33. The Werther Project (Part 1)

"Well, isn't this a lovely place?" I say as Sam and I walk up to the front door.

The house is white but looks to have been abandoned for some time. The lawn hasn't been cut. The house overall just looks neglected. We pass a pile of newspapers when we get onto the porch. I peek into the window and don't see anyone. I gesture to Sam, and he hands over his lock-pick.

I'm about fifteen seconds into picking the lock when I see a shotgun barrel sticking out from the mail slot and not at me. It's pointed at Sam's crotch.

"Hey now," I say warningly.

"Bad idea," comes a voice from the other side of the door.

"W-We can explain," Sam tries.

"Yeah, don't bother. You got three choices—get arrested, get your bits blown off, or get back."

"Yeah, alright. We'll, uh, we'll get back. Sorry. Jo." Sam has to pull me away from picking the lock.

"Attaboy."

"Were you just gonna let her blow my junk off?" Sam hisses as we leave the porch and get back to my truck.

"Of course not," I say.

"Then why did you look like you weren't gonna stop picking that lock?"

"I thought she'd bluff." I shrug.

"Don't ever try and call someone's bluff when they've got a shotgun aimed at your junk, Jo. That's playing Russian Roulette."

"Hey-ya, guys," says Dean, and I spin around to find him walking up alongside my truck. "How's the case?"

"What are you doing here?" I stammer.

"Well it looks like I, uh, I'm here to save your sack since Jo doesn't seem to care."

"Thanks, Dean." I frown.

"Look, you both were right, okay? I shouldn't have gone off solo like I did. It was stupid."

"And?"

"And selfish. It was a douche move. If you're doing this case without me to teach me a lesson, you don't have to, okay?"

"How'd you find us?" asks Sam.

"Ah. I, uh, took an etching off your notepad. Then I decided to take a crack at the St. Louis suicide house."

"So you know about it?"

"I got the basics from Google. The family moves into a long-vacant house. Uh, one week later, three of 'em dead by their own hands. Whole family wiped out except for the daughter, which the house is still under her name. I'm figuring she's the one who nearly unmanned you back there. But see, here's what I don't get. A cold case is one thing, but...this is subzero. I mean, there's nothing even in our wheelhouse, unless you two know something I don't."

"Yeah," I say. "Um...That long-vacant home used to be a Men of Letters chapter house. Remember Magnus?"

"You mean the dickwad ex-Men of Letters that tried to make a zoo exhibit out of me? Yeah."

"Before he was expelled, he built Werther, a magical box with a deadly alarm system. Werther is buried somewhere in that house. It was supposed to have been guarded, but—"

"I'm guessing that plan went out the window when Abaddon massacred the entire membership in fifty-eight," Sam cuts me off.

"And then the house stayed in limbo until some lucky family bought it," says Dean.

"Werther's a time bomb and needs to be defused. Not only is this in our wheelhouse, it's our responsibility."

"Our responsibility?"

"We're Men of Letters." I clear my throat. "And a Woman of Letters. It's our legacy."

"Well, hey, if you say this is a case, I'm in, if you'll have me."

"Wouldn't be a case without you, Dean," I say. "We need to get to that box. We're not exactly allowed in the front way anymore." I brush hair away from my face.

"All right, well, you two go in a backway. I'll keep her occupied. If I get my bits blown off for this..."

I chuckle and clap my older brother on the shoulder. "You're not us, so, you've got a shot at keeping those family jewels of yours."

While Dean approaches the porch, Sam and I slink around the house, trying to find another way in. I try the first door we find, it's unlocked. I go in first and find myself inside the kitchen. My eyes go to the whistling kettle as it starts. Naturally, right as we're about to freaking sneak in. It's like it knows.

Sam pulls me out of the kitchen and into the hallway. I let out a breath as we've made it out just in time; we hear the footsteps in the kitchen. The kettle stops whistling.

"Come on," Sam says in my ear, and he tugs me along again. In a glimpse, I see Dean.

Sam and I find the basement door, and I start picking the lock. Hopefully Sam's junk doesn't get blown off because of this. I make a small squeak of success, and Sam and I head downstairs, with him giving us light with a flashlight.

The basement is normal: full of dusty furniture and dust particles. And it's cold. I nudge Sam when I see a pile of furniture by a wall. We go to it and begin to move it out of the way so as to not disturb Dean's distraction upstairs.

The hole we expose after moving the furniture is huge. Sam steps through first, with me right behind him. The Werther box is massive.

"Stand guard," Sam tells me.

"You sure you got this?" I whisper.

"Rowena told me the spell, I got everything before we left."

"You can handle it?"

"This isn't my first time with spells, Jo."

"All right." Rolling my eyes slightly, I step outside the hole, with my back to my little brother.

My ears tune up to something upstairs. I tilt my head. Something doesn't sound right.

"Sam!" says Dean. "Jo! Sammy! She wants you up here, now!"

God damn it, Dean. I spin around to tell Sam we should probably listen, but I fall back on my ass to make sure I avoid the hoard of green smoke that's coming straight for me. It soars over my head and escapes up the basement stairs. What the hell?

I'm the first up the stairs and out of the basement. I skid as I see the gun, although I'm not afraid of the woman. I'm afraid of her shooting my brother, who I feel bump into me from behind.

"Hey," I say carefully. "Take it easy." Don't make me have to subdue you the hard way. She's human, I can overpower her and make it look like child's play.

"You have any idea what you've done?" the woman hisses.

"Put the gun down," Sam insists. "We can talk about this, okay?"

"What's that?" She loses color in her face. "Oh, my God."

"What's wrong with her?" I ask my brothers.

"I don't know," says Sam.

"Stay back! Stay back!"

"Move it!" I say, shoving my brothers away before the psycho woman can blast either of them in the chest. I push us into what I think is the living room. "She's lost it. She's fucking off her meds."

"Oh, you ain't going back in there, Jo," Dean tells me.

"Why not?"

"Because I know you. You're gonna try to do something and it's gonna end up being something stupid."

"Hey, at least I can take a bullet and not get killed because of it." I slap Dean's hand away as he tries to reach for my arm. "You two stay here or so help me God..."

"No!" we hear the lady scream.

"Suzie!" Sam shouts. I run right behind him, forgetting Dean in the dust. "Suzie?"

"Please! No! Stop! No!"

"There!" I say, finding a closed office door.

Sam knocks me aside, pounding on the door. "Suzie!" he shouts. "Suzie, let us in! We can help you!"

"It's not real!" I shout. I stare at the doorknob. I've never used my power to open a freaking door. It always sound unappealing and a waste of time. "Suzie, please!"

"Hey, let us in," Sam pleads. "We can help you, okay?"

But Suzie isn't letting us in. She's howling pleas on the other side of the door.

"Damn it," I hiss as I hear the gunshot. Just as I'm about ready to ram my shoulder into the door, it opens, and I run in, nearly tripping over Suzie's corpse. Yes, corpse, as there is red decorating parts of the office. We're too late.

"Boo."

Sam and I turn to see Suzie, but she's lost all color. Her ghost.

"Survived forty years in this house, keeping that thing on lockdown, and one visit from putzes like you..."

"We're sorry, okay?" Sam murmurs. "We're so sorry."

Lot of good 'sorry' does me. Look at me. Look...at...me." Suzie points to her corpse. "There she is. The first casualty of your misguided mission. But what's another human life to you? Anything's worth it, as long as you three make it out alive. And how's that search going? Any closer to a cure?"

"This isn't real. You're not real."

"You think Dean's the wild card, the loose cannon. But don't you see? Making deals with witches, opening Pandora's box down there? You're the reckless one, and that's even topping your power-hungry, demonic sister! You think she's doing you any good by being what she is? She's losing herself, you just don't see it."

"You better shut the hell up," I hiss to Suzie's ghost.

"What? And not let the truth come out? They're only holding onto you so that they don't lose sight of you. When they do, and they will, you'll wish you were back in Hell. You'll want that. Because, let's face it, Josette, you're not good. You're Hellspawn, and that's all your brothers see you as. Worthless, just an animal to keep on a leash."

Ghost-Suzie goes back to attacking Sam, while I just listen, dumbfounded. "You'll do anything to keep clinging onto that doomed brother of yours. How many more will die, Sammy? You know it. You have to be stopped. And the only one who can stop you is you! Do it, Sammy! End this farce once and for all!" She points him towards the gun.

That's it. I lunge for the ghost, and I actually attack her. That is, until she throws me against a wall.

"You don't deserve death, you deserve to suffer," Ghost-Suzie hisses at me. "Let the darkness eat away at you until you don't even recognize yourself! First your brothers, then your precious angel. He hates you too! The change, it's ruined his vision of you, Josette. You're just another creature of darkness for him to smite in the end!"

I put my hands over my ears. "Shut the fuck up!"

"You know it's true! Denial always hits the hardest!"

"She's not wrong, Aves."

Slowly, I turn. Alex Franco is in the freaking room now. He's not a ghost, but he looks pretty real to me.

"You've been ignoring what I've been trying to tell you," he says softly. "You're something they'll never be able to understand. They're afraid of you, Aves. They're biding their time until they put you down."

"Y-you're not here," I stammer, stepping backwards. As I do, red coats my vision. My eyes aren't covered in blood, but I swear I'm back in Hell. Back in the red and black Hell I had somehow climbed out of. "No!" I cling to the jail bars in front of my face. On the other side, Franco watches. "Get me out!"

"Why? They know you deserve to be down here. Pay for everything you've done."

I scream as I feel the hooks dig into my skin. They tug, and I swear I feel my skin tear off. Tears spring in my eyes. "Please..."

Franco reaches through the bars and touches my face. When he does, it feels like he's setting it on fire. "You're nothing to them, Aves. Just a creature of darkness. Another creature to kill in the end. You aren't a Winchester."

"Vanesce!" shouts a lilting Irish tone.

Hell vanishes, along with Franco, and I find myself back in the present, back with Suzie's fresh corpse.

Rowena, garbed in a blue dress, has appeared to save our asses. She smiles. "Told you you'd need me."

**Hallucinations, they ain't pretty.**