As It Was - Dean Winchester

Part 62

"A fucking coven..." I muttered under my breath as we left this week's motel room and into the Impala to continue questioning witnesses on the current case we were working on. So far, we had two dead bodies and one more murder attempt. The quick rundown was that we rolled into town looking into the death of Janet Dutton, who had died after all of her teeth fell out of her mouth. It turned out her husband was having an affair with another woman, a woman the Winchesters and I concluded was a witch, considering the occult objects surrounding her dead body and the demonic spell book she seemed to be reading. 

Our working theory was that the witch, Amanda, killed Janet and then tried to kill Janet's husband after he broke off their affair. Nothing too crazy. 

The kicker came when we found our witch dead, which meant that we definitely were dealing with more than one of them.

"Did I ever say that I hate witches?" Dean questioned, making me roll my eyes as I slammed the car door shut behind me.

"Yes, like ten times." I didn't blame him, though. I did too. They always give me a headache; dramatic and demonic don't seem to mix too well for me. "Old-world black magic witches," I repeated Sam's words from the previous day. He had taken one look at the first hex bag we had found and deemed it satanic. He was right, of course; it was a hex bag, but his specific phrasing of 'old-world black magic' seemed to become more and more accurate the more information I tried to find about it. 

"A coven in the suburbs," Dean commented as if in disbelief. "I wonder what they do in their free time. Play bridge?" 

"Yeah, we're definitely not hunting Baba Yaga," Sam scoffed.  

Classical rock played in the background, and as we got closer to the area where both our victims lived, I began to imagine the life the people outside lived, apart from the black magic, of course. 

I had never imagined myself as one to settle down anywhere with a white picket fence, I got way too squirmish at the thought of not being on the move, but the idea didn't repulse me this time. I imagined throwing up my feet on a white couch with a glass of red wine and a dog warming my feet. Dean working on the car in the garage, and a couple of kids running around in the backyard, keeping uncle Sam occupied during a visit. 

Startling myself out of my daydream, I glanced over at the driver's seat, struck by a bone-deep grief. Dean's eye met mine in the rearview mirror, and I quickly covered with a smile. His eyes crinkled at the edges. "Are you daydreaming about sexy times again?" 

I raised a brow, unable to keep the smirk off my lips. "So what if I am?"

"Guys, please," Sam complained, rolling his eyes.

The older of the two brothers let out a low chuckle, winking at me in the mirror as he came to a stop. 

"So, we go door to door, talk to the neighbors and keep an eye out for anything suspicious," Sam clarified as we walked up to the first house.

---

The sun had begun to set by the time we had spoken to most of the people in houses on the street. So far, all we had was a vague understanding of the friend groups that included Amanda – our witch. 

I straightened my pantsuit jacket and glanced down the road to a few houses down and spotted a woman working in her garden, digging among her beautiful herbs. It took me only a second to recognize some of the plants. Belladonna, wolfsbane, mandrake, all used in rituals. 

I bought the brother's attention, nodding my head to indicate what I was looking at. No words were needed as we made our way over to the woman who had to be Elizabeth—one of Amanda's friends.