The Witch and The Hunters

CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE

Page count: 7

One month later...

"Alright, boys — pack up. We've got a case," Hermione announced as she stepped into Sam's motel room, balancing a paper bag of breakfast and looking entirely unimpressed that she'd barely sat down before chaos called again.

Sam blinked at her from his bed. "Why? We're supposed to be taking the weekend off. A little thing called respite? We finally cleared the backlog from London—"

"Respite's over," she cut in.

Sam groaned loudly and flopped backwards across the mattress like a dying Victorian orphan. Hermione rolled her eyes.

"Yours or ours?" Dean asked, already suspicious.

"Mine. Ricky arrived with a letter while I was walking back from the diner. Luckily, no one saw him. I've sent him home."

Dean huffed. "It's about time. We've had nothing but ghosts and hauntings since the Dragon mess. I'm getting bored with salt-and-burns, sweetheart."

She raised an eyebrow.

"So," he continued, "what are we looking at?"

Hermione handed him a breakfast burrito before answering. "Not sure yet. What I do know is that there have been twenty deaths in the last month."

Sam sat up. "Twenty? Jesus," he muttered.

"All twenty died in their homes," she said. "No forced entry. No signs of another presence. No wounds. Nothing stolen. It's as if their hearts just... stopped." She tapped her fingers against her temple. "All were filed under natural causes."

Dean frowned. "And why does your Ministry think it's magical?"

"They sent someone to examine one of the bodies. Their magic spiked hard — but they couldn't identify the source."

"Which is where you come in," Dean summarised.

"Unfortunately, yes." She rubbed her temples. "I've got twenty magical autopsies waiting for me. I can feel the headache forming already."

Sam winced. "Where are we headed?"

"Bloomington, Illinois."

Dean glanced at Sam. "What's that — three hundred miles?"

Sam sighed. "We're in Cincinnati. So roughly, yeah. Give or take a few."

Hermione dropped into the empty chair.

Dean stretched, cracking his neck. "Alright. We'll eat, pack up, hit the road."

Hermione nodded, already opening her food. "Good. Because something about this feels... off."
She paused, then muttered dryly, "And I was really looking forward to a lazy weekend."

Dean smirked. "Sweetheart, you married a Winchester. Lazy weekends are a myth."

She glared at him. He grinned wider. Sam groaned into his hands.

~000~000~000~

"Do you know what it is yet?" Dean asked, leaning over Hermione's shoulder, trying to make sense of the hovering, shifting lights swirling above the victim's body.

They'd broken into the morgue again — and with Hermione's wards and misdirection charms, they'd done it without so much as a flicker on a security monitor. Sam stood by the door, alternating between lookout duty and watching Hermione work. Neither brother would ever admit it, but magical autopsies fascinated the hell out of them.