"What's this for?" Dean held the dripping newspaper, completely baffled.
"Aren't you two known as the 'newspaper detectives,' the best at finding traces of monsters in boring news stories like these?"
Wu Heng nodded toward the stack of newspapers. "Look through them. Find somewhere with a recent monster incident—something fresh, meaty... with particularly 'vigorous' life force."
"Huh?" Sam did not understand either.
"I'm extracting some 'nutrient fluid' for you to treat your injuries," Wu Heng said as if it were only natural. "Or do you want to keep dragging around those wrecked bodies and freeload on my ship as decorations?"
Only then did the two understand. Thinking of the methods Wu Heng's Reaper Butler possessed, they could only obediently open the soggy newspapers and search carefully beneath the dim light of the ghost ship.
Whether they were lucky or Colorado had truly been unsettled lately, Sam's finger stopped on an inconspicuous brief when they reached the third local tabloid:
[Reeking Stench! Several vagrants have mysteriously disappeared near an abandoned pickling factory north of the city. Police suspect gang involvement; strange claw marks found at the scene!]
"North of the city. An abandoned pickling factory. Strange claw marks. Multiple disappearances." Sam looked up at Wu Heng and Dean.
"Doesn't sound like anything good." Dean bared his teeth. "This place, then?"
Wu Heng glanced at the newspaper without speaking.
The ghost ship beneath their feet gave a deep hum. Its hull began to blur, while the torrential rain around them twisted and spun like a fading oil painting.
The ship made two jumps.
When the ship solidified for the third time, it was already hovering above a huge abandoned industrial plant.
The air was thick with a nauseating stench: the fishy reek of rotting meat, the sourness of some chemical reagent, and