Brown Mountain Lights

Hell Gates, Hair Dye, and Men Who Were Gone for Way Too Long

I lay on my back, panting, trying to recover from my third mind-blowing orgasm of the day. After the hair-pulling-incited round, Dean had eaten while I took a quick nap, then woken me up with his tongue on my clit. "Are we done with this whole havin' sex all day thing yet?"

Dean laughed at me. "Kat, it's only like three o'clock."

I picked my head up to look at him, then flopped back down onto the pillow. "Bull. It's got to be at least six."

He picked up my phone. "Ah, no. it is 3:17 pm."

"Oh my God," I moaned. "You're gonna kill me with sex."

He snickered again, lying down next to me and wiggling his arm underneath my shoulders. I rolled over and laid my head on his chest as he said, "There are definitely worse ways to go. Did you know that your accent is coming through?"

"Yeah," I yawned into his chest. "It happens when I'm cryin' or super tired. That's another thing that makes me a horrible Southerner – I talk like a damn Yankee half the time." I raised up to look at him. "You know I was twelve 'fore I figgered out 'damn Yankee' was two words? Grandma and Momma always said 'em together."

He was laughing again. "You sound like a little redneck. It's pretty damn cute."

I slapped his chest. "Shut up. Quit insultin' my heritage."

The laughter trailed off, then he said, "It's actually kind of cool that you know your heritage. Me and Sammy, I mean, we know who our grandparents were and what they did, but that's about it. You, though – you've traced your family back into the 1800s, and that was the only thing that let us gank that ghost back in North Carolina."

"Genealogy has always been kinda a popular thing in my family, but Momma took it to new heights. We went through my grandparents' papers and pictures – the same grandmother y'all met, actually – and found letters from Confederate soldiers, old daguerreotypes, and a notebook that actually recorded my grandpa's family history from the time the first McLamb stepped off the boat in 1789. We got stuck on my grandmother's family after a couple of generations, though. Maiden names and other name changes are a bitch to trace, so that was when I got online. Part of that trace brought up Lizzie and her diary." I paused. "So, actually, you and Sam killed my great-great-great-great-great grandma. Technically."

"In our defense," Dean said, "she was killing people. Also, she was already dead. Technically."

"I'd offer to poke around y'all's family tree and see what I can find, but I'm afraid I'd uncover some sort of deep dark secret and get myself killed somehow," I said, only half joking. Men of Letters, a whole family of hunters, Cain being a distant ancestor – no, this was not a genealogical dig I was particularly interested in.

Dean sighed regretfully. "You're right. You'd probably discover we're distantly related to Crowley or something."

I snorted. "That would be great. 'Uh, sorry for not inviting you to the family reunion, cuz, but we were afraid you'd try to destroy the world again.'"

As Dean opened his mouth to reply, there was a knock at the door. "Seriously?" he groused. "Do you think we can ignore it?"

The knock came again, louder and more insistent, this time accompanied by Sam's voice. "Dean, we have a problem!"

"One day," Dean said under his breath. "I wanted one day to enjoy my new girl, not have to get dressed, do whatever I wanted. But noooo, of course not. Jesus Christ." He got out of bed and pulled on his jeans, not bothering with underwear or a shirt. When I realized he was actually planning on opening the door, I squeaked and dove under the blankets.