"What strange energy residue." Sam crouched down and wiped a finger across the floor. A fine layer of dark golden powder clung to his fingertips, faintly warm against his skin. "The concentration is high. The owner of this energy stayed here for at least half an hour."
They went up the stairs, their footsteps echoing through the empty stairwell. On the third floor, the door to an office at the end of the corridor stood slightly ajar, with a faint light leaking through the gap.
Dean and Sam exchanged a look, then pressed themselves against either side of the door. Dean held up three fingers and counted down: three, two, one.
Sam kicked the door open, and Dean rushed in, sweeping the room with his gun.
No one was there.
But something was.
A complex ritual array had been drawn across the floor in dark golden liquid. It was neither demonic runes nor angelic prayers, but a twisted pattern that constantly changed itself.
Three items lay at the center of the pattern: a half-burned white candle, a black feather, and an ancient gold coin.
Wing-shaped markings had been carved around the coin's edge.
"This is..." Sam stepped closer, but did not touch anything. "Some kind of tracking ritual. He's looking for something. Or... marking something."
Dean's gaze landed on the wall.
A line of words had been written there in the same dark golden liquid. The handwriting was messy, as if it had been hastily scrawled in extreme pain:
"It's talking in my head."
Below the writing were several deep scratches. Judging by their shape, they had been made by fingernails. At their ends, a piece of human nail was embedded in the plaster, leaving behind a bloody trace.
According to Internet Addiction's analysis of the remaining footprints, energy traces,