Hey folks! Sooo sorry for long delay! I've been writing my little tushy off for my new job, not only reviewing all my normal tv shows(Lie to Me, Memphis Beat, White Collar, Covert Affairs, Psych and The Gates)but also writing some opinion articles as well. Recently the staff was asked to do articles on each of our top 5 favorite tv shows of all time and so far I've done articles on NCIS and the original Battlestar Galactica, but I'm holding the number one spot for Supernatural (though they really aren't in any true order, it was too hard to choose as it was). So please feel free to check it out (the link to my page on their site is on my profile page here). You can also see all of the coverage I did for Comic-Con up there too, on shows like Castle, Hawaii Five-O, The Walking Dead and more.

Also I just got my new fall assignments and guess what people? In addition to reviewing a ton of great stuff (like NCIS, NCIS: Los Angles, Castle, Bones, Hawaii Five-O and lots more) I've been assigned to review Supernatural! So now I'm doubly excited for the season premiere this year.

As you can see I've been pretty busy and also I got sick last week and was stuck in bed for a few days. But I'm doing better now and ready to get back to work on this story.

So with no further ado, let's get on with the show….

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Chapter Eighteen

Though they'd both seen the thing, it didn't mean that they knew how to deal with it. So when the two men got back to the hotel they only slept a few hours before rising once again. They wanted to get back to work as soon as possible. Once they were up and showered, Sam sat putting on his shoes as Dean finished brushing his teeth. When he was finished, Dean sat down across from his brother.

"Okay so you were right, Sammy," Dean said, the admission sounding almost painful to him.

As much as Sam was enjoying Dean's consternation he decided to let his brother off the hook.

"Hey man, I was wrong too," Sam began, gearing up for an apology but stopped as Dean held up a hand.

"Okay so we're square now, no need to get all girlie on me now," Dean said and smirked in expectation for the response he knew would follow.

"Fine," Sam said, finishing with his shoes and standing up. "Jerk."

"Bitch," Dean replied with a smile, happy that Sam didn't disappoint. The routine had started when they were kids. It was their way of getting through things without getting all "mushy" about it (as Dean put it). With just two words they could resolve just about anything, no matter how bad. It was their own version of shorthand.

"Alright then, let's go get something to eat and figure out how to kill that bitch." Dean said on his way out the door.

They ate a quick breakfast while going over everything in hushed tones. The place was nearly empty but they didn't want to take a chance at anyone hearing their rather unusual breakfast conversation.

"Okay so we're dealing with a shapeshifter that acts kind of like a ghost but not," Dean said, piling another forkful of food into his mouth. "I don't even begin to understand how that's possible but…."

"I've been thinking about that," Sam began, sipping at his coffee. "I think that maybe we were both right."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that I think we are dealing with the ghost of Delores."

"I don't know about you Sammy, but that thing didn't act like any ghost I've ever seen."

"Yeah I know, and that's because it's not like any ghost we've ever seen. I think that Delores was using some Native American magic and figured out how to take on the form of her chosen totem."

"Totem?" Dean asked, finishing his food and gulping his coffee, ignoring the way it burned his throat. His mind was already on the fact that they had only so many hours left in the day. Soon the sun would set and that thing would be out on the hunt again.

"Yeah," Sam replied. "In one of Dad's books it said that some people could make themselves take on some characteristics of their totem," Seeing Dean's puzzled look Sam added "A spirit animal, like a good luck charm. They believed that they could gain the strength and cunning of the animal and become more like it."

"So, what, old Delores liked her cats a little more than your regular old lady and decided to become like one?"

Sam shrugged. "I guess so. I mean you said yourself that Patty told you Delores was very territorial and wanted people off of her property. That sounds like a cat to me."

Seeing Dean's raised eyebrows, Sam continued. "I'm not talking about your normal tabby cat here. Think more of a wild cat, like a cougar. This is not Garfield."

Dean thought about that for a second. He had to admit that it did make some sense. Of course it was crazy-sense but that was pretty much the story of their lives.

"So then granny decides to use some of her ancestor's secret potions or something, and starts to become like a cat. Basically she figured out how to turn herself into a shapeshifter. Which means…"

"We're dealing with the ghost of a shapeshifter." Sam finished.

"Crap." Dean replied.

"Crap." Sam agreed.

As they drove to the library, Sam made a quick call to their most trusted backup, Bobby. He'd been a friend to their father and in fact more like a father to both of them now that John had passed. The two men trusted Bobby more than anyone else in the world. He had been in the business about as long as John had and seen almost everything there was to see in their world. Whenever the two of them got particularly stumped, they called on him.

A shapeshifter ghost definitely constituted a call.

Sam finished his conversation with Bobby as Dean pulled into the library's small parking lot. Dean turned off the engine and turned to Sam hopefully. He had heard Sam's end of the conversation and it didn't sound too promising but he still had to ask.

"Anything?"

Sam shook his head a little sadly, sighing. "No, not really. He's never heard of a shapeshifter that managed to then become a vengeful spirit once it was killed. The only thing he could tell me is that it probably would be a real bitch to kill. Oh and also that it would probably take a combination of things to do it."

"Yep, that's what I was afraid of," Dean said, getting out of the car and slamming his door. This job was really giving them Hell, that was for sure.

They walked into the library and paused briefly at the entrance. Sam put a hand on Dean's arm to speak to him.

"I think we should split up and double our efforts again. Why don't you see if you can find anything on any weapons that might work. I'll see if I can find anything under Native American lore about separating a person from their totem."

"Alright, check in with me as soon as you find anything," Dean said and headed off in the opposite direction from Sam.

A few hours later, Sam found himself getting absolutely nowhere. That was starting to sound like a broken record even in his own head. Nothing he found gave him any clues how to weaken someone who had bound themselves to their totem. Trouble was that all of the lore on it spoke of someone who had such powers as if they were to be revered. The fact that such a creature might ever be evil never seemed to occur to any of the storytellers. How could he blame them? It was pretty much the same thing as dealing with a garden variety ghost. Most of the people who became the most vengeful spirits were, more often than not, the nicest people. It was the terrible events in life that changed them into the evil they became in death.

Their current quarry was no different. Delores had felt threatened and all alone once her husband had died and had done the only thing she could think to protect herself. Sam really doubted that she'd meant to become something that would be killing people one day. They still had to stop her.

On the other side of the building Dean was pretty much in the same boat.

He looked through books of legends about evil creatures written by authors who didn't really believe they existed. He'd been searching for anything helpful to their predicament. It always amused Dean how books like these helped him and other hunters like him. Often they were written mostly for fun by the authors without realizing the "legends" in them were real. They could be an invaluable resource to the weary hunter.

Unfortunately though nothing he'd found so far had helped him. All he found was what he already knew. Salt repelled evil spirits and silver repelled evil living things.

Gee, thanks for the insight, Dean though with a sigh, unable to find anything that mentioned what to do when you were dealing with a creature that was both.

Putting down the last of the stack of books that he'd pulled from the shelf, he was starting to get pretty discouraged. He knew that he and Sam could try the same method that they'd employed the night before. They could attempt to shoot it with both rock salt and silver at the same time. He'd seen that the thing had definitely become weakened by their onslaught. There was just no evidence that doing something like that would actually kill it. If only there was some way to do both things at the same time, the exact same time, maybe that would help. Dean had seen that the split second (sometimes no more than a partial split second) between his and Sam's ammo hitting the thing had given it just enough time to switch forms, thereby saving itself.

He and Sam were good but getting both of their rounds to hit at the exact same moment was impossible. He'd seen enough of that show "Mythbusters" (one of his current favorites) to know that it would take an elaborate set-up to even attempt something like that. He figured they'd have to mount both guns on nonmoving objects, aim them at an exact location and use tons of measuring devices to get their distances just right. Even if they could spend the time (and somehow got their hands on some high speed camera equipment to accurately judge the speed of the bullets) setting all of that up. Somehow he didn't think the ghost-creature would just walk into their planned firing range and stand there politely as they tried it out to see if it would work.

Dean shook his head. He had the strongest feeling that he might actually be on to something with his current train of thought. He just wasn't sure how to actually make it happen. If only there was a way to get the silver and the salt into the thing at the same time…

Suddenly Dean's head snapped up and he almost let out a yell of triumph. The hushed atmosphere of the library was the only thing that kept him from doing so. Gathering up all his books, he quickly returned them to their respective shelves. None of them could help him now. His plan wasn't going to be found in any book and he ran off eagerly to find Sam.

On the other side of the library, Sam was still searching in Native American lore and getting nowhere. Then he stopped, closing the book he was reading and on a hunch reached for a book that he'd long ago put down. He was sure that it wouldn't have anything in it that would help them.

As he reached for it again, Sam wondered if maybe he'd been a little too hasty before. Since it dealt with exorcism he'd assumed that they wouldn't need it. Of all the things this was (and it was a lot of things), it wasn't a demon that needed to be exorcised. Then again, they weren't dealing with anything that they'd ever seen before. Bobby had said that they'd probably need to combine methodologies on this job to take care of it.

Sam flipped through the book for awhile not sure what he'd find. They needed to get the totem separated from the spirit to kill it but so far hadn't found out how. Basically they had to turn it back into just a ghost. A ghost they could handle. Truthfully they could handle a shapeshifter too, just not a dead one.

They had to take away the element that made it a shapeshifter. Then salting and burning the bones would work. There was no way they were going to get away without doing that. He was actually happy that Dean had spent the previous evening getting the information on old Aunt Delores from Patty. Now they knew exactly where Delores' body was buried and they needed every short-cut they could get.

Once the body was burned, the ghost would disappear - but not the shapeshifter. That part of its being was obviously connected to something else since it had had no trouble switching back to cat form. Despite being shot with their initial rock salt rounds. But what was it? What would keep the shapeshifter there on that property?

Then Sam got an idea. He wasn't exactly sure how it would work. He figured that if he could hash it out a bit more and maybe bounce some ideas off of Dean, they'd be able to do it. Sure that he was on to something, Sam put away all the books he'd taken off the shelves and went to find his brother.

Rounding the corner from the line of shelves where he'd put his last book, Sam nearly ran smack into Dean as his older brother came flying around looking for him.

"I got an idea," they both said in unison and Dean smiled gleefully at Sam.

"Alright Sammy, let's grab a six-pack, head back to the hotel and see what we've got."

Sam didn't need to be asked twice. Within a very short time the two of them were holed-up in their room. Opening a bottle and handing it to Sam, Dean grabbed another for himself and sat on his bed.

"Okay so let's hear what you got," he said, taking a chug.

"Well I'm not sure if it will work but I think that what we need to do is hit this from a lot of angles."

"Yeah, get it at every weak spot," Dean agreed.

"Exactly. So first off we definitely need to salt and burn Delores' bones."

"Copy that," Dean said with a nod. "Guess it's a good thing I already did that part of the research huh?" he needled, unable to resist.

Sam knew there was no way Dean was going to let that go and just laughed. "Yep, so that part's already done. But we both know that's not going to get rid of her. It just means that, if the rest of my plan works, with her bones gone she'll have no way to come back from what we do next."

"So what's your plan Sammy?"

"Well the way I figure it, Delores became a shapeshifter to guard her home. I mean you said that's what Patty said, right? That the old lady was known for chasing people off her place?"

Dean nodded in agreement and Sam went on enthusiastically.

"Okay so I started looking up ways to take away someone's totem but came up with nothing. Basically there's no lore on these things leaving people once they've figured out how to become their totem."

"What're we supposed to do then?" Dean asked, knowing that Sam was getting somewhere; he just wasn't sure where that was yet.

"So I started to notice that there was a lot of info on how people showed their chosen spirit animal or totem. In fact, most people had symbols to represent them."

"Like totem poles?"

"Exactly" Sam agreed.

"Well I wasn't exactly looking out for one of those but I really doubt that I missed a really large pole erected anywhere around that house," Dean said.

"Yeah, me either. But look, it doesn't have to be a pole. It could be almost anything, a necklace, a book, anything."

"That's great Sammy. What if it's some heirloom that's been passed down to some distant relative not even living around here anymore?"

"No I don't think so. For one thing I think that's why this thing has only been seen around the house and surrounding woods."

"So you think that it's something in that area?" Sam nodded and Dean gave that some thought.

"Okay but so what is it? What if she buried it somewhere on the property? People have done weirder things, especially the kind of people who have figured out how to turn themselves into large cats."

Sam almost laughed at that but went on. "I don't think so. Think about it Dean, the whole point was that Delores was trying to get people off her property. She obviously loved that house."

"So you think it's in the house?" Dean asked, feeling like he'd finally gotten where Sam was going.

"Not exactly,"

"What then?"

"I think it IS the house."