"Excuse me..."
Ballard looked up and saw the child services agent "Yes..."
"You called about a girl..."
Ballard nodded walking her to her desk "Yes she's..." but there was no girl "She was..." she looked at one of the officer's "Where did she go?"
"Who?"
"The girl...the kidnapped victim,"
The officer shrugged and she quickly headed to the bathroom but there was no girl. Sighing she headed to the faucet, but the faucets turned on by itself.
"Very funny kid...what'd you use...string," but Ballard recoiled when she felt no line. Steam rose and fogged up the mirror, the letters DANASHULPS forming. Scrubbing away the fog revealed the ghost standing behind her. Turning around quickly she saw the throat slit deeply and her eyes a deep red.
***
Dean and Sam were handcuffed to the table as Ballard entered, obviously nervous. "Can we make this quick?" Dean told her "I'm a little tired, it's been a long day, you know with your partner assaulting us and all,"
"I want to know more about that stuff you were talking about earlier," Ballard told him
"Time Life. Mysteries of the Unknown. Look it up,"
"Let's pretend for the moment you're not entirely insane," Both Dean and Sam looked at each other unsure on if this was a trick or not "What would one of these things be doing here?"
"A vengeful spirit? Well, they're created by violent deaths. And then they come back for a reason, usually a nasty one. Like revenge on the people that hurt 'em,"
"And uh, these, they're capable of killing people?" she rubbed her neck causing Sam to notice her wrist.
"Where did you get that?"
she pulled up her sleeves to reveal deep bruises "I don't know. It, it wasn't there before,"
"You've seen it, haven't you?" Dean questioned "The spirit?"
"How did you know?"
"Because Karen had the same bruises on her wrists. And I'm willing to bet that if you look at Giles' autopsy photos he's got 'em too, it's got something to do with this spirit, I...I don't know what."
She turned away and looked into the mirror.
"I know. You think you're going crazy." Sam told her "But let's skip that part, shall we? Because the last two people who saw this thing? Died, pretty soon after. You hear me?"
"You think I'm going to die,"
"You need to go to Selina. She'll help,"
"Go to the first motel listed in the yellow pages. Look for Jane Rockford-it's how we find each other when we're separated."
"I could just have child services take her away,"
Dean seemed to become angry with the assumption, but Sam intervened
"Or you can let her save your life," Sam argued
***
I was sitting at the motel desk going through files when a knock sounded at the door, opening it I saw officer Ballard. I stood still until she showed me her wrists and I pulled her inside before closing the door. "These showed up after you saw it?"
Ballard shrugged "Yeah, I guess,"
"All right. You're going to have to tell me exactly what you saw,"
"you know, I must be losing my mind. I should be calling child services,"
"All right. Well, you know what? You can put me in the foster care later, all right? After you live through this. But right now you've gotta talk to me. Okay?"
Ballard nodded
"Okay, great. Now,, this spirit. What did it look like?"
"She was, um, really pale, and her throat was cut, and her eyes, they were like, this deep dark red? It appeared like she was trying to talk to me. But she couldn't. It was just...a lot of blood,"
"You know what? Here. I've been researching every girl that's ever died or gone missing from Ashland Street," I led her to the table where I laid out the crime scene photos.
"How'd you get those? Those are from crime scenes, and booking photos,"
"You have your job, I have mine. Here. I need you to look through these, tell me if you recognize anyone,"
Ballard sat down and began flipping through the stack, stopping on the third photo "This is her. I'm sure of it,"
"Claire Becker? 28 years old, disappeared about eight or nine months ago," I detailed
"But I don't even know her. I mean, why would she come after me?"
"Well, before her death, she was arrested twice. For dealing with heroin. You ever work narcotics?"
"Yeah, Pete and I did. Before Homicide,"
"You ever bust her?"
"Not that I remember,"
"It says that she was last seen entering 2911 Ashland Street. Police searched the place, didn't find anything. Guess we gotta check it ourselves. See if we can find the body,"
"What?"
I looked at her "Well, we gotta salt and burn her bones. It's the only way to put her spirit to rest,"
"Of course it is,"
I couldn't help but smirk
***
It was night time when we reached 2911 Ashland Street "So what exactly are we looking for?"
"I'll let you know when we find it," we split up and I began checking up the flight of stairs.
"Kid? Kid? Selina!"
I ran down the stairs to Ballard "Hey! Hey, I'm here, what is it? What happened?"
"Claire..."
"Where?"
"She, she was here,"
"Did she attack you?"
"No. No, she was just like, reaching out to me. She was over there by the window," we looked at the window that is blocked by a shelving unit. "Here, help me move this,"
"No need," I moved my hand causing the shelves to move aside.
Ballard was still stunned that I rolled my eyes and noticed the label on the outside of the window 'Ashland Sup'
"Our little mystery word," we both turned and saw a shadow on the opposite wall "Now the extra letters make sense," I pulled out the EMF reader and approached the opposite wall. Finding her voice again Ballard asked
"What is that?"
"Spirits and certain remains give off electromagnetic frequencies,"
"So if Claire's body was here, that would indicate that?"
"Yeah. Well, that's the theory," THE EMF reader began to make noise as I waved it over the brick wall. I walked to the side and picked up a sledgehammer.
"Wait couldn't you just..." Ballard waved her hand mimicking my powers
"I'm not that strong," I told her as I swung the sledgehammer, creating a sizable hole big enough for me to shine my flashlight through "Yeah. Yeah, there's definitely something in there," I continued going through the wall "You know? This is bothering me,"
"Well, you are digging up a corpse,"
I snorted "No, not that. That's uh, that's pretty par for the course, actually,"
"Then what?"
"It's just, I mean, no vengeful spirit I've ever tussled with wanted to be wasted, so why the would Claire lead us to her remains? It doesn't make any sense." I stopped "All right, here. Give me a hand," together we pulled out a shroud-wrapped body and placed it on the ground. Pulling out a pocket knife I cut the ropes holding the shroud together revealing Claire. Ballard held out her wrists "Her wrists. Yeah, they'd be bruised just like yours," I noticed Ballard touching a necklace "That necklace mean something to you?"
"I've seen it before. It's rare. It was custom made over on Carson street," she showed me the same necklace on her neck "I have one just like it. Pete gave it to me,"
My breathing hitched "Sam and Dean are in trouble,"