Speaking ill of the Dead

[Casey]

He knew it was to easy. That was the thought that ran through Deacon's head as the was thrown across the hall into opposing room.

Roger Wells, had been accused of murdering his wife in the early seventies and died soon after from mysterious causes. Mysterious here being another word for the local militia. Since his untimely and much deserved death Roger had been making himself known once every few years. As of yet he hadn't hurt anyone seriously but his ghost was really annoying.

On his break Deacon had investigated the Well's home. The house was still furnished but in between owners, Roger had a habit of scaring tenants. After putzing around the empty house for hours he found himself face to face with an overweight man dressed like David Bowie from, what Deacon affectionately called, his transvette period. Guy didn't even show up when his bones went up in salt a smoke later that night. It was sadly simple, but Deacon wasn't complaining.

Being the good hunter though, he went back to house to make sure it was clear. Aiden and Jeff had some horror stories about ghosts being tied to items or stray bits of hair. He didn't want a now pissed off Roger actually hurting a civilian. Good news, Roger was long gone. Bad news, Patzy wasn't. Deacon should have known this was going to happen every he read the report saying her body had never been found.

Patzy, like her husband, looked like an out of place Euro groupie. Unlike her husband she packed a punch, or twelve. She stalked, flickered, whatever, through the house toward him.

Crazy bitch, he thought, I just got rid of the jerk that killed you, you should be hugging me not hitting me.

Deacon pushed himself up off the ground and onto his knees. Patzy looked down at him with an unholy fury in her eyes. He glanced around, spotting the rock salt filled shotgun several feet way. To far for him to even think about lunging for.

Patzy raised a hand, preparing to strike and Deacon closed his eyes.

"Yeah," he muttered dryly, "this is gonna sting."

[anna]

Anna was driving past an average looking town at half past midnight with having no clue why or where she is going. It is one of those nights when she felt restless and couldn’t sleep and couldn’t sit still.

The first few times really messed with her head, she didn’t know what to do, and she thought she was losing it. Pulling her resources for the best shrinks didn’t help, there was a lot of talking about feelings and stuff but how can she explain being possessed by not one but two demons for years? They would for sure put her in the loony bin the second she mouth those words. The doctors, they chalked it all up as trauma from the supposed “kidnapping.” What a waste of time, Anna contemplated, she knew they wouldn’t be able to help with the half truths she told them.

“Therapy only works when one is being honest,” the shrink said during their first session. Anna rolled her eyes on that luckily the shrink was not looking.

After months of useless psychotherapy and psychoanalysis, Anna gave in and let instinct lead her once one of her, uhm, episodes surfaced. And this is where she finds herself, driving in an endless road, in God knows where, going God knows where.

Nearing what looked like a common enough house, Anna hit the breaks and was out and running towards it before she can even think. The lights were all off in the entire house which was strange because all the other houses seemed to be lit in one point. But then she caught a flicker of something inside, could there be a burglar? And if it is what in hell was she suppose to do? She shouldn’t even be here. She couldn’t even imagine how much trouble she could be in for even being here. Her mind was racing with all the different outcomes to this situation and most of them seem to have her end up either in jail, in a hospital or in a morgue. Honestly, she would rather be in a party but the urge to go down this road further is taking up her entire self. Just like before, she felt she is possessed, ruled by another entity but this one feels more of herself than anything. She was free to move around, to make her own decisions, to have her own thoughts but the deep sense of agitation inside her seems only to appeased when she follows it.

“This is not the way I want to spend my Friday nights.” Anna grumbled as she stepped into the house. Strangely the door was unlocked.

As soon as the door swung, Anna saw the flickering ghost and grimaced. With that bad of a fashion sense I would be dead and pissed. The ghost hovered above a man preparing to strike an unholy blow. Anna had only seconds as she spotted the shotgun near her. She knew well enough from “traveling” with Ruby that it was not an ordinary shotgun. Springing towards it before anyone or anything sees her she grabbed the barrel, prepared to shoot, aimed and fired before anyone else noticed she was there. The ghost saw her for a split second before she disappeared into a whisp and that too was gone.

“So, don’t tell me you're just going to take a hit because she was a woman, right?” Anna asked as she walked towards the man and offered her hand.

[Casey]

Deacon barely acknowledged the door to the house opening. If it was the cops, they’d see him get beaten up by some transparent chick. It would be a small comfort if his death became a story the officer either to his buddies over a beer or to a shrink in the psych ward.

Instead of pain he was greeted with the sound of a shotgun, more importantly his shotgun. He opened his eyes surprised not to see Mrs. Wells. Looking over he raised an eyebrow at the girl holding his gun. She didn’t look like a hunter but she obliviously knew what she was doing. Maybe she was like Aiden, an earlier starter or like him, just someone who filled in for when the hunters where passing through.

“Well Ma said to never hurt a girl,” he took her hand and stood up. Glass fell off his shirt and his back protested. The walk back to the Wesson now looked like a guaranteed suckfest.

“Name’s Patzy Wells,” he switched into information mode, “she was killed by her husband a while back. I took care of him earlier, love to be rid of her too but no one knows where her body is. Any ideas?”

Deacon looked at her sideways and began rubbing his back to ease the pain. Why couldn’t one job go easy? The saving grace was that Aiden and Jeff weren’t there to over react.