the form with wide fearful eyes. He wanted to shout, he wanted to cry, he wanted desperately for his mother to come and hold him and make it better - but he couldn’t make any of those things happen.
The shadows moved toward him.
***
It really didn’t take long to find information once they had a name. Sam and Dean sat in the motel room and stared at the laptop, reading the article printed across the screen. They had to be sure on this one. They not only had to know what was going on, they had to have proof. If they had to kill the creator in order to stop the monster, they had to have air-tight evidence that the human they killed was the guilty party. There could be no mistakes on this one.
Deadly Accident Claims Child, the headline declared. A picture of the friends group was on one side of the article at the top. A small one of little Mikey graced the bottom corner. “Five teens are suspected of being involved. One, the victim’s brother and grandson to a local rabbi, will be charged with driving while intoxicated, driving without a license, grand-theft auto and manslaughter. No charges are expected to be filed against the other teens,” Sam read out loud. “Now how is that fair?”
“The kids’ parents had money. They wanted them to go to the Ivy League, not the state pen,” Dean observed. “Does it have the names of the other kids in there? They look familiar?”
Sam scanned the article. “No, but it shouldn’t be hard to find them.” Sam pulled up a high school reunion networking site and found that Jesse Fleishman was a registered user. “Figured. He likes to keep track of people,” Sam muttered.
Dean nodded, his expression dark. “If these guys were involved in the death of my brother and left me hanging for the crime, I’d keep track of them too.”
Ten minutes later, Sam had hacked into Fleishman’s account. The site pulled up a list of people Fleishman had gone to school with, including pictures.
“There is no privacy anymore,” Dean said philosophically as he leaned in to study the names.
“There is no right to privacy listed in the Constitution,” Sam said. “It’s only assumed.”
“Good. So we’re not violating anyone’s Constitutional rights. Because that would be awkward.” Dean rolled his eyes. Sam came up with the weirdest crap sometimes. Then he pointed at a picture on the website. “I know that guy. Roger Burman. That’s one of the kids from the group photo.”
“And the father of the second missing child,” Sam added.
“I think we found proof of connection, Sammy.”
Sam nodded, almost sadly. “Yeah, he’s connected to the parents of the kids who have disappeared. I agree that Jesse Fleishman is probably the one who summoned the golem. But, Dean, we can’t just kill him. He’s human.”
Dean sighed. It wasn’t that he disagreed with Sam at the core, it was just a matter of degree. “Sam, you saw what he did to those other kids. We don’t exactly have a choice. He will use that monster to tear Jeremiah Riger to little bitty pieces. And we can’t stop the golem until he’s dead. The golem is indestructible until he isn’t breathing. You told me that. I don’t see that we have a choice.”
Sam’s jaw clenched. “It’s still not right, and you know it. He’s human.”
Dean frowned. “He’s killing children. That’s not really human anymore, Sammy. This douchebag chose to do this! He actively sought out dark powers and is using them to kill kids! Trust me, I know a lost cause when I see one.”
Sam didn’t look convinced, more like he was just refusing to argue anymore.
“All right, fine. Where do we start? Find his address and check his house?”
“Sounds reasonable to me.”
***
The house was smaller then Sam had expected. But then again, Jesse had gone to prison for several years. Between the loss of education and the loss of social networks, Jesse Fleishman had grown up to be just another working-class guy.
Breaking in was easy. Jesse didn’t believe in locking windows, apparently. But then again, with a magical killing machine at your beck and call, home security was probably a non-issue.
Sam and Dean wandered the empty house, but there was no sign of Jesse or his creation.
The bedroom was a mess, cluttered with old books and religious icons. The bathroom was plain and stained. The basement was wet, and the kitchen was dirty. Jesse either lived like a pig, or he hadn’t been at home much lately.
The living room was drab, and furnished with second hand stock. There was a photo album on the coffee table. Since there were no photos anywhere else in the house, and few personal items at all, it caught Sam’s eye. He flipped through it, recognizing clippings of the same newspaper articles that they looked up online. There were several other pictures of the group of ‘friends’ - at a party, at a roller rink, in front of a car. It looked to Sam like the same car in the newspaper article. The one that had later killed the little boy. He turned the page - and found a small picture of Mikey, grinning and toothless and all cheeks.
Sam shut the book. Hard.
Dean glanced over at him.
Sam shook his head. “Jesse’s been taking a little nostalgia trip.”
“Never a good idea when you’re depressed and killing people,” Dean replied, clicking his tongue. “Dude, look,” Dean pulled an old looking book from the shelf as Sam joined him. He flipped thought it before shrugging and handing it to Sam.
The pages were in Hebrew. As Sam riffled through the elegant and foreign script, a picture slipped out from the pages. A stern looking older man stood unsmiling with his hand on the shoulder of a boy. Sam flipped it over. “Jesse with kishsheph, 1981,” Sam read aloud, stumbling over the unfamiliar word.
“Kishsheph,” Dean frowned. “Why do I know that word?”
Sam cocked his head, searching his memory. “The newspaper article said that Jesse’s grandfather was a rabbi, so it’s logical to assume that it’s a Hebrew word. Other than that, I have no clue.”
Dean looked interested, and a little distant. Sam could tell that he was struggling to pull the meaning of the word from his memory. “Rabbi, I know - but what’s a kishsheph?”
Sam looked at the picture again. At the amulet the older man wore, at the air of power that surrounded him even in a photo. “I don’t know, but ten to one it’s a magic-user of some kind.”
Dean snapped his fingers. “That’s it. Kishsheph. It means witch, Sam, in Hebrew. Dad read about them to me once. I remember the word because it sounded so strange to me.” Dean gave Sam a weighted look. “If you take a kid who has accidentally killed his brother and is after revenge, and add in a history with a rabbi and a kishsheph…”
“You get a recipe for someone with the skills and drive to make a golem,” Sam finished.
“Yep. And he’s not here. Doesn’t look like he’s even been around for while, either. He’s probably out in the woods with his pet monster. They shouldn’t be too hard to track if he’s still using that cave.”
Sam nodded, but there was a hesitant look in his eye.
“What? You still having doubts about taking out Jesse?”
Sam shrugged. “No. He’s killing kids. He has to be stopped. It’s not Jesse I feel bad for.”
Dean accepted it at face value. Sam tried to be relieved about that.
“Okay, then,” Dean said, already striding toward the door. “Let’s go stop the bastard.”
***
End of Part 3