The Good Life (Book 11, The Life Series, Supernatural)

The Memory Remains

I was in the war room of the bunker, researching.

Sam and Amara walked in from the library.

Dean walked in from the hallway, leaving a message for Castiel. "So... could really use the backup. Call me back."

Dean hung up.

Amara saw that Aiden was getting better at toddling, taking him by the hands to help him walk. Aiden laughed, smiling, making us smile.

"So no luck with Cas, huh?" Sam asked.

"Yeah, still AWOL," Dean told us.

"All right, so let's find him," I told them.

"I've been trying, Ness," Dean told me. "The GPS on his phone is turned off, and there's nothing in the system about some weird guy in a trench coat getting arrested or turning up dead."

Amara sighed. "Right." Dean reached under the table to grab a gun from the holster that was strapped underneath the table. "Dad, it's Cas. I mean, this isn't the first time he's dropped off the map, you know? And whatever's happening, he'll be fine. He always is."

Dean started to clean the gun, unconvinced. "Yeah. What about you, Ness? You got anything there, reading rainbow?"

"I stayed up all night, going through every book we have on demons, and it turns out we have a lot of books on demons," I told them.

"Anything on Dagon?" Sam asked.

"Mentions here and there, but nothing we can use," I answered. "I guess the, uh, princes of Hell are pretty good at staying off the radar."

"Well, yeah, isn't that kind of their thing?" Sam asked.

Amara's phone buzzed. She looked at the message. "Hmm. Just got a text from Brandon. It's a case."

"Good," Dean told us.

"Looks like a guy named Jared Hayes disappeared in Tomahawk, Wisconsin a week ago," Amara told us. "No witnesses. No body. But Brandon says this place has a history."

"Meaning?" Sam asked.

"Well, it means a lot of people go missing in Tomahawk," Amara answered. "One a year, every year from 1898 to 1997, and then nothing until now."

"So 20 years?" Dean asked.

"Yeah," I answered. "So maybe they're starting up again? Maybe it's a cycle of some sort?"

"Well..." Dean trailed off, cocking his gun. "One way to find out."

Amara looked at her phone. "Brandon wants us all to meet there, see what we can see."

  *********** 

 In Tomahawk, Sam and Dean went to talk to the Sheriff Barrett Bishop Jr., posing as feds, while Amara and I were supposed to meet with Brandon, with Aiden, but Brandon was never there. 

Sam and Dean met up with us at a restaurant after talking to a witness named Daryn that had said that Jared was taken and killed by a monster called Black Bill.

I was on my laptop, researching. "Black Bill is a local urban legend, dates back more than a hundred years. A folklore story from 1907 that mentions..." I noticed that Amara was only half paying attention because she was on her phone. "Uh, back then, he was called 'Black William'. So it looks like some time between then and... Amara, focus."

"Yeah, I am focused," Amara told us. "Black Bill. What do you got?"

"All right, well, he lives in the woods," I told them. "So he's like a local Jersey devil. And apparently, he has the head of a goat."