Supernatural The Unholy Cause

by Joe Schreiber

Sam looked at it. The photo showed a gaunt, hatchet-faced soldier in a dirty, ill-fitting uniform. His eyes were lost in the shadow of the slouch cap, though there was no mistaking the dark grin that had twisted its way across his face. Beauchamp looked like a man with a secret locked in his heart—one so black and eager with promise that, once released, there would be no stopping it.

  Around his neck, he wore an old rope tied into a noose.

  “Do you have a magnifying glass?” Sam asked, and then he glanced back at the computer. “Or better yet, a scanner. I need to see this close up.”

  “Sure,” Nate piped up, and then he glanced up at his father. “Can I, Dad?”

  “You know how to use it,” Tommy said, and the boy ran off with the old photograph, headed over to one of the computers that Sam had seen on his way into the library.

  Once Nate was out of earshot, McClane bent closer to Sam.

  “Listen,” he said. “There’re some more entries in that journal, stuff I haven’t been able to translate. Considering what you just did with that Coptic writing, maybe you want to take a look at it? See if you can make heads or tails of it.”

  Sam flipped the next page of Beauchamp’s diary. By now the handwriting was so different that it had to have come from a different person entirely. The letters were twisted and sharp, freely intermingled with symbols and characters along the page, and yet—

  Sam stared, he saw the lines transforming themselves, swimming a little across the stained pages, the letters themselves becoming somehow familiar.

  “Someone else wrote this part,” he explained. “It says that Jubal Beauchamp was killed and brought back to life... through the powers of the noose...” He paused, wanting to get it right. “The man who did it was a Civil War doctor named Percy. When the doctor finished experimenting on him, he buried Beauchamp’s remains in an iron coffin, his spirit held fast by a spell from which it could not escape.”

  When he looked up, Tommy was staring at him.

  “You’re not just an ordinary hunter, are you?” the man asked.

  “I—” Sam considered a variety of answers, then just shook his head. “No.”

  “Didn’t think so.”

  There was a long silence between them, not quite awkward, but not comfortable either. Finally Sam spoke.

  “I appreciate all your help with this.”

  Tommy didn’t reply right away. Instead he scraped back his chair, turned and nodded around behind him at the doorway where they’d come in. Above it, Sam saw a small dark object not much bigger than a man’s hand attached directly to the wall above the entryway. He got up and looked more closely.

  It was a bundle of what looked like hair or fur, wrapped carefully around an arrangement of roots and chicken bones.

  “Hoodoo protection sigil,” Sam said. “Did you make it yourself?”

  “I watch out over me and mine,” Tommy said evenly. “Don’t mistake my meaning. I’ve been to college. As I said, I’m not some backwoods autodidactic hillbilly. But this is the South. You’d be surprised what we see down here.” He considered Sam. “Or maybe you wouldn’t.”

  “Does anybody know where Beauchamp was buried?”

  “Nope. Folklore says that he and dozens of other soldiers were buried somewhere in a mass grave out on the battlefield. Unmarked and lost to time. Probably best left that way, if you ask me.”

  “Thanks for the input,” Sam said.

  Tommy McClane nodded. Something still seemed to be bothering him, however—a sense of restlessness that he couldn’t quite articulate. As Sam turned to go, he spoke in a low voice.

  “Sam?”

  “Yes?”

  “I know you’re a hunter, so you know what you’re getting yourself into, but this is bloody ground. I hope for your sake that whatever you’re doing, you’ll step lightly.” He took in a breath and let it out. “Some of this stuff isn’t buried too deep.”

  “You know what Faulkner said about the past,” Sam said.

  “Yeah. He said it’s not dead. It ain’t even past.” And then, brightening a little, Tommy added, “Leave me your phone number and email and I’ll have Nate send that scan to you as an attachment.”

  Sam nodded.

  “And hey.”

  “Yes?”

  “You want to hear how the South really lost the war?”

  Sam frowned.

  “I’m not sure I—”

  “Come on by the house after dinner, if you want. 440 Baxter Springs Road. We’ll sit out on the porch and drink iced tea and talk about spooks. Bring your brother...”

  “Dean,” Sam said, and he agreed.

  The boy returned, putting the photo carefully back in its proper place, then the three of them wove their way back to the front door.

  Sam waved goodbye to Tommy and Nate, stepped out into the night and down the front steps, and back through town.

  EIGHT

  The bar was small, crowded and smoky, with a pool table in the back. The Georgia Satellites were rocking ‘Battleship Chains’ on the jukebox at a volume just short of thunderous, while a mix of patrons in Civil War garb and modern-day clothing tried to find room to dance.

  Behind the counter, a Confederate flag hung next to the mounted head of a buck. Someone long ago had tacked a handwritten sign on a paper plate above the deer’s head, proclaiming ‘Nice rack.’

  “I’m guessing they don’t have wi-fi here,” Dean muttered across the booth. “I feel like I’m in the Star Wars cantina.”

  Sam opened the laptop and looked over at him.

  “Where’s Cass?”

  Dean shrugged.

  “Off on heavenly business, I guess.” He took a long drink from the glass in front of him, but the beer seemed to do him little good. “Here’s some shocking news. Dave Wolverton wasn’t just your typical airport restaurant waiter. I said a little of the exorcism right over his corpse, and stuff got messy in a hurry.”

  “What happened?” Sam asked.

  “Turns out that Cass’s Witness has itself a nice little calling card. Something called Moa’ah. Stuff went crawling up my leg. Cass had to burn it off with holy water.”

  “Moa’ah?” Sam turned to the keyboard. “How do you spell that?”

  “Gee, you know, Sammy, I forgot to look at its nametag.” Dean sipped his beer. “I’m fine, by the way.”

  “Sorry. I just—”

  “Forget it,” Dean said. “We’ll call Bobby and see if he’s ever heard of it. You find anything out at the Historical Society?”

  “Well... if I can just get a signal... yes!” As he accessed his email Sam told his brother about the encounter with Tommy and Nate.

  “Sonuvagun,” Dean said. “Well, at least your guy wasn’t a closet pervert. And it’s nice to have some help on this one.”

  Nodding his agreement, Sam opened the email from Nate, downloaded the attachment, and turned the laptop around so Dean could see the old photo of Jubal Beauchamp.

  “Here’s our guy,” he said. “The original guy.”

  “And let me guess, that noose around his neck...?”

  “—isn’t just any old noose.” Sam tapped a key, magnifying the image and correcting the resolution so the pixels sharpened into focus. Then he pointed. “What are these?”

  “Knots?”

  “They seem to have a specific arrangement of some sort.” Sam clicked on a link, bringing up a new window and an image of an old engraving of a rope twisted into complex interwoven patterns. “Have you ever heard of the Judas noose?” he asked.

  Dean smacked the table with his palm.

  “I freakin’ knew it.”

  “Knew what?”

  “Judas,” Dean replied, his voice low. “That’s got to be his Witness.”

  “Listen to this,” Sam said. “According to the lore, if you could recreate the exact combination of knots that Judas used and place the noose over someone’s head, you’d release a strong demonic curse. Gives the wearer unholy powers, protects them from death... and event
ually drives them mad. In the homicidal sense of the word.”

  He hesitated.

  “And there’s something else.”

  “There always is.”

  “I’m pretty sure this noose—whatever else it might represent—was part of the nightmare I had.”

  “So it’s already in your head,” Dean said. “How do we get rid of it before it does a number on your sanity? It’s not like you’ve got a lot to spare.”

  “I haven’t figured it out yet.” Sam lowered the laptop screen enough to meet his brother’s gaze. “But I’m guessing from the fact that you’re sitting here empty-handed that you didn’t find the noose at the coroner’s office, either.”

  “Nope.” Dean picked up his glass, where the beer seemed to have disappeared almost against his will. “The coroner’s a tool, by the way. More or less useless.”

  “Yeah, I gathered that,” Sam said. “So should we go back to the sheriff?”

  Dean waved away the idea.

  “Screw her,” he said. “She’s just as bad as he is.”

  “No, Dean—” Sam began.

  “I mean it,” Dean pressed. “I’ve been thinking about it. Back at her office, she said ‘like that one.’ That means she didn’t have the actual weapons Wolverton used. So where’d they go? And why didn’t she want to help us, knowing we’re Feds?

  “They’re probably in cahoots together. What’s more... “

  “Dean, I’m trying to tell you, she’s...”

  “Hot,” Dean said, “sure. Believe me, I wouldn’t kick her out of bed for eating crackers. But if you think I’m gonna give her a free pass on account of that—”

  “No, I’m trying to say that she’s... standing right... behind you.”

  A look of disgust covered Dean’s face. Slowly he turned around and saw Sheriff Daniels standing next to them, not two feet away, where she’d been listening to their entire conversation. She was glaring right at him.

  “Were you saying something about Todd Winston?” she asked. “Please, continue.”

  “Okay.” Dean nodded, stubbornly unrepentant. “How about, he’s a jerk and a sleaze? Do you even know the guy?”

  “I ought to,” Sheriff Daniels said. “He’s my brother-in-law.”

  “I should’ve known. Is everybody in this town related?”

  “Not only that,” she said, “we’re all inbred racist hicks. What’s your point, Agent Townes?”

  “He told me there’s no toxicology report available yet. It’s been almost twenty-four hours. What’s going on with that?”

  “This isn’t New York or Los Angeles, Mister Federal Agent,” she said dryly. “Things move at a more languid pace down here.”

  “Languid, huh? Good SAT word.” Dean glanced across the room. A girl who couldn’t have been much older than eighteen was slow-dancing with a biker twice her age. He was wearing a Mojo Nixon t-shirt, and both his hands were cupping the swell of her buttocks as she ground against him. “Seems like some of it moves pretty fast.”

  “I beg your pardon?” she said, turning to look.

  “Nothing. Forget it.”

  “Well, here’s a word for you,” Sheriff Daniels said turning back and pinning him with another glare. “Judge. As in, ‘judge not, lest ye be judged.’” She smiled then, making a completely unconvincing show of hospitality. “Enjoy your stay.”

  With that, she turned on her heel and left.

  Sam and Dean were leaving the bar, on their way to the Impala, when they heard the voice behind them. Turning, they saw a young Rebel soldier step into the streetlight, walking toward them in full uniform, complete with a slouch cap.

  The guy couldn’t have been on the legal side of twenty-one—he was pale and skinny, his cheekbones high and sharp. As far as lack of nourishment went, he almost looked too realistic. A lot like Wolverton’s corpse. For a second Dean wondered if he was actually seeing a ghost, the revenant of a dead Confederate soldier.

  Then he noticed the gray coat’s iPod.

  Approaching them, the young man removed the white earbuds. Dean caught a faint buzz of electric guitars before the soldier switched it off and gazed at them with pale blue eyes.

  “I saw you two talking to the sheriff back there,” he said. “Are you investigating what happened to Dave Wolverton?”

  “That’s right,” Sam said. “You knew him?”

  “You could say that.”

  “Look,” Dean cut in, “no offense, Billy Yank, but it’s late and we’ve had a long day. If you can tell us anything that might help...”

  “I lived with him,” the soldier said. “For almost a year.”

  “You mean roommates?”

  “We were dating.”

  “You and Wolverton?”

  The soldier removed the slouch cap. Dean found himself staring as the hairpins came out, releasing a fluid tumble of brown hair that framed the angular face, immediately changing the subtle geometry of the cheek-bones, eyes and lips. The skinny, somewhat effeminate male soldier in front of him had just transformed into an attractive young brunette.

  “Wow,” Dean said, not at all sure how he felt about this. “Okay.”

  “My name is Sarah Rafferty,” the woman said. “Dave and I actually met at the TGI Fridays at the airport where we both worked about a year and a half ago. He’s the one that got me into all this.”

  “That’s... cool. I guess?”

  “Crazy as it sounds,” the woman said, “there’s actually an historical precedent. There were some women on both sides who put on uniforms and fought alongside the men, sometimes as drummer boys or powder monkeys, or even infantry. Not many, but a few.”

  “So you and Dave were together,” Sam said. “For how long?”

  “A year or so. He started coming into the restaurant talking about all this stuff. After a while I caught the bug. I was actually a communications major, but I minored in American History. Eventually Dave asked me to go to a re-enactment up in Gettysburg, and I was hooked.” She smiled a little at the memory. “He liked that it was our secret. Even the other guys in the 32nd didn’t know that I was a woman.”

  “So were you two still involved when he died?” Dean asked.

  Sarah shook her head.

  “I broke things off a couple of months ago.”

  “Why?”

  “It was Dave—he changed. I mean, for a while I was legitimately impressed, how intensely he focused on nailing every detail with absolute authenticity. But something was just different. He wasn’t Dave anymore. He was Jubal Beauchamp all the time. It was like he had disappeared into the persona.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “There were problems at work. With the customers, I mean. We work in an airport restaurant, so we have people from everywhere. Dave would start talking to them about the Confederacy, and how the South should have won the war. It didn’t exactly go over well.”

  “Ouch,” Dean said.

  “They had to fire him. But Dave didn’t care. He said it gave him more time to concentrate on his real work.”

  “Being Jubal Beauchamp?” Sam said.

  “That’s right.”

  “Yikes,” Dean said. “Single white Confederate.”

  Sam shot Dean a look, and turned back to Sarah.

  “Did you notice any one particular moment when it all changed?”

  “Actually,” Sarah said, “that’s why I’m here. After it ended, I started trying to figure out where it all went wrong.

  “Dave and I came to Mission’s Ridge about three months ago, for a wedding. One of the guys in the 32nd was getting married at the old Pentecostal Church in town.”

  “I saw someone else getting married there today,” Dean said.

  “They do it all the time,” Sarah said. “The re-enactors love to use that church because it’s the only building in town the Union Army didn’t burn down when they marched through Mission’s Ridge. Phil Oiler, did you meet him?”

  “I think so.”

  “Insurance salesman
from Atlanta. He was the one getting married, and of course he wanted to do it in full uniform. So we all suited up for it, the 32nd Georgia in full parade dress.” She paused, her expression darkening. “Except sometime between the ceremony and the reception, Dave and Phil disappeared.”

  “Disappeared where?”

  “That’s just it, nobody knew. For almost an hour they were just gone. Of course the bride was furious, because the photographer was out front and everybody was standing around waiting to go to the reception. Then, at the last minute, they showed up again like nothing had happened. People thought they were out getting high.

  “But Dave didn’t do that.” She drew in a breath and let it out slowly. “That night at the reception was the first time I noticed how different he was. He started asking me to call him Jubal. I thought he was drunk, but it just kept happening. His accent got stronger. He started getting rough with me... when we were alone. And the things that came out of his mouth—they were awful. A couple of weeks later, I couldn’t take it anymore. I packed up and moved out. Then when I heard what happened yesterday...” Her eyes shone. “I had to come back here.”

  “In full uniform?” Dean said.

  The woman paused, weighing her words carefully.

  “I wanted to talk to Phil,” she said at last. “I thought maybe he might be able to tell me more about what happened to him and Dave in the church that day. And, of course, I couldn’t come to him as Sarah Rafferty. I had to be Private Will Tanner.”

  “Did you talk to Phil?” Sam asked. “Did you ask him about what happened at the wedding?”

  She nodded.

  “He said that he and Dave just went down to the basement to smoke a joint.” Her blue eyes flashed brighter now, flinty with anger. “He was lying to me. And now Dave’s dead.”

  “Did you talk to the sheriff?”

  “I tried to. She’s not interested. I don’t understand. I thought... I guess I thought if I came clean and told her the truth about Dave and me, that she might dig a little deeper and help me figure out what went wrong. But it’s like she’s on some whole other mission.”

  “Like what?” Sam asked, his curiosity piqued.

  “I don’t know. It’s like she knows more than she’s letting on... like she’s after something.”