A Fresh Start (Book 6 Arrow/SPN Series)

Patterns and Problems

I tossed all the food wrappings in the trash while Sam grabbed the box of thumbtacks from his bags along with all the articles and information we had on the job so far and started tacking stuff up on the wall. "All right, the ME's reports aren't exactly lies, the most recent bodies all have the same wounds and look like the died the same way. What he isn't stating is a hunch I have but it's a pretty strong one based off how pale his face got when I asked if any organs were missing."

"He said no but meant yes?"

"Yeah, here look. I printed off some pics I took while I was waiting for you to pick me up and trying to lose my tail. Notice anything?"

"Yeah, the ME knows Photoshop, there's more wounds then in the pics I found."

"Exactly."

"And all the new ones are all nice and neat and right over some major organs. Those bite marks don't look vampish though. Did he alter how those looked too?"

"Not sure, but in the first photos they were still all bloody so made it hard to tell for sure. They don't look like vamp or mountain lion bites."

"They were also pretty crappy shots," Roy chimed in. "I didn't really say anything at first since you guys look at these things all the time but they didn't really get any detail. The shots you took with your phone look better."

"Good point." Sam agreed, "I should have picked up on that."

He pinned up all the crime scene photos, a map, the obits and all the newspaper articles about the various deaths then stepped back. Some hunters have gone to doing all of this on laptops or computers but that never worked as well for me. Maybe I'm old school but I can make those random connections that give you the hints you need to go to the right part of the lore and find what you're up against a lot easier when I can see everything at once. Maybe Sam and I need to invest in one of those TV screen sized monitors for the Bunker, that could come in handy for other things as well.

"Dean!"

Sam interrupted that train of thought, damn him. "Huh?"

"Do I even...no probably not. Dead bodies, remember?"

"Right, yeah." Maybe it was because I was thinking about positions that drew my eyes to how the bodies were laid out at the crime scenes. "Hey, look at how they're posed at the scenes."

"That is kind of weird."

And he says porn's not useful.

Roy took a closer look and something registered in his mind. "Wait, look." He pointed at the photos of the bodies Sam took, "These two, the henna tats on their wrists. Don't they kind of look like how they were posed?"

"Nice catch." He gave me this odd, shy, grateful grin that disappeared fast. It was just one corner of his mouth but I was definitely going to have a talk with Oliver. I mean, I'm not the best with positive reinforcement but still, it's not that damn hard to say good job every now and again. Something about the symbols struck a nerve with me, "Sam? Those aren't usual witchcraft stuff. Don't they look kind of Native American?"

"Now that you mention it, they do."

"Well so much for that idea."

Sam sighed and started typing on the laptop, "It was a nice thought while it lasted."

"What? We don't deal with Native American monsters?" Roy asked.

"We do."

"So?"

"So. These aren't vampire kills. Which means no vampires. Which means complicated. Which I really didn't want our first job back from vacation."

"Oh. Uh. Sorry?"