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"Dean, this is Elaine, from Texas. If you're still in the same business you were when you visited my library, please call me. My number is 432-555-..."Dean scratched down the number, finished his voicemails and closed the phone. He glanced over at Sam in the driver's seat. They were heading east out of Denver, if there was a case in Texas they'd need to change directions soon.
"Elaine? This is Dean."
Sam’s eyes left the road for a moment as he heard a relieved female voice coming through his brother’s phone.
"Dean! I'm so glad you called back. I think I've stumbled across something that's right up your alley. I'm in New Mexico, Taos, and there's been a rash of suicides. Do you know the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge?"
"The Bridge to Nowhere?"
"That's it. It's always been popular with jumpers, but the numbers are rising, fast, and there've been sightings of a woman on the bridge who disappears halfway across."
"Sounds like it might be something. We’ll check it out."
"Thank you. Call me when you get close to town and I'll tell you how to get to where I am. Oh, and don’t worry about finding a hotel, I’ve got that covered."
Dean hung up and turned to Sam.
"We need to turn around; we're going to New Mexico."
When they stopped for gas Sam and Dean had swapped places. With Dean back in the driver’s seat, Sam was able to do some quick research, and quote a few facts about their destination as they rode into town.
“Population of less than five thousand, mostly Catholic, famous for artists, pueblos, skiing, and Spanish missions, lots of possibilities there.”
Some of the pictures he pulled up were gorgeous, snowy mountains and desert scrub co-existing, bare trunked trees reaching to the sky and only branching out at the last moment. Sam brushed his bangs aside to rub his eyes. Reading a laptop screen in a moving car had left them aching, he hoped it would be worth it.
********************************************
Sam and Dean slipped into the back pew of the little church. The sign out front declared it to be the Taos Church of Christ. Hand worked wooden beams stretched across the ceiling, glowing in the sunlight streaming through the windows. A small somber group gathered near the pulpit and the closed casket at the front of the church. People began filing out past the boys in a few minutes.
Two women stopped a few feet from the boys. A dark blonde in her mid-twenties supported a middle aged Hispanic woman. The older woman was weeping as the younger woman spoke quietly to her.
"It's ok Lydia; I'll take care of it. You just go home."
"Thank you Elaine, I don't think I could face it right now"
The older woman handed a key and a slip of paper to her companion and left the church. The younger woman approached the brothers.
"Poor Lydia, she's heartbroken. She keeps telling me she had no idea Maria was so depressed. I didn’t know Maria, but I’ve talked to Lydia at conferences and online for so long, I didn’t think I could let her do this alone."
Dean stood and took the hand the woman had extended to him.
"Sam, this is Elaine, Elaine this is my geeky brother Sam."
Sam glared at Dean, but decided this was not the place to raise a fuss about it.
"It's good to finally meet you Sam,” Elaine replied, offering her hand to the shaggy young man. “I’m sorry it had to be under these circumstances. I'm parked across the street, if you'll follow me I'll lead you to where we're staying"
Once safely back in the Impala Sam finally posed the question that he had been dying to ask.
"Dean, how do you know her? I saw the ring, so I know she's not one of your girlfriends, at least I hope not."
Dean snorted.
"And you tell me to think with the upstairs brain? I don't have to sleep with every girl I meet."
"So, how did you meet her?"
"She's a librarian, Dad and I were checking out a basilisk in this little nowhere town in west Texas, spending lots of time in the library, and she caught on to what we were researching. Instead of kicking us out or calling the loony bin on us, she offered to help. Turns out one of her customers, sorry, patrons, was one of the victims."
"A basilisk? Really? I thought they were extinct."
"El basilisco. Used to be a threat to wagon based commerce, not so common now. That happens when your own reflection is deadly."
Dean replied, slowing the Impala in order to avoid crossing pedestrians.
Sam shook his head. A basilisk and a librarian, obviously more had gone on while he was away than he’d realized.
“Hey Sam, did you know they filmed part of “Twins” here?”
********************************************
"Welcome to our home away from home for the week. Kindly step over and not through the salt, I just redrew that line. I hope you don't mind sharing a room, the good news is it has two beds."
The house was built of warm pink adobe, orangey red saltillo tiles covered the floors, and a neat line of salt bordered every door and window. Sam began to wonder just how much she had learned from his brother.
“We don’t want to impose…” Sam began.
“Nonsense, the hotel rates around here are outrageous, we’ve got space, and you wouldn’t even be here if I hadn’t called. Besides, I already ran it by Anne and she’s fine with it.”
Dean raised an eyebrow.
"Oh, I forgot, you haven’t met Anne, she's my best friend. This was supposed to be our girls only vacation, instead we've both ended up working."
As the guys moved their things into the spare bedroom she explained.
"Anne's a paramedic, with all the jumpers lately she's been volunteering with the search parties. Not that they expect survivors, she’s actually there for the searchers. They’re going over very rough territory; it’s only a matter of time before someone gets seriously hurt. Lydia is the head librarian, her assistant Maria was one of the jumpers. She's distraught about it, so I volunteered to go through Maria's things at work for her and box up her personal belongings for her family. If you want to come with me this evening you're welcome to. The library is closed for obvious reasons, but Lydia gave me her key and the alarm code."
********************************************
Later that evening, as Elaine went through Maria’s office, Sam and Dean scanned the local newspaper archives.
"Hey Dean, I might have found something. There’s a report of a young woman in white t-shirt and jeans walking on the bridge and then disappearing near the middle"”How reliable?”
“Reported by the same cop two nights in a row, not to mention civilian reports.”
"What are you thinking, la llorona or the ghost of a jumper?"
"Not sure. There's no pattern to the victims as far as age or gender, though most of them have some history of mental illness. If it was a weeping woman wouldn’t she be focusing on children or men?"
"So it targets crazies. Great, I'll have to leave you in the car."
"Funny. People with some sort of instability are more vulnerable to most paranormal phenomena; they could just be the easiest targets."
"All right, so assuming this woman is involved, why is it accelerating in the past month? What's changed?"
"I don't know. There's nothing obvious in any of these reports."
"Then I guess we'll have to pay a visit to the bridge."
"Not tonight.” Elaine said, entering the room. “Trust me, they're holding a vigil on the bridge tonight, you wouldn't be able to get anything done. Let us take you to dinner; I need to tell you what I found in Maria's office anyways. Tomorrow it should be back to business as usual and no one will notice two more tourists."
Dean sighed, as much as he wanted to get out and do something, she was probably right.
"Fine, I guess it will have to wait."
Elaine gave him a half smile, knowing it must irk him to have to be idle.
"At least you get a good dinner out of it. Anne's meeting us at the restaurant in about ten minutes, so if you'll help me load this box in the car we can get going."
"You heard the lady Sam, load the box." Dean smirked at his brother.
"Me? But you... Fine."
Elaine covered a smile at Sam’s expression, and headed out to the car.
*******************************
Anne turned out to be the pretty blue eyed blonde in rose scrubs waiting for them at a restaurant on the plaza.
"Dean, Sam, this is my best friend Anne. Anne, Dean and Sam"
"Nice to meet you both, I got us a table on the patio. It has a great view of the plaza.”
Sam noticed the two girls lagging behind and strained to hear what was being discussed.
“You didn’t warn me he was hot,“ Anne whispered accusingly. “I would’ve changed first if I’d known”
“Oops.” Elaine replied, far too innocently.
Sam smiled to himself and caught up with Dean.
Anne and Elaine joined the boys at the table in time to warn them that, contrary to Tex-Mex, in New Mexico red sauce was hot and green was mild. Dean was especially grateful, since Sam had decided to feed him false intel as a form of revenge for all the verbal jabs today.
The sun set over the mountains as they ate, tinting the snow pink, and making the mellow adobe buildings seem to glow with reflected light. Tourists wandered the plaza, browsing stores filled with silver and turquoise, t-shirts and postcards. An artist sketched portraits in front of the Rocky Mountain Chocolate store.
Conversation centered on the case. Sam mentioned that all the victims seemed to have a history of mental illness.
"What about Maria?"
"Clinical depression. She was being treated, and from her checkbook it looks like she was at least buying her medicine. Celexa's awfully high to just flush away to maintain a facade, especially on what a small town library pays. She also bought tickets to fly down to Mexico City and visit her family next month." Elaine replied.
"Most suicides don't plan ahead for something they know they're not going to do," Anne remarked.
"So whatever is happening out there is taking people with a potential for suicide and making that potential a reality, not just taking advantage of people who were planning to jump already?" Dean conjectured.
"If that's the case, I'm afraid you'll have to find your way out there on your own. I was planning to drive out there with you, but I'd be more of a liability to you in this case." Elaine admitted. ”Apparently being treated is no defense in this case.”
"That goes for me too," Anne chimed in.
Sam raised an eyebrow, unconsciously mimicking his brother’s mannerism.
Anne replied to the silent query. “Last conference I was at said the rate for incidents of major depression are about one out of eight in women. Of course, that’s only going off of diagnosed cases, so it’s probably higher. Add to that the birds of a feather theory, and it makes perfect sense.”
********************************************
"So Dean.."
"Sam it's too early to talk, just eat your burrito and let me drive."
"Seriously Dean, breakfast burritos waiting on the table this morning, dinner last night, and I heard Anne is cooking us dinner tonight. What is going on here?"
"Some sort of 'southern hospitality' thing according to Elaine. I told her we could take care of ourselves; she just gave me this look and said we're her guests."
Sam thought for a moment.
"I could get used to this,” he said.
"Enjoy it while it lasts Sammy boy, soon as this thing is history it's back to cheetos and bar snacks for us."
********************************************
The view was stunning. Breathtaking, in the same way a fist to the gut might be. Beautiful in a stark way, but mostly shocking. The human mind does not like being reminded of how tiny and fragile it is, and staring six hundred and fifty feet straight down is a very effective way of doing just that.
When Sam finally recovered enough to start asking questions, Dean was almost ready to answer them.
"Why did you call it the bridge to nowhere? It's more like the bridge in the middle of nowhere. There's no buildings, no phone booths, not even any cell coverage out here."
"When the state built the bridge in the sixties they didn't have enough money to finish the road on the other side, thus, bridge to nowhere." Dean replied distractedly.
They walked to the middle, watching the other tourists and cautiously checking the railings to see how easy it would be to go over. Dean had his EMF walkman in hand.
"I'm not seeing anything unusual, you getting anything on your toy there?" Sam asked.Dean grimaced momentarily at Sam calling his technological triumph “a toy” but didn’t comment.
"Not sure, might be something near the middle, but there's too many ipods and cameras and stuff interfering with it to tell for certain. We're gonna have to come back after dark when the tourists are gone."
********************************************
"Something smells good” Sam remarked as he walked through the door.
"Something smells familiar," Dean replied, carefully stepping over the line of salt in the doorway.
Elaine stepped out of the kitchen; face curious "Familiar?"
"I smelled something today at the gorge, and then again just as we came in."
"Let me see what Anne has going in here and maybe that will help."
She walked into the kitchen for a minute and returned with a frown.
"I think we may have a problem. Dean, is this what you smelled?" she asked, holding out a hand with a few crushed leaves and stems in it.
Dean sniffed carefully, and then nodded.
"Rosemary and basil. Fuck."
Sam's eyes widened at the sudden vehement profanity from the normally calm librarian.
"Rosemary, basil, and rue are the so-called holy trinity of mexican witchcraft, both good and bad. It was in Maria's journal.” Elaine continued. “I wondered why she was looking into witchcraft and death magic. You've got a bruja wrapped up in this somehow."
********************************************
After sunset, and an excellent dinner, Sam and Dean drove back out to the bridge. Sam had spent every free moment researching, and now he was trying to give Dean a summary of the most important points.
"Alright, so mexican witches are called brujas or brujos depending on gender. Most of them perform cleansings, heal emotional sickness, so on. The same name applies regardless of how they use their powers; apparently both good and evil practitioners are commonplace. It says here that they can cause harm or sickness in a person with just their name, some of their hair, and a piece of their clothing."
"Got it, don't strip or shave in front of the witch. Does it say how to defeat them?"
"Not really, but most of their magic is tied to objects, wax figures, candles, amulets, so if we find and destroy the object that should break the spell."
"Ok, so where would a wicked Mexican witch hide someth.."
"Dean! It's her!"Dean slammed on the brakes and skidded to a stop.
A young woman in a white t shirt and jeans was walking along the bridge ahead of them. The boys jumped from the car and hurried to follow her. She stopped at the midway point of the bridge, looked down, and then locked eyes with Sam before vanishing.
Dean ran up to the point where she had stopped and slipped an arm through the railing, searching under the edge of the bridge with his hand.
"Sam, I think I found something, but I can't quite reach it. Come use those ridiculously long arms of yours."
Sam traded places with him, lying face down on the pavement.
"I got it," Sam said climbing back to his feet holding a fabric wrapped object.
"Nooooooooooo!" screeched a woman's voice. The boys whirled to see an angry black haired woman in a black dress coming at them out of the darkness.Light from the headlights glinted off of something in her hand.
"Run, Sam, get that thing out of here."
Dean grabbed a flask from his pocket and flung holy water on the woman. She shrieked and slashed at him with a knife. Dean tried to hold her off while she swung wildly with her blade. Sam froze a few feet away, unwilling to leave Dean to face the witch alone. Suddenly the specter in jeans reappeared just behind the struggling pair. She locked eyes with Sam and carefully mimed throwing something over the edge, then vanished.
"Hang on Dean, I have an idea!" Sam held up the object from under the bridge “Recognize this?"
The bruja paused suddenly in her attack and turned to stare at him.
"Sammy, that doesn't look like a great idea," Dean muttered.Sam turned and hurled the object out over the railing. The woman launched herself after it, her screams echoing down the gorge as she fell.
********************************************
Sam helped a bleeding Dean over the threshold. The witch had managed to get in several shallow cuts and a few deep ones, and Dean was not looking his best.
Elaine looked up from her book as the front door opened. Her eyes widened for a moment before she stood up.
"Can you get him to the bedroom without help?"
"Yeah" Sam replied.
"Ok, put him on the bed, I'll be right back." Elaine headed for Anne's room at a run.
Long practice allowed him to get his brother quickly but gently into their room and onto the closest bed.
"Annie grab your kit and get out here!" Elaine yelled.
Anne appeared in her pajamas, carrying a case in one hand and tying back her hair with the other. She radiated calm efficiency as she headed to the guest room.
Sam had gotten Dean out of his jacket and shirt. Anne came in and quickly took in the situation.
"Does he have any allergies?" she asked, pulling on her gloves.
Sam shook his head.
"Good, that makes things easier. Ok, you'd better go out in the living room."
Elaine beckoned to him from the doorway.
"Come on, we'll go in here and let her work, we’re not exactly helping to create a sterile environment."
She led Sam to the living room.
"Do you need anything to drink or eat?"
"I'm fine" he said, glancing towards the closed door to the guest room.
Elaine joined him on the couch.
"He'll be fine; Anne knows what she's doing."
Sam nodded.
"What happened tonight?" She asked gently.
“We found the focus of the spell, it was under the edge of the bridge, and she came out of nowhere. She came after Dean with a knife, so I threw it over the side. She jumped after it. I don’t even know what was in it." Sam consciously left out anything about the specter, he had a feeling she was something better left alone.
"Justice, she joins her victims" Elaine replied with conviction.
Sam looked up at her quickly.
“She was a human, we don’t kill humans.” He protested.
“She was a monster; she took more than just her victims’ lives. I’ve been working through Maria’s journal while you were gone. She knew something was wrong, and what she put together points to murder. The bruja wasn’t waiting for people who just happened to jump, she was doing something that made the bridge almost irresistible to anyone with a chink in their emotional armor.”
Elaine took a deep breath, and then continued.
“There’s more to it than that, most of her victims were Catholic, their families don’t even have the comfort of believing they will see them again in Heaven. Maria was protestant, but that’s the exception not the rule in this area. Those poor families believe their loved ones are burning in Hell because of her.” Her voice shook a little with outrage.
They sat in silence for awhile. Finally Anne emerged from the guest room.
"He's sleeping, thanks to the shot I gave him. He'll be fine, but I don't recommend any heavy lifting for the next week, to avoid ripping the stitches."
Sam gave a relieved sigh, and then headed in to check for himself.
********************************************
The next day they were packing up the Impala. Well, Sam was packing; Dean was leaning on the hood, 'avoiding heavy lifting'.
"You know you're always welcome to raid the fridge or the microfiche if you pass my way, Dean."
"Thanks Elaine, I appreciate that."
"Be careful with those stitches, hang on to those pills in case you do something stupid, and if you ever need patching up again give me a call." Anne offered
"I may have to hurt myself more often," he replied with a wicked smile.
From the look on her face, Sam didn’t think Anne would mind that one bit.
Sam threw the last duffel bag in the back and sat the plate of homemade cookies on the passenger seat.
"Ready your highness?" Sam called to Dean. Dean smirked.
"Ladies," he said, tipping an imaginary hat to Elaine and Anne, and walking around to the passenger side door.
"Thank you, both, for everything" Sam said.
"You're more than welcome, and that invite applies to you too. I always have an open guest room for you boys, and my grandfather's a barber." Elaine smiled.
Sam climbed into the driver’s seat and started the car.
"Dean?"
"Yeah Sam?"
"What did she mean by that barber comment?"